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Title: The Chainbearer
The Littlepage Manuscripts

Author: J. Fenimore Cooper

Release Date: January 11, 2011 [EBook #34916]

Language: English

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The Chainbearer

OR

THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER

"O bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state,
Confirm the tale her sons relate."

Collins

NEW YORK
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY
150 Worth Street, corner Mission Place

TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
NEW YORK.

CONTENTS

THE CHAINBEARER.

PREFACE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.

THE REDSKINS.

PREFACE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

THE CHAINBEARER.

"She held up the trap, and I descended into the hole that answered the purpose of a cellar."

PREFACE.

The plot has thickened in the few short months that have intervened since the appearance of the first portion of our Manuscripts, and bloodshed has come to deepen the stain left on the country by the wide-spread and bold assertion of false principles. This must long since have been foreseen; and it is perhaps a subject of just felicitation, that the violence which has occurred was limited to the loss of a single life, when the chances were, and still are, that it will extend to civil war. That portions of the community have behaved nobly under this sudden outbreak of a lawless and unprincipled combination to rob, is undeniable, and ought to be dwelt on with gratitude and an honest pride; that the sense of right of much the larger portion of the country has been deeply wounded, is equally true; that justice has been aroused, and is at this moment speaking in tones of authority to the offenders, is beyond contradiction; but, while all this is admitted, and admitted not altogether without hope, yet are there grounds for fear, so reasonable and strong, that no writer who is faithful to the real interests of his country ought, for a single moment, to lose sight of them.

High authority, in one sense, or that of political power, has pronounced the tenure of a durable lease to be opposed to the spirit of the institutions! Yet these tenures existed when the institutions were formed, and one of the provisions of the institutions themselves guarantees the observance of the covenants under which the tenures exist. It would have been far wiser, and much nearer to the truth, had those who coveted their neighbors' goods been told that, in their attempts to subvert and destroy the tenures in question, they were opposing a solemn and fundamental provision of law, and in so much opposing the institutions. The capital error is becoming prevalent, which holds the pernicious doctrine that this is a government of men, instead of one of principles. Whenever this error shall so far come to a head as to get to be paramount in action, the well-disposed may sit down and mourn over, not only the liberties of their country, but over its justice and its morals, even should men be nominally so free as to do just what they please.

As the Littlepage Manuscripts advance, we find them becoming more and more suited to the times in which we live. There is an omission of one generation, however, owing to the early death of Mr. Malbone Littlepage, who left an only son to succeed him. This son has felt it to be a duty to complete the series by an addition from his own pen. Without this addition, we should never obtain views of Satanstoe, Lilacsbush, Ravensnest, and Mooseridge, in their present aspect; while with it we may possibly obtain glimpses that will prove not only amusing but instructive.

There is one point on which, as editor of these Manuscripts, we desire to say a word. It is thought by a portion of our readers, that the first Mr. Littlepage who has written, Cornelius of that name, has manifested an undue asperity on the subject of the New England character. Our reply to this charge is as follows: In the first place, we do not pretend to be answerable for all the opinions of those whose writings are submitted to our supervision, any more than we should be answerable for all the contradictory characters, impulses, and opinions that might be exhibited in a representation of fictitious characters, purely of our own creation. That the Littlepages entertained New York notions, and, if the reader will, New York prejudices, may be true enough; but in pictures of this sort, even prejudices become facts that ought not to be altogether kept down. Then, New England has long since anticipated her revenge, glorifying herself and underrating her neighbors in a way that, in our opinion, fully justifies those who possess a little Dutch blood in expressing their sentiments on the subject. Those who give so freely should know how to take a little in return; and that more especially, when there is nothing very direct or personal in the hits they receive. For ourselves, we have not a drop of Dutch or New England blood in our veins, and only appear as a bottle-holder to one of the parties in this set-to. If we have recorded what the Dutchman says of the Yankee, we have also recorded what the Yankee says, and that with no particular hesitation, of the Dutchman. We know that these feelings are by-gones; but our Manuscripts, thus far, have referred exclusively to the times in which they certainly existed, and that, too, in a force quite as great as they are here represented to be.

We go a little farther. In our judgment the false principles that are to be found in a large portion of the educated classes, on the subject of the relation between landlord and tenant, are to be traced to the provincial notions of those who have received their impressions from a state of society in which no such relations exist. The danger from the anti-rent doctrines is most to be apprehended from these false principles; the misguided and impotent beings who have taken the field in the literal sense, not being a fourth part as formidable to the right as those who have taken it in the moral. There is not a particle more of reason in the argument which says that there should be no farmers, in the strict meaning of the term, than there would be in that which said there should be no journeymen connected with the crafts; though it would not be easy to find a man to assert the latter doctrine. We dare say, if there did happen to exist a portion of the country in which the mechanics were all "bosses," it would strike those who dwelt in such a state of society, that it would be singularly improper and anti-republican for any man to undertake journeywork.

On this subject we shall only add one word. The column of society must have its capital as well as its base. It is only perfect while each part is entire, and discharges its proper duty. In New York the great landholders long have, and do still, in a social sense, occupy the place of the capital. On the supposition that this capital is broken and hurled to the ground, of what material will be the capital that must be pushed into its place! We know of none half so likely to succeed, as the country extortioner and the country usurer! We would caution those who now raise the cry of feudality and aristocracy, to have a care of what they are about. In lieu of King Log, they may be devoured by King Stork.

CHAPTER I.

"The steady brain, the sinewy limb,
To leap, to climb, to dive, to swim:
The iron frame, inured to bear
Each dire inclemency of air;
Nor less confirmed to undergo
Fatigue's faint chill, and famine's throe."

--Rockeby.

My father was Cornelius Littlepage, of Satanstoe, in the County of Westchester, and State of New York; and my mother was Anneke Mordaunt, of Lilacsbush, a place long known by that name, which still stands near Kingsbridge, but on the Island of Manhattan, and consequently in one of the wards of New York, though quite eleven miles from town. I shall suppose that my readers know the difference between the Island of Manhattan and Manhattan Island; though I have found soi-disant Manhattanese, of mature years, but of alien birth, who had to be taught it. Lilacsbush, I repeat therefore, was on the Island of Manhattan, eleven miles from town, though in the City of New York, and not on Manhattan Island.

Of my progenitors further back, I do not conceive it necessary to say much. They were partly of English, and partly of Low Dutch extraction, as is apt to be the case with those who come of New York families of any standing in the colony. I retain tolerably distinct impressions of both of my grandfathers, and of one of my grandmothers; my mother's mother having died long before my own parents were married.

Of my maternal grandfather, I know very little, however, he having died while I was quite young, and before I had seen much of him. He paid the great debt of nature in England, whither he had gone on a visit to a relative, a Sir Something Bulstrode, who had been in the colonies himself, and who was a great favorite with Herman Mordaunt, as my mother's parent was universally called in New York. My father often said it was perhaps fortunate in one respect that his father-in-law died as he did, since he had no doubt he would have certainly taken sides with the crown in the quarrel that soon after occurred, in which case it is probable his estates, or those which were my mother's, and are now mine, would have shared the fate of those of the De Lanceys, of the Philipses, of some of the Van Cortlandts, of the Floyds, of the Joneses, and of various others of the heavy families, who remained loyal, as it was called; meaning loyalty to a prince, and not loyalty to the land of their nativity. It is hard to say which were right, in such a quarrel, if we look at the opinions and prejudices of the times, though the Littlepages to a man, which means only my father and grandfather, and self, took sides with the country. In the way of self-interest, it ought to be remarked, however, that the wealthy American who opposed the crown showed much the most disinterestedness, inasmuch as the chances of being subdued were for a long time very serious, while the certainty of confiscation, not to say of being hanged, was sufficiently well established, in the event of failure. But my paternal grandfather was what was called a whig, of the high caste. He was made a brigadier in the militia, in 1776, and was actively employed in the great campaign of the succeeding year--that in which Burgoyne was captured, as indeed was my father, who held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the New York line. There was also a Major Dirck Van Volkenburgh, or Follock, as he was usually called, in the same regiment with my father, who was a sworn friend. This Major Follock was an old bachelor, and he lived quite as much in my father's house as he did in his own; his proper residence being across the river, in Rockland. My mother had a friend, as well as my father, in the person of Miss Mary Wallace; a single lady, well turned of thirty at the commencement of the revolution. Miss Wallace was quite at ease in her circumstances, but she lived altogether at Lilacsbush, never having any other home, unless it might be at our house in town.

We were very proud of the brigadier, both on account of his rank and on account of his services. He actually commanded in one expedition against the Indians during the revolution, a service in which he had some experience, having been out on it, on various occasions, previously to the great struggle for independence. It was in one of these early expeditions of the latter war that he first distinguished himself, being then under the orders of a Colonel Brom Follock, who was the father of Major Dirck of the same name, and who was almost as great a friend of my grandfather as the son was of my own parent. This Colonel Brom loved a carouse, and I have heard it said that, getting among the High Dutch on the Mohawk, he kept it up for a week, with little or no intermission, under circumstances that involved much military negligence. The result was, that a party of Canada Indians made an inroad on his command, and the old colonel, who was as bold as a lion, and as drunk as a lord, though why lords are supposed to be particularly inclined to drink I never could tell, was both shot down and scalped early one morning as he was returning from an adjacent tavern to his quarters in the "garrison," where he was stationed. My grandfather nobly revenged his death, scattered to the four winds the invading party, and recovered the mutilated body of his friend, though the scalp was irretrievably lost.

General Littlepage did not survive the war, though it was not his good fortune to die on the field, thus identifying his name with the history of his country. It happens in all wars, and most especially did it often occur in our own great national struggle, that more soldiers lay down their lives in the hospitals than on the field of battle, though the shedding of blood seems an indispensable requisite to glory of this nature; an ungrateful posterity taking little heed of the thousands who pass into another state of being, the victims of exposure and camp diseases, to sound the praises of the hundreds who are slain amid the din of battle. Yet, it may be questioned if it do not require more true courage to face death, when he approaches in the invisible form of disease, than to meet him when openly arrayed under the armed hand. My grandfather's conduct in remaining in camp, among hundreds of those who had the small-pox, the loathsome malady of which he died, was occasionally alluded to, it is true, but never in the manner the death of an officer of his rank would have been mentioned, had he fallen in battle. I could see that Major Follock had an honorable pride in the fate of his father, who was slain and scalped by the enemy in returning from a drunken carouse, while my worthy parent ever referred to the death of the brigadier as an event to be deplored, rather than exulted in. For my own part, I think my grandfather's end was much the most creditable of the two; but, as such, it will never be viewed by the historian or the country. As for historians, it requires a man to be singularly honest to write against a prejudice; and it is so much easier to celebrate a deed as it is imagined than as it actually occurred, that I question if we know the truth of a tenth part of the exploits about which we vapor, and in which we fancy we glory. Well! we are taught to believe that the time will come when all things are to be seen in their true colors, and when men and deeds will be known as they actually were, rather than as they have been recorded in the pages of history.

I was too young myself to take much part in the war of the revolution, though accident made me an eye-witness of some of its most important events, and that at the tender age of fifteen. At twelve--the American intellect ever was and continues to be singularly precocious--I was sent to Nassau Hall, Princeton, to be educated, and I remained there until I finally got a degree, though it was not without several long and rude interruptions of my studies. Although so early sent to college, I did not actually graduate until I was nineteen, the troubled times requiring nearly twice as long a servitude to make a Bachelor of Arts of me as would have been necessary in the more halcyon days of peace. Thus I made a fragment of a campaign when only a sophomore, and another the first year I was junior. I say the first year, because I was obliged to pass two years in each of the two higher classes of the institution, in order to make up for lost time. A youth cannot very well be campaigning and studying Euclid in the academic bowers, at the same moment. Then I was so young, that a year, more or less, was of no great moment.

My principal service in the war of the revolution was in 1777, or in the campaign in which Burgoyne was met and captured. That important service was performed by a force that was composed partly of regular troops, and partly of militia. My grandfather commanded a brigade of the last, or what was called a brigade, some six hundred men at most; while my father led a regular battalion of one hundred and sixty troops of the New York line into the German intrenchments, the memorable and bloody day the last were stormed. How many he brought out I never heard him say. The way in which I happened to be present in these important scenes is soon told.

Lilacsbush being on the Island of Manhattan (not Manhattan Island, be it always remembered), and our family being whig, we were driven from both our town and country houses the moment Sir William Howe took possession of New York. At first my mother was content with merely going to Satanstoe, which was only a short distance from the enemy's lines; but the political character of the Littlepages being too well established to render this a safe residence, my grandmother and mother, always accompanied by Miss Wallace, went up above the Highlands, where they established themselves in the village of Fishkill for the remainder of the war, on a farm that belonged to Miss Wallace in fee. Here it was thought they were safe, being seventy miles from the capital, and quite within the American lines. As this removal took place at the close of the year 1776, and after independence had been declared, it was understood that our return to our proper homes at all, depended on the result of the war. At that time I was a sophomore, and at home in the long vacation. It was in this visit that I made my fragment of a campaign, accompanying my father through all the closing movements of his regiment, while Washington and Howe were manoeuvring in Westchester. My father's battalion happening to be posted in such a manner as to be in the centre of the battle at White Plains, I had an opportunity of seeing some pretty serious service on that occasion. Nor did I quit the army and return to my studies, until after the brilliant affairs at Trenton and Princeton, in both of which our regiment participated.

This was a pretty early commencement with the things of active life for a boy of fourteen. But in that war, lads of my age often carried muskets, for the colonies covered a great extent of country, and had but few people. They who read of the war of the American revolution, and view its campaigns and battles as they would regard the conflicts of older and more advanced nations, can form no just notion of the disadvantages with which our people had to contend, or the great superiority of the enemy in all the usual elements of military force. Without experienced officers, with but few and indifferent arms, often in want of ammunition, the rural and otherwise peaceful population of a thinly peopled country were brought in conflict with the chosen warriors of Europe; and this, too, with little or none of that great sinew of war, money, to sustain them. Nevertheless the Americans, unaided by any foreign skill or succor, were about as often successful as the reverse. Bunker Hill, Bennington, Saratoga, Bhemis's Heights, Trenton, Princeton, Monmouth, were all purely American battles; to say nothing of divers others that occurred farther south: and though insignificant as to numbers, compared with the conflicts of these later times, each is worthy of a place in history, and one or two are almost without parallels; as is seen when Bunker Hill be named. It sounds very well in a dispatch, to swell out the list of an enemy's ranks; but admitting the number itself not to be overrated, as so often occurred, of what avail are men without arms and ammunition, and frequently without any other military organization than a muster-roll!

I have said I made nearly the whole of the campaign in which Burgoyne was taken. It happened in this wise. The service of the previous year had a good deal indisposed me to study, and when again at home in the autumn vacation, my dear mother sent me with clothing and supplies to my father, who was with the army at the north. I reached the head-quarters of General Gates a week before the affair of Bhemis's Heights, and was with my father until the capitulation was completed. Owing to these circumstances, though still a boy in years, I was an eye-witness, and in some measure an actor in two or three of the most important events in the whole war. Being well grown for my years, and of a somewhat manly appearance, considering how young I really was, I passed very well as a volunteer, being, I have reason to think, somewhat of a favorite in the regiment. In the last battle, I had the honor to act as a sort of aide-de-camp to my grandfather, who sent me with orders and messages two or three times into the midst of the fire. In this manner I made myself a little known, and all so much the more from the circumstance of my being in fact nothing but a college lad, away from his alma mater during vacation.

It was but natural that a boy thus situated should attract some little attention, and I was noticed by officers, who, under other circumstances, would hardly have felt it necessary to go out of their way to speak to me. The Littlepages had stood well, I have reason to think, in the colony, and their position in the new state was not likely to be at all lowered by the part they were now playing in the revolution. I am far from certain that General Littlepage was considered a corner-post in the Temple of Freedom that the army was endeavoring to rear, but he was quite respectable as a militia officer, while my father was very generally admitted to be one of the best lieutenants-colonel in the whole army.

I well remember to have been much struck with a captain in my father's regiment, who certainly was a character, in his way. His origin was Dutch, as was the case with a fair proportion of the officers, and he bore the name of Andries Coejemans, though he was universally known by the sobriquet of the "Chainbearer." It was fortunate for him it was so, else would the Yankees in the camp, who seem to have a mania to pronounce every word as it is spelled, and having succeeded in this, to change the spelling of the whole language to accommodate it to certain sounds of their own inventing, would have given him a most unpronounceable appellation. Heaven only knows what they would have called Captain Coejemans, but for this lucky nickname; but it may be as well to let the uninitiated understand at once, that in New York parlance, Coejemans is called Queemans. The Chainbearer was of a respectable Dutch family, one that has even given its queer-looking name to a place of some little note on the Hudson; but, as was very apt to be the case with the cadets of such houses, in the good old time of the colony, his education was no great matter. His means had once been respectable, but, as he always maintained, he was cheated out of his substance by a Yankee before he was three-and-twenty, and he had recourse to surveying for a living from that time. But Andries had no head for mathematics, and after making one or two notable blunders in the way of his new profession, he quietly sunk to the station of a chainbearer, in which capacity he was known to all the leading men of his craft in the colony. It is said that every man is suited to some pursuit or other, in which he might acquire credit, would he only enter on it and persevere. Thus it proved to be with Andries Coejemans. As a chainbearer he had an unrivalled reputation. Humble as was the occupation, it admitted of excellence in various particulars, as well as another. In the first place, it required honesty, a quality in which this class of men can fail, as well as all the rest of mankind. Neither colony nor patentee, landlord nor tenant, buyer nor seller, need be uneasy about being fairly dealt by so long as Andries Coejemans held the forward end of the chain; a duty on which he was invariably placed by one party or the other. Then, a practical eye was a great aid to positive measurement; and while Andries never swerved to the right or to the left of his course, having acquired a sort of instinct in his calling, much time and labor were saved. In addition to these advantages, the "Chainbearer" had acquired great skill in all the subordinate matters of his calling. He was a capital woodman, generally; had become a good hunter, and had acquired most of the habits that pursuits like those in which he was engaged for so many years previously to entering the army, would be likely to give a man. In the course of time he took patents to survey, employing men with heads better than his own to act as principals, while he still carried the chain.

At the commencement of the revolution, Andries, like most of those who sympathized with the colonies, took up arms. When the regiment of which my father was lieutenant-colonel was raised, they who could bring to its colors so many men received commissions of a rank proportioned to their services in this respect. Andries had presented himself early with a considerable squad of chainbearers, hunters, trappers, runners, guides, etc., numbering in the whole something like five-and-twenty hardy, resolute sharpshooters. Their leader was made a lieutenant in consequence, and being the oldest of his rank in the corps, he was shortly after promoted to a captaincy, the station he was in when I made his acquaintance, and above which he never rose.

Revolutions, more especially such as are of a popular character, are not remarkable for bringing forward those who are highly educated, or otherwise fitted for their new stations, unless it may be on the score of zeal. It is true, service generally classes men, bringing out their qualities, and necessity soon compels the preferment of those who are the best qualified. Our own great national struggle, however, probably did less of this than any similar event of modern times, a respectable mediocrity having accordingly obtained an elevation that, as a rule, it was enabled to keep to the close of the war. It is a singular fact that not a solitary instance is to be found in our military annals of a young soldier's rising to high command, by the force of his talents, in all that struggle. This may have been, and in a measure probably was owing to the opinions of the people, and to the circumstance that the service itself was one that demanded greater prudence and circumspection than qualities of a more dazzling nature; or the qualifications of age and experience, rather than those of youth and enterprise. It is probable Andries Coejemans, on the score of original station, was rather above than below the level of the social positions of a majority of the subalterns of the different lines of the more northern colonies, when he first joined the army. It is true, his education was not equal to his birth; for, in that day, except in isolated instances and particular families, the Dutch of New York, even in cases in which money was not wanting, were any thing but scholars. In this particular, our neighbors the Yankees had greatly the advantage of us. They sent everybody to school, and, though their educations were principally those of smatterers, it is an advantage to be even a smatterer among the very ignorant. Andries had been no student either, and one may easily imagine what indifferent cultivation will effect on a naturally thin soil. He could read and write, it is true, but it was the ciphering under which he broke down, as a surveyor. I have often heard him say, that "if land could be measured without figures, he would turn his back on no man in the calling in all America, unless it might be 'His Excellency,' who, he made no doubt, was not only the best, but the honestest surveyor mankind had ever enjoyed."

The circumstance that Washington had practised the art of a surveyor for a short time in his early youth, was a source of great exultation with Andries Coejemans. He felt that it was an honor to be even a subordinate in a pursuit, in which such a man was a principal. I remember, that long after we were at Saratoga together, Captain Coejemans, while we were before Yorktown, pointed to the commander-in-chief one day, as the latter rode past our encampment, and cried out with emphasis--"T'ere, Mortaunt, my poy--t'ere goes His Excellency!--It would be t'e happiest tay of my life, coult I only carry chain while he survey't a pit of a farm, in this neighborhoot."

Andries was more or less Dutch in his dialect, as he was more or less interested. In general, he spoke English pretty well--colony English I mean, not that of the schools; though he had not a single Yankeeism in his vocabulary. On this last point he prided himself greatly, feeling an honest pride, if he did occasionally use vulgarisms, a vicious pronounciation, or make a mistake in the meaning of a word, a sin he was a little apt to commit; and that his faults were all honest New York mistakes and no "New England gipperish." In the course of the various visits I paid to the camp, Andries and myself became quite intimate, his peculiarities seizing my fancy; and doubtless, my obvious admiration awakening his gratitude. In the course of our many conversations, he gave me his whole history, commencing with the emigration of the Coejemans from Holland, and ending with our actual situation, in the camp at Saratoga. Andries had been often engaged, and, before the war terminated, I could boast of having been at his side in no less than six affairs myself, viz.. White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Bhemis's Heights, Monmouth, and Brandywine; for I had stolen away from college to be present at the last affair. The circumstance that our regiment was both with Washington and Gates, was owing to the noble qualities of the former, who sent off some of his best troops to reinforce his rival, as things gathered to a head at the North. Then I was present throughout, at the siege of Yorktown. But it is not my intention to enlarge on my own military services.

While at Saratoga, I was much struck with the air, position and deportment of a gentleman who appeared to command the respect, and to obtain the ears of all the leaders in the American camp, while he held no apparent official station. He wore no uniform, though he was addressed by the title of general, and had much more of the character of a real soldier than Gates who commanded. He must have been between forty and fifty at that time, and in the full enjoyment of the vigor of his mind and body. This was Philip Schuyler, so justly celebrated in our annals for his wisdom, patriotism, integrity, and public services. His connection with the great northern campaign is too well known to require any explanations here. Its success, perhaps, was more owing to his advice and preparations than to the influence of any one other mind, and he is beginning already to take a place in history, in connection with these great events, that has a singular resemblance to that he occupied during their actual occurrence: in other words, he is to be seen in the background of the great national picture, unobtrusive and modest, but directing and controlling all, by the power of his intellect, and the influence of his experience and character. Gates[1] was but a secondary personage, in the real events of that memorable period. Schuyler was the presiding spirit, though forced by popular prejudice to retire from the apparent command of the army. Our written accounts ascribe the difficulty that worked this injustice to Schuyler, to a prejudice which existed among the eastern militia, and which is supposed to have had its origin in the disasters of St. Clair, or the reverses which attended the earlier movements of the campaign. My father, who had known General Schuyler in the war of '56, when he acted as Bradstreet's right-hand man, attributed the feeling to a different cause. According to his notion of the alienation, it was owing to the difference in habits and opinions which existed between Schuyler, as a New York gentleman, and the yeomen of New England, who came out in 1777, imbued with all the distinctive notions of their very peculiar state of society. There may have been prejudices on both sides, but it is easy to see which party exhibited most magnanimity and self-sacrifice. Possibly, the last was inseparable from the preponderance of numbers, it not being an easy thing to persuade masses of men that they can be wrong, and a single individual right. This is the great error of democracy, which fancies truth is to be proved by counting noses; while aristocracy commits the antagonist blunder of believing that excellence is inherited from male to male, and that too in the order of primogeniture! It is not easy to say where one is to look for truth in this life.

As for General Schuyler, I have thought my father was right in ascribing his unpopularity solely to the prejudices of provinces. The Muse of History is the most ambitious of the whole sisterhood, and never thinks she has done her duty unless all she says and records is said and recorded with an air of profound philosophy; whereas, more than half of the greatest events which affect human interest, are to be referred to causes that have little connection with our boasted intelligence, in any shape. Men feel far more than they reason, and a little feeling is very apt to upset a great deal of philosophy.

It has been said that I passed six years at Princeton; nominally, if not in fact; and that I graduated at nineteen. This happened the year Cornwallis surrendered, and I actually served at the siege as the youngest ensign in my father's battalion. I had also the happiness, for such it was to me, to be attached to the company of Captain Coejeman's, a circumstance which clinched the friendship I had formed for that singular old man. I say old, for by this time Andries was every hour of sixty-seven, though as hale, and hearty, and active, as any officer in the corps. As for hardships, forty years of training, most of which had been passed in the woods, placed him quite at our head, in the way of endurance.

I loved my predecessors, grandfather and grandmother included, not only as a matter of course, but with sincere filial attachment; and I loved Miss Mary Wallace, or aunt Mary, as I had been taught to call her, quite as much on account of her quiet, gentle, affectionate manner, as from habit; and I loved Major Dirck Follock as a sort of hereditary friend, as a distant relative, and a good and careful guardian of my own youth and inexperience on a thousand occasions; and I loved my father's negro man, Jaap, as we all love faithful slaves, however unnurtured they may be; but Andries was the man whom I loved without knowing why. He was illiterate almost to greatness, having the drollest notions imaginable of this earth and all it contained; was anything but refined in deportment, though hearty and frank; had prejudices so crammed into his moral system that there did not seem to be room for anything else; and was ever so little addicted, moreover, to that species of Dutch jollification, which had cost old Colonel Van Valkenburgh his life, and a love for which was a good deal spread throughout the colony. Nevertheless, I really loved this man, and when we were all disbanded at the peace, or in 1783, by which time I had myself risen to the rank of captain, I actually parted from old Andries with tears in my eyes. My grandfather, General Littlepage, was then dead, but government giving to most of us a step, by means of brevet rank, at the final breaking up of the army, my father, who had been the full colonel of the regiment for the last year, bore the title of brigadier for the remainder of his days. It was pretty much all he got for seven years of dangers and arduous services. But the country was poor, and we had fought more for principles than for the hope of rewards. It must be admitted that America ought to be full of philosophy, inasmuch as so much of her system of rewards and even of punishments, is purely theoretical, and addressed to the imagination, or to the qualities of the mind. Thus it is that we contend with all our enemies on very unequal grounds. The Englishman has his knighthood, his baronetcies, his peerages, his orders, his higher ranks in the professions, his batons, and all the other venial inducements of our corrupt nature to make him fight, while the American is goaded on to glory by the abstract considerations of virtue and patriotism. After all, we flog quite as often as we are flogged, which is the main interest affected. While on this subject I will remark that Andries Coejemans never assumed the empty title of major, which was so graciously bestowed on him by the Congress of 1783, but left the army a captain in name, without half-pay or anything but his military lot, to find a niece whom he was bringing up, and to pursue his old business of a "chainbearer."

CHAPTER II.

"A trusty villain, sir; that very oft,
When I am dull with care and melancholy,
Lightens my humors with his many jests."

--Dromio of Syracuse.

It will be seen that, while I got a degree, and what is called an education, the latter was obtained by studies of a very desultory character. There is no question that learning of all sorts fell off sadly among us during the revolution and the twenty years that succeeded it. While colonies, we possessed many excellent instructors who came from Europe; but the supply ceased, in a great measure, as soon as the troubles commenced; nor was it immediately renewed at the peace. I think it will be admitted that the gentlemen of the country began to be less well educated about the time I was sent to college, than had been the case for the previous half-century, and that the defect has not yet been repaired. What the country may do in the first half of the nineteenth century remains to be seen.[2]

My connection with the army aided materially in weaning me from home, though few youths had as many temptations to return to the paternal roof as myself. There were my beloved mother and my grandmother, in the first place, both of whom doted on me as on an only son. Then aunt Mary almost equally shared in my affections. But I had two sisters, one of whom was older, and the other younger than myself. The eldest, who was called Anneke, after our dear mother, was even six years my senior, and was married early in the war to a gentleman of the name of Kettletas. Mr. Kettletas was a person of very good estate, and made my sister perfectly happy. They had several children, and resided in Dutchess, which was an additional reason for my mother's choosing that county for her temporary residence. I regarded Anneke, or Mrs. Kettletas, much as all youths regard an elder sister, who is affectionate, feminine and respectable; but little Katrinke, or Kate, was my pet. She again, was four years younger than myself; and as I was just two-and-twenty when the army was disbanded, she of course was only eighteen. This dear sister was a little, jumping, laughing, never-quiet, merry thing, when I had taken my leave of her, in 1781, to join the regiment as an ensign, as handsome and sweet as a rose-bud, and quite as full of promise. I remember that old Andries and I used to pass much of our time in camp in conversing about our several pets; he of his niece, and I of my younger sister. Of course, I never intended to marry, but Kate and I were to live together; she as my housekeeper and companion, and I as her elder brother and protector. The one great good of life with us all was peace, with independence; which obtained, no one, in our regiment at least, was so little of a patriot as to doubt of the future. It was laughable to see with how much gusto and simplicity the old Chainbearer entered into all these boyish schemes. His niece was an orphan, it would seem, the only child of an only but a half-sister, and was absolutely dependent on him for the bread she put into her mouth. It is true that this niece fared somewhat better than such a support would seem to promise, having been much cared for by a female friend of her mother's, who, being reduced herself, kept a school, and had thus bestowed on her ward a far better education than she could ever have got under her uncle's supervision, had the last possessed the riches of the Van Rensselaers, or of the Van Cortlandts. As has been substantially stated, old Andries's forte did not lie in education, and they who do not enjoy the blessings of such a character, seldom duly appreciate their advantages. It is with the acquisitions of the mind, as with those of mere deportment and tastes; we are apt to undervalue them all, until made familiarly acquainted with their power to elevate and to enlarge. But the niece of Andries had been particularly fortunate in falling into the hands she had; Mrs. Stratton having the means and the inclination to do all for her, in the way of instruction, that was then done for any young woman in New York, as long as she lived. The death of this kind friend occurring, however, in 1783, Andries was obliged to resume the care of his niece, who was now thrown entirely on himself for support. It is true, the girl wished to do something for herself, but this neither the pride nor the affection of the old chainbearer would listen to.

"What can the gal do?" Andries said to me significantly, one day that he was recounting all these particulars. "She can't carry chain, though I do believe, Morty, the chilt has head enough, and figures enough to survey! It would do your heart good to read the account of her l'arnin' t'at t'e olt woman used to send me; though she wrote so excellent a hant herself, t'at it commonly took me a week to read one of her letters; that is, from 'Respected Friend' to 'Humble Sarvent,' as you know them 'ere t'ings go."

"Excellent hand! Why, I should think, Andries, the better the hand, the easier one could read a letter."

"All a mistake. When a man writes a scrawl himself, it's nat'ral he shoult read scrawls easiest, in his own case. Now, Mrs. Stratton was home-taught, and would be likely to get into ways t'at a plain man might find difficult to get along wit'."

"Do you think, then, of making a surveyor of your niece?" I asked, a little pointedly.

"Why, she is hartly strong enough to travel t'rough the woots, and, the callin' is not suitaple to her sex, t'ough I woult risk her against t'e oldest calculator in t'e province."

"We call New York a State, now, Captain Andries, you will recollect."

"Ay, t'at's true, and I peg the State's pardon. Well, t'ere'll be scrambling enough for t'e land, as soon as the war is fairly over, and chainbearing will be a sarviceable callin' once more. Do you know, Morty, they talk of gifin' all of our line a quantity of land, privates and officers, which will make me a landholter again, the very character in which I started in life. You will inherit acres enough, and may not care so much apout owning a few huntret, more or less, but I own the idee is agreeaple enough to me."

"Do you propose to commence anew as a husbandman?"

"Not I; the pusiness never agreet wit' me, nor I wit' it. Put a man may survey his own lot, I suppose, and no offence to greater scholars. If I get t'e grant t'ey speak of, I shall set to work and run it out on my own account, and t'en we shall see who understants figures, and who don't! If other people won't trust me, it is no reason I shoult not trust myself."

I knew that his having broken down in the more intellectual part of his calling was a sore point with old Andries, and I avoided dwelling on this part of the subject. In order to divert his mind to other objects, indeed, I began to question him a little more closely than I had ever done before, on the subject of his niece, in consequence of which expedient I now learned many things that were new to me.

The name of the chainbearer's niece was Duss Malbone, or so he always pronounced it. In the end I discovered that Duss was a sort of Dutch diminutive for Ursula. Ursula Malbone had none of the Coejemans blood in her, notwithstanding she was Andries's sister's daughter. It seemed that old Mrs. Coejemans was twice married, her second husband being the father of Duss's mother. Bob Malbone, as the chainbearer always called the girl's father, was an eastern man of very good family, but was a reckless spendthrift, who married Duss the senior, as well as I could learn, for her property; all of which, as well as that he had inherited himself, was cleverly gotten rid of within the first ten years of their union, and a year or two after the girl was born. Both father and mother died within a few months of each other, and in a very happy moment as regards worldly means, leaving poor little Duss with no one to care for her but her half-uncle, who was then living in the forest in his regular pursuits, and the Mrs. Stratton I have mentioned. There was a half-brother, Bob Malbone having married twice, but he was in the army, and had some near female relation to support out of his pay. Between the chainbearer and Mrs. Stratton, with an occasional offering from the brother, the means of clothing, nourishing and educating the young woman had been found until she reached her eighteenth year, when the death of her female protector threw her nearly altogether on the care of her uncle. The brother now did his share, Andries admitted; but it was not much that he could do. A captain himself, his scanty pay barely sufficed to meet his own wants.

I could easily see that old Andries loved Duss better than anything else or any other person. When he was a little mellow, and that was usually the extent of his debaucheries, he would prate about her to me until the tears came into his eyes, and once he actually proposed that I should marry her.

"You woult just suit each other," the old man added, in a very quaint, but earnest manner, on that memorable occasion; "and as for property, I know you care little for money, and will have enough for half-a-tozen. I swear to you, Captain Littlepage"--for this dialogue took place only a few months before we were disbanded, and after I had obtained a company--"I swear to you, Captain Littlepage, t'e girl is laughing from morning till night, and would make one of the merriest companions for an olt soldier that ever promiset to 'honor and obey.' Try her once, lad, and see if I teceive you."

"That may do well enough, friend Andries, for an old soldier, whereas you will remember I am but a boy in years----"

"Ay, in years; but olt as a soldier, Morty--olt as White Plains, or '76; as I know from hafin seen you unter fire."

"Well, be it so; but it is the man, and not the soldier, who is to do the marrying, and I am still a very young man."

"You might do worse, take my word for it, Mortaunt, my dear poy; for Duss is fun itself, and I have often spoken of you to her in a way t'at will make the courtship as easy as carrying a chain on t'e Jarmen Flats."

I assured my friend Andries that I did not think of a wife yet, and that my taste ran for a sentimental and melancholy young woman, rather than for a laughing girl. The old chainbearer took this repulse good-humoredly, though he renewed the attack at least a dozen times before the regiment was disbanded, and we finally separated. I say finally separated, though it was in reference to our companionship as soldiers, rather than as to our future lives; for I had determined to give Andries employment myself, should nothing better offer in his behalf.

Nor was I altogether without the means of thus serving a friend, when the inclination existed. My grandfather, Herman Mordaunt, had left me, to come into possession at the age of twenty-one, a considerable estate in what is now Washington County, a portion of our territory that lies northeast from Albany, and at no great distance from the Hampshire Grants. This property, of many thousands of acres in extent, had been partially settled under leases by himself, previously to my birth, and those leases having mostly expired, the tenants were remaining at will, waiting for more quiet times to renew their engagements. As yet Ravensnest, for so the estate was called, had given the family little besides expense and trouble; but the land being good, and the improvements considerable, it was time to look for some return for all our outlays. This estate was now mine in fee, my father having formally relinquished its possession in my favor the day I attained my majority. Adjacent to this estate lay that of Mooseridge, which was the joint property of my father and of his friend Major--or as he was styled in virtue of the brevet rank granted at the peace--Colonel Follock. Mooseridge had been originally patented by my grandfather, the first General Littlepage, and old Colonel Follock, he who had been slain and scalped early in the war; but on the descent of his moiety of the tenantry in common to Dirck Follock, my grandfather conveyed his interest to his own son, who ere long must become its owner, agreeably to the laws of nature. This property had once been surveyed into large lots, but owing to some adverse circumstances, and the approach of the troubles, it had never been settled or surveyed into farms. All that its owners ever got for it, therefore, was the privilege of paying the crown its quit-rents; taxes, or reserved payments, of no great amount, it is true, though far more than the estate had ever yet returned.

While on the subject of lands and tenements, I may as well finish my opening explanations. My paternal grandfather was by no means as rich as my father, though the senior, and of so much higher military rank. His property, or neck, of Satanstoe, nevertheless, was quite valuable; more for the quality of the land and its position than for its extent. In addition to this, he had a few thousand pounds at interest; stocks, banks, and moneyed corporations of all kinds being then nearly unknown among us. His means were sufficient for his wants, however, and it was a joyful day when he found himself enabled to take possession of his own house again, in consequence of Sir Guy Carleton's calling in all of his detachments from Westchester. The Morrises, distinguished whigs as they were, did not get back to Morrisania until after the evacuation, which took place November 25, 1783; nor did my father return to Lilacsbush until after that important event. The very year my grandfather saw Satanstoe, he took the small-pox in camp and died.

To own the truth, the peace found us all very poor, as was the case with almost everybody in the country but a few contractors. It was not the contractors for the American army that were rich; they fared worse than most people; but the few who furnished supplies to the French did get silver in return for their advances. As for the army, it was disbanded without any reward but promises, and payment in a currency that depreciated so rapidly that men were glad to spend recklessly their hard-earned stock, lest it should become perfectly valueless in their hands. I have heard much in later years of the celebrated Newburgh letters, and of the want of patriotism that could lead to their having been written. It may not have been wise, considering the absolute want of the country, to have contemplated the alternative toward which those letters certainly cast an oblique glance, but there was nothing in either their execution or their drift which was not perfectly natural for the circumstances. It was quite right for Washington to act as he did in that crisis, though it is highly probable that even Washington would have felt and acted differently had he nothing but the keen sense of his neglected services, poverty, and forgetfulness before him in the perspective. As for the young officer who actually wrote the letters, it is probable that justice will never be done to any part of his conduct, but that which is connected with the elegance of his diction. It is very well for those who do not suffer to prate about patriotism; but a country is bound to be just, before it can lay a high moral claim to this exclusive devotedness to the interests of the majority. Fine words cost but little, and I acknowledge no great respect for those who manifest their integrity principally in phrases. This is said not in the way of personal apology, for our regiment did not happen to be at Newburgh at the disbandment; if it had, I think my father's influence would have kept us from joining the malcontents; but at the same time, I fancy his and my own patriotism would have been much strengthened by the knowledge that there were such places as Satanstoe, Lilacsbush, Mooseridge, and Ravensnest. To return to the account of our property.

My grandfather Mordaunt, notwithstanding his handsome bequests to me, left the bulk of his estate to my mother. This would have made the rest of the family rich, had it not been for the dilapidations produced by the war. But the houses and stores in town were without tenants who paid, having been mainly occupied by the enemy; and interest on bonds was hard to collect from those who lived within the British lines.

In a word, it is not easy to impress on the mind of one who witnesses the present state of the country, its actual condition in that day. As an incident that occurred to myself, after I had regularly joined the army for duty, will afford a lively picture of the state of things, I will relate it, and this the more willingly, as it will be the means of introducing to the reader an old friend of the family, and one who was intimately associated with divers events of my own life. I have spoken of Jaaf, a slave of my father's, and one of about his own time of life. At the time to which I allude, Jaaf was a middle-aged, gray-headed negro, with most of the faults, and with all the peculiar virtues of the beings of his condition and race. So much reliance had my mother, in particular, on his fidelity, that she insisted on his accompanying her husband to the wars, an order that the black most willingly obeyed; not only because he loved adventure, but because he especially hated an Indian, and my father's earliest service was against that portion of our foes. Although Jaaf acted as a body-servant, he carried a musket, and even drilled with the men. Luckily, the Littlepage livery was blue turned up with red, and of a very modest character; a circumstance that almost put Jaaf in uniform, the fellow obstinately refusing to wear the colors of any power but that of the family to which he regularly belonged. In this manner, Jaaf had got to be a queer mixture of the servant and the soldier, sometimes acting in the one capacity, and sometimes in the other, having at the same time not a little of the husbandman about him; for our slaves did all sorts of work.

My mother had made it a point that Jaaf should accompany me on all occasions when I was sent to any distance from my father. She naturally enough supposed I had the most need of the care of a faithful attendant, and the black had consequently got to be about half transferred to me. He evidently liked this change, both because it was always accompanied by change of scene and the chances for new adventures, and because it gave him an opportunity of relating many of the events of his youth; events that had got to be worn threadbare, as narratives, with his "ole masser," but which were still fresh with his "young."

On the occasion to which there is allusion, Jaaf and I were returning to camp, from an excursion of some length, on which I had been sent by the general of division. This was about the time the continental money made its final fall to nothing, or next to nothing, it having long stood at about a hundred dollars for one. I had provided myself with a little silver, and very precious it was, and some thirty or forty thousand dollars of "continental," to defray my travelling expenses; but my silver was expended, and the paper reduced to two or three thousand dollars, when it would require the whole stock of the latter to pay for Jaaf's and my own dinner; nor were the inn-keepers very willing to give their time and food for it at any price. This vacuum in my purse took place when I had still two long days' ride before me, and in a part of the country where I had no acquaintances whatever. Supper and rest were needed for ourselves, and provender and stabling for our horses. Everything of the sort was cheap enough, to be sure, but absolute want of means rendered the smallest charge impracticable to persons in our situation. As for appealing to the patriotism of those who lived by the wayside, it was too late in the war; patriotism being a very evanescent quality of the human heart, and particularly addicted to sneaking, like compassion, behind some convenient cover, when it is to be maintained at any pecuniary cost. It will do for a capital, in a revolution, or a war for the first six months, perhaps; but gets to be as worthless as continental money itself, by the end of that period. One militia draft has exhausted the patriotism of thousands of as disinterested heroes as ever shouldered muskets.

"Jaap," I asked of my companion, as we drew near to the hamlet where I intended to pass the night, and the comforts of a warm supper on a sharp frosty evening, began to haunt my imagination--"Jaap, how much money may you have about you?"[3]

"I, Masser Mordaunt!--Golly! but dat a berry droll question, sah!"

"I ask, because my own stock is reduced to just one York shilling, which goes by the name of only a ninepence in this part of the world."

"Dat berry little, to tell 'e truit', sah, for two gentleum, and two large, hungry hosses. Berry little, indeed, sah! I wish he war' more."

"Yet, I have not a copper more. I gave one thousand two hundred dollars for the dinner and baiting and oats, at noon."

"Yes, sah--but dat conternental, sah, I supposes--no great t'ing, a'ter all."

"It's a great thing in sound, Jaap, but not much when it comes to the teeth, as you perceive. Nevertheless, we must eat and drink, and our nags must eat, too--I suppose they may drink, without paying."

"Yes, sah--dat true 'nough, yah--yah--yah"--how easily that negro laughed!--"But 'e cider wonnerful good in dis part of 'e country, young masser; just needer sweet nor sour--den he strong as 'e jackass."

"Well, Jaap, how are we to get any of this good cider, of which you speak?"

"You t'ink, sah, dis part of 'e country been talk too much lately 'bout Patty Rism and 'e country, sah?"

"I am afraid Patty has been overdone here, as well as in most other counties."

I may observe here, that Jaap always imagined the beautiful creature he had heard so much extolled and commended for her comeliness and virtue, was a certain young woman of this name, with whom all Congress was unaccountably in love at the same time.

"Well, den, sah, dere no hope but our wits. Let me be masser to-night, and you mind ole Jaap, if he want good supper. Jest ride ahead, Masser Mordaunt, and give he order like General Littlepage son, and leave it all to old Jaap."

As there was not much to choose, I did ride on, and soon ceased to hear the hoofs of the negro's horse at my heels. I reached the inn an hour ere Jaap appeared, and was actually seated at a capital supper before he rode up, as one belonging only to himself. Jaap had taken off the Littlepage emblems, and had altogether a most independent air. His horse was stabled alongside of mine, and I soon found that he himself was at work on the remnants of my supper, as they retreated toward the kitchen.

A traveller of my appearance was accommodated with the best parlor, as a matter of course; and having appeased my appetite, I sat down to read some documents that were connected with the duty I was on. No one could have imagined that I had only a York shilling, which is a Pennsylvania "levy," or a Connecticut "ninepence," in my purse; for my air was that of one who could pay for all he wanted, the certainty that, in the long run, my host could not be a loser, giving me a proper degree of confidence. I had just got through with the documents, and was thinking how I should employ the hour or two that remained until it would be time to go to bed, when I heard Jaap tuning his fiddle in the bar-room. Like most negroes, the fellow had an ear for music, and had been indulged in his taste, until he played as well as half the country fiddlers that were to be met.

The sound of a fiddle in a small hamlet, of a cool October evening, was certain of its result. In half an hour the smiling landlady came to invite me to join the company, with the grateful information I should not want for a partner, the prettiest girl in the place having come in late, and being still unprovided for. On entering the bar-room, I was received with plenty of awkward bows and courtesies, but with much simple and well-meaning hospitality. Jaap's own salutations were very elaborate, and altogether of a character to prevent the suspicion of our ever having met before.

The dancing continued for more than two hours, with spirit, when the time admonished the village maidens of the necessity of retiring. Seeing an indication of the approaching separation, Jaap held out his hat to me, in a respectful manner, when I magnificently dropped my shilling into it, in a way to attract attention, and passed it around among the males of the party. One other gave a shilling, two clubbed and actually produced a quarter, several threw in sixpences, or fourpence-half-pennies, and coppers made up the balance. By way of climax, the landlady, who was good-looking and loved dancing, publicly announced that the fiddler and his horse should go scot-free, until he left the place. By these ingenious means of Jaap's, I found in my purse next morning seven-and-sixpence in silver, in addition to my own shilling, besides coppers enough to keep a negro in cider for a week.

I have often laughed over Jaap's management, though I would not permit him to repeat it. Passing the house of a man of better condition than common, I presented myself to its owner, though an entire stranger to him, and told him my story. Without asking any other confirmation than my word, this gentleman lent me five silver dollars, which answered all my present purposes, and which, I trust, it is scarcely necessary to say, were duly repaid.

It was a happy hour to me when I found myself a titular major, but virtually a freeman, and at liberty to go where I pleased. The war had offered so little of variety or adventure, since the capture of Cornwallis and the pendency of the negotiations for peace, that I began to tire of the army; and now that the country had triumphed, was ready enough to quit it. The family, that is to say, my grandmother, mother, aunt Mary and my youngest sister, took possession of Satanstoe in time to enjoy some of its delicious fruits in the autumn of 1782; and early in the following season, after the treaty was signed, but while the British still remained in town, my mother was enabled to return to Lilacsbush. As consequences of these early movements, my father and myself, when we joined the two families, found things in a better state than might otherwise have been the case. The Neck was planted, and had enjoyed the advantage of a spring's husbandry, while the grounds of Lilacsbush had been renovated and brought in good condition by the matured and practised taste of my admirable mother. And she was admirable, in all the relations of life! A lady in feeling and habits, whatever she touched or controlled imbibed a portion of her delicacy and sentiment. Even the inanimate things around her betrayed this feature of their connection with one of her sex's best qualities. I remember that Colonel Dirk Follock remarked to me one day that we had been examining the offices together, something that was very applicable to this trait in my mother's character, while it was perfectly just.

"No one can see Mrs. Littlepage's kitchen, even," he said, "alt'ough she never seems to enter it, without perceiving"--or "perceifing," as he pronounced the word--"that it is governed by a lady. There are plenty of kitchens that are as clean, and as large, and as well furnished, but it is not common to see a kitchen that gives the same ideas of good taste in the table and about the household."

If this was true as to the more homely parts of the habitation, how much truer was it when the distinction was carried into the superior apartments! There, one saw my mother in person, and surrounded by those appliances which denote refinement, without, however, any of that elaborate luxury of which we read in older countries. In America we had much fine china, and a good deal of massive plate, regular dinner-services excepted, previously to the revolution, and my mother had inherited more than was usual of both; but the country knew little of that degree of domestic indulgence which is fast creeping in among us, by means of its enormously increased commerce.

Although the fortunes of the country had undergone so much waste during seven years of internal warfare, the elasticity of a young and vigorous nation soon began to repair the evil. It is true that trade did not fully revive, nor its connecting interests receive their great impulse, until after the adoption of the Constitution, which brought the States under a set of common custom-house regulations; nevertheless, one year brought about a manifest and most beneficent change. There was now some security in making shipments, and the country immediately felt the consequences. The year 1784 was a sort of breathing-time for the nation, though long ere it was past, the bone and sinew of the republic began to make themselves apparent and felt. Then it was that, as a people, this community first learned the immense advantage it had obtained by controlling its own interests, and by treating them as secondary to those of no other part of the world. This was the great gain of all our labors.

CHAPTER III.

"He tells her something,
That makes her blood look out; good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream."

--Winter's Tale.

Happy, happy Lilacsbush! Never can I forget the delight with which I roamed over its heights and glens, and how I rioted in the pleasure of feeling I was again a sort of master in those scenes which had been the haunts of my boyhood! It was in the spring of 1784 before I was folded to the arms of my mother; and this, too, after a separation of near two years. Kate laughed, and wept, and hugged me, just as she would have done five years earlier, though she was now a lovely young woman, turned of nineteen. As for aunt Mary, she shook hands, gave me a kind kiss or two, and smiled on me affectionately, in her own quiet, gentle manner. The house was in a tumult, for Jaap returned with me, his wool well sprinkled with gray, and there were lots of little Satanstoes (for such was his family name, notwithstanding Mrs. Jaap called herself Miss Lilacsbush), children and grandchildren, to welcome him. To say the truth, the house was not decently tranquil for the first twenty-four hours.

At the end of that time I ordered my horse, to ride across the country to Satanstoe, in order to visit my widowed grandmother, who had resisted all attempts to persuade her to give up the cares of housekeeping, and to come and live at Lilacsbush. The general, for so everybody now called my father, did not accompany me, having been at Satanstoe a day or two before; but my sister did. As the roads had been much neglected in the war, we went in the saddle, Kate being one of the most spirited horsewomen of my acquaintance. By this time, Jaap had got to be privileged, doing just such work as suited his fancy; or, it might be better to say, was not of much use except in the desultory employments that had so long been his principal pursuits; and he was sent off an hour or two before we started ourselves, to let Mrs. Littlepage, or his "ole--ole missus," as the fellow always called my grandmother, know whom she was to expect to dinner.

I have heard it said that there are portions of the world in which people get to be so sophisticated, that the nearest of kin cannot take such a liberty as this. The son will not presume to take a plate at the table of the father without observing the ceremony of asking, or of being asked! Heaven be praised! we have not yet reached this pass in America. What parent, or grandparent, to the remotest living generation, would receive a descendant with anything but a smile, or a welcome, let him come when and how he will? If there be not room, or preparation, the deficiencies must be made up in welcomes; or, when absolute impossibilities interpose, if they are not overcome by means of a quick invention, as most such "impossibilities" are, the truth is frankly told, and the pleasure is deferred to a more fortunate moment. It is not my intention to throw a vulgar and ignorant gibe into the face of an advanced civilization, as is too apt to be the propensity of ignorance and provincial habits; for I well know that most of the usages of those highly improved conditions of society are founded in reason, and have their justification in a cultivated common sense; but, after all, mother nature has her rights, and they are not to be invaded too boldly, without bringing with the acts themselves their merited punishments.

It was just nine, on a fine May morning, when Kate

Littlepage and myself rode through the outer gate of Lilacsbush, and issued upon the old, well-known Kingsbridge road. Kingsbridge! That name still remains, as do those of the counties of Kings, and Queens, and Duchess, to say nothing of quantities of Princes this and that in other States; and I hope they always may remain, as so many landmarks in our history. These names are all that now remain among us of the monarchy; and yet have I heard my father say a hundred times, that when a young man, his reverence for the British throne was second only to his reverence for the Church. In how short a time has this feeling been changed throughout an entire nation; or, if not absolutely changed, for some still continue to reverence monarchy, how widely and irremediably has it been impaired! Such are the things of the world, perishable and temporary in their very natures; and they would do well to remember the truth, who have much at stake in such changes.

We stopped at the door of the inn at Kingsbridge to say good morning to old Mrs. Light, the landlady who had now kept the house half a century, and who had known us, and our parents before us, from childhood. This loquacious housewife had her good and bad points, but habit had given her a sort of claim on our attentions, and I could not pass her door without drawing the rein, if it were only for a moment. This was no sooner done, than the landlady in person was on her threshold to greet us.

"Ay, I dreamt this, Mr. Mordaunt," the old woman exclaimed, the instant she saw me--"I dreamt this no later than last week! It is nonsense to deny it; dreams do often come true!"

"And what has been your dream this time, Mrs. Light?" I asked, well knowing it was to come, and the sooner we got it the better.

"I dreamt the general had come home last fall, and he had come home! Now the only idee I had to help out that dream was a report that he was to be home that day; but you know, Mr. Mordaunt, or Major Littlepage, they tell me I ought now to call you--but you know, Mr. Mordaunt, how often reports turn out to be nothing. I count a report as no great help to a dream. So, last week, I dreamed you would certainly be home this week; and here you are, sure enough!"

"And all without any lying report to help you, my good landlady?"

"Why, no great matter; a few flying rumors, perhaps; but as I never believe them when awake, it's onreasonable to suppose a body would believe 'em when asleep. Yes, Jaaf stopped a minute to water his horse this morning, and I foresaw from that moment my dream would come to be true, though I never exchanged a word with the nigger."

"That is a little remarkable, Mrs. Light, as I supposed you always exchanged a few words with your guests."

"Not with the blacks, major; it's apt to make 'em sassy. Sassiness in a nigger is a thing I can't abide, and therefore I keep 'em all at a distance. Well, the times that I have seen, major, since you went off to the wars! and the changes we have had! Our clergyman don't pray any longer for the king and queen--no more than if there wasn't sich people living."

"Not directly, perhaps, but as a part of the Church of God, I trust. We all pray for Congress now."

"Well, I hope good will come out of it! I must say, major, that His Majesty's officers spent more freely, and paid in better money, than the continental gentlemen. I've had 'em both here by rijjiments, and that's the character I must give 'em, in honesty."

"You will remember they were richer, and had more money than our people. It is easy for the rich to appear liberal."

"Yes, I know that, sir, and you ought, and do know it, too. The Littlepages are rich, and always have been, and they are liberal too. Lord bless your smiling, pretty faces! I knowed your family long afore you knowed it yourselves. I know'd old Captain Hugh Roger, your great-grand'ther, and the old general, your grand'ther, and now I know the young general, and you! Well, this will not be the last of you, I dares to say, and there'll be light hearts and happy ones among the Bayards, I'll answer for it, now the wars are over, and young Major Littlepage has got back!"

This terminated the discourse; for by this time I had enough of it; and making my bow, Kate and I rode on. Still, I could not but be struck with the last speech of the old woman, and most of all with the manner in which it was uttered. The name of Bayard was well known among us, belonging to a family of which there were several branches spread through the Middle States, as far south as Delaware; but I did not happen to know a single individual of them all. What, then, could my return have to do with the smiles or frowns of any of the name of Bayard? It was natural enough, after ruminating a minute or two on the subject, that I should utter some of my ideas, on such a subject, to my companion.

"What could the old woman mean, Kate," I abruptly commenced, "by saying there would now be light hearts and happy ones among the Bayards?"

"Poor Mrs. Light is a great gossip, Mordaunt, and it may be questioned if she know her own meaning half the time. All the Bayards we know are the family at the Hickories; and with them, you have doubtless heard, my mother has long been intimate."

"I have heard nothing about it, child. All I know is, that there is a place called the Hickories, up the river a few miles, and that it belongs to some of the Bayards; but I never heard of any intimacy. On the contrary, I remember to have heard that there was a lawsuit once, between my grandfather Mordaunt and some old Bayard or other; and I thought we were a sort of hereditary strangers."

"That is quite forgotten, and my mother says it all arose from a mistake. We are decided friends now."

"I'm sure I am very glad to hear it; for, since it is peace, let us have peace; though old enemies are not apt to make very decided friends."

"But we never were--that is, my grandfather never was an enemy of anybody; and the whole matter was amicably settled just before he went to Europe, on his unfortunate visit to Sir Harry Bulstrode. No--no--my mother will tell you, Mordaunt, that the Littlepages and the Bayards now regard each other as very decided friends."

Kate spoke with so much earnestness that I was disposed to take a look at her. The face of the girl was flushed, and I fancy she had a secret consciousness of the fact; for she turned it from me as if gazing at some object in the opposite direction, thereby preventing me from seeing much of it.

"I am very glad to learn all this," I answered, a little dryly. "As I am a Littlepage, it would have been awkward not to have known it, had I accidentally met with one of these Bayards. Does the peace include all of the name, or only those of the Hickories?"

Kate laughed; then she was pleased to tell me that I was to consider myself the friend of all of the name.

"And most especially of those of the name who dwell at the Hickories?"

"How many may there be of this especially peaceful breed? six, a dozen, or twenty?"

"Only four; so your task will make no very heavy demand on your affections. Your heart has room, I trust, for four more friends?"

"For a thousand, if I can find them, my dear. I can accept as many friends as you please, but have places for none else. All the other niches are occupied."

"Occupied!--I hope that is not true, Mordaunt. One place, at least, is vacant."

"True; I had forgotten a place must be reserved for the brother you will one day give me. Well, name him, as soon as you please; I shall be ready to love him, child."

"I may never make so heavy a draft on your affections. Anneke has given you a brother already, and a very excellent one he is, and that ought to satisfy a reasonable man."

"Ay, so all you young women say between fifteen and twenty, but you usually change your mind in the end. The sooner you tell me who the youth is, therefore, the sooner I shall begin to like him--is he one of the Bayards?--un chevalier sans peur et sans reproche?"

Kate had a brilliant complexion, in common; but, as I now turned my eyes toward her inquiringly, more in mischief, however, than with the expectation of learning anything new, I saw the roses of her cheeks expand until they covered her temples. The little beaver she wore, and which became her amazingly, did not suffice to conceal these blushes, and I now really began to suspect I had hit on a vein that was sensitive. But my sister was a girl of spirit, and though it was no difficult thing to make her change color, it was by no means easy to look her down.

"I trust your new brother, Mordaunt, should there ever be such a person, will be a respectable man, if not absolutely without reproach," she answered. "But, if there be a Tom Bayard, there is also a Pris Bayard, his sister."

"So--so--this is all news to me, indeed! As to Mr. Thomas Bayard, I shall ask no questions, my interest in him, if there is to be any, being altogether ex officio, as one may say, and coming as a matter of course; but you will excuse me if I am a little curious on the subject of Miss Priscilla Bayard, a lady, you will remember, I never saw."

My eye was on Kate the whole time, and I fancied she looked gratified, though she still looked confused.

"Ask what you will, brother--Priscilla Bayard can bear a very close examination."

"In the first place, then, did that old gossip allude to Miss Priscilla, by saying there would be light hearts and happy ones among the Bayards?"

"Nay, I cannot answer for poor Mrs. Light's conceits. Put your questions in some other form."

"Is there much intimacy between the people of the 'Bush and those of the Hickories?"

"Great--we like them exceedingly; and I think they like us."

"Does this intimacy extend to the young folk, or is it confined to the old?"

"That is somewhat personal," said Kate, laughing, "as I happen to be the only 'young folk' at the 'Bush, to maintain the said intimacy. As there is nothing to be ashamed of, however, but, on the contrary, much of which one may be proud, I shall answer that it includes 'all ages and both sexes;' everybody but yourself, in a word."

"And you like old Mr. Bayard?"

"Amazingly."

"And old Mrs. Bayard?"

"She is a very agreeable person, and an excellent wife and mother."

"And you love Pris Bayard?"

"As the apple of mine eye," the girl answered with emphasis.

"And you like Tom Bayard, her brother?"

"As much as is decent and proper for one young woman to like the brother of another young woman, whom she admits that she loves as the apple of her eye."

Although it was not easy, at least not easy for me, to cause Kate Littlepage to hold her tongue, it was not easy for her to cause the tell-tale blood always to remain stationary. She was surprisingly beautiful in her blushes, and as much like what I had often fancied my dear mother might have been in her best days as possible, at the very moment she was making these replies as steadily as if they gave her no trouble.

"How is all this then, connected with rejoicings among the people of the Hickories, at my return? Are you the betrothed of Tom Bayard, and have you been waiting for my return to give him your hand?"

"I am not the betrothed of Tom Bayard, and have not been waiting for your return to give him my hand," answered Kate, steadily. "As for Mrs. Light's gossipings, you cannot expect me to explain them. She gets her reports from servants, and others of that class, and you know what such reports are usually worth. But, as for my waiting for your return, brother, in order to announce such an event, you little know how much I love you, if you suppose I would do any such thing."

Kate said this with feeling, and I thanked her with my eyes, but could not have spoken, and did not speak, until we had ridden some distance. After this pause, I renewed the discourse with some of its original spirit.

"On that subject, Katrinke, dear," I said, "I trust we understand each other. Single or married, you will ever be very dear to me; and I own I should be hurt to be one of the last to learn your engagement, whenever that may happen. And now for this Priscilla Bayard--do you expect me to like her?"

"Do I! It would be one of the happiest moments of my life, Mordaunt, when I could hear you acknowledge that you love her!"

This was uttered with great animation, and in a way to show that my sister was very much in earnest. I felt some surprise when I put this feeling in connection with the landlady's remarks, and began to suspect there might be something behind the curtain worthy of my knowledge. In order to make discoveries, however, it was necessary to pursue the discourse.

"Of what age is Miss Bayard?" I demanded.

"She is two months my senior--very suitable, is it not?"

"I do not object to the difference, which will do very well. Is she accomplished?"

"Not very. You know few of us girls who have been educated during the revolution, can boast of much in that way; though Priscilla is better than common."

"Than of her class, you mean, of course?"

"Certainly--better than most young ladies of our best families."

"Is she amiable?"

"As Anneke, herself!"

This was saying a great deal, our eldest sister, as often happens in families, being its paragon in the way of all the virtues, and Anneke's temper being really serenity itself.

"You give her a high character, and one few girls could sustain. Is she sensible and well-informed?"

"Enough so as often to make me feel ashamed of myself. She has an excellent mother, Mordaunt; and I have heard you say, often, that the mother would have great influence with you in choosing a wife."

"That must have been when I was very young, child, before I went to the army, where we look more at the young than at the old women. But, why a wife? Is it all settled between the old people, that I am to propose to this Priscilla Bayard, and are you a party to the scheme?"

Kate laughed with all her heart, but I fancied she looked conscious.

"You make no answer, young lady, and you must permit me to remind you that there is an express compact between you and me to treat each other frankly on all occasions. This is one on which I especially desire to see the conditions of the treaty rigidly enforced. Does any such project exist?"

"Not as a project, discussed and planned--no--certainly not. No, a thousand times, no. But I shall run the risk of frustrating one of my most cherished hopes, by saying, honestly, that you could not gratify my dear mother, aunt Mary, and myself, more than by falling in love with Pris Bayard. We all love her ourselves, and we wish you to be of the party, knowing that your love would probably lead to a connection we should all like, more than I can express. There; you cannot complain of a want of frankness, for I have heard it said, again and again, that the wishes of friends, indiscreetly expressed, are very apt to set young men against the very person it is desired to make them admire."

"Quite likely to be true as a rule, though in my case no effect, good or bad, will be produced. But how do the Bayards feel in this matter?"

"How should I know! Of course, no allusion has ever been made to any of the family on the subject; and, as none of them know you, it is im--that is, no allusion--I mean--certainly not to more than one of them. I believe some vague remarks may have been ventured to one--but----"

"By yourself, and to your friend Pris?"

"Never"--said Kate, with emphasis. "Such a subject could never be mentioned between us."

"Then it must have been between the old ladies--the two mothers, probably?"

"I should think not. Mrs. Bayard is a woman of reserve, and mamma has an extreme sense of propriety, as you know yourself, that would not be likely to permit such a thing."

"Would the general think of contracting me, when my back was turned?"

"Not he--papa troubles himself very little about such things. Ever since his return home, he has been courting mamma over again, he tells us."

"Surely, aunt Mary has not found words for such an allusion!"

"She, indeed! Poor, dear aunt Mary; it is little she meddles with any one's concerns but her own. Do you know, Mordaunt, that mamma has told me the whole of her story lately, and the reason why she has refused so many excellent offers. I dare say, if you ask her, she will tell you."

"I know the whole story already, from the general, child. But, if this matter has been alluded to, to one of the Bayards, and neither my father, mother, nor aunt Mary, has made the allusion on our side, and neither Mr. Bayard, his wife, nor daughter, has been the party to whom the allusion has been made on the other, there remain only yourself and Tom to hold the discourse. I beg you to explain this point with your customary frankness."

Kate Littlepage's face was scarlet. She was fairly caught, though I distrusted the truth from the moment she so stammered and hesitated in correcting her first statement. I will own I enjoyed the girl's confusion, it made her appear so supremely lovely; and I was almost as proud of her, as I tenderly loved her. Dear, dear Kate; from my childhood I had my own amusement with her, though I do not remember anything like a harsh expression, or an unkind feeling, that has ever passed, or indeed existed, between us. A finer study than the face of my sister offered for the next minute, was never presented to the eye of man; and I enjoyed it so much the more, from a strong conviction that, while so deeply confused, she was not unhappy. Native ingenuousness, maiden modesty, her habit of frank dealing with me, and a wish to continue so to deal, were all struggling together in her fine countenance, forming altogether one of the most winning pictures of womanly feelings I had ever witnessed. At length, the love of fair-dealing, and love of me, prevailed over a factitious shame; the color settled back to those cheeks whence it had appeared to flash, as it might be, remaining just enough heightened to be remarked, and Kate looked toward me in a way that denoted all the sisterly confidence and regard that she actually felt.

"I did not intend to be the one to communicate to you a fact, Mordaunt, in which I know you will feel a deep interest, for I had supposed my mother would save me the confusion of telling it to you; but, now, there is no choice between resorting to equivocations that I do not like, and using our old long-established frankness."

"The long and short of which, my dear sister, is to say that you are engaged to Mr. Bayard?"

"No; not as strong as that, brother. Mr. Bayard has offered, and my answer is deferred until you have met him. I would not engage myself, Mordaunt, until you approved of my choice."

"I feel the compliment, Katrinke, and will be certain to repay it, in kind. Depend on it, you shall know, in proper season, when it is my wish to marry, and shall be heard."

"There is a difference between the claims of an elder and an only brother, and of a mere girl, who ought to place much dependence on the advice of friends, in making her own selection."

"You will not be a 'mere girl' when that time comes, but a married woman yourself, and competent to give good counsel from your own experience. To return to Tom, however; he is the member of his family to whom the allusion was made?"

"He was, Mordaunt," answered Kate, in a low voice.

"And you were the person who made it?"

"Very true--we were talking of you, one day; and I expressed a strong hope that you would see Priscilla with the eyes with which, I can assure you, all the rest of your family see her. That was all."

"And that was quite enough, child, to cause Tom Bayard to hang himself, if he were a lover of the true temper."

"Hang himself, brother! I am sure I do not understand why?"

"Oh! merely at the palpable discouragement such a wish would naturally convey to the brother of the young lady, since he must have seen you were willing to connect the two families by means other than giving him your own hand."

Kate laughed; but as she did not look much confused, or at all alarmed, I was induced to believe that more important encouragement than could be afforded by means of her wish of marrying me to her suitor's sister had been given Master Tom, and that my disapproval of the gentleman would cause her more concern than she chose to avow. We rode on, however, some little distance, without either's offering to renew the discourse. At length, as became my sex, I spoke.

"When am I to see this paragon young man and paragon young woman, Kate, since see both I must?"

"Not paragon young man, brother; I am certain I have called him by no such name; Tom Bayard is a good fellow; but I do not know that he is by any means a paragon."

"He is a good-looking fellow in the bargain, I take it for granted?"

"Not so much so as you are yourself, if that will gratify your vanity."

"It ought to, coming from such a quarter; my question is still unanswered, notwithstanding."

"To own the truth to you, Mordaunt, I expect we shall find Tom Bayard and Pris at Satanstoe, to dine with my grandmother. She wrote me word, a day or two since, that both are asked, and that she hoped both would accept."

"The old lady is then in the plot, and intends to marry me, will ye, nill ye? I had thought this visit altogether a scheme of my own."

Kate again laughed, and told me I might make my own observations on that point, and judge for myself. As for the visit, I had only accidentally favored a project of others. The conversation now changed, and for several miles we rode along, conversing of the scenes of the war, without adverting to the Bayards or to marriages.

We were within half a mile of the gate of the Neck, and within a mile of the house, when we met Jaap returning to Lilacsbush, and carrying some fruit to my mother, after having discharged his commission of an avant-courier. From Kate's remark I had discovered we had been invited by letter to take this excursion, though the ceremony of sending the negro across with his message had been observed for reasons that were not very natural under the circumstances. I made no remark, however, determining to see and judge for myself.

As a matter of course, we drew our reins, and stopped to exchange a few words with the black.

"Well, Jaap, how did the Neck look, after so long an absence?" I inquired.

"It look, sah, no means as well as ole Missus, who do look capital, for such a lady! Dey do won'ers with 'e Neck, sah, if you just believe all young nigger say. But what you t'ink, Masser Mordy, I hear at 'e tavern, where I jist stop, sah, to water ole Dick?"

"And to get a sup of cider for old Jaap"--hereupon the negro laughed heartily, though he had the impudence neither to own nor to deny the imputation, his weakness in favor of "wring-jaw" being a well-established failing--"Well, what did you hear, while taking down the usual mug?"

"I on'y get half a mug, dis time, sah; ole, ole Missus nebber forgettin' to give me jist as much as I want. Well, sah, while old Dick drink, 'e new landlady, who come from Connetick, you know, sah, she say to me, 'Where you go, ole color' gentleum?' Dat war' civil, anyhow."

"To which you answered----"

"I answer her, sah, and say I go to Satanstoe, whar' I come from, long time 'go."

"Whereupon she made some observation or other--well, what was it?--You keep Miss Littlepage waiting."

"Lor' bless her, sah--it my business to wait on Miss Katrinke, not her business to wait on me--why you speak so droll, now, Masser Mordy?"

"Never mind all that, Jaap, what did the new Connecticut lady say, when you told her you were going to Satanstoe, the place where you had come from, a long time ago?"

"What she say, Masser Mordy, sah!--she say great foolishness, and make me mad. 'What you call by dat awful name?' she say, making face like as if she see a spook. 'You must mean Dibbleton,' she say--'dat 'e way all 'e people as is genteel call 'e Neck?' Did you ebber hear 'e like, sah?"

"Oh! yes; I heard the like of it, as soon as I was born; the attempt to change the name of our old place having existed now, these thirty years. Why, some people call Hellgate, Hurlgate; after that, one may expect anything. Do you not know, Jaap, a Yankee is never satisfied, unless he is effecting changes? One half his time he is altering the pronunciation of his own names, and the other half he is altering ours. Let him call the place what he will, you and I will stick to Satanstoe."

"Dat we will, sah--gib 'e debbil his due, sah; dat an ole sayin'. I'm sure anybody as has eyes, can see where his toe hab turn up 'e sile, and shape it he own way--no dibble dere, sah."

Thus saying, Jaap rode on, my sister and myself doing the same, pursuing the discourse that had thus accidentally arisen among us.

"Is it not odd, brother, that strangers should have this itching to alter the name of my grandmother's place?" said Kate, after we had parted from the black. "It is a homely name, certainly; but it has been used, now, a good deal more than a century, and time, at least, should entitle it to be let alone."

"Ay, my dear; but you are not yet aware of the desires, and longings, and efforts, and ambition of a 'little learning.' I have seen enough, in my short career, to know there is a spirit up among us, that calls itself by the pretending title of the 'spirit of improvement,' which is likely to overturn more important things than the name of our poor Neck. It is a spirit that assumes the respectable character of a love of liberty; and under that mask, it gives play to malice, envy, covetousness, rapacity, and all the lowest passions of our nature. Among other things, it takes the provincial pretence of a mock-refinement, and flatters an elegance of thought that is easiest attained by those who have no perceptions of anything truly elevated, by substituting sqeamishness and affectations for the simplicity of nature, and a good tone of manners."

CHAPTER IV.

Beat. "Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner."
Bene. "Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains."
Beat. "I took no more pains for these thanks, than
You take pains to thank me; if it had been painful,
I would not have come."

--Much Ado About Nothing.

In the porch of the house at Satanstoe stood my dear grandmother and the notable Tom Bayard, to receive us. The first glance at the latter told me that he was a "proper man;" and by the second, I got the pleasing assurance that he had no eye, just then, but for Kate. This was pleasant to know, as I never could have been happy in consenting to yield that dear girl to any but a man who appreciated her worth, and fully admired her beauty. As to my dear "ole, ole" grandmother, who was not so very old neither, being still under seventy, her reception of us was just what I had ever found it; warm, affectionate, and gentle. She called my father, the general, Corny, even when she spoke to him in a room full of company; though, for that matter, I have heard my mother, who was much more of a woman of the world, having lived a great deal in society, do the same thing, when she thought herself alone. I have read some priggish book or other, written no doubt by one who knew men only through pages like his own, decry such familiarities; but I have generally found those the happiest families, and at the bottom, the best toned, where it was Jack, and Tom, and Bob, and Dick, and Bess, and Di. As for your Louisa Adelinas, and Robert Augustuses, and all such elaborate respect, I frankly declare I have a contempt for it. Those are the sort of people who would call Satanstoe, Dibbleton; Hellgate, Hurlgate; and themselves accomplished. Thank heaven, we had no such nonsense at Lilacsbush, or at the Neck. My father was Corny; my mother, Anneke; Katrinke, Kate; and I was Mordy, or Mord; or, when there was no hurry, Mordaunt.

Tom Bayard met my salutations frankly, and with a gentleman-like ease, though there was a slight color on his cheek which said to me, "I mean to get your sister." Yet I liked the fellow's manner. There was no grasping of the hand, and coming forward to rush into an intimacy at the first moment we met; but he returned my bow graciously and gracefully, and his smile as he did so seemed to invite farther and better acquaintance.

Now I have seen a man cross a whole room to shake hands at an introduction to an utter stranger, and maintain a countenance the whole time as sombre as if he were condoling with him on the loss of his wife. This habit of shaking hands dolefully is growing among us, and is imported from some of our sister States; for it is certainly not a New York custom, except among intimates; and it is a bad usage in my opinion, as it destroys one of the best means of graduating feelings, and is especially ungraceful at an introduction. But alas! there are so many such innovations, that one cannot pretend to predict where they are to stop. I never shook hands at an introduction, unless it were under my own roof, and when I wished to denote a decidedly hospitable feeling, until after I was forty. It was thought vulgar in my younger days, and I am not quite certain it is not thought so now.

In the little old-fashioned drawing-room, as of late years my good grandmother had been persuaded to call what was once only the best parlor, we found Miss Priscilla Bayard, who for some reason that was unexplained, did not come to the porch to meet her friend. She was in truth a charming girl, with fine dark eyes, glossy hair, a delicate and lady-like form, and a grace of manner that denoted perfect familiarity with the best company of the land. Kate and Pris embraced each other with a warmth and sincerity that spoke in favor of each, and with perfect nature. An affected American girl, by the way, is very uncommon; and nothing strikes me sooner, when I see my own countrywomen placed at the side of Europeans, than the difference in this respect; the one seems so natural, while the other is so artificial!

My own reception by Miss Bayard was gracious, though I fancied it was not entirely free from the consciousness of having, on some idle occasion, heard her own name intimately connected with mine. Perhaps Kate, in their confidential moments, may have said something to this effect; or I may have been mistaken.

My grandmother soon announced that the whole party was to pass the night at Satanstoe. As we were accustomed to such plans, neither Kate nor myself raised the least objection, while the Bayards submitted to orders, which I soon discovered even they were not unused to, with perfect good will and submission. Thus brought together, in the familiarity of a quiet and small party in a country house, we made great progress in intimacy; and by the time dinner was over, or by four o'clock, I felt like an old acquaintance with those who had so lately been strangers to me, even by name. As for Bayard and my sister, they were in the best of humors from the start, and I felt satisfied their affair was a settled thing in their own minds; but Miss Priscilla was a little under constraint for an hour or two, like a person who felt a slight embarrassment. This wore off, however, and long before we left the table she had become entirely herself; and a very charming self it was, I was forced to admit. I say forced; for spite of all I had said, and a certain amount of good sense, I hope, it was impossible to get rid of the distrust which accompanied the notion that I was expected to fall in love with the young lady. My poor grandmother contributed her share, too, to keeping this feeling alive. The manner in which she looked from one to the other, and the satisfied smile that passed over her countenance whenever she observed Pris and myself conversing freely, betrayed to me completely that she was in the secret, and had a hand in what I chose to regard as a sort of plot.

I had heard that my grandmother had set her heart on the marriage of my parents a year or two before matters came round, and that she always fancied she had been very instrumental in forming a connection that had been as happy as her own. The recollection, or the fancy of this success most probably encouraged her to take a share in the present scheme; and I have always supposed that she got us all together on that occasion in order to help the great project along.

A walk on the Neck was proposed in the cool of the evening; for Satanstoe had many a pleasant path, pretty vista, and broad view. Away we went, then, the four of us, Kate leading the way, as the person most familiar with the "capabilities." We were soon on the shore of the Sound, and at a point where a firm, wide beach of sand had been left by the receding waters, rocks fringing the inner boundary toward the main. Here one could walk without confinement of any sort, there being room to go in pairs, or all abreast, as we might choose. Miss Bayard seeming a little coy, and manifesting a desire to keep near her friend, I abandoned the intention of walking at her side, but fell behind a little, and got into discourse with her brother. Nor was I sorry to have this early opportunity of sounding the party who was likely soon to become so nearly connected with me. After a few minutes, the conversation turned on the late revolution, and the manner in which it was likely to influence the future fortunes of the country. I knew that a portion of the family of my companion had adhered to the crown, losing their estates by the act of confiscation; but I also knew that a portion did not, and I was left to infer that Tom's branch belonged to the latter division of his name, inasmuch as his father was known to be very easy in his circumstances, if not absolutely rich. It was not long, however, before I ascertained that my new friend was a mild tory, and that he would have been better pleased had the rights we had sought, and which he was willing enough to admit had been violated, been secured without a separation of the two countries. As the Littlepages had actually been in arms against the crown, three generations of them, too, at the same time, and the fact could be no secret, I was pleased with the candor with which Tom Bayard expressed his opinions on these points; for it spoke well of the truth and general sincerity of his character.

"Does it not strike you as a necessary consequence of the distance between the two countries," I remarked in the course of the conversation, "that a separation must, sooner or later, have occurred? It is impossible that two countries should long have common rulers when they are divided by an ocean. Admitting that our separation has been a little premature, a circumstance I should deny in a particular discussion, it is an evil that every hour has a tendency to lessen."

"Separations in families are always painful, Major Littlepage; when accompanied by discussions, doubly so."

"Quite true; yet they always happen. If not in this generation, in the next."

"I do think," said Tom Bayard, looking at me a little imploringly, "that we might have got along with our difficulties without casting aside our allegiance to the king."

"Ay, that has been the stumbling-block with thousands; and yet it is, in truth, the very weakest part of the transatlantic side of the question. Of what avail is allegiance to the king, if parliament uses its power in a way to make American interests subservient to those of England? A great deal may be said, that is reasonable, in favor of kingly power; that I am ready enough to allow; but very little that renders one people subject to another. This thing called loyalty blinds men to facts, and substitutes a fancied for a real power. The question has been, whether England, by means of a parliament in which we have no representative, is to make laws for us or not; and not whether George III. is to be our sovereign, or whether we are to establish the sovereignty of the people."[4]

Bayard bowed, civilly enough, to my remark, and he changed the subject. Sufficient had been said, however, to satisfy me that there would be little political sympathy between us, let the family tie be drawn as close as it might. The girls joined us before we had got altogether into another vein of discourse, and I was a little chagrined at finding that Kate entered rather more into her admirer's views of such subjects than comported with the true feelings, as I fancied, of a Littlepage, after all that had passed. Still, as I should have liked the woman I loved to agree with me in opinion as much as possible in everything, I was not disposed to judge harshly of my sister on that account. On the other hand, to my surprise, I found Miss Priscilla a zealous, and, to say the truth, a somewhat blind patriot; condemning England, the king, and the efforts of parliament with a warmth that was only equal to that with which she defended everything, act, measure, principle, or policy, that was purely American.

I cannot say I had as much tolerance for the patriotism of Miss Bayard as I had for the petit treason of my sister. It seemed natural enough that Kate should begin to look at things of this nature with the eyes of the man she had made up her mind to marry; but it looked far more like management in her friend, who belonged to a tory family, to volunteer so freely the sentiments of one she could not yet love, inasmuch as until that day she had never even seen him.

"Is it not so, Major Littlepage?" cried this lovely creature, for very lovely she was, beyond all dispute; and feminine and delicate, and lady-like, and all I could have wished her, had she only been a little less of a whig, and a good deal more of a tory; her eyes sparkling and flashing, at the same time, as if she felt all she was saying from the very bottom of her heart--"Is it not so, Major Littlepage?--America has come out of this war with imperishable glory; and her history, a thousand years hence, will be the wonder and admiration of all who read it!"

"That will somewhat depend on what her history may prove to be, between that day and this. The early history of all great nations fills us with admiration and interest, while mightier deeds effected by an insignificant people are usually forgotten."

"Still, this revolution has been one of which any nation might have been proud!"

As it would not have been proper to deny this I bowed, and strayed a little from the rest of the party, under the pretence of looking for shells. My sister soon joined me, when the following short conversation passed between us.

"You find Pris Bayard a stanch whig, Major Littlepage," commenced my warm-hearted sister.

"Very much so; but I had supposed the Bayards excessively neutral, if not absolutely the other way."

"Oh! that is true enough of most of them, but not with Pris, who has long been a decided whig. There is Tom, now, rather moderate in his opinions, while the father and mother are what you call excessively neutral; but Pris has been a whig almost as long as I have known her."

"Almost as long! She was, then, a tory once?"

"Hardly; though certainly her opinions have undergone a very gradual change. We are both young, you will remember; and girls at their first coming out do very little of their own thinking. For the last three years, certainly, or since she was seventeen, Pris has been getting to be more and more of a whig, and less and less of a tory. Do you not find her decidedly handsome, Mordaunt?"

"Very decidedly so, and very winning in all that belongs to her sex--gentle, feminine, lady-like, lovely, and withal a whig."

"I knew you would admire her!" cried Kate, in triumph, "I shall live to see my dearest wish accomplished!"

"I make no doubt you will, child; though it will not be by the marriage of a Mr. Littlepage to a Miss Bayard."

I got a laugh and a blush for this sally, but no sign of submission. On the contrary, the positive girl shook her head, until her rich curls were all in motion, and she laughed none the less. We immediately joined our companions, and by one of those crossings over and figurings in, that are so familiar to the young of the two sexes, we were soon walking along the sands again, Tom at Kate's side, and I at that of Priscilla Bayard's. What the other two talked about I never knew, though I fancy one might guess; but the young lady with me pursued the subject of the revolution.

"You have probably been a little surprised, Major Littlepage," she commenced, "to hear me express myself so warmly in favor of this country, as some of the branches of my family have been treated harshly by the new government."

"You allude to the confiscations? I never justified them, and wish they had not been made; for they fall heaviest on those who were quite inoffensive, while most of our active enemies have escaped. Still it is no more than is usual in civil wars, and what would surely have befallen us, had it been our fortune to be the losing party."

"So I have been told; but, as no loss has fallen on any who are very near to me, my public virtue has been able to resist private feeling. My brother, as you may have seen, is less of an American than I am myself."

"I have supposed he is one of the 'extremely neutral;' and they, I have thought, always incline a little in favor of the losing party."

"I hope, however, his political bias, which is very honest, though very much in error, will not materially affect him in your good opinion. Too much depends on that, for me not to be anxious on the subject; and being the only decided whig in the family, I have thought I would venture to speak in behalf of a very dearly beloved brother."

"Well," I said to myself, "this is being sufficiently managing; but I am not quite so unpractised as to be the dupe of an artifice so little concealed! The deuce is in the girl; yet she seems in earnest, looks at me with the good faith and simplicity of a sister who feels even more than she expresses, and is certainly one of the loveliest creatures I ever laid eyes on! I must not let her see how much I am on my guard, but must meet management with management. It will be singular, indeed, if I, who have commanded a company of continentals with some credit, cannot get along with a girl of twenty, though she were even handsomer, and looked still more innocent than this Pris Bayard, which would be no easy matter, by the way."

The reader will understand this was what I said to myself, and it was soon uttered, for one talks surprisingly fast to himself; but that which I said to my fair companion, after a moment's hesitation, was very different in language and import.

"I do not understand in what way Mr. Bayard can be affected by my opinion, let it be for or against him," I answered, with just as much innocency of expression, according to my notion of the matter, as the young lady herself had thrown into her own pretty countenance, thereby doing myself infinite credit, in my own conceit; "though I am far from judging any man severely, because he happens to differ from me in his judgment of public things. The question was one of great delicacy, and the most honest men have differed the widest on its merits."

"You do not know how glad I am to hear you say this, Mr. Littlepage," returned my companion, with one of the sweetest smiles woman ever bestowed on man. "It will make Tom completely happy, for I know he has been sadly afraid of you, on this very point."

I did not answer instantly; for I believe I was watching the traces of that bewitching smile, and speculating against its influence with the pertinacity of a man who was determined not to be taken in. That smile haunted me for a week, and it was a long time before I fully comprehended it. I decided, however, to come to the point at once, as respects Bayard and my sister, and not be beating the bush with indirect allusions.

"In what manner can my opinion influence your brother, Miss Bayard?" I asked, as soon as I was ready to say anything. "To prevent misconceptions, let me beg of you to be a little more explicit."

"You can hardly be ignorant of my meaning, I should think!" answered Priscilla, with a little surprise. "One has only to look at the couple before us, to comprehend how your opinion of the gentleman might have an influence on himself, at least."

"The same might be said of us, Miss Bayard, so far as my inexperienced eye can tell. They are a young couple, walking together; the gentleman appearing to admire the lady, I will confess; and we are a young couple walking together, the gentleman appearing to admire the lady, or he does no credit to his taste or sensibility."

"There," said I to myself again, "that is giving her quite as good as I received; let me see how you take that."

Pris took it very well; laughing, and blushing just enough to make her appear the loveliest creature I had ever laid eyes on. She shook her head very much as my sister had done not long before, and disclaimed the analogy, first in her manner, and next with her tongue.

"The cases are very different, sir," she answered. "We are strangers to each other, while Tom Bayard and Kate Littlepage are acquaintances of years' standing. We do not love each other in the least; not a bit, though we are inclined to think very well of each other, on account of the interest we take in the couple before us, and because I am the intimate friend of your only sister, and because you are the only brother of my intimate friend. There, however," and she now spoke with emphasis, "our interest ceases, never to be increased beyond a friendly regard, that I trust will grow up out of our respective merits and respective discernment. It is very, very different with the couple before us;" here, again, the flexible girl spoke with extreme feeling; every tone and cadence of her voice denoting lively sensibility. "They have been long attached, not admirers of each other, as you call it, Major Littlepage, but attached; and your opinion of my brother just at this moment, is of the last importance to him. I hope I have at last made myself understood?"

"Perfectly; and I intend to be just as explicit. In the first place I enter a solemn protest against all that you have said about the 'other couple,' with the exception of the interest we each feel in the brother or sister. Next, I proclaim Kate Littlepage to be her own mistress, so far as her brother Mordaunt is concerned, and lastly, I announce that I see or know nothing in the character, connections, fortune, person, or position of her suitor, Thomas Bayard, of the Hickories, Esquire, that is in the least below her pretensions or merits. I hope that is sufficiently satisfactory?"

"Entirely so; and from the bottom of my heart I thank you for it. I will own I have had some little apprehensions on the subject of Tom's political opinions; but those removed, nothing else can remain to create the smallest uneasiness."

"How is it possible that any of you could consider my notions of so much importance, when Kate has a father, a mother, and a grandmother living, all of whom, as I understand things, approve of her choice?"

"Ah, Mr. Littlepage, you are not conscious of your importance in your own family, I see. I know it better than you appear to know it yourself. Father, mother, grandmother, and sister, all think and speak of Mordaunt alike. To hear the general converse of the war, you would suppose that he had commanded a company, and Captain Littlepage the regiment. Mr. Littlepage defers to Mordaunt's taste, and Mordaunt's opinions, and Mordaunt's judgment, even in housekeeping and hemstitching. Kate is forever saying, 'my brother says this,' 'my brother writes that,' 'my brother does t'other;' and as for the old lady here at the 'Toe,' she would hardly think her peaches and cherries could ripen, unless Mordaunt Littlepage, the son of her son Corny Littlepage--by no accident does she ever call him 'general,'--were on the face of the earth to create an eternal sunshine!"

Was there ever a girl like this! That speech was made too, in the quietest, most gentle, lady-like manner possible. That the young lady had spirit and humor enough, was very apparent; and for a moment I doubted whether both were not accompanied by the most perfect simplicity of character, and the most perfect good faith. Subsequent remarks and occurrences, however, soon revived all my original distrusts.

"This is a vivid picture of family weaknesses, that you have so graphically drawn, Miss Bayard," I answered; "and I shall not easily forget it. What renders it the more lively and pointed, and the more likely to be relished by the world, is the fact that Mordaunt so little deserves the extreme partiality of the friends you have mentioned."

"The last feature forms no part of my picture, Major Littlepage, and I disown it. As for the world, it will never know anything about it. You and I are not the world, nor are we at all likely ever to be the world to each other; I wish you particularly to understand that, which is the reason I am so frank with you on so short an acquaintance. I tell you your opinion is of the last importance to Tom; as your sister would not marry him, did she believe you thought in the least ill of him."

"And she would, did I think well of him?"

"That is a question a lady must answer for herself. And now we will say no more on the subject; for my mind is easy since I find you entertain no political hostility to Tom."

"Men are much less apt to entertain such feelings, I fancy, after they have fairly fought out a quarrel, than when they only talk over its heads. Besides, the winning party is commonly the least rancorous, and success will make us whigs forgiving. I give you my honor, no objection will be raised against your brother, by me, on account of his opinions of the revolution. My dear mother herself has been half a tory the whole war; and Kate, I find, has imbibed all her charity."

A singular, and, as I found, a painful smile, crossed the sweet face of Priscilla Bayard, as I made this remark; but she did not answer it. It seemed to me she was now desirous of quitting the subject entirely, and I immediately led the discourse to other things.

Kate and I remained at Satanstoe several days, and Tom Bayard was a daily visitor; the distance between the Neck and the Hickories being no great matter. I saw the young lady twice during the interval; once, by riding over to her father's residence with that express object; and once when she came across on horseback to see her friend. I confess I was never more at a loss to understand a character than I was that of this young woman. She was either profoundly managing, or as innocent and simple as a child. It was easy to see that her brother, my sister, my grandmother, and, as I fancied, the parents of the young lady herself, were anxious that I should be on as good terms as possible with Pris, as they all called her; though I could not fathom her own feelings on the subject. It would have been unnatural not to have loved to gaze on her exceeding beauty, or not to have admired her extremely graceful and feminine manner, which was precisely all that one could wish it to be in the way of ease and self-possession, without being in the least free or forward; and I did gaze on the one, and admire the other, at the very moment I was most disposed to distrust her sincerity, and to believe her nature the very perfection of art. There were times when I was disposed to fancy this Pris Bayard as profound and skilful an actor as one of her sex, years, and condition in life could well become, without falling altogether; and there were moments, too, when she seemed to be instinct with all the sensitive and best qualities of her sex.

It is scarcely necessary to say I remained heart-whole, under such circumstances, notwithstanding the obvious wishes of my friends, and the young lady's great advantages! A man no more falls blindly in love when he distrusts anything amiss, than he sees anything amiss when he is blindly in love. It has often been a matter of surprise to me, how often and how completely the wisest of the earthly races conspire to deceive themselves. When suspicions are once excited, testimony is not needed; condemnation following much as a logical induction, though founded on nothing better than plausible distrusts; while, on the other hand, where confidence exists, testimony is only too apt to be disregarded. Women, in particular, are peculiarly apt to follow the bias of their affections, rather than of their reasons, in all cases connected with guilt. They are hard to be convinced of the unworthiness of those who belong to them through the affections, because the affections are usually stronger with them than their reasoning powers. How they cling to their priests, for instance, when the cooler heads and greater experience of men condemn, and that merely because their imaginations choose to adorn the offenders with the graces of that religion which they venerate, and on which they rely? He is a shrewd man who can draw the line between the real and the false in these matters; but he is truly a weak one who disregards evidence, when evidence is complete and clear. That we all have our sins and our failings is true, but there are certain marks of unworthiness which are infallible, and which ought never to be disregarded, since they denote the existence of the want of principle that taints a whole character.

CHAPTER V.

"He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick; the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other, too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling."--Beatrice.

The very day my sister and I left Satanstoe, there was an interesting interview between my grandmother and myself, that it may be well to relate. It took place in the cool of the morning, before breakfast, indeed, and previously to the appearance of any of the rest of the party; for Tom Bayard and his sister had again ridden across the country to pass the night and see us off. My grandmother had requested me to meet her thus early, in a sort of little piazza, that modern improvements had annexed to one end of the old buildings, and in which we both appeared accordingly with the utmost punctuality. I saw by a certain sort of importance that my good grandmother wore in her countenance, that she had weighty matters on her mind, and took the chair she had set for me with some little curiosity to learn what was to follow. The chairs were placed side by side, or nearly so, but looking different ways, and so close together that, when seated, we were quite face to face. My grandmother had on her spectacles, and she gazed wistfully through them at me, parting the curls on my forehead, as had been her wont when I was a boy. I saw tears rolling out from behind the glasses, and felt apprehensive I might have said or done something to have wounded the spirit of that excellent and indulgent parent.

"For heaven's sake, grandmother, what can this mean?" I cried. "Have I done anything amiss?"

"No, my child, no; but much to the contrary. You are, and ever have been, a good and dutiful son, not only to your real parents, but to me. But your name ought to have been Hugh--that I will maintain long as I live. I told your father as much when you were born; but he was Mordaunt mad then, as, indeed, he has remained pretty much ever since. Not that Mordaunt is not a good name and a respectable name, and they say it is a noble name in England, but it is a family name, and family names are not for Christian names, at the best. Hugh should have been your name, if I could have had my way; and, if not Hugh, Corny. Well, it is too late for that now, as Mordaunt you are, and Mordaunt you must live and die. Did any one ever tell you, my child, how very, very like you are to your honored grandfather?"

"My mother, frequently--I have seen the tears start into her eyes as she gazed at me, and she has often told me my family name ought to have been Mordaunt, so much do I resemble her father."

"Her father!--Well, Anneke does get some of the strangest conceits into her head! A better woman, or a dearer, does not breathe--I love your mother, my child, quite as much as if she had been born my own daughter; but I must say she does get some of the strangest notions into her head that mortal ever imagined. You like Herman Mordaunt! You are the very image of your grandfather Littlepage, and no more like Herman Mordaunt than you are like the king!"

The revolution was then, and is now, still too recent to prevent these constant allusions to royalty, notwithstanding my grandfather had been as warm a whig as there was in the colonies, from the commencement of the struggle. As for the resemblance spoken of, I have always understood I was a mingled repetition of the two families, as so often happens, a circumstance that enables my different relatives to trace such resemblances as best suit their respective fancies. This was quite convenient, and may have been a reason, in addition to the fact of my being an only son, that I was so great a favorite with the females of my family. My dear old grandmother, who was then in her sixty-ninth year, was so persuaded of my likeness to her late husband, the "old general," as he was now called, that she would not proceed in her communications until she had wiped her eyes, and gratified her affections with another long and wistful gaze.

"Oh, those eyes!" she murmured--"and that forehead!--The mouth, too, and the nose, to say nothing of the smile, which is as much alike as one pea is like another!"

This left very little for the Mordaunts, it must be owned; the chin and ears being pretty much all that were not claimed for the direct line. It is true my eyes were blue, and the "old general's" had been as black as coals; my nose was Grecian, and his a most obtrusive Roman; and as for the mouth, I can only say mine was as like that of my mother's as a man's could well be like a woman's. The last I had heard my father say a thousand times. But no matter; age, and affection, and the longings of the parent, caused my grandmother to see things differently.

"Well, Mordaunt," the good old lady at length continued, "how do you like this choice of your sister Kate's? Mr. Bayard is a charming young man, is he not?"

"Is it then a choice, grandmother? Has Kate actually made up her mind?"

"Pshaw!" answered my grandmother, smiling as archly as if she were sixteen herself--"that was done long ago--and papa approved, and mamma was anxious, and I consented, and sister Anneke was delighted, and everything was as smooth as the beach at the end of the Neck, but waiting for your approbation. 'It would not be right, grandmother, for me to engage myself while Mordaunt is away, and without his even knowing the gentleman; so I will not answer until I get his approbation too,' said Kate. That was very pretty in her, was it not, my child? All your father's children have a sense of propriety!"

"Indeed it was, and I shall not forget it soon. But suppose I had disapproved, what would have followed, grandmother?"

"You should never ask unpleasant questions, saucy fellow; though I dare to say Kate would at least have asked Mr. Bayard to wait until you had changed your mind. Giving him up altogether would be out of the question, and unreasonable; but she might have waited a few months or so, until you changed your mind; and I would have advised her so to do. But all that is unnecessary as matters are; for you have expressed your approbation, and Kate is perfectly happy. The last letter from Lilacsbush, which Jaap brought, gives the formal consent of your dear parents--and what parents you have, my child!--so Kate wrote an acceptance yesterday, and it was as prettily expressed a note as I have seen in many a day. Your own mother could not have done better in her young days; and Anneke Mordaunt worded a note as genteelly as any young woman I ever knew."

"I am glad everything has gone right, and am sure no one can wish the young couple more happiness than I do myself. Kate is a dear, good girl, and I love her as much as a brother can love a sister."

"Is she not? and as thorough a Littlepage as ever was born! I do hope she will be happy. All the marriages in our family have proved so hitherto, and it would be strange if this should turn out differently. Well, now, Mordaunt, when Kate is married, you will be the only one left."

"That is true, grandmother; and you must be glad to find there will be one of us left to come and see you, without bringing nurses and children at his heels."

"I!--I glad of anything of the sort! No, indeed, my child; I should be sorry enough did I think for a moment, you would not marry as soon as is prudent, now that the war is over. As for the children, I dote on them; and I have ever thought it a misfortune that the Littlepages have had so few, especially sons. Your grandfather, my general, was an only son; your father was an only son; and you are an only son; that is, so far as coming to men's estates are, or were concerned. No, Mordaunt, my child, it is the warmest wish of my heart to see you properly married, and to hold the Littlepages of the next generation in my arms. Two of you I have had there already, and I shall have lived the life of the blessed to be able to hold the third."

"My dear, good grandmother!--what am I to understand by all this?"

"That I wish you to marry, my child, now that the war is ended; that your father wishes you to marry; that your mother wishes you to marry; and that your sister wishes you to marry."

"And all of you wish me to marry the same person? Is it not so?"

My grandmother smiled, but she fidgeted; fancying, as I suspected, that she had been pushing matters a little too fast. It was not easy, however, for one of her truth and simplicity of character to recede after having gone so far; and she wisely determined to have no reserves with me on the subject.

"I believe you are right, Mordaunt," she answered, after a short pause. "We do all wish you to fall in love as soon as you can; to propose as soon as you are in love; and to marry Priscilla Bayard, the instant she will consent to have you."

"This is honest, and like yourself, my dear grandmother; and now we both know what is intended, and can speak plainly. In the first place, do you not think one connection of this sort, between families, quite sufficient? If Kate marry the brother, may I not be excused for overlooking the attractions of the sister?"

"Priscilla Bayard is one of the loveliest girls in York Colony, Mordaunt Littlepage!"

"We call this part of the world York State, now, dearest grandmother. I am far from denying the truth of what you say;--Priscilla Bayard is very lovely."

"I do not know what more you can wish, than to get such a girl."

"I shall not say that the time will not come when I may be glad to obtain the consent of the young lady to become my wife; but that time has not yet arrived. Then, I question the expediency, when friends greatly desire any particular match, of saying too much about it."

My poor grandmother looked quite astounded, like one who felt she had innocently done mischief; and she sat gazing fondly at me, with the expression of a penitent child painted in her venerated countenance.

"Nevertheless, Mordaunt, I had a great share in bringing about the union between your own dear parents," she at length answered; "and that has been one of the happiest marriages I have ever known!"

I had often heard allusions of this nature, and I had several times observed the quiet smile of my mother, as she listened to them; smiles that seemed to contradict the opinion to which my grandmother's mistaken notions of her own influence had given birth. On one occasion (I was still quite a boy), I remember to have asked my mother how the fact was, when the answer was, "I married your father through the influence of a butcher's boy;" a reply that had some reference to a very early passage in the lives of my parents. But I well know that Cornelius Littlepage, nor Anneke Mordaunt, was a person to be coaxed into matrimony; and I resolved on the spot, their only son should manifest an equal independence. I might have answered my grandmother to this effect, and in language stronger than was my practice when addressing that reverend parent, had not the two girls appeared on the piazza at that moment, and broke up our private conference.

Sooth to say, Priscilla Bayard came forth upon me, that morning, with something like the radiance of the rising sun. Both the girls had that fresh, attractive look, that is apt to belong to the toilets of early risers of their sex, and which probably renders them handsomer at that hour, than at any other part of the day. My own sister was a very charming girl, as any one would allow; but her friend was decidedly beautiful. I confess I found it a little difficult not to give in on the spot, and to whisper my anxious grandmother that I would pay proper attention to the young lady, and make an offer at the suitable time, as she advanced toward us, exchanging the morning salutations, with just enough of ease to render her perfectly graceful, and yet with a modesty and retenue that were infinitely winning.

"Mordaunt is about to quit me, for the whole summer, Miss Bayard," said my grandmother, who would be doing while there was a chance; "and I have had him out here, to converse a little together, before we part. Kate I shall see often during the pleasant season, I trust; but this is to be the last of Mordaunt until the cold weather return."

"Is Mr. Littlepage going to travel?" inquired the young lady, with just as much interest as good breeding demanded, and not a particle more; "for Lilacsbush is not so distant, but he might ride over once a week, at least, to inquire how you do."

"Oh, he is going a great, great distance, and to a part of the world I dread to think of!"

Miss Bayard now looked really startled, and a good deal astonished, questioning me with her very fine eyes, though she said nothing with her tongue of Coejemans, who bears this appellation, and who has contracted to get the necessary surveys made, though he fills the humble post of a 'chainbearer' himself, not being competent to make the calculations.

"How can a mere chainbearer contract for a full survey?" asked Tom Bayard, who had joined the party, and had been listening to the discourse. "The chainbearers, in general, are but common laborers, and are perfectly irresponsible."

"That is true, as a rule; but my old friend forms an exception. He set out for a surveyor, but having no head for sines, and co-sines, and tangents, he was obliged to lower his pretensions to the humbler duty he now discharges. Still, he has long contracted for jobs of this nature, and gets as much as he can do, hiring surveyors himself, the owners of property having the utmost confidence in his measurements. Let me tell you, the man who carries chain is not the least important member of a surveying party in the woods. Old Andries is as honest as noon-day, and everybody has faith in him."

"His true name is Coejemans, I think you said, Major Littlepage?" asked Priscilla, as it struck me assuming an air of indifference.

"It is, Andries Coejemans; and his family is reputable, if not absolutely of a high caste. But the old man is so inveterate a woodsman, that nothing but patriotism, and his whig propensities, could have drawn him out into the open country. After serving most gallantly through the whole war, he has gone back to his chains; and many is the joke he has about remaining still in chains, after fighting so long and so often in the cause of liberty."

Priscilla appeared to hesitate--I thought her color increased a little--then she asked the question that was apparently uppermost in her thoughts, with surprising steadiness.

"Did you ever see the 'Chainbearer's niece, Dus Malbone?"

This question not a little surprised me; for, though I had never seen Ursula, the uncle had talked so much to me of his ward, that I almost fancied she was an intimate acquaintance. It often happens that we hear so much of certain persons, that we think and speak of them as of those we know; and had Miss Bayard questioned me of one of my late comrades in the service, I should not have been a whit more startled than I was at hearing her pronounce the familiar name of Dus Malbone.

"Where, in the name of all that is curious, did you ever hear of such a person!" I exclaimed, a little inconsiderately, since the world was certainly wide enough to admit of two young women's being acquainted, without my consent; more especially as one of them I had never seen, and the other I had met, for the first time, only a fortnight before. "Old Andries was always speaking to me of his niece; but I could not suppose she was an acquaintance of one of your position in life!"

"Notwithstanding, we were something more than school-fellows;--for we were, and I trust are still very, very good friends. I like Dus exceedingly, though she is quite as singular, in her way, as I have heard her uncle described to be, in his."

"This is odd! Will you allow me to ask one question? You will think it singular, perhaps, after what you have just told me--but curiosity will get the better of my manners--is Dus Malbone a lady--the equal and companion of such a person as Miss Priscilla Bayard?"

"That is a question not so easily answered, perhaps; since, in some respects, she is greatly the superior of any young woman I know. Her family, I have always heard, was very good on both sides; she is poor, poor even to poverty, I fear now." Here Pris. paused; there was a tremor in her voice, even, and I detected tears starting to her eyes. "Poor Dus!" she continued--"she had much to support, in the way of poverty, even while at school; where she was, indeed, as a dependent, rather than as a boarder; but no one among us all, could presume to offer her favors. I was afraid even to ask her to accept a ribbon, as I should not hesitate to do to Kate here, or any other young lady with whom I was intimate. I never knew a nobler-minded girl than Ursula Malbone, though few persons understand her, I think."

"This is old Andries over again! He was poor enough, heaven knows; and I have known him actually suffer, in order to do his duty by this girl, and to make a proper appearance at the same time, as a captain in the New York line; yet none of us, not even my father, could ever induce him to borrow a single dollar. He would give, but he would not receive."

"I can believe this readily, it is so like Dus! If she has her peculiarities, she has noble qualities enough to redeem of Coejemans, who bears this appellation, and who has contracted to get the necessary surveys made, though he fills the humble post of a 'chainbearer' himself, not being competent to make the calculations."

"How can a mere chainbearer contract for a full survey?" asked Tom Bayard, who had joined the party, and had been listening to the discourse. "The chainbearers, in general, are but common laborers, and are perfectly irresponsible."

"That is true, as a rule; but my old friend forms an exception. He set out for a surveyor, but having no head for sines, and co-sines, and tangents, he was obliged to lower his pretensions to the humbler duty he now discharges. Still, he has long contracted for jobs of this nature, and gets as much as he can do, hiring surveyors himself, the owners of property having the utmost confidence in his measurements. Let me tell you, the man who carries chain is not the least important member of a surveying party in the woods. Old Andries is as honest as noon-day, and everybody has faith in him."

"His true name is Coejemans, I think you said, Major Littlepage?" asked Priscilla, as it struck me assuming an air of indifference.

"It is, Andries Coejemans; and his family is reputable, if not absolutely of a high caste. But the old man is so inveterate a woodsman, that nothing but patriotism, and his whig propensities, could have drawn him out into the open country. After serving most gallantly through the whole war, he has gone back to his chains; and many is the joke he has about remaining still in chains, after fighting so long and so often in the cause of liberty."

Priscilla appeared to hesitate--I thought her color increased a little--then she asked the question that was apparently uppermost in her thoughts, with surprising steadiness.

"Did you ever see the 'Chainbearer's' niece, Dus Malbone?"

This question not a little surprised me; for, though I had never seen Ursula, the uncle had talked so much to me of his ward, that I almost fancied she was an intimate acquaintance. It often happens that we hear so much of certain persons, that we think and speak of them as of those we know; and had Miss Bayard questioned me of one of my late comrades in the service, I should not have been a whit more startled than I was at hearing her pronounce the familiar name of Dus Malbone.

"Where, in the name of all that is curious, did you ever hear of such a person!" I exclaimed, a little inconsiderately, since the world was certainly wide enough to admit of two young women's being acquainted, without my consent; more especially as one of them I had never seen, and the other I had met, for the first time, only a fortnight before. "Old Andries was always speaking to me of his niece; but I could not suppose she was an acquaintance of one of your position in life!"

"Notwithstanding, we were something more than school-fellows;--for we were, and I trust are still very, very good friends. I like Dus exceedingly, though she is quite as singular, in her way, as I have heard her uncle described to be, in his."

"This is odd! Will you allow me to ask one question? You will think it singular, perhaps, after what you have just told me--but curiosity will get the better of my manners--is Dus Malbone a lady--the equal and companion of such a person as Miss Priscilla Bayard?"

"That is a question not so easily answered, perhaps; since, in some respects, she is greatly the superior of any young woman I know. Her family, I have always heard, was very good on both sides; she is poor, poor even to poverty, I fear now." Here Pris. paused; there was a tremor in her voice, even, and I detected tears starting to her eyes. "Poor Dus!" she continued--"she had much to support, in the way of poverty, even while at school; where she was, indeed, as a dependent, rather than as a boarder; but no one among us all, could presume to offer her favors. I was afraid even to ask her to accept a ribbon, as I should not hesitate to do to Kate here, or any other young lady with whom I was intimate. I never knew a nobler-minded girl than Ursula Malbone, though few persons understand her, I think."

"This is old Andries over again! He was poor enough, heaven knows; and I have known him actually suffer, in order to do his duty by this girl, and to make a proper appearance at the same time, as a captain in the New York line; yet none of us, not even my father, could ever induce him to borrow a single dollar. He would give, but he would not receive."

"I can believe this readily, it is so like Dus! If she has her peculiarities, she has noble qualities enough to redeem a thousand foibles. Still, I would not have you to think Ursula Malbone is not an excellent creature in all respects, though she certainly has her peculiarities."

"Which, doubtless, she has inherited from the Coejemans, as her uncle, the Chainbearer, has his peculiarities, too."

"The Malbones have none of the blood of the Coejemans," answered the lady, quickly; "though it is respectable, and not to be ashamed of. Dus Malbone's mother was only half-sister to Captain Coejemans, and they had different fathers."

I thought Pris. looked a little confused, and as if she were sorry she had said so much on the subject at all, the instant she had betrayed so much intimacy with the Malbone genealogy; for she shrunk back, plucked a rose, and walked away smelling the flower, like one who was indisposed to say any more on the subject. A summons to breakfast, however, would otherwise have interrupted us, and no more was said about the Chainbearer, and his marvellous niece, Dus Malbone. As soon as the meal was ended, our horses were brought round, and Kate and I took our leave, Jaap having preceded us as usual, an hour or more, with our luggage. The reader is not to suppose that we always moved in the saddle, in that day; on the contrary, my mother had a very neat chaise, in which she used to drive about the country, with a mounted postilion; my father had a phaeton, and in town we actually kept a chariot; for the union of the Mordaunt and Littlepage properties had made us very comfortable, and comfortably we lived. But young ladies liked the saddle twenty-five years ago, more than they do to-day; and Kate, being a capital horse-woman, like her mother, before her, we were often out together. It was choice, then, and not necessity, a little aided by bad roads, perhaps, that induced us to ride across to Satanstoe so often, when we wished to visit our grandmother.

I kissed my dear old parent very affectionately at parting, for I was to see her no more that summer; and I got her blessing in return. As for Tom Bayard, a warm, brotherly shake of the hand sufficed, inasmuch as it was pretty certain I should see him at Lilacsbush before I left home. Approaching his sister, who held out her hand to me, in a friendly manner, I said as I took it--

"I hope this is not the last time I am to see you before I start for the new countries, Miss Bayard. You owe my sister a visit, I believe, and I shall trust to that debt for another opportunity of saying the unpleasant word 'farewell.'"

"This is not the way to win a lady's heart, Mordaunt," cried Kate, gayly. "It is only fifteen miles from your father's door to the Hickories, you ought to know, sir; and you have a standing invitation to darken its door with your military form."

"From both my father and brother"--put in Priscilla, a little hastily. "They will always be happy to see Major Littlepage, most certainly."

"And why not from yourself, Miss Prude," added Kate, who seemed bent on causing her friend some confusion. "We are not now such total strangers to each other as to render that little grace improper."

"When I am mistress of a house of my own, should that day ever arrive, I shall take care not to lose my reputation for hospitality," answered Pris., determined not to be caught, "by neglecting to include all the Littlepage family in my invitations. Until then, Tom's and papa's welcomes must suffice."

The girl looked amazingly lovely all the time, and stood the smiles of those around her with a self-possession that showed me she knew perfectly well what she was about. I was never more at a loss how to understand a young woman, and it is very possible, had I remained near her for a month longer, the interest such uncertainty is apt to awaken might have sent me away desperately in love. But Providence had determined otherwise.

During our ride toward the 'Bush, my sister, with proper blushes and a becoming hesitation, let me into the secret of her having accepted Tom Bayard. They were not to be married until after my return from the north, an event that was expected to take place in the ensuing autumn.

"Then I am to lose you, Kate, almost as soon as I find you," I said, a little despondingly.

"Not lose me, brother; no, no, not lose me, but find me, more than ever. I am to be transplanted into a family whither you will soon be coming to seek a wife yourself."

"Were I to come, what reason have I for supposing it would be successful?"

"That is a question you have no right to ask. Did I even know of any particular reason for believing your reception would be favorable, you cannot believe me sufficiently treacherous to betray my friend. Young ladies are not of the facility of character you seem to suppose, sir; and no method but the direct one will succeed. I have no other reason for believing you would succeed than the facts that you are an agreeable, good-looking youth, however, of unexceptionable family and fortune, living quite near the Hickories, and of a suitable age, temper, habits, character, etc., etc., etc. Are not these reasons sufficient to encourage you to persevere, my brave major?"

"Perseverance implies commencement, and I have not yet commenced. I scarcely know what to make of your friend, child; she is either the perfection of nature and simplicity, or the perfection of art."

"Art! Pris. Bayard artful! Mordaunt, you never did a human being greater injustice; a child cannot have greater truth and sincerity than Tom's sister."

"Ay, that's just it; Tom's sister is ex officio perfection; but, you will please to remember that some children are very artful. All I can say on the subject at present is, that I like Tom, and I like his parents; but I do not know what to think of your friend."

Kate was a little offended, so she made me no answer. Her good humor returned, however, before we had gone far, and the rest of our ride passed pleasantly enough, no allusions being made to any of the name of Bayard; though, I dare say, my companion thought a great deal of a certain Tom, of that name, as I certainly did of his handsome and inexplicable sister.

At the Kingsbridge Inn we had another short brush with that untiring gossip, its landlady.

"A pleasant time it has been over at the 'Toe, I dares to say," exclaimed Mrs. Light, the instant she thrust her head out of the door; "a most agreeable and amusing time both for the young gentleman and for the young lady. Mr. Thomas Bayard and Miss Pris. Bayard have been with you, days and days, and old Madam Littlepage is delighted. Oh! the 'Toe has always been a happy house, and happy faces have I long been used to see come out of it, and happy faces do I see to-day! Yes, yes; the 'Toe has always sent happy, contented faces down the road; and a happy roof it has been, by all accounts, these hundred years."

I dare say this was all true enough. I have always heard that the old place contained contented hearts; and contented hearts make happy faces. Kate's face was happiness itself, as she sat in the saddle listening to the crone; and my countenance is not one of ill-nature. The "'Toe was ever a happy house!" It recalls old times, to hear a house thus familiarly spoken of; for a set is rising up among us which is vastly too genteel to admit that any one--man, woman, child, or Satan, ever had a member so homely as a 'Toe.

CHAPTER VI.

"They love their land, because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty;
A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none,
Such are they nurtured, such they live and die;
All but a few apostates, who are meddling
With merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence and peddling."

--Halleck.

A day or two after my return to Lilacsbush, was presented one of these family scenes which are so common in the genial month of June, on the shores of the glorious old Hudson. I call the river the old Hudson, for it is quite as old as the Tiber, though the world has not talked of it as much, or as long. A thousand years hence, this stream will be known over the whole earth; and men will speak of it as they now speak of the Danube and the Rhine. As good wine may not be made on its banks as is made on the acclivities of the latter river; but, even to-day, better, both as to quality and variety, is actually drunk. On this last point, all intelligent travellers agree.

There stands a noble linden on the lawn of Lilacsbush, at no great distance from the house, and necessarily within a short distance of the water. The tree had been planted there by my grandmother Mordaunt's father, to whom the place once belonged; and was admirably placed for the purposes of an afternoon's lounge. Beneath its shade we often took our dessert and wine, in the warm months; and thither, since their return from the army, General Littlepage and Colonel Dirck Follock used to carry their pipes, and smoke over a campaign, or a bottle, as chance directed the discourse. For that matter, no battle-field had ever been so veiled in smoke, as would have been the case with the linden in question, could there have been a concentration of all the vapor it had seen.

The afternoon of the day just mentioned, the whole family were seated beneath the tree, scattered round, as shade and inclination tempted; though a small table, holding fruits and wine, showed that the usual business of the hour had not been neglected. The wines were Madeira and claret, those common beverages in the country; and the fruits were strawberries, cherries, oranges and figs; the two last imported, of course. It was a little too early for us to get pines from the islands, a fruit which is so common in its season as to be readily purchased in town at the rate of four of a good size for a dollar. But, the abundance, and even luxury, of a better sort of the common American tables, is no news; viands, liquors and fruits appearing on them, that are only known to the very rich and very luxurious in the countries of Europe. If the service were only as tasteful, and the cooking as good with us, as both are in France, for instance, America would be the very paradise of the epicure, let superficial travellers say what they please to the contrary. I have been abroad in these later times, and speak of what I know.

No one sat at the table, though my father, Colonel

Dirck, and I were near enough to reach our glasses, at need. My mother was next to me, and reasonably close; for I did not smoke, while aunt Mary and Kate had taken post just without the influence of the tobacco. On the shore was a large skiff, that contained a tolerably sized trunk or two, and a sort of clothes-bag. In the first were a portion of my clothes, while those of Jaap filled the bag. The negro himself was stretched on the grass, about half-way between the tree and the shore, with two or three of his grandchildren rolling about, at his feet. In the skiff was his son, seated in readiness to use the sculls, as soon as ordered.

All this arrangement denoted my approaching departure for the north. The wind was at the south, and sloops of various degrees of promise and speed were appearing round the points, coming on one in the wake of another, as each had been able to quit the wharves to profit by the breeze. In that day, the river had not a tenth part of the craft it now possesses; but still, it had enough to make a little fleet, so near town, and at a moment when wind and tide both became favorable. At that time, most of the craft on the Hudson belonged up the river, and they partook largely of the taste of our Dutch ancestors. Notable travellers before the gales, they did very little with foul winds, generally requiring from a week to a fortnight to tide it down from Albany, with the wind at all from the south. Nevertheless, few persons thought of making the journey between the two largest towns of the state (York and Albany), without having recourse to one of these sloops. I was at that moment in waiting for the appearance of a certain "Eagle, of Albany, Captain Bogert," which was to run in close to Lilacsbush, and receive me on board, agreeably to an arrangement previously made in town. I was induced to take a passage in this vessel from the circumstance that she had a sort of after-cabin that was screened by an ample green curtain, an advantage that all the vessels which then plied on the river did not possess; though great improvements have been making ever since the period of which I am now writing.

Of course, the interval thus passed in waiting for the appearance of the Eagle was filled up, more or less, by discourse. Jaap, who was to accompany me in my journey to Ravensnest, knew every vessel on the river, as soon as he could see her, and we depended on him to let us know when I was to embark, though the movements of the sloop herself could not fail to give us timely notice of the necessity of taking leave.

"I should like exceedingly to pay a visit to old Mrs. Vander Heyden, at Kinderhook, Mordaunt," said my mother, after one of the frequent pauses that occurred in the discourse. "She is a relation, and I feel a great regard for her; so much the more, from the circumstance of her being associated in my mind with that frightful night on the river, of which you have heard me speak."

As my mother ceased speaking, she glanced affectionately toward the general, who returned the look, as he returned all my mother's looks, with one filled with manly tenderness. A more united couple than my parents never existed. They seemed to me ordinarily to have but one mind between them; and when there did occur any slight difference of opinion, the question was not which should prevail, but which should yield. Of the two, my mother may have had the most native intellect, though the general was a fine, manly, sensible person, and was very universally respected.

"It might be well, Anneke," said my father, "if the major were to pay a visit to poor Guert's grave, and see if the stones are up, and that the place is kept as it should be. I have not been there since the year '68, when it looked as if a friendly eye might do some good at no distant day."

This was said in a low voice, purposely to prevent aunt Mary from hearing it; and, as she was a little deaf, it is probable the intention was successful. Not so, however, with Colonel Dirck, who drew the pipe from his mouth, and sat attentively listening, in the manner of one who felt great interest in the subject. Another pause succeeded.

"T'en t'ere ist my Lort Howe, Corny," observed the colonel, "how is it wit' his grave?"

"Oh! the colony took good care of that. They buried him in the main aisle of St. Peter's, I believe; and no doubt all is right with him. As for the other, major, it might be well to look at it."

"Great changes have taken place at Albany, since we were there as young people!" observed my mother, thoughtfully. "The Cuylers are much broken up by the revolution, while the Schuylers have grown greater than ever. Poor aunt Schuyler, she is no longer living to welcome a son of ours!"

"Time will bring about such changes, my love; and we can only be thankful that so many of us remain, after so long and bloody a war."

I saw my mother's lips move, and I knew she was murmuring a thanksgiving to the power which had preserved her husband and son through the late struggle.

"You will write as often as opportunities occur, Mordaunt," said that dear parent, after a longer pause than usual. "Now there is peace, I can hope to get your letters with some little regularity."

"They tell me, cousin Anneke"--for so the colonel always called my mother when we were alone--"They tell me, cousin Anneke," said Colonel Dirck, "t'at t'ey actually mean to have a mail t'ree times a week petween Alpany and York! T'ere ist no knowing, general, what t'is glorious revolution will not do for us!"

"If it bring me letters three times a week from those I love," rejoined my mother, "I am sure my patriotism will be greatly increased. How will letters get out from Ravensnest to the older parts of the colony--I should say state, Mordaunt?"

"I must trust to the settlers for that. Hundreds of Yankees, they tell me, are out looking for farms this summer. I may use some of them for messengers."

"Don't trust 'em too much, or too many"--growled Colonel Dirck, who had the old Dutch grudge against our eastern brethren. "See how they behav't to Schuyler."

"Yes," said my father, replenishing his pipe, "they might have manifested more justice and less prejudice to wise Philip; but prejudices will exist, all over the world. Even Washington has had his share."

"T'at is a great man!" exclaimed Colonel Dirck, with emphasis, and in the manner of one who felt certain of his point. "A ferry great man!"

"No one will dispute with you, colonel, on that subject; but have you no message to send to our old comrade, Andries Coejemans? He must have been at Mooseridge, with his party of surveyors, now near a twelvemonth, and I'll warrant you has thoroughly looked up the old boundaries, so as to be ready for Mordaunt to start afresh as soon as the boy reaches the patent."

"I hope he has not hiret a Yankee surveyor, Corny," put in the colonel, in some little alarm. "If one of t'em animals gets upon the tract, he will manage to carry off half of the lant in his compass-box! I hope olt Andries knows petter."

"I dare say he'll manage to keep all the land, as well as to survey it. It is a thousand pities the captain has no head for figures; for his honesty would have made his fortune. But I have seen him tried, and know it will not do. He was a week once making up an account of some stores received from head-quarters, and the nearest he could get to the result was twenty-five per cent. out of the way."

"I would sooner trust Andries Coejemans to survey my property, figures or no figures," cried Colonel Dirck, positively, "than any dominie in New England."

"Well, that is as one thinks," returned my father, tasting the Madeira. "For my part, I shall be satisfied with the surveyor he may happen to select, even though he should be a Yankee. Andries is shrewd, if he be no calculator; and I dare to say he has engaged a suitable man. Having taken the job at a liberal price, he is too honest a fellow not to hire a proper person to do the head-work. As for all the rest, I would trust him as soon as I would trust any man in America."

"T'at is gospel. Mordaunt will haf an eye on matters too, seein' he has so great an interest in the estate. T'ere is one t'ing, major, you must not forget. Five hundred goot acres must be surveyed off for sister Anneke, and five hundred for pretty Kate, here. As soon as t'at is done, the general and I will give each of the gals a deet."

"Thank you, Dirck," said my father, with feeling. "I'll not refuse the land for the girls, who may be glad enough to own it some time or other."

"It's no great matter now, Corny; put, as you say, it may be of use one day. Suppose we make old Andries a present of a farm, in his pargain."

"With all my heart," cried my father, quickly. "A couple of hundred acres might make him comfortable for the rest of his days. I thank you for the hint, Dirck, and we will let Mordaunt choose the lot, and send us the description, that we may prepare the deed."

"You forget, general, that the Chainbearer has, or will have his military lot, as a captain," I ventured to remark. "Besides, land will be of little use to him, unless it might be to measure it. I doubt if the old man would not prefer going without his dinner, to hoeing a hill of potatoes."

"Andries had three slaves while he was with us; a man, a woman, and their daughter," returned my father. "He would not sell them, he said, on any consideration; and I have known him actually suffering for money when he was too proud to accept it from his friends, and too benevolent to part with family slaves, in order to raise it. 'They were born Coejemans,' he always said, 'as much as I was born one myself, and they shall die Coejemans.' He doubtless has these people with him, at the Ridge, where you will find them all encamped, near some spring, with garden-stuff and other small things growing around him, if he can find open land enough for such a purpose. He has permission to cut and till at pleasure."

"This is agreeable news to me, general," I answered, "since it promises a sort of home. If the Chainbearer has really these blacks with him, and has hutted judiciously, I dare say we shall have quite as comfortable a time as many of those we passed together in camp. Then, I shall carry my flute with me; for Miss Priscilla Bayard has given me reason to expect a very wonderful creature in Dus, the niece, of which old Andries used to talk so much. You remember to have heard the Chainbearer speak of such a person, I dare say, sir; for he was quite fond of mentioning her."

"Perfectly well; Dus Malbone was a sort of toast among the young men of the regiment at one time, though no one of them all ever could get a sight of her, by hook or by crook."

Happening to turn my head at that moment, I found my dear mother's eyes turned curiously on me; brought there, I fancy, by the allusion to Tom's sister.

"What does Priscilla Bayard know of this Chainbearer's niece?" that beloved parent asked, as soon as she perceived that her look had attracted my attention.

"A great deal, it would seem; since she tells me they are fast friends; quite as great, I should judge from Miss Bayard's language and manner, as Kate and herself."

"That can scarcely be," returned my mother, slightly smiling, "since there the principal reason must be wanting. Then, this Dus can hardly be Priscilla Bayard's equal."

"One never knows such a thing, mother, until he has had an opportunity of making comparisons; though Miss Bayard herself says Dus is much her superior in many things. I am sure her uncle is my superior in some respects; in carrying chain, particularly so."

"Ay, but scarcely in station, Mordaunt."

"He was the senior captain of the regiment."

"True; but revolutions are revolutions. What I mean is, that your Chainbearer can hardly be a gentleman."

"That is a point not to be decided in a breath. He is, and he is not. Old Andries is of a respectable family, though but indifferently educated. Men vastly his inferiors in birth, in habits, in the general notions of the caste, in the New England States, are greatly his superiors in knowledge. Nevertheless, while we must all admit how necessary a certain amount of education has become, at the present time, to make a gentleman, I think every gentleman will allow hundreds among us have degrees in their pockets with small claims to belong to the class. Three or four centuries ago, I should have answered that old Andries was a gentleman, though he had to bite the wax with his teeth and make a cross, for want of a better signature."

"And he what you call a chainbearer, Mordaunt!" exclaimed my sister.

"As well as late senior captain in your father's regiment, Miss Littlepage. But, no matter, Andries and Dus are such as they are, and I shall be glad to have them for companions this summer. Jaap is making signals, and I must quit you all. Heigho! It is very pleasant here, under this linden, and home begins to entwine its fibres around my heart. Never mind; it will soon be autumn, and I shall see the whole of you, I trust, as I leave you, well and happy in town."

My dear, dear mother had tears in her eyes, when she embraced me; so had Kate, who, though she did love Tom Bayard most, loved me very warmly too. Aunt Mary kissed me, in her quiet but affectionate way; and I shook hands with the gentlemen, who accompanied me down to the boat. I could see that my father was affected. Had the war still continued, he would have thought nothing of the separation; but in that piping time of peace it seemed to come unseasonably.

"Now don't forget the great lots for Anneke and Katrinke," said Colonel Dirck, as we descended to the shore. "Let Andries pick out some of the best of the lant, t'at is well watered and timbered, and we'll call the lots after the gals; that is a goot idea, Corny."

"Excellent, my friend. Mordaunt, my son, if you come across any places that look like graves, I wish you would set up marks by which they may be known. It is true, a quarter of a century or more makes many changes in the woods; and it is quite likely no such remains will be found."

"A quarter of a century in the American forests, sir," I answered, "is somewhat like the same period in the wanderings of a comet; lost, in the numberless years of its growth. A single tree will sometimes outlast the generations of an entire nation."

"You wilt rememper, Mordaunt, that I wilt haf no Yankee tenants on my estate. Your father may lease 'em one-half of a lot, if he please; but I will not lease t'other."

"As you are tenants in common, gentlemen," I answered, smiling, "it will not be easy to separate the interests in this manner. I believe I understand you, however; I am to sell the lands of Mooseridge, or covenant to sell, as your attorney, while I follow out my grandfather Mordaunt's ideas, and lease those that are not yet leased, on my own estate. This will at least give the settlers a choice, and those who do not like one plan of obtaining their farms may adopt the other."

I now shook hands again with the gentlemen, and stepping into the skiff, we pulled away from the shore. Jaap had made this movement in good season, and we were compelled to row a quarter of a mile down the river to meet the sloop. Although the wind was perfectly fair, it was not so fresh as to induce Mr. Bogert to round-to; but throwing us a rope, it was caught, when we were safely transferred, bag and baggage, to the decks of the Eagle.

Captain Bogert was smoking at the helm, when he returned my salute. Removing the pipe, after a puff or two, he pointed with the stem toward the group on the shore, and inquired if I wished to say "good-by."

"Allponny"--so the Dutch were wont to pronounce the name of their town in the last century--"is a long way off," he said, "and maype you woult like to see the frients ag'in."

This business of waving hats and handkerchiefs is a regular thing on the Hudson, and I expressed my willingness to comply with the usage, as a matter of course.[5] In consequence, Mr. Bogert deliberately sheered in toward the shore, and I saw the whole family collecting on a low rock, near the water, to take the final look. In the background stood the Satanstoes, a dark, woolly group, including Mrs. Jaap, and two generations of descendants. The whites were weeping; that is to say, my dear mother and Kate; and the blacks were laughing, though the old lady kept her teeth to herself about as much as she exposed them. A sensation almost invariably produces laughter with a negro, the only exceptions being on occasions of singular gravity.

I believe, if the truth were known, Mr. Bogert greatly exulted in the stately movement of his sloop, as she brushed along the shore, at no great distance from the rocks, with her main-boom guyed out to starboard, and studding-sail boom to port. The flying-topsail, too, was set; and the Eagle might be said to be moving in all her glory. She went so near the rocks, too, as if she despised danger! Those were not the days of close calculations that have succeeded. Then, an Albany skipper did not mind losing a hundred or two feet of distance in making his run; whereas, now, it would not be an easy matter to persuade a Liverpool trader to turn as much aside in order to speak a stranger in the centre of the Atlantic; unless, indeed, he happened to want to get the other's longitude.

As the sloop swept past the rocks, I got bows, waving of hats and handkerchiefs, and good wishes enough to last the whole voyage. Even Jaap had his share; and "good-by, Jaap," came to my ears, from even the sweet voice of Kate. Away we went, in stately Dutch movement, slow but sure. In ten minutes Lilacsbush was behind us, and I was once more alone in the world, for months to come.

There was now time to look about me, and to ascertain who were my companions in this voyage. The skipper and crew were as usual the masters; and the pilots, both whites, and both of Dutch extraction, an old wrinkled negro, who had passed his life on the Hudson as a foremast hand, and two younger blacks, one of whom was what was dignified with the name of cabin-steward. Then there were numerous passengers; some of whom appeared to belong to the upper classes. They were of both sexes, but all were strangers to me. On the main-deck were six or eight sturdy, decent, quiet, respectable-looking laborers, who were evidently of the class of husbandmen. Their packs were lying in a pile, near the foot of the mast, and I did not fail to observe that there were as many axes as there were packs.

The American axe! It has made more real and lasting conquests than the sword of any warlike people that ever lived; but they have been conquests that have left civilization in their train instead of havoc and desolation. More than a million of square miles of territory[6] have been opened up from the shades of the virgin forest, to admit the warmth of the sun; and culture and abundance have been spread where the beast of the forest so lately roamed, hunted by the savage. Most of this, too, has been effected between the day when I went on board the Eagle, and that on which I am now writing. A brief quarter of a century has seen these wonderful changes wrought; and at the bottom of them all lies this beautiful, well-prized, ready and efficient implement, the American axe!

It would not be easy to give the reader a clear notion of the manner in which the young men and men of all ages of the older portions of the new republic poured into the woods to commence the business of felling the forests, and laying bare the secrets of nature, as soon as the nation rose from beneath the pressure of war, to enjoy the freedom of peace. The history of that day in New York, which State led the van in the righteous strife of improvement, and has ever since so nobly maintained its vantage-ground, has not yet been written. When it is properly recorded names will be rescued from oblivion that better deserve statues and niches in the temple of national glory, than those of many who have merely got the start of them by means of the greater facility with which the public mind is led away in the train of brilliant exploits, than it is made sensible of the merits of those that are humane and useful.

It was not usual for settlers, as it has become the practice to term those who first take up and establish themselves on new lands, to make their journeys from the neighborhood of the sea to the interior, other than by land; but a few passed out of Connecticut by the way of New York, and thence up the river in sloops. Of this character were those found on board the Eagle. In all, we had seven of these men, who got into discourse with me the first day of our passage, and I was a little surprised at discovering how much they already knew of me, and of my movements. Jaap, however, soon suggested himself to my mind, as the probable means of the intelligence they had gleaned; and, on inquiry, such I ascertained was the fact.

The curiosity and the questioning propensities of the people of New England, have been so generally admitted by writers and commentators on American character, that I suppose one has a right to assume the truth of these characteristics. I have heard various ways of accounting for them; and among others, the circumstances of their disposition to emigrate, which brings with it the necessity of inquiring after the welfare of friends at a distance. It appears to me, however, this is taking a very narrow view of the cause, which I attribute to the general activity of mind among a people little restrained by the conventional usages of more sophisticated conditions of society. The practice of referring so much to the common mind, too, has a great influence on all the opinions of this peculiar portion of the American population, seeming to confer the right to inquire into matters that are elsewhere protected by the sacred feeling of individual privacy.

Let this be as it might, my axe-men had contrived to get out of Jaap all he knew about Ravensnest and Mooseridge, as well as my motives in making the present journey. This information obtained, they were not slow in introducing themselves to me, and of asking the questions that were uppermost in their minds. Of course, I made such answers as were called for by the case, and we established a sort of business acquaintance between us, the very first day. The voyage lasting several days, by the time we reached Albany, pretty much all that could be said on such a subject had been uttered by one side or the other.

As respected Ravensnest, my own property, my grandfather had requested in his will that the farms might be leased, having an eye to my children's profit, rather than to mine. His request was a law to me, and I had fully determined to offer the unoccupied lands of that estate, or quite three-fourths of the whole patent, on leases similar in their conditions to those which had already been granted. On the other hand, it was the intention to part with the lots of Mooseridge in fee. These conditions were made known to the axe-men, as my first essay in settling a new country; and, contrary to what had been my expectation, I soon discovered that these adventurers inclined more to the leases than to the deeds. It is true, I expected a small payment down, in the case of each absolute sale, while I was prepared to grant leases, for three lives, at very low rents at the best; and in the cases of a large proportion of the lots, those that were the least eligible by situation, or through their quality, to grant them leases without any rent at all, for the first few years of their occupation. These last advantages, and the opportunity of possessing lands a goodly term of years, for rents that were put as low as a shilling an acre, were strong inducements, as I soon discovered, with those who carried all they were worth in their packs, and who thus reserved the little money they possessed to supply the wants of their future husbandry.

We talked these matters over during the week we were on board the sloop; and by the time we came in sight of the steeples of Albany, my men's minds were made up to follow me to the Nest. These steeples were then two in number, viz.: that of the English church, that stood near the margin of the town, against the hill; and that of the Dutch church, which occupied an humbler site, on the low land, and could scarcely be seen rising above the pointed roofs of the adjacent houses; though these last, themselves were neither particularly high nor particularly imposing.

CHAPTER VII.

"Who is that graceful female here
With yon red hunter of the deer?
Of gentle mien and shape, she seems
For civil halls design'd;
Yet with the stately savage walks,
As she were of his kind."

--Pinckney.

I made little stay in Albany, but, giving the direction to the patent to the axe-men, left it the very day of our arrival. There were very few public conveyances in that early day, and I was obliged to hire a wagon to transport Jaap and myself, with our effects, to Ravensnest. A sort of dull calm had come over the country, after the struggles of the late war; but one interest in it appearing to be alive and very active. That interest, fortunately for me, appeared to be the business of "land-hunting" and "settling." Of this I had sufficient proof in Albany itself; it being difficult to enter the principal street of that town, and not find in it more or less of those adventurers, the emblems of whose pursuit were the pack and the axe. Nine out of ten came from the Eastern or New England States; then the most peopled, while they were not very fortunate in either soil or climate.

We were two days in reaching Ravensnest, a property which I had owned for several years, but which I now saw for the first time. My grandfather had left a sort of agent on the spot, a person of the name of Jason Newcome, who was of my father the general's age, and who had once been a school-master in the neighborhood of Satanstoe. This agent had leased extensively himself, and was said to be the occupant of the only mills of any moment on the property. With him a correspondence had been maintained; and once or twice during the war my father had managed to have an interview with this representative of his and my interests. As for myself, I was now to see him for the first time. We knew each other by reputation only; and certain passages in the agency had induced me to give Mr. Newcome notice that it was my intention to make a change in the management of the property.

Any one who is familiar with the aspect of things in what is called a "new country" in America, must be well aware it is not very inviting. The lovers of the picturesque can have little satisfaction in looking even on the finest natural scenery at such moments; the labor that has been effected usually having done so much to mar the beauties of nature, without having yet had time to supply the deficiencies by those of art. Piles of charred or half-burned logs: fields covered with stumps, or ragged with stubs; fences of the rudest sorts, and filled with brambles; buildings of the meanest character; deserted clearings; and all the other signs of a state of things in which there is a manifest and constant struggle between immediate necessity and future expediency, are not calculated to satisfy either the hopes or the tastes. Occasionally a different state of things, however, under circumstances peculiarly favorable, does exist; and it may be well to allude to it, lest the reader form but a single picture of this transition state of American life. When the commerce of the country is active, and there is a demand for the products of new lands, a settlement often presents a scene of activity in which the elements of a thriving prosperity make themselves apparent amid the smoke of fallows, and the rudeness of border life. Neither, however, was the case at Ravensnest when I first visited the place; though the last was, to a certain extent, its condition two or three years later, or after the great European war brought its wheat and ashes into active demand.

I found but few more signs of cultivation, between the point where I left the great northern road and the bounds of the patent, than had been found by my father, as he had described them to me in his first visit, which took place a quarter of a century earlier than this of mine. There was one log tavern, it is true, in the space mentioned; but it afforded nothing to drink but rum, and nothing to eat but salted pork and potatoes, the day I stopped there to dine. But there were times and seasons when, by means of venison, wild-fowl and fish, a luxurious board might have been spread. That this was not the opinion of my landlady, nevertheless, was apparent from the remarks she made while I was at table.

"You are lucky, Major Littlepage," she said, "in not having come among us in one of what I call our 'starving times'--and awful times they be, if a body may say what she thinks on 'em."

"Starvation is a serious matter at any time," I answered, "though I did not know you were ever reduced to such difficulties in a country as rich and abundant as this."

"Of what use is riches and abundance if a man will do nothing but fish and shoot? I've seen the day when there wasn't a mouthful to eat in this house, but a dozen or two of squabs, a string of brook trout, and maybe a deer, or a salmon from one of the lakes."

"A little bread would have been a welcome addition to such a meal."

"Oh! as for bread, I count that for nothin'. We always have bread and potatoes enough; but I hold a family to be in a desperate way, when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel. Give me the children that's raised on good sound pork, afore all the game in the country. Game's good as a relish, and so's bread; but pork is the staff of life! To have good pork, a body must have good corn; and good corn needs hoeing; and a hoe isn't a fish-pole or a gun. No, my children I calkerlate to bring up on pork, with just as much bread and butter as they may want!"

This was American poverty as it existed in 1784. Bread, butter, and potatoes, ad libitum; but little pork, and no tea. Game in abundance in its season; but the poor man who lived on game was supposed to be keeping just as poor an establishment as the epicure in town who gives a dinner to his brethren, and is compelled to apologize for there being no game in the market. Curious to learn more from this woman, I pursued the discourse.

"There are countries, I have read," I continued, "in which the poor do not taste meat of any sort, not even game, from the beginning of the year to its end; and sometimes not even bread."

"Well, I'm no great hand for bread, as I said afore, and should eat no great matter of it, so long as I could get pork," the woman answered, evidently interested in what I had said; "but I shouldn't like to be without it altogether; and the children, especially, do love to have it with their butter. Living on potatoes alone must be a wild animal sort of a life."

"Very tame animals do it, and that from dire necessity."

"Is there any law ag'in their using bread and meat?"

"No other law than the one which forbids their using that which is the property of another."

"Good land!" This is a very common American expression among the women--"Good land! Why don't they go to work and get in crops, so they might live a little?"

"Simply because they have no land to till. The land belongs to others, too."

"I should think they might hire, if they couldn't buy. It's about as good to hire as it is to buy--some folks (folk) think it's better. Why don't they take land on shares, and live?"

"Because land itself is not to be had. With us, land is abundant; we have more of it than is necessary, or than will be necessary, for ages to come; perhaps it would be better for our civilization were there less of it, but, in the countries of which I speak, there are more people than there is land."

"Well, land is a good thing, I admit, and it's right there should be an owner to it; yet there are folks who would rather squat than buy or hire, any day. Squatting comes nat'ral to 'em."

"Are there many squatters in this part of the country?"

The woman looked a little confused, and she did not answer me, until she had taken time to reflect on what she should say.

"Some folks call us squatters, I s'pose," was the reluctant answer, "but I do not. We have bought the betterments of a man who hadn't much of a title, I think likely; but as we bought his betterments fairly, Mr. Tinkum"--that was the husband's name--"is of opinion that we live under title, as it is called. What do you say to it, Major Littlepage?"

"I can only say that naught will produce naught; nothing, nothing. If the man of whom you purchased owned nothing, he could sell nothing. The betterments he called his, were not his; and in purchasing them, you purchased what he did not own."

"Well, it's no great shakes, if he hadn't any right, sin' Tinkum only gi'n an old saddle, that warn't worth two dollars, and part of a set of single harness, that I'd defy a conjuror to make fit any mule, for the whull right. One year's rent of this house is worth all put together, and that twice over, if the truth must be said; and we've been in it, now seven years. My four youngest were all born under this blessed roof, such as it is!"

"In that case, you will not have much reason to complain, when the real owner of the soil appears to claim it. The betterments came cheap, and they will go as cheap."

"That's just it; though I don't call ourselves much of squatters, a'ter all, seein' we have paid suthin' for the betterments. They say an old nail, paid in due form, will make a sort of title in the highest court of the state. I'm sure the laws should be considerate of the poor."

"Not more so than of the rich. The laws should be equal and just; and the poor are the last people who ought to wish them otherwise, since they are certain to be the losers when any other principle governs. Rely on it, my good woman, the man who is forever preaching the rights of the poor is at bottom a rogue, and means to make that cry a stalking-horse for his own benefit; since nothing can serve the poor but severe justice. No class suffers so much by a departure from the rule, as the rich have a thousand other means of attaining their ends, when the way is left clear to them, by setting up any other master than the right."

"I don't know but it may be so; but I don't call ourselves squatters. There is dreadful squatters about here, though, and on your lands too, by the tell."

"On my lands? I am sorry to hear it, for I shall feel it a duty to get rid of them. I very well know that the great abundance of land that we have in the country, its little comparative value, and the distance at which the owners generally reside from their estates, have united to render the people careless of the rights of those who possess real property; and I am prepared to view things as they are among ourselves, rather than as they exist in older countries; but I shall not tolerate squatters."

"Well, by all I hear, I think you'll call old Andries, the Chainbearer, a squatter of the first class. They tell me the old chap has come back from the army as fierce as a catamount, and that there is no speaking to him, as one used to could, in old times."

"You are, then, an old acquaintance of the Chainbearer?"

"I should think I was! Tinkum and I have lived about, a good deal, in our day; and old Andries is a desp'ate hand for the woods. He surveyed out for us, once, or half-surveyed, another betterment; but he proved to be a spiteful rogue afore he got through with the business; and we have not set much store by him ever sin' that time."

"The Chainbearer a rogue! Andries Coejemans any thing but an honest man! You are the first person, Mrs. Tinkum, I have ever heard call in question his sterling integrity."

"Sterling money doesn't pass now, I conclude, sin' it's revolution times. We all know which side your family was on in the war, Major Littlepage; so it's no offence to you. A proper sharp lookout they had of it here, when you quit college; for some said old Herman Mordaunt had ordered in his will that you should uphold the king; and then, most of the tenants concluded they would get the lands altogether. It is a sweet thing, major, for a tenant to get his farm without paying for it, as you may judge! Some folks was desp'ate sorry when they heern tell that the Littlepages went with the colonies."

"I hope there are few such knaves on the Ravensnest estate as to wish anything of the sort. But, let me hear an explanation of your charge against the Chainbearer. I have no great concern for my own rights in the patent that I claim."

The woman had the audacity, or the frankness, to draw a long, regretful sigh, as it might be, in my very face. That sigh expressed her regrets that I had not taken part with the crown in the last struggle; in which case, I do suppose, she and Tinkum would have contrived to squat on one of the farms of Ravensnest. Having sighed, however, the landlady did not disdain to answer.

"As for the Chainbearer, the simple truth is this," she said. "Tinkum hired him to run a line between some betterments we had bought, and some that had been bought by a neighbor of our'n. This was long afore the war, and when titles were scarcer than they're gettin' to be now, some of the landlords living across the water. Well, what do you think the old fellow did, major? He first asked for our deeds, and we showed them to him; as good and lawful warrantees as was ever printed and filled up by a 'squire. He then set to work, all by himself, jobbing the whull survey, as it might be, and a prettier line was never run, as far as he went, which was about half-way. I thought it would make etarnel peace atween us and our neighbor, for it had been etarnel war afore that, for three whull years; sometimes with clubs, and sometimes with axes, and once with scythes. But, somehow--I never know'd how--but somehow, old Andries found out that the man who deeded to us had no deed to himself, or no mortal right to the land, any more than that sucking pig you see at the door there; when he gi'n right up, refusing to carry out another link, or p'int another needle, he did! Warn't that being cross-grained and wilful! No, there's no dependence to be put on the Chainbearer."

"Wilful in the cause of right, as glorious old Andries always is! I love and honor him all the better for it."

"La! Do you love and honor sich a one as him! Well, I should have expected suthin' else from sich a gentleman as you! I'd no idee Major Littlepage could honor an old, worn-out chainbearer, and he a man that couldn't get up in the world, too, when he had hands and feet, all on 'em together on some of the very best rounds of the ladder! Why, I judge that even Tinkum would have gone ahead, if he had been born with sich a chance."

"Andries has been a captain in my own regiment, it is true, and was once my superior officer; but he served for his country's sake, and not for his own. Have you seen him lately?"

"That we have! He passed here about a twelvemonth ago, with his whull party, on their way to squat on your own land, or I'm mistaken. There was the Chainbearer himself, two helpers, Dus and young Malbone."

"Young who?" I asked, with an interest that induced the woman to turn her keen, sunken, but sharp gray eyes, intently on me.

"Young Malbone, I said; Dus's brother, and the youngster who does all old Andries's 'rithmetic. I suppose you know as well as I do, that the Chainbearer can't calkerlate any more than a wild goose, and not half as well as a crow. For that matter, I've known crows that, in plantin' time, would measure a field in half the number of minutes that the state surveyor would be hours at it."

"This young Malbone, then, is the Chainbearer's nephew? And he it is who does the surveying?"

"He does the 'rithmetic part, and he is a brother of old Andries's niece. I know'd the Coejemans when I was a gal, and I've known the Malbones longer than I want to know them."

"Have you any fault to find with the family, that you speak thus of them?"

"Nothin' but their desperate pride, which makes them think themselves so much better than everybody else; yet, they tell me, Dus and all on 'em are just as poor as I am myself."

"Perhaps you mistake their feeling, good woman; a thing I think the more probable, as you seem to fancy money the source of their pride, at the very moment you deny their having any. Money is a thing on which few persons of cultivated minds pride themselves. The purse-proud are, almost invariably, the vulgar and ignorant."

No doubt this was a moral thrown away with such an auditor; but I was provoked; and when a man is provoked, he is not always wise. The answer showed the effect it had produced.

"I don't pretend to know how that is; but if it isn't pride, what is it that makes Dus Malbone so different from my da'ters? She'd no more think of being like one on 'em, scouring about the lots, riding bare-backed, and scampering through the neighborhood, than you'd think of cooking my dinner--that she wouldn't."

Poor Mrs. Tinkum--or, as she would have been apt to call herself, Miss Tinkum! She had betrayed one of the commonest weaknesses of human nature, in thus imputing pride to the Chainbearer's niece because the latter behaved differently from her and hers. How many persons in this good republic of ours judge their neighbors on precisely the same principle; inferring something unsuitable, because it seems to reflect on their own behavior! But by this time, I had got to hear the name of Dus with some interest, and I felt disposed to push the subject further.

"Miss Malbone, then," I said, "does not ride bare-back?"

"La! major, what in natur' puts it into your head to call the gal Miss Malbone! There's no Miss Malbone living sin' her own mother died."

"Well, Dus Malbone, I mean; she is above riding bare-backed?"

"That she is; even a pillion would be hardly grand enough for her, allowing her own brother to use the saddle."

"Her own brother! This young surveyor, then, is Dus's brother?"

"Sort o', and sort o' not, like. They had the same father, but different mothers."

"That explains it; I never heard the Chainbearer speak of any nephew, and it seems the young man is not related to him at all--he is the half-brother of his niece."

"Why can't that niece behave like other young women? that's the question I ask. My girls hasn't as much pride as would be good for 'em, not they! If a body wants to borrow an article over at the Nest, and that's seven miles off, the whull way in the woods, just name it to Poll, and she'd jump on an ox, if there warn't a hoss, and away she'd go a'ter it, with no more bit of a saddle, and may be nothin' but a halter, like a deer! Give me Poll, afore all the gals I know, for ar'nds?"

By this time, disrelish for vulgarity was getting the better of curiosity; and my dinner of fried pork being done, I was willing to drop the discourse. I had learned enough of Andries and his party to satisfy my curiosity, and Jaap was patiently waiting to succeed me at the table. Throwing down the amount of the bill, I took a fowling-piece, with which we always travelled in those days, bade Mrs. Tinkum good-day, ordered the black and the wagoner to follow with the team as soon as ready, and went on toward my own property on foot.

In a very few minutes I was quite beyond the Tinkum betterments, and fairly in the forest again. It happened that the title to a large tract of land adjoining Ravensnest was in dispute, and no attempt at a serious settlement had ever been made on it. Some one had "squatted" at this spot, to enjoy the advantage of selling rum to those who went and came between my own people and the inner country; and the place had changed hands half a dozen times, by fraudulent, or at least, by worthless sales, from one squatter to another. Around the house, by this time a decaying pile of logs, time had done a part of the work of the settler, and aided by that powerful servant but fearful master, fire, had given to the small clearing somewhat of the air of civilized cultivation. The moment these narrow limits were passed, however, the traveller entered the virgin forest, with no other sign of man around him than what was offered in the little worked and little travelled road. The highway was not much indebted to the labors of man for any facilities it afforded the traveller. The trees had been cut out of it, it is true, but their roots had not been extracted, and time had done more toward destroying them than the axe or the pick. Time had done a good deal, however, and the inequalities were getting to be smooth under the hoof and wheel. A tolerably good bridle-path had long been made, and I found no difficulty in walking in it, since that answered equally well for man and beast.

The virgin forest of America is usually no place for the ordinary sportsman. The birds that are called game are but rarely found in it, one or two excepted; and it is a well-known fact that while the frontier-man is certain death with a rifle-bullet, knocking the head off a squirrel or a wild turkey at his sixty or eighty yards, it is necessary to go into the older parts of the country, and principally among sportsmen of the better classes, in order to find those who knock over the woodcock, snipe, quail, grouse, and plover, on the wing. I was thought a good shot on the "plains," and over the heaths or commons of the Island of Manhattan, and among the rocks of Westchester; but I saw nothing to do up there, where I then was, surrounded by trees that had stood there centuries. It would certainly have been easy enough for me to kill a blue jay now and then, or a crow, or even a raven, or perhaps an eagle, had I the proper shot; but as for anything that is ordinarily thought to adorn a game-bag, not a feather could I see. For the want of something better to do, then, if a young man of three or four and twenty ought thus to express himself, I began to ruminate on the charms of Pris Bayard, and on the singularities of Dus Malbone. In this mood I proceeded, getting over the grounds at a rapid rate, leaving Miss Tinkum, the clearing with its betterments, and the wagon, far behind me.

I had walked an hour alone, when the silence of the woods was suddenly interrupted by the words of a song that came not from any of the feathered race, though the nightingale itself could hardly have equalled the sweetness of the notes, which were those of a female voice. The low notes struck me as the fullest, richest, and most plaintive I had ever heard; and I fancied they could not be equalled, until the strain carried the singer's voice into a higher key, where it seemed equally at home. I thought I knew the air, but the words were guttural, and in an unknown tongue. French and Dutch were the only two foreign languages in which one usually heard any music in our part of the woods at that day; and even the first was by no means common. But with both these languages I had a little acquaintance, and I was soon satisfied that the words I heard belonged to neither. At length it flashed on my mind that the song was Indian; not the music, but the words. The music was certainly Scotch, or that altered Italian that time has attributed to the Scotch; and there was a moment when I fancied some Highland girl was singing near me one of the Celtic songs of the country of her childhood. But closer attention satisfied me that the words were really Indian; probably belonging to the Mohawk, or some other language that I had often heard spoken.

The reader may be curious to know whence these sounds proceeded, and why I did not see the being who gave birth to such delicious harmony. It was owing to the fact that the song came from out of a thicket of young pines, that grew on an ancient opening at a little distance from the road, and which I supposed contained a hut of some sort or other. These pines, however, completely concealed all within them. So long as the song lasted, no tree of the forest was more stationary than myself; but when it ended, I was about to advance toward the thicket, in order to pry into its mysteries, when I heard a laugh that had scarcely less of melody in it than the strains of the music itself. It was not a vulgar, clamorous burst of girlish impulses, nor was it even loud; but it was light-hearted, mirthful, indicating humor, if a mere laugh can do so much; and in a sense it was contagious. It arrested my movement, in order to listen; and before any new impulse led me forward, the branches of the pines opened, and a man passed out of the thicket into the road. A single glance sufficed to let me know that the stranger was an Indian.

Notwithstanding I was apprised of the near vicinity of others, I was a little startled with this sudden apparition. Not so with him who was approaching; he could not have known of my being anywhere near him; yet he manifested no emotion as his cold, undisturbed glance fell on my form. Steadily advancing, he came to the centre of the road; and, as I had turned involuntarily to pursue my own way, not sure it was prudent to remain in that neighborhood alone, the red man fell in, with his moccasined foot, at my elbow, and I found that we were thus strangely pursuing our journey, in the same direction, side by side.

The Indian and myself walked in this manner, within a yard of each other, in the midst of that forest, for two or three minutes without speaking. I forbore to say anything, because I had heard that an Indian respected those most who knew best how to repress their curiosity; which habit, most probably, had its effect on my companion. At length, the red man uttered, in the deep, guttural manner of his people, the common conventional salutation of the frontier--

"Sa-a-go?"

This word, which has belonged to some Indian language once, passes everywhere for Indian with the white man; and, quite likely for English, with the Indian. A set of such terms has grown up between the two races, including such words as "moccasin," "pappoose," "tomahawk," "squaw," and many others. "Sa-a-go," means "how d'ye do?"

"Sa-a-go?"--I answered to my neighbor's civil salutation.

After this we walked along for a few minutes more, neither party speaking. I took this opportunity to examine my red brother, an employment that was all the easier from the circumstance that he did not once look at me; the single glance sufficing to tell him all he wanted to know. In the first place, I was soon satisfied that my companion did not drink, a rare merit in a red man who lived near the whites. This was evident from his countenance, gait, and general bearing, as I thought, in addition to the fact that he possessed no bottle, or anything else that would hold liquor. What I liked the least was the circumstance of his being completely armed; carrying knife, tomahawk, and rifle, and each seemingly excellent of its kind. He was not painted, however, and he wore an ordinary calico shirt, as was then the usual garb of his people in the warm season. The countenance had the stern severity that is so common to a red warrior; and, as this man was turned of fifty, his features began to show the usual signs of exposure and service. Still, he was a vigorous, respectable-looking red man, and one who was evidently accustomed to live much among civilized men. I had no serious uneasiness, of course, at meeting such a person, although we were so completely buried in the forest but, as a soldier, I could not help reflecting how inferior my fowling-piece would necessarily prove to be to his rifle should he see fit to turn aside, and pull upon me from behind a tree, for the sake of plunder. Tradition said such things had happened; though, on the whole, the red man of America has perhaps proved to be the most honest of the two, as compared with those who have supplanted him.

"How ole chief?" the Indian suddenly asked, without even raising his eyes from the road.

"Old chief! Do you mean Washington, my friend?"

"Not so--mean ole chief, out here, at Nest. Mean fader."

"My father! Do you know General Littlepage?"

"Be sure, know him. Your fader--see"--holding up his two forefingers--"just like--dat him; dis you."

"This is singular enough! And were you told that I was coming to this place?"

"Hear dat, too. Always talk about chief."

"Is it long since you saw my father?"

"See him in war-time--nebber hear of ole Sureflint?"

I had heard the officers of our regiment speak of such an Indian, who had served a good deal with the corps, and been exceedingly useful, in the two great northern campaigns especially. He never happened to be with the regiment after I joined it, though his name and services were a good deal mixed up with the adventures of 1776 and 1777.

"Certainly," I answered, shaking the red man cordially by the hand. "Certainly, have I heard of you, and something that is connected with times before the war. Did you never meet my father before the war?"

"Sartain; meet in ole war. Gin'ral young man, den--just like son."

"By what name were you then known, Oneida?"

"No Oneida--Onondago--sober tribe. Hab plenty name. Sometime one, sometime anoder. Pale-face say 'Trackless,' cause he can't find his trail--warrior call him 'Susquesus.'"

CHAPTER VIII.

"With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way;
Gray, old, and cumber'd with a train
Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!
Free stray the lucid streams, and find
No taint in these fresh lawns and shades;
Free spring the flowers that scent the wind,
Where never scythe has swept the glades."

--Bryant.

I had heard enough of my father's early adventures to know that the man mentioned in the last chapter had been a conspicuous actor in them, and remembered that the latter enjoyed the fullest confidence of the former. It was news to me, however, that Sureflint and the Trackless were the same person; though, when I came to reflect on the past, I had some faint recollection of having once before heard something of the sort. At any rate, I was now with a friend, and no longer thought it necessary to be on my guard. This was a great relief, in every point of view, as one does not like to travel at the side of a stranger, with an impression, however faint, that the latter may blow his brains out, the first time he ventures to turn his own head aside.

Susquesus was drawing near to the decline of life. Had he been a white man, I might have said he was in a "green old age;" but the term of "red old age" would suit him much better. His features were still singularly fine; while the cheeks, without being very full, had that indurated, solid look, that flesh and muscles get from use and exposure. His form was as erect as in his best days, a red man's frame rarely yielding in this way to any pressure but that of exceeding old age, and that of rum. Susquesus never admitted the enemy into his mouth, and consequently the citadel of his physical man was secure against every invader but time. In-toed and yielding in his gait, the old warrior and runner still passed over the ground with an easy movement; and when I had occasion to see him increase his speed, as soon after occurred, I did not fail to perceive that his sinews seemed strung to their utmost force, and that every movement was free.

For a time, the Indian and I talked of the late war, and of the scenes in which each of us had been an actor. If my own modesty was as obvious as that of Sureflint, I had no reason to be dissatisfied with myself; for the manner in which he alluded to events in which I knew he had been somewhat prominent, was simple and entirely free from that boasting in which the red man is prone to indulge; more especially when he wishes to provoke his enemies. At length I changed the current of the discourse, by saying abruptly:

"You were not alone in that pine thicket, Susquesus; that from which you came when you joined me?"

"No--sartain; wasn't alone. Plenty people dere."

"Is there an encampment of your tribe among those bushes?"

A shade passed over the dark countenance of my companion, and I saw a question had been asked that gave him pain. He paused some little time before he answered; and when he did, it was in a way that seemed sad.

"Susquesus got tribe no longer. Quit Onondagos t'irty summer, now; don't like Mohawk."

"I remember to have heard something of this from my father, who told me at the same time, that the reason why you left your people was to your credit. But you had music in the thicket?"

"Yes; gal sing--gal love sing; warrior like to listen."

"And the song? In what language were the words?"

"Onondago," answered the Indian, in a low tone.

"I had no idea the music of the red people was so sweet. It is many a day since I have heard a song that went so near to my heart, though I could not understand what was said."

"Bird, pretty bird--sing like wren."

"And is there much of this music in your family, Susquesus? If so, I shall come often to listen."

"Why not come? Path got no briar; short path, too. Gal sing, when you want."

"Then I shall certainly be your guest, some day, soon. Where do you live, now? Are you Sureflint, or Trackless, to-day? I see you are armed, but not painted."

"Hatchet buried berry deep, dis time. No dig him up, in great many year. Mohawk make peace; Oneida make peace; Onondago make peace--all bury 'e hatchet."

"Well, so much the better for us landholders. I have come to sell and lease my lands; perhaps you can tell me if many young men are out hunting for farms this summer?"

"Wood full. Plenty as pigeons. How you sell land?"

"That will depend on where it is, and how good it is. Do you wish to buy, Trackless?"

"Injin own all land, for what he want now. I make wigwam where I want; make him, too, when I want."

"I know very well that you Indians do claim such a right; and, so long as the country remains in its present wild state, no one will be apt to refuse it to you. But you cannot plant and gather, as most of your people do in their own country."

"Got no squaw--got no papoose--little corn do for Susquesus. No tribe--no squaw--no pappose!"

This was said in a low, deliberate voice, and with a species of manly melancholy that I found very touching. Complaining men create very little sympathy, and those who whine are apt to lose our respect; but I know no spectacle more imposing than that of one of stern nature smothering his sorrows beneath the mantle of manliness and self-command.

"You have friends, Susquesus," I answered, "if you have no wife nor children."

"Fader, good friend; hope son friend, too. Grandfader great friend, once; but he gone far away, and nebber come back. Know moder, know fader--all good."

"Take what land you want, Trackless--till it, sell it--do what you wish with it."

The Indian eyed me keenly, and I detected a slight smile of pleasure stealing over his weather-worn face. It was not easy to throw him off his habitual guard over his emotions, however; and the gleam of illumination passed away, like a ray of sunshine in mid-winter. The sternest white man might have grasped my hand, and something like a sign of gratitude would probably have escaped him; but, the little trace of emotion I have mentioned having disappeared, nothing remained on the dark visage of my companion that in the least resembled an evidence of yielding to any of the gentler feelings. Nevertheless, he was too courteous, and had too much of the innate sentiment of a gentleman, not to make some return for an offer that had so evidently and spontaneously come from the heart.

"Good"--he said, after a long pause. "Berry good, dat; good, to come from young warrior to ole warrior. T'ankee--bird plenty; fish plenty; message plenty, now; and don't want land. Time come, maybe--s'pose he must come--come to all old red men, hereabout; so s'pose must come."

"What time do you mean, Trackless? Let it come when it may, you have a friend in me. What time do you mean, my brave old Sureflint?"

The Trackless stopped, dropped the breech of his rifle on the ground, and stood meditating a minute, motionless, and as grand as some fine statue.

"Yes; time come, do s'pose," he continued. "One time, ole warrior live in wigwam, and tell young warrior of scalp, and council-fire, and hunt, and war-path; now, make broom and basket."

It was not easy to mistake this; and I do not remember ever to have felt so lively an interest, on so short an acquaintance, as I began to feel in this Onondago. Priscilla Bayard herself, however lovely, graceful, winning, and feminine, had not created a feeling so strong and animated, as that which was awakened within me in behalf of old Sureflint. But I fully understood that this was to be shown in acts, and not in words. Contenting myself for the present, after the fashion of the pale-faces, by grasping and squeezing the sinewy hand of the warrior, we walked on together, making no farther allusion to a subject that I can truly say was as painful to me as it was to my companion.

"I have heard your name mentioned as one of those who were at the Nest with my father when he was a young man, Susquesus," I resumed, "and when the Canada Indians attempted to burn the house."

"Good--Susquesus dere--young Dutch chief kill dat time."

"Very true--his name was Guert Ten Eyke; and my father and mother, and your old friend Colonel Follock, who was afterward major of our regiment, you will remember, they love his memory to this day, as that of a very dear friend."

"Dat all, love memory now?" asked the Indian, throwing one of his keenest glances at me.

I understood the allusion, which was to aunt Mary, whom I had heard spoken of as the betrothed, or at least as the beloved of the young Albanian.

"Not all; for there is a lady who still mourns his loss, as if she had been his widow."

"Good--do' squaw don't mourn fery long time. Sometime not always."

"Pray, Trueflint, do you happen to know any thing of a man called the Chainbearer? He was in the regiment, too, and you must have seen him in the war."

"Sartain--know Chainbearer--know him on war-path--know him when hatchet buried. Knew Chainbearer afore ole French war. Live in wood wid him--one of us. Chainbearer my friend."

"I rejoice to hear this, for he is also mine; and I shall be glad to come into the compact, as a friend of both."

"Good--Susquesus and young landlord friend of Chainbearer--good."

"It is good, and a league that shall not be forgotten easily by me. The Chainbearer is as honest as light, and as certain as his own compass, Trueflint--true, as yourself."

"'Fraid he make broom 'fore great while, too," said the Indian, expressing the regret I have no doubt he felt, very obviously in his countenance.

Poor old Andries! But for the warm and true friends he had in my father, Colonel Dirck, and myself, there was some danger this might be the case, indeed. The fact that he had served his country in a revolution would prove of little avail, that country being too poor to provide for its old servants, and possibly indisposed, had she the means.[7] I say this without intending to reflect on either the people or the government; for it is not easy to make the men of the present day understand the deep depression, in a pecuniary sense, that rested on the land for a year or two after peace was made. It recovered, as the child recovers from indisposition, by the vigor of its constitution and the power of its vitality; and one of the means by which it recovered, was by turning to the soil, and wielding the sickle instead of the sword. To continue the discourse:

"The Chainbearer is an honest man, and, like too many of his class, poor," I answered; "but he has friends; and neither he nor you, Sureflint, shall be reduced to that woman's work without your own consent, so long as I have an unoccupied house, or a farm, at Ravensnest."

Again the Indian manifested his sense of my friendship for him by that passing gleam on his dark face; and again all signs of emotion passed slowly away.

"How long since see him?" he asked me suddenly.

"See him--the Chainbearer, do you mean? I have not seen him, now, for more than a twelvemonth; not since we parted when the regiment was disbanded."

"Don't mean Chainbearer--mean him," pointing ahead--"house, tree, farm, land, Nest."

"Oh! How long is it since I saw the patent? I never saw it, Sureflint; this is my first visit."

"Dat queer! How you own land, when nebber see him?"

"Among the pale-faces we have such laws, that property passes from parent to child; and I inherit mine in this neighborhood, from my grandfather, Herman Mordaunt."

"What dat mean, 'herit? How man haf land, when he don't keep him?"

"We do keep it, if not by actually remaining on the spot, by means of our laws and our titles. The pale-faces regulate all these things on paper, Sureflint."

"T'ink dat good? Why no let man take land where he want him, when he want him? Plenty land. Got more land dan got people. 'Nough for ebberybody."

"That fact makes our laws just; if there were not land enough for everybody, these restrictions and divisions might seem to be, and in fact be, unjust. Now, any man can have a farm, who will pay a very moderate price for it. The state sells, and landlords sell; and those who don't choose to buy of one can buy of the other."

"Dat true 'nough; but don't see need of dat paper. When he want to stay on land, let him stay; when he want to go somewhere, let 'noder man come. What good pay for betterment?"

"So as to have betterments. These are what we call the rights of property, without which no man would aim at being anything more than clad and fed. Who would hunt, if anybody that came along had a right to pick up and skin his game?"

"See dat well 'nough--nebber do; no, nebber. Don't see why land go like skin, when skin go wid warrior and hunter, and land stay where he be."

"That is because the riches of you red men are confined to movable property, and to your wigwams, so long as you choose to live in them. Thus far, you respect the rights of property as well as the pale-faces; but you must see a great difference between your people and mine! between the red man and the white man?"

"Be sure, differ; one strong, t'oder weak--one rich, t'oder poor--one great, t'oder little--one drive 'way, t'oder haf to go--one get all, t'oder keep nuttin'--one march large army, t'oder go Indian file, fifty warrior, p'raps--dat reason t'ing so."

"And why can the pale-faces march in large armies, with cannon, and horses, and bayonets, and the red man not do the same?"

"Cause he no got 'em--no got warrior--no got gun--no got baggonet--no got nuttin'."

"You have given the effect for the cause, Sureflint, or the consequences of the reason for the reason itself. I hope I make you understand me. Listen, and I will explain. You have lived much with the white men, Susquesus, and can believe what I say. There are good, and there are bad, among all people. Color makes no difference in this respect. Still, all people are not alike. The white man is stronger than the red man, and has taken away his country, because he knows most."

"He most, too. Count army, den count war-trail; you see."

"It is true the pale-faces are the most numerous, now; but once they were not. Do not your traditions tell you how few the Yangeese were, when they first came across the salt lake?"

"Come in big canoe--two, t'ree full--no more."

"Why then did two or three shipfuls of white men become so strong as to drive back from the sea all the red warriors, and become masters of the land? Can you give a reason for that?"

"'Cause he bring fire-water wid him, and red man big fool to drink."

"Even that fire-water, which doubtless has proved a cruel gift to the Indians, is one of the fruits of the white man's knowledge. No, Susquesus; the redskin is as brave as the pale-face; as willing to defend his rights, and as able-bodied; but he does not know as much. He had no gunpowder until the white man gave it to him--no rifle--no hoe, no knife, no tomahawk, but such as he made himself from stones. Now, all the knowledge, and all the arts of life that the white man enjoys and turns to his profit, come from the rights of property. No man would build a wigwam to make rifles in, if he thought he could not keep it as long as he wished, sell it when he pleased, and leave it to his son when he went to the land of spirits. It is by encouraging man's love of himself, in this manner, that he is got to do so much. Thus it is, too, that the father gives to the son what he has learned, as well as what he has built or bought; and so, in time, nations get to be powerful, as they get to be what we called civilized. Without these rights of property, no people could be civilized; for no people would do their utmost, unless each man were permitted to be master of what he can acquire, subject to the great and common laws that are necessary to regulate such matters. I hope you understand my meaning, Trackless."

"Sartain--no like Trackless' moccasin--my young friend's tongue leave trail. But you t'ink Great Spirit say who shall haf land; who no haf him?"

"The Great Spirit has created man as he is, and the earth as it is; and he has left the one to be master of the other. If it were not his pleasure that man should not do as he has done, it would not be done. Different laws and different feelings would then bring about different ends. When the law places all men on a level, as to rights, it does as much as can be expected of it. Now, this level does not consist in pulling everything to pieces periodically, but in respecting certain great principles that are just in themselves; but which, once started, must be left to follow their own course. When the rights of property are first established, they must be established fairly, on some admitted rule; after which they are to remain inviolable--that is to say, sacred."

"Understand--no live in clearin' for nuttin'. Mean, haf no head widout haf farm."

"That is the meaning, substantially, Sureflint; though I might have explained it a little differently. I wish to say pale-faces would be like the red man without civilization; and without civilization if they had no rights in their land. No one will work for another as he will work for himself. We see that every day, in the simplest manner, when we see that the desire to get good wages will not make the common laborer do as much by the day as he will do by the job."

"Dat true," answered the Indian, smiling; for he seldom laughed; and repeating a common saying of the country--"By--de--day--by--de--day--By de job, job, job! Dat pale-face religion, young chief."

"I don't know that our religion has much to do with it; but I will own it is our practice. I fancy it is the same with all races and colors. A man must work for himself to do his most; and he cannot work for himself unless he enjoy the fruits of his labor. Thus it is, that he must have a right of property in land, either bought or hired, in order to make him cause that land to produce all that nature intended it should produce. On this necessity is founded the rights of property; the gain being civilization; the loss ignorance, and poverty, and weakness. It is for this reason, then, that we buy and sell land, as well as clothes and arms, and beads."

"T'ink, understand. Great Spirit, den, say must have farm?"

"The Great Spirit has said we must have wants and wishes, that can be met, or gratified only by having farms. To have farms we must have owners; and owners cannot exist unless their rights in their lands are protected. As soon as these are gone, the whole building would tumble down about our ears, Susquesus."

"Well, s'pose him so. We see, some time. Young chief know where he is?"

"Not exactly; but I suppose we are drawing near to the lands of Ravensnest."

"Well, queer 'nough, too! Own land, but don't know him. See--marked tree--dat sign your land begin."

"Thank you, Sureflint--a parent would not know his own child, when he saw him for the first time. If I am owner here, you will remember that this is my first visit to the spot."

While conversing, the Trackless had led me from the highway into a foot-path, which, as I afterward discovered, made a short-cut across some hills, and saved us near two miles in the distance. In consequence of this change in our course, Jaap could not have overtaken me, had he moved faster than he did; but, owing to the badness of the road, our gait on foot was somewhat faster than that of the jaded beasts who dragged the wagon. My guide knew the way perfectly; and, as we ascended a hill, he pointed out the remains of an old fire, near a spring, as a spot where he was accustomed to "camp," when he wished to remain near, but not in the 'Nest.

"Too much rum in tavern," he said. "No good stay near rum."

This was extraordinary forbearance for an Indian; but Susquesus, I had ever understood, was an extraordinary Indian. Even for an Onondago, he was temperate and self-denying. The reason why he lived away from his tribe was a secret from most persons; though I subsequently ascertained it was known to the Chainbearer, as well as my father. Old Andries always affirmed it was creditable to his friend; but he would never betray the secret. Indeed, I found that the sympathy which existed between these two men, each of whom was so singular in his way, was cemented by some occurrences of their early lives, to which occasional, but vague allusions were made, but which neither ever revealed to me, or to any other person, so far as I could ascertain.

Soon after passing the spring, Sureflint led me out to a cleared spot on the eminence, which commanded an extensive view of most of that part of my possessions which was under lease and occupied. Here we halted, seating ourselves on a fallen tree, for which one could never go amiss in that region, and at that day; and I examined the view with the interest which ownership is apt to create in us all. The earth is very beautiful in itself; but it is most beautiful in the eye of those who have the largest stake in it, I fear.

Although the property of Ravensnest had been settled fully thirty years when I first saw it, none of those signs of rapid and energetic improvement were visible that we have witnessed in the efforts of similar undertakings since the Revolution. Previously to that great event, the country filled up very slowly, and each colony seemed to regard itself, in some measure, as a distinct country. Thus it was that we in New York obtained very few immigrants from New England, that great hive which has so often swarmed since, and the bees of which have carried their industry and ingenuity over so much of the republic in our own time. We of New York have our prejudices against the Yankees, and have long looked upon them with eyes of distrust and disfavor. They have repaid us in kind, perhaps; but their dislikes have not been strong enough to prevent them from coming to take possession of our lands. For my own part, while I certainly see much in the New England character that I do not like (more in their manners and minor ways, perhaps, than in essentials), I as certainly see a great deal to command my respect. If the civilization that they carry with them is not of a very high order, as is connected with the tastes, sentiments, and nicer feelings, it is superior to that of any other country I have visited, in its common-sense provisions, and in its care over the intellectual being, considered in reference to the foundations of learning. More persons are dragged from out the mire of profound ignorance under their system, than under that of any other people; and a greater number of candidates are brought forward for intellectual advancements. That so few of these candidates rise very high in the scale of knowledge, is in part owing to the circumstance that their lives are so purely practical; and, possibly, in part to the fact that while so much attention has been paid to the foundations of the social edifice, that little art or care has as yet been expended on the superstructure. Nevertheless, the millions of Yankees that are spreading themselves over the land, are producing, and have already produced, a most salutary influence on its practical knowledge, on its enterprise, on its improvements, and consequently on its happiness. If they have not done much for its tastes, its manners, and its higher principles, it is because no portion of the earth is perfect. I am fully aware that this is conceding more than my own father would have conceded in their favor, and twice as much as could have been extracted from either of my grandfathers. But prejudice is wearing away, and the Dutchman and the Yankee, in particular, find it possible to live in proximity and charity. It is possible that my son may be willing to concede even more. Our immigrant friends should remember one thing, however, and it would render them much more agreeable as companions and neighbors, which is this:--he who migrates is bound to respect the habits and opinions of those whom he joins; it not being sufficient for the perfection of everything under the canopy of heaven, that it should come from our own little corner of the earth. Even the pumpkin-pies of the Middle States are vastly better than those usually found in New England. To return to Ravensnest.

The thirty years of the settlement of my patent, then, had not done much for it, in the way of works of art. Time, it is true, had effected something, and it was something in a manner that was a little peculiar, and which might be oftener discovered in the country at the time of which I am writing, than at the present day. The timber of the 'Nest, with the exception of some mountain-land, was principally what, in American parlance, is termed "hard wood." In other words, the trees were not perennial, but deciduous; and the merest tyro in the woods knows that the roots of the last decay in a fourth of the time that the roots of the first endure, after the trunk is severed. As a consequence, the stumps had nearly all disappeared from the fields; a fact that, of itself, gave to the place the appearance of an old country, according to our American notions. It is true, the virgin forest still flourished in immediate contact with those fields, shorn, tilled, and smoothed as they were, giving a wild and solemn setting to the rural picture the latter presented. The contrast was sufficiently bold and striking, but it was not without its soft and pleasant points. From the height whither the Indian had led me, I had a foreground of open land, dotted with cottages and barns, mostly of logs, beautified by flourishing orchards, and garnished with broad meadows, or enriched by fields, in which the corn was waving under the currents of a light summer air. Two or three roads wound along the settlement, turning aside with friendly interest, to visit every door; and at the southern termination of the open country there was a hamlet, built of wood framed, which contained one house that had little taste, but a good deal more of pretension than any of its neighbors; another, that was an inn; a store, a blacksmith's-shop, a school-house, and three or four other buildings, besides barns, sheds, and hog-pens. Near the hamlet, or the "'Nest Village," as the place was called, were the mills of the region. These were a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a fulling-mill, and an oil-mill. All were of moderate dimensions, and, most probably, of moderate receipts. Even the best house was not painted, though it had some very ambitious attempts at architecture, and enjoyed the benefits of no less than four exterior doors, the uses of one of which, as it opened into the air from the second story, it was not very easy to imagine. Doubtless some great but unfinished project of the owner lay at the root of this invention. But living out of doors, as it were, is rather a characteristic of a portion of our people.

The background of this picture, to which a certain degree of rural beauty was not wanting, was the "boundless woods." Woods stretched away, north, and south, and east, far as eye could reach; woods crowned the sides and summits of all the mountains in view; and woods rose up, with their leafy carpeting, from out the ravines and dells. The war had prevented any very recent attempts at clearing, and all the open ground wore the same aspect of homely cultivation, while the dark shades of an interminable forest were spread around, forming a sort of mysterious void, that lay between this obscure and remote people, and the rest of their kind. That forest, however, was not entirely savage. There were other settlements springing up in its bosom; a few roads wound their way through its depth; and, here and there, the hunter, the squatter, or the red man, had raised his cabin, and dwelt amid the sullen but not unpleasant abundance and magnificence of the wilderness.

CHAPTER IX.

"O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men;
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men."

--Shakspeare.

"This, then, is Ravensnest!" I exclaimed, after gazing on the scene for several minutes in silence; "the estate left me by my grandfather, and where events once occurred that are still spoken of in my family as some of the most momentous in its history; events, Susquesus, in which you were an actor."

The Indian made a low interjection, but it is not probable he fully understood me. What was there so remarkable in a savage inroad, a house besieged, men slain and scalps taken, that he should remember such things for a quarter of a century!

"I do not see the 'Nest itself, Trueflint," I added; "the house in which my grandfather once lived."

The Onondago did not speak, but he pointed with a finger in a northeasterly direction, making the action distinct and impressive, as is usual with his people. I knew the place by the descriptions I had heard, though it was now mouldering, and had gone far into decay. Logs piled up green, and confined in such a structure, will last some thirty or forty years, according to the nature of the trees from which they come, and the manner in which they have been covered. At that distance I could not well distinguish how far, or how much, time had done its work; but I fancied I knew enough of such matters to understand I was not to expect in the 'Nest a very comfortable home. A family dwelt in the old place, and I had seen some cheeses that had been made on the very fine farm that was attached to it. There was a large and seemingly a flourishing orchard, and the fields looked well; but as for the house, at that distance it appeared sombre, dark, and was barely to be distinguished by its form and chimneys, from any other pile of logs.

I was struck with the silent, dreamy, sabbath-like air of the fields, far and near. With the exception of a few half-naked children who were visible around the dwellings to which we were the closest, not a human being could I discover. The fields were tenantless, so far as men were concerned, though a good many horned cattle were to be seen grazing.

"My tenants are not without stock, I find, Trueflint," I remarked. "There are plenty of cattle in the pastures."

"You see, all young," answered the Onondago. "War do dat. Kill ole one for soldier."

"By the way, as this settlement escaped plunder, I should think its people may have done something by selling supplies to the army. Provisions of all kinds were very high and scarce, I remember, when we met Burgoyne."

"Sartain. Your people sell both side--good trade, den. Feed Yankees--feed Yengeese."

"Well, I make no doubt it was so; for the husbandman is not very apt to hesitate when he can get a good price; and if he were, the conscience of the drover would stand between him and treason. But where are all the men of this country? I do not see a single man, far or near."

"No see him!--dere," answered the Indian, pointing in the direction of the hamlet. "'Squire light council-fire to-day, s'pose, and make speech."

"True enough--there they are, gathered about the school-house. But whom do you mean by the 'squire, who is so fond of making speeches?"

"Ole school-master. Come from salt lake--great friend of grandfader."

"Oh! Mr. Newcome, my agent--true; I might have known that he was king of the settlement. Well, Trueflint, let us go on; and when we reach the tavern we shall be able to learn what the 'great council' is about. Say nothing of my business; for it will be pleasant to look on a little, before I speak myself."

The Indian arose, and led the way down the height, following a foot-path with which he appeared to be familiar. In a few minutes we were in a highway, and at no great distance from the hamlet. I had laid aside most of the dress that it was the fashion of gentlemen to wear in 1784, and put on a hunting-shirt and leggings, as more fitting for the woods; consequently it would not have been easy for one who was not in the secret to imagine that he who arrived on foot, in such a garb, carrying his fowling-piece, and accompanied by an Indian, was the owner of the estate. I had sent no recent notice of my intended arrival; and as we went along, I took a fancy to get a faint glimpse of things incognito. In order to do this it might be necessary to say a word more to the Indian.

"Susquesus," I added, as we drew near the school-house, which stood between us and the tavern, "I hope you have understood me--there is no need of telling any one who I am. If asked, you can answer I am your friend. That will be true, as you will find as long as you live."

"Good--young chief got eyes; want to look wid 'em himself. Good--Susquesus know."

In another minute we stopped in the crowd, before the door of the school-house. The Indian was so well known, and so often at the 'Nest, that his appearance excited no attention. Some important business appeared on the carpet, for there was much caucusing, much private conversation, many eager faces, and much putting together of heads. While the public mind was thus agitated, few were disposed to take any particular notice of me, though I had not stood long in the outer edge of the crowd, which may have contained sixty or seventy men, besides quite as many well-grown lads, before I overheard an interrogatory put as to who I was, and whether I had "a right to a vote." My curiosity was a good deal excited, and I was on the point of asking some explanation, when a man appeared in the door of the school-house, who laid the whole matter bare, in a speech. This person had a shrivelled, care-worn, but keen look, and was somewhat better dressed than most around him, though not particularly elegant, or even very neat, in his toilette. He was gray-headed, of a small, thin figure, and might have been drawing hard upon sixty. He spoke in a deliberate, self-possessed manner, as if long accustomed to the sort of business in which he was engaged, but in a very decided Connecticut accent. I say Connecticut, in contradistinction to that of New England generally; for while the Eastern States have many common peculiarities in this way, a nice and practised ear can tell a Rhode-Islander from a Massachusetts man, and a Connecticut man from either. As the orator opened his mouth to remove a chew of tobacco previously to opening it to speak, a murmur near me said--"Hist! there's the squire; now we shall get suthin'." This, then, was Mr. Jason Newcome, my agent, and the principal resident in the settlement.

"Fellow-citizens"--Mr. Newcome commenced--"you are assembled this day on a most important, and, I may say, trying occasion; an occasion calculated to exercise all our spirits. Your business is to decide on the denomination of the church building that you are about to erect; and the futur' welfare of your souls may, in one sense, be said to be interested in your decision. Your deliberations have already been opened by prayer; and now you are about to come to a final vote. Differences of opinion have, and do exist among you; but differences of opinion exist everywhere. They belong to liberty, the blessings of which are not to be enj'yed without full and free differences of opinion. Religious liberty demands differences of opinion, as a body might say; and without them there would be no religious liberty. You all know the weighty reason there is for coming to some conclusion speedily. The owner of the sile will make his appearance this summer, and his family are all of a desperate tendency toward an idolatrous church, which is unpleasant to most of you. To prevent any consequences, therefore, from his interference, we ought to decide at once, and not only have the house raised, but ruffed in afore he arrives. Among ourselves, however, we have been somewhat divided, and that is a different matter. On the former votes it has stood twenty-six for Congregational to twenty-five Presbytery, fourteen Methodist, nine Baptist, three Universal, and one Episcopal. Now, nothin' is clearer than that the majority ought to rule, and that it is the duty of the minority to submit. My first decision, as moderator, was that the Congregationals have it by a majority of one, but some being dissatisfied with that opinion, I have been ready to hear reason, and to take the view that twenty-six is not a majority, but a plurality, as it is called. As twenty-six, or twenty-five, however, is a majority over nine, and over three, and over one, taking their numbers singly or together, your committee report that the Baptists, Universals and Episcopals ought to be dropped, and that the next vote, now to be taken, shall be confined to the three highest numbers; that is to say, to the Congregationals, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists. Everybody has a right to vote for which he pleases, provided he vote for one of them three. I suppose I am understood, and shall now put the question, unless some gentleman has any remarks to make."

"Mr. Moderator," cried out a burly, hearty-looking yeoman, "is it in order now to speak?"

"Quite so, sir--order, gentlemen, order--Major Hosmer is up."

Up we all were, if standing on one's feet be up; but the word was parliamentary, and it appeared to be understood.

"Mr. Moderator, I am of the Baptist order, and I do not think the decision just; sin' it compels us Baptists to vote for a denomination we don't like, or not to vote at all."

"But you will allow that the majority ought to rule?" interrupted the chair.

"Sartain--I agree to that; for that is a part of my religion, too," returned the old yeoman heartily, and with an air of perfect good faith--"the majority ought to rule; but I do not see that a majority is in favor of the Congregationals any more than it is of the Baptists."

"We will put it to vote ag'in, major, just for your satisfaction," returned Mr. Newcome, with an air of great candor and moderation. "Gentlemen, those of you who are in favor of the Baptists not being included in the next vote for denomination, will please to hold up your hands."

As every man present who was not a Baptist voted "ay," there were sixty-nine hands shown. The "no's" were then demanded in the same way, and the Baptists got their nine own votes, as before. Major Hosmer admitted he was satisfied, though he looked as if there might be something wrong in the procedure, after all. As the Baptists were the strongest of the three excluded sects, the other two made a merit of necessity, and said nothing. It was understood they were in a minority; and a minority, as it very often happens in America, has very few rights.

"It now remains, gentlemen," resumed the moderator, who was a model of submission to the public voice, "to put the vote, as between the Congregationals, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists. I shall first put the Congregationalists. Those who are in favor of that sect, the old Connecticut standing order, will please to hold up their hands."

The tone of voice, the coaxing expression of the eye, and the words "old Connecticut standing order," let me at once into the secret of the moderator's wishes. At first but thirty-four hands appeared; but the moderator having counted these, he looked round the crowd, until he fairly looked up three more; after which he honestly enough announced the vote to be thirty-seven for the Congregationalists. So eleven of the thirteen of silenced sects, had most probably voted with the moderator. The Presbyterians came next, and they got their own people, and two of the Baptists, making twenty-seven in all, on a trial in their behalf. The Methodists got only their own fourteen.

"It evidently appearing, gentleman," said the moderator, "that the Methodists gain no strength, and being less than half the Congregational vote, and much lower than the Presbyterian, I put it to their own well-known Christian humility, whether they ought not to withdraw?"

"Put it openly to vote, as you did ag'in us," came out a Baptist.

"Is that your pleasure, gentlemen? Seeing that it is, I will now try the vote. Those who are in favor of the Methodists withdrawing, will hold up their hands."

Sixty-four hands were raised for, and fourteen against the withdrawal.

"It is impossible for any religion to flourish ag'in such a majority," said the moderator, with great apparent candor; "and though I regret it, for I sincerely wish we were strong enough to build meetin'-houses for every denomination in the world; but as we are not, we must take things as they are, and so the Methodists must withdraw. Gentlemen, the question is now narrowed down to the Congregationals and the Presbyterians. There is not much difference between them, and it is a thousand pities there should be any. Are you ready for the question, gentlemen? No answer being given, I shall put the vote."

And the vote was put, the result being thirty-nine to thirty-nine, or a tie. I could see that the moderator was disappointed, and supposed he would claim a casting vote, in addition to the one he had already given; but I did not know my man. Mr. Newcome avoided all appearances of personal authority; majorities were his cardinal rule, and to majorities alone he would defer. Whenever he chose to govern, it was by means of majorities. The exercise of a power as accidentally bestowed as that of presiding officer, might excite heart-burnings and envy; but he who went with a majority was certain of having the weight of public sympathies on his side. No--no--Mr. Newcome never had an opinion, as against numbers.

I am sorry to say that very mistaken notions of the power of majorities are beginning to take root among us.

It is common to hear it asserted, as a political axiom, that the majority must rule! The axiom may be innocent enough, when its application is properly made, which is simply to say that in the control of those interests of which the decision is referred to majorities, majorities must rule but, God forbid that the majorities should ever rule in all things, in this republic or anywhere else! Such a state of things would soon become intolerable, rendering the government that admitted of its existence the most odious tyranny that has been known in Christendom in modern times. The government of this country is the sway of certain great and incontestable principles, that are just in themselves, and which are set forth in the several constitutions, and under which certain minor questions are periodically referred to local majorities, or of necessity, out of the frequency of which appeals has arisen a mistake that is getting to be dangerously general. God forbid, I repeat, that a mere personal majority should assume the power which alone belongs to principles.

Mr. Newcome avoided a decision, as from the chair; but three several times did he take the vote, and each time was there a tie. I could now perceive that he was seriously uneasy. Such steadiness denoted that men had made up their minds, and that they would be apt to adhere to them, since one side was apparently as strong as the other. The circumstance called for a display of democratical tactics; and Mr. Newcome being very expert in such matters, he could have little difficulty in getting along with the simple people with whom he had to deal.

"You see how it is, fellow-citizens. The public has taken sides, and formed itself into two parties. From this moment the affair must be treated as a party question, and be decided on party principles; though the majority must rule. Oh! here, neighbor Willis; will you just step over to my house, and ask Miss Newcome (Anglice, Mrs. Newcome) to hand you the last volume of the State Laws? Perhaps they have a word to say in the matter." Here neighbor Willis did as desired, and moved out of the crowd. As I afterward discovered, he was a warm Presbyterian, who happened, unfortunately for his sect, to stand so directly before the moderator, as unavoidably to catch his eye. I suspected that Squire Newcome would now call a vote on the main question. But I did not know my man. This would have been too palpably a trick, and he carefully avoided committing the blunder. There was plenty of time, since the moderator knew his wife could not very readily find a book he had lent to a magistrate in another settlement twenty miles off; so that he did not hesitate to have a little private conversation with one or two of his friends.

"Not to be losing time, Mr. Moderator," said one of 'Squire Newcome's confidants, "I will move you that it is the sense of this meeting, that the government of churches by means of a presbytery is anti-republican, opposed to our glorious institutions, and at variance with the best interests of the human family. I submit the question to the public without debate, being content to know the unbiased sentiments of my fellow-citizens on the subject."

The question was duly seconded and put, the result being thirty-nine for, and thirty-eight against; or a majority of one, that Presbyterian rule was anti-republican. This was a great coup de maitre. Having settled that it was opposed to the institutions to have a presbytery, a great deal was gained toward establishing another denomination in the settlement. No religion can maintain itself against political sentiments in this country, politics coming home daily to men's minds and pockets.

It is odd enough that, while all sects agree in saying that the Christian religion comes from God, and that its dogmas are to be received as the laws of Infinite Wisdom, men should be found sufficiently illogical, or sufficiently presumptuous, to imagine that any, the least of its rules, are to be impaired or strengthened by their dissemblance or their conformity to any provisions of human institutions. As well might it be admitted at once, that Christianity is not of divine origin, or the still more extravagant position be assumed, that the polity which God himself has established can be amended by any of the narrow and short-sighted devices of man. Nevertheless, it is not to be concealed, that here, as elsewhere, churches are fashioned to suit the institutions, and not the institutions to suit the church.

Having achieved so much success, the moderator's confidant pushed his advantage.

"Mr. Moderator," he continued, "as this question has altogether assumed a party character, it is manifestly proper that the party which has the majority should not be encumbered in its proceedings by the movements of the minority. Presbytery has been denounced by this meeting, and its friends stand in the light of a defeated party at a state election. They can have nothin' to do with the government. I move, therefore, that those who are opposed to presbytery go into caucus, in order to appoint a committee to recommend to the majority a denomination which will be acceptable to the people of Ravensnest. I hope the motion will be put without debate. The subject is a religious one, and it is unwise to awaken strife on anything at all connected with religion."

Alas! alas! How much injury has been done to the cause of Christianity, how much wrong to the laws of God, and even to good morals, by appeals of this nature, that are intended to smother inquiry, and force down on the timid, the schemes of the designing and fraudulent! Integrity is ever simple and frank; while the devil resorts to these plans of plausible forbearance and seeming concessions, in order to veil his nefarious devices.

The thing took, however; for popular bodies, once under control, are as easily managed as the vessel that obeys her helm; the strength of the current always giving additional power to that material portion of the ship. The motion was accordingly seconded and put. As there was no debate, which had been made to appear anti-religious, the result was precisely the same as on the last question. In other words, there was one majority for disfranchising just one-half the meeting, counting the above man; and this, too, on the principle that the majority ought to rule. After this the caucus people went into the school-house, where it was understood a committee of twenty-six was appointed, to recommend a denomination to the majority. This committee, so respectable in its character, and of so much influence by its numbers, was not slow in acting. As became its moral weight, it unanimously reported that the Congregational polity was the one most acceptable to the people of Ravensnest. This report was accepted by acclamation, and the caucus adjourned sine die.

The moderator now called the whole meeting to order again.

"Mr. Moderator," said the confidant, "it is time that this community should come to some conclusion in the premises. It has been agitated long enough, in its religious feelings, and further delay might lead to unpleasant and lasting divisions. I therefore move that it is the sense of this meetin' that the people of Ravensnest ardently wish to see the new meetin'-us, which is about to be raised, devoted and set apart for the services of the Congregational church, and that a Congregational church be organized, and a Congregational pastor duly called. I trust this question, like all the others, will be passed in perfect harmony, and without debate, as becomes the solemn business we are on."

The question was taken, and the old majority of one was found to be in its favor. Just as Mr. Moderator meekly announced the result, his messenger appeared in the crowd, bawling out, "'Squire, Miss Newcome says she can't noway find the volum', which she kind o' thinks you've lent."

"Bless me! so I have!" exclaimed the surprised magistrate. "It's not in the settlement, I declare; but it's of no importance now, as a majority has fairly decided. Fellow-citizens, we have been dealing with the most important interest that consarns man; his religious state, government, and well-being. Unanimity is very desirable on such a question; and as it is to be presumed no one will oppose the pop'lar will, I shall now put the question to vote for the purpose of obtaining that unanimity. Those who are in favor of the Congregationals, or who ardently wish that denomination, will hold up their hands."

About three-fourths of the hands went up at once. Cries of "unanimity--unanimity"--followed, until one hand after another went up, and I counted seventy-three. The remaining voters continued recusant; but as no question was taken on the other side, the vote may be said to have been a very decided one, if not positively unanimous. The moderator and two or three of his friends made short speeches, commending the liberality of a part of the citizens, and congratulating all, when the meeting was adjourned.

Such were the facts attending the establishment of the Congregational church in the settlement of Ravensnest, on purely republican principles; the question having been carried unanimously in favor of that denomination, although fifty-two votes out of seventy-eight were pretty evidently opposed to it. But republican principles were properly maintained, and the matter was settled; the people having solemnly decided that they ardently wished for a church that in truth they did not desire at all.

No complaints were made, on the spot at least. The crowd dispersed, and as Mr. Newcome walked through it, with the air of a beaten, rather than of a successful man, I came under his observation for the first time. He examined me keenly, and I saw a certain air of doubt and misgiving in his manner. Just at that moment, however, and before he had time to put a question, Jaap drove up in the wagon, and the negro was an old acquaintance, having often been at the Nest, and knowing the 'squire for more than a quarter of a century. This explained the whole affair, a certain mixed resemblance to both father and mother which I am said to bear probably aiding in making the truth more apparent.

Mr. Newcome was startled--that was apparent in his countenance--but he was, nevertheless, self-possessed. Approaching, he saluted me, and at once let me know he understood who I was.

"This is Major Littlepage, I s'pose," he said "I can see a good deal of the gin'ral in you, as I know'd your father when a young man; and something of Herman Mordaunt, your mother's father. How long is it sin' your arrival, Major Littlepage?"

"But a few minutes," I answered, evasively. "You see my wagon and servant there, and we are fresh from Albany. My arrival has been opportune, as all my tenants must be collected here at this moment."

"Why, yes, sir--yes; here are pretty much the whull of them. We have had a little meetin' to-day, to decide on the natur' of our religion, as one might say. I s'pose the major didn't get here until matters were coming to a head?"

"You are quite right, Mr. Newcome, matters were coming to a head, as you say, before I got on the ground."

The 'squire was a good deal relieved at this, for his conscience doubtless pricked him a little on the subject of the allusion he had made to me, and my own denomination. As for myself, I was not sorry to have got so early behind the curtain as to the character of my agent. It was pretty clear he was playing his own game as to some things, and it might be necessary for me to see that this propensity did not extend itself into other concerns. It is true, my mind was made up to change him, but there were long and intricate accounts to settle.

"Yes, sir, religion is an interest of the greatest importance to man's welfare, and it has b'en (Anglice, been) too long neglected among us," continued the late moderator. "You see yonder the frame of a meetin'-us, the first that was ever commenced in this settlement, and it is our intention to put it up this a'ternoon. The bents are all ready. The pike-poles are placed, and all is waiting for the word to 'heave.' You'll perceive, 'squire, it was judicious to go to a sartain p'int, afore we concluded on the denomination. Up to that p'int every man would nat'rally work as if he was workin' for his own order, and we've seen the benefit of such policy, as there you can see the clapboards planed the sash made and glazed, stuff cut for pews, and everything ready to put together. The very nails and paints are bought and paid for. In a word, nothing remains to be done, but to put together, and finish off, and preach."

"Why did you not erect the edifice, 'and finish off,' as you call it, before you came to the test-vote, that I perceive you have just taken?"

"That would have been goin' a le-e-e-tle too far, major--a very le-e-e-tle. If you give a man too tight a hold, he doesn't like to let go, sometimes. We talked the matter over among us, and concluded to put the question before we went any further. All has turned out happily, and we have unanimously resolved to be Congregational. Unanimity in religion is a blessed thing!"

"Do you apprehend no falling off in zeal, in consequence of this work? no refusing to help pay the carpenters, and painters, and priest?"

"No much--a little, perhaps; but no great matter, I should judge. Your own liberal example, major, has had its influence, and I make no doubt will produce an effect."

"My example, sir! I do not understand you, Mr. Newcome, never having heard of the church, until I heard your own allusions to it, as chairman of this very meeting."

'Squire Newcome hemmed, cleared his throat, took an extra-sized chew of tobacco, and then felt himself equal to attempting an answer.

"I call it your example, sir; though the authority for what I have done came from your honored father, General Littlepage, as long ago as before the revolution. Wartimes, you know, major, is no time for buildin' meetin'-uses; so we concluded to defer the matter until peace. Peace we have, and our own eends are fast approaching; and I thought if the work was ever to be done, so that this generation should get the benefit of it, it should be done now. I was in hopes we should have had preachin' in the house afore your arrival, and surprised you with the cheerin' sight of a worshipping people on your lands. Here is your father's letter, from which I read a paragraph to the people, half an hour sin'."

"I trust the people have always been worshippers, though it may not have been in a house built expressly for the purpose. With your permission, I will read the letter."

This document bore the date of 1770, or fourteen years before the time the building was erected, and five years before the battle of Lexington was fought. I was a little surprised at this, but read on. Among other things, I found that my father had given a general consent to credit his tenants with five hundred dollars to aid in the erection of a place of worship; reserving to himself, as my guardian, a voice in the choice of the denomination. I may add, here, that on examining the leases, I found credits had been given, in 1770, for the full amount; and that the money, or what passed for money, the proceeds of work produce, cattle, butter, cheese, &c., had been in Mr. Newcome's hands the whole of the intervening time, no doubt to his great advantage. Thus, by a tardy appropriation of my father's bounty, the agent was pretty certain of being able to finish the job in hand, even admitting that some of the people should prove restive under the recent decision.

"And the money thus appropriated has gone to its destination?" I asked, on returning the letter.

"Every copper has thus gone, major, or will soon go. When the First Congregational, of Ravensnest, is up, you can contemplate the house with the satisfaction of knowing that your own money has largely aided in the good work of its erection. What a delightful sentiment that must awaken! It must be a great blessin' to landlords, to be able to remember how much of their money goes for the good of their fellow-mortals."

"In my case, it certainly should, as I understand my father, and indeed have myself seen, by the accounts rendered to me, that not one dollar of rent has ever yet left the settlement, to go into the pocket of the owner of the estate--nay, that the direct outlays of my grandfather were considerable, in addition to the first cost of the patent."

"I do not deny it, major; I do not deny it. It is quite probable. But, you will consider what the spirit of Public Improvement demands; and you gentlemen-proprietors nat'rally look forward to futur' generations for your reward--yes, sir, to futur' generations. Then will come the time when these leased lands will turn to account, and you will enj'y the fruits of your liberality."

I bowed, but made no answer. By this time the wagon had reached the inn, and Jaap was getting out the trunk and other luggage. A rumor had gone forth among the people that their landlord had arrived, and some of the older tenants, those who had known "Herman Mordaunt," as they all called my grandfather, crowded around me in a frank, hearty manner, in which good feeling was blended with respect. They desired to take my hand. I shook hands with all who came, and can truly say that I took no man's palm into my own that day, without a sentiment that the relation of landlord and tenant was one that should induce kind and confidential feelings. The Ravensnest property was by no means necessary to my comfortable subsistence; and I was really well enough disposed to look forward, if not to "future generations," at least to a future day, for the advantages that were to be reaped from it. I asked the crowd in, ordered a tub of punch made, for, in that day, liquor was a necessary accompaniment of every welcome, and endeavored to make myself acceptable to my new friends. A throng of women, of whom I have not yet spoken, were also in attendance; and I had to go through the ceremony of being introduced to many of the wives and daughters of Ravensnest. On the whole, the meeting was friendly, and my reception warm.

CHAPTER X.

"Bear, through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth."

--Longfellow.

The ceremony of the introduction was not half through, when there was a noisy summons to the pike-poles. This called away the crowd in a body; a raising in the country being an incident of too much interest to be overlooked. I profited by the occasion to issue a few orders that related to my own comfort, when I went, myself, to the scene of present toil and future Congregationalism.

Everybody in America, a few inveterate cockneys excepted, have seen a "raising." Most people have seen hundreds; and, as for myself, I believe I should be safe in saying I had, even at that day, seen a thousand. In this particular instance, there were great felicitations among the yeomen, because the frame "had come together well." I was congratulated on this score, the hearty old Rhode Islander, my brother major, assuring me that "he couldn't get the blade of his knife, and it's no great matter of a knife either, into a single j'int. And, what is more, 'squire"--as the sturdy yeoman was a major himself, though only in the militia, that title would not have been honorable enough for his landlord--"and, what is more, 'squire, they tell me not a piece was ever tried, until we put the bents together, this a'ternoon, ourselves! Now, down country, I never see'd sich a thing; but, up here, the carpenters go by what they call the 'square-rule;' and quick work they make on't!" This speech contained the substance of one of the contrivances by which the "new countries" were endeavoring to catch up with the "old," as I learned on further inquiries.

It may be well to describe the appearance of the place, when I reached the site of the new "meetin'-us." The great body of the "people" had just taken their stands at the first bent, ready for a lift, while trusty men stood at the feet of the posts, armed with crowbars, broad-axes, or such other suitable implements as offered, in readiness to keep those essential uprights in their places; for, on the steadiness of these persons, depended the limbs and lives of those who raised the bent. As this structure was larger than common, the danger was increased, and the necessity of having men that could be relied on was obviously so much the greater. Of one post, in particular, for some reason that I do not know, all the trusty men seemed shy; each declaring that he thought some one else better suited to take charge of it, than he was himself. The "boss"--that Manhattanese word having travelled up to Ravensnest--called out for some one to take the delicate station, as nothing detained the work but the want of a hand there; and one looked at another, to see who would step forward, when a sudden cry arose of "the Chainbearer!--the Chainbearer! Here's your man!"

Sure enough, there came old Andries Coejemans, hale, upright, vigorous, and firm-treading, though he had actually seen his threescore years and ten. My ancient comrade had thrown aside nearly every trace of his late military, profession, though the marchings and drillings of eight years were not to be worked out of a man's air and manner in a twelvemonth. The only sign of the soldier, other than in his bearing, I could trace about my brother captain, was the manner in which his queue was clubbed. Andries wore his own hair; this his early pursuits in the forest rendered necessary; but it had long been clubbed in a sort of military fashion, and to that fashion he now adhered. In other respects he had transformed himself entirely into a woodsman. He wore a hunting-shirt, like myself; leggings, moccasons, and a cap of skins that had been deprived of their furs. So far from lessening in any degree the fine effect of his green old age, however, this attire served to increase it. Andries Coejemans stood six feet, at seventy; was still as erect as he had been at twenty; and so far from betraying the inroads of age on his frame, the last appeared to be indurated and developed by what it had borne. His head was as white as snow, while his face had the ruddy, weather-beaten color of health and exposure. The face had always been handsome, having a very unusual expression of candor and benevolence impressed on features that were bold and manly.

The Chainbearer could not have seen me until he stepped upon the frame. Then, indeed, there was no mistaking the expression of his countenance, which denoted pleasure and friendly interest. Striding over the timber, with the step of a man long accustomed to tread among dangers of all sorts, he grasped my hand, and gave it such a squeeze as denoted the good condition of his own muscles and sinews. I saw a tear twinkling in his eye; for had I been his own son, I do not think he could have loved me more.

"Mortaunt, my poy, you're heartily welcome," said my old comrade. "You haf come upon t'ese people, I fancy, as t'e cat steals upon t'e mice; but I had titings of your march, and have peen a few miles town t'e roat to meet you. How, or where you got past me, is more t'an I know, for I haf seen nuttin' of you or of your wagon."

"Yet here we both are, my excellent old friend, and most happy am I to meet you again. If you will go with me to the tavern, we can talk more at our ease."

"Enough, enough for t'e present, young comrate. Pusiness is standing still a little, for t'e want of my hant; step off the frame, lat, and let us get up t'ese pents, when I am your man for a week or a year."

Exchanging looks, and renewing the warm and friendly pressure of the hand, we parted for the moment; I quitting the frame, while the Chainbearer went at once to the foot of the important post, or to that station no one else would assume. Then commenced, without further delay, the serious toil of raising a bent. This work is seldom entirely free from hazard; and on this particular occasion, when the force in men was a little disproportioned to the weight of the timber, it was doubly incumbent on every man to be true and steady. My attention was at once attracted to the business in hand; and for several minutes I thought of little else. The females had drawn as near the spot where their husbands, brothers, and lovers were exerting every muscle and nerve, as comported with prudence; and a profound and anxious quiet pervaded the whole of a crowd that was gay with rustic finery, if not very remarkable for taste or refinement. Still, the cluster of females had little in it that was coarse or even unfeminine, if it had not much that would be so apt to meet the eye, in the way of the attractive, in a similar crowd of the present day. The improvement in the appearance and dress of the wives and daughters of husbandmen has been very marked among us within the last five-and-twenty years. Fully one-half of those collected on this occasion were in short gowns, as they were called, a garb that has almost entirely disappeared; and the pillions that were to be seen on the bodies of nearly all the horses that were fastened to the adjacent fences, showed the manner in which they had reached the ground. The calicoes of that day were both dear and homely; and it required money to enable a woman to appear in a dress that would be thought attractive to the least practised eye. Nevertheless, there were many pretty girls in that row of anxious faces, with black eyes and blue, light, black, and brown hair, and of the various forms and hues in which female beauty appears in the youthful.

I flatter myself that I was as comely as the generality of young men of my age and class, and that, on ordinary occasions, I could not have shown myself before that cluster of girls, without drawing to myself some of their glances. Such was not the case, however, when I left the frame, which now attracted all eyes. On that, and on those who surrounded it, every eye and every anxious face was turned, my own included. It was a moment of deep interest to all; and most so to those who could only feel, and not act.

At the word, the men made a simultaneous effort; and they raised the upper part of the bent from the timber on which it lay. It was easy to see that the laborers, stout and willing as they were, had as much as they could lift. Boys stood ready, however, with short pieces of scantling to place upright beneath the bent; and the men had time to breathe. I felt a little ashamed of having nothing to do at such a moment; but, fearful of doing harm instead of good, I kept aloof, and remained a mere spectator.

"Now, men," said the boss, who had taken his stand where he could overlook the work, "we will make ready for another lift. All at once makes light work--are you ready?--H-e-a-ve."

Heave, or lift, the stout fellows did; and with so much intelligence and readiness, that the massive timber was carried up as high as their heads. There it stopped, supported as before, by short pieces of scantling.

The pike-poles next came in play. This is always the heaviest moment of a lift of that sort, and the men made their dispositions accordingly. Short poles were first got under the bent, by thrusting the unarmed ends into the cavity of the foundation; and a few of the stoutest of the men stood on blocks, prepared to apply their strength directly.

"Are you ready, men?" called out the boss. "This is our heaviest bent, and we come to it fresh. Look out well to the foot of each post--Chainbearer, I count on you--your post is the king-post of the whole frame; if that goes, all goes. Make ready, men; heave altogether--that's a lift. Heave again, men--h-e-a-ve--altogether now--he-e-a-ve! Up she goes; he-e-a-ve--more pike-poles--stand to the frame, boys--get along some studs--he-e-a-ve--in with your props--so, catch a little breath, men."

It was time to take breath, of a certainty; for the effort had been tremendously severe. The bent had risen, however, and now stood, supported as before by props, at an angle of some fifteen degrees with the plane of the building, which carried all but the posts beyond the reach of hands. The pike-pole was to do the rest; and the next ten degrees to be overcome would probably cause the greatest expenditure of force. As yet, all had gone well, the only drawback being the certainty which had been obtained, that the strength present was hardly sufficient to get up so heavy a bent. Nevertheless there was no remedy, every person on the ground who could be of use, but myself having his station. A well-looking, semi-genteel young man, whose dress was two-thirds forest and one-third town, had come from behind the row of females, stepped upon the frame, and taken his post at a pike-pole. The uninitiated reader will understand that those who raise a building necessarily stand directly under the timber they are lifting; and that a downfall would bring them beneath a fearful trap. Bents do sometimes come down on the laborers; and the result is almost certain destruction to those who are caught beneath the timber. Notwithstanding the danger and the difficulty in the present case, good-humor prevailed, and a few jokes were let off at the expense of the Congregationalists and the late moderator.

"Agree, 'squire," called out the hearty old Rhode Islander, "to let in some of the other denominations occasionally, and see how the bent will go up. Presbytery is holding back desperately!"

"I hope no one supposes," answered Mr. Moderator, "that religious liberty doesn't exist in this settlement. Sartainly--sartainly--other denominations can always use this house, when it isn't wanted by the right owners."

Those words "right owners" were unfortunate; the stronger the right, the less the losing party liking to hear of it. Notwithstanding, there was no disposition to skulk, or to abandon the work; and two or three of the dissentients took their revenge on the spot, by hits at the moderator. Fearful that there might be too much talk, the boss now renewed his call for attention to the work.

"Let us all go together, men," he added. "We've got to the pinch, and must stand to the work like well-broke cattle. If every man at the frame will do his best for just one minute, the hardest will be over. You see that upright stud there, with that boy, Tim Trimmer at it; just raise the bent so that Timmy can get the eend of that stud under it, and all will be safe. Look to the lower eend of the stud, Tim; is it firm and well stopped?"

Tim declared it was; but two or three of the men went and examined it, and after making a few alterations, they too assured the boss it could not get away. A short speech was then made, in which every man was exhorted to do his best; and everybody in particular, was reminded of the necessity of standing to his work. After that speech, the men raised the pike-poles, and placed themselves at their stations. Silent expectation succeeded.

As yet, not a sign, look, or word, had intimated either wish or expectation that I was to place myself in the ranks. I will confess to an impulse to that effect; for who can look on and see their fellow-creatures straining every muscle, and not submit to human sympathy? But the recollection of military rank, and private position, had not only their claims, but their feelings. I did go a step or two nearer to the frame, but I did not put my foot on it.

"Get ready, men"--called the boss, "for a last time. Altogether at the word--now's your time--he-e-a-ve--he-e-e-a-ve--he-e-e-e-ave!"

The poor fellows did heave, and it was only too evident that they were staggering under the enormous pressure of the massive timber. I stepped on the frame at the very centre, or at the most dangerous spot, and applied all my strength to a pike-pole.

"Hurrah!" shouted the boss--"there comes the young landlord!--he-e-ave, every man his best!--he-e-e-e-ave!"

We did heave our best, and we raised the bent several feet above its former props, but not near enough to reach the new ones, by an inch or two. Twenty voices now called on every man to stand to his work; for everybody felt the importance of even a boy's strength. The boss rushed forward like a man, to our aid; and then Tim, fancying his stud would stand without his support, left it and flew to a pike-pole. At this mistake the stud fell a little on one side, where it could be of no use. My face was so placed that I saw this dangerous circumstance; and I felt that the weight I upheld, individually, grew more like lead at each instant. I knew by this time that our force was tottering under the downward pressure of the enormous bent.

"He-e-e-ave, men--for your lives, he-eave!" exclaimed the boss, like one in the agony.

The tones of his voice sounded to me like those of despair. Had a single boy deserted us then, and we had twenty of them on the frame, the whole mass of timber must have come down upon us. Talk of charging into a battery? What is there in that to try men's nerves like the situation in which we were placed? The yielding of a muscle, in all that straining, lifting body, might have ruined us. A most fearful, frightful, twenty seconds followed; and just as I had abandoned hope, a young female darted out of the anxious, pale-faced crowd that was looking on in a terror and agony that may be better conceived than described, and seizing the stud, she placed it alongside of the post. But an inch was wanted to gain its support; but how to obtain that inch! I now raised my voice, and called on the fainting men to heave. They obeyed; and I saw that spirited, true-eyed, firm-handed girl place the prop precisely where it was wanted. All that end of the bent felt the relief instantly, and man after man cautiously withdrew from under the frame, until none remained but those who upheld the other side. We flew to the relief of those, and soon had a number of props in their places, when all drew back and looked on the danger from which they had escaped, breathless and silent. For myself, I felt a deep sense of gratitude to God for the escape.

This occurrence made a profound impression. Everybody was sensible of the risk that had been run, and of the ruin that might have befallen the settlement. I had caught a glimpse of the rare creature whose decision, intelligence, and presence of mind had done so much for us all; and to me she seemed to be the loveliest being of her sex my eyes had ever lighted on! Her form, in particular, was perfection; being just the medium between feminine delicacy and rude health; or just so much of the last as could exist without a shade of coarseness; and the little I saw of a countenance that was nearly concealed by a maze of curls that might well be termed golden, appeared to me to correspond admirably with that form. Nor was there anything masculine or unseemly in the deed she had performed to subtract in any manner from the feminine character of her appearance. It was decided, useful, and in one sense benevolent; but a boy might have executed it so far as physical force was concerned. The act required coolness, intelligence, and courage, rather than any masculine power of body.

It is possible that, aware as I was of the jeopardy in which we were all placed, my imagination may have heightened the effect of the fair apparition that had come to save us, as it might be, like a messenger from above. But, even there, where I stood panting from the effect of exertions that I have never equalled in my own case most certainly, exhausted, nearly breathless, and almost unable to stand, my mind's-eye saw nothing but the flexible form, the elastic, ready step, the golden tresses, the cheek suffused by excitement, the charming lips compressed with resolution, and the whole air, attitude, and action characterized, as was each and all, by the devotion, readiness, and loveliness of her sex. When my pulses beat more regularly, and my heart ceased to throb, I looked around in quest of that strange vision, but saw no one who could, in the least, claim to be connected with it. The females had huddled together, like a covey that was frightened, and were exclaiming, holding up their hands, and indulging in the signs of alarm that are customary with their sex and class. The "vision" was certainly not in that group, but had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

At this juncture, the Chainbearer came forward, and took the command. I could see he was agitated--affected might be a better word--but he was, nevertheless, steady and authoritative. He was obeyed, too, in a manner I was delighted to see. The order of the "boss" had produced no such impressions as those which old Andries now issued; and I really felt an impulse to obey them myself, as I would have done eighteen months before, when he stood on the right of our regiment as its oldest captain.

The carpenter yielded his command to the Chainbearer without a murmur. Even 'Squire Newcome evidently felt that Andries was one who, in a certain way, could influence the minds of the settlers more than he could do it himself. In short, everybody listened, everybody seemed pleased, and everybody obeyed. Nor did my old friend resort to any of the coaxing that is so common in America, when men are to be controlled in the country. In the towns, and wherever men are to be commanded in bodies, authority is as well understood as it is in any other quarter of the world; but, in the interior, and especially among the people of New England habits, very few men carry sufficient command with them to say, "John, do this," or "John, do that;" but it is "Johnny, why won't you do this?" or "Johnny, don't you think you'd better do that?" The Chainbearer had none of this mystified nonsense about him. He called things by their right names; and when he wanted a spade, he did not ask for a hoe. As a consequence, he was obeyed, command being just as indispensable to men, on a thousand occasions, as any other quality.

Everything was soon ready again, with the men stationed a little differently from what they had previously been. This change was the Chainbearer's, who understood mechanics practically; better, perhaps, than if he had been a first-rate mathematician. The word was given to heave, all of us being at the pike-poles; when up went the bent, as if borne upon by a force that was irresistible. Such was the effect of old Andries' habits of command, which not only caused every man to lift with all his might, but the whole to lift together. A bent that is perpendicular is easily secured; and then it was announced that the heaviest of the work was over. The other bents were much lighter; and one up, there were means of aiding in raising the rest that were at first wanting.

"The Congregationals has got the best on't," cried out the old Rhode Islander, laughing, as soon as the bent was stay-lathed, "by the help of the Chainbearer and somebody else I wunt name! Well, our turn will come, some day; for Ravensnest is a place in which the people wont be satisfied with one religion. A country is badly on't, that has but one religion in't; priests getting lazy, and professors dull!"

"You may be sure of t'at," answered the Chainbearer, who was evidently making preparations to quit the frame. "Ravensnest will get as many religions, in time, as t'ere are discontented spirits in it; and t'ey will need many raisings, and more priests."

"Do you intend to leave us, Chainbearer? There's more posts to hold, and more bents to lift?"

"The worst is over, and you've force enough wit'out me, for what remains to be tone. I haf t'e lantlort to take care of. Go to your work, men; and, if you can, rememper you haf a peing to worship in t'is house, t'at is neit'er Congregational, nor Presbyterian, nor anything else of the nature of your disputes and self-conceit. 'Squire Newcome wilt gif you a leat in t'e way of l'arning, and t'e carpenter can act boss well enough for t'e rest of t'e tay."

I was surprised at the coolness with which my old friend delivered himself of sentiments that were not very likely to find favor in such a company, and the deference that he received, while thus ungraciously employed. But I afterward ascertained Andries commanded respect by means of his known integrity; and his opinions carried weight because he was a man who usually said "come, boys," and not one who issued his orders in the words "go, boys." This had been his character in the army, where, in his own little circle, he was known as one ever ready to lead in person. Then Andries was a man of sterling truth; and such a man, when he has the moral courage to act up to his native impulses, mingled with discretion enough to keep him within the boundaries of common prudence, insensibly acquires great influence over those with whom he is brought in contact. Men never fail to respect such qualities, however little they put them in practice in their own cases.

"Come Morty, my poy," said the Chainbearer, as soon as we were clear of the crowd, "I will pe your guite, ant take you to a roof unter which you will pe master."

"You surely do not mean the 'Nest?"

"T'at, and no ot'er. T'e olt place looks, like us olt soltiers, a little rusty, and t'e worse for sarvice; put it is comfortaple, and I haf had it put in order for you, poy. Your grantfat'er's furniture is still t'ere; and Frank Malpone, Dus, and I, haf mate it head-quarters, since we haf peen in t'is part of t'e country. You know I haf your orters for t'at."

"Certainly, and to use anything else that is mine. But I had supposed you fairly hutted in the woods of Mooseridge!"

"T'at hast peen tone too; sometimes we are at one place, and sometimes at anot'er. My niggers are at t'e hut; put Frank and Dus and I haf come ofer to welcome you to t'e country."

"I have a wagoner here, and my own black--let me step to the inn, and order them to get ready for us."

"Mortaunt, you and I haf peen uset to our feet. The soltier marches, and countermarches, wit' no wagon to carry him; he leafs t'em to t'e paggage, and t'e paggage-guart."

"Come on, old Andries; I will be your comrade, on foot or on horseback. It can only be some three or four miles, and Jaap can follow with the trunks at his leisure."

A word spoken to the negro was all that was necessary; though the meeting between him and the Chainbearer was that of old friends. Jaap had gone through the whole war with the regiment, sometimes acting as my father's servant, sometimes carrying a musket, sometimes driving a team; and, at the close of his career, as my particular attendant. He consequently regarded himself as a sort of soldier, and a very good one had he proved himself to be, on a great many occasions.

"One word before we start, Chainbearer," I said, as old Andries and Jaap concluded their greetings; "I fell in with the Indian you used to call Sureflint, in the woods, and I wish to take him with us."

"He hast gone aheat, to let your visit pe known," answered my friend. "I saw him going up t'e roat, at a quick trot, half an hour since. He is at t'e 'Nest py t'is time."

No more remained to be said or done, and we went our way, leaving the people busily engaged in getting up the remainder of the frame. I had occasion to observe that my arrival produced much less sensation in the settlement than it might have done had not the "meeting-house" been my competitor in attracting attention. One was just as much of a novelty as the other; just as much of a stranger. Although born in a Christian land, and educated in Christian dogmas, very few of those who dwelt on the estate of Ravensnest, and who were under the age of five-and-twenty, had ever seen an edifice that was constructed for the purpose of Christian worship at all. Such structures were rare indeed, in the year 1784, and in the interior of New York. Albany had but two, I believe; the capital may have had a dozen; and most of the larger villages possessed at least one; but with the exception of the old counties, and here and there one on the Mohawk, the new State could not boast of many of "those silent fingers pointing to the sky," rising among its trees, so many monitors of a future world, and of the great end of life. As a matter of course, all those who had never seen a church felt the liveliest desire to judge of the form and proportions of this; and as the Chainbearer and I passed the crowd of females, I heard several good-looking girls expressing their impatience to see something of the anticipated steeple, while scarce a glance was bestowed on myself.

"Well, my old friend, here we are together, again, marching on a public highway," I remarked, "but with no intention of encamping in front of an enemy."

"I hope not," returned Andries, dryly; "t'ough all is not golt t'at glitters. We have fought a hard battle, Major Littlepage; I hope it will turn out for a goot end."

I was a little surprised at this remark; but Andries was never very sanguine in his anticipations of good. Like a true Dutchman, he particularly distrusted the immigration from the Eastern States, which I had heard him often say could bring no happy results.

"All will come round in the end, Chainbearer," I answered, "and we shall get the benefits of our toil and dangers. But how do you come on at the Ridge, and who is this surveyor of yours?"

"T'ings do well enough at t'e Ridge, Mortaunt; for t'ere t'ere is not a soul yet to make trouple. We have prought you a map of ten t'ousant acres, laid off in huntret acre lots, which I will venture to say haf peen as honestly and carefully measuret as any other ten t'ousant acres in t'e State. We pegan next to t'is property, and you may pegin to lease, on your fat'er's lant, just as soon as you please."

"And the Frank Malbone you have written about did the surveying?"

"He worket up my measurements, lat, and closely tone t'ey are, I'll answer for it. T'is Frank Malbone is t'e brot'er of Dus--t'at is to say, her half-brot'er; peing no nephew of mine. Dus, you know, is only a half-niece in bloot; but she is a full da'ter in lofe. As for Frank, he is a goot fellow; and t'ough t'is is his first jop at surfeying, he may be dependet on wit' as much confitence as any ot'er man going."

"No matter if a few mistakes are made, Andries; land is not diamonds in this country; there is plenty for us all, and a great deal to spare. It would be a different matter if there was a scarcity; but as it is, give good measure to the tenant, or the purchaser. A first survey can only produce a little loss or gain; whereas surveys between old farms are full of trouble."

"Ant lawsuits"--put in the Chainbearer, nodding his head. "To tell you my mint, Mortaunt, I would rat'er take a jop in a Dutch settlement, at half-price, t'an run a line petween two Yankees for twice the money. Among t'e Dutch, t'e owners light their pipes, and smoke whilst you are at work; but the Yankees are the whole time trying to cut off a little here, and to gain a little t'ere; so t'at it is as much as a man's conscience is wort' to carry a chain fairly petween 'em."

As I knew his prejudice on this subject formed the weak point in the Chainbearer, I gave the discourse a new turn, by leading it to political events, of which I knew him to be fond. We walked on, conversing on various topics connected with this theme, for near an hour, when I found myself rather suddenly quite near to my own particular house. Near by, the building had more of shape and substance than it had seemed to possess when seen from the height; and I found the orchards and meadows around it free from stumps and other eyesores, and in good order. Still, the place on its exterior, had a sort of jail look, there being no windows, nor any other outlet than the door. On reaching the latter, which was a gate, rather than an ordinary entrance, we paused a moment to look about us. While we stood there, gazing at the fields, a form glided through the opening, and Sureflint stood by my side. He had hardly got there, when there arose the strains of the same full, rich, female voice, singing Indian words to a civilized melody, as I had heard issuing from the thicket of pines, among the second growth of the forest. From that moment I forgot my fields and orchards, forgot the Chainbearer and Sureflint, and could think of nothing but the extraordinary circumstance of a native girl's possessing such a knowledge of our music. The Indian himself seemed entranced; never moving until the song or verses were ended. Old Andries smiled, waited until the last strain was finished, pronounced the word "Dus" with emphasis, and beckoned for me to follow him into the building.

CHAPTER XI.

"The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time; if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure for every thing, and so dance out the answer."--Beatrice.

"Dus!" I repeated to myself--"This, then, is Dus, and no Indian girl; the Chainbearer's 'Dus;' Priscilla Bayard's 'Dus;' and Sureflint's 'wren'!"

Andries must have overheard me, in part; for he stopped just within the court on which the gate opened, and said--

"Yes, t'at is Dus, my niece. The girl is like a mocking-pird, and catches the songs of all languages and people. She is goot at Dutch, and quite melts my heart, Mortaunt, when she opens her throat to sing one of our melancholy Dutch songs; and she gives the English too, as if she knowet no ot'er tongue."

"But that song was Indian--the words, at least, were Mohawk or Oneida."

"Onondago--t'ere is little or no tifference. Yes, you're right enough; the worts are Indian, and they tell me t'e music is Scotch. Come from where it will, it goes straight to the heart, poy."

"How came Dus--how came Miss Ursula--that is, your niece, to understand an Indian dialect?"

"Didn't I tell you she is a perfect mocking-bird, and that she imitates all she hears? Yes, Dus would make as goot a surveyor as her brot'er, after a week's trial. You've heart me say how much I livet among the tripes before t'e war, and Dus was t'en wit' me. In that manner she has caught the language; and what she has once l'arnet she nefer forget. Dus is half wilt from living so much in the woots, and you must make allowances for her; put she is a capital gal, and t'e very prite of my heart!"

"Tell me one thing before we enter the house--does any one else sing Indian about here?--has Sureflint any women with him?"

"Not he!--t'e creatur' hast not'ing to do wit' squaws. As for any one else's singing Intian, I can only tell you I never heart of such a person."

"But, you told me you were down the road to meet me this morning--were you alone!"

"Not at all--we all went; Sureflint, Frank, Dus, and I. I t'ought it due to a lantlort, Mortaunt, to gif him a hearty welcome; t'ough Dus did mutiny a little, and sait t'at, lantlort or no lantlort, it was not proper for a young gal to go forth to meet a young man. I might have t'ought so too, if it hadn't peen yourself, my poy; but, with you, I couldn't play stranger, as one woult wit' a straggling Yankee. I wishet to welcome you wit' the whole family; put I'll not conceal Dus's unwillingness to be of t'e party."

"But Dus was of your party! It is very odd we did not meet!"

"Now, you speak of it, I do pelief it wast all owin' to a scheme of t'at cunnin' gal! You must know, Mortaunt, a'ter we had got a pit down t'e roat, she persuatet us to enter a t'icket of pines, in order to eat a mout'ful; and I do pelief the cunnin' hussy just did it t'at you might slip past, and she safe her female dignity!"

"And from those pines Sureflint came, just after Dus, as you call her, but Miss Ursula Malbone, as I ought to style her, had been singing this very song?"

"Wast you near enough to know all t'is, poy, and we miss you! The gal dit sing t'at ferry song; yes, I rememper it; and a sweet, goot song it is. Call her Miss Ursula Malbone? Why shouldn't you call her Dus, as well as Frank and I?"

"For the simple reason that you are uncle, and Frank her brother, while I am a total stranger."

"Poh--poh--Morty; t'is is peing partic'lar. I am only a half-uncle, in the first place; and Frank is only a half-brot'er; and I dares to say you wilt pe her whole frient. T'en, you are not a stranger to any of t'e family, I can tell you, lat; for I have talket enough apout you to make bot' t'e poy and t'e gal lofe you almost as much as I do myself."

Poor, simple-hearted, upright old Andries! What an unpleasant feeling did he give me, by letting me into the secret that I was about to meet persons who had been listening to his partial accounts for the last twelve months. It is so difficult to equal expectations thus awakened; and I will own that I had begun to be a little sensitive on the subject of this Dus. The song had been ringing in my ears from the moment I first heard it; and now that it became associated with Priscilla Bayard's Ursula Malbone, the latter had really become a very formidable person to my imagination. There was no retreating, however, had I wished it; and a sign induced the Chainbearer to proceed. Face the young woman I must, and the sooner it was done the better.

The 'Nest-house, as my homely residence was termed, had been a sort of fortress, or "garrison," in its day, having been built around three sides of a parallelogram, with all its windows and doors opening on the court. On the fourth side were the remains of pickets, or palisades, but they were mostly rotted away, being useless as a fence, from the circumstance that the buildings stood on the verge of a low cliff that, of itself, formed a complete barrier against the invasions of cattle, and no insignificant defence against those of man.

The interior of the 'Nest-house was far more inviting than its exterior. The windows gave the court an appearance of life and gayety, at once converting that which was otherwise a pile of logs, thrown together in the form of a building, into a habitable and inhabited dwelling. One side of this court, however, was much neater, and had much more the air of comfort than the other; and toward the first Andries led the way. I was aware that my grandfather Mordaunt had caused a few rooms in this building to be furnished for his own particular purposes, and that no orders had ever been given to remove or to dispose of the articles thus provided. I was not surprised, therefore, on entering the house, to find myself in apartments which, while they could not be called in any manner gayly or richly furnished, were nevertheless quite respectably supplied with most of the articles that are thought necessary to a certain manner of living.

"We shall fint Dus in here, I dare say," observed the Chainbearer, throwing open a door, and signing for me to precede him. "Go in, and shake t'e gal's hand, Mortaunt; she knows you well enough, name and natur', as a poty may say."

I did go in, and found myself within a few feet of the fair, golden-haired girl of the raising; she who had saved the frame from falling on us all, by a decision of mind and readiness of exertion that partook equally of courage and dexterity. She was in the same dress as when first seen by me, though the difference in attitude and employment certainly gave her air and expression a very different character. Ursula Malbone was now quietly occupied in hemming one of those coarse checked handkerchiefs that the poverty of her uncle compelled him, or at least induced him to use, and of which I had seen one in his hands only a minute before. On my entrance she rose, gravely but not discourteously answering my bow with a profound courtesy. Neither spoke, though the salutes were exchanged as between persons who felt no necessity for an introduction in order to know each other.

"Well, now," put in Andries, in his strongest Dutch accent, "t'is wilt never do, ast petween two such olt frients. Come hit'er, Dus, gal, and gif your hant to Mortaunt Littlepage, who ist a sort of son of my own."

Dus obeyed, and I had the pleasure of holding her soft velvet-like hand in mine for one moment. I felt a gratification I cannot describe in finding the hand was so soft, since the fact gave me the assurance that necessity had not yet reduced her to any of the toil that is unsuited to a gentlewoman. I knew that Andries had slaves, his only possession, indeed, besides his compass, chains and sword, unless a few arms and some rude articles of the household were excepted; and these slaves, old and worn out as they must be by this time, were probably the means of saving the niece from the performance of offices that were menial.

Although I got the hand of Ursula Malbone, I could not catch her eye. She did not avert her face, neither did she affect coldness; but she was not at her ease. I could readily perceive that she would have been better pleased had her uncle permitted the salutations to be limited to the bows and courtesies. As I had never seen this girl before, and could not have done anything to offend her, I ascribed the whole to mauvaise honte, and the embarrassment that was natural enough to one who found herself placed in a situation so different from that in which she had so lately been. I bowed on the hand, possibly gave it a gentle pressure in order to reassure its owner, and we separated.

"Well, now, Dus, haf you a cup of tea for the lantlort--to welcome him to his own house wit'?" demanded Andries, perfectly satisfied with the seemingly amicable relations he had established between us. "T'e major hast hat a long march, for peaceable times, and woult be glat to git a little refreshment."

"You call me major, Chainbearer, while you refuse to accept the same title for yourself."

"Ay, t'ere ist reason enough for t'at. You may lif to be a general; wilt probably be one before you're t'irty; but I am an olt man, now, and shall never wear any ot'er uniform than this I have on again. I pegan t'e worlt in this corps, Morty, and shall end it in the rank in which I began."

"I thought you had been a surveyor originally, and that you fell back on the chain because you had no taste for figures. I think I have heard as much from yourself."

"Yes, t'at is t'e fact. Figures and I didn't agree; nor do I like 'em any petter at seventy t'an I liket 'em at seventeen. Frank Malbone, now, Dus's brother, t'ere, ist a lat that takes to 'em nat'rally, and he works t'rough a sum ast your fat'er would carry a battalion t'rough a ravine. Carrying chain I like; it gives sufficient occupation to t'e mind; put honesty is the great quality for the chainbearer. They say figures can't lie, Mortaunt; but 'tis not true wit' chains; sometimes they do lie, desperately."

"Where is Mr. Francis Malbone? I should be pleased to make his acquaintance."

"Frank remainet pehint to help 'em up with their timber. He is a stout chap, like yourself, and can lent a hant; while, poor fellow! he has no lantlort tignity to maintain."

I heard a gentle sigh from Dus, and involuntarily turned my head; for she was occupied directly behind my chair. As if ashamed of the weakness, the spirited girl colored, and for the first time in my life I heard her voice, the two instances of the Indian songs excepted. I say heard her voice; for it was an event to record. A pleasant voice, in either sex, is a most pleasant gift from nature. But the sweet tones of Ursula Malbone were all that the most fastidious ear could have desired; being full, rich, melodious, yet on the precise key that best satisfies the taste, bringing with it assurances of a feminine disposition and regulated habits. I detest a shrill, high-keyed female voice, more than that of a bawling man, while one feels a contempt for those who mumble their words in order to appear to possess a refinement that the very act itself contradicts. Plain, direct, but regulated utterance, is indispensable to a man or woman of the world; anything else rendering him or her mean or affected.

"I was in hopes," said Dus, "that evil-disposed frame was up and secured, and that I should see Frank in a minute or two. I was surprised to see you working so stoutly for the Presbyterians, uncle Chainbearer!"

"I might return t'e compliment, and say I wast surpriset to see you doing the same t'ing, Miss Dus! Pesides, the tenomination is Congregational and not Prespyterian; and one is apout as much to your taste as t'e ot'er."

"The little I did was for you, and Frank, and--Mr. Littlepage, with all the rest who stood under the frame."

"I am sure, Miss Ursula," I now put in, "we all ought, and I trust we all do feel truly grateful for your timely aid. Had that timber come down, many of us must have been killed, and more maimed."

"It was not a very feminine exploit," answered the girl, smiling, as I thought, a little bitterly. "But one gets accustomed to being useful in the woods."

"Do you dislike living in the forest, then?" I ventured to ask.

"Certainly not. I like living anywhere that keeps me near uncle Chainbearer, and Frank. They are all to me, now my excellent protectress and adviser is no more; and their home is my home, their pleasure my pleasure, their happiness mine."

This might have been said in a way to render it suspicious and sentimental; but it was not. On the contrary, it was impulsive, and came from the heart. I saw by the gratified look of Andries that he understood his niece, and was fully aware how much he might rely on the truthful character of the speaker. As for the girl herself, the moment she had given utterance to what she felt, she shrunk back, like one abashed at having laid bare feelings that ought to have been kept in the privacy of her own bosom. Unwilling to distress her, I turned the conversation in a way to leave her to herself.

"Mr. Newcome seems a skilful manager of the multitude," I remarked. "He contrived very dexterously to give to the twenty-six Congregationalists he had with him, the air of being a majority of the whole assembly; while in truth, they were barely a third of those present."

"Let Jason Newcome alone for t'at?" exclaimed Andries. "He understants mankint, he says, and sartainly he hast a way of marching and countermarching just where he pleases wit' t'ese people, makin' 'em t'ink t'e whole time t'ey are doing just what t'ey want to do. It ist an art, major--it ist an art!"

"I should think it must be, and one worth possessing, if, indeed, it can be exercised with credit."

"Ay, t'ere's the rub! Exerciset it is; but as for t'e credit, t'at I will not answer for. It sometimes makes me angry, and sometimes it makes me laugh, when I look on, and see t'e manner in which Jason makes t'e people rule t'emselves, and how he wheels 'em apout, and faces 'em, and t'rows them into line, and out of line, at t'eir own wort of commant! His Excellency coult hartly do more wit' us, a'fer t'e Baron[8] had given us his drill."

"There must be some talent necessary, in order to possess so much influence over one's fellow-creatures."

"It is a talent you woult be ashamed to exercise, Mortaunt Littlepage, t'ough you hat it in cart loats. No man can use such talent wit'out peginning wit' lying and deceifing; and you must be greatly changet, major, if you are the he't of your class, in such a school."

"I am sorry to see, Chainbearer, that you have no better opinion of my agent; I must look into the matter a little, when this is the case."

"You wilt fint him law-honest enough; for he swears py t'e law, and lifs py t'e law. No fear for your tollars, poy; t'ey pe all safe, unless, inteet, t'ey haf all vanishet in t'e law."

As Andries was getting more and more Dutch, I knew he was growing more and more warm, and I thought it might be well to defer the necessary inquiries to a cooler moment. This peculiarity I have often observed in most of those who speak English imperfectly, or with the accent of some other tongue. They fall back, as respects language, to that nearest to nature, at those moments when natural feeling is asserting its power over them the least equivocally.

I now began to question the Chainbearer concerning the condition in which he found the 'Nest-house and farm, over which I had given him full authority, when he came to the place, by a special letter to the agent. The people in possession were of very humble pretensions, and had been content to occupy the kitchen and servants' rooms ever since my grandfather's death, as indeed, they had done long before that event. It was owing to this moderation, as well as to their perfect honesty, that I found nothing embezzled, and most of the articles in good condition. As for the farm, it had flourished, on the "let alone" principle. The orchards had grown, as a matter of course; and if the fields had not been improved by judicious culture, neither had they been exhausted by covetous croppings. In these particulars, there was nothing of which to complain. Things might have been better, Andries thought; but he also thought it was exceedingly fortunate they were no worse. While we were conversing on this theme, Dus moved about the room silently, but with collected activity, having arranged the tea-table with her own hands. When invited to take our seats at it--everybody drew near to a tea-table in that day, unless when there was too large a party to be accommodated--I was surprised to find everything so perfectly neat, and some things rich. The plates, knives, etc., were of good quality, but the tray was actually garnished with a set of old-fashioned silver, such as was made when tea was first used, of small size, but very highly chased. The handle of the spoons represented the stem of the tea-plant, and there was a crest on each of them; while a full coat of arms was engraved on the different vessels of the service, which were four in all. I looked at the crest, in a vague, but surprised expectation of finding my own. It was entirely new to me. Taking the cream-jug in my hand, I could recall no arms resembling those that were engraved on it.

"I was surprised to find this plate here," I observed; "for, though my grandfather possessed a great deal of it, for one of his means, I did not think he had enough to be as prodigal of it as leaving it here would infer. This is family plate, too, but those arms are neither Mordaunt nor Littlepage. May I ask to whom they do belong?"

"The Malpones," answered the Chainbearer. "T'e t'ings are t'e property of Dus."

"And you may add, uncle Chainbearer, that they are all her property"--added the girl, quickly.

"I feel much honored in being permitted to use them, Miss Ursula," I remarked; "for a very pretty set they make."

"Necessity, and not vanity, has brought them out to-day. I broke the only teapot of yours there was in the house this morning, and was in hopes Frank would have brought up one from the store to supply its place, before it would be wanted; but he does not come. As for spoons, I can find none belonging to the house, and we use these constantly. As the teapot was indispensable, I thought I might as well display all my wealth at once. But this is the first time the things have been used in many, many years!"

There was a plaintive melody in Dus's voice, spite of her desire and effort to speak with unconcern, that I found exceedingly touching. While few of us enter into the exultation of successful vulgarity, as it rejoices in its too often random prosperity, it is in nature to sympathize with a downward progress, and with the sentiments it leaves, when it is connected with the fates of the innocent, the virtuous, and the educated. That set of silver was all that remained to Ursula Malbone of a physical character, and which marked the former condition of her family; and doubtless she cherished it with no low feeling of morbid pride, but as a melancholy monument of a condition to which all her opinions, tastes, and early habits constantly reminded her she properly belonged. In this last point of view, the sentiment was as respectable, and as much entitled to reverence, as in the other case it would have been unworthy, and meriting contempt.

There is a great deal of low misconception, as well as a good deal of cant, beginning to prevail among us, on the subject of the qualities that mark a gentleman, or a lady. The day has gone by, and I trust forever, when the mere accidents of birth are to govern such a claim; though the accidents of birth are very apt to supply the qualities that may really form the caste. For my own part, I believe in the exaggerations of neither of the two extremes that so stubbornly maintain their theories on this subject; or, that a gentleman may not be formed exclusively by birth on the one hand, and that the severe morality of the Bible on the other is by no means indispensable to the character. A man may be a very perfect gentleman, though by no means a perfect man, or a Christian; and he may be a very good Christian, and very little of a gentleman. It is true, there is a connection in manners, as a result, between the Christian and the gentleman; but it is in the result, and not in the motive. That Christianity has little necessary connection with the character of a gentleman may be seen in the fact that the dogmas of the first teach us to turn another cheek to him who smites; while the promptings of the gentleman are--not to wipe out the indignity in the blood of the offender, but--to show that rather than submit to it he is ready to risk his own life.[9]

But, I repeat, there is no necessary connection between the Christian and the gentleman, though the last who is the first attains the highest condition of humanity. Christians, under the influence of their educations and habits, often do things that the code of the gentleman rejects; while it is certain that gentlemen constantly commit unequivocal sins. The morality of the gentleman repudiates meannesses and low vices, rather than it rigidly respects the laws of God; while the morality of the Christian is unavoidably raised or depressed by the influence of the received opinions of his social caste. I am not maintaining that "the ten commandments were not given for the obedience of people of quality," for their obligations are universal; but, simply, that the qualities of a gentleman are the best qualities of man unaided by God, while the graces of the Christian come directly from his mercy.

Nevertheless, there is that in the true character of a gentleman that is very much to be respected. In addition to the great indispensables of tastes, manners, and opinions, based on intelligence and cultivation, and all those liberal qualities that mark his caste, he cannot and does not stoop to meannesses of any sort. He is truthful out of self-respect, and not in obedience to the will of God; free with his money, because liberality is an essential feature of his habits, and not in imitation of the self-sacrifice of Christ; superior to scandal and the vices of the busybody, inasmuch as they are low and impair his pride of character, rather than because he has been commanded not to bear false witness against his neighbor. It is a great mistake to confound these two characters, one of which is a mere human embellishment of the ways of a wicked world, while the other draws near to the great end of human existence. The last is a character I revere; while I am willing to confess that I never meet with the first without feeling how vacant and repulsive society would become without it; unless, indeed, the vacuum could be filled by the great substance, of which, after all, the gentleman is but the shadow.

Ursula Malbone lost nothing in my respect by betraying the emotion she did, while thus speaking of this relic of old family plate. I was glad to find, however, that she could retain it; for, though dressed in no degree in a style unbecoming her homely position as her uncle's housekeeper, there were a neatness and taste in her attire that are not often seen in remote parts of the country. On this subject, the reader will indulge my weaknesses a little, if I pause to say a word. Ursula had neither preserved in her dress the style of one of her sex and condition in the world, nor yet entirely adopted that common to girls of the class to which she now seemingly belonged. It struck me that some of those former garments that were the simplest in fashion, and the most appropriate in material, had been especially arranged for present use; and sweetly becoming were they, to one of her style of countenance and perfection of form. In that day, as every one knows, the different classes of society--and, kingdom or republic, classes do and ever will exist in this country, as an incident of civilization; a truth every one can see as respects those below, though his vision may be less perfect as respects those above him--but every one knows that great distinctions in dress existed, as between classes, all over the Christian world, at the close of the American war, that are fast disappearing, or have altogether disappeared. Now Ursula had preserved just enough of the peculiar attire of her own class, to let one understand that she, in truth, belonged to it without rendering the distinction obtrusive. Indeed, the very character of that which she did preserve, sufficiently told the story of her origin, since it was a subdued, rather than an exaggerated imitation of that to which she had been accustomed, as would have been the case with a mere copyist. I can only add, that the effect was to render her sufficiently charming.

"Taste t'ese cakes," said old Andries, who, without the slightest design, did love to exhibit the various merits of his niece--"Dus mate t'em, and I'll engage Matam Washington herself couldn't make pleasanter!"

"If Mrs. Washington was ever thus employed," I answered, "she might turn pale with envy here. Better cakes of the sort I never ate."

"'Of the sort' is well added, Mr. Littlepage," the girl quietly observed; "my protectress and friend made me rather skilful in this way, but the ingredients are not to be had here as they were in her family."

"Which, being a boarding-school for young ladies, was doubtless better supplied than common with the materials and knowledge necessary for good cakes."

Dus laughed, and it startled me, so full of a wild but subdued melody did that laugh seem to be.

"Young ladies have many foibles imputed to them, of which they are altogether innocent," was her answer. "Cakes were almost forbidden fruit in the school, and we were taught to make them in pity to the palates of the men."

"Your future huspants, gal," cried the Chainbearer, rising to quit the room.

"Our fathers, brothers, and uncles," returned his niece, laying an emphasis on the last word.

"I believe, Miss Ursula," I resumed, as soon as Andries had left us alone, "that I have been let behind the curtain as respects your late school, having an acquaintance of a somewhat particular nature with one of your old school-fellows."

My companion did not answer, but she fastened those fascinating blue eyes of hers on me, in a way that asked a hundred questions in a moment. I could not but see that they were suffused with tears; allusions to her school often producing that effect.

"I mean Miss Priscilla Bayard, who would seem to be, or to have been, a very good friend of yours," I added, observing that my companion was not disposed to say anything.

"Pris Bayard!" Ursula now suffered to escape her, in her surprise--"and she an acquaintance of a somewhat particular nature!"

"My language has been incautious; not to say that of a coxcomb. Certainly, I am not authorized to say more than that our families are very intimate, and that there are some particular reasons for that intimacy. I beg you to read only as I have corrected the error."

"I do not see that the correction changes things much; and you will let me say I am grieved, sadly grieved, to learn so much."

This was odd! That Dus really meant what she said was plain enough by a face that had actually lost nearly all of its color, and which expressed an emotion that was most extraordinary. Shall I own what a miserably conceited coxcomb I was for a single moment? The truth must be said, and I will confess it. The thought that crossed my mind was this: Ursula Malbone was pained at the idea that the only man whom she had seen for a year, and who could, by possibility, make any impression on one of her education and tastes, was betrothed to another! Under ordinary circumstances, this precocious preference might have caused me to revolt at its exhibition; but there was far too much of nature in all of Dus's emotions, acts, and language, to produce any other impression on me than that of intense interest. I have always dated the powerful hold that this girl so soon obtained on my heart, to the tumult of feeling awakened in me at that singular moment. Love at first sight may be ridiculous, but it is sometimes true. That a passion may be aroused by a glance, or a smile, or any other of those secret means of conveying sympathy with which nature has supplied us, I fully believe; though its duration must depend on qualities of a higher and more permanent influence. It is the imagination that is first excited; the heart coming in for its share by later and less perceptible degrees.

My delusion, however, did not last long. Whether Ursula Malbone was conscious of the misconstruction to which she was liable, I cannot say; but I rather think not, as she was much too innocent to dread evil; or whether she saw some other necessity for explaining herself, remains a secret with me to this hour; but explain she did. How judiciously this was done, and with how much of that female tact that taught her to conceal the secrets of her friend, will appear to those who are sufficiently interested in the subject to pursue it.

CHAPTER XII.

"Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth--
Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts!"

--Midsummer Night's Dream.

"I ought not to leave you in any doubts as to my meaning, Mr. Littlepage," resumed Ursula, after a short pause. "Priscilla Bayard is very dear to me, and is well worthy of all your love and admiration----"

"Admiration, if you please, and as much as you please, Miss Ursula; but there is no such feeling as love, as yet certainly, between Miss Bayard and myself."

The countenance of Dus brightened sensibly. Truth herself, she gave immediate credit to what I said; and I could not but see that she was greatly relieved from some unaccountable apprehension. Still, she smiled a little archly, and perhaps a little sadly, as she continued--

"'As yet, certainly,' is very equivocal on your side, when a young woman like Priscilla Bayard is concerned. It may at any moment be converted into 'now, certainly,' with that certainty the other way."

"I will not deny it. Miss Bayard is a charming creature--yet, I do not know how it is--there seems to be a fate in these things. The peculiar relation to which I alluded, and alluded so awkwardly, is nothing more than the engagement of my youngest sister to her brother. There is no secret in that engagement, so I shall not affect to conceal it."

"And it is just such an engagement as might lead to one between yourself and Priscilla!" exclaimed Dus, certainly not without alarm.

"It might, or it might not, as the parties happen to view such things. With certain temperaments it might prove an inducement; while with others it would not."

"My interest in the subject," continued Dus, "proceeds altogether from the knowledge I have that another has sought Miss Bayard; and I will own, with my hearty good wishes for his success. You struck me as a most formidable rival; nor do you seem any the less so, now I know that your families are to be connected."

"Have no fears on my account, for I am as heart-whole as the day I first saw the lady."

A flash of intelligence--a most meaning flash it was--gleamed on the handsome face of my companion; and it was followed by a mournful, though I still thought not an entirely dissatisfied smile.

"These are matters about which one had better not say much," Dus added, after a pause. "My sex has its 'peculiar rights,' and no woman should disregard them. You have been fortunate in finding all your tenants collected together, Mr. Littlepage, in a way to let you see them at a single glance."

"I was fortunate in one sense, and a most delightful introduction I had to the settlement--such an introduction as I would travel another hundred miles to have repeated."

"Are you, then, so fond of raisings? or do you really love excitement to such a degree as to wish to get under a trap, like one of the poor rabbits my uncle sometimes takes?"

"I am not thinking of the raising, or of the frame; although your courage and presence of mind might well indelibly impress both on my mind"--Dus looked down and the color mounted to her temple--"but, I was thinking of a certain song, an Indian song, sung to Scotch music, that I heard a few miles from the clearings, and which was my real introduction to the pleasant things one may both hear and see in this retired part of the world."

"Which is not so retired after all that flattery cannot penetrate it, I find. It is pleasant to hear one's songs extolled, even though they may be Indian; but, it is not half so pleasant as to hear tidings of Priscilla Bayard. If you wish truly to charm my ear, talk of her!"

"The attachment seems mutual, for I can assure you Miss Bayard manifested just the same interest in you."

"In me! Priscilla then remembers a poor creature like me, in her banishment from the world! Perhaps she remembers me so much the more, because I am banished. I hope she does not, cannot think I regret my condition--that I could hardly forgive her."

"I rather think she does not; I know she gives you credit for more than common excellencies."

"It is strange that Priscilla Bayard should speak of me to you! I have been a little unguarded myself, Mr. Littlepage, and have said so much, that I begin to feel the necessity of saying something more. There is some excuse for my not feeling in your presence as in that of a stranger, since uncle Chainbearer has your name in his mouth at least one hundred times each day. Twelve different times in one hour did he speak of you yesterday."

"Excellent old Andries! It is the pride of my life that so honest a man loves me; and now for the explanation I am entitled to receive as his friend by your own acknowledgment."

Dus smiled, a little saucily I thought--but saucily or not, that smile made her look extremely lovely. She reflected a moment, like one who thinks intensely, even bending her head under the painful mental effort; then she drew her form to its usual attitude, and spoke.

"It is always best to be frank," she said, "and it can do no harm, while it may do good to be explicit with you. You will not forget, Mr. Littlepage, that I believe myself to be conversing with my uncle's very best friend?"

"I am too proud of the distinction to forget it, under any circumstances; and least of all in your presence."

"Well, then, I will be frank. Priscilla Bayard was for eight years my associate and closest friend. Our affection for each other commenced when we were mere children, and increased with time and knowledge. About a year before the close of the war, my brother Frank, who is now here as my uncle's surveyor, found opportunities to quit his regiment, and to come to visit me quite frequently--indeed, his company was sent to Albany, where he could see me as often as he desired. To see me, was to see Priscilla, for we were inseparable; and to see Priscilla was, for poor Frank at least, to love her. He made me his confidant, and my alarm was nothing but natural concern lest he might have a rival as formidable as you."

A flood of light was let in upon me by this brief explanation, though I could not but wonder at the simplicity, or strength of character, that induced so strange a confidence. When I got to know Dus better, the whole became clear enough; but, at the moment, I was a little surprised.

"Be at ease on my account, Miss Malbone----"

"Why not call me Dus at once? You will do it in a week, like everyone else here; and it is better to begin our acquaintance as I am sure it will end. Uncle Chainbearer calls me Dus; Frank calls me Dus; most of your settlers call me Dus, to my very face; and even our blacks call me Miss Dus. You cannot wish to be singular."

"I will gladly venture so far as to call you Ursula; but Dus does not please me."

"No! I have become so accustomed to be called Dus by all my friends, that it sounds distant to be called by any other name. Do you not think Dus a pretty diminutive?"

"I did not, most certainly; though all these things depend on the associations. Dus Malbone sounded sweetly enough in Priscilla Bayard's mouth; but I fear it will not be so pleasant in mine."

"Do as you please--but do not call me Miss Ursula, or Miss Malbone. It would have displeased me once, not to have been so addressed by any man; but it has an air of mockery, now that I know myself to be only the companion and housekeeper of a poor chainbearer."

"And yet, the owner of that silver, the lady I see seated at this table, in this room, is not so very inappropriately addressed as Miss Ursula!"

"You know the history of the silver, and the table and room are your own. No--Mr. Littlepage, we are poor--very, very poor--uncle Chainbearer, Frank, and I--all alike, have nothing."

This was not said despairingly, but with a sincerity that I found exceedingly touching.

"Frank, at least, should have something," I answered. "You tell me he was in the army?"

"He was a captain at the last, but what did he receive for that? We do not complain of the country, any of us; neither my uncle, my brother, nor myself; for we know it is poor, like ourselves, and that its poverty even is like our own, that of persons reduced. I was long a charge on my friends, and there have been debts to pay. Could I have known it, such a thing should not have happened. Now I can only repay those who have discharged these obligations by coming into the wilderness with them. It is a terrible thing for a woman to be in debt."

"But you have remained in this house; you surely have not been in the hut, at Mooseridge?"

"I have gone wherever uncle Chainbearer has gone, and shall go with him, so long as we both live. Nothing shall ever separate us again. His years demand this, and gratitude is added to my love. Frank might possibly do better than work for the little he receives; but he will not quit us. The poor love each other intensely!"

"But I have desired your uncle to use this house, and for your sake I should think he would accept the offer."

"How could he, and carry chain twenty miles distant? We have been here, occasionally, a few days at a time; but the work was to be done and it must be done on the land itself."

"Of course, you merely gave your friends the pleasure of your company, and looked a little to their comforts, on their return from a hard day's work?"

Dus raised her eyes to mine; smiled; then she looked sad, her under-lip quivering slightly; after which a smile that was not altogether without humor succeeded. I watched these signs of varying feeling with an interest I cannot describe; for the play of virtuous and ingenuous emotion on a lovely female countenance is one of the rarest sights in nature.

"I can carry chain," said the girl, at the close of this exhibition of feeling.

"You can carry chain, Ursula--Dus, or whatever I am to call you----"

"Call me Dus--I love that name best."

"You can carry chain, I suppose, is true enough--but, you do not mean that you have?"

The face of Dus flushed; but she looked me full in the eye, as she nodded her head to express an affirmative; and she smiled as sweetly as ever woman smiled.

"For amusement--to say you have done it--in jest!"

"To help my uncle and brother, who had not the means to hire a second man."

"Good God! Miss Malbone--Ursula--Dus----"

"The last is the most proper name for a chainbearess," rejoined the girl, smiling; and actually taking my hand by an involuntary movement of her sympathy in the shock I so evidently felt. "But, why should you look upon that little toil as so shocking, when it is healthful and honest? You are thinking of a sister reduced to what strikes you as man's proper work."

Dus relinquished my hand almost as soon as she had touched it; and she did it with a slight start, as if shocked at her own temerity.

"What is man's work, and man's work, only."

"Yet woman can perform it; and, as uncle Chainbearer will tell you, perform it well. I had no other concern, the month I was at work, than the fear that my strength would not enable me to do as much as my uncle and brother, and thus lessen the service they could render you each day. They kept me on the dry land, so there were no wet feet, and your woods are as clear of underbrush as an orchard. There is no use in attempting to conceal the fact, for it is known to many, and would have reached your ears sooner or later. Then concealment is always painful to me, and never more so than when I hear you, and see you treating your hired servant as an equal."

"Miss Malbone! For God's sake, let me hear no more of this--old Andries judged rightly of me, in wishing to conceal this; for I should never have allowed it to go on for a moment."

"And in what manner could you have prevented it, Major Littlepage? My uncle has taken the business of you at so much the day, finding surveyor and laborers--poor, dear Frank! He, at least, does not rank with the laborers, and as for my uncle, he has long had an honest pride in being the best chainbearer in the country--why need his niece scruple about sharing in his well-earned reputation?"

"But you, Miss Malbone--dearest Dus--who have been so educated, who are born a lady, who are loved by Priscilla Bayard, the sister of Frank, are not in your proper sphere, while thus occupied."

"It is not so easy to say what is the proper sphere of a woman. I admit it ought to be, in general, in the domestic circle and under the domestic roof; but circumstances must control that. We hear of wives who follow their husbands to the camp, and we hear of nuns who come out of their convents to attend the sick and wounded in hospitals. It does not strike me, then, as so bad in a girl who offers to aid her parent as I have aided mine, when the alternative was to suffer by want."

"Gracious Providence! And Andries has kept me in ignorance of all this; he knew my purse would have been his, and how could you have been in want in the midst of the abundance that reigns in this settlement, which is only fifteen or twenty miles from your hut, as I know from the chainbearer's letters."

"Food is plenty, I allow, but we had no money; and when the question was between beggary or exertion, we merely chose the last. My uncle did try old Killian, the black, for a day; but you know how hard it is to make one of those people understand anything that is a little intricate; and then I offered my services. I am intelligent enough, I trust"--the girl smiled a little proudly as she said this--"and you can have no notion how active and strong I am for light work like this, and on my feet, until you put me to the proof. Remember, carrying chain is neither chopping wood nor piling logs; nor is it absolutely unfeminine."

"Nor raising churches"--I answered, smiling; for it was not easy to resist the contagion of the girl's spirit--"at which business I have been an eye-witness of your dexterity. However, there will now be an end of this. It is fortunately in my power to offer such a situation and such emoluments to Mr. Malbone, as will at once enable him to place his sister in this house as its mistress, and under a roof that is at least respectable."

"Bless you for that!" cried Dus, making a movement toward catching my hand again; but checking it in time to render the deep blush that instantly suffused her face, almost unnecessary. "Bless you for that! Frank is willing to do anything that is honest, and capable of doing anything that a gentleman should do. I am the great encumbrance on the poor fellow; for, could he leave me, many situations must be open to him in the towns. But I cannot quit my uncle, and Frank will not quit me. He does not understand uncle Chainbearer."

"Frank must be a noble fellow, and I honor him for his attachment to such a sister. This makes me only the more anxious to carry out my intentions."

"Which are such, I hope, that there is no impropriety in his sister's knowing them?"

This was said with such an expression of interest in the sweet, blue eyes, and with so little of the air of common curiosity, that it completely charmed me.

"Certainly there is none," I answered, promptly enough even for a young man who was acting under the influence of so much ingenuous and strong native feeling; "and I shall have great pleasure in telling you. We have long been dissatisfied with our agent on this estate, and I had determined to offer it to your uncle. The same difficulty would have to be overcome in this case, as there was in making him a safe surveyor--the want of skill in figures; now this difficulty will not exist in the instance of your brother; and the whole family, Chainbearer as well as the rest, will be benefited by giving the situation to Frank."

"You call him Frank!" cried Dus, laughing, and evidently delighted with what she heard. "That is a good omen; but if you raise me to the station of an agent's sister, I do not know but I shall insist on being called Ursula, at least, if not Miss Ursula."

I scarce knew what to make of this girl; there was so much of gayety, and even fun, blended with a mine of as deep feeling as I ever saw throwing up its signs to the human countenance. Her brother's prospects had made her even gay; though she still looked as if anxious to hear more.

"You may claim which you please, for Frank shall have his name put into the new power of attorney within the hour. Mr. Newcome has had a hint, by letter, of what is to come, and professes great happiness in getting rid of a vast deal of unrequited trouble."

"I am afraid there is little emolument, if he is glad to be rid of the office."

"I do not say he is glad; I only say he professes to be so. These are different things with certain persons. As for the emolument, it will not be much certainly; though it will be enough to prevent Frank's sister from carrying chain, and leave her to exercise her talents and industry in their proper sphere. In the first place, every lease on the estate is to be renewed; and there being a hundred, and the tenant bearing the expense, it will at once put a considerable sum at your brother's disposition. I cannot say that the annual commissions will amount to a very great deal, though they will exceed a hundred a year by the terms on which the lands will be relet. The use of this house and farm, however, I did intend to offer to your uncle; and, for the same reason, I shall offer them to Frank."

"With this house and farm we shall be rich!" exclaimed Dus, clasping her hands in delight. "I can gather a school of the better class of girls, and no one will be useless--no one idle. If I teach your tenants' daughters some of the ideas of their sex and station, Mr. Littlepage, you will reap the benefit in the end. That will be some slight return for all your kindness."

"I wish all of your sex, and of the proper age, who are connected with me, no better instructress. Teach them your own warmth of heart, your own devotedness of feeling, your own truth, and your own frankness, and I will come and dwell on my own estate, as the spot nearest to paradise."

Dus looked a little alarmed, I thought, as if she feared she might have uttered too much; or, perhaps, that I was uttering too much. She rose, thanked me hurriedly, but in a very lady-like manner, and set about removing the breakfast service, with as much diligence as if she had been a mere menial.

Such was my very first conversation with Ursula Malbone; her, with whom I have since held so many, and those that have been very different! When I rose to seek the Chainbearer, it was with a feeling of interest in my late companion that was as strong as it was sudden. I shall not deny that her beauty had its influence--it would be unnatural that it should not--but it was less her exceeding beauty, and Ursula Malbone would have passed for one of the fairest of her sex--but it was less her beauty that attracted me than her directness, truth, and ingenuousness, so closely blended as all were with the feelings and delicacy of her sex. She had certainly done things which, had I merely heard of them, would have struck me unpleasantly, as even bold and forward, and which may now so strike the reader; but this would be doing Dus injustice. No act, no word of hers, not even the taking of my hand, seemed to me, at the time, as in the least forward; the whole movement being so completely qualified by that intensity of feeling which caused her to think only of her brother. Nature and circumstances had combined to make her precisely the character she was; and I will confess I did not wish her to be, in a single particular, different from what I found her.

Talk of Pris Bayard in comparison with Ursula Malbone! Both had beauty, it is true, though the last was far the handsomest; both had delicacy, and sentiment, and virtue, and all that pertains to a well-educated young woman, if you will; but Dus had a character of her own, and principles, and an energy, and a decision, that made her the girl of ten thousand. I do not think I could be said to be actually in love when I left that room, for I do not wish to appear so very easy to receive impressions as all that would come to; but I will own no female had ever before interested me a tenth part as much, though I had known, and possibly admired her, a twelvemonth.

In the court I found Andries measuring his chains. This he did periodically; and it was as conscientiously as if he were weighing gold. The old man manifested no consciousness of the length of the tete-a-tete I had held with his niece; but on the contrary, the first words he uttered were to an effect that proved he fancied I had been alone.

"I peg your parton, lat," he said, holding his measuring rod in his mouth while he spoke. "I peg your parton, put this is very necessary work. I do not wish to haf any of your Yankee settlers crying out hereafter against the Chainpearer's surveys. Let 'em come a huntret or a t'ousant years hence, if t'ey will, and measure t'e lant; I want olt Andries' survey to stant."

"The variation of the compass will make some difference in the two surveys, my good friend, unless the surveyors are better than one commonly finds."

The old man dropped his rod and his chain, and looked despondingly at me.

"True," he said, with emphasis. "You haf hit t'e nail on t'e heat, Mortaunt--t'at fariation is t'e fery teffil to get along wit'! I haf triet it t'is-a-way, and I haf triet it t'at-away, and never coult I make heat or tail of it! I can see no goot of a fariation at all."

"What does your pretty assistant Dus think of it? Dus, the pretty chainbearer? You will lose your old, hard-earned appellation, which will be borne off by Miss Malbone."

"Ten Dus has peen telling you all apout it! A woman never can keep a secret. No, natur' hast mate 'em talkatif, and t'e parrot will chatter."

"A woman likes variation, notwithstanding--did you consult Dus on that difficulty?"

"No, no, poy; I sait not'ing to Dus, and I am sorry she has said anyt'ing to you apout t'is little matter of t'e chain. It was sorely against my will, Mortaunt, t'at t'e gal ever carriet it a rot; and was it to do over ag'in, she shoult not carry it a rot--yet it woult have tone your heart goot to see how prettily she did her work; and how quick she wast, and how true; and how accurate she put down the marker; and how sartain was her eye. Natur' made t'at fery gal for a chainpearer!"

"And a chainbearer she has been, and a chainbearer she ever will be, until she throws her chains on some poor fellow, and binds him down for life. Andries, you have an angel with you here, and not a woman."

Most men in the situation of the Chainbearer might have been alarmed at hearing such language coming from a young man, and under all the circumstances of the case. But Andries Coejemans never had any distrust of mortal who possessed his ordinary confidence; and I question if he ever entertained a doubt about myself on any point, the result of his own, rather than of my character. Instead of manifesting uneasiness or displeasure, he turned to me, his whole countenance illuminated with the affection he felt for his niece, and said--

"T'e gal ist an excellent girl, Mortaunt, a capital creature! It woult haf tone your heart goot, I tell you, to see her carry chain! Your pocket is none t'e worse for t'e mont' she worked, t'ough I would not haf you t'ink I charget for her ast a man--no--she is town at only half-price, woman's work peing only woman's work; and yet I do pelieve, on my conscience, t'at we went over more grount in t'at mont', t'an we could haf tone wit' any man t'at wast to pe hiret in t'is part of t'e worlt--I do, indeet!"

How strange all this sounded to me! Charged for work done by Ursula Malbone, and charged at half-price! We are the creatures of convention, and the slaves of opinions that come we know not whence. I had got the notions of my caste, obtained in the silent, insinuating manner in which all our characters are formed; and nothing short of absolute want could have induced me to accept pecuniary compensation from an individual for any personal service rendered. I had no profession, and it did not comport with our usages for a gentleman to receive money for personal service out of the line of a profession; an arbitrary rule, but one to which most of us submit with implicit obedience. The idea that Dus had been paid by myself for positive toil, therefore, was extremely repugnant to me; and it was only after reflection that I came to view the whole affair as I ought, and to pass to the credit of the noble-minded girl, and this without any drawback, an act that did her so much honor. I wish to represent myself as no better or no wiser, or more rational than I was; and, I fancy, few young men of my age and habits would hear with much delight, at first, that the girl he himself felt impelled to love had been thus employed; while, on the other hand, few would fail to arrive at the same conclusions, on reflection, as those I reached myself.

The discourse with Andries Coejemans was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Frank Malbone into the court. This was my first meeting with my young surveyor, and the Chainbearer introduced us to each other in his usual hearty and frank manner. In a minute we were acquainted; the old man inquiring as to the success of the settlers in getting up their "meetin'-us."

"I staid until they had begun to place the rafters," answered young Malbone, cheerfully, "and then I left them. The festivities are to end with a ball, I hear; but I was too anxious to learn how my sister reached home--I ought to say reached the 'Nest--to remain. We have little other home now, Mr. Littlepage, than the hut in the woods, and the roof your hospitality offers."

"Brother soldiers, sir, and brother soldiers in such a cause, ought to have no more scruples about accepting such hospitalities, as you call them, than in offering them. I am glad, however, that you have adverted to the subject, inasmuch as it opens the way to a proposition I have intended to make; which, if accepted, will make me your guest, and which may as well be made now as a week later."

Both Andries and Frank look surprised; but I led them to a bench on the open side of the court, and invited them to be seated, while I explained myself. It may be well to say a word of that seat in passing. It stood on the verge of a low cliff of rocks, on the side of the court which had been defended by palisades, when the French held the Canadas, and the remains of which were still to be seen. Here, as I was told before we left the spot, Dus, my pretty chainbearer, with a woman's instinct for the graceful and the beautiful, had erected an arbor, principally with her own hands, planted one of the swift-growing vines of our climate, and caused a seat to be placed within. The spot commanded a pleasing view of a wide expanse of meadows, and of a distant hill-side, that still lay in the virgin forest. Andries told me that his niece had passed much of her leisure time in that arbor, since the growth of the plant, with the advance of the season, had brought the seat into the shade.

Placing myself between the Chainbearer and Malbone, I communicated the intention I had formed of making the latter my agent. As an inducement to accept the situation, I offered the use of the 'Nest house and the 'Nest farm, reserving to myself the room or two that had been my grandfather's, and that only at the times of my annual visits to the property. As the farm was large, and of an excellent quality of land, it would abundantly supply the wants of a family of modest habits, and even admit of sales to produce the means of purchasing such articles of foreign growth as might be necessary. In a word, I laid before the listeners the whole of my plan, which was a good deal enlarged by a secret wish to render Ursula comfortable, without saying anything about the motive.

The reader is not to suppose I was exhibiting any extraordinary liberality in doing that which I have related. It must not be forgotten that land was a drug in the State of New York in the year 1784, as it is to-day on the Miami, Ohio, Mississippi, and other inland streams. The proprietors thought but little of their possessions as the means of present support, but rather maintained their settlements than their settlements maintained them looking forward to another age, and to their posterity, for the rewards of all their trouble and investments.[10]

It is scarcely necessary to say my proposals were gladly accepted. Old Andries squeezed my hand, and I understood the pressure as fully as if he had spoken with the eloquence of Patrick Henry. Frank Malbone was touched; and all parties were perfectly satisfied. The surveyor had his field-inkstand with him, as a matter of course, and I had the power of attorney in my pocket ready for the insertion of the Chainbearer's name, would he accept the office of agent. That of Malbone was written in its stead; I signed; Andries witnessed; and we left the seat together, Frank Malbone, in effect, temporarily master of the house in which we were, and his charming sister, as a necessary consequence, its mistress. It was a delicious moment to me, when I saw Dus throw herself into her brother's arms and weep on his bosom, as he communicated to her the joyful intelligence.

CHAPTER XIII.

"A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text?"--Twelfth Night; or, What You Will.

A month glided swiftly by. During that interval, Frank Malbone was fully installed, and Andries consented to suspend operations with his chain until this necessary work was completed. Work it was; for every lease granted by my grandfather having run out, the tenants had remained on their farms by sufferance, or as occupants at will, holding from year to year under parole agreements made with Mr. Newcome, who had authority to go that far, but no farther.

It was seldom that a landlord, in that day, as I have already said, got any income from his lands during the first few years of their occupation. The great thing was to induce settlers to come; for, where there was so much competition, sacrifices had to be made in order to effect this preliminary object. In compliance with this policy, my grandfather had let his wild lands for nominal rents in nearly every instance, with here and there a farm of particular advantages excepted; and, in most cases, the settler had enjoyed the use of the farm for several years, for no rent at all. He paid the taxes, which were merely nominal, and principally to support objects that were useful to the immediate neighborhood; such as the construction of roads, bridges, pounds, with other similar works, and the administration of justice. At the expiration of this period of non-payment of rents, a small sum per acre was agreed to be paid, rather than actually paid, not a dollar of which had ever left the settlement. The landlord was expected to head all subscriptions for everything that was beneficial, or which professed to be beneficial to the estate; and the few hundreds a year, two or three at most, that my rent-roll actually exhibited, were consumed among the farms of the 'Nest. It was matter of record that not one shilling had the owner of this property, as yet, been able to carry away with him for his own private purposes. It is true, it had been in his power to glean a little each year for such a purpose; but it was not considered politic, and consequently it was not the practice of the country, in regard to estates so situated and before the revolution; though isolated cases to the contrary, in which the landlord was particularly avaricious, or particularly necessitous, may have existed. Our New York proprietors, in that day, were seldom of the class that needed money. Extravagance had been little known to the province, and could not yet be known to the State; consequently, few lost their property from their expenditures, though some did from mismanagement. The trade of "puss in the corner," or of shoving a man out of his property, in order to place one's self in it, was little practised previously to the revolution; and the community always looked upon the intruder into family property with a cold eye, unless he came into possession by fair purchase, and for a sufficient price. Legal speculations were then nearly unknown; and he who got rich was expected to do so by manly exertions, openly exercised, and not by the dark machinations of a sinister practice of the law.

In our case, not a shilling had we, as yet, been benefited by the property of Ravensnest. All that had ever been received, and more too, had been expended on the spot; but a time had now arrived when it was just and reasonable that the farms should make some returns for all our care and outlays.

Eleven thousand acres were under lease, divided among somewhat less than a hundred tenants. Until the first day of the succeeding April, these persons could hold their lands under the verbal contracts; but, after that day, new leases became necessary. It is not usual for the American landlord to be exacting. It is out of his power, indeed, for the simple reason that land is so much more abundant than men; but, it is not the practice of the country, a careless indulgence being usually the sin of the caste; an indulgence that admits of an accumulation of arrears, which, when pay-day does arrive, is apt to bring with it ill-blood and discontent. It is an undeniable truth in morals, that, whatever may be the feeling at the time, men are rarely grateful for a government that allows their vices to have a free exercise. They invariably endeavor to throw a portion of the odium of their own misdeeds on the shoulders of those who should have controlled them. It is the same with debts; for, however much we may beg for lenity at the time, accumulations of interest wear a very hostile aspect when they present themselves in a sum-total, at a moment it is inconvenient to balance the account. If those who have been thus placed would only remember that there is a last account that every man must be called on to settle, arrearages and all, the experience of their worldly affairs might suggest a lesson that would be infinitely useful. It is fortunate for us, without exception, that there is a Mediator to aid us in the task.

The time had come when Ravensnest might be expected to produce something. Guided by the surveys, and our own local knowledge, and greatly aided by the Chainbearer's experience, Frank Malbone and I passed one entire fortnight in classifying the farms; putting the lowest into the shilling category; others into the eighteen pence; and a dozen farms or so into the two shillings. The result was, that we placed six thousand acres at a shilling a year rent; three thousand eight hundred at eighteen pence the acre; and twelve hundred acres at two shillings. The whole made a rental of fourteen thousand one hundred shillings, or a fraction more than seventeen hundred and forty-two dollars per annum. This sounded pretty well for the year 1784, and it was exclusively of the 'Nest farm, of Jason Newcome's mills and timber-land, which he had hitherto enjoyed for nothing, or for a mere nominal rent, and all the wild lands.

I will confess I exulted greatly in the result of our calculations. Previously to that day I placed no dependence on Ravensnest for income, finding my support in the other property I had inherited from my grandfather. On paper, my income was more than doubled, for I received then only some eleven hundred a year (I speak of dollars, not pounds) from my other property. It is true, the last included a great many town-lots that were totally unproductive, but which promised to be very valuable, like Ravensnest itself, at some future day. Most things in America looked to the future, then as now; though I trust the hour of fruition is eventually to arrive. My town property has long since become very valuable, and tolerably productive.

As soon as our scheme for reletting was matured, Frank summoned the occupants of the farms, in bodies of ten, to present themselves at the 'Nest, in order to take their new leases. We had ridden round the estate, and conversed with the tenantry, and had let my intentions be known previously, so that little remained to be discussed. The farms were all relet for three lives, and on my own plan, no one objecting to the rent, which, it was admitted all round, was not only reasonable, but low. Circumstances were then too recent to admit of the past's being forgotten; and the day when the last lease was signed was one of general satisfaction. I did think of giving a landlord's dinner, and of collecting the whole settlement in a body, for the purpose of jovial and friendly communion; but old Andries threw cold water on the project.

"T'at would do, Mortaunt," he said, "if you hat only raal New Yorkers, or Middle States men to teal wit'; but more t'an half of t'ese people are from t'e Eastern States, where t'ere are no such t'ings as lantlorts and tenants, on a large scale you unterstant; and t'ere isn't a man among 'em all t'at isn't looking forwart to own his farm one tay, by hook or by crook. T'ey're as jealous of t'eir tignities as if each man wast a full colonel, and will not t'ank you for a tinner at which t'ey will seem to play secont fittle."

Although I knew the Chainbearer had his ancient Dutch prejudices against our Eastern brethren, I also knew that there was a good deal of truth in what he said. Frank Malbone, who was Rhode Island born, had the same notions, I found on inquiry; and I was disposed to defer to his opinions. Frank Malbone was a gentleman himself, and men of that class are always superior to low jealousies; but Frank must know better how to appreciate the feelings of those among whom he had been bred and born than I could possibly know how to do it myself. The project of the dinner was accordingly abandoned.

It remained to make a new arrangement and a final settlement with Mr. Jason Newcome, who was much the most thriving man at Ravensnest; appearing to engross in his single person all the business of the settlement. He was magistrate, supervisor, deacon, according to the Congregational plan, or whatever he is called, miller, store-keeper, will-drawer, tavern-keeper by deputy, and adviser-general, for the entire region. Everything seemed to pass through his hands; or, it would be better to say, everything entered them, though little indeed came out again. This man was one of those moneyed gluttons, on a small scale, who live solely to accumulate; in my view, the most odious character on earth; the accumulations having none of the legitimate objects of proper industry and enterprise in view. So long as there was a man near him whom he supposed to be richer than himself, Mr. Newcome would have been unhappy; though he did not know what to do with the property he had already acquired. One does not know whether to detest or to pity such characters the most; since, while they are and must be repugnant to every man of right feelings and generous mind, they carry in their own bosoms the worm that never dies, to devour their own vitals.

Mr. Newcome had taken his removal from the agency in seeming good part, affecting a wish to give it up from the moment he had reason to think it was to be taken from him. On this score, therefore, all was amicable, not a complaint being made on his side. On the contrary, he met Frank Malbone with the most seeming cordiality, and we proceeded to business with as much apparent good-will as had been manifested in any of the previous bargains. Mr. Newcome did nothing directly; a circuitous path being the one he had been accustomed to travel from childhood.

"You took the mill-lot and the use of five hundred acres of woodland from my grandfather for three lives; or failing these, for a full term of one-and-twenty years, I find, Mr. Newcome," I remarked, as soon as we were seated at business, "and for a nominal rent; the mills to be kept in repair, and to revert to the landlord at the termination of the lease."

"Yes, Major Littlepage, that was the bargain I will allow, though a hard one has it proved to me. The war come on"--this man was what was called liberally educated, but he habitually used bad grammar--"The war come on, and with it hard times, and I didn't know but the major would be willing to consider the circumstances, if we make a new bargain."

"The war cannot have had much effect to your prejudice, as grain of all sorts bore a high price; and I should think the fact that large armies were near by, to consume everything you had to sell, and that at high prices, more than compensated for any disadvantage it might have induced. You had the benefits of two wars, Mr. Newcome; that of 1775, and a part of that of 1756."

My tenant made no answer to this, finding I had reflected on the subject, and was prepared to answer him. After a pause, he turned to more positive things.

"I suppose the major goes on the principle of supposing a legal right in an old tenant to enj'y a new lease? I'm told he has admitted this much in all his dealin's."

"Then you have been misinformed, sir. I am not weak enough to admit a right that the lease itself, which, in the nature of things, must and does form the tenant's only title, contradicts in terms. Your legal interest in the property ceases altogether in a few days from this time."

"Y-a-a-s--y-a-a-s--sir, I conclude it doose," said the 'squire, leaning back in his chair, until his body was at an angle of some sixty or seventy degrees with the floor--"I conclude it doose accordin' to the covenants; but between man and man, there ought to be suthin' more bindin'."

"I know of nothing more binding in a lease than its covenants, Mr. Newcome."

"Wa-a-l"--how that man would 'wa-a-a-l' when he wished to circumvent a fellow-creature; and with what a Jesuitical accent did he pronounce the word! "Wa-a-a-l--that's accordin' to folk's idees. A covenant may be hard; and then, in my judgment, it ought to go for nothin'. I'm ag'in all hard covenants."

"Harkee, frient Jason," put in the Chainbearer, who was an old acquaintance of Mr. Newcome's, and appeared thoroughly to understand his character--"Harkee, frient Jason; do you gift back unexpected profits, ven it so happens t'at more are mate on your own pargains t'an were look for?"

"It's not of much use to convarse with you, Chainbearer, on such subjects, for we'll never think alike," answered the 'squire, leaning still farther back in his chair; "you're what I call a particular man, in your notions, and we should never agree."

"Still, there is good sense in the Chainbearer's question," I added. "Unless prepared to answer 'yes,' I do not see how you can apply your own principle with any justice. But let this pass as it will, why are covenants made, if they are not to be regarded?"

"Wa-a-l, now, accordin' to my notion, a covenant in a lease is pretty much like a water-course in a map; not a thing to be partic'lar at all about; but as water-courses look well on a map, so covenants read well in a lease. Landlords like to have 'em, and tenants a'n't particular."

"You can hardly be serious in either case, I should hope, Mr. Newcome, but are pleased to exercise your ingenuity on us for your own amusement. There is nothing so particular in the covenants of your lease as to require any case of conscience to decide on its points."

"There's this in it, major, that you get the whull property back ag'in, if you choose to claim it."

"Claim it! the whole property has been mine, or my predecessors', ever since it was granted to us by the crown. All your rights come from your lease; and when that terminates, your rights terminate."

"Not accordin' to my judgment, major; not accordin' to my judgment. I built the mills at my own cost, you'll remember."

"I certainly know, sir, that you built the mills at what you call your own cost; that is, you availed yourself of a natural mill-seat, used our timber and other materials, and constructed the mills, such as they are, looking for your reward in their use for the term of a quarter of a century, for a mere nominal rent--having saw-logs at command as you wanted them, and otherwise enjoying privileges under one of the most liberal leases that was ever granted."

"Yes, sir, but that was in the bargain I made with your grand'ther. It was agreed between us, at the time I took the place, that I was to cut logs at will, and of course use the materials on the ground for buildin'. You see, major, your grand'ther wanted the mills built desperately; and so he gave them conditions accordin'ly. You'll find every syllable on't in the lease."

"No doubt, Mr. Newcome; and you will also find a covenant in the same lease, by which your interest in the property is to cease in a few days."

"Wa-a-l, now, I don't understand leases in that way. Surely it was never intended a man should erect mills, to lose all right in 'em at the end of five-and-twenty years."

"That will depend on the bargain made at the time. Some persons erect mills and houses that have no rights in them at all. They are paid for their work as they build."

"Yes, yes--carpenters and millwrights, you mean. But I'm speakin' of no such persons; I'm speakin' of honest, hard-workin', industrious folks, that give their labor and time to build up a settlement; and not of your mechanics who work for hire. Of course, they're to be paid for what they do, and there's an eend on't."

"I am not aware that all honest persons are hard-working, any more than that all hard-working persons are honest. I wish to be understood that, in the first place, Mr. Newcome, phrases will procure no concession from me. I agree with you, however, perfectly, in saying that when a man is paid for his work, there will be what you call 'an end of it.' Now twenty-three days from this moment, you will have been paid for all you have done on my property according to your own agreement; and by your own reasoning, there must be an end of your connection with that property."

"The major doesn't mean to rob me of all my hard earnin's!"

"Mr. Newcome, rob is a hard word, and one that I beg may not be again used between you and me. I have no intention to rob you, or to let you rob me. The pretence that you are not, and were not acquainted with the conditions of this lease, comes rather late in the day, after a possession of a quarter of a century. You know very well that my grandfather would not sell, and that he would do no more than lease; if it were your wish to purchase, why did you not go elsewhere, and get land in fee? There were, and still are, thousands of acres to be sold, all around you. I have lands to sell, myself, at Mooseridge, as the agent of my father and Colonel Follock, within twenty miles of you, and they tell me capital mill-seats in the bargain."

"Yes, major, but not so much to my notion as this--I kind o' wanted this!"

"But, I kind o' want this, too; and, as it is mine, I think, in common equity, I have the best claim to enjoy it."

"It's on equity I want to put this very matter, major--I know the law is ag'in me--that is, some people say it is; but some think not, now we've had a revolution--but, let the law go as it may, there's such a thing as what I call right between man and man."

"Certainly; and law is an invention to enforce it. It is right I should do exactly what my grandfather agreed to do for me, five-and-twenty years ago, in relation to these mills; and it is right you should do what you agreed to do, for yourself."

"I have done so. I agreed to build the mills, in a sartain form and mode, and I done it. I'll defy mortal man to say otherwise. The saw-mill was smashing away at the logs within two months a'ter I got the lease, and we began to grind in four!"

"No doubt, sir, you were active and industrious--though, to be frank with you, I will say that competent judges tell me neither mill is worth much now."

"That's on account of the lease"--cried Mr. Newcome, a little too hastily, possibly, for the credit of his discretion--"how did I know when it would run out? Your gran'ther granted it for three lives, and twenty-one years afterward, and I did all a man could to make it last as long as I should myself; but here I am, in the prime of life, and in danger of losing my property!"

I knew all the facts of the case perfectly, and had intended to deal liberally with Mr. Newcome from the first. In his greediness for gain he had placed his lives on three infants, although my grandfather had advised him to place at least one on himself; but, no--Mr. Newcome had fancied the life of an infant better than that of a man; and in three or four years after the signature of the lease, his twenty-one years had begun to run, and were now near expiring. Even under this certainly unlooked-for state of things, the lease had been a very advantageous one for the tenant; and, had one of his lives lasted a century, the landlord would have looked in vain for any concession on that account; landlords never asking for, or expecting favors of that sort; indeed most landlords would be ashamed to receive them; nevertheless, I was disposed to consider the circumstances, to overlook the fact that the mills and all the other buildings on the property were indifferently built, and to relet, for an additional term of twenty-one years, woodlands, farms, buildings, and other privileges, for about one-third of the money that Mr. Newcome himself would have been apt to ask, had he the letting instead of myself. Unwilling to prolong a discussion with a man who, by his very nature, was unequal to seeing more than one side of a subject, I cut the matter short by telling him my terms without further delay.

Notwithstanding all his acting and false feeling, the 'squire was so rejoiced to learn my moderation that he could not but openly express his feelings; a thing he would not have done did he not possess the moral certainty I would not depart from my word. I felt it necessary, however, to explain myself.

"Before I give you this new lease, Mr. Newcome," I added, holding the instrument signed in my hand, "I wish to be understood. It is not granted under the notion that you have any right to ask it, beyond the allowance that is always made by a liberal landlord to a reasonably good tenant; which is simply a preference over others on the same terms. As for the early loss of your lives, it was your own fault. Had the infants you named, or had one of them, passed the state of childhood, it might have lived to be eighty, in which case my timber-land would have been stripped without any return to its true owner, but your children died, and the lease was brought within reasonable limits. Now the only inducement I have for offering the terms I do, is the liberality that is usual with landlords, what is conceded is conceded as no right, but as an act of liberality."

This was presenting to my tenant the most incomprehensible of all reasons for doing anything. A close and sordid calculator himself, he was not accustomed to give any man credit for generosity; and, from the doubting, distrustful manner in which he received the paper, I suspected at the moment that he was afraid there was some project for taking him in. A rogue is always distrustful, and as often betrays his character to honest men by that as by any other failing. I was not to regulate my own conduct, however, by the weaknesses of Jason Newcome, and the lease was granted.

I could wish here to make one remark. There ought certainly to be the same principle of good fellowship existing between the relations of landlord and tenant that exist in the other relations of life, and which creates a moral tie between parties that have much connection in their ordinary interests, and that to a degree to produce preferences and various privileges of a similar character. This I am far from calling in question; and, on the whole, I think, of all that class of relations, the one in question is to be set down as among the most binding and sacred. Still, the mere moral rights of the tenant must depend on the rigid maintenance of all the rights of the landlord; the legal and moral united; and the man who calls in question either of the latter, surely violates every claim to have his own pretensions allowed, beyond those which the strict letter of the law will yield to him. The landlord who will grant a new lease to the individual who is endeavoring to undermine his rights, by either direct or indirect means, commits the weakness of arming an enemy with the knife by which he is himself to be assaulted, in addition to the error of granting power to a man who, under the character of a spurious liberty, is endeavoring to unsettle the only conditions on which civilized society can exist. If landlords will exhibit the weakness, they must blame themselves for the consequences.

I got rid of Mr. Newcome by the grant of the lease, his whole manoeuvring having been attempted solely to lower the rent; for he was much too shrewd to believe in the truth of his own doctrines on the subject of right and wrong. That same day my axe-men appeared at the 'Nest, having passed the intermediate time in looking at various tracts of land that were in the market, and which they had not found so eligible, in the way of situation, quality, or terms, as those I offered. By this time, the surveyed lots of Mooseridge were ready, and I offered to sell them to these emigrants. The price was only a dollar an acre, with a credit of ten years; the interest to be paid annually. One would have thought that the lowness of the price would have induced men to prefer lands in fee to lands on lease; but these persons, to a man, found it more to their interests to take farms on three-lives leases, being rent-free for the first five years, and at nominal rents for the remainder of the term, than to pay seven dollars a year of interest, and a hundred dollars in money, at the expiration of the credit.[11] This fact, of itself, goes to show how closely these men calculated their means, and the effect their decisions might have on their interests. Nor were their decisions always wrong. Those who can remember the start the country took shortly after the peace of '83, the prices that the settlers on new lands obtained for their wheat, ashes, and pork; three dollars a bushel often for the first, three hundred dollars a ton for the second, and eight or ten dollars a hundred for the last, will at once understand that the occupant of new lands at that period obtained enormous wages for a laborer by means of the rich unexhausted lands he was thus permitted to occupy. No doubt he would have been in a better situation had he owned his farm in fee at the end of his lease; so would the merchant who builds a ship and clears her cost by her first freight, have been a richer man had he cleared the cost of two ships instead of one; but he has done well, notwithstanding; and it is not to be forgotten that the man who commences life with an axe and a little household furniture, is in the situation of a mere day-laborer. The addition to his means of the use of land is the very circumstance that enables him to rise above his humble position, and to profit by the cultivation of the soil. At the close of the last century, and at the commencement of the present, the country was so placed as to render every stroke of the axe directly profitable, the very labor that was expended in clearing away the trees meeting with a return so liberal by the sale of the ashes manufactured, as to induce even speculators to engage in the occupation. It may one day be a subject of curious inquiry to ascertain how so much was done as is known to have been done at that period, toward converting the wilderness into a garden; and I will here record, for the benefit of posterity, a brief sketch of one of the processes of getting to be comfortable, if not rich, that was much used in that day.

It was a season's work for a skilful axe-man to chop, log, burn, clear, and sow ten acres of forest land. The ashes he manufactured. For the heavier portions of the work, such as the logging, he called on his neighbors for aid, rendering similar assistance by way of payment. One yoke of oxen frequently sufficed for two or three farms, and "logging-bees" have given rise to a familiar expression among us, that is known as legislative "log-rolling;" a process by which, as is well known, one set of members supports the project of another set, on the principle of reciprocity.

Now ten acres of land, cropped for the first time, might very well yield a hundred and fifty bushels of merchantable wheat, which would bring three hundred dollars in the Albany market. They would also make a ton of pot-ashes, which would sell for at least two hundred dollars. This is giving five hundred dollars for a single year's work. Allowing for all the drawbacks of buildings, tools, chains, transportation, provisions, etc., and one-half of this money might very fairly be set down as clear profit; very large returns to one who, before he got his farm, was in the situation of a mere day-laborer, content to toil for eight or nine dollars the month.

That such was the history, in its outlines, of the rise of thousands of the yeomen who now dwell in New York, is undeniable; and it goes to show that if the settler in a new country has to encounter toil and privations, they are not always without their quick rewards. In these later times, men go on the open prairies, and apply the plough to an ancient sward; but I question if they would not rather encounter the virgin forests of 1790, with the prices of that day, than run over the present park-like fields, in order to raise wheat for 37-1/2 cents per bushel, have no ashes at any price, and sell their pork at two dollars the hundred!

CHAPTER XIV.

"Intent to blend her with his lot,
Fate formed her all that he was not;
And, as by mere unlikeness thought,
Associate we see,
Their hearts, from very difference, caught
A perfect sympathy."

--Pinckney.

All this time I saw Ursula Malbone daily, and at all hours of the day. Inmates of the same dwelling, we met constantly, and many were the interviews and conversations which took place between us. Had Dus been the most finished coquette in existence, her practised ingenuity could not have devised more happy expedients to awaken interest in me than those which were really put in use by this singular girl, without the slightest intention of bringing about any such result. Indeed, it was the nature, the total absence of art, that formed one of the brightest attractions of her character, and gave so keen a zest to her cleverness and beauty. In that day, females, while busied in the affairs of their household, appeared in "short gown and petticoat," as it was termed, a species of livery that even ladies often assumed of a morning. The toilette was of far wider range in 1784 than it is now, the distinctions between morning and evening dress being much broader then than at present. As soon as she was placed really at the head of her brother's house, Ursula Malbone set about the duties of her new station quietly and without the slightest fuss, but actively and with interest. She seemed to me to possess, in a high degree, that particular merit of carrying on the details of her office in a silent, unobtrusive manner, while they were performed most effectually, and entirely to the comfort of those for whose benefit her care was exercised. I am not one of those domestic canters who fancy a woman, in order to make a good wife, needs be a drudge, and possess the knowledge of a cook or a laundress; but it is certainly of great importance that she have the faculty of presiding over her family with intelligence, and an attention that is suited to her means of expenditure. Most of all it is important that she know how to govern without being seen or heard.

The wife of an educated man should be an educated woman: one fit to be his associate, qualified to mingle her tastes with his own, to exchange ideas, and otherwise to be his companion, in an intellectual sense. These are the higher requisites; a gentleman accepting the minor qualifications as so many extra advantages, if kept within their proper limits; but as positive disadvantages if they interfere with, or in any manner mar the manners, temper, or mental improvement of the woman whom he has chosen as his wife, and not as his domestic. Some sacrifices may be necessary in those cases in which cultivation exists without a sufficiency of means; but even then, it is seldom indeed that a woman of the proper qualities may not be prevented from sinking to the level of a menial. As for the cant of the newspapers on such subjects, it usually comes from those whose homes are mere places for "board and lodging."

The address with which Dus discharged all the functions of her new station, while she avoided those that were unseemly and out of place, charmed me almost as much as her spirit, character, and beauty. The negroes removed all necessity for her descending to absolute toil; and with what pretty, feminine dexterity did she perform the duties that properly belonged to her station! Always cheerful, frequently singing, not in a noisy, milkmaid mood, but at those moments when she might fancy herself unheard, and in sweet, plaintive songs that seemed to recall the scenes of other days. Always cheerful, however, is saying a little too much; for occasionally, Dus was sad. I found her in tears three or four times, but did not dare inquire into their cause. There was scarce, time, indeed; for the instant I appeared, she dried her eyes, and received me with smiles.

It is scarcely necessary to say that to me the time passed pleasantly, and amazingly fast. Chainbearer remained at the 'Nest by my orders, for he would not yield to requests; and I do not remember a more delightful month than that proved to be. I made a very general acquaintance with my tenants, and found many of them as straightforward, honest, hard-working yeomen as one could wish to meet. My brother major, in particular, was a hearty old fellow, and often came to see me, living on the farm that adjoined my own. He growled a little about the sect that had got possession of the "meetin'-us," but did it in a way to show there was not much gall in his own temperament.

"I don't rightly understand these majority matters," said the old fellow, one day that we were talking the matter over, "though I very well know Newcome always manages to get one, let the folks think as they will. I've known the 'squire contrive to cut a majority out of about a fourth of all present, and he does it in a way that is desp'ret ingen'ous, I will allow, though I'm afeard it's neither law nor gospel."

"He certainly managed, in the affair of the denomination, to make a plurality of one appear in the end to be a very handsome majority over all."

"Ay, there's twists and turns in these things that's beyond my l'arnin', though I s'pose all's right. It don't matter much in the long run, a'ter all, where a man worships, provided he worships; or who preaches, so that he listens."

I think this liberality--if that be the proper word--in religious matters, is fast increasing among us; though liberality may be but another term for indifference. As for us Episcopalians, I wonder there are any left in the country, though we are largely on the increase. There we were, a church that insisted on Episcopal ministrations--on confirmation in particular--left for a century without a bishop, and unable to conform to practices that it was insisted on were essential, and this solely because it did not suit the policy of the mother country to grant us prelates of our own, or to send us, occasionally even, one of hers! How miserable do human expedients often appear when they are tried by the tests of common sense! A church of God, insisting on certain spiritual essentials that it denies to a portion of its people, in order to conciliate worldly interests! It is not the Church of England, however, nor the Government of England, that is justly obnoxious to such an accusation; something equally bad and just as inconsistent, attaching itself to the ecclesiastical influence of every other system in Christendom under which the state is tied to religion by means of human provisions. The mistake is in connecting the things of the world with the things that are of God.

Alas! alas! When you sever that pernicious tie, is the matter much benefited? How is it among ourselves? Are not sects, and shades of sects, springing up among us on every side, until the struggle between parsons is getting to be not who shall aid in making most Christians, but who shall gather into his fold most sectarians? As for the people themselves, instead of regarding churches, even after they have established them, and that too very much on their own authority, they first consider their own tastes, enmities, and predilections, respecting the priest far more than the altar, and set themselves up as a sort of religious constituencies, who are to be represented directly in the government of Christ's followers on earth. Half of a parish will fly off in a passion to another denomination if they happen to fall into a minority. Truly, a large portion of our people is beginning to act in this matter as if they had a sense of "giving their support" to the Deity, patronizing him in this temple or the other, as may suit the feeling or the interest of the moment.[12]

But I am not writing homilies, and will return to the 'Nest and my friends. A day or two after Mr. Newcome received his new lease, Chainbearer, Frank, Dus and I were in the little arbor that overlooked the meadows, when we saw Sureflint, moving at an Indian's pace, along a path that came out of the forest, and which was known to lead toward Mooseridge. The Onondago carried his rifle as usual, and bore on his back a large bunch of something that we supposed to be game, though the distance prevented our discerning its precise character. In half a minute he disappeared behind a projection of the cliffs, trotting toward the buildings.

"My friend the Trackless has been absent from us now a longer time than usual," Ursula remarked, as she turned her head from following the Indian's movements, as long as he remained in sight; "but he reappears loaded with something for our benefit."

"He has passed most of his time of late with your uncle, I believe," I answered, following Dus's fine eyes with my own, the pleasantest pursuit I could discover in that remote quarter of the world. "I have written this to my father, who will be glad to hear tidings of his old friend."

"He is much with my uncle as you say, being greatly attached to him. Ah! here he comes, with such a load on his shoulders as an Indian does not love to bear; though even a chief will condescend to carry game."

As Dus ceased speaking, Sureflint threw a large bunch of pigeons, some two or three dozen birds, at her feet, turning away quietly, like one who had done his part of the work, and who left the remainder to be managed by the squaws.

"Thank you, Trackless," said the pretty housekeeper--"thank'ee kindly. Those are beautiful birds, and as fat as butter. We shall have them cleaned, and cooked in all manner of ways."

"All squab--just go to fly--take him ebbery one in nest," answered the Indian.

"Nests must be plenty, then, and I should like to visit them," I cried, remembering to have heard strange marvels of the multitudes of pigeons that were frequently found in their "roosts," as the encampments they made in the woods were often termed in the parlance of the country. "Can we not go in a body and visit this roost?"

"It might pe tone," answered the Chainbearer; "it might pe tone, and it is time we wast moving in t'eir tirection, if more lant is to pe surveyet, ant t'ese pirts came from t'e hill I suppose t'ey do. Mooseridge promiset to have plenty of pigeons t'is season."

"Just so," answered Sureflint. "Million, t'ousan', hundred--more too. Nebber see more; nebber see so many. Great Spirit don't forget poor Injin; sometime give him deer--sometime salmon--sometime pigeon--plenty for ebberybody; only t'ink so."

"Ay, Sureflint; only t'ink so, inteet, and t'ere is enough for us all, and plenty to spare. Got is pountiful to us, put we ton't often know how to use his pounty," answered Chainbearer, who had been examining the birds. "Finer squaps arn't often met wit'; and I too shoult like amazingly to see one more roost pefore I go to roost myself."

"As for the visit to the roost," cried I, "that is settled for to-morrow. But a man who has just come out of a war like the last, into peaceable times, has no occasion to speak of his end, Chainbearer. Your are old in years, but young in mind, as well as body."

"Bot' nearly wore out--bot' nearly wore out! It is well to tell an olt fool t'e contrary, put I know petter. T'ree-score and ten is man's time, and I haf fillet up t'e numper of my tays. Got knows pest, when it wilt pe his own pleasure to call me away; put, let it come when it will, I shall now tie happy, comparet wit' what I shoult haf tone a mont' ago."

"You surprise me, my dear friend! What has happened to make this difference in your feelings? It cannot be that you are changed in any essential."

"T'e tifference is in Dus's prospects. Now Frank has a goot place, my gal will not pe forsaken."

"Forsaken! Dus--Ursula--Miss Malbone forsaken! That could never happen, Andries, Frank or no Frank."

"I hope not--I hope not, lat--put t'e gal pegins to weep, and we'll talk no more apout it. Harkee, Susquesus; my olt frient, can you guite us to t'is roost?"

"Why no do it, eh? Path wide--open whole way. Plain as river."

"Well, t'en, we wilt all pe off for t'e place in t'e morning. My new assistant is near, and it is high time Frank and I hat gone into t'e woots ag'in."

I heard this arrangement made, though my eyes were following Dus, who had started from her seat, and rushed into the house, endeavoring to hide emotions that were not to be hushed. A minute later I saw her at the window of her own room, smiling, though the cloud had not yet entirely dispersed.

Next morning early our whole party left the 'Nest for the hut at Mooseride, and the pigeon-roosts. Dus and the black female servant travelled on horseback, there being no want of cattle at the 'Nest, where, as I now learned, my grandfather had left a quarter of a century before, among a variety of other articles, several side-saddles. The rest of us proceeded on foot, though we had no less than three sumpter beasts to carry our food, instruments, clothes, etc. Each man was armed, almost as a matter of course in that day, though I carried a double-barrelled fowling-piece, instead of a rifle. Susquesus acted as our guide.

We were quite an hour before we reached the limits of the settled farms on my own property; after which, we entered the virgin forest. In consequence of the late war, which had brought everything like the settlement of the country to a dead stand, a new district had then little of the straggling, suburb-like clearings, which are apt now to encircle the older portions of a region that is in the state of transition. On the contrary, the last well-fenced and reasonably well-cultivated farm passed, we plunged into the boundless woods, and took a complete leave of nearly every vestige of civilized life, as one enters the fields on quitting a town in France. There was a path, it is true, following the line of blazed trees; but it was scarcely beaten, and was almost as illegible as a bad hand. Still, one accustomed to the forest had little difficulty in following it; and Susquesus would have had none in finding his way, had there been no path at all. As for the Chainbearer, he moved forward too, with the utmost precision and confidence, the habit of running straight lines amid trees having given his eye an accuracy that almost equalled the species of instinct that was manifested by the Trackless himself, on such subjects.

This was a pleasant little journey, the depths of the forest rendering the heats of the season as agreeable as was possible. We were four hours in reaching the foot of the little mountain on which the birds had built their nests, where we halted to take some refreshments.

Little time is lost at meals in the forest, and we were soon ready to ascend the hill. The horses were left with the blacks, Dus accompanying us on foot. As we left the spring where we had halted, I offered her an arm to aid in the ascent; but she declined it, apparently much amused that it should have been offered.

"What I, a chainbearess!" she cried, laughing--"I, who have fairly wearied out Frank, and even made my uncle feel tired, though he would never own it--I accept an arm to help me up a hill! You forget, Major Littlepage, that the first ten years of my life were passed in a forest, and that a year's practice has brought back all my old habits, and made me a girl of the woods again."

"I scarce know what to make of you, for you seem fitted for any situation in which you may happen to be thrown." I answered, profiting by the circumstance that we were out of the hearing of our companions, who had all moved ahead, to utter more than I otherwise might venture to say--"at one time I fancy you the daughter of one of my own tenants, at another, the heiress of some ancient patroon."

Dus laughed again; then she blushed; and for the remainder of the short ascent, she remained silent. Short the ascent was, and we were soon on the summit of the hill. So far from needing my assistance, Dus actually left me behind, exerting herself in a way that brought her up at the side of the Trackless, who led our van. Whether this was done in order to prove how completely she was a forest girl, or whether my words had aroused those feelings that are apt to render a female impulsive, is more than I can say even now; though I suspected at the time that the latter sensations had quite as much to do with this extraordinary activity as the former. I was not far behind, however, and when our party came fairly upon the roost, the Trackless, Dus, and myself were all close together.

I scarce know how to describe that remarkable scene. As we drew near to the summit of the hill, pigeons began to be seen fluttering among the branches over our heads, as individuals are met along the roads that lead into the suburbs of a large town. We had probably seen a thousand birds glancing around among the trees, before we came in view of the roost itself. The numbers increased as we drew nearer, and presently the forest was alive with them. The fluttering was incessant, and often startling as we passed ahead, our march producing a movement in the living crowd that really became confounding. Every tree was literally covered with nests, many having at least a thousand of these frail tenements on their branches, and shaded by the leaves. They often touched each other, a wonderful degree of order prevailing among the hundreds of thousands of families that were here assembled. The place had the odor of a fowl-house, and squabs just fledged sufficiently to trust themselves in short flights, were fluttering around us in all directions in tens of thousands. To these were to be added the parents of the young race endeavoring to protect them, and guide them in a way to escape harm. Although the birds rose as we approached, and the woods just around us seemed fairly alive with pigeons, our presence produced no general commotion; every one of the feathered throng appearing to be so much occupied with its own concerns, as to take little heed of the visit of a party of strangers, though of a race usually so formidable to their own. The masses moved before us precisely as a crowd of human beings yields to a pressure or a danger on any given point; the vacuum created by its passage filling in its rear, as the water of the ocean flows into the track of the keel.

The effect on most of us was confounding, and I can only compare the sensation produced on myself by the extraordinary tumult to that a man experiences at finding himself suddenly placed in the midst of an excited throng of human beings. The unnatural disregard of our persons manifested by the birds greatly heightened the effect, and caused me to feel as if some unearthly influence reigned in the place. It was strange, indeed, to be in a mob of the feathered race that scarce exhibited a consciousness of one's presence. The pigeons seemed a world of themselves, and too much occupied with their own concerns to take heed of matters that lay beyond them.

Not one of our party spoke for several minutes. Astonishment seemed to hold us all tongue-tied, and we moved slowly forward into the fluttering throng, silent, absorbed, and full of admiration of the works of the Creator. It was not easy to hear each others' voices when we did speak, the incessant fluttering of wings filling the air. Nor were the birds silent in other respects. The pigeon is not a noisy creature, but a million crowded together on the summit of one hill, occupying a space of less than a mile square, did not leave the forest in its ordinary impressive stillness. As we advanced, I offered my arm, almost unconsciously, again to Dus, and she took it with the same abstracted manner as that in which it had been held forth for her acceptance. In this relation to each other we continued to follow the grave-looking Onondago as he moved, still deeper and deeper, into the midst of the fluttering tumult.

At this instant there occurred an interruption that, I am ready enough to confess, caused the blood to rush toward my own heart in a flood. As for Dus, she clung to me, as woman will cling to man, when he possesses her confidence, and she feels that she is insufficient for her own support. Both hands were on my arm, and I felt that, unconsciously, her form was pressing closer to mine, in a manner she would have carefully avoided in a moment of perfect self-possession. Nevertheless, I cannot say that Dus was afraid. Her color was heightened, her charming eyes were filled with a wonder that was not unmixed with curiosity, but her air was spirited in spite of a scene that might try the nerves of the boldest man. Sureflint and Chainbearer were alone totally unmoved; for they had been at pigeons' roosts before, and knew what to expect. To them the wonders of the woods were no longer novel. Each stood leaning on his rifle and smiling at our evident astonishment. I am wrong; the Indian did not even smile: for that would have been an unusual indication of feeling for him to manifest; but he did betray a sort of covert consciousness that the scene must be astounding to us. But I will endeavor to explain what it was that so largely increased the first effect of our visit.

While standing wondering at the extraordinary scene around us, a noise was heard rising above that of the incessant fluttering, which I can only liken to that of the trampling of thousands of horses on a beaten road. This noise at first sounded distant, but it increased rapidly in proximity and power, until it came rolling in upon us, among the tree-tops, like a crash of thunder. The air was suddenly darkened, and the place where we stood as sombre as a dusky twilight. At the same instant, all the pigeons near us, that had been on their nests, appeared to fall out of them, and the space immediately above our heads was at once filled with birds. Chaos itself could hardly have represented greater confusion, or a greater uproar. As for the birds, they now seemed to disregard our presence entirely; possibly they could not see us on account of their own numbers; for they fluttered in between Dus and myself, hitting us with their wings, and at times appearing as if about to bury us in avalanches of pigeons. Each of us caught one at least in our hands, while Chainbearer and the Indian took them in some numbers, letting one prisoner go as another was taken. In a word, we seemed to be in a world of pigeons. This part of the scene may have lasted a minute, when the space around us was suddenly cleared, the birds glancing upward among the branches of the trees, disappearing among the foliage. All this was the effect produced by the return of the female birds, which had been off at a distance, some twenty miles at least, to feed on beechnuts, and which now assumed the places of the males on the nests; the latter taking a flight to get their meal in their turn.

I have since had the curiosity to make a sort of an estimate of the number of the birds that must have come in upon the roost, in that, to us, memorable minute. Such a calculation, as a matter of course, must be very vague, though one may get certain principles by estimating the size of a flock by the known rapidity of the flight, and other similar means; and I remember that Frank Malbone and myself supposed that a million of birds must have come in on that return, and as many departed! As the pigeon is a very voracious bird, the question is apt to present itself, where food is obtained for so many mouths; but, when we remember the vast extent of the American forests, this difficulty is at once met. Admitting that the colony we visited contained many millions of birds, and, counting old and young, I have no doubt it did, there was probably a fruit-bearing tree for each, within an hour's flight from that very spot!

Such is the scale on which nature labors in the wilderness! I have seen insects fluttering in the air at particular seasons, and at particular places, until they formed little clouds; a sight every one must have witnessed on many occasions; and as those insects appear, on their diminished scale, so did the pigeons appear to us at the roost of Mooseridge. We passed an hour in the town of birds, finding our tongues and our other faculties, as we became accustomed to our situation. In a short time, even Dus grew as composed as at all comported with the excitement natural to one in such a place; and we studied the habits of the pretty animals with a zest that I found so much the greater for studying them in her company. At the end of the hour we left the hill, our departure producing no more sensation in that countless tribe of pigeons than our arrival.

"It is a proof that numbers can change our natures," said Dus, as we descended the little mountain. "Here have we been almost in contact with pigeons which would not have suffered us to come within a hundred feet of them, had they been in ordinary flocks, or as single birds. Is it that numbers give them courage?"

"Confidence, rather. It is just so with men; who will exhibit an indifference in crowds that they rarely possess when alone. The sights, interruptions, and even dangers that will draw all our attention when with a few, often seem indifferent to us when in the tumult of a throng of fellow-creatures."

"What is meant by a panic in an army, then?"

"It is following the same law, making man subject to the impulses of those around him. If the impulse be onward, onward we go; if for retreat, we run like sheep. If occupied with ourselves as a body, we disregard trifling interruptions, as these pigeons have just done in our own case. Large bodies of animals, whether human or not, seem to become subject to certain general laws that increase the power of the whole over the acts and feelings of any one or any few of their number."

"According to that rule, our new republican form of government ought to be a very strong one; though I have heard many express their fears it will be no government at all."

"Unless a miracle be wrought in our behalf, it will be the strongest government in the world for certain purposes, and the weakest for others. It professes a principle of self-preservation that is not enjoyed by other systems, since the people must revolt against themselves to overturn it; but, on the other hand, it will want the active living principle of steady, consistent justice, since there will be no independent power whose duty and whose interest it will be to see it administered. The wisest man I ever knew has prophesied to me that this is the point on which our system will break down; rendering the character, the person, and the property of the citizen insecure, and consequently the institutions odious to those who once have loved them."

"I trust there is no danger of that!" said Dus, quickly.

"There is danger from everything that man controls. We have those among us who preach the possible perfection of the human race, maintaining the gross delusion that men are what they are known to be, merely because they have been ill-governed; and a more dangerous theory, in my poor judgment, cannot be broached."

"You think, then, that the theory is false?"

"Beyond a question; governments are oftener spoiled by men, than men by governments; though the last certainly have a marked influence on character. The best government of which we know anything is that of the universe; and it is so, merely because it proceeds from a single will, that will being without blemish."

"Your despotic governments are said to be the very worst in the world."

"They are good or bad as they happen to be administered. The necessity of maintaining such governments by force renders them often oppressive; but a government of numbers may become more despotic than that of an individual; since the people will, in some mode or other, always sustain the oppressed as against the despot, but rarely, or never, as against themselves. You saw that those pigeons lost their instinct, under the impulse given them by numbers. God forever protect me against the tyranny of numbers."

"But everybody says our system is admirable, and the best in the world; and even a despot's government is the government of a man."

"It is one of the effects of numbers that men shrink from speaking the truth, when they find themselves opposed to large majorities. As respects self-rule, the colonies were ever freer than the mother country; and we are, as yet, merely pursuing our ancient practices, substituting allegiance to the confederation for allegiance to the king. The difference is not sufficiently material to produce early changes. We are to wait until that which there is of new principles in our present system shall have time to work radical changes, when we shall begin to ascertain how much better we really are than our neighbors."[13]

Dus and I continued to converse on this subject until she got again into the saddle. I was delighted with her good sense and intelligence, which were made apparent more in the pertinacity of her questions than by any positive knowledge she had on such subjects, which usually have very few attractions for young women. Nevertheless, Dus had an activity of mind and a readiness of perception that supplied many of the deficiencies of education on these points; and I do not remember to have ever been engaged in a political discussion from which I derived so much satisfaction. I must own, however, it is possible that the golden hair flying about a face that was just as ruddy as comported with the delicacy of the sex, the rich mouth, the brilliant teeth, and the spirited and yet tender blue eyes, may have increased a wisdom that I found so remarkable.

CHAPTER XV.

"Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear,
As one with treasure laden, hemmed with thieves,
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves."

--Venus and Adonis.

The hut, or huts of Chainbearer, had far more comfort in and around them, than I was prepared to find. They were three in number, one having been erected as a kitchen, and a place to contain the male slaves; another for the special accommodation of Ursula and the female black; and the third to receive men. The eating-room was attached to the kitchen; and all these buildings, which had now stood the entire year, were constructed of logs, and were covered with bark. They were roughly made, as usual; but that appropriated to Dus was so much superior to the others in its arrangements, internal and external, as at once to denote the presence and the influence of woman. It may have some interest with the reader briefly to describe the place.

Quite as a matter of course, a spring had been found, as the first consideration in "locating," as it is called by that portion of our people who get upon their conversational stilts. The spring burst out of the side of a declivity, the land stretching away for more than a mile from its foot, in an inclined plane that was densely covered with some of the noblest elms, beeches, maples, and black birches, I have ever seen. This spot, the Chainbearer early assured me, was the most valuable of all the lands of Mooseridge. He had selected it because it was central, and particularly clear from underbrush; besides having no stagnant water near it. In other respects, it was like any other point in that vast forest; being dark, shaded, and surrounded by the magnificence of a bountiful vegetation.

Here Chainbearer had erected his hut, a low, solid structure of pine logs, that were picturesque in appearance, and not without their rude comforts, in their several ways. These buildings were irregularly placed, though the spring was in their control. The kitchen and eating-room were nearest the water; at no great distance from these was the habitation of the men; while the smaller structure, which Frank Malbone laughingly termed the "harem," stood a little apart, on a slight spur of land, but within fifty yards of Andries's own lodgings. Boards had been cut by hand, for the floors and doors of these huts, though no building but the "harem" had any window that was glazed. This last had two such windows, and Frank had even taken care to provide for his sister's dwelling rude but strong window shutters.

As for defences against an enemy, they were no longer thought of within the limits of New York. Block-houses, and otherwise fortified dwellings, had been necessary so long as the French possessed Canada; but after the capture of that colony, few had deemed any such precautions called for, until the war of the revolution brought a savage foe once more among the frontier settlements; frontier, as to civilization, if not as to territory. With the termination of that war had ceased this, the latest demand for provisions of that nature; and the Chainbearer had not thought of using any care to meet the emergencies of violence, in "making his pitch."

Nevertheless, each hut would have been a reasonably strong post, on an emergency; the logs being bullet-proof, and still remaining undecayed and compact. Palisades were not thought of now, nor was there any covered means of communicating between one hut and another. In a word, whatever there might be in the way of security in these structures, was the result of the solidity of their material, and of the fashion of building that was then, and is still customary everywhere in the forest. As against wild beasts there was entire protection, and other enemies were no longer dreaded. Around the huts there were no enclosures of any sort, nor any other cleared land, than a spot of about half an acre in extent, off of which had been cut the small pines that furnished the logs of which they were built. A few vegetables had been put into the ground at the most open point; but a fence being unnecessary, none had been built. As for the huts, they stood completely shaded by the forest, the pines having been cut on an eminence a hundred yards distant. This spot, however, small as it was, brought enough of the commoner sort of plants to furnish a frugal table.

Such was the spot that was then known in all that region by the name of the "Chainbearer's Huts." This name has been retained and the huts are still standing, circumstances having rendered them memorable in my personal history, and caused me to direct their preservation, at least as long as I shall live. As the place had been inhabited a considerable time that spring and summer, it bore some of the other signs of the presence of man; but on the whole, its character as a residence was that of deep forest seclusion. In point of fact, it stood buried in the woods, distant fully fifteen miles from the nearest known habitation, and in so much removed from the comfort, succor, and outward communications of civilized life. These isolated abodes, however, are by no means uncommon in the State, even at the present hour; and it is probable that some of them will be found during the whole of this century. It is true, that the western, middle, southern, southwestern, northwestern and northeastern counties of New York, all of which were wild, or nearly so, at the time of which I am writing, are already well settled, or are fast filling up, but there is a high mountainous region, in middle-northern New York, which will remain virtually a wilderness, I should think, for quite a century, if not longer. I have travelled through this district of wilderness very lately, and have found it picturesque and well suited for the sportsman, abounding in deer, fish and forest birds, but not so much suited to the commoner wants of man, as to bring it very soon into demand for the ordinary purposes of the husbandman. If this quarter of the country do not fall into the hands of lawless squatters and plunderers of one sort and another, of which there is always some danger in a country of so great extent, it will become a very pleasant resort of the sportsman, who is likely soon to lose his haunts in the other quarters of the State.

Jaap had brought over some horses of mine from the 'Nest as sumpter-beasts, and these being sent back for want of provender, the negro himself remained at the "Huts" as a general assistant, and as a sort of hunter. A Westchester negro is pretty certain to be a shot, especially if he happen to belong to the proprietor of a Neck; for there is no jealousy of trusting arms in the hands of our New York slaves. But Jaap having served, in a manner, was entitled to burn as much gunpowder as he pleased. By means of one of his warlike exploits, the old fellow had become possessed of a very capital fowling-piece, plunder obtained from some slain English officer, I always supposed; and this arm he invariably kept near his person, as a trophy of his own success. The shooting of Westchester, however and that of the forest, were very different branches of the same art. Jaap belonged to the school of the former, in which the pointer and the setter were used. The game was "put up," and "marked down," and the bird was invariably shot on the wing. My attention was early called to this distinction, by overhearing a conversation between the negro and the Indian, that took place within a few minutes after our arrival, and a portion of which I shall now proceed to relate.

Jaap and Sureflint were, in point of fact, very old acquaintances, and fast friends. They had been actors in certain memorable scenes, on those very lands of Mooseridge, some time before my birth, and had often met and served as comrades during the last war. The known antipathy between the races of the red and black man did not exist as between them, though the negro regarded the Indian with some of that self-sufficiency which the domestic servant would be apt to entertain for a savage roamer of the forest; while the Onondago could not but look on my fellow as one of the freest of the free would naturally feel disposed to look on one who was content to live in bondage. These feelings were rather mitigated than extinguished by their friendship, and often made themselves manifest in the course of their daily communion with each other.

A bag filled with squabs had been brought from the roost, and Jaap had emptied it of its contents on the ground near the kitchen, to commence the necessary operations of picking and cleaning, preparatory to handing the birds over to the cook. As for the Onondago, he took his seat near by on a log very coolly, a spectator of his companion's labors, but disdaining to enter in person on such woman's work, now that he was neither on a message nor on a war-path. Necessity alone could induce him to submit to any menial labor, nor do I believe he would have offered to assist, had he seen the fair hand of Dus herself plucking these pigeons. To him it would have been perfectly suitable that a "squaw" should do the work of a "squaw," while a warrior maintained his dignified idleness. Systematic and intelligent industry are the attendants of civilization, the wants created by which can only be supplied by the unremitted care of those who live by their existence.

"Dere, old Sus," exclaimed the negro, shaking the last of the dead birds from the bag--"dere, now, Injin; I s'pose you t'inks 'em ere's game!"

"What you call him, eh?" demanded the Onondago, eyeing the negro sharply.

"I doesn't call 'em game a bit, redskin. Dem's not varmint, n'oder; but den, dem isn't game. Game's game, I s'pose you does know, Sus?"

"Game, game--good. T'at true--who say no?"

"Yes, it's easy enough to say a t'ing, but it not so berry easy to understan'. Can any Injin in York State, now, tell me why pigeon isn't game?"

"Pigeon game--good game, too. Eat sweet--many time want more."

"Now, I do s'pose, Trackless"--Jaap loved to run through the whole vocabulary of the Onondago's names--"Now, I do s'pose, Trackless, you t'ink tame pigeon just as good as wild?"

"Don't know--nebber eat tame--s'pose him good, too."

"Well, den, you s'poses berry wrong. Tame pigeons poor stuff; but no pigeon be game. Nuttin' game, Sureflint, dat a dog won't p'int, or set. Masser Mordaunt h'an't got no dog at de Bush or de Toe, and he keeps dogs enough at bot', dat would p'int a pigeon."

"P'int deer, eh?"

"Well, I doesn't know. P'raps he will, p'raps he won't. Dere isn't no deer in Westchester for us to try de dogs on, so a body can't tell. You remem'er 'e day, Sus, when we fit your redskins out here, 'long time ago, wit' Masser Corny and Masser Ten Eyck, and ole Masser Herman Mordaunt, and Miss Anneke, and Miss Mary, an' your frin' Jumper? You remem'er dat, ha! Onondago?"

"Sartain--no forget--Injin nebber forget. Don't forget friend--don't forget enemy."

Here Jaap raised one of his shouting negro laughs, in which all the joyousness of his nature seemed to enter with as much zest as if he were subjected to a sort of mental tickling; then he let the character of his merriment be seen by his answer.

"Sartain 'nough--you remem'er dat feller, Muss, Trackless? He get heself in a muss by habbing too much mem'ry. Good to hab mem'ry when you told to do work; but sometime mem'ry bad 'nough. Berry bad to hab so much mem'ry dat he can't forget small floggin'."

"No true," answered the Onondago, a little sternly, though a very little; for, while he and Jaap disputed daily, they never quarrelled. "No true, so. Flog bad for back."

"Well, dat because you redskin--a color' man don't mind him as much as dis squab. Get use to him in little while; den he nuttin' to speak of."

Sureflint made no answer, but he looked as if he pitied the ignorance, humility, and condition of his friend.

"What you t'ink of dis worl', Susquesus?" suddenly demanded the negro, tossing a squab that he had cleaned into a pail, and taking another. "How you t'ink white man come?--how you t'ink red man come?--how you t'ink color' gentl'em come, eh?"

"Great Spirit say so--t'en all come. Fill Injin full of blood--t'at make him red--fill nigger wit' ink--t'at make him black--pale-face pale 'cause he live in sun, and color dry out."

Here Jaap laughed so loud that he drew all three of Chainbearer's blacks to the door, who joined in the fun out of pure sympathy, though they could not have known its cause. Those blacks! They may be very miserable as slaves; but it is certain no other class in America laugh so often, or so easily, or one-half as heartily.

"Harkee, Injin," resumed Jaap, as soon as he had laughed as much as he wished to do at that particular moment--"Harkee, Injin--you t'ink 'arth round, or 'arth flat?"

"How do you mean--'arth up and down--no round--no flat."

"Dat not what I mean. Bot' up and down in one sens', but no up and down in 'noder. Masser Mordaunt, now, and Masser Corny too, bot' say 'arth round like an apple, and dat he'd stand one way in day-time, an' 'noder way in night-time. Now, what you t'ink of dat, Injin?"

The Trackless listened gravely, but he expressed neither assent or dissent. I knew he had a respect for both my father and myself; but it was asking a great deal of him to credit that the world was round; nor did he understand how one could be turned over in the manner Jaap pretended.

"S'pose it so," he remarked, after a pause of reflection--"S'pose it so, den man stand upside down? Man stand on foot; no stand on head."

"Worl' turn round, Injin; dat a reason why you stand on he head one time; on he foot 'noder."

"Who tell t'at tradition, Jaap? Nebber heard him afore."

"Masser Corny tell me dat, long time ago; when I war' little boy. Ask Masser Mordaunt one day, and he tell you a same story. Ebberybody say dat but Masser Dirck Follock; and he say to me, one time, 'it true, Jaap, t'e book do say so--and your Masser Corny believe him; but I want to see t'e worl' turn round, afore I b'lieve it.' Dat what Colonel Follock say, Trackless; you know he berry honest."

"Good--honest man, colonel--brave warrior--true friend--b'lieve all he tell, when he know; but don't know ebberyt'ing. Gen'ral know more--major young, but know more."

Perhaps my modesty ought to cause me to hesitate about recording that which the partiality of so good a friend as Susquesus might induce him to say; but it is my wish to be particular, and to relate all that passed on this occasion. Jaap could not object to the Indian's proposition, for he had too much love and attachment for his two masters not to admit at once that they knew more than Colonel Follock; no very extravagant assumption, by the way.

"Yes, he good 'nough," answered the black, "but he don't know half as much as Masser Corny, or Masser Mordaunt. He say worl' isn't round; now, I t'ink he look round."

"What Chainbearer say?" asked the Indian, suddenly, as if he had determined that his own opinion should be governed by that of a man whom he so well loved. "Chainbearer nebber lie."

"Nor do Masser Corny, nor Masser Mordaunt?" exclaimed Jaap, a little indignantly. "You t'ink, Trackless, e'der of my massers lie!"

That was an accusation that Susquesus never intended to make; though his greater intimacy with, and greater reliance on old Andries had, naturally enough, induced him to ask the question he had put.

"No say eeder lie," answered the Onondago; "but many forked tongue about, and maybe hear so, and t'ink so. Chainbearer stop ear; nebber listen to crooked tongue."

"Well, here come Chainbearer he self, Sus; so, jist for graterfercashun, you shall hear what 'e ole man say. It berry true, Chainbearer honest man, and I like to know he opinion myself, sin' it isn't easy, Trackless, to understan' how a mortal being can stan' up, head down!"

"What 'mortal being' mean, eh?"

"Why, it mean mortality, Injin--you, mortality--I, mortality--Masser Corny, mortality--Masser Mordaunt, mortality--Miss Anneke, mortality--ebberybody, mortality; but ebberybody not 'e same sort of mortality!--Understan' now, Sus?"

The Indian shook his head, and looked perplexed; but the Chainbearer coming up at that moment, that branch of the matter in discussion was pursued no farther. After exchanging a few remarks about the pigeons, Jaap did not scruple to redeem the pledge he had given his red friend, by plunging at once into the main subject with the Chainbearer.

"You know how it be wid Injin, Masser Chainbearer," said Jaap--"'Ey is always poor missedercated creatur's, and knows nuttin' but what come by chance--now here be Sureflint, he can no way t'ink dis worl' round; and dat it turn round, too; and so he want me to ask what you got to say about dat matter?"

Chainbearer was no scholar. Whatever may be said of Leyden, and of the many, very many learned Dutchmen it had sent forth into the world, few of them ever reached America. Our brethren of the eastern colonies, now states, had long been remarkable, as a whole, for that "dangerous thing," a "little learning;" but I cannot say that the Dutch of New York, also viewed as a whole, incurred any of those risks. To own the truth, it was not a very easy matter to be more profoundly ignorant, on all things connected with science, than were the mass of the uneducated Dutch of New York, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four. It made little difference as to condition in life, unless one rose as high as the old colonial aristocracy of that stock, and an occasional exception in favor of a family that intended to rear, or had reared in its bosom a minister of the gospel. Such was the strength of the prejudice among these people, that they distrusted the English schools, and few permitted their children to enter them; while those they possessed of their own were ordinarily of a very low character. These feelings were giving way before the influence of time, it is true; but it was very slowly; and it was pretty safe to infer that every man of low Dutch extraction in the colony was virtually uneducated, with the exception of here and there an individual of the higher social castes, or one that had been especially favored by association and circumstances. As for that flippant knowledge, of which our eastern neighbors possessed so large an amount, the New York Dutch appeared to view it with peculiar dislike, disdaining to know anything, if it were not of the very best quality. Still, there were a few to whom this quality was by no means a stranger. In these isolated cases, the unwearied application, painstaking industry, cautious appreciation of facts, and solid judgment of the parties, had produced a few men who only required a theatre for its exhibition, in order to cause their information to command the profound respect of the learned, let them live where they might. What they did acquire was thoroughly got, though seldom paraded for the purposes of mere show.

Old Andries, however, was not of the class just named. He belonged to the rule, and not to its exception. Beyond a question, he had heard all the more familiar truths of science alluded to in discourse, or had seen them in the pages of books; but they entered into no part of his real opinions; for he was not sufficiently familiar with the different subjects to feel their truths in a way to incorporate them with his mind.

"You know t'is sait, Jaap," Chainbearer answered, "t'at bot' are true. Eferypoty wilt tell you so; and all t'e folks I haf seen holt t'e same opinions."

"T'ink him true, Chainbearer?" the Onondago somewhat abruptly demanded.

"I s'pose I must, Sureflint, since all say it. T'e pale-faces, you know, reat a great many pooks, and get to pe much wiser t'an ret men."

"How you make man stand on head, eh?"

Chainbearer now looked over one shoulder, then over the other; and fancying no one was near but the two in his front, he was probably a little more communicative than might otherwise have been the case. Drawing a little nearer, like one who is about to deal with a secret, the honest old man made his reply.

"To pe frank wit' you, Sureflint," he answered, "t'at ist a question not easily answered. Eferypoty says 'tis so, ant, t'erefore, I s'pose it must pe so; put I have often asked myself if t'is worlt pe truly turned upsite town at night, how is it, old Chainpearer, t'at you ton't roll out of pet? T'ere's t'ings in natur' t'at are incomprehensiple, Trackless; quite incomprehensiple!"

The Indian listened gravely, and it seemed to satisfy his longings on the subject, to know that there were things in nature that are incomprehensible. As for the Chainbearer, I thought that he changed the discourse a little suddenly on account of these very incomprehensible things in nature; for it is certain he broke off on another theme, in a way to alter all the ideas of his companions, let them be on their heads or their heels.

"Is it not true, Jaap, t'at you ant t'e Onondago, here, wast pot' present at t'e Injin massacre t'at took place in t'ese parts, pefore t'e revolution, in t'e olt French war? I mean t'e time when one Traverse, a surveyor, ant a fery goot surveyor he was, was kil't, wit'all his chainpearers ant axe-men?"

"True as gospel, Masser Andries," returned the negro, looking up seriously, and shaking his head--"I was here, and so was Sus. Dat was de fuss time we smell gunpowder togedder. De French Injins was out in droves, and dey cut off Masser Traverse and all his party, no leaving half a scalp on a single head. Yes, sah; I remembers dat, as if t'was last night."

"Ant what was tone wit' t'e poties? You puriet t'e poties, surely?"

"Sartain--Pete, Masser Ten Eyck's man, was put into a hole, near Masser Corny's hut, which must be out here, four or five miles off; while masser surveyor and his men were buried by a spring, somewhere off yonder. Am I right, Injin?"

The Onondago shook his head; then he pointed to the true direction to each spot that had been mentioned, showing that Jaap was very much out of the way. I had heard of certain adventures in which my father had been concerned when a young man, and in which, indeed, my mother had been in a degree an actor, but I did not know enough of the events fully to comprehend the discourse which succeeded. It seemed that the Chainbearer knew the occurrences by report only, not having been present at the scenes connected with them; but he felt a strong desire to visit the graves of the sufferers. As yet, he had not even visited the hut of Mr. Traverse, the surveyor who had been killed; for, the work on which he had been employed being one of detail, or that of subdividing the great lots laid down before the revolution, into smaller lots, for present sale, it had not taken him as yet from the central point where it had commenced. His new assistant chainbearer was not expected to join us for a day or two; and, after talking the matter over with his two companions for a few minutes, he announced a determination to go in quest of all the graves the succeeding morning, with the intention of having suitable memorials of their existence placed over them.

The evening of that day was calm and delightful. As the sun was setting I paid Dus a visit, and found her alone in what she playfully called the drawing-room of her "harem." Luckily there were no mutes to prevent my entrance, the usual black guardian, of whom there was one, being still in her kitchen at work. I was received without embarrassment, and taking a seat on the threshold of the door, I sat conversing, while the mistress of the place plied her needle on a low chair within. For a time we talked of the pigeons and of our little journey in the woods; after which the conversation insensibly took a direction toward our present situation, the past, and the future. I had adverted to the Chainbearer's resolution to search for the graves; and, at this point, I shall begin to record what was said, as it was said.

"I have heard allusions to those melancholy events, rather than their history," I added. "For some cause, neither of my parents like to speak of them; though I know not the reason."

"Their history is well known at Ravensnest," answered Dus; "and it is often related there; at least, as marvels are usually related in country settlements. I suppose there is a grain of truth mixed up with a pound of error."

"I see no reason for misrepresenting in an affair of that sort."

"There is no other than the universal love of the marvellous, which causes most people to insist on having it introduced into a story, if it do not happen to come in legitimately. Your true country gossip is never satisfied with fact. He (or she would be the better word) insists on exercising a dull imagination at invention. In this case, however, from all that I can learn, more fact and less invention has been used than common."

We then spoke of the outlines of the story each had heard, and we found that, in the main, our tales agreed. In making the comparison, however, I found that I was disposed to dwell most on the horrible features of the incidents, while Dus, gently and almost insensibly, yet infallibly, inclined to those that were gentler, and which had more connection with the affections.

"Your account is much as mine, and both must be true in the main, as you got yours from the principal actors," she said; "but our gossips relate certain points connected with love and marriage, about which you have been silent."

"Let me hear them, then," I cried; "for I never was in a better mood to converse of love and marriage," laying a strong emphasis on the last word, "than at this moment!"

The girl started, blushed, compressed her lips, and continued silent for half a minute. I could see that her hand trembled, but she was too much accustomed to extraordinary situations easily to lose her self-command. It was nearly dusk, too, and the obscurity in which she sat within the hut, which was itself beneath the shade of tall trees, most probably aided her efforts to seem unconscious. Yet, I had spoken warmly, and as I soon saw, in a manner that demanded explanation, though at the moment quite without plan, and scarcely with the consciousness of what I was doing. I decided not to retreat, but to go on, in doing which I should merely obey an impulse that was getting to be too strong for much further restraint; that was not the precise moment, nevertheless, in which I was resolved to speak, but I waited rather for the natural course of things. In the mean time, after the short silence mentioned, the discourse continued.

"All I meant," resumed Dus, "was the tradition which is related among your tenants, that your parents were united in consequence of the manner in which your father defended Herman Mordaunt's dwelling, his daughter included--though Herman Mordaunt himself preferred some English lord for his son-in-law, and--but I ought to repeat no more of this silly tale."

"Let me hear it all, though it be the loves of my own parents."

"I dare say it is not true; for what vulgar report of private feelings and private acts ever is so? My tradition added that Miss Mordaunt was, at first, captivated by the brilliant qualities of the young lord, though she much preferred General Littlepage in the end; and that her marriage has been most happy."

"Your tradition, then, has not done my mother justice, but is faulty in many things. Your young lord was merely a baronet's heir; and I know from my dear grandmother that my mother's attachment to my father commenced when she was a mere child, and was the consequence of his resenting an insult she received at the time from some other boy."

"I am glad of that!" exclaimed Dus, with an emphasis so marked that I was surprised at the earnestness of her manner. "Second attachments in woman to me always seem misplaced. There was another vein to my tradition, which tells of a lady who lost her betrothed the night the 'Nest was assailed, and who has ever since lived unmarried, true to his memory. That is a part of the story I have ever loved."

"Was her name Wallace?" I asked, eagerly.

"It was; Mary Wallace--and I have honored the name ever since I heard the circumstances. In my eyes, Mr. Littlepage, there can be no picture more respectable than that of a female remaining true to her first attachments, under all circumstances; in death as well as in life."

"Or in mine, beloved Ursula!" I cried--but I will not make a fool of myself by attempting to record what I said next. The fact was, that Dus had been winding herself round my heart for the last few weeks in a way that would have defied any attempts of mine to extricate it from the net into which it had fallen, had I the wish to do so. But I had considered the matter, and saw no reason to desire freedom from the dominion of Ursula Malbone. To me she appeared all that man could wish, and I saw no impediment to a union in the circumstance of her poverty. Her family and education were quite equal to my own; and these very important considerations admitted, I had fortune enough for both. It was material that we should have the habits, opinions, prejudices if you will, of the same social caste; but beyond this, worldly considerations, in my view of the matter, ought to have no influence.

Under such notions, therefore, and guided by the strong impulse of a generous and manly passion, I poured out my whole soul to Dus. I dare say I spoke a quarter of an hour without once being interrupted. I did not wish to hear my companion's voice; for I had the humility which is said to be the inseparable attendant of a true love, and was fearful that the answer might not be such as I could wish to hear. I could perceive, spite of the increasing obscurity, that Dus was strongly agitated; and will confess a lively hope was created within me by this circumstance. Thus encouraged, it was natural to lose my fears in the wish to be more assured; and I now pressed for a reply. After a brief pause, I obtained it in the following words, which were uttered with a tremor and sensibility that gave them tenfold weight.

"For this unexpected, and I believe sincere declaration, Mr. Littlepage, I thank you from the bottom of my heart," the precious creature commenced. "There are a frankness, an honorable sincerity and a noble generosity in such a declaration, coming from you to me, that can never be forgotten. But, I am not my own mistress--my faith is plighted to another--my affections are with my faith; and I cannot accept offers which, so truly generous, so truly noble, demand the most explicit reply----"

I heard no more; for, springing from the floor, and an attitude that was very nearly that of being on my knees, I rushed from the hut and plunged into the forest.

CHAPTER XVI.

Dans. "Ye boys who pluck the flowers, and spoil the spring,
Beware the secret snake that shoots a sting."

--Dryden's Eclogues.

For the first half hour after I left Ursula Malbone's hut, I was literally unconscious of whither I was going, or of what I was about. I can recollect nothing but having passed quite near to the Onondago, who appeared desirous of speaking to me, but whom I avoided by a species of instinct rather than with any design. In fact, fatigue first brought me fairly to my senses. I had wandered miles and miles, plunging deeper and deeper into the wilds of the forest, and this without any aim, or any knowledge of even the direction in which I was going. Night soon came to cast its shadows on the earth, and my uncertain course was held amid the gloom of the hour, united to those of the woods. I had wearied myself by rapid walking over the uneven surface of the forest, and finally threw myself on the trunk of a fallen tree, willing to take some repose.

At first, I thought of nothing, felt for nothing but the unwelcome circumstance that the faith of Dus was plighted to another. Had I fallen in love with Priscilla Bayard, such an announcement could not have occasioned the same surprise; for she lived in the world, met with men of suitable educations, conditions, and opinions, and might be supposed to have been brought within the influence of the attentions and sympathies that are wont to awaken tenderness in the female breast. With Dus, it had been very different; she had gone from the forest to the school, and returned from the school to the forest. It was true, that her brother, while a soldier, might have had some friend who admired Ursula, and whose admiration awakened her youthful sympathies, but this was only a remote probability, and I was left burdened with a load of doubt as respected even the character and position of my rival.

"At any rate, he must be poor," I said to myself, the moment I was capable of reflecting coolly on the subject, "or he would never have left Dus in that hut, to pass her youth amid chainbearers and the other rude beings of a frontier. If I cannot obtain her love, I may at least contribute to her happiness by using those means which a kind Providence has bestowed, and enabling her to marry at once." For a little while I fancied my own misery would be lessened, could I only see Dus married and happy. This feeling did not last long, however; though I trust the desire to see her happy remained after I became keenly conscious it would require much time to enable me to look on such a spectacle with composure. Nevertheless, the first tranquil moment, the first relieving sensation I experienced, was from the conviction I felt that Providence had placed it in my power to cause Ursula and the man of her choice to be united. This recollection gave me even a positive pleasure for a little while, and I ruminated on the means of effecting it, literally for hours. I was still thinking of it, indeed, when I threw myself on the fallen tree, where weariness caused me to fall into a troubled sleep, that lasted, with more or less of forgetfulness, several hours. The place I had chosen on the tree was among its branches, on which the leaves were still hanging, and it was not without its conveniences.

When I awoke, it was daylight; or, such a daylight as penetrates the forest ere the sun has risen. At first I felt stiff and sore from the hardness of my bed; but, on changing my attitude and sitting up, these sensations soon wore off, leaving me refreshed and calm. To my great surprise, however, I found that a small, light blanket, such as woodmen use in summer, had been thrown over me, to the genial warmth of which I was probably indebted more than I then knew myself. This circumstance alarmed me at first, since it was obvious the blanket could not have come there without hands; though a moment's reflection satisfied me that the throwing it over me, under the circumstances, must have been the act of a friend. I arose, however, to my feet, walked along the trunk of the tree until clear of its branches, and looked about me with a lively desire to ascertain who this secret friend might be.

The place was like any other in the solitude of the forest. There was the usual array of the trunks of stately trees, the leafy canopy, the dark shadows, the long vistas, the brown and broken surface of the earth, and the damp coolness of the boundless woods. A fine spring broke out of a hill-side quite near me, and looking further, with the intention to approach and use its water, the mystery of the blanket was at once explained. I saw the form of the Onondago, motionless as one of the trees which grew around him, leaning on his rifle, and seemingly gazing at some object that lay at his feet. In a minute I was at his side, when I discovered that he was standing over a human skeleton! This was a strange and startling object to meet in the depth of the woods! Man was of so little account, was so seldom seen in the virgin wilds of America, that one naturally felt more shocked at finding such a memorial of his presence in a place like that, than would have been the case had he stumbled on it amid peopled districts. As for the Indian, he gazed at the bones so intently that he either did not hear, or he totally disregarded my approach. I touched him with a finger before he even looked up. Glad of any excuse to avoid explanation of my own conduct, I eagerly seized the occasion offered by a sight so unusual, to speak of other things.

"This has been a violent death, Sureflint," I said; "else the body would not have been left unburied. The man has been killed in some quarrel of the red warriors."

"Was bury," answered the Indian, without manifesting the least surprise at my touch, or at the sound of my voice. "Dere, see grave? 'Arth wash away, and bones come out. Nuttin' else. Know he bury, for help bury, myself."

"Do you, then, know anything of this unhappy man, and of the cause of his death?"

"Sartain; know all 'bout him. Kill in ole French war. Fader here; and Colonel Follock; Jaap, too. Huron kill 'em all; afterward we flog Huron. Yes, dat ole story now!"

"I have heard something of this! This must have been the spot, then, where one Traverse, a surveyor, was set upon by the enemy, and was slain, with his chainbearers and axe-men. My father and his friends did find the bodies and bury them, after a fashion."

"Sartain; just so; poor bury, d'ough, else he nebber come out of groun'. Dese bones of surveyor; know 'em well: hab one leg broke, once. Dere; you see mark."

"Shall we dig a new grave, Susquesus, and bury the remains again?"

"Best not, now, Chainbearer mean do dat. Be here by-'m-bye. Got somet'ing else t'ink of now. You own all land 'bout here, so no need be in hurry."

"I suppose that my father and Colonel Follock do. These men were slain on the estate, while running out its great lots. I think I have heard they had not near finished their work in this quarter of the patent, which was abandoned on account of the troubles of that day."

"Just so; who own mill, here, den?"

"There is no mill near us, Susquesus; can be no mill, as not an acre of the Ridge property has ever been sold or leased."

"May be so--mill d'ough--not far off, needer. Know mill when hear him. Saw talk loud."

"You surely do not hear the saw of a mill now, my friend. I can hear nothing like one."

"No hear, now; dat true. But hear him in night. Ear good in night--hear great way off."

"You are right enough there, Susquesus. And you fancied you heard the stroke of a saw, from this place, during the quiet and heavy air of the past night?"

"Sartain--know well; hear him plain enough. Isn't mile off. Out here; find him dere."

This was still more startling than the discovery of the skeleton. I had a rough, general map of the patent in my pocket; and on examination, I found a mill-stream was laid down on it, quite near the spot where we stood. The appearance of the woods, and the formation of the land, moreover, favored the idea of the proximity of a mill. Pine was plenty, and the hills were beginning to swell into something resembling mountains.

Fasting, and the exercise I had taken, had given me a keen appetite; and in one sense at least, I was not sorry to believe that human habitations were near. Did any persons dwell in that forest, they were squatters, but I did not feel much personal apprehension in encountering such men; especially when my only present object was to ask for food. The erecting of a mill denoted a decided demonstration, it is true, and a little reflection might have told me that its occupants would not be delighted by a sudden visit from the representative of the owners of the soil. On the other hand, however, the huts were long miles away, and neither Sureflint nor I had the smallest article of food about us. Both were hungry, though the Onondago professed indifference to the feeling, an unconcern I could not share with him, owing to habits of greater self-indulgence. Then I had a strong wish to solve this mystery of the mill, in addition to a feverish desire to awaken within me some new excitement, as a counterpoise to that I still keenly felt in behalf of my disappointed love.

Did I not so well understand the character of my companion, and the great accuracy of Indian senses, I might have hesitated about going on what seemed to be a fool's errand. But circumstances, that were then of recent origin, existed to give some countenance to the conjecture of Sureflint, if conjecture his precise knowledge could be called. Originally, New York claimed the Connecticut for a part of its eastern boundary, but large bodies of settlers had crossed that stream coming mainly from the adjacent colony of New Hampshire, and these persons had become formidable by their positions and numbers, some time anterior to the revolution. During that struggle, these hardy mountaineers had manifested a spirit favorable to the colonies, in the main, though every indication of an intention to settle their claims was met by a disposition to declare themselves neutral. In a word, they were sufficiently patriotic, if left to do as they pleased in the matter of their possessions, but not sufficiently so to submit to the regular administration of the law. About the close of the war, the leaders of this self-created colony were more than suspected of coquetting with the English authorities; not that they preferred the government of the crown, or any other control, to their own, but because the times were favorable to playing off their neutrality, in this manner, as a means of securing themselves in the possession of lands to which their titles, in the ordinary way, admitted of a good deal of dispute, to say the least. The difficulty was by no means disposed of by the peace of '83; but the counties that were then equally known by the name of Vermont and that of the Hampshire Grants, were existing, in one sense, as a people apart, not yet acknowledging the power of the confederacy; nor did they come into the Union, under the constitution of 1789, until all around them had done so, and the last spark of opposition to the new system had been extinguished.

It is a principle of moral, as well as of physical nature, that like should produce like. The right ever vindicates itself, in the process of events, and the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generations, in their melancholy consequences. It was impossible that an example of such a wrong could be successfully exhibited on a large scale, without producing its deluded imitators, on another that was better suited to the rapacity of individual longings. It is probable Vermont has sent out, among us, two squatters, and otherwise lawless intruders on our vacant lands, to one of any other of the adjoining States, counting all in proportion to their whole numbers. I knew that the county of Charlotte, as Washington was then called, was peculiarly exposed to inroads of this nature; and did not feel much surprise at this prospect of meeting with some of the fruits of the seed that had been so profusely scattered along the sides of the Green Mountains. Come what would, however, I was determined to ascertain the facts, as soon as possible, with the double purpose of satisfying both hunger and curiosity. As for the Indian, he was passive, yielding to my decision altogether as a matter of course.

"Since you think there is a mill, out here, west of us, Sureflint," I observed, after turning the matter over in my mind, "I will go and search for it, if you will bear me company. You think you can find it, I trust, knowing the direction in which it stands?"

"Sartain--find him easy 'nough. Find stream first--den find mill. Got ear--got eye--no hard to find him. Hear saw 'fore great while."

I acquiesced, and made a sign for my companion to proceed. Susquesus was a man of action, and not of words; and, in a minute he was leading the way toward a spot in the woods that looked as if it might contain the bed of the stream that was known to exist somewhere near by, since it was laid down on the map.

The sort of instinct possessed by the Trackless, enabled him soon to find this little river. It was full of water, and had a gentle current; a fact that the Indian immediately interpreted into a sign that the mill must be above us, since the dam would have checked the course of the water, had we been above that. Turning up stream, then, my companion moved on, with the same silent industry as he would have trotted along the path that led to his own wigwam, had he been near it.

We had not been on the banks of the stream five minutes, before the Trackless came to a dead halt; like one who had met an unexpected obstacle. I was soon at his side, curious to know the motive of this delay.

"Soon see mill, now," Susquesus said, in answer to an inquiry of mine. "Board plenty--come down stream fast as want him."

Sure enough, boards were coming down, in the current of the river, much faster than one who was interested in the property would be apt to wish; unless, indeed, he felt certain of obtaining his share of the amount of sales. These boards were neither in rafts, nor in cribs; but they came singly, or two or three laid together, as if some arrangement had been made to arrest them below, before they should reach any shoals, falls, or rapids. All this looked surprisingly like a regular manufacturer of lumber, with a view to sales in the markets of the towns on the Hudson. The little stream we were on was a tributary of that noble river, and, once in the latter, there would be no very material physical obstacle to conveying the product of our hills over the habitable globe.

"This really looks like trade, Sureflint," I said, as soon as certain that my eyes did not deceive me. "Where there are boards made, men cannot be far off. Lumber, cut to order, does not grow in the wilderness, though the material of which it is made, may."

"Mill make him. Know'd mill, when hear him. Talk plain 'nough. Pale-face make mill, but red man got ear to hear wit'!"

This was all true enough; and it remained to ascertain what was to come of it. I will acknowledge that, when I saw those tell-tale boards come floating down the winding little river, I felt a thrilling of the nerves, as if assured the sight would be succeeded by some occurrence of importance to myself. I knew that these lawless lumbermen bore a bad name in the land, and that they were generally regarded as a set of plunderers, who did not hesitate to defend themselves and their habits, by such acts of violence and fraud as they fancied their circumstances justified. It is one evil of crime, where it penetrates masses, that numbers are enabled to give it a gloss, and a seeming merit, that unsettle principles; rendering the false true, in the eyes of the ignorant, and generally placing evil before good. This is one of the modes in which justice vindicates itself, under the providence of God; the wrongs committed by communities reacting on themselves, in the shape of a demoralization that soon brings its own merited punishment.

There was little time for speculation or conjecture, however; for, resuming our march, the next bend in the river brought into view a reach of the stream in which half a dozen men and lads were at work in the water, placing the boards in piles of two or three, and setting them in the current, at points favorable to their floating downward. Booms, connected with chains, kept the confused pile in a sort of basin beneath some low cliffs, on the margin of which stood the expected saw-mill itself. Here, then, was ocular proof that squatters were systematically at work, plundering the forests of which I was in charge, of their most valuable trees, and setting everything like law and right at defiance. The circumstances called for great decision, united with the utmost circumspection. I had gone so far, that pride would not suffer me to retreat, had not a sense of duty to my father and Colonel Follock, come to increase the determination to go on.

The reader may feel some desire to know how far Dus mingled with my thoughts, all this time. She was never absolutely out of them, though the repulse I had met in my affections gave an impetus to my feelings that rendered me more than usually disposed to enter on an adventure of hazard and wildness. If I were naught to Ursula Malbone, it mattered little what else became of me. This was the sentiment that was uppermost, and I have thought, ever since, that Susquesus had some insight into the condition of my feelings, and understood the cause of the sort of desperation with which I was about to rush on danger. We were, as yet, quite concealed, ourselves; and the Indian profited by the circumstance, to hold a council, before we trusted our persons in the hands of those who might feel it to be their interest to make away with us, in preference to permitting us ever to see our friends again. In doing this, however, Sureflint was in no degree influenced by concern for himself, but solely by a desire to act as became an experienced warrior, on a very difficult war-path.

"S'pose you know," said Sureflint. "'Em no good men--Varmount squatter--you t'ink own land--dey t'ink own land. Carry rifle and do as please. Best watch him."

"I believe I understand you, Susquesus, and I shall be on my guard, accordingly. Did you ever see either of those men before?"

"T'ink have. Must meet all sort of men, when he go up and down in 'e wood. Despret squatter, dat ole man, out yonder. Call himself T'ousandacre--say he alway own t'ousand acre when he have mind to find him."

"The gentleman must be well provided with estates! A thousand acres will make a very pretty homestead for a wanderer, especially when he has the privilege of carrying it about with him, in his travels. You mean the man with gray hairs, I suppose--he who is half dressed in buckskin?"

"Sartain; dat ole T'ousandacre--nebber want land--take him where he find him. Born over by great salt lake, he say, and been travel toward setting sun since a boy. Alway help himself--Hampshire Grant man, dat. But, major, why he no got right, well as you?"

"Because our laws give him no right, while they give to the owner in fee, a perfect right. It is one of the conditions of the society in which we live, that men shall respect each other's property, and this is not his property, but mine--or rather, it is the property of my father and Colonel Follock."

"Best not say so, den. No need tell ebberyt'ing. No your land, say no your land. If he t'ink you spy, p'raps he shoot you, eh? Pale-face shoot spy; red man t'ink spy good feller!"

"Spies can be shot only in time of war; but, war or peace, you do not think these men will push matters to extremities? They will be afraid of the law."

"Law! What law to him? Nebber see law--don't go near law; don't know him."

"Well, I shall run the risk, for hunger is quite as active just now as curiosity and interest. There is no necessity, however, for your exposing yourself, Sureflint; do you stay behind, and wait for the result. If I am detained, you can carry the news to Chainbearer, who will know where to seek me. Stay you here, and let me go on alone--adieu."

Sureflint was not to be dropped in this manner. He said nothing, but the moment I began to move, he stepped quietly into his accustomed place, in advance, and led the way toward the party of squatters. There were four of these men at work in the river, in addition to two stout lads and the old leader, who, as I afterward ascertained, was very generally known by the sobriquet of Thousandacres. The last remained on dry land, doubtless imagining that his years, and his long services in the cause of lawlessness and social disorganization, entitled him to this small advantage. The evil one has his privileges, as well as the public.

The first intimation our hosts received of this unexpected visit, came from the cracking of a dried stick on which I had trodden. The Indian was not quicker to interpret and observe that well-known sound, than the old squatter, who turned his head like thought, and at once saw the Onondago within a rod of the spot where he himself was standing. I was close on the Indian's heels. At first, neither surprise nor uneasiness was apparent in the countenance of Thousandacres. He knew the Trackless, as he called Susquesus, and, though this was the first visit of the Indian, at that particular "location," they had often met in a similar manner before, and invariably with as little preliminary notice. So far from anything unpleasant appearing in the countenance of the squatter, therefore, Susquesus was greeted with a smile, in which a certain leering expression of cunning was blended with that of welcome.

"So its only you, Trackless," exclaimed Thousand Acres, or Thousandacres, as I shall in future spell the name--"I didn't know but it might be a sheriff. Sitch critturs do get out into the woods, sometimes, you know; though they don't always get back ag'in. How come you to find us out, in this cunning spot, Onondago!"

"Hear mill, in night. Saw got loud tongue. Hungry; so come get somet'ing to eat."

"Waal, you've done wisely, in that partic'lar, for we never have been better off for vi't'als. Pigeons is as plenty as land, and the law hasn't got to that pass yet, as to forbid a body from taking pigeons, even though it be in another man's stubble. I must keep that saw better greased, nights; though, I s'p'ose, a'ter all, 't was the cut of the teeth you heard, and not the rubbing of the plate?"

"Hear him all--saw got loud voice, tell you."

"Yes, there's natur' in that. Come, we'll take this path, up to the house, and see what Miss Thousandacres can do for you. Breakfast must be ready, by this time; and you, and your fri'nd, behind you, there, is wilcome to what we have, sitch as it is. Now, as we go along," continued the squatter, leading the way up the path he had mentioned--"now, as we go along, you can tell me the news, Trackless. This is a desp'rate quiet spot; and all the tidings we get is brought back by the b'ys, when they come up stream, from floating boards down into the river. A desp'rate sight have we got on hand, and I hope to hear that matters be going on so well, in Albany, that boards will bring suthin', soon. It's high time honest labor met with its reward."

"Don't know--nebber sell board," answered the Indian--"nebber buy him. Don't care for board. Powder cheap, now 'e war-path shut up. Dat good, s'pose you t'ink."

"Waal, Trackless, I kear more for boards than for powder, I must own; though powder's useful, too. Yes, yes; a useful thing is powder, in its way. Venison and bear's meat are both healthy, cheap, food: and I have eaten catamount. Powder can be used in many ways. Who is your fri'nd, Trackless?"

"Ole young frien'--know his fader. Live in wood now, like us this summer. Shoot deer like hunter."

"He's wilcome--he's heartily wilcome! All's wilcome to these parts, but the landlord. You know me, Trackless--you're well acquainted with old Thousandacres; and few words is best, among fri'nds of long standing. But, tell me, Onondago, have you seen anything of the Chainbearer, and his party of lawless surveyors, in the woods, this summer? The b'ys brought up an account of his being at work, somewhere near by, this season, and that he's at his old tricks, ag'in!"

"Sartain, see him. Ole frien', too, Chainbearer. Live wit' him, afore old French war--like to live with him, when can. Good man, Chainbearer, tell you, Thousandacres. What trick he do, eh?"

The Indian spoke a little sternly, for he loved Andries too well to hear him disrespectfully named, without feeling some sort of resentment. These men, however, were too much accustomed to plain dealing in their ordinary discourse, to take serious offence at trifles; and the amicable sunshine of the dialogue received no serious interruption from this passing cloud.

"What trick does Chainbearer do, Trackless," answered the squatter--"a mortal sight of tricks, with them plaguy chains of his'n! If there warn't no chains and chainbearers, there could be no surveyors; and, if there warn't no surveyors, there could be no boundaries to farms but the rifle; which is the best law-maker, too, that man ever invented. The Indians want no surveyors, Trackless?"

"S'pose he don't. It be bad to measure land, will own," answered the conscientious Susquesus, who would not deny his own principles, even while he despised and condemned the man who now asserted them. "Nebber see anyt'ing good in measurin' land."

"Ay, I know'd you was of the true Injin kidney!" exclaimed Thousandacres, exultingly, "and that's it which makes sich fri'nds of us squatters and you redskins. But Chainbearer is at work hard by, is he, Trackless?"

"Sartain. He measure General Littlepage farm out. Who your landlord, eh?"

"Waal, I do s'pose it's this same Littlepage, and a desp'rate rogue all agree in callin' him."

I started at hearing my honored and honorable father thus alluded to, and felt a strong disposition to resent the injury; though a glance from the Indian's eye cautioned me on the subject. I was then young, and had yet to learn that men were seldom wronged without being calumniated. I now know that this practice of circulating false reports of landlords, most especially in relation to their titles, is very general, taking its rise in the hostile positions that adventurers are constantly assuming on their estates, in a country as unsettled and migratory as our own, aided by the common and vulgar passion of envy. Let a man travel through New York, even at this day, and lend his ear to the language of the discontented tavern-brawlers, and he would hardly believe there was such a thing as a good title to an estate of any magnitude within its borders, or a bad one to the farm of any occupant in possession. There is among us a set of declaimers, who come from a state of society in which little distinction exists in either fortunes or social conditions, and who are incapable of even seeing, much less of appreciating the vast differences that are created by habits, opinions, and education, but who reduce all moral discrepancies to dollars and cents. These men invariably quarrel with all above them, and, with them, to quarrel is to caluminate. Leaguing with the disaffected, of whom there always must be some, especially when men are compelled to pay their debts, one of their first acts is to assail the title of the landlord, when there happens to be one in their neighborhood, by lying and slandering. There seems to be no exception to the rule, the practice being resorted to against the oldest as well as against the most recently granted estates among us. The lie only varies in particulars; it is equally used against the titles of the old families of Van Rensselaer, Livingston, Beekman, Van Cortlandt, De Lancey, Schuyler, and others, as against the hundred new names that have sprung up in what is called the western counties, since the revolution. It is the lie of the Father of Lies, who varies it to suit circumstances and believers. "A desp'rate rogue," all agree in calling the man who owns land that they desire to possess themselves, without being put to the unpleasant trouble of purchasing and paying for it.

I so far commanded myself, however, as to make no retort for the injustice done my upright, beloved, and noble-minded father, but left his defence to the friendly feelings and sterling honesty of Sureflint.

"Not so," answered the Indian sternly. "Big lie--forked tongue tell dat--know gen'ral--sarve wid him--know him. Good warrior--honest man--dat lie. Tell him so to face."

"Waal--wa-a-l--I don't know," drawled out Mr. Thousandacres: how those rascals will "wa-a-l," and "I don't know," when they are cornered in one of their traducing tales, and are met face to face, as the Indian now met the squatter! "Wa-a-l, wa-a-l, I don't know, and only repeat what I have heern say. But here we be at the cabin, Trackless; and I see by the smoke that old Prudence and her gals has been actyve this morning, and we shall get suthin' comfortable for the stomach."

Hereupon, Mr. Thousandacres stopped at a convenient place by the side of the stream, and commenced washing his face and hands; an operation that was now performed for the first time that day.

CHAPTER XVII.

"He stepped before the monarch's chair,
And stood with rustic plainness there,
And little reverence made;
Nor head, nor body, bowed nor bent,
But on the desk his arm he leant,
And words like these he said."

--Marmion.

While the squatter was thus occupied in arranging his toilet, previously to taking his morning meal, I had a moment of leisure to look about in. We had ascended to the level of the mill, where was an open, half-cleared space, of some sixty acres in extent, that was under a rude cultivation. Stubs and stumps abounded, and the fences were of logs, showing that the occupancy was still of recent date. In fact, as I afterward ascertained, Thousandacres, with his family of hopeful sons and daughters, numbering in all more than twenty souls, had squatted at that spot just four years before. The mill-seat was admirable, nature having done for it nearly all that was required, though the mill itself was as unartificial and makeshift as such a construction very well could be. Agriculture evidently occupied very little of the time of the family, which tilled just enough land "to make a live on't," while everything in the shape of lumber was "improved" to the utmost. A vast number of noble pines had been felled, and boards and shingles were to be seen in profusion on every side. A few of the first were being sent to market, in order to meet the demands of the moment, in the way of groceries; but the intention was to wait for the rise of the little stream, after the fall rains, in order to send the bulk of the property into the common artery of the Hudson, and to reap the great reward of the toil of the summer and spring.

I saw, also, that there must be additions to this family, in the way of marriage, as they occupied no less than five cabins, all of which were of logs, freshly erected, and had an air of comfort and stability about them, that one would not have expected to meet where the title was so flimsy. All this, as I fancied, indicated a design not to remove very soon. It was probable that some of the oldest of the sons and daughters were married, and that the patriarch was already beholding a new generation of squatters springing up about him. A few of the young men were visible, lounging about the different cabins, and the mill was sending forth that peculiar, cutting, grating sound, that had so distinctly attracted the attention of Susquesus, even in the depth of the forest.

"Walk in, Trackless," cried Thousandacres, in a hearty, free manner, which proved that what came easily went as freely; "walk in, fri'nd; I don't know your name, but that's no great matter, where there's enough for all, and a wilcome in the bargain. Here's the old woman, ready and willing to sarve you, and looking as smiling as a gal of fifteen."

The last part of the statement, however, was not precisely accurate. "Miss Thousandacres," as the squatter sometimes magnificently called his consort, or the dam of his young brood, was far from receiving us with either smiles or welcomes. A sharp-featured, keen, gray-eyed, old woman, her thoughts were chiefly bent on the cares of her brood; and her charities extended little beyond them. She had been the mother of fourteen children herself, twelve of which survived. All had been born amid the difficulties, privations and solitudes of stolen abodes in the wilderness. That woman had endured enough to break down the constitutions and to destroy the tempers of half a dozen of the ordinary beings of her sex; yet she survived, the same enduring, hard-working, self-denying, suffering creature she had been from the day of her bloom and beauty. These two last words might be supposed to be used in mockery, could one have seen old Prudence, sallow, attenuated, with sunken cheeks, hollow, lack-lustre eyes, and broken-mouthed, as I now saw her; but there were the remains of great beauty, notwithstanding, about the woman; and I afterward learned that she had once been among the fairest of the fair, in her native mountains. In all the intercourse I subsequently had with her family, the manner of this woman was anxious, distrustful, watchful, and bore a strong resemblance to that of the dam that is overseeing the welfare of her cubs. As to her welcome at the board, it was neither hearty nor otherwise; it being so much a matter of course for the American to share his meal with the stranger, that little is said or thought of the boon.

Notwithstanding the size of the family of Thousandacres, the cabin in which he dwelt was not crowded. The younger children of the settlement, ranging between the ages of four and twelve, appeared to be distributed among all the habitations indifferently, putting into the dishes wherever there was an opening, much as pigs thrust themselves in at any opening at a trough. The business of eating commenced simultaneously throughout the whole settlement, Prudence having blown a blast upon a conch-shell, as the signal. I was too hungry to lose any time in discourse, and set to, with the most hearty good-will, upon the coarse fare, the moment there was an opportunity. My example was imitated by all around our own particular board, it being the refined and intellectual only, who habitually converse at their meals. The animal had too great a preponderance among the squatters, to leave them an exception to the rule.

At length, the common hunger was appeased, and I could see that those who sat around began to examine me with a little more curiosity than they had previously manifested. There was nothing in the fashion of my attire to excite suspicion, perhaps, though I did feel some little concern on account of its quality. In that day, the social classes were broadly distinguished by dress, no man even affecting to assume the wardrobe of a gentleman, without having certain pretensions to the character. In the woods, however, it was the custom to throw aside everything like finery, and I wore the hunting-shirt already mentioned, as my outer garment. The articles most likely to betray my station in life were beneath this fortunate covering, and might escape observation. Then our party was small, consisting, besides the parents and the two guests, of only one young man, and one young woman, of about the ages of two-and-twenty and sixteen, whom the mother addressed as Zephaniah and Lowiny, the latter being one of the very common American corruptions of some fine name taken from a book--Lavinia, quite likely.[14] These two young persons deported themselves with great modesty at the table, old Thousandacres and his wife, spite of their lawless lives, having maintained a good deal of the ancient Puritan discipline among their descendants, in relation to things of this nature. Indeed, I was struck with the singular contrast between the habitual attention that was paid by all in the settlement to certain appearances of the sort, and that certainty which every one must have possessed that they were living daily in the commission of offences opposed not only to the laws of the land, but to the common, inherent convictions of right. In this particular, they exhibited what is often found in life, the remains of ancient habits and principles, existing in the shape of habits, long after the substance that had produced them had disappeared.

"Have you asked these folks about Chainbearer?" said Prudence abruptly, as soon as the knives and forks were laid down, and while we still continued in our seats at the table. "I feel a consarn of mind, about that man, that I never feel about any other."

"Near fear Chainbearer, woman," answered the husband. "He's got his summer's work afore him, without coming near us. By the last accounts, this young Littlepage, that the old rogue of a father has sent into the country, has got him out in his own settlement; where he'll be apt to keep him, I calcerlate, till cold weather sets in. Let me once get off all the lumber we've cut, and sell it, and I kear very little about Chainbearer, or his master."

"This is bold talk, Aaron; but jist remember how often we've squatted, and how often we've been driven to move. I s'pose I'm talking afore fri'nds, in sayin' what I do."

"No fear of any here, wife. Trackless is an old acquaintance, and has as little relish for law-titles, as any on us; and his fri'nd is our fri'nd." I confess, that I felt a little uncomfortable, at this remark; but the squatter going on with his conversation, there was no opportunity for saying anything, had I been so disposed. "As for moving," continued the husband, "I never mov'd, but twice, without getting pay for my betterments. Now I call that a good business, for a man who has squatted no less than seventeen times. If the worst comes to the worst, we're young enough to make an eighteenth pitch. So that I save the lumber, I keer but little for your Littlepages or Greatpages; the mill is no great matter, without the gear; and that has travelled all the way from Varmount, as it is, and is used to moving. It can go farther."

"Yes, but the lumber, Aaron! The water's low now, and you can never get it to market, until the rivers rise, which mayn't be these three months. Think how many days' labor that lumber has cost you, and all on us, and what a sight of it there would be to lose!"

"Yes, but we wunt lose it, woman," answered Thousandacres, compressing his lips, and clenching his hands, in a way to show how intensely he felt on the subject of property himself, however dishonestly acquired. "My sweat and labor be in them boards; and it's as good as sap, anyday. What a man sweats for, he has a right to."

This was somewhat loose morality, it is true, since a man might sweat in bearing away his neighbor's goods; but a portion of the human race is a good deal disposed to feel and reason on principles but little more sound than this of old Thousandacres.

"Wa-a-ll," answered the woman, "I'm sure I don't want to see you and the b'ys lose the fruits of your labors; not I. You've honestly toiled and wrought at 'em logs, in a way I never seed human beings outdo; and 'twould be hard," looking particularly at me, "now that they've cut the trees, hauled 'em to mill, and sawed the boards, to see another man step in and claim all the property. That could never be right, but is ag'in all justice, whether Varmount or York. I s'pose there's no great harm in jist askin' what your name may be, young man?"

"None in the world," I answered, with a self-command that I could see delighted the Onondago. "My name is Mordaunt."

"Mordaunt!" repeated the woman, quickly. "Don't we know suthin' of that name?--Is that a fri'ndly name, to us Varmounters?--How is it, Aaron? you ought to know."

"No, I hadn't ought to, for I never heerd tell of any sich name afore. So long as 'tisn't Littlepage, I kear nothin' about it."

I felt relieved at this reply, for I will own, that the idea of falling into the power of these lawless men was far from pleasant to me. From Thousandacres, down to the lad of seventeen, they all stood six feet in their stockings; and a stouter, more broad-shouldered, sinewy race, was not often seen. The idea of resisting them by force, was out of the question. I was entirely without arms; though the Indian was better provided; but no less than four rifles were laid on brackets in this one cabin; and I made no doubt that every male of the family had his own particular weapon. The rifle was the first necessary of men of this stamp, being as serviceable in procuring food as in protecting them from their enemies.

It was at this moment that Prudence drew a long sigh, and rose from table in order to renew her domestic labors. Lowiny followed her motions in submissive silence, and we men sauntered to the door of the cabin, where I could get a new view of the nature of those "betterments" that Thousandacres so highly prized, and of the extent of the depredations that had been committed on Colonel Follock and my father. The last were by no means insignificant; and, at a later day, they were estimated, by competent judges, to amount to fully a thousand dollars in value. Of course these were a thousand dollars totally lost, inasmuch as redress, in a pecuniary sense, was entirely out of the question with men of the stamp of Thousandacres and his sons. This class of persons are fond of saying, "I'll guarantee," and "I'll bind myself" to do this or that; but the guarantee and obligation are equally without value. In fact, those who are the least responsible are usually the freest with such pledges.

"This is a handsome spot," said Thousandacres, whose real name was Aaron Timberman. "This is a handsome spot, Mr. Mordaunt, and one it would go kind o' hard to give it up at the biddin' of a man who never laid eye on't. Be you any way acquainted with law?"

"A very little; no more than we all get to be as we move along through life."

"You've not travelled far on that journey, young man, as any one can see by your face. But you've had opportunities, as a body can tell by your speech, which isn't exactly like our'n, out here in the woods, from which I had kind o' thought your schoolin' might be more than common. A body can tell, though his own l'arnin amounts to no great matter."

This notion of Aaron's, that my modes of speech, pronunciation, accent, and utterance had come from the schools, was natural enough, perhaps; though few persons ever acquire accuracy in either, except in the familiar intercourse of their childhood. As for the "common schools" of New York, they are perpetuating errors in these respects, rather than correcting them; and one of the largest steps in their improvement would be to have a care that he who teaches, teaches accurately as to sounds, as well as to significations. Under the present system, vicious habits are confirmed by deliberate instruction and example rather than corrected.

"My schooling," I answered modestly enough, I trust, "has been a little better than common, though it has not been good enough, as you see, to keep me out of the woods."

"All that may be inclination. Some folks have a nat'ral turn for the wilderness, and it's workin' agin' the grain, and nearly useless, to try to make settlement-bodies of 'em. D'ye happen to know what lumber is likely to bring this fall?"

"Everything is looking up since the peace, and it is fair to expect lumber will begin to command a price, as well as other property."

"Wa-a-l, it's time it should! During the whull war a board has been of little more account than a strip of bark, unless it happened to be in the neighborhood of an army. We lumbermen have had an awful time on it these last eight years, and more than once I've felt tempted to gi'n in, and go and settle down in some clearin', like quieter folks; but I thought as the 'arth is to come to an eend, the war must certainly come to an eend afore it."

"The calculation was a pretty safe one; the war must have truly made a dull time to you; nor do I see how you well got along during the period it lasted."

"Bad enough; though war-times has their windfalls as well as peace-times. Once, the inimy seized a sight of continental stores, sich as pork, and flour, and New England rum, and they pressed all the teams, far and near, to carry off their plunder, and my sleigh and horses had to go along with the rest on 'em. Waal, go we did; and I got as handsome a load as ever you seed laid in a lumber-sleigh; what I call an assortment, and one, too, that was mightily to my own likin', seein' I loaded it up with my own hands. 'Twas in a woody country, as you may spose, or I wouldn't have been there; and, as I know'd all the byroads, I watched my chance, and got out of the line without being seen, and druv' as straight to my own hum' as if I'd just come from tradin' in the nearest settlement. That was the most profitablest journey I ever tuck, and what is more, it was a short one."

Here old Thousandacres stopped to laugh, which he did in as hearty, frank a manner as if his conscience had never known care. This story, I fancy, was a favorite one with him, for I heard no less than three other allusions to the exploit on which it was based, during the short time our communication with each other lasted. I observed the first smile I had seen on the face of Zephaniah, appear at the recital of this anecdote; though I had not failed to notice that the young man, as fine a specimen of rustic, rude, manly proportions as one could wish to see, had kept his eyes on me at every occasion, in a manner that excited some uneasiness.

"That was a fortunate service for you," I remarked, as soon as Aaron had had his laugh; "unless, indeed, you felt the necessity of giving back the property to the continental officers."

"Not a bit of it! Congress was poor enough, I'm willin' to own, but it was richer than I was, or ever will be. When property has changed hands once, title goes with it; and some say that these very lands, coming from the king, ought now to go to the people, jist as folks happen to want 'em. There's reason and right, I'm sartain, in the idee, and I shouldn't wonder if it held good in law, one day!"

Alas! alas! for poor human nature again. Seldom does man commit a wrong but he sets his ingenuity to work to frame excuses for it. When his mind thus gets to be perverted by the influence of his passions, and more especially by that of rapacity, he never fails to fancy new principles to exist to favor his schemes, and manifests a readiness in inventing them, which, enlisted on the side of goodness, might render him a blessing instead of a curse to his race. But roguery is so active, while virtue is so apt to be passive, that in the eternal conflict that is waged between them, that which is gained by the truth and inherent power of the last is, half the time, more than neutralized by the unwearied exertions of the first! This, I fear, may be found to contain the weak spot of our institutions. So long as law represents the authority of an individual, individual pride and jealousy may stimulate it to constant watchfulness; whereas, law representing the community, carries with it a divided responsibility, that needs the excitement of intolerable abuses ere it will arouse itself in its own vindication. The result is merely another proof that, in the management of the ordinary affairs of life, men are usually found to be stronger than principles.

"Have you ever had occasion to try one of your titles of possession in a court of law, against that of a landholder who got his right from a grant?" I asked, after reflecting a moment on the truth I have just narrated.

Thousandacres shook his head, looked down a moment, and pondered a little in his turn, ere he gave me the following answer:

"Sartain," he said. "We all like to be on the right side, if we can; and some of our folks kind o' persuaded me I might make out, once, ag'in a reg'lar landlord. So I stood trial with him; but he beat me, Mr. Mordaunt, just the same as if I had been a chicken, and he the hawk that had me in his talons. You'll never catch me trusting myself in the claws of the law ag'in, though that happened as long ago as afore the old French war. I shall never trust to law any more. It may do for them that's rich, and don't kear whether they win or lose; but law is a desp'rate bad business for them that hasn't got money to go into it, right eend foremost."

"And should Mr. Littlepage discover your being here, and feel disposed to come to some arrangement with you, what conditions would you be apt to accept?"

"Oh! I'm never ag'in trade. Trade's the spirit of life; and seein' that Gin'ral Littlepage has some right, as I do s'pose is the case, I shouldn't want to be hard on him. If he would keep things quiet, and not make a fuss about it, but would leave the matter out to men, and they men of the right sort, I shouldn't be difficult; for I'm one of that kind that hates lawsuits, and am always ready to do the right thing; and so he'd find me as ready to settle as any man he ever had on his lands."

"But on what terms? You have not told me the terms."

"As to tarms, I'd not be hard, by any means. No man can say old Thousandacres ever druv' hard tarms, when he had the best on't. That's not in my natur', which runs altogether toward reason and what's right. Now you see, Mordaunt, how matters stand atween this Littlepage and myself. He's got a paper title, they tell me, and I've got possession, which is always a squatter's claim; and a good one 'tis, where there's plenty of pine and a mill-seat with a handy market!"

Here Thousandacres stopped to laugh again, for he generally indulged in this way, in so hearty and deep a tone, as to render it difficult to laugh and talk in the same breath. As soon as through, however, he did not forget to pursue the discourse.

"No, no man that understands the woods will gainsay them advantages," added the squatter; "and of all on 'em am I now in the enj'yment. Wa-a-l, Gin'ral Littlepage, as they call him about here, has a paper title; and I've got possession. He has the courts on his side, I'll allow; but here are my betterments--sixty-three as large acres chopped over and hauled to mill, as can be found in all Charlotte, or Washington, as they tell me the county is now called."

"But General Littlepage may not fancy it an improvement to have his land stripped of its pine. You know, Thousandacres, as well as I do, that pine is usually thought to greatly add to the value of lands hereabouts, the Hudson making it so easy to get it to market."

"Lord! youngster, do you think I hadn't all that in my mind, when I made my pitch here? You can't teach old bones where it's best to strike the first blow with an axe. Now I've got in the creek" (this word is used, in the parlance of the state, for a small river, nine times in ten); "now I've got in the creek, on the way to the Hudson, in the booms below the mill, and in the mill-yard yonder, a hundred and twenty thousand feet of as handsome stuff as ever was cribbed, or rafted; and there's logs enough cut and hauled to make more than as much more. I some sort o' think you know this Littlepage, by your talk; and, as I like fair dealin's, and what's right atween man and man, I'll just tell you what I'll do, so that you can tell him, if you ever meet, and the matter should come up atween you, as sich things sometimes do, in all talk like, though a body has no real consarn in the affair; and so you can tell this gin'ral that old Thousandacres is a reasonable man, and is willing to settle on these tarms; but he won't gi'n a grain more. If the gin'ral will let me get all the lumber to market peaceably, and take off the crops the b'ys have put in with their own hands, and carry off all the mill-gear, and take down the doors and windows of the houses, and all the iron-work a body can find about, I'm willing to agree to quit 'arly enough in the spring to let any man he chooses come into possession in good season to get in spring grain, and make garden. There them's my tarms, and I'll not abate on one on 'em, on no account at all. But that much I'll do for peace; for I do love peace and quiet, my woman says, most desp'ately."

I was about to answer this characteristic communication--perfectly characteristic as to feelings, one-sided sense of right, principles, and language--when Zephaniah, the tall son of the squatter, suddenly laid a hand on his father's arm, and led him aside. This young man had been examining my person, during the whole of the dialogue at the door of the cabin, in a way that was a little marked. I was disposed at first to attribute these attentions to the curiosity natural to youth, at its first meeting with one who might be supposed to enjoy opportunities of ascertaining the newest modes of dress and deportment. Rustics, in America, ever manifest this feeling, and it was not unreasonable to suppose that this young squatter might have felt its influence. But, as it soon appeared, I had altogether mistaken my man. Although both he and his sister, Lowiny, had never turned their eyes from my person, I soon discovered that they had been governed by totally opposing feelings.

The first intimation I got of the nature of the mistake into which I had fallen, was from the manner of Thousandacres, as soon as his son had spoken to him, apart, for a single minute. I observed that the old squatter turned suddenly, and began to scrutinize my appearance with a scowling, but sharp eye. Then he would give all his attention to his son; after which, I came in for a new turn of examination. Of course, such a scene could not last a great while, and I soon felt the relief of being, again, face to face with the man whom I now set down for an enemy.

"Harkee, young man," resumed Thousandacres, as soon as he had returned and placed himself directly before me, "my b'y, Zeph, there, has got a suspicion consarning you, that must be cleared up, fairly atween us, afore we part. I like fair dealin's, as I've told you more than once, already, and despise underhandedness from the bottom of my heart. Zeph tells me that he has a kind o' suspicion that you're the son of this very Littlepage, and have been sent among us to spy us out, and to l'arn how things stood, afore you let on your evil intentions. Is it so, or not?"

"What reason has Zeph for such a suspicion?" I answered, with such coolness as I could assume. "He is a perfect stranger to me, and I fancy this is the first time we have ever met."

"He agrees to that, himself; but mankind can sometimes see things that isn't put directly afore their eyes. My son goes and comes, frequently, between the Ravensnest settlement and our own, though I don't suppose he lets on any great deal about his proper hum'. He has worked as much as two months, at a time, in that part of the country, and I find him useful in carrying on a little trade, once and awhile, with 'Squire Newcome."

"You are acquainted, then, with Mr. Jason Newcome, or 'Squire Newcome, as you call him?"

"I call him what's right, I hope!" answered the old man sharply. "He is a 'squire, and should be called a 'squire. Give the devil his due; that's my principle. But Zephaniah has been out a considerable spell this summer to work at Ravensnest. I tell him he has a gal in his eye, by his hankering so much after the 'Nest folks, but he won't own it; but out he has been, and he tells me this Littlepage's son was expected to come into the settlement about the time he last left there."

"And you are acquainted with 'Squire Newcome?" I said, pursuing the subject as its points presented themselves to my own mind, rather than following the thread of the squatter's discursive manner of thinking; "so well acquainted as to trade with him?"

"Sartain; well acquainted, I may say. The 'Squire tuck (took) all the lumber I cut 'arly in the spring, rafting and selling it on his own account, paying us in groceries, women's cloth, and rum. He made a good job of it, I hear tell, and is hankerin' round a'ter what is now in the creek; but I rather think I'll send the b'ys off with that. But what's that to the purpose? Didn't you tell me, young man, that your name is Mordaunt?"

"I did; and in so saying I told no more than the truth."

"And what may you call your given name? A'ter all, old woman," turning to the anxious wife and mother, who had drawn near to listen, having most probably been made acquainted with the nature of her son's suspicions--"a'ter all the b'y may be mistaken, and this young man as innocent as any one of your own flesh and blood."

"Mordaunt is what you call my 'given name,'" I answered, disdaining deception, "and Littlepage----" The hand of the Indian was suddenly placed on my mouth, stopping further utterance.

It was too late, however, for the friendly design of the Onondago, the squatters readily comprehending all I had intended to say. As for Prudence, she walked away; and I soon heard her calling all her younger children by name, to collect them near her person, as the hen gathers its chickens beneath the wing. Thousandacres took the matter very differently. His countenance grew dark, and he whispered a word to Lowiny, who departed on some errand with reluctant steps, as I thought, and eyes that did not always look in the direction she was walking.

"I see how it is! I see how it is!" exclaimed the squatter, with as much of suppressed indignation in his voice and mien as if his cause were that of offended innocence; "we've got a spy among us, and war-time's too fresh not to let us know how to deal with sich folks. Young man, what's your arr'nd down here, in my betterments, and beneath my ruff?"

"My errand, as you call it, Thousandacres, is to look after the property that is intrusted to my care. I am the son of General Littlepage, one of the owners of this spot, and the attorney of both."

"Oh! an attorney, be you?" cried the squatter, mistaking the attorney in fact for an attorney at law--a sort of being for whom he necessarily entertained a professional antipathy. "I'll attorney ye! If you or your gin'ral father thinks that Aaron Thousandacres is a man to have his territories invaded by the inimy, and keep his hands in his pockets the whull time, he's mistaken. Send 'em along, Lowiny, send along the b'ys, and let's see if we can't find lodgin's for this young attorney gin'ral, as well as board."

There was no mistaking the aspect of things now. Hostilities had commenced in a certain sense, and it became incumbent on me for the sake of safety to be on the alert. I knew that the Indian was armed; and, determined to defend my person if possible, I was resolved to avail myself of the use of his weapon should it become necessary. Stretching out an arm, and turning to the spot where Susquesus had just stood, to lay hold of his rifle, I discovered that he had disappeared.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"The lawless herd, with fury blind,
Have done him cruel wrong;
The flowers are gone, but still we find,
The honey on his tongue."

--Cowper.

There I stood alone and unarmed, in the centre of six athletic men--for Lowiny had been sent to assemble her brothers, a business in which she was aided by Prudence's blowing a peculiar sort of blast on her conch--and as unable to resist as a child would have been in the hands of its parent. As a fruitless scuffle would have been degrading, as well as useless, I at once determined to submit, temporarily at least, or so long as submission did not infer disgrace, and was better than resistance. There did not seem to be any immediate disposition to lay violent hands on me, however, and there I stood, a minute or two, after I had missed Sureflint, surrounded by the whole brood of the squatter, young and old, male and female; some looking defiance, others troubled, and all anxious. As for myself, I will frankly own my sensations were far from pleasant; for I knew I was in the hands of the Philistines, in the depths of a forest, fully twenty miles from any settlement, and with no friends nearer than the party of the Chainbearer, who was at least two leagues distant, and altogether ignorant of my position as well as of my necessities. A ray of hope, however, gleamed in upon me through the probable agency of the Onondago.

Not for an instant did I imagine that long-known and well-tried friend of my father and the Chainbearer false. His character was too well established for that; and it soon occurred to me, that, foreseeing his own probable detention should he remain, he had vanished with a design to let the strait in which I was placed be known, and to lead a party to my rescue. A similar idea probably struck Thousandacres almost at the same instant; for, glancing his eye around him, he suddenly demanded--

"What has become of the redskin? The varmint has dodged away, as I'm an honest man! Nathaniel, Moses, and Daniel, to your rifles and on the trail. Bring the fellow in, if you can, with a whull skin; but if you can't, an Injin more or less will never be heeded in the woods."

I soon had occasion to note that the patriarchal government of Thousandacres was of a somewhat decided and prompt character. A few words went a great way in it, as was now apparent; for in less than two minutes after Aaron had issued his decree, those namesakes of the prophets and law-givers of old, Nathaniel, and Moses, and Daniel, were quitting the clearing on diverging lines, each carrying a formidable, long, American hunting-rifle in his hand. This weapon, so different in the degree of its power from the short military piece that has become known to modern warfare, was certainly in dangerous hands; for each of those young men had been familiar with his rifle from boyhood; gunpowder and liquor, with a little lead, composing nearly all the articles on which they lavished money for their amusement. I trembled for Susquesus; though I knew he must anticipate a pursuit, and was so well skilled in throwing off a chase as to have obtained the name of the Trackless. Still, the odds were against him; and experience has shown that the white man usually surpasses the Indian even in his own peculiar practices, when there have been opportunities to be taught. I could do no more, however, than utter a mental prayer for the escape of my friend.

"Bring that chap in here," added old Thousandacres, sternly, the moment he saw that his three sons were off; enough remaining to enforce that or any other order he might choose to issue. "Bring him into this room, and let us hold a court on him, sin' he is sich a lover of the law. If law he likes, law let him have. An attorney, is he? I warnt to know! What has an attorney to do with me and mine, out here in the woods?"

While this was in the course of being said, the squatter, and father of squatters, led the way into his own cabin, where he seated himself with an air of authority, causing the females and younger males of his brood to range themselves in a circle behind his chair. Seeing the folly of resistance, at a hint from Zephaniah I followed, the three young men occupying the place near the door, as a species of guard. In this manner we formed a sort of court, in which the old fellow figured as the investigating magistrate, and I figured as the criminal.

"An attorney, be you!" muttered Thousandacres, whose ire against me in my supposed, would seem to be more excited than it was against me in my real character, "B'ys, silence in the court; we'll give this chap as much law as he can stagger under, sin' he's of a law natur'. Everything shall be done accordin' to rule. Tobit," addressing his oldest son, a colossal figure of about six-and-twenty, "you've been in the law more than any on us, and can give us the word. What was't they did with you, first, when they had you up in Hampshire colony; the time when you and that other young man went across from the Varmount settlements to look for sheep? A raft of the critturs you did get atween you, though you was waylaid and robbed of all your hard 'arnin's afore you got back ag'in in the mountains. They dealt with you accordin' to law, 'twas said; now, what was the first thing done?"

"I was tuck [taken] afore the 'squire," answered Tobit Thousandacres, as he was often called, "who heerd the case, asked me what I had to say for myself, and then permitted me, as it was tarmed; so I went to jail until the trial came on, and I s'pose you know what come next, as well as I do."

I took it for granted that what "come next" was anything but pleasant in remembrance, the reason Tobit did not relish it even in description, inasmuch as sheep-stealers were very apt to get "forty save one" at the whipping-post, in that day, a species of punishment that was admirably adapted to the particular offence. We are getting among us a set of soi-disant philanthropists, who, in their great desire to coddle and reform rogues, are fast placing the punishment of offences on the honest portion of the community, for the especial benefit of their eleves. Some of these persons have already succeeded in cutting down all our whipping-posts, thereby destroying the cheapest and best mode of punishing a particular class of crimes that was ever intended or practised. A generation hence our children will feel the consequences of this mistaken philanthropy. In that day, let those who own fowl-houses, pig-pens, orchards, smoke-houses, and other similar temptations to small depredations, look to it, for I am greatly mistaken if the insecurity of their movables does not give the most unanswerable of all commentaries on this capital misstep. One whipping-post, discreetly used, will do more toward reforming a neighborhood than a hundred jails, with their twenty and thirty days' imprisonment.[15] I have as much disposition to care for the reformation of criminals as is healthful, if I know myself; but the great object of all the punishments of society, viz., its own security, ought never to be sacrificed to this, which is but a secondary consideration. Render character, person and property as secure as possible, in the first place, after which, try as many experiments in philanthropy as you please.

I am sorry to see how far the disposition to economize is extending itself in the administration of American justice generally. Under a government like that of this country, it is worse than idle, for it is perfectly futile to attempt to gratify the imagination by a display of its power through the agency of pomp and representation. Such things, doubtless, have their uses, and are not to be senselessly condemned until one has had an opportunity of taking near views of their effects; though useful, or the reverse, they can never succeed here. But these communities of ours have it in their power to furnish to the world a far more illustrious example of human prescience, and benevolent care, by their prompt, exact, and well-considered administration of justice--including the cases both in the civil and the criminal courts. With what pride might not the American retort, when derided for the simplicity of his executive, and the smallness of the national expenditure in matters of mere representation, could he only say--"True, we waste nothing on mere parade; but, turn to the courts, and to the justice of the country; which, after all, are the great aim of every good government. Look at the liberality of our expenditures for the command of the highest talent, in the first place; see with what generous care we furnish judges in abundance, to prevent them from being overworked, and to avoid ruinous delays to suitors; then turn to the criminal courts, and into, first, the entire justice of the laws; next, the care had in the selection of jurors; the thorough impartiality of all the proceedings; and, finally, when the right demands it, the prompt, unerring, and almost terrific majesty of punishment." But to return to something that is a good deal more like truth:--

"Yes, yes," rejoined Thousandacres, "there is no use in riling the feelin's, by talking of that" (meaning Tobit's sufferings, not at the stake, but at the post)--"a hint's as good as a description. You was taken afore a magistrate, was you--and he permitted you to prison--but he asked what you had to say for yourself, first? That was only fair, and I mean to act it all out here, accordin' to law. Come, young attorney, what have you got to say for yourself?"

It struck me that, alone as I was, in the hands of men who were a species of outlaws, it might be well to clear myself from every imputation that, at least, was not merited.

"In the first place," I answered, "I will explain a mistake into which you have fallen, Thousandacres; for, let us live as friends or foes, it is always best to understand facts. I am not an attorney, in the sense you imagine--I am not a lawyer."

I could see that the whole brood of squatters, Prudence included, was a good deal mollified by this declaration. As for Lowiny, her handsome, ruddy face actually expressed exultation and delight! I thought I heard that girl half suppress some such exclamation as--"I know'd he wasn't no lawyer!" As for Tobit, the scowling look, replete with cat-o'-nine-tails, actually departed, temporarily at least. In short, this announcement produced a manifest change for the better.

"No lawyer a'ter all!" exclaimed Thousandacres--"Didn't you say you was an attorney?"

"That much is true. I told you that I was the son of General Littlepage, and that I was his attorney, and that of Colonel Follock, the other tenant in common of this estate; meaning that I held their power of attorney to convey lands, and to transact certain other business in their names."

This caused me to lose almost as much ground as I had just gained, though, being the literal truth, I was resolved neither to conceal, nor to attempt to evade it.

"Good land!" murmured Lowiny. "Why couldn't the man say nothin' about all that?"

A reproving look from Prudence, rebuked the girl, and she remained silent afterward, for sometime.

"A power of attorney, is it!" rejoined the squatter. "Wa-a-l, that's not much better than being a downright lawyer. It's having the power of an attorney, I s'pose, and without their accursed power it's little I should kear for any of the breed. Then you're the son of that Gin'ral Littlepage, which is next thing to being the man himself. I should expect if Tobit, my oldest b'y, was to fall into the hands of some that might be named, it would go hard with him, all the same as if t'was myself. I know that some make a difference atween parents and children, but other some doesn't. What's that you said about this gin'ral's only being a common tenant of this land? How dares he to call himself it's owner, if he's only a common tenant?"

The reader is not to be surprised at Thousandacre's trifling blunders of this sort; for, those whose rule of right is present interest, frequently, in the eagerness of rapacity, fall into this very kind of error; holding that cheap at one moment, which they affect to deem sacred at the next. I dare say, if the old squatter had held a lease of the spot he occupied, he would at once have viewed the character and rights of a "common tenant," as connected with two of the most important interests of the country. It happened now, however, that it was "his bull that was goring our ox."

"How dares he to call himself the owner of the sile, when he's only a common tenant, I say?" repeated Thousandacres, with increasing energy, when he found I did not answer immediately.

"You have misunderstood my meaning. I did not say that my father was only a 'common tenant' of this property, but that he and Colonel Follock own it absolutely in common, each having his right in every acre, and not one owning one half while the other owns the other; which is what the law terms being 'tenants in common,' though strictly owners in fee."

"I shouldn't wonder, Tobit, if he turns out to be an attorney, in our meaning, a'ter all!"

"It looks desp'rately like it, father," answered the eldest born, who might have been well termed the heir at law of all his progenitor's squatting and fierce propensities. "If he isn't a downright lawyer, he looks more like one than any man I ever seed out of court, in my whull life."

"He'll find his match! Law and I have been at loggerheads ever sin' the day I first went into Varmount, or them plaguy Hampshire Grants. When law gets me in its clutches, it's no wonder if it gets the best on't; but, when I get law in mine, or one of its sarvants, it shall be my fault if law doesn't come out second best. Wa-a-l, we've heerd the young man's story, Tobit. I've asked him what he had to say for himself, and he has g'in us his tell--tell'd us how he's his own father's son, and that the gin'ral is some sort of a big tenant, instead of being a landlord, and isn't much better than we are ourselves; and it's high time I permitted him to custody. You had writin's for what they did to you, I dares to say, Tobit?"

"Sartain. The magistrate give the sheriff's deputy a permittimus, and on the strength of that, they permitted me to jail."

"Ye-e-es--I know all about their niceties and appearances! I have had dealin's afore many a magistrate, in my day, and have onsuited many a chap that thought to get the best on't afore we begun! Onsuiting the man that brings the suit, is the cleanest way of getting out of the law, as I knows on; but it takes a desp'rate long head sometimes to do it! Afore I permit this young man, I'll show writin's, too. Prudence, just onlock the drawer----"

"I wish to correct one mistake before you proceed further," interrupted I. "For the second time, I tell you I am no lawyer, in any sense of the word. I am a soldier--have commanded a company in General Littlepage's own regiment, and served with the army when only a boy in years. I saw both Burgoyne and Cornwallis surrender, and their troops lay down their arms."

"Good now! Who'd ha' thought it!" exclaimed the compassionate Lowiny. "And he so young, that you'd hardly think the wind had ever blown on him!"

My announcement of this new character was not without a marked effect. Fighting was a thing to the whole family's taste, and what they could appreciate better, perhaps, than any other act or deed. There was something warlike in Thousandacres' very countenance and air, and I was not mistaken in supposing he might feel some little sympathy for a soldier. He eyed me keenly; and whether or not he discovered signs of the truth of my assertion in my mien, I saw that he once more relented in purpose.

"You out ag'in Burg'yne!" the old fellow exclaimed. "Can I believe what you say? Why, I was out ag'in Burg'yne myself, with Tobit and Moses, and Nathaniel and Jedediah--with every male crittur' of the family, in short, that was big enough to load and fire. I count them days as among my very best, though they did come late, and a'ter old age had made some head ag'in me. How can you prove you was out ag'in Burg'yne and Cornwallis?"

I knew that there was often a strange medley of soi-disant patriotic feeling mixed up with the most confirmed knavery in ordinary matters, and saw I had touched a chord that might thrill on the sympathies of even these rude and supremely selfish beings. The patriotism of such men, indeed, is nothing but an enlargement of selfishness, since they prize things because they belong to themselves, or they, in one sense, belong to the things. They take sides with themselves, but never with principles. That patriotism alone is pure, which would keep the country in the paths of truth, honor, and justice; and no man is empowered, in his zeal for his particular nation, any more than in his zeal, for himself, to forget the law of right.

"I cannot prove I was out against Burgoyne, standing here where I am, certainly," I answered; "but give me an opportunity, and I will show it to your entire satisfaction."

"Which rijiment was on the right, Hazen's or Brookes's, in storming the Jarmans? Tell me that, and I will soon let you know whether I believe you or not."

"I cannot tell you that fact, for I was with my own battalion, and the smoke would not permit such a thing to be seen. I do not know that either of the corps you mention was in that particular part of the field that day, though I believe both to have been warmly engaged."

"He warnt there," drawled out Tobit, in his most dissatisfied manner, almost showing his teeth, like a dog, under the impulse of the hatred he felt.

"He was there!" cried Lowiny, positively; "I know he was there!"

A slap from Prudence taught the girl the merit of silence; but the men were too much interested to heed an interruption as characteristic and as bootless as this.

"I see how it is," added Thousandacres; "I must permit the chap a'ter all. Seein', however, that there is a chance of his having been out ag'in Burg'yne, I'll permit him without writin's, and he shan't be bound. Tobit, take your prisoner away, and shut him up in the store'us'. When your brothers get back from their hunt a'ter the Injin, we'll detarmine among us what is to be done with him."

Thousandacres delivered his orders with dignity, and they were obeyed to the letter. I made no resistance, since it would only have led to a scuffle, in which I should have sustained the indignity of defeat, to say nothing of personal injuries. Tobit, however, did not offer personal violence, contenting himself with making a sign for me to follow him, which I did, followed in turn by his two double-jointed brothers. I will acknowledge that, as we proceeded toward my prison, the thought of flight crossed my mind; and I might have attempted it, but for the perfect certainty that, with so many on my heels, I must have been overtaken, when severe punishment would probably have been my lot. On the whole, I thought it best to submit for a time, and trust the future to Providence. As to remonstrance or deprecation, pride forbade my having recourse to either. I was not yet reduced so low as to solicit favors from a squatter.

The jail to which I was "permitted" by Thousandacres was a storehouse, or, as he pronounced the word, a "store'us," of logs, which had been made of sufficient strength to resist depredations, let them come from whom they might, and they were quite as likely to come from some within as from any without. In consequence of its destination, the building was not ill-suited to become a jail. The logs, of course, gave a sufficient security against the attempts of a prisoner without tools or implements of any sort, the roof being made of the same materials as the sides. There was no window, abundance of air and light entering through the fissures of the rough logs, which had open intervals between them; and the only artificial aperture was the door. This last was made of stout planks, and was well secured by heavy hinges, and strong bolts and locks. The building was of some size, too--twenty feet in length at least--one end of it, though then quite empty, having been intended and used as a crib for the grain that we Americans call, par excellence, corn. Into this building I entered, after having the large knife that most woodsmen carry taken from my pocket; and a search was made on my person for any similar implement that might aid me in an attempt to escape.

In that day America had no paper money, from the bay of Hudson to Cape Horn. Gold and silver formed the currency, and my pockets had a liberal supply of both, in the shape of joes and half-joes, dollars, halves, and quarters. Not a piece of coin, of any sort, was molested, however, these squatters not being robbers, in the ordinary signification of the term, but merely deluded citizens who appropriated the property of others to their own use, agreeably to certain great principles of morals that had grown up under their own peculiar relations to the rest of mankind, their immediate necessities and their convenience. I make no doubt that every member of the family of Thousandacres would spurn the idea of his or her being a vulgar thief, drawing some such distinctions in the premises as the Drakes, Morgans, Woodes, Rogers, and others of that school drew between themselves and the vulgar every day sea-robbers of the seventeenth century, though with far less reason. But robbers these squatters were not, except in one mode and that mode they almost raised to the dignity of respectable hostilities, by the scale on which they transacted business.

I was no sooner "locked-up" than I began a survey of my prison and the surrounding objects. There was no difficulty in doing either, the opening between the logs allowing of a clear reconnoissance on every side. With a view to keeping its contents in open sight, I fancy, the "store'us" was placed in the very centre of the settlement, having the mills, cabins, barns, sheds, and other houses, encircling it in a sort of hamlet. This circumstance, which would render escape doubly difficult, was, notwithstanding, greatly in favor of reconnoitring. I will now describe the results of my observations. As a matter of course, my appearance, the announcement of my character, and my subsequent arrest, were circumstances likely to produce a sensation in the family of the squatter. All the women had gathered around Prudence, near the door of her cabin, and the younger girls were attracted to that spot, as the particles of matter are known to obey the laws of affinity. The males, one boy of eight or ten years excepted, were collected near the mill, where Thousandacres, apparently, was holding a consultation with Tobit and the rest of the brotherhood, among whom, I fancy, was no one entitled to be termed an angel. Everybody seemed to be intently listening to the different speakers, the females often turning their eyes toward their male protectors, anxiously and with long protracted gazes. Indeed, many of them looked in that direction, even while they gave ear to the wisdom of Prudence herself.

The excepted boy had laid himself, in a lounging, American sort of an attitude, on a saw-log near my prison, and in a position that enabled him to see both sides of it, without changing his ground. By the manner in which his eyes were fastened on the "store'us" I was soon satisfied that he was acting in the character of a sentinel. Thus, my jail was certainly sufficiently secure, as the force of no man, unaided and without implements, could have broken a passage through the logs.

Having thus taken a look at the general aspect of things, I had leisure to reflect on my situation, and the probable consequences of my arrest. For my life I had no great apprehensions, not as much as I ought to have had under the circumstances; but it did not strike me that I was in any great danger on that score. The American character, in general, is not blood-thirsty, and that of New England less so, perhaps, than that of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, in a case of property the tenacity of the men of that quarter of the country was proverbial, and I came to the conclusion that I should be detained, if possible, until all the lumber could be got to market and disposed of, as the only means of reaping the fruit of past labor. The possibility depended on the escape or the arrest of Sureflint. Should that Indian be taken, Thousandacres and his family would be as secure as ever in their wilderness; but on the other hand, should he escape, I might expect to hear from my friends in the course of the day. By resorting to a requisition on 'Squire Newcome, who was a magistrate, my tenants might be expected to make an effort in my behalf, when the only grounds of apprehension would be the consequences of the struggle. The squatters were sometimes dangerous under excitement, and when sustaining each other, with arms in their hands, in what they fancy to be their hard-earned privileges. There is no end to the delusions of men on such subjects, self-interest seeming completely to blind their sense of right; and I have often met with cases in which parties who were trespassers, and in a moral view, robbers, ab origine, have got really to fancy that their subsequent labors (every new blow of the axe being an additional wrong) gave a sort of sanctity to possessions, in the defence of which they were willing to die. It is scarcely necessary to say that such persons look only at themselves, entirely disregarding the rights of others; but one wonders where the fruits of all the religious instruction of the country are to be found, when opinions so loose and acts so flagrant are constantly occurring among us. The fact is, land is so abundant, and such vast bodies lie neglected and seemingly forgotten by their owners, that the needy are apt to think indifference authorizes invasions on such unoccupied property; and their own labor once applied, they are quick to imagine that it gives them a moral and legal interest in the soil; though in the eye of the law, and of unbiased reason, each new step taken in what is called the improvement of a "betterment" is but a farther advance in the direction of wrong-doing.

I was reflecting on things of this sort, when, looking through the cracks of my prison, to ascertain the state of matters without, I was surprised by the appearance of a man on horseback, who was entering the clearing on its eastern side, seemingly quite at home in his course, though he was travelling without a foot-path to aid him. As this man had a pair of the common saddle-bags of the day on his horse, I at first took him for one of those practitioners of the healing art who are constantly met with in the new settlements, winding their way through stumps, logs, morasses and forests, the ministers of good or evil, I shall not pretend to say which. Ordinarily, families like that of Thousandacres do their own "doctoring"; but a case might occur that demanded the wisdom of the licensed leech; and I had just decided in my own mind that this must be one, when, as the stranger drew nearer, to my surprise I saw that it was no other than my late agent, Mr. Jason Newcome, and the moral and physical factotum of Ravensnest!

As the distance between the mill that 'Squire Newcome leased of me, and that which Thousandacres had set up on the property of Mooseridge, could not be less than five-and-twenty miles, the arrival of this visitor at an hour so early was a certain proof that he had left his own house long before the dawn. It was probably convenient to pass through the farms and dwellings of Ravensnest on the errand on which he was now bent, at an hour of the night or morning when darkness would conceal the movement. By timing his departure with the same judgment, it was obvious he could reach home under the concealment of the other end of the same mantle. In a word, this visit was evidently one, in the objects and incidents of which it was intended that the world at large should have no share.

The dialogues between the members of the family of Thousandacres ceased, the moment 'Squire Newcome came in view; though, as was apparent by the unmoved manner in which his approach was witnessed, the sudden appearance of this particular visitor produced neither surprise nor uneasiness. Although it must have been a thing to be desired by the squatters, to keep their "location" a secret, more especially since the peace left landlords at leisure to look after their lands, no one manifested any concern at discovering this arrival in their clearing of the nearest magistrate. Any one might see, by the manner of men, women, and children, that 'Squire Newcome was no stranger, and that his presence gave them no alarm. Even the early hour of his visit was most probably that to which they were accustomed, the quick-witted intellects of the young fry causing them to understand the reason quite as readily as was the case with their seniors. In a word, the guest was regarded as a friend rather than as an enemy.

Newcome was some little time, after he came into view, in reaching the hamlet, if the cluster of buildings can be so termed; and when he did alight, it was before the door of a stable, toward which one of the boys now scampered, to be in readiness to receive his horse. The beast disposed of, the 'squire advanced to the spot where Thousandacres and his elder sons still remained to receive him, or that near the mill. The manner in which all parties shook hands, and the cordiality of the salutations generally, in which Prudence and her daughters soon shared, betokened something more than amity, I fancied, for it looked very much like intimacy.

Jason Newcome remained in the family group some eight or ten minutes, and I could almost fancy the prescribed inquiries about the "folks" (anglice, folk), the "general state of health," and the character of the "times," ere the magistrate and the squatter separated themselves from the rest of the party, walking aside like men who had matters of moment to discuss, and that under circumstances which could dispense with the presence of any listeners.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Peculiar both!
Our soil's strong growth
And our bold natives' hardy mind;
Sure heaven bespoke
Our hearts and oak
To give a master to mankind."

--Young.

Thousandacres and the magistrate held their way directly toward the storehouse; and the log of the sentinel offering a comfortable seat, that functionary was dismissed, when the two worthies took his place, with their backs turned toward my prison. Whether this disposition of their persons was owing to a deep-laid plan of the squatter's, or not, I never knew; but, let the cause have been what it might, the effect was to render me an auditor of nearly all that passed in the dialogue which succeeded. It will greatly aid the reader in understanding the incidents about to be recorded, if I spread on the record the language that passed between my late agent and one who was obviously his confidant in certain matters, if not in all that touched my interests in that quarter of the world. As for listening, I have no hesitation in avowing it, inasmuch as the circumstances would have justified me in taking far greater liberties with the customary obligations of society in its every-day aspect, had I seen fit so to do. I was dealing with rogues, who had me in their power, and there was no obligation to be particularly scrupulous on the score of mere conventional propriety, at least.

"As I was tellin' ye, Thousandacres," Newcome continued the discourse by saying, and that with the familiarity of one who well knew his companion, "the young man is in this part of the country, and somewhere quite near you at this moment"--I was much nearer than the 'squire himself had any notion of at that instant--"yes, he's out in the woods of this very property, with Chainbearer and his gang; and, for 'tinow [for aught I know], measuring out farms within a mile or two of this very spot!"

"How many men be there?" asked the squatter with interest. "If no more than the usual set, 'twill be an onlucky day for them, should they stumble on my clearin'!"

"Perhaps they will, perhaps they wunt; a body never knows. Surveyin' 's a sort o' work that leads a man here, or it leads him there. One never knows where a line will carry him, in the woods. That's the reason I've kept the crittur's out of my own timber-land; for, to speak to you, Thousandacres, as one neighbor can speak to another without risk, there's desp'rate large pine-trees on the unleased hills both north and east of my lot. Sometimes it's handy to have lines about a mill, you know, sometimes 't isn't."

"A curse on all lines, in a free country, say I, 'squire," answered Thousandacres, who looked, as he bestowed this characteristic benediction, as if he might better be named Tenthousandacres; "they're an invention of the devil. I lived seven whull years in Varmount state, as it's now called, the old Hampshire Grants, you know, next-door neighbor to two families, one north and one south on me, and we chopped away the whull time, just as freely as we pleased, and not a cross word or an angry look passed atween us."

"I rather conclude, friend Aaron, you had all sat down under the same title?" put in the magistrate with a sly look at his companion. "When that is the case, it would exceed all reason to quarrel."

"Why, I'll own that our titles were pretty much the same;--possession and free axes. Then it was ag'in York colony landholders that our time was running. What's your candid opinion about law, on this p'int, 'Squire Newcome?--I know you're a man of edication, college l'arnt some say; though, I s'pose, that's no better l'arnin' than any other, when a body has once got it--but what's your opinion about possession?--Will it hold good for twenty-one years, without writin's, or not? Some say it will, and some say it wunt."

"It wunt. The law is settled; there must be a shadow of title, or possession's good for nothin'; no better than the scrapin's of a flour-barrel."

"I've heer'n say the opposyte of that; and there's reason why possession should count ag'in everything. By possession, however, I don't mean hangin' up a pair of saddle-bags on a tree, as is sometimes done, but goin' honestly and fairly in upon land, and cuttin' down trees, and buildin' mills, and housen and barns, and cuttin' and slashin', and sawin' right and left, like all creation. That's what I always doos myself, and that's what I call sich a possession as ought to stand in law--ay, and in gospel, too; for I'm not one of them that flies in the face of religion."

"In that you're quite right; keep the gospel on your side whatever you do, neighbor Thousandacres. Our Puritan fathers didn't cross the ocean, and encounter the horrors of the wilderness, and step on the rock of Plymouth, and undergo more than man could possibly bear, and that all for nothin'!"

"Wa-a-l, to my notion, the 'horrors of the wilderness,' as you call 'em, is no great matter; though, as for crossin' the ocean, I can easily imagine that must be suthin' to try a man's patience and endurance. I never could take to the water. They tell me there isn't a single tree growin' the whull distance atween Ameriky and England! Floatin' saw-logs be sometimes met with, I've heer'n say, but not a standin' crittur' of a tree from Massachusetts Bay to London town!"

"It's all water, and of course trees be scarce, Thousandacres; but let's come a little clusser to the p'int. As I was tellin' you, the whelp is in, and he'll growl as loud as the old bear himself, should he hear of all them boards you've got in the creek--to say nothin' of the piles up here that you haven't begun to put into the water."

"Let him growl," returned the old squatter, glancing surlily toward my prison; "like a good many other crittur's that I've met with, 'twill turn out that his bark is worse than his bite."

"I don't know that, neighbor Thousandacres, I don't by any means know that. Major Littlepage is a gentleman of spirit and decision, as is to be seen by his having taken his agency from me, who have held it so long, and gi'n it to a young chap who has no other claim than bein' a tolerable surveyor; but who hasn't been in the settlement more than a twelvemonth."

"Gi'n it to a surveyer! Is he one of Chainbearer's measurin' devils?"

"Just so; 'tis the very young fellow Chainbearer has had with him this year or so, runnin' lines an' measurin' land on this very property."

"That old fellow, Chainbearer, had best look to himself! He's thwarted me now three times in the course of his life, and he's gettin' to be desp'rate old; I'm afeard he won't live long!"

I could now see that Squire Newcome felt uneasy. Although a colleague of the squatter's in what is only too apt to be considered a venal roguery in a new country, or in the stealing of timber, it did not at all comport with the scale of his rascality to menace a man's life. He would connive at stealing timber by purchasing the lumber at sufficiently low prices, so long as the danger of being detected was kept within reasonable limits, but he did not like to be connected with any transaction that did not, in the case of necessity, admit of a tolerably safe retreat from all pains and penalties. Men become very much what--not their laws--but what the administration of their laws makes them. In countries in which it is prompt, sure, and sufficiently severe, crimes are mainly the fruits of temptation and necessity; but a state of society may exist, in which justice falls into contempt, by her own impotency, and men are led to offend merely to brave her. Thus we have long labored under the great disadvantage of living under laws that, in a great degree, were framed for another set of circumstances. By the common law, it was only trespass to cut down a tree in England; for trees were seldom or never stolen, and the law did not wish to annex the penalties of felony to the simple offence of cutting a twig in a wood. With us, however, entire new classes of offences have sprung up under our own novel circumstances; and we probably owe a portion of the vast amount of timber-stealing that has now long existed among us, quite as much to the mistaken lenity of the laws, as to the fact that this particular description of property is so much exposed. Many a man would commit a trespass of the gravest sort, who would shrink from the commission of a felony of the lowest. Such was the case with Newcome. He had a certain sort of law-honesty about him, that enabled him in a degree to preserve appearances. It is true he connived at the unlawful cutting of timber by purchasing the sawed lumber, but he took good care, at the same time, not to have any such direct connection with the strictly illegal part of the transaction as to involve him in the penalties of the law. Had timber-stealing been felony, he would have often been an accessory before the act; but in a case of misdemeanor, the law knows no such offence. Purchasing the sawed lumber, too, if done with proper precaution, owing to the glorious subterfuges permitted by "the perfection of reason," was an affair of no personal hazard in a criminal point of view, and even admitted of so many expedients as to leave the question of property a very open one, after the boards were fully in his own possession. The object of his present visit to the clearing of Thousandacres, as the reader will most probably have anticipated, was to profit by my supposed proximity, and to frighten the squatter into a sale on such terms as should leave larger profits than common in the hands of the purchaser. Unfortunately for the success of this upright project, my proximity was so much greater than even Squire Newcome supposed, as to put it in danger by the very excess of the thing that was to produce the result desired. Little did the honest magistrate suppose that I was, the whole time, within twenty feet of him, and that I heard all that passed.

"Chainbearer is about seventy," returned Newcome, after musing a moment on the character of his companion's last remark. "Yes, about seventy, I should judge from what I've heerd, and what I know of the man. It's a good old age, but folks often live years and years beyond it. You must be suthin' like that yourself, Thousandacres?"

"Seventy-three, every day and hour on't, 'squire; and days and hours well drawn out, too. If you count by old style, I b'lieve I'm a month or so older. But I'm not Chainbearer. No man can say of me, that I ever made myself troublesome to a neighborhood. No man can p'int to the time when I ever disturbed his lines. No man can tell of the day when I ever went into court to be a witness on such a small matter as the length or breadth of lots, to breed quarrels atween neighbors. No, 'Squire Newcome, I set store by my character, which will bear comparison with that of any other inhabitant of the woods I ever met with. And what I say of myself I can say of my sons and da'ghters, too--from Tobit down to Sampson, from Nab to Jeruthy. We're what I call a reasonable and reconcilable breed, minding our own business, and having a respect for that of other people. Now, here am I, in my seventy-fourth year, and the father of twelve living children, and I've made, in my time, many and many a pitch on't, but never was I known to pitch on land that another man had in possession;--and I carry my idees of possession farther than most folks, too, for I call it possession to have said openly, and afore witnesses, that a man intends to pitch on any partic'lar spot afore next ploughin' or droppin' time, as the case may be. No, I respect possession, which ought to be the only lawful title to property, in a free country. When a man wants a clearin' or wants to make one, my doctrine is, let him look about him, and make his pitch on calcerlation; and when he's tired of the spot, and wants a change, let him sell his betterments, if he lights of a chap, and if he doos'nt, let him leave 'em open, and clear off all incumbrances, for the next comer."

It is probable that Jason Newcome, Esq.,--magistrates in America are extremely tenacious of this title, though they have no more right to it than any one else--but Jason Newcome, Esq.,[16] did not carry his notions of the rights of squatters, and of the sacred character of possession, quite as far as did his friend Thousandacres. Newcome was an exceedingly selfish, but withal, an exceedingly shrewd man. I do not know that the term clever, in its broadest signification, would fitly apply to him, for in that sense, I conceive, it means quickness and intelligence enough to do what is right; but he was fully entitled to receive it, under that qualification by which we say a man is "a clever rogue." In a word, Mr. Newcome understood himself, and his relations to the community in which he lived, too well to fall into very serious mistakes by a direct dereliction from his duties, though he lived in a never-ceasing condition of small divergencies that might at any time lead him into serious difficulties. Nevertheless, it was easy enough to see he had no relish for Thousandacres' allusions to the termination of the days of my excellent old friend, Chainbearer; nor can I say that they gave me any particular concern, for, while I knew how desperate the squatters sometimes became, I had a notion that this old fellow's bark would prove worse than his bite, as he had just observed of myself.

It would hardly repay the trouble, were I to attempt recording all that passed next between our two colloquists; although it was a sufficiently amusing exhibition of wily management to frighten the squatter to part with his lumber at a low price, on one side, and of sullen security on the other. The security proceeded from the fact that Thousandacres had me, at that very moment, a prisoner in his storehouse.

A bargain conducted on such terms was not likely soon to come to a happy termination. After a great deal of chaffering and discussing, the conference broke up, nothing having been decided, by the magistrate's saying--

"Well, Thousandacres, I hope you'll have no reason to repent; but I kind o' fear you will."

"The loss will be mine and the b'ys' if I do," was the squatter's answer. "I know I can get all the boards into the creek; and, for that matter, into the river, afore young Littlepage can do me any harm; though there is one circumstance that may yet turn my mind----"

Here the squatter came to a pause; and Newcome, who had risen, turned short round, eagerly, to press the doubt that he saw was working in the other's mind.

"I thought you would think better of it," he said; "for, it's out of doubt, should Major Littlepage l'arn your pitch, that he'd uproot you, as the winds uproot the fallin' tree."

"No, 'squire, my mind's made up," Thousandacres coolly rejoined. "I'll sell, and gladly; but not on the tarms you have named. Two pounds eight the thousand foot, board measure, and taking it all round, clear stuff and refuse, without any store-pay, will carry off the lumber."

"Too much, Thousandacres; altogether too much, when you consider the risks I run. I'm not sartain that I could hold the lumber, even after I got it into the river; for a replevy is a formidable thing in law, I can tell you. One pound sixteen, one-third store-pay, is the utmost farthin' I can offer."

In that day all our calculations were in pounds, shillings and pence.

"Then the bargain's off.--I s'pose, squire, you've the old avarsion to being seen in my settlement?"

"Sartain--sartain," answered Newcome, in haste. "There's no danger of that, I hope. You cannot well have strangers among you?"

"I wunt answer for that. I see some of the b'ys coming out of the woods, yonder; and it seems to me there is a fourth man with them. There is, of a certainty; and it is no other than Susquesus, the Onondago. The fellow is cluss-mouthed, like most redskins; but you can say best whether you'd like to be seen by him, or not. I hear he's a great fri'nd of Chainbearer's."

It was very evident that the magistrate decided, at once, in the negative. With a good deal of decent haste he dodged round a pile of logs, and I saw no more of him until I caught a distant view of his person in the skirts of the woods, at the point whence he had issued into the clearing, two hours before, and where he now received his horse from the hands of the youngest of Thousandacre's sons, who led the animal to the spot for his especial accommodation. Mr. Newcome was no sooner in possession of his beast again, than he mounted and rode away into the depths of the forest. So adroitly was this retreat conducted, that no person of ordinary observation could possibly have detected it, unless indeed his attention had been previously drawn to the movement.

What passed, at parting, between Thousandacres and his visitor, I never knew; but they must have been altogether alone for a few minutes. When the former reappeared, he came out from behind the logs, his whole attention seemingly fastened on the approaching party, composed of his sons and Susquesus. Those resolute and practised men had, indeed, overtaken and captured the Onondago, and were now bringing him a prisoner, unarmed, in their midst, to receive the commands of their father! Notwithstanding all that I knew of this man, and of his character, there was something imposing in the manner in which he now waited for the arrival of his sons and their prisoner. Accustomed to exercise an almost absolute sway in his own family, the old man had acquired some of the dignity of authority; and as for his posterity, old and young, male and female, not excepting Prudence, they had gained very little in the way of freedom, by throwing aside the trammels of regular and recognized law, to live under the rule of their patriarch. In this respect they might be likened to the masses, who, in a blind pursuit of liberty, impatiently cast away the legal and healthful restraints of society, to submit to the arbitrary, selfish, and ever unjust dictation of demagogues. Whatever difference there might be between the two governments, was in favor of that of the squatter, who possessed the feelings of nature in behalf of his own flesh and blood, and was consequently often indulgent.

It is so difficult to read an Indian's mind in his manner, that I did not expect to ascertain the state of the Onondago's feelings by the countenance he wore, on drawing near. In exterior, this man was as calm and unmoved as if just arrived on a friendly visit. His captors had bound him, fearful he might elude them, in some of the thickets they had been compelled to pass; but the thongs seemed to give him neither mental nor bodily concern. Old Thousandacres was stern in aspect; but he had too much experience in Indian character--knew too well the unforgiving nature of the Indians' dispositions, or the enduring memories that forgot neither favors nor injuries, to wantonly increase the feeling that must naturally have been awakened between him and his prisoner.

"Trackless," he said, considerately, "you're an old warrior, and must know that in troubled times every man must look out for himself. I'm glad the b'ys warn't driven to do you any harm; but it would never have done to let you carry the tidings of what has happened here, this morning, to Chainbearer and his gang. How long I may have to keep you, is more than I know myself; but your treatment shall be good, and your wilcome warm, so long as you give no trouble. I know what a redskin's word is; and maybe, a'ter thinkin' on it a little, I may let you out to wander about the clearin', provided you'd give your parole not to go off. I'll think on't, and let you know to-morrow; but to-day I must put you in the store'us' along with the young chap that you travelled here with."

Thousandacres then demanded of his sons an account of the manner in which they had taken their captive; which it is unnecessary to relate here, as I shall have occasion to give it directly in the language of the Indian himself. As soon as satisfied on this head, the door of my prison was opened, and the Onondago entered it unbound, without manifesting the smallest shade of regret, or any resistance. Everything was done in a very lock-up sort of manner; the new prisoner being no sooner "permitted," than the door was secured, and I was left alone with Sureflint; one of the younger girls now remaining near the building as a sentinel. I waited a moment, to make certain we were alone, when I opened the communications with my friend.

"I am very sorry for this, Sureflint," I commenced, "for I had hopes your knowledge of the woods, and practice on trails, would have enabled you to throw off your pursuers, that you might have carried the news of my imprisonment to our friends. This is a sore disappointment to me; having made sure you would let Chainbearer know where I am."

"W'y t'ink different, now, eh? S'pose, 'cause Injin prisoner, can't help himself?"

"You surely do not mean that you are here with your own consent?"

"Sartain. S'pose no want to come; am no come. You t'ink Thousandacres' b'ys catch Susquesus in woods, and he don't want to? Be sure, winter come, and summer come. Be sure, gray hair come a little. Be sure Trackless get ole, by-'m-bye; but he moccason leave no trail yet!"

"As I cannot understand why you should first escape, and then wish to come back, I must beg you to explain yourself. Let me know all that has passed, Sureflint--how it has passed, and why it has passed. Tell it in your own way, but tell it fully."

"Sartain--why no tell? No harm; all good--somet'ing capital! Nebber hab better luck."

"You excite my curiosity, Sureflint; tell the whole story at once, beginning at the time when you slipped off, and carrying it down to the moment of your arrival here."

Hereupon, Susquesus turned on me a significant look, drew his pipe from his belt, filled and lighted it, and began to smoke with a composure that was not easily disturbed. As soon as assured that his pipe was in a proper state, however, the Indian quietly began his story.

"Now listen, you hear," he said. "Run away, 'cause no good to stay here, and be prisoner--dat why."

"But you are a prisoner, as it is, as well as myself, and, by your statement, a prisoner with your own consent."

"Sartain--nebber hab been prisoner, won't be prisoner, if don't want to. S'pose shot, den can't help him; but in woods, Injin nebber prisoner, 'less lazy or drunk. Rum make great many prisoner."

"I can believe all this--but tell me the story. Why did you go off at first?"

"S'pose don't want Chainbearer know where he be, eh? T'ink T'ousandacre ebber let you go while board in stream? When board go, he go; not afore. Stay all summer; want to live in store'us' all summer, eh?"

"Certainly not--well, you left me, in order to let our friends know where I was, that they might cast about for the means of getting me free. All this I understand; what next?"

"Next, go off in wood. Easy 'nough to slip off when T'ousandacre no look. Well, went about two mile; leave no trail--bird make as much in air. What s'pose meet, eh?"

"I wait for you to tell me."

"Meet Jaap--yes--meet nigger. Look for young master--ebberybody in trouble, and won'er where young chief be. Some look here--some look out yonder--all look somewhere--Jaap look just dere."

"And you told Jaap the whole story, and sent him back to the huts with it!"

"Sartain--just so. Make good guess dat time. Den t'ink what do, next. Want to come back and help young pale-face frien'; so t'ought get take prisoner one time. Like to know how he feel to be prisoner one time. No feel so bad as s'pose. Squatter no hard master for prisoner."

"But how did all this happen, and in what manner have you misled the young men?"

"No hard to do at all. All he want is know how. A'ter Jaap get his ar'n'd, and go off, made trail plain 'nough for squaw to find. Travel to a spring--sit down and put rifle away off, so no need shoot, and let him squatter's boys catch me, by what you call s'prise; yes, 'e pale-faces s'prise red man dat time! Warrant he brag on't well!"

Here, then, was the simple explanation of it all! Susquesus had stolen away, in order to apprise my friends of my situation; he had fallen in with Jaap, or Jaaf, in search of his lost master; and, communicating all the circumstances to the negro, had artfully allowed himself to be recaptured, carefully avoiding a struggle, and had been brought back and placed by my side. No explanations were necessary to point out the advantages. By communicating with the negro, who had been familiar for years with the clipped manner of the Indian's mode of speaking English, everything would be made known to Chainbearer; by suffering himself to be taken, the squatters were led by Sureflint to suppose our capture and their "pitch" remained secrets; while, by rejoining me, I should have the presence, counsel and assistance of a most tried friend of my father's and Chainbearer's in the event of necessity.

This brief summary of his reasoning shows the admirable sagacity of the Onondago, who had kept in view every requisite of his situation, and failed in nothing.

I was delighted with the address of Sureflint, as well as touched by his fidelity. In the course of our conversation, he gave me to understand that my disappearance and absence for an entire night had produced great consternation in the huts, and that everybody was out in quest of me and himself, at the time when he so opportunely fell in with Jaap.

"Gal out, too"--added the Onondago, significantly. "S'pose good reason for dat."

This startled me a little, for I had a vague suspicion that Susquesus must have been an unseen observer of my interview with Ursula Malbone; and noticing my manner on rushing from her cabin, had been induced to follow me, as has been related. The reader is not to suppose that my late adventures had driven Dus from my mind. So far from this, I thought of her incessantly; and the knowledge that she took so much interest in me as to roam the woods in the search, had no tendency to lessen the steadiness or intensity of my reflections. Nevertheless, common humanity might induce one of her energy and activity to do as much as this; and had I not her own declaration that she was plighted to another!

After getting his whole story, I consulted the Indian on the subject of our future proceedings. He was of opinion that we had better wait the movements of our friends, from whom we must hear in some mode or other, in the course of the approaching night, or of the succeeding day. What course Chainbearer might see fit to pursue, neither of us could conjecture, though both felt assured he never would remain quiet with two as fast friends as ourselves in durance. My great concern was that he might resort at once to force, for old Andries had a fiery spirit, though one that was eminently just; and he had been accustomed to see gunpowder burned from his youth upward. Should he, on the other hand, resort to legal means, and apply to Mr. Newcome for warrants to arrest my captors, as men guilty of illegal personal violence, a course it struck me Frank Malbone would be very apt to advise, what might I not expect from the collusion of the magistrate, in the way of frauds, delays and private machinations? In such a case, there would be time to send me to some other place of concealment, and the forest must have a hundred such that were accessible to my new masters, while their friend Newcome would scarcely fail to let them have timely notice of the necessity of some such step. Men acting in conformity with the rules of right, fulfilling the requirements of the law, and practising virtue, might be so remiss as not to send information of such an impending danger, for such persons are only too apt to rely on the integrity of their own characters, and to put their trust on the laws of Providence; but rogues, certain that they can have no such succor, depend mainly on themselves, recognizing the well-known principle of Frederick the Great, who thought it a safe rule to suppose that "Providence was usually on the side of strong battalions." I felt certain, therefore, that Squire Newcome would let his friends at the "clearing" know all that was plotting against them, as soon as he knew it himself.

The squatters were not unkind to us prisoners in the way of general treatment. Certainly I had every right to complain of the particular wrong they did me; but, otherwise, they were sufficiently considerate and liberal throughout that day. Our fare was their own. We had water brought in fresh by Lowiny no fewer than five several times; and so attentive to my supposed wants was this girl, that she actually brought me every book that was to be found in all the libraries of the family. These were but three--a fragment of a Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and an almanac that was four years old.

CHAPTER XX.

"I mark'd his desultory pace,
His gestures strange, and varying face,
With many a muttered sound;
And ah! too late, aghast, I view'd
The reeking blade, the hand imbru'd:
He fell, and groaning grasp'd in agony the ground."

--Warton.

In this manner passed that long and weary day. I could and did take exercise, by walking to and fro in my prison; but the Indian seldom stirred from the moment he entered. As for the squatter himself, he came no more near the storehouse, though I saw him, two or three times in the course of the day, in private conference with his elder sons, most probably consulting on my case. At such moments, their manner was serious, and there were instants when I fancied it menacing.

Provision was made for our comfort by throwing a sufficient number of bundles of straw into the prison, and my fellow-captive and myself had each a sufficiently comfortable bed. A soldier was not to be frightened at sleeping on straw, moreover; and as for Susquesus, he asked for no more than room to stretch himself, though it were even on a rock. An Indian loves his ease, and takes it when it comes in his way; but it is really amazing to what an extent his powers of endurance go, when it becomes necessary for him to exert them.

In the early part of the night I slept profoundly, as I believe did the Indian. I must acknowledge that an uncomfortable distrust existed in my mind, that had some slight effect in keeping me from slumbering, though fatigue soon overcame the apprehensions such a feeling would be likely to awaken. I did not know but Thousandacres and his sons might take it into their heads to make away with the Indian and myself under cover of the darkness, as the most effectual means of protecting themselves against the consequences of their past depredations, and of securing the possession of those that they had projected for the future. We were completely in their power, and, so far as the squatter knew, the secret of our visit would die with us, the knowledge of those of his own flesh and blood possessed on the subject excepted. Notwithstanding these thoughts crossed my mind, and did give me some little uneasiness, they were not sufficiently active or sufficiently prominent to prevent me from slumbering, after I had fairly fallen asleep, without awaking once, until it was three o'clock, or within an hour of the approach of day.

I am not certain that any external cause aroused me from my slumbers. But I well remember that I lay there on my straw, meditating for some time, half asleep and half awake, until I fancied I heard the musical voice of Dus, murmuring in my ear my own name. This illusion lasted some little time; when, as my faculties gradually resumed their powers, I became slowly convinced that some one was actually calling me, and by name too, within a foot or two of my ears. I could not be mistaken; the fact was so, and the call was in a woman's tones. Springing up, I demanded--

"Who is here? In the name of heaven, can this really be Miss Malbone--Dus!"

"My name is Lowiny," answered my visitor, "and I'm Thousandacres' da'ghter. But don't speak so loud, for there is one of the b'ys on the watch at the other end of the store'us, and you'll wake him up unless you're careful."

"Lowiny, is it you, my good girl? Not content to care for us throughout the day, you still have a thought for us during the night!"

I thought the girl felt embarrassed, for she must have been conscious of having a little trespassed on the usages and reserve of her sex. It is rare, indeed, that any mother, and especially an American mother, ever falls so low as completely to become unsexed in feelings and character, and rarer still that she forgets to impart many of the decencies of woman to her daughter. Old Prudence, notwithstanding the life she led, and the many causes of corruption and backslidings that existed around her, was true to her native instincts, and had taught to her girls many of those little proprieties that become so great charms in woman.

Lowiny was far from disagreeable in person, and had the advantage of being youthful in appearance, as well as in fact. In addition to these marks of her sex, she had manifested an interest in my fate, from the first, that had not escaped me; and here she was now, doubtless on some errand of which the object was our good. My remark embarrassed her, however, and a few moments passed before she got entirely over the feeling. As soon as she did, she again spoke.

"I don't think anything of bringing you and the Injin a little water," she said--laying an emphasis on the words I have put in Italics--"nor should I had we any beer or sap-cider instead. But all our spruce is out; and father said he wouldn't have any more of the cider made, seein' that we want all the sap for sugar. I hope you had a plentiful supply, Mr. Littlepage; and for fear you hadn't, I've brought you and the redskin a pitcher of milk and a bowl of hasty-pudding--he can eat a'ter you've done, you know."

I thanked my kind-hearted friend, and received her gift through a hole that she pointed out to me. The food, in the end, proved very acceptable, as subsequent circumstances caused our regular breakfast to be forgotten for a time. I was desirous of ascertaining from this girl what was said or contemplated among her relatives, on the subject of my future fate; but felt a nearly unconquerable dislike to be prying into what was a species of family secrets, by putting direct questions to her. Fortunately, the communicative and friendly disposition of Lowiny herself soon removed all necessity for any such step; for after executing her main purpose, she lingered with an evident wish to gossip.

"I wish father wouldn't be a squatter any longer," the girl said, with an earnestness that proved she was uttering her real sentiment. "It's awful to be forever fighting ag'in law!"

"It would be far better if he would apply to some landowner and get a farm on lease, or by purchase. Land is so plenty in this country, no man need go without a legal interest in his hundred acres, provided he be only sober and industrious."

"Father never drinks, unless it's on the Fourth of July; and the b'ys be all pretty sober, too, as young men go, nowadays. I believe, Mr. Littlepage, if mother has told father once, she has told him a thousand times, that she doos wish he'd leave off squatting, and take writin's for some piece of land or other. But father says, 'no--he warn't made for writin's, nor writin's for him.' He's desp'ately troubled to know what to do with you, now he's got you."

"Did Mr. Newcome give no opinion on the subject while he was with you?"

"'Squire Newcome! Father never let on to him a syllable about ever having seen you. He knows too much to put himself in 'Squire Newcome's power, sin' his lumber would go all the cheaper for it. What's your opinion, Mr. Littlepage, about our right to the boards, when we've cut, and hauled, and sawed the logs with our own hands. Don' that make some difference?"

"What is your opinion of your right to a gown that another girl has made out of calico she had taken from your drawer, when your back was turned, and carried away, and cut and stitched, and sewed with her own hands?"

"She never would have any right to my calico, let her cut it as much as she might. But lumber is made out of trees."

"And trees have owners just as much as calico. Hauling, and cutting, and sawing can of themselves give no man a right to another man's logs."

"I was afeard it was so--" answered Lowiny, sighing so loud as to be heard. "There's suthin' in that old Bible I lent you that I read pretty much in that way; though Tobit, and most of the b'ys say that it don't mean any sich thing. They say there's nothin' about lumber in the Bible at all."

"And what does your mother tell you on this head?"

"Why, mother don't talk about it. She wants father to lease or buy; but you know how it is with women, Mr. Littlepage; when their fr'nds act, it's all the same as a law to them to try to think that they act right. Mother never says anything to us about the lawfulness of father's doin's, though she often wishes he would live under writin's. Mother wants father to try and get writin's of you, now you're here, and in his hands. Wouldn't you give us writin's, Mr. Littlepage, if we'd promise to give you suthin' for rent?"

"If I did they would be good for nothing, unless I were free and among friends. Deeds and leases got from men who are 'in the hands,' as you call it, of those who take them, are of no value."

"I'm sorry for that--" rejoined Lowiny, with another sigh--"not that I wanted you to be driven into anything, but I thought if you would only consent to let father have writin's for this clearin', it's so good a time to do it now, 'twould be a pity to lose it. If it can't be done, however, it can't, and there's no use in complaining. Father thinks he can hold you 'till the water rises in the fall, and the b'ys have run all the lumber down to Albany; a'ter which he'll not be so partic'lar about keepin' you any longer, and maybe he'll let you go."

"Hold me until the water rises! Why, that will not take place these three months!"

"Well, Mr. Littlepage, three months don't seem to me sich a desp'rate long time when a body is among fri'nds. We should treat you as well as we know how, that you may depend on--I'll answer for it, you shall want for nothin' that we've got to give."

"I dare say, my excellent girl, but I should be extremely sorry to trouble your family with so long a visit. As for the boards, I have no power to waive the rights of the owners of the land to that property; my power being merely to sell lots to actual settlers."

"I'm sorry to hear that," answered Lowiny in a gentle tone, that fully confirmed her words; "for father and the b'ys be really awful about anything that touches their profits for work done. They say their flesh and blood's in them boards, and flesh and blood shall go, afore the boards shall go. It makes my blood run cold to hear the way they do talk! I'm not a bit skeary; and last winter, when I shot the bear that was a'ter the store-hogs, mother said I acted as well as she could have done herself, and she has killed four bears and near upon twenty wolves, in her time. Yes, mother said I behaved like her own da'ghter, and that she set twice the store by me that she did before."

"You are a brave girl, Lowiny, and an excellent one in the main, I make no question. Whatever become of me, I shall not forget your kindness as long as I live. It will be a very serious matter, however, to your friends, to attempt keeping me here three or four months, as mine will certainly have a search for me, when this clearing would be found. I need not tell you what would be the consequence."

"What can--what will father and the b'ys do? I can't bear to think on't--oh! they'll not have the hearts to try to put you out of the way!"

"I should hope not, for their own sakes, and for the credit of the American name. We are not a nation addicted to such practices, and I should really regret to learn that we have made so long a step toward the crimes of older countries. But there is little danger of anything of the sort, after all, my good Lowiny."

"I hope so, too," the girl answered, in a low, tremulous voice; "though Tobit is a starn bein' sometimes. He makes father worse than he would be, if let alone, I know. But I must go, now. It's near daylight, and I hear 'em stirring in Tobit's house. It would cost me dear did any on 'em know I had been out of my bed, talking to you."

As this was said, the girl vanished. Before I could find an aperture to watch her movements, she had disappeared. Susquesus arose a few minutes later, but he never made any allusion to the secret visit of the girl. In this respect, he observed the most scrupulous delicacy, never letting me know by hint, look, or smile, that he had been in the least conscious of her presence.

Day came as usual, but it did not find these squatters in their beds. They appeared with the dawn, and most of them were at work ere the broad light of the sun was shed on the forest. Most of the men went down into the river, and busied themselves, as we supposed, for we could not see them, in the water, with the apples of their eyes, their boards. Old Thousandacres, however, chose to remain near his habitation, keeping two or three well-grown lads about him; probably adverting in his mind to the vast importance it was to all of his race, to make sure of his prisoners. I could see by the thoughtful manner of the old squatter, as he lounged around his mill, among his swine, and walked through his potatoes, that his mind wavered greatly as to the course he ought to pursue, and that he was sorely troubled. How long this perplexity of feeling would have continued, and to what it might have led, it is hard to say, had it not been cut short by an incident of a very unexpected nature, and one that called for more immediate decision and action. I shall relate the occurrence a little in detail.

The day was considerably advanced, and, Thousandacres and the girl who then watched the storehouse excepted, everybody was occupied. Even Susquesus had picked up a piece of birch, and with a melancholy countenance, that I fancied was shadowing forth the future life of a half-civilized red man, was attempting to make a broom with a part of a knife that he had found in the building; while I was sketching, on a leaf of my pocket-book, the mill and a bit of mountain land that served it for a background. Thousandacres, for the first time that morning, drew near our prison, and spoke to me. His countenance was severe, yet I could see he was much troubled. As I afterward ascertained, Tobit had been urging on him the necessity of putting both myself and the Indian to death, as the only probable means that offered to save the lumber.

"Young man," said Thousandacres, "you have stolen on me and mine like a thief at night, and you ought to expect the fate of one. How in natur' can you expect men will give up their hard 'arnin's without a struggle and a fight for 'em? You tempt me more than I can bear!"

I felt the fearful import of these words; but human nature revolted at the thought of being cowed into any submission, or terms unworthy of my character, or late profession. I was on the point of making an answer in entire consonance with this feeling, when, in looking through the chinks of my prison to fasten an eye on my old tyrant, I saw Chainbearer advancing directly toward the storehouse, and already within a hundred yards of us. The manner in which I gazed at this apparition attracted the attention of the squatter, who turned and first saw the unexpected visitor who approached. At the next minute, Andries was at his side.

"So, T'ousandacres, I fint you here!" exclaimed Chainbearer. "It's a goot many years since you and I met, and I'm sorry we meet now on such pisiness as t'is!"

"The meetin's of your own seekin', Chainbearer. I've neither invited nor wished for your company."

"I p'lieve you wit' all my heart. No, no; you wish for no chains and no chainpearers, no surfeyors and no compasses, no lots and no owners, too, put a squatter. You and I haf not to make an acquaintance for t'e first time, T'ousandacres, after knowin' each other for fifty years."

"Yes, we do know each other for fifty years; and seein' that them years hav'nt sarved to bring us of a mind on any one thing, we should have done better to keep apart, than to come together now."

"I haf come for my poy, squatter--my nople poy, whom you haf illegally arrested, and mate a prisoner, in the teet' of all law and justice. Gif me pack Mortaunt Littlepage, and you'll soon be rit of my company!"

"And how do you know that I've ever seen your 'Mortaunt Littlepage?' What have I to do with your boy, that you seek him of me? Go your ways, go your ways, old Chainbearer, and let me and mine alone. The world's wide enough for us both, I tell you; and why should you be set on your own ondoin', by runnin' ag'in a breed like that which comes of Aaron and Prudence Timberman?"

"I care not for you or your preet," answered old Andries sternly. "You've dare't to arrest my frient, against law and right, and I come to demant his liperty, or to warn you of t'e consequences."

"Don't press me too far, Chainbearer, don't press me too far. There's desp'rate crittur's in this clearin', and them that is'nt to be driven from their righteous 'arnin's by any that carry chains or p'int compasses. Go your way, I tell ye, and leave us to gather the harvest that comes of the seed of our own sowin' and plantin'."

"Ye'll gat'er it, ye'll gat'er it all, T'ousantacres--you and yours. Ye've sown t'e win't, and ye'll reap t'e whirl-wints, as my niece Dus Malpone has reat to me often, of late. Ye'll gat'er in all your harvest, tares ant all, ye will; and t'at sooner t'an ye t'ink for."

"I wish I'd never seen the face of the man! Go away, I tell you, Chainbearer, and leave me to my hard 'arnin's."

"Earnin's! Do you call it earnin's to chop and pillage on anot'er's lants, and to cut his trees into logs, and to saw his logs into poarts, and to sell his poarts to speculators, and gif no account of your profits to t'e rightful owner of it all? Call you such t'ievin' righteous earnin's?"

"Thief back ag'in, old measurer! Do not the sweat of the brow, long and hard days of toil, achin' bones, and hungry bellies, give a man a claim to the fruit of his labors?"

"T'at always hast peen your failin', T'ousantacres; t'at's t'e very p'int on which you've proken town, man. You pegin wit' your morals, at t'e startin' place t'at's most convenient to yourself and your plunterin' crew, insteat of goin' pack to t'e laws of your Lort and Master. Reat what t'e Almighty Got of Heaven ant 'art' sait unto Moses, ant you'll fint t'at you've not turnet over leafs enough of your piple. You may chop ant you may hew, you may haul ant you may saw, from t'is day to t'e ent of time, and you'll nefer pe any nearer to t'e right t'an you are at t'is moment. T'e man t'at starts on his journey wit' his face in t'e wrong direction, olt T'ousantacres, wilt nefer reach its ent; t'ough he trafel 'till t'e sweat rolls from his poty like water. You pegin wrong, olt man, and you must ent wrong."

I saw the cloud gathering in the countenance of the squatter, and anticipated the outbreaking of the tempest that followed. Two fiery tempers had met, and, divided as they were in opinions and practice, by the vast chasm that separates principles from expediency, right from wrong, honesty from dishonesty, and a generous sacrifice of self to support the integrity of a noble spirit, from a homage to self that confounded and overshadowed all sense of right, it was not possible that they should separate without a collision. Unable to answer Chainbearer's reasoning, the squatter resorted to the argument of force. He seized my old friend by the throat and made a violent effort to hurl him to the earth. I must do this man of violence and evil the justice to say, that I do not think it was his wish at that moment to have any assistance; but the instant the struggle commenced the conch blew, and it was easy to predict that many minutes would not elapse before the sons of Thousandacres would be pouring in to the rescue. I would have given a world to be able to throw down the walls of my prison, and rush to the aid of my sterling old friend. As for Susquesus, he must have felt a lively interest in what was going on, but he remained as immovable, and seemingly as unmoved as a rock.

Andries Coejemans, old as he was, and it will be remembered he too had seen his threescore years and ten, was not a man to be taken by the throat with impunity. Thousandacres met with a similar assault and a struggle followed that was surprisingly fierce and well contested, considering that both the combatants had completed the ordinary limits of the time of man. The squatter gained a slight advantage in the suddenness and vigor of his assault, but Chainbearer was still a man of formidable physical power. In his prime few had been his equals; and Thousandacres soon had reason to know that he had met more than his match. For a single instant Chainbearer gave ground; then he rallied, made a desperate effort, and his adversary was hurled to the earth with a violence that rendered him for a short time insensible; old Andries himself continuing erect as one of the neighboring pines, red in the face, frowning, and more severe in aspect than I remembered ever to have seen him before, even in battle.

Instead of pushing his advantage, Chainbearer did not stir a foot after he had thrown off his assailant. There he remained, lofty in bearing, proud and stern. He had reason to believe no one was a witness of his prowess, but I could see that the old man had a soldier's feelings at his victory. At this instant I first let him know my close proximity by speaking.

"Fly--for your life take to the woods, Chainbearer," I called to him, through the clinks. "That conch will bring all the tribe of the squatters upon you in two or three minutes; the young men are close at hand, in the stream below the mill, at work on the logs, and have only the banks to climb."

"Got be praiset! Mortaunt, my tear poy, you are not injuret, t'en! I will open t'e toor of your prison, and we will retreat toget'er."

My remonstrances were vain. Andries came round to the door of the storehouse, and made an effort to force it open. That was not easy, however; for, opening outward, it was barred with iron, and secured by a stout lock. Chainbearer would not listen to my remonstrances, but he looked around him for some instrument by means of which he could either break the lock or draw the staple. As the mill was at no great distance, away he went in that direction, in quest of what he wanted, leaving me in despair at his persevering friendship. Remonstrance was useless, however, and I was compelled to await the result in silence.

Chainbearer was still a very active man. Nature, early training, sobriety of life in the main, and a good constitution, had done this much for him. It was but a moment before I saw him in the mill, looking for the crowbar. This he soon found, and he was on his way to the storehouse, in order to apply this powerful lever, when Tobit came in sight, followed by all the brethren, rushing up the bank like a pack of hounds in close pursuit. I shouted to my friend again to fly, but he came on steadily toward my prison, bent on the single object of setting me free. All this time, Thousandacres was senseless, his head having fallen against a corner of the building. Chainbearer was so intent on his purpose that, though he must have seen the crowd of young men, no less than six in number, including well-grown lads, that was swiftly advancing toward him, he did not bestow the least attention on them. He was actually busied with endeavoring to force the bar in between the hasp and the post, when his arms were seized behind, and he was made a prisoner.

Chainbearer was no sooner apprised of the uselessness of resistance, than he ceased to make any. As I afterward learned from himself, he had determined to become a captive with me, if he could not succeed in setting me free. Tobit was the first to lay hands on the Chainbearer; and so rapidly were things conducted, for this man had the key, that the door was unbarred, opened, and old Andries was thrust into the cage, almost in the twinkling of an eye. The rapidity of the movement was doubtless aided by the acquiescent feeling that happened to be uppermost in the mind of Chainbearer, at that precise moment.

No sooner was this new prisoner secured, than the sons of Thousandacres raised their father's body, and bore it to his own residence, which was but a few yards distant. Old and young, both sexes and all ages, collected in that building; and there was an hour during which we appeared to be forgotten. The sentinel, who was a son of Tobit's, deserted his post; and even Lowiny, who had been hovering in sight of the storehouse the whole morning, seemed to have lost her interest in us. I was too much engaged with my old friend, and had too many questions to ask and to answer, however, to care much for this desertion; which, moreover, was natural enough for the circumstances.

"I rejoice you are not in the hands of that pack of wolves, my good friend!" I exclaimed, after the first salutations had passed between Andries and myself, and squeezing his hand again and again. "They are very capable of any act of violence; and I feared the sight of their father, lying there insensible, might have inflamed them to some deed of immediate violence. There will now be time for reflection, and fortunately, I am a witness of all that passed."

"No fear for olt Thousandacres," said Chainbearer, heartily. "He is tough, and he is only a little stunnet, pecause he t'ought himself a petter man t'an he ist. Half an hour will pring him rount, and make him as good a man ast he ever wast. But Mortaunt, lat, how came you here, and why wast you wantering apout t'e woods at night, wit' Trackless, here, who ist a sensiple ret-skin, and ought to haf set you a petter example?"

"I was hot and feverish, and could not sleep; and so I took a stroll in the forest, and got lost. Luckily, Susquesus had an eye on me, and kept himself at hand the whole time. I was obliged to catch a nap in the top of a fallen tree, and when I woke in the morning, the Onondago led me here in quest of something to eat, for I was hungry as a famished wolf."

"Tid Susquesus, t'en, know of squatters having mate t'eir pitch on t'is property?" asked Andries, in some surprise, and as I thought, a little sternly.

"Not he. He heard the saw of the mill in the stillness of night, and we followed the direction of that sound, and came unexpectedly out on this settlement. As soon as Thousandacres ascertained who I was, he shut me up here and as for Susquesus, Jaap has doubtless told you the story he was commissioned to relate."

"All fery true, lat, all fery true; t'ough I don't half understant, yet, why you shoul't haf left us in t'e manner you tit, and t'at, too, after hafin' a long talk wit 'Dus. T'e gal is heart-heafy, Mortaunt, as 'tis plain to pe seen; put I can't get a syllaple from her t'at hast t'e look of a rational explanation. I shall haf to ask you to tell t'e story, lat. I was tryin' to get t'e trut' out of Dus, half of t'e way comin' here; put a gal is as close as----"

"Dus!" I interrupted--"Half the way coming here? You do not, cannot mean that Dus is with you."

"Hist, hist--pe careful. You speak too lout. I coult wish not to let t'ese scountrels of squatters know t'at t'e gal is so exposet, put here she ist; or, what is much t'e same, she is in t'e woots out yonter, a looker-on, and I fear must pe in consarn at seein' t'at I, too, am a prisoner."

"Chainbearer, how could you thus expose your niece--thus bring her into the very grasp of lawless ruffians?"

"No, Mortaunt, no--t'ere is no fear of her peing insultet, or anyt'ing of t'at sort. One can reat of such t'ings in pooks, put woman is respectet and not insultet in America. Not one of T'ousantacres' rascals woult wount t'e ear of t'e gal wit' an improper wort, hat he a chance, which not one of 'em hast, seein' nopody knows t'e gal is wit' me, put ourselves. Come she woult, and t'ere wast no use in saying her nay. Dus is a goot creature, Mortaunt, and a tutiful gal; put it's as easy to turn a rifer up stream, as to try to holt her pack when she loves."

"Is that her character?" I thought. "Then is there little chance, indeed, of her ever becoming mine, since her affections must have gone with her troth." Nevertheless, my interest in the noble-hearted girl was just as strong as if I held her faith, and she was to become mine in a few weeks. The idea that she was at that moment waiting the return of her uncle, in the woods, was agony to me; but I had sufficient self-command to question the Chainbearer, until I got out of him all of the following facts:

Jaap had carried the message of Susquesus, with great fidelity, to those to whom the Indian had sent it. On hearing the news, and the manner of my arrest, Andries called a council, consisting of himself, Dus and Frank Malbone. This occurred in the afternoon of the previous day; and that same night, Malbone proceeded to Ravensnest, with a view of obtaining warrants for the arrest of Thousandacres and his gang, as well as of procuring assistance to bring them all in, in expectation of having the whole party transferred to the gaol at Sandy Hill. As the warrant could be granted only by Mr. Newcome, I could easily see that the messenger would be detained a considerable time, since the magistrate would require a large portion of the present day to enable him to reach his house. This fact, however, I thought it well enough to conceal from my friend at the moment.

Early that morning, Chainbearer, Dus and Jaap had left the huts, taking the nearest route to the supposed position of the clearing of Thousandacres, as it had been described by the Indian. Aided by a compass, as well as by their long familiarity with the woods, this party had little difficulty in reaching the spot where the Onondago and the negro had met; after which, the remainder of the journey was through a terra incognita, as respects the adventurers. With some search, however, a glimpse was got of the light of the clearing, much as one finds an island in the ocean, when the skirts of the wood were approached. A favorable spot, one that possessed a good cover, was selected, whence Chainbearer reconnoitred for near an hour before he left it. After a time he determined on the course he adopted and carried out, leaving his niece to watch his movements, with instructions to rejoin her brother, should he himself be detained by the squatter. I was a little relieved by the knowledge of the presence of Jaap, for I knew the fidelity of the fellow too well to suppose he would ever desert Dus; but my prison became twice as irksome to me after I had heard this account of the Chainbearer's, as it had been before.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Was she not all my fondest wish could frame?
Did ever mind so much of heaven partake?
Did she not love me with the purest flame?
And give up friends and fortune for my sake?
Though mild as evening skies,
With downcast, streaming eyes,
Stood the stern frown of supercilious brows,
Deaf to their brutal threats, and faithful to her vows."

--Shaw.

Dus was then near me--in sight of the storehouse, perhaps! But affection for her uncle, and no interest in me, had brought her there. I could respect her attachment to her old guardian, however, and admire the decision and spirit she had manifested in his behalf, at the very moment the consciousness that I had no influence on her movements was the most profound.

"T'e gal woult come, Mortaunt," the Chainbearer continued, after having gone through his narrative; "ant, if you know Dus, you know when she loves she wilt not be deniet. Got pless me! what a wife she woult make for a man who wast desarfin' of her! Oh! here's a pit of a note t'e dear creature has written to one of T'ousandacres' poys, who hast peen out among us often, t'ough I never so much as dreamet t'at t'e squatting olt rascal of a fat'er was on our lant, here. Well, Zepaniah, as t'e lat is callet, hast passet much time at t'e Nest, working apout in t'e fielts, and sometimes for us; and, to own the trut' to you, Mortaunt, I do pelieve t'e young chap hast a hankerin' a'ter Dus, and woult pe glat enough to get t'e gal for a wife."

"He! Zephaniah Thousandacres--or whatever his infernal name may be--he a hankering or an attachment for Ursula Malbone--he think of her for a wife--he presume to love such a perfect being!"

"Hoity, toity," cried old Andries, looking round at me in surprise, "why shouldn't t'e poy haf his feelin's ast well ast anot'er, if he pe a squatter? Squatters haf feelin's, t'ough t'ey hafn't much honesty to poast of. Ant, ast for honesty, you see, Mortaunt, it is tifferent petween T'ousantacres and his poys. T'e lats haf peen prought up to fancy t'ere ist no great harm in lif'ing on anot'er man's lants, whereast t'is olt rascal, t'eir fat'er, wast prought up, or t'inks he wast prought up in t'e very sanctum sanctorum of gotliness among t'e Puritans, and t'at t'e 'art' hast not t'eir equals in religion, I'll warrant you. Ask olt Aaron apout his soul, and he'll tell you t'at it's a petter soul t'an a Dutch soul, and t'at it won't purn at all, it's so free from eart'. Yes, yes--t'at ist t'e itee wit' 'em all in his part of t'e worlt. T'eir gotliness ist so pure even sin wilt do it no great harm."

I knew the provincial prejudices of Chainbearer too well to permit myself to fall into a discussion on theology with him, just at that moment; though I must do the old man the justice to allow that his opinion of the self-righteousness of the children of the Puritans was not absolutely without some apology. I never had any means of ascertaining the fact, but it would have occasioned me no surprise had I discovered that Thousandacres, and all his brood, looked down on us New Yorkers as an especially fallen and sinful race, which was on the high road to perdition, though encouraged and invited to enter on a different road by the spectacle of a chosen people so near them, following the straight and narrow path that leads to heaven. This mingling of God and Mammon is by no means an uncommon thing among us, though the squatters would probably have admitted themselves that they had fallen a little away, and were by no means as good as their forefathers had once been. There is nothing that sticks so close to an individual, or to a community, as the sense of its own worth. As "coming events cast their shadows before," this sentiment leaves its shadows behind, long after the substance which may have produced them has moved onward, or been resolved into the gases. But I must return to Zephaniah and the note.

"And you tell me, Chainbearer, that Ursula has actually written a note, a letter, to this young man?" I asked, as soon as I could muster resolution enough to put so revolting a question?

"Sartain; here it ist, ant a very pretty lookin' letter it is, Mortaunt. Dus does everyt'ing so hantily, ant so like a nice young woman, t'at it ist a pleasure to carry one of her letters. Ay--t'ere t'e lat ist now, and I'll just call him, and gif him his own."

Chainbearer was as good as his word, and Zephaniah soon stood at the door of the storehouse.

"Well, you wilt own, Zeph," continued the old man, "we didn't cage you like a wilt peast, or a rogue t'at hast been mettlin' wit' what tidn't pelong to him, when you wast out among us. T'ere is t'at difference in t'e treatment--put no matter! Here ist a letter for you, and much goot may it do you! It comes from one who vilt gif goot atvice; and you'll be none the worse if you follow it. I don't know a wort t'at's in it, put you'll fint it a goot letter, I'll answer for it. Dus writes peautiful letters, and in a hand almost as plain and hantsome as his excellency's, t'ough not quite so large. Put her own hant is'nt as large as his excellency's, t'ough his excellency's hant was'nt particularly pig neit'er."

I could scarcely believe my senses! Here was Ursula Malbone confessedly writing a letter to a son of Thousandacres, the squatter, and that son admitted to be her admirer! Devoured by jealousy, and a thousand feelings to which I had hitherto been a stranger, I gazed at the fortunate being who was so strangely honored by this communication from Dus, with the bitterest envy. Although, to own the truth, the young squatter was a well-grown, good-looking fellow, to me he seemed to be the very personification of coarseness and vulgarity. It will readily be supposed that Zephaniah was not entirely free from some very just imputations of the latter character; but on the whole, most girls of his own class in life would be quite content with him in these respects. But Ursula Malbone was not at all of his own class in life. However reduced in fortune, she was a lady, by education as well as by birth; and what feelings could there possibly be in common between her and her strange admirer? I had heard it said that women were as often taken by externals as men; but in this instance the externals were coarse, and nothing extraordinary. Some females, too, could not exist without admiration; and I had known Dus but a few weeks, after all, and it was possible I had not penetrated the secret of her true character. Then her original education had been in the forest; and we often return to our first loves, in these particulars, with a zest and devotion for which there is no accounting. It was possible this strange girl might have portrayed to her imagination, in the vista of the future, more of happiness and wild enjoyment among the woods and ravines of stolen clearings, than by dwelling amid the haunts of men. In short, there was scarce a conceit that did not crowd on my brain, in that moment of intense jealousy and profound unhappiness. I was as miserable as a dog.

As for Zephaniah, the favored youth of Ursula Malbone, he received his letter, as I fancied, with an awkward surprise, and lounged round the corner of the building, to have the pleasure, as it might be, of reading it to himself. This brought him nearer to my position; for I had withdrawn, in a disgust I could not conquer, from being near the scene that had just been enacted.

Opening a letter, though it had been folded by the delicate hands of Ursula Malbone, and reading it, were two very different operations, as Zephaniah now discovered. The education of the young man was very limited, and after an effort or two, he found it impossible to get on. With the letter open in his hand, he found it as much a sealed book to him as ever. Zephaniah could read writing, by dint of a considerable deal of spelling; but it must not be a good hand. As some persons cannot comprehend pure English, so he found far more difficulty in spelling out the pretty, even characters before him, than would have been the case had he been set at work on the pot-hooks and trammels of one of his own sisters. Glancing his eyes around in quest of aid, they happened to fall on mine, which were watching his movements with the vigilance of a feline animal, through the chinks of the logs, and at the distance of only three feet from his own face. As for the Indian, he, seemingly, took no more note of what was passing, than lovers take of time in a stolen interview; though I had subsequently reason to believe that nothing had escaped his observation. Andries was in a distant part of the prison, reconnoitring the clearing and mills with an interest that absorbed all his attention for the moment. Of these facts Zephaniah assured himself by taking a look through the openings of the logs; then, sidling along nearer to me, he said in a low voice--

"I don't know how it is, but to tell you the truth, Major Littlepage, York larnin' and Varmount larnin' be so different, that I don't find it quite as easy to read this letter as I could wish."

On this hint I seized the epistle, and began to read it in a low tone; for Zephaniah asked this much of me, with a delicacy of feeling that, in so far, was to his credit. As the reader may have some of the curiosity I felt myself, to know what Ursula Malbone could possibly have to say in this form to Zephaniah Thousandacres, I shall give the contents of this strange epistle in full. It was duly directed to "Mr. Zephaniah Timberman, Mooseridge," and in that respect would have passed for any common communication. Within, it read as follows:--

"Sir:--

"As you have often professed a strong regard for me, I now put you to the proof of the sincerity of your protestations. My dear uncle goes to your father, whom I only know by report, to demand the release of Major Littlepage, who, we hear, is a prisoner in the hands of your family, against all law and right. As it is possible the business of uncle Chainbearer will be disagreeable to Thousandacres, and that warm words may pass between them, I ask of your friendship some efforts to keep the peace; and, particularly, should anything happen to prevent my uncle from returning, that you would come to me in the woods--for I shall accompany the Chainbearer to the edge of your clearing--and let me know it. You will find me there, attended by one of the blacks, and we can easily meet if you cross the fields in an eastern direction, as I will send the negro to find you and to bring you to me.

"In addition to what I have said above, Zephaniah, let me also earnestly ask your care in behalf of Major Littlepage. Should any evil befall that gentleman, it would prove the undoing of your whole family! The law has a long arm, and it will reach into the wilderness, as well as into a settlement. The person of a human being is a very different thing from a few acres of timber, and General Littlepage will think far more of his noble son than he will think of all the logs that have been cut and floated away. Again and again, therefore, I earnestly entreat of you to befriend this gentleman, not only as you hope for my respect, but as you hope for your own peace of mind. I have had some connection with the circumstances that threw Mr. Littlepage into your hands, and shall never know a happy moment again should anything serious befall him. Remember this, Zephaniah, and let it influence your own conduct. I owe it to myself and to you to add, that the answer I gave you at Ravensnest, the evening of the raising, must remain my answer, now and forever; but, if you have really the regard for me that you then professed, you will do all you can to serve Major Littlepage, who is an old friend of my uncle's and whose safety, owing to circumstances that you would fully understand were they told to you, is absolutely necessary to my future peace of mind.

"Your friend,

"Ursula Malbone."

What a strange girl was this Dus! I suppose it as unnecessary to say that I felt profoundly ashamed of my late jealousy, which now seemed just as absurd and unreasonable as, a moment before, it seemed justified and plausible. God protect the wretch who is the victim of that evil-eyed passion! He who is jealous of circumstances, in the ordinary transactions of life, usually makes a fool of himself, by seeing a thousand facts that exist in his own brain only; but he whose jealousy is goaded on by love, must be something more than human, not to let the devils get a firm grasp of his soul. I can give no better illustration of the weakness that this last passion induces, however, than the admission I have just made, that I believed it possible Ursula Malbone could love Zephaniah Thousandacres, or whatever might be his real name. I have since pulled at my own hair, in rage at my own folly, as that moment of weakness has recurred to my mind.

"She writes a desp'rate letter!" exclaimed the young squatter, stretching his large frame, like one who had lost command of his movements through excitement. "I don't believe, major, the like of that gal is to be found in York, taken as State or colony! I've a dreadful likin' for her!"

It was impossible not to smile at this outpouring of attachment; nor, on the whole, would I have been surprised at the ambition it inferred, had the youth been but a very little higher in the social scale. Out of the large towns, and with here and there an exception in favor of an isolated family, there is not, even to this day, much distinction in classes among our eastern brethren. The great equality of condition and education that prevails, as a rule, throughout all the rural population of New England, while it has done so much for the great body of their people, has had its inevitable consequences in lowering the standard of cultivation among the few, both as it is applied to acquirements, and to the peculiar notions of castes; and nothing is more common in that part of the world, than to hear of marriages that elsewhere would have been thought incongruous, for the simple reason of the difference in ordinary habits and sentiments between the parties. Thus it was, that Zephaniah, without doing as much violence to his own, as would be done to our notions of the fitness of things, might aspire to the hand of Ursula Malbone; unattended, as she certainly was, by any of the outward and more vulgar signs of her real character. I could not but feel some respect for the young man's taste, therefore, and this so much the more readily, because I no longer was haunted by the very silly phantom of his possible success.

"Having this regard for Dus," I said, "I hope I may count on your following her directions."

"What way can I sarve you, major? I do vow, I've every wish to do as Ursula asks of me, if I only know'd how."

"You can undo the fastenings of our prison, here, and let us go at once into the woods, where we shall be safe enough against a recapture, depend on it. Do us that favor, and I will give you fifty acres of land, on which you can settle down and become an honest man. Remember, it will be something honorable to own fifty acres of good land, in fee."

Zephaniah pondered on my tempting offer, and I could see that he wavered in opinion, but the decision was adverse to my wishes. He shook his head, looked round wistfully at the woods where he supposed Dus then to be, possibly watching his very movements, but he would not yield.

"If a father can't trust his own son, who can he trust, in natur'?" demanded the young squatter.

"No one should be aided in doing wrong, and your father has no just right to shut up us three, in this building, as he has done. The deed is against the law, and to the law, sooner or later, will he be made to give an account of it."

"Oh! as for the law, he cares little for that. We've been ag'in law all over lives, and the law is ag'in us. When a body comes to take the chance of jurors, and witnesses, and lawyers, and poor attorney-gin'rals, and careless prosecutors, law's no great matter to stand out ag'in in this country. I s'pose there is countries in which law counts for suthin'; but hereabouts, and all through Varmount, we don't kear much for the law, unless it's a matter between man and man, and t'other side holds out for his rights, bull-dog fashion. Then, I allow, its suthin' to have the law on your side; but it's no great matter in a trespass case."

"This may not end in a trespass case, however. Your father--by the way, is Thousandacres much hurt?"

"Not much to speak on," coolly answered the son, still gazing in the direction of the woods. "A little stunned, but he's gettin' over it fast, and he's used to sich rubs. Father's desp'rate solid about the head, and can stand as much sledgehammering there, as any man I ever seed. Tobit's tough, too, in that part; and he's need of it, for he's forever getting licks around the forehead and eyes."

"And, as your father comes to, what seems to be his disposition toward us?"

"Nothin' to speak on, in the way of friendship, I can tell you! The old man's considerable riled; and when that's the case, he'll have his own way for all the governors and judges in the land!"

"Do you suppose he meditates any serious harm to his prisoners?"

"A man doesn't meditate a great deal, I guess, with such a rap on the skull. He feels a plaguy sight more than he thinks; and when the feelin's is up, it doesn't matter much who's right and who's wrong. The great difficulty in your matter is how to settle about the lumber that's in the creek. The water's low; and the most that can be done with it, afore November, will to be float it down to the next rift, over which it can never go, with any safety, without more water. It's risky to keep one like you, and to keep Chainbearer, too, three or four months, in jail like; and it wunt do to let you go neither, sin' you'd soon have the law a'ter us. If we keep you, too, there'll be a s'arch made, and a reward offered. Now a good many of your tenants know of this clearin', and human natur' can't hold out ag'in a reward. The old man knows that well; and it's what he's most afeared on. We can stand up ag'in almost anything better than ag'in a good, smart reward."

I was amused as well as edified with Zephaniah's simplicity and frankness, and would willingly have pursued the discourse, had not Lowiny come tripping toward us, summoning her brother away to attend a meeting of the family; the old squatter having so far recovered as to call a council of his sons. The brother left me on the instant, but the girl lingered at my corner of the storehouse, like one who was reluctant to depart.

"I hope the hasty-puddin' was sweet and good," said Lowiny, casting a timid glance in at the chink.

"It was excellent, my good girl, and I thank you for it with all my heart. Are you very busy now?--can you remain a moment while I make a request?"

"Oh! there's nothin' for me to do just now in the house, seem' that father has called the b'ys around him. Whenever he does that, even mother is apt to quit."

"I am glad of it, as I think you are so kind-hearted and good that I may trust you in a matter of some importance; may I not, my good Lowiny?"

"Squatters' da'ghters may be good, then, a'ter all, in the eyes of grand landholders!"

"Certainly--excellent even; and I am much disposed to believe that you are one of that class." Lowiny looked delighted; and I felt less reluctance at administering this flattery than might otherwise have been the case, from the circumstance that so much of what I said was really merited.

"Indeed, I know you are, and quite unfitted for this sort of life. But I must tell you my wishes at once, for our time may be very short."

"Do," said the girl, looking up anxiously, a slight blush suffusing her face; the truth-telling sign of ingenuous feelings, and the gage of virtue; "do, for I'm dying to hear it; as I know beforehand I shall do just what you ask me to do. I don't know how it is, but when father or mother ask me to do a thing, I sometimes feel as if I couldn't; but I don't feel so now, at all."

"My requests do not come often enough to tire you. Promise me, in the first place, to keep my secret."

"That I will!" answered Lowiny, promptly, and with emphasis. "Not a mortal soul shall know anything on't, and I won't so much as talk of it in my sleep, as I sometimes do, if I can any way help it."

"Chainbearer has a niece who is very dear to him, and who returns all his affection. Her name is----"

"Dus Malbone," interrupted the girl, with a faint laugh. "Zeph has told me all about her, for Zeph and I be great friends--he tells me everything, and I tell him everything. It's sich a comfort, you can't think, to have somebody to tell secrets to;--well, what of Dus?"

"She is here."

"Here! I don't see anything on her"--looking round hurriedly, and, as I fancied, in a little alarm--"Zeph says she's dreadful han'some!"

"She is thought so, I believe; though, in that respect, she is far from being alone. There is no want of pretty girls in America. By saying she was here I did not mean here in the storehouse, but here in the woods. She accompanied her uncle as far as the edge of the clearing--look round, more toward the east. Do you see the black stub, in the cornfield, behind your father's dwelling?"

"Sartain--that's plain enough to be seen--I wish I could see Albany as plain."

"Now look a little to the left of that stub, and you will see a large chestnut, in the edge of the woods behind it--the chestnut, I mean, that thrusts its top out of the forest into the clearing, as it might be."

"Well, I see the chestnut, too, and I know it well. There's a spring of water cluss to its roots."

"At the foot of that chestnut Chainbearer left his niece, and doubtless she is somewhere near it now. Could you venture to stroll as far, without going directly to the spot, and deliver a message, or a letter?"

"To be sure I could! Why, we gals stroll about the lots as much as we please, and it's berryin' time now. I'll run and get a basket, and you can write your letter while I'm gone. La! Nobody will think anything of my goin' a berryin'--I have a desp'rate wish to see this Dus! Do you think she'll have Zeph?"

"Young women's minds are so uncertain that I should not like to venture an opinion. If it were one of my own sex, now, and had declared his wishes, I think I could tell you with some accuracy."

The girl laughed; then she seemed a little bewildered, and again she colored. How the acquired--nay, native feeling of the sex, will rise up in tell-tale ingenuousness to betray a woman!

"Well," she cried, as she ran away in quest of the basket, "to my notion, a gal's mind is as true and as much to be depended on as that of any mortal crittur' living!"

It was now my business to write a note to Dus. The materials for writing my pocket-book furnished. I tore out a leaf, and approached Chainbearer, telling him what I was about to do, and desiring to know if he had any particular message to send.

"Gif t'e tear gal my plessin', Mortaunt. Tell her olt Chainpearer prays Got to pless her--t'at ist all. I leaf you to say t'e rest."

I did say the rest. In the first place I sent the blessing of the uncle to the niece. Then I explained, in as few words as possible, our situation, giving it as promising an aspect as my conscience would permit. These explanations made, I entreated Ursula to return to her brother, and not again expose herself so far from his protection. Of the close of this note I shall not say much. It was brief, but it let Dus understand that my feelings toward her were as lively as ever; and I believe it was expressed with the power that passion lends. My note was ended just as Lowiny appeared to receive it. She brought us a pitcher of milk, as a sort of excuse for returning to the storehouse, received the note in exchange, and hurried away toward the fields. As she passed one of the cabins, I heard her calling out to a sister that she was going for blackberries to give the prisoners.

I watched the movements of that active girl with intense interest. Chainbearer, who had slept little since my disappearance, was making up for lost time; and as for the Indian, eating and sleeping are very customary occupations of his race, when not engaged in some hunt, or on the war-path, or as a runner.

Lowiny proceeded toward a lot of which the bushes had taken full possession. Here she soon disappeared, picking berries as she proceeded, with nimble fingers, as if she felt the necessity of having some of the fruit to show on her return. I kept my eye fastened on the openings of the forest, near the chestnut, as soon as the girl was concealed in the bushes, anxiously waiting for the moment when I might see her form reappearing at that spot. My attention was renewed by getting a glimpse of Dus. It was but a glimpse, the fluttering of a female dress gliding among the trees; but, as it was too soon for the arrival of Lowiny, I knew it must be Dus. This was cheering, as it left little reason to doubt that my messenger would find the object of her visit. In the course of half an hour after Lowiny entered the bushes I saw her, distinctly, near the foot of the chestnut. Pausing a moment, as if to reconnoitre, the girl suddenly moved into the forest, when I made no doubt she and Dus had a meeting. An entire hour passed, and I saw no more of Lowiny.

In the meanwhile Zephaniah made his appearance again at the side of the storehouse. This time he came accompanied by two of his brethren, holding the key in his hand. At first I supposed the intention was to arraign me before the high court of Thousandacres, but in this I was in error. No sooner did the young men reach the door of our prison than Zephaniah called out to the Onondago to approach it, as he had something to say to him.

"It must be dull work to a redskin to be shut up like a hog afore it's wrung," said the youth, drawing his images from familiar objects; "and I s'pose you'd be right glad to come out here and walk about, something like a free and rational crittur.' What do you say, Injin--is sich your desire?"

"Sartain," quietly answered Sureflint. "Great deal radder be out dan be in here."

"So I nat'rally s'posed. Well, the old man says you can come out on promises, if you're disposed to make 'em. So you're master of your own movements, you see."

"What he want me do? What he want me to say, eh?"

"No great matter, a'ter all, if a body has only a mind to try to do it. In the first place, you're to give your parole not to go off; but to stay about the clearin', and to come in and give yourself up when the conch blows three short blasts. Will you agree to that, Sus?"

"Sartain--no go 'way; come back when he call--dat mean stay where he can hear conch."

"Well, that's agreed on, and it's a bargain. Next, you're to agree not to go pryin' round the mill and barn, to see what you can find, but keep away from all the buildin's but the store'us' and the dwellings, and not to quit the clearin'. Do you agree?"

"Good; no hard to do dat."

"Well, you're to bring no weepons into the settlement, and to pass nothing but words and food in to the other prisoners. Will you stand to that?"

"Sartain; willin' 'nough to do dat, too."

"Then you're in no manner or way to make war on any on us 'till your parole is up, and you're your own man ag'in. What do you say to that, Trackless?"

"All good; 'gree to do him all."

"Wa-a-l, that's pretty much all the old man stands out for; but mother has a condition or two that she insists on't I shall ask. Should the worst come to the worst, and the folks of this settlement get to blows with the folks out of it, you're to bargain to take no scalps of women or children, and none from any man that you don't overcome in open battle. The old woman will grant you the scalps of men killed in battle, but thinks it ag'in reason to take 'em from sich as be not so overcome."

"Good; don't want to take scalp at all," answered the Indian, with an emotion he could not altogether suppress. "Got no tribe--got no young men; what good scalp do? Nobody care how many scalp Susquesus take away--how many he leave behind. All dat forgot long time."

"Wa-a-l, that's your affair, not mine. But, as all the articles is agreed to, you can come out, and go about your business. Mind, three short, sharp blasts on the conch is the signal to come in and give yourself up."

On this singular cartel Susquesus was set at liberty. I heard the whole arrangement with astonishment; though, by the manner of the high contracting parties, it was easy to see there was nothing novel in the arrangement, so far as they were concerned. I had heard that the faith of an Indian of any character, in all such cases, was considered sacred, and could not but ask myself, as Susquesus walked quietly out of prison, how many potentates and powers there were in Christendom who, under circumstances similarly involving their most important interests, could be found to place a similar confidence in their fellows! Curious to know how my present masters felt on this subject, the opportunity was improved to question them.

"You give the Indian his liberty on parole," I said to Zephaniah--"will you refuse the same privilege to us white men?"

"An Injin is an Injin. He has his natur', and we've our'n. Suthin' was said about lettin' you out, too, major; but the old man wouldn't hear to it. 'He know'd mankind,' he said, 'and he know'd t'would never do.' If you let a white man loose, he sets his wits at work to find a hole to creep out on the bargain--goin' back to the creation of the 'arth but he'll find one. The major will say 'I was put in ag'in' law, and now I'm out, I'll stay out ag'in promises,' or some sich reasonin', and now we have him safe, 'twill be best to keep him safe! That's the substance of the old man's idees, and you can see, major, just as well as any on us, how likely he'll be to change 'em."

There was no contending with this logic, which in secret I well knew to be founded in fact, and I made no further application for my own release. It appeared, however, that Thousandacres himself was half-disposed to make a concession in favor of Chainbearer, similar to that he had granted to the Indian. This struck me as singular, after the rude collision that had already occurred between the two men--but there are points of honor that are peculiar to each condition of life, and which the men of each feel a pride not only in causing to be respected, but in respecting themselves.

"Father had some thoughts of taking your parole, too, Chainbearer," added Zephaniah, "and he concluded he would, hadn't it been that you'd been living out in the settlements so much of late years, that he's not quite easy in trusting you. A man that passes so much of his time in running boundaries, may think himself privileged to step over them."

"Your fat'er is welcome to his opinion," answered Andries, coolly. "He'll get no parole of me, nor do I want any favors of him. We are at swords' p'ints, young man, and let him look out for himself and his lumper as pest he can."

"Nay," answered Zephaniah, stretching himself, and answering with spirit, though he well knew he was speaking to the uncle of Dus, and thereby endangering his interests with his mistress--"nay, Chainbearer, if it comes to that, 'twill be 'hardes fend off.' We are a strong party of stout men, and arn't to be frightened by the crier of a court, or to be druv' off the land by sheep-skin. Catamounts must come ag'in us in droves, afore we'll give an inch."

"Go away, go away--foolish young fellow--you're your fat'er's son, and t'at's as much as neet pe said of you. I want no favors from squatters, which ist a preed I tetest and tespise."

I was a little surprised at hearing this answer, and at witnessing this manifestation of feeling in Chainbearer, who, ordinarily, was a cool, and uniformly a courteous man. On reflection, however, I saw he was not so wrong. An exchange of anything like civilities between us and our captors, might seem to give them some claim on us; whereas, by standing on the naked right, we had every advantage of them, in a moral sense, at least. Zephaniah and his brethren left us, on receiving this repulse of Andries; but Susquesus kept loitering around the storehouse, apparently little better off now he was on its outside than he had been when in it. He had nothing to do, and his idleness was that of an Indian--one of a race of such terrible energies, when energy is required, and so frequently listless, when not pressed upon by necessity, pleasure, war or interest.

Things were in this state, when, some time after the interview just related, we had another visit from a party headed by Tobit. This man came to escort Chainbearer and myself to the cabin of Thousandacres, where all the men of the family were assembled; and where, as it now appeared, we were to have something like a hearing that might seriously affect our fates, for good or for evil. I consulted Chainbearer on the propriety of our lending ourselves to such a measure; but I found Andries disposed to meet the brood of squatters, face to face, and to tell them his mind, let it be when and where it might. Finding my friend in this temper, I made no further objections myself, but left the storehouse in his company, well guarded by four of the young men, all of whom were armed, holding our way to the seat of justice, in that wild and patriarchal government.

CHAPTER XXII.

"When Adam delv'd, and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?"

--Old Saw.

Thousandacres had not altogether neglected forms, though so much set against the spirit of the law. We found a sort of court collected before the door of his dwelling, with himself in the centre, while the principal room contained no one but Prudence and one or two of her daughters. Among the latter was Lowiny, to my surprise; for I had not seen the girl return from the woods, though my eyes had not been long turned from the direction in which I had hopes of catching a glimpse of Dus.

Tobit led us prisoners into the house, placing us near the door, and facing his father; an arrangement that superseded the necessity of much watchfulness, as our only means of escape would necessarily be by rushing through the throng without--a thing virtually impracticable. But Chainbearer appeared to have no thought of flight. He entered that circle of athletic young men with perfect indifference; and I remember that it struck me his air resembled that which I had often seen him assume when our regiment was on the eve of serious service. At such moments old Andries could, and often did, appear grand--dignity, authority and coldness being blended with sterling courage.

When in the room, Chainbearer and I seated ourselves near the door, while Thousandacres had a chair on the turf without, surrounded by his sons, all of whom were standing. As this arrangement was made amid a grave silence, the effect was not altogether without impressiveness, and partook of some of the ordinary aspects of justice. I was struck with the anxious curiosity betrayed in the countenances of the females in particular; for the decision to which Thousandacres was about to come, would with them have the authority of a judgment of Solomon. Accustomed to reason altogether in their own interests, I make no doubt that, in the main, all of that semi-barbarous breed fancied themselves invested, in their lawless occupation, by some sort of secret natural right; ignorant of the fact that, the moment they reduced their claim to this standard, they put it on the level with that of all the rest of mankind. Nature gives nothing exclusively to an individual, beyond his individuality, and that which appertains to his person and personal qualities; all beyond he is compelled to share, under the law of nature, with the rest of his race. A title dependent on original possession forms no exception to this rule; for it is merely human convention that gives it force and authority, without which it would form no title at all. But into mysteries like these, none of the family of Thousandacres ever entered; though the still, small voice of conscience, the glimmerings of right, were to be traced occasionally, even amid the confused jumble of social maxims in which their selfishness had taken refuge.

We live in an age of what is called progress, and fancy that man is steadily advancing on the great path of his destiny, to something that we are apt to imagine is to form perfection. Certainly, I shall not presume to say what is, or what is not, the divine intention as to the future destination of our species on earth; but years and experience must have taught me, or I should have lived in vain, how little there is among our boasted improvements that is really new; and if we do possess anything in the way of principles that bear on them the impress of inviolability, they are those that have become the most venerable, by having stood the severest tests of time.

I know not whether the long, silent pause that succeeded our arrival was the result of an intention to heighten the effect of that scene, or whether Thousandacres really wished time to collect his thoughts and to mature his plans. One thing struck me; notwithstanding the violence that had so recently occurred between Chainbearer and himself, there were no traces of resentment in the hardened and wrinkled countenance of that old tenant of the forest; for he was too much accustomed to those sudden outbreakings of anger, to suffer them long to linger in his recollection. In all that was said, and in all that passed, in the course of that (to me) memorable day, I could trace no manifestation of any feeling in the squatter, in consequence of the rude personal rencontre that he had so lately had with my friend. They had clenched and he had been overthrown; and that ended the matter.

The silence which occurred after we took our seats must have lasted several minutes. For myself, I saw I was only a secondary person in this interview; old Andries having completely supplanted me in importance, not only in acts, but in the estimation of the squatters. To him they were accustomed, and accustomed, moreover, to regard as a sort of hostile power; his very pursuit being opposed to the great moving principle of their every-day lives. The man who measured land, and he who took it to himself without measurement, were exactly antagonist forces, in morals as well as in physics; and might be supposed not to regard each other with the most friendly eyes. Thus it was that the Chainbearer actually became an object of greater interest to these squatters, than the son of one of the owners of the soil, and the attorney in fact of both. As for the old man himself, I could see that he looked very Dutch, which implied a stubborn resolution bordering on obstinacy; unmoved adherence to what he conceived to be right; and a strong dislike to his present neighbors, in addition to other reasons, on account of their having come from the eastward; a race that he both distrusted and respected; disliked, yet covertly honored, for many a quality that was both useful and good.

To the next generation the feeling that was once so active between the descendants of Holland among ourselves, and the people of English birth who came from the Eastern States, will be almost purely a matter of history. I perceive that my father, in the manuscript he has transmitted to me, as well as I myself, have made various allusions to the subject. It is my wish to be understood in this matter. I have introduced it solely as a fact that is beyond controversy; but, I trust, without any undue bigotry of opinion. It is possible that both Mr. Cornelius Littlepage and his son, unconsciously to ourselves, may have been influenced by the ancient prejudices of the colonies, though I have endeavored scrupulously to avoid them. At any rate, if either of us has appeared to be a little too severe, I trust the reader will remember how much has been uttered to the world in reference to this dislike, by the Yankee, and how little by the Dutchman during the last century and a half, and grant to one who is proud of the little blood from Holland that he happens to possess, the privilege of showing at least one of the phases of his own side of the story. But it is time to return to our scene in the hut.

"Chainbearer," commenced Thousandacres, after the pause already mentioned had lasted several minutes, and speaking with a dignity that could only have proceeded from the intensity of his feelings; "Chainbearer, you've been an inimy to me and mine sin' the day we first met. You're an inimy by your cruel callin'; yet you've the boldness to thrust yourself into my very hands!"

"I'm an enemy to all knaves, T'ousantacres, and I ton't care who knows it," answered old Andries, sternly; "t'at ist my trate, ast well ast carryin' chain; ant I wish it to pe known far and near. Ast for pein' your enemy by callin', I may say as much of yourself; since there coult pe no surveyin', or carryin' of chain, tit all t'e people help t'emselves to lant, as you haf tone your whole life, wit'out as much as sayin' to t'e owners 'py your leaf.'"

"Things have now got to a head atween us, Chainbearer," returned the squatter; "but seein' that you're in my hands, I'm ready and willin' to reason the p'int with you, in hopes that we may yet part fri'nds, and that this may be the last of all our troubles. You and I be getting to be oldish men, Chainbearer; and it's fittin' that them that be gettin' near their eends, should sometimes think on 'em. I come from no Dutch colony, but from a part of the world where mankind fears God, and has some thoughts of a futur' state."

"T'at's neit'er here nor t'ere, T'ousantacres," cried Andries, impatiently. "Not put what religion is a goot t'ing, and a t'ing to be venerated, ant honoret, ant worshippet; put t'at it's out of place in a squatter country, and most of all in a squatter's mout'. Can you telt me one t'ing, T'ousantacres, and t'at ist, why you Yankees pray so much, ant call on Got to pless you every o'ter wort, ant turn up your eyes, ant look so temure of Suntays, ant ten go ant squat yourselfs town on a Tutchman's lant on a Montay? I'm an olt man, ant haf lifed long ant seen much, ant hope I unterstant some of t'at which I haf seen ant lifed amongst, put I do not comprehent t'at! Yankee religion ant Tutch religion cannot come out of t'e same piple."

"I should think not, I should think not, Chainbearer and I hope not, in the bargain. I do not wish to be justified by ways like your'n, or a religion like your'n. That which is foreordained will come to pass, let what will happen, and that's my trust. But, leaving religion out of this matter atween us altogether----"

"Ay, you'll do well to do t'at," growled Chainbearer, "for religion hast inteet very little to do wit' it."

"I say," answered Thousandacres, on a higher key, as if resolute to make himself heard, "leaving religion for Sabba' days and proper occasions, I'm ready to talk this matter over on the footin' of reason, and not only to tell you my say, but to hear your'n, as is right atween man and man."

"I confess a strong desire to listen to what Thousandacres has to say in defence of his conduct, Chainbearer," I now thought it best to put in; "and I hope you will so far oblige me as to be a patient listener. I am very willing that you should answer, for I know of no person to whom I would sooner trust a religious cause than yourself. Proceed, Thousandacres; my old friend will comply."

Andries did conform to my wishes, thus distinctly expressed, but it was not without sundry signs of disquiet, as expressed in his honest countenance, and a good deal of subdued muttering about "Yankee cunnin' and holy gotliness, t'at is dresset up in wolf's clot'in';" Chainbearer meaning to express the native garment of the sheep by the latter expression, but falling into a confusion of images that is by no means rare among the men of his caste and people. After a pause the squatter proceeded.

"In talkin' this matter over, young man, I propose to begin at the beginnin' of things," he said; "for I allow, if you grant any value to titles, and king's grants, and sich sort of things, that my rights here be no great matter. But, beginnin' at the beginnin', the case is very different. You'll admit, I s'pose, that the Lord created the heavens and the 'arth, and that He created man to be master over the last."

"What of t'at?" eagerly cried Chainbearer. "What of t'at, olt T'ousantacres? So t'e Lort createt yonter eagle t'at is flyin' so far apove your heat, put it's no sign you are to kill him, or he ist to kill you."

"Hear to reason, Chainbearer, and let me have my say; a'ter which I'm willing to hear you. I begin at the beginnin', when man was first put in possession of the 'arth, to till, and to dig, and to cut saw-logs, and to make lumber, jist as it suited his wants and inclinations. Now Adam was the father of all, and to him and his posterity was the possession of the 'arth given, by Him whose title's worth that of all the kings, and governors, and assemblies in the known world. Adam lived his time, and left all things to his posterity, and so has it been from father to son, down to our own day and giniration, accordin' to the law of God, though not accordin' to the laws of man."

"Well, admittin' all you say, squatter, how does t'at make your right here petter t'an t'at of any ot'er man?" demanded Andries, disdainfully.

"Why, reason tells us where a man's rights begin, you'll see, Chainbearer. Here is the 'arth, as I told you, given to man, to be used for his wants. When you and I are born, some parts of the world is in use, and some parts isn't. We want land, when we are old enough to turn our hands to labor, and I make my pitch out here in the woods, say where no man has pitched afore me. Now in my judgment that makes the best of title, the Lord's title."[17]

"Well, t'en, you've got your title from t'e Lord," answered Chainbearer, "and you've got your lant. I s'pose you'll not take all t'e 'art' t'at is not yet peoplet, and I shoult like to know how you wilt run your lines petween you ant your next neighpor. Atmittin' you're here in t'e woots, how much of t'e lant woult you take for your own religious uses, and how much woult you leaf for t'e next comer?"

"Each man would take as much as was necessary for his wants, Chainbearer, and hold as much as he possessed."

"Put what ist wants, ant what ist possession? Look arount you T'ousantacres, and tell me how much of t'is fery spot you'd haf a mint to claim, under your Lort's title?"

"How much? As much as I have need on--enough to feed me and mine--and enough for lumber, and to keep the b'ys busy. It would somewhat depend on sarcumstances: I might want more at one time than at another, as b'ys grew up, and the family increased in numbers."

"Enough for lumper how long? and to keep t'e poys pusy how long? For a tay, or a week, or a life, or a great numper of lifes? You must tell me t'at, Tousantacres, pefore I gif cretit to your title."

"Don't be onreasonable--don't be onreasonable in your questions, Chainbearer; and I'll answer every one on 'em, and in a way to satisfy you, or any judgmatical man. How long do I want the lumber? As long as I've use for it. How long do I want to keep the b'ys busy? Till they're tired of the place, and want to change works. When a man's aweary of his pitch, let him give it up for another, selling his betterments, of course, to the best chap he can light on."

"Oh! you't sell you petterments, woult you! What! sell t'e Lort's title, olt T'ousantacres? Part wit' Heaven's gift for t'e value of poor miseraple silver and golt?"

"You don't comprehend Aaron," put in Prudence, who saw that Chainbearer was likely to get the best of the argument, and who was always ready to come to the rescue of any of her tribe, whether it might be necessary with words, or tooth and nail, or the rifle. "You don't, by no manner of means, comprehend Aaron, Chainbearer. His idee is, that the Lord has made the 'arth for his crittur's; that any one that wants land, has a right to take as much as he wants, and to use it as long as he likes; and when he has done, to part with his betterments for sich price as may be agreed on."

"I stick to that," joined in the squatter, with a loud hem, like a man who was sensible of relief; "that's my idee, and I'm determined to live and die by it."

"You've lifed py it, I know very well, T'ousantacres; ant, now you're olt, it's quite likely you'll tie py it. As for comprehentin', you don't comprehent yourself. I'll just ask you, in the first place, how much lant do you holt on t'is very spot? You're here squattet so completely ant finally as to haf puilt a mill. Now tell me how much lant you holt, t'at when I come to squat alongsite of you, our fences may not lap on one anot'er. I ask a simple question, ant I hope for a plain ant straight answer. Show me t'e pountaries of your tomain, ant how much of t'e worlt you claim, ant how much you ton't claim."

"I've pretty much answered that question already, Chainbearer. My creed is, that a man has a right to hold all he wants, and to want all he holds."

"Got help t'e men, t'en, t'at haf to carry chain petween you and your neighpors, T'ousandacres; a man's wants to-tay may tiffer from his wants to-morrow, and to-morrow from t'e next tay, ant so on to t'e ent of time! On your toctrine, not'in' woult pe settlet, ant all woult pe at sixes ant sevens."

"I don't think I'm fully understood, a'ter all that's been said," returned the squatter. "Here's two men start in life at the same time, and both want farms. Wa-a-l; there's the wilderness, or maybe it isn't all wilderness, though it once was. One chooses to buy out betterments, and he does so; t'other plunges in, out o' sight of humanity, and makes his pitch. Both them men's in the right, and can hold on to their possessions, I say, to the eend of time. That is, on the supposition that right is stronger than might."

"Well, well," answered Chainbearer, a little dryly; "ant s'pose one of your men ton't want to puy petterments, put follows t'ot'er, and makes his pitch in t'e wilterness, also?"

"Let him do't, I say; t'is his right, and the law of the Lord."

"Put, s'pose bot' your young men want t'e same pit of wilt lant?"

"First come, first sarv'd; that's my maxim. Let the spryest chap have the land. Possession's everything in settling land titles."

"Well, t'en, to please you, T'ousandacres, we'll let one get aheat of t'other, and haf his possession first; how much shalt he occupy?"

"As much as he wants, I've told you already."

"Ay, put when his slower frient comes along, ant hast his wants too, and wishes to make his pitch alongsite of his olt neighpor, where is t'e pountary petween 'em to be fount?"

"Let 'em agree on't! They must be dreadful poor neighbors, if they can't agree on so small a matter as that," said Tobit, who was getting weary of the argument.

"Tobit is right," added the father; "let 'em agree on their line, and run it by the eye. Curse on all chains and compasses, say I! They're an invention of the devil, to make ill blood in a neighborhood, and to keep strife awake, when our Bibles tell us to live in peace with all mankind.

"Yes, yes, I understand all t'at," returned Chainbearer, a little disdainfully. "A Yankee piple ist a fery convenient pook. T'ere's aut'ority in it for all sort of toctrines ant worshipin', ant prayin', ant preachin', ant so forth. It's what I call a so-forth piple, Mortaunt, and wilt reat packwarts as well ast forwarts; put all t'e chapters into one, if necessary, or all t'e verses into chapters. Sometimes St. Luke is St. Paul, and St. John ist St. Matt'ew. I've he'rt your tominies expount, and no two expount alike. Novelties ist t'e religion of New Englant, ant novelties, in t'e shape of ot'er men's lants, is t'e creet of her lofely chiltren! Oh! yes, I've seen a Yankee piple! Put, this toesn't settle out two squatters; bot' of whom wants a sartain hill for its lumper; now, which is to haf it?"

"The man that got there first, I've told you, old Chainbearer, and once tellin' is as good as a thousand. If the first comer looked on that hill, and said to himself, 'that hill's mine,' 't is his'n."

"Well, t'at ist making property fast; Wast t'at t'e way, T'ousantacres, t'at you took up your estate on t'e Mooseridge property?"

"Sartain--I want no better title. I got here first, and tuck up the land, and shall continue to tuck it up, as I want it. There's no use in being mealy-mouthed, for I like to speak out, though the landlord's son be by!"

"Oh! you speak out lout enouf, ant plain enouf, and I shoultn't wonter if you got tucket up yourself, one tay, for your pains. Here ist a tifficulty, however, t'at I'll just mention, T'ousantacres, for your consiteration. You take possession of timper-lant, by lookin' at it, you say--"

"Even lookin' at isn't necessary," returned the squatter, eager to widen the grasp of his rights. "It's enough that a man wants the land, and he comes, or sends to secure it. Possession is everything, and I call it possession, to crave a spot, and to make some sort of calkerlation, or works, reasonably near it. That gives a right to cut and clear, and when a clearin's begun, it's betterments, and everybody allows that betterments may be both bought and sold."

"Well, now we understant each o'ter. Put here ist t'e small tifficulty I woult mention. One General Littlepage and one Colonel Follock took a fancy to t'is spot long pefore t'e olt French war; ant pesites fancyin' t'e place, and sentin' messengers to look at it, t'ey pought out t'e Injin right in t'e first place; t'en t'ey pought of t'e king, who hat all t'e lant in t'e country, at t'at time, ast hatn't ot'er owners. T'en t'ey sent surfeyors to run t'e lines, ant t'em very surfeyors passet along py t'is river, ast I know py t'eir fielt-pooks (field-books): t'en more surfeyors wast sent out to tivite it into great lots, ant now more still haf come to tivite it into small lots: ant t'ey've paid quit-rents for many years, ant tone ot'er t'ings to prove t'ey want t'is place as much as you want it yourself. T'ey haf hat it more ast a quarter of a century, ant exerciset ownership over it all t'at time; ant wantet it very much t'e whole of t'at quarter of a century, ant, if t'e truit' was sait, want it still."

A long pause followed this statement, during which the different members of the family looked at each other, as if in quest of support. The idea of there being any other side to the question than that they had been long accustomed to consider so intently, was novel to them, and they were a little bewildered by the extraordinary circumstance. This is one of the great difficulties under which the inhabitant of a narrow district labors, in all that pertains to his personal notions and tastes, and a good deal in what relates to his principles. This it is that makes the true provincial, with his narrow views, set notions, conceit, and unhesitating likes and dislikes. When one looks around him and sees how very few are qualified, by experience and knowledge of the world, to utter opinions at all, he is apt to be astonished at finding how many there are that do it. I make no doubt that the family of Thousandacres were just as well satisfied with their land-ethics, as Paley ever could have been with his moral philosophy, or Newton with his mathematical demonstrations.

"I don't wonter you're callet T'ousantacres, Aaron Timperman," continued Chainbearer, pushing his advantage, "for wit' such a title to your estate, you might as well pe tarmet Ten T'ousantacres at once, ant more, too! Nay, I wonter, while your eyes was trawin' up title teets, t'at you shoult haf peen so mot'erate, for it was just as easy to possess a patent on t'at sort of right, as to possess a single farm."

But Thousandacres had made up his mind to pursue the subject no further; and while it was easy to see what fiery passions were burning within him, he seemed now bent on bringing a conference, from which he doubtless expected different results, to a sudden close. It was with difficulty that he suppressed the volcano that was raging within, but he so far succeeded as to command Tobit to shut up his prisoner again.

"Take him away, b'ys, take him back to the store'us'," said the old squatter, rising and moving a little on one side to permit Andries to pass, as if afraid to trust himself too near; "he was born the sarvent of the rich, and will die their sarvent. Chains be good enough for him, and I wish him no greater harm than to carry chains the rest of his days."

"Oh! you're a true son of liperty!" called out the Chainbearer, as he quietly returned to his prison; "a true son of liperty, accordin' to your own conceit! You want eferyt'ing in your own way, and eferyt'ing in your own pocket. T'e Lort's law is a law for T'ousantacres, put not a law to care for Cornelius Littlepage or Tirck Follock!"

Although my old friend was escorted to his prison, no attempt was made to remove me. On the contrary, Prudence joined her husband without, followed by all her young fry, and for a moment I fancied myself forgotten and deserted. A movement in one corner of the room, however, drew my attention there, and I saw Lowiny standing on tiptoe, with a finger on her lips, the sign of silence, while she made eager gestures with the other hand for me to enter a small passage that communicated, by means of a ladder, with the loft of the hut. My moccasons were now of great advantage to me. Without pausing to reflect on consequences, or to look around, I did as directed, drawing-to the door after me. There was a small window in the sort of passage in which I now found myself alone with the girl, and my first impulse was to force my body through it, for it had neither glass nor sash, but Lowiny caught my arms.

"Lord ha' massy on us!" whispered the girl--"you'd be seen and taken, or shot! For your life don't go out there now. Here's a hole for a cellar, and there's the trap--go down there, and wait 'till you hear news from me."

There was no time for deliberation, and the sight of Chainbearer's escort, as they proceeded toward the storehouse, satisfied me that the girl was right. She held up the trap, and I descended into the hole that answered the purposes of a cellar. I heard Lowiny draw a chest over the trap, and then I fancied I could distinguish the creaking of the rounds of the ladder, as she went up into the loft, which was the place where she usually slept.

All this occurred literally in about one minute of time. Another minute may have passed, when I heard the heavy tread of Thousandacres' foot on the floor above me, and the clamor of many voices, all speaking at once. It was evident that I was missed, and a search had already been commenced. For half a minute nothing was very intelligible to me; then I heard the shrill voice of Prudence calling for Lowiny.

"Lowiny--you Lowiny!" she cried--"where has the gal got to?"

"I'm here, mother"--answered my friend, from her loft--"you told me to come up, and look for your new Bible."

I presume this was true; for Prudence had really despatched the girl on that errand, and it must have sufficed to lull any suspicions of her daughter's being connected with my disappearance, if any such had been awakened. The movement of footsteps was now quick over my head, those of several men being among them; and in the confusion of voices, I heard that of Lowiny, who must have descended the ladder and joined in the search.

"He mustn't be allowed to get off, on no account," said Thousandacres aloud, "or we're all ondone. Everything we have will fall into their hands, and mill, logs, and all, will be utterly lost. We shan't even have time to get off the gear and the household stuff."

"He's up-stairs"--cried one--"he must be down cellar," said another. Steps went up the ladder, and I heard the chest drawn from the trap; and a stream of light entering the place, notified me that the trap was raised. The place I was in was a hole twenty feet square, roughly walled with stones, and nearly empty, though it did contain a meat-barrel or two, and a few old tubs. In the winter, it would have been filled with vegetables. There was no place to hide in, and an attempt at concealment would have led to a discovery. I withdrew to a corner, in a part of the cellar that was quite dark, but thought myself lost when I saw a pair of legs descending the ladder. Almost at the same moment, three of the men and two of the women came into the hole, a fourth female, whom I afterward ascertained to be Lowiny herself, standing in the trap in such a way as to double the darkness below. The first man who got down began to tumble the tubs about, and to look into the corners; and the lucky thought occurred to me to do the same thing. By keeping as busy as the rest of them, I actually escaped detection in the dark; and Tobit soon rushed to the ladder, calling out, "the window--the window--he's not here--the window!" In half a minute the cellar was empty again; or no one remained but myself.

At first I had great difficulty in believing in my good luck; but the trap fell, and the profound stillness of the place satisfied me that I had avoided that danger, at least. This escape was so singular and unexpected, that I could hardly believe in its reality; though real it was, to all intents and purposes. The absurd often strikes the imagination in an absurd way; and so it proved with me on this occasion. I sat down on a tub and laughed heartily, when I felt absolutely certain all was right, holding my sides lest the sound of my voice might yet betray me. Lowiny was similarly infected, for I heard peals of girlish laughter from her, as her brothers tumbled about barrels, and tubs, and bedsteads, in the upper part of the building, in their fruitless and hurried search. This merriment did not pass unrebuked, however; Prudence lending her daughter a box on the side of the head, that, in one sense, reached even my ears; though it probably aided in saving the girl from the suspicion of being in my secret, by the very natural character of her girlish indulgence. Two or three minutes after the trap closed on me for the second time, the sounds of footsteps and voices overhead ceased, and the hut seemed deserted.

My situation now was far from comfortable. Confined in a dark cellar, with no means of escaping but by the trap, and the almost certainty of falling into the hands of my captors, should I attempt such a thing, I now began to regret having entered so readily into Lowiny's scheme. There would be a certain loss of dignity in a recapture, that was not pleasant in itself; and I will own, I began to have some doubts of my eventual safety, should I again come under the control of such spirits as those of Thousandacres and his eldest son. Buried in that cellar, I was in a manner placed immediately beneath those whose aim it was to secure me, rendering escape impossible, and detection nearly unavoidable.

Such were my meditations when light again streamed into the cellar. The trap was raised, and presently I heard my name uttered in a whisper. Advancing to the ladder, I saw Lowiny holding the door, and beckoning for me to ascend. I followed her directions blindly, and was soon at her side. The girl was nearly convulsed between dread of detection and a desire to laugh; my emerging from the cellar recalling to her imagination all the ludicrous circumstances of the late search.

"Warn't it queer that none on 'em know'd you!" she whispered; then commanding silence by a hasty gesture. "Don't speak; for they're s'archin' still, cluss by, and some on 'em may follow me here. I wanted to get you out of the cellar, as some of the young-uns will be rummagin' there soon for pork for supper; and their eyes are as sharp as needles. Don't you think you could crawl into the mill? It's stopped now, and wun't be goin' ag'in till this stir's over."

"I should be seen, my good girl, if any of your people are looking for me near at hand."

"I don't know that. Come to the door, and you'll see there is a way. Everybody's lookin' on the right side of this house; and by creepin' as far as them logs, you'd be pretty safe. If you reach the mill safely, climb up into the loft."

I took a moment to survey the chances. At the distance of a hundred feet from the house there commenced a large bed of saw-logs, which were lying alongside of each other; and the timber being from two to four feet in diameter, it would be very possible to creep among it, up to the mill itself, into which even several of the logs had been rolled. The great difficulty would be in reaching the logs through a perfectly open space. The house would be a cover, as against most of the family, who were busy examining everything like a cover on its opposite side; no one supposing for a moment I could be near the mill, inasmuch as it stood directly in front of the spot where the crowd was collected at the moment of my sudden disappearance. But the boys and girls were flying around in all directions; rendering it uncertain how long they would remain in a place, or how long their eyes would be turned away from my path.

It was necessary to do something, and I determined to make an effort. Throwing myself on the ground, I crawled, rather slowly than fast, across that terrible space, and got safely among the logs. As there was no outcry, I knew I had not been seen. It was now comparatively easy to reach the mill. Another dangerous experiment, however, was to expose my person by climbing up to the loft. I could not do this without running the risk of being seen; and I felt the necessity of using great caution. I first raised my head high enough to survey the state of things without. Luckily the house was still between me and most of my enemies; though the small fry constantly came into view and vanished. I looked around for a spot to ascend, and took a final survey of the scene. There stood Lowiny in the door of the hut, her hands clasped, and her whole air expressive of concern. She saw my head, I knew, and I made a gesture of encouragement, which caused her to start. At the next instant my foot was on a brace, and my body was rising to the beams above. I do not think my person was uncovered ten seconds; and no clamor succeeded. I now felt there were really some chances of my finally effecting an escape, and glad enough was I to think so.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Alone, amid the shades,
Still in harmonious intercourse they liv'd
The rural day, and talked the flowing heart,
Or sigh'd, and looked unutterable things."

--Thomson.

That was a somewhat breathless moment. The intensity with which I had listened for any sound that might announce my discovery, was really painful. I almost fancied I heard a shout, but none came. Then I gave myself up, actually believing that footsteps were rushing toward the mill, with a view to seize me. It was imagination; the rushing of the waters below being the only real sound that disturbed the silence of the place. I had time to breathe and to look about me.

As might be supposed, the mill was very rudely constructed. I have spoken of a loft, but there was nothing that really deserved the term. Some refuse boards were laid about, here and there, on the beams, making fragments of rough flooring; and my first care was to draw several of these boards close together, placing them two or three in thickness, so as to make a place where, by lying down, I could not be seen by any one who should happen to enter the mill. There lay what the millers call a bunch of cherry-wood boards at no great distance from the spot where the roof joined the plate of the building, and within this bunch I arranged my hiding-place. No ostensible change was necessary to complete it, else the experiment might have been hazardous among those who were so much accustomed to note circumstances of that nature. The manner in which the lumber was arranged when I reached the spot was so little different from what it was when I had done with it, as scarcely to attract attention.

No sooner was my hiding-place completed to my mind, than I looked round to see if there were any means of making observations without. The building was not shingled, but the rain was kept out by placing slabs up and down, as is often seen in the ruder rustic frontier architecture of America. With the aid of my knife I soon had a small hole between two of these slabs, at a place favorable to such an object; and though it was no larger than the eye itself, it answered every purpose. Eagerly enough did I now commence my survey.

The search was still going on actively. Those experienced bordermen well knew it was not possible for me to cross the open ground and to reach the woods in the short interval of time between my disappearance and their discovery of the fact, and they consequently felt certain that I was secreted somewhere near the building. Every house had been searched, though no one thought of entering the mill, because my movement, as all supposed, was necessarily in an opposite direction. The fences were examined, and everything like a cover on the proper side of the house was looked into with care and activity. It would seem that, just as I took my first look through the hole, my pursuers were at fault. The search had been made, and of course without effect. Nothing likely to conceal me remained to be examined. It was necessary to come to a stand, and to concert measures for a further search.

The family of squatters were too much accustomed to their situation and its hazards, not to be familiar with all the expedients necessary to their circumstances. They placed the younger children on the lookout, at the points most favorable to my retreat, should I be in a situation to attempt going off in that quarter of the clearing; and then the father collected his older sons around him, and the whole cluster of them, seven in number, came slowly walking toward the mill. The excitement of the first pursuit had sensibly abated, and these practised woodsmen were in serious consultation on the measures next to be taken. In this condition the whole party entered the mill, taking their seats, or standing directly beneath my post, and within six feet of me. As a matter of course, I heard all that was said, though completely hid from view.

"Here we shall be safe from the long ears of little folks," said the father, as he placed his own large frame on the log that was next to be sawed. "This has been a most onaccountable thing, Tobit, and I'd no idee at all them 'ere city-bred gentry was so expart with their legs. I sometimes think he can't be a Littlepage, but that he's one of our hill folks, tossed out and mannered a'ter the towns' folks, to take a body in. It seems an onpossibility that the man should get off, out of the midst on us, and we not see or hear anything on him."

"We may as well give up the lumber and the betterments, at once," growled Tobit, "as let him get clear. Should he reach Ravensnest, the first thing he'd do would be to swear out warrants ag'n us all, and Newcome is not the man to stand by squatters in trouble. He'd no more dare deny his landlord, than deny his meetin'."

This expression of Tobit's is worthy of notice. In the estimation of a certain class of religionists among us, the "meetin'," as the young squatter called his church, had the highest place in his estimate of potentates and powers; it is to be feared, often even higher than the dread Being for whose worship that "meetin'" existed.

"I don't think as hard of the 'squire as all that," answered Thousandacres. "He'll never send out a warrant ag'in us, without sendin' out a messenger to let us hear of it, and that in time to get us all out of the way."

"And who's to get the boards in the creek out of the way afore the water rises? And who's to hide or carry off all them logs? There's more than a ton weight of my blood and bones in them very logs, in the shape of hard labor, and I'll fight like a she-bear for her cubs afore I'll be driven from them without pay."

It is very surprising that one who set this desperate value on the property he deemed his, should have so little regard for that which belonged to other persons. In this respect, however, Tobit's feeling was no more than submission to the general law of our nature, which reverses the images before our moral vision, precisely as we change our own relations to them.

"It would go hard with me afore I should give up the lumber or the clearin'," returned Thousandacres, with emphasis. "We've fit King George for liberty, and why shouldn't we fight for our property? Of what use is liberty at all, if it won't bear a man harmless out of a job of this sort? I despise sich liberty, b'ys, and want none on it."

All the young men muttered their approbation of such a sentiment, and it was easy enough to understand that the elevated notion of personal rights entertained by Thousandacres found an answering echo in the bosom of each of his heroic sons. I dare say the same sympathy would have existed between them, had they been a gang of pickpockets collected in council in a room of the Black Horse, St. Catharine's Lane, Wapping, London.

"But what can we do with the young chap, father, should we take him ag'in?" asked Zephaniah; a question, as all will see, of some interest to myself. "He can't be kept a great while without having a stir made a'ter him, and that would break us up, sooner or later. We may have a clear right to the work of our hand; but, on the whull, I rather conclude the country is ag'in squatters."

"Who cares for the country?" answered Thousandacres fiercely. "If it wants young Littlepage, let it come and s'arch for him, as we've been doin'. If that chap falls into my hands once more, he never quits 'em alive, unless he gives me a good and sufficient deed to two hundred acres, includin' the mill, and a receipt in full, on his father's behalf, for all back claims. On them two principles my mind is set, and not to be altered."

A long pause succeeded this bold announcement, and I began to be afraid that my suppressed breathing might be overheard in the profound stillness that followed. But Zephaniah spoke in time to relieve me from this apprehension, and in a way to satisfy me that the party below, all of whom were concealed from my sight, had been pondering on what had been said by their leader, and not listening to detect any tell-tale sounds from me.

"I've heern say," Zephaniah remarked, "that deeds gi'n in that way won't stand good in law. 'Squire Newcome was talkin' of sich transactions the very last time I was out at the Nest."

"I wish a body could find out what would stand good in law!" growled Thousandacres. "They make their laws, and lay great account in havin' em obsarved; and then, when a man comes into court with everything done accordin' to their own rules, five or six attorneys start up and bawl out, 'This is ag'in law!' If a deed is to set forth so and so, and is to have what they call 'hand and seal and date' beside; and sich bein' the law, I want to know why an instrument so made won't hold good by their confounded laws? Law is law, all over the world, I s'pose; and though it's an accursed thing, if men agree to have it they ought to stand by their own rules. I've thought a good deal of squeezin' writin's out of this young Littlepage; and just as my mind's made up to do't, if I can lay hands on him ag'in, you come out and tell me sich writin's be good for nothin'. Zeph, Zeph--you go too often out into them settlements, and get your mind perverted by their wickedness and talk."

"I hope not, father, though I own I do like to go there. I've come to a time of life when a man thinks of marryin', and there bein' no gal here, unless it be one of my own sisters, it's nat'ral to look into the next settlement. I'll own sich has been my object in going to the Nest."

"And you've found the gal you set store by? Out with the whull truth, like a man. You know I've always been set ag'in lyin', and have ever endeavored to make the whull of you speak truth. How is it, Zephaniah? have you found a gal to your mind, and who is't? Ourn is a family into which anybody can come by askin', you will remember."

"Lord, father! Dus Malbone would no more think of askin' me to have her, than she'd think of marryin' you! I've offered three times, and she's told me, as plain as a woman could speak, that she couldn't nohow consent, and that I hadn't ought to think of her any longer."

"Who is the gal, in this part of the country, that holds her head so much higher than one of Thousandacres' sons?" demanded the old squatter, with some such surprise, real or affected, as a Bourbon might be supposed to feel at having his alliance spurned on the score of blood. "I'd like to see her, and to convarse with this young woman. What did you call her name, Zeph?"

"Dus Malbone, father, and the young woman that lives with Chainbearer. She's his niece, I b'lieve, or something of that sort."

"Ha! Chainbearer's niece, d'ye say? His taken da'ghter. Isn't there some mistake?"

"Dus Malbone calls old Andries 'Uncle Chainbearer,' and I s'pose from that she's his niece."

"And you've offered to marry the gal three times, d'ye tell me, Zephaniah?"

"Three times, father; and every time she has given 'no' for her answer."

"The fourth time, maybe, she'll change her mind. I wonder if we couldn't lay hands on this gal, and bring her into our settlement? Does she live with Chainbearer, in his hut out here in the woods?"

"She doos, father."

"And doos she set store by her uncle? or is she one of the flaunty sort that thinks more of herself and gownd than she does of her own flesh and blood? Can you tell me that, Zeph?"

"In my judgment, father, Dus Malbone loves Chainbearer as much as she would was he her own father."

"Ay, some gals haven't half the riverence and love for their own fathers that they should have. What's to prevint your goin', Zephaniah, to Chainbearer's pitch, and tell the gal that her uncle's in distress, and that you don't know what may happen to him, and that she had better come over and see a'ter him? When we get her here, and she understands the natur' of the case, and you put on your Sabba'day clothes, and we send for 'Squire Newcome, you may find yourself a married man sooner than you thought for, my son, and settle down in life. A'ter that, there'll not be much danger of Chainbearer's tellin' on us, or of his great fri'nd here, this Major Littlepage's troublin' the lumber afore the water rises."

A murmur of applause followed this notable proposal, and I fancied I could hear a snigger from the young man, as if he found the project to his mind, and thought it might be feasible.

"Father," said Zephaniah, "I wish you'd call Lowiny here, and talk to her a little about Dus Malbone. There she is, with Tobit's wife and mother, looking round among the cabbages, as if a man could be hid in such a place."

Thousandacres called to his daughter in an authoritative way; and I soon heard the girl's step, as she came, a little hesitatingly, as I fancied, into the mill. As it would be very natural to one in Lowiny's situation to suppose that her connection with my escape occasioned this summons, I could not but feel for what I presumed was the poor girl's distress at receiving it.

"Come here, Lowiny," commenced Thousandacres, in the stern manner with which it was his wont to speak to his children; "come nearer, gal. Do you know anything of one Dus Malbone, Chainbearer's niece?"

"Lord ha' massy! Father, how you did frighten me! I thought you might have found the gentleman, and s'posed I'd a hand in helpin' to hide him!"

Singular as it may seem, this burst of conscience awakened no suspicion in any of the listeners. When the girl thus betrayed herself, I very naturally expected that such an examination would follow as would extort the whole details from her. Not at all, however; neither the father nor any of the sons understood the indiscreet remarks of the girl, but imputed them to the excitement that had just existed, and the circumstance that her mind had, naturally enough, been dwelling on its cause. It is probable that the very accidental manner of my evasion, which precluded the attaching of suspicious facts to what had really occurred, favored Lowiny on this occasion; it being impossible that she should be suspected of anything of that character.

"Who's talkin' or thinkin' now of young Littlepage, at all?" returned Thousandacres, a little angrily. "I ask if you know anything of Chainbearer's niece--one Dus Malbone, or Malcome?"

"I do know suthin' of her, father," answered Lowiny, willing enough to betray one--the lesser--of her secrets, in order to conceal the other, which, on all accounts, was much the most important; "though I never laid eyes on her 'till to-day. Zeph has often talked to me of the gal that carried chain with her uncle for a whull month; and he has a notion to marry her if he can get her."

"Never laid eyes on her 'till to-day! Whereabouts have you laid eyes on her to-day, gal? Is all creation comin' in upon my clearin' at once? Whereabouts have you seen this gal to-day?"

"She come to the edge of the clearin' with her uncle, and----"

"Well, what next? Why don't you go on, Lowiny?"

I could have told Thousandacres why his daughter hesitated; but the girl got out of the scrape by her own presence of mind and ingenuity, a little aided, perhaps, by some practice in sins of the sort.

"Why, I went a berryin' this forenoon, and up ag'in the berry lot, just in the edge of the woods, I saw a young woman, and that was the Malbone gal. So we talked together, and she told me all about it. She's waitin' for her uncle to come back."

"So, so; this is news indeed, b'ys! Do you know where the gal is now, Lowiny?"

"Not just now, for she told me she should go deeper into the woods, lest she should be seen; but an hour afore sundown she's to come to the foot of the great chestnut, just ag'in the berry lot; and I promised to meet her, or to carry her out suthin' for supper, and to make a bed on."

This was said frankly, and with the feeling and sympathy that females are apt to manifest in behalf of each other. It was evident Lowiny's audience believed every word she had said; and the old man, in particular, determined at once to act. I heard him move from his seat, and his voice sounded like one who was retiring, as he said:

"Tobit--b'ys--come with me, and we'll have one more look for this young chap through the lumber and the housen. It may be that he's stolen in there while our eyes have been turned another way. Lowiny, you needn't come with us, for the flutterin' way of you gals don't do no good in sich a s'arch."

I waited until the last heavy footstep was inaudible, and then ventured to move far enough, on my hands, to find a crack that I had purposely left, with a view to take through it an occasional look below. On the log which her father had just left, Lowiny had seated herself. Her eye was roaming over the upper part of the mill, as if in quest of me. At length she said, in a suppressed voice--

"Be you here still? Father and the b'ys can't hear us now, if you speak low."

"I am here, good Lowiny, thanks to your friendly kindness, and have overheard all that passed. You saw Ursula Malbone, and gave her my note?"

"As true as you are there, I did; and she read it over so often, I guess she must know it by heart."

"But what did she say? Had she no message for her uncle--no answer to what I had written?"

"Oh! she'd enough to say--gals love to talk, you know, when they get with one another, and Dus and I talked together half an hour, or longer. She'd plenty to say, though it wunt do for me to sit here and tell it to you, lest somebody wonder I stay so long in the mill."

"You can tell me if she sent any message or answer to my note?"

"She never breathed a syllable about what you'd writ. I warrant you she's close-mouthed enough, when she gets a line from a young man. Do you think her so desp'rate handsome as Zeph says she is?"

This boded ill, but it was a question that it was politic to answer, and to answer with some little discretion. If I lost the services of Lowiny, my main stay was gone.

"She is well enough to look at, but I've seen quite as handsome young women, lately. But, handsome or not, she is one of your own sex, and is not to be deserted in her trouble."

"Yes, indeed," answered Lowiny, with an expression of countenance that told me at once, the better feelings of her sex had all returned again, "and I'll not desart her, though father drive me out of the settlement. I am tired of all this squatting, and think folks ought to live as much in one spot as they can. What's best to be done about Dus Malbone--perhaps she'd like well enough to marry Zeph?"

"Did you see or hear anything while with her, to make you think so? I am anxious to know what she said."

"La! She said sights of things; but most of her talk was about old Chainbearer. She never named your name so much as once!"

"Did she name Zephaniah's? I make no doubt that anxiety on account of her uncle was her chief care. What are her intentions, and will she remain near that tree until you come?"

"She stays under a rock not a great way from the tree, and there she'll stay till I go to meet her, at the chestnut. We had our talk under that rock, and it's easy enough to find her there."

"How do things look around us? Might I descend, slip down into the bed of the river, and go round to Dus Malbone, so as to give her notice of the danger she is in?"

Lowiny did not answer me for near a minute, and I began to fear that I had put another indiscreet question. The girl seemed thoughtful, but when she raised her face so high as to allow me to see it, all the expression of the more generous feminine sympathy was visible.

"'Twould be hard to make Dus have Zeph, if she don't like him, wouldn't it!" she said with emphasis. "I don't know but t'would be better to let her know what's coming so that she can choose for herself."

"She told me," I answered, with perfect truth, "that she is engaged to another, and it would be worse than cruel--it would be wicked, to make her marry one man, while she loves another."

"She shan't do't!" cried the girl, with an animation that I thought dangerous. But she gave me no opportunity for remonstrance, as, all her energies being roused, she went to work in earnest to put me in the way of doing what I most desired to achieve.

"D'ye see the lower corner of the mill?" she continued, hurriedly. "That post goes down to the rock over which the water falls. You can walk to that corner without any danger of being seen, as the ruff hides you, and when you get there, you can wait till I tell you to get on the post. 'T will be easy to slide down that post to the rock, and there'll be not much of a chance of being seen, as the post will nearly hide you. When you're on the rock, you'll find a path that leads along the creek till you come to a foot-bridge. If you cross that log, and take the left-hand path, 'twill bring you out near the edge of the clearin', up on the hill again, and then you'll have only to follow the edge of the woods a little way, afore you come to the chestnut. The rock is right off, ag'in the chestnut, only about fifty rods."

I took in these directions eagerly, and was at the post almost as soon as the girl ceased speaking. In order to do this I had only to walk on the boards that lay scattered about on the girts of the mill, the roof completely concealing the movement from any on its outside. I made my arrangements, and only waited for a signal, or the direction from Lowiny, to proceed.

"Not yet," said the girl, looking down and affecting to be occupied with something near her feet. "Father and Tobit are walkin' this way, and lookin' right at the mill. Now--get ready--they've turned their heads, and seem as if they'd turn round themselves next. They've turned ag'in, wait one moment--now's a good time--don't go away altogether without my seein' you once more."

I heard these last words, but it was while sliding down the post. Just as my head came so low as to be in a line with the objects scattered about the floor of the mill, I clung to the post to catch one glimpse of what was going on without. Thousandacres and Tobit were about a hundred yards distant, walking apart from the group of young men, and apparently in deep consultation together. It was quite evident no alarm was taken, and down I slid to the rock. At the next moment, I was in the path, descending to the foot-bridge, a tree that had been felled across the stream. Until that tree was crossed, and a slight distance of the ascent on the other side of the stream, along the left-hand path was overcome, I was completely exposed to the observation of any one who might be in a situation to look down into the glen of the river. At almost any other moment at that particular season, my discovery would have been nearly certain, as some of the men or boys were always at work in the water; but the events of that morning called them elsewhere, and I made the critical passage, a distance of two hundred yards or more, in safety. As soon as I entered behind a cover, my speed abated, and having risen again to the level of the dwellings, or even a little above them, I profited by openings among the small pine-bushes that fringed the path, to take a survey of the state of things among the squatters.

There the cluster of heavy, lounging young men was, Thousandacres and Tobit walking apart, as when last seen. Prudence was at the door of a distant cabin, surrounded, as usual, by a collection of the young fry, and conversing herself eagerly, with the wives of two or three of her married sons. Lowiny had left the mill, and was strolling along the opposite side of the glen, so near the verge of the rocks as to have enabled her to see the whole of my passage across the open space. Perceiving that she was quite alone, I ventured to hem just loud enough to reach her ear. A hurried, frightened gesture assured me that I had been heard, and first making a gesture for me to go forward, the girl turned away, and went skipping off toward the cluster of females who surrounded her mother.

As for myself, I now thought only of Dus. What cared I if she did love another? A girl of her education, manners, sentiments, birth and character, was not to be sacrificed to one like Zephaniah, let what might happen; and could I reach her place of concealment in time, she might still be saved. These thoughts fairly winged my flight, and I soon came in sight of the chestnut. Three minutes later I laid a hand on the trunk of the tree itself. As I had been a quarter of an hour at least, in making the circuit of that side of the clearing, some material change might have occurred among the squatters, and I determined to advance to the edge of the bushes, in Lowiny's "berry lot," which completely screened the spot, and ascertain the facts, before I sought Dus at her rock.

The result showed that some measures had been decided on between Thousandacres and Tobit. Not one of the males, a lad that stood sentinel at the storehouse, and a few of the smaller boys excepted, was to be seen. I examined all the visible points with care, but no one was visible. Even Susquesus, who had been lounging about the whole day, or since his liberation, had vanished. Prudence and her daughters, too, were in a great commotion, hurrying from cabin to cabin, and manifesting all that restlessness which usually denotes excitement among females. I stopped but a moment to ascertain these leading circumstances, and turned to seek the rock. While retiring from among the bushes, I heard the fallen branch of a tree snap under a heavy footstep, and looking cautiously around, saw Jaaf, or Jaap as we commonly called him, advancing toward me, carrying a rifle on each shoulder.

"Heaven's blessings on you, my faithful Jaap!" I cried, holding out an arm to receive one of the weapons. "You come at a most happy moment, and can lead me to Miss Malbone."

"Yes, sah, and glad to do it, too. Miss Dus up here, a bit, in 'e wood, and can werry soon see her. She keep me down here to look out, and I carry bot' rifle, Masser Chainbearer's and my own, 'cause Miss Dus no great hand wid gunpowder. But, where you come from, Masser Mordaunt?--and why you run away so, in night-time?"

"Never mind just now, Jaap--in proper time you shall know all about it. Now we must take care of Miss Ursula. Is she uneasy? has she shown any fear on her uncle's account?"

"She cry half 'e time, sah--den she look up bold, and resolute, just like ole Massar, sah, when he tell he rijjement 'charge baggonet,' and seem as if she want to go right into T'ousandacres' huts. Lor' bless me, sah, Masser Mordaunt--if she ask me one question about you to-day, she ask me a hundred!"

"About me, Jaap!" But I arrested the impulsive feeling in good time, so as not to be guilty of pumping my own servant concerning what others had said of me; a meanness I could not easily have pardoned in myself. But I increased my speed, and having Jaap for my guide, was soon at the side of Dus. The negro had no sooner pointed out to me the object of my search, than he had the discretion to return to the edge of the clearing, carrying with him both rifles; for I returned to him the one I had taken, in my eagerness to hurry forward, the instant I beheld Dus.

I can never forget the look with which that frank, noble-hearted girl received me! It almost led me to hope that my ears had deceived me, and that after all, I was an object of the highest interest with her. A few tears, half-suppressed, but suppressed with difficulty, accompanied that look; and I had the happiness of holding for some time and of pressing to my heart, that little hand that was freely--nay, warmly extended to me.

"Let us quit this spot at once, dearest Ursula," I cried, the moment I could speak. "It is not safe to remain near that family of wretches, who live by depredation and violence."

"And leave uncle Chainbearer in their hands?" answered Dus, reproachfully. "You, surely, would not advise me to do that?"

"If your own safety demands it, yes--a thousand times yes. We must fly, and there is not a moment to lose. A design exists among those wretches to seize you, and to make use of your fears to secure the aid of your uncle in extricating them from the consequences of this discovery of their robberies. It is not safe, I repeat, for you to remain a minute longer here."

The smile that Dus now bestowed on me was very sweet, though I found it inexplicable; for it had as much of pain and suffering in it, as it had of that which was winning.

"Mordaunt Littlepage, have you forgotten the words spoken by me when we last parted?" she asked, seriously.

"Forgotten! I can never forget them! They drove me nearly to despair, and were the cause of bringing us all into this difficulty."

"I told you that my faith was already plighted--that I could not accept your noble, frank, generous, manly offer, because another had my troth."

"You did--you did. Why renew my misery--"

"It is with a different object that I am now more explicit. That man to whom I am pledged is in those huts, and I cannot desert him."

"Can I believe my senses! Do you--can you--is it possible that one like Ursula Malbone can love Zephaniah Thousandacres--a squatter himself, and the son of a squatter?"

The look with which Dus regarded me, said at once that her astonishment was quite as great as my own. I could have bitten off my hasty and indiscreet tongue, the instant it had spoken; and I am sure the rush of tell-tale blood in my face must have proclaimed to my companion that I felt most thoroughly ashamed of myself. This feeling was deepened nearly to despair, when I saw the expression of abased mortification that came over the sweet and usually happy countenance of Dus, and the difficulty she had in suppressing her tears.

Neither spoke for a minute, when my companion broke silence by saying steadily--I might almost add solemnly--

"This, indeed, shows how low my fortune has become! But I pardon you, Mordaunt; for, humble as that fortune is, you have spoken nobly and frankly in my behalf, and I exonerate you from any feeling that is not perfectly natural for the circumstances. Perhaps"--and a bright blush suffused the countenance of Dus as she said it--"Perhaps I may attribute the great mistake into which you have fallen to a passion that is most apt to accompany strong love, and insomuch prize it, instead of throwing it away with contempt. But, between you and me, whatever comes of it, there must be no more mistakes. The man to whom my faith is plighted, and to whom my time and services are devoted, so long as one or both of us live, is uncle Chainbearer, and no other. Had you not rushed from me in the manner you did, I might have told you this, Mordaunt, the evening you were showing so much noble frankness yourself."

"Dus!--Ursula!--beloved Miss Malbone, have I then no preferred rival?"

"No man has ever spoken to me of love, but this uncouth and rude young squatter, and yourself."

"Is your heart then untouched? Are you still mistress of your own affections?"

The look I now received from Dus was a little saucy; but that expression soon changed to one that had more of the deep feeling and generous sympathy of her precious sex in it.

"Were I to answer 'yes,' many women would think I was being no more than true to the rights of a girl who has been so unceremoniously treated; but----"

"But what, charming, most beloved Ursula? But what?"

"I prefer truth to coquetry, and shall not attempt to deny what it would almost be treason against nature to suppose. How could a girl, educated as I have been, without any preference to tie her to another, be shut up in this forest with a man who has treated her with so much kindness and devotion and manly tenderness, and insensible to his merits? Were we in the world, Mordaunt, I think I should prefer you to all others; being, as we are, in this forest, I know I do."

The reader shall not be let into the sacred confidence that followed; any further, at least, than to know the main result. A quarter of an hour passed so swiftly, and so sweetly, indeed, that I could hardly take it on myself to record one-half that was said. Dus made no longer any hesitation in declaring her attachment for me; and though she urged her own poverty as a just obstacle to my wishes, it was faintly, as most Americans of either sex would do. In this particular, at least, we may fairly boast of a just superiority over all the countries of the old world. While it is scarcely possible that either man or woman should not see how grave a barrier to wedded happiness is interposed by the opinions and habits of social castes, it is seldom that any one, in his or her own proper sphere, feels that the want of money is an insurmountable obstacle to a union--more especially when one of the parties is provided with the means of maintaining the household gods. The seniors may, and do often have scruples on this score; but the young people rarely. Dus and myself were in the complete enjoyment of this happy simplicity, with my arms around her waist, and her head leaning on my shoulder, when I was aroused from a state that I fancied Elysium, by the hoarse, raven-throated cry of--

"Here she is! Here she is, father! Here they are both!"

On springing forward to face the intruders, I saw Tobit and Zephaniah directly before me, with Lowiny standing at no great distance behind them. The first looked ferocious, the second jealous and angry, the third abashed and mortified. In another minute we were surrounded by Thousandacres and all the males of his brood.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"My love is young--but other loves are young;
And other loves are fair, and so is mine;
An air divine discloses whence he sprung;
He is my love that boasts that air divine."

--Shenstone.

A more rude and violent interruption of a scene in which the more gentle qualities love to show themselves, never occurred. I, who knew the whole of the past, saw at once that we had very serious prospects before us; but Dus at first felt only the consciousness and embarrassment of a woman who has betrayed her most sacred secret to vulgar eyes. That very passion, which a month later, and after the exchange of the marriage vows, it would have been her glory to exhibit in face of the whole community, on the occurrence of any event of moment to myself, she now shrunk from revealing; and I do believe that maiden bashfulness gave her more pain, when thus arrested, than any other cause. As for the squatters, she probably had no very clear conceptions of their true characters; and it was one of her liveliest wishes to be able to join her uncle. But, Thousandacres soon gave us both cause to comprehend how much he was now in earnest.

"So, my young major, you're catched in the same nest, be you! You've your ch'ise to walk peaceably back where you belong, or to be tied and carried there like a buck that has been killed a little out in the woods. You never know'd Thousandacres and his race, if you really thought to slip away from him, and that with twenty miles of woods around you!"

I intimated a wish not to be tied, and professed a perfect willingness to accompany my captors back to their dwellings, for nothing would have tempted me to desert Dus, under the circumstances. The squatters might have declared the road open to me, but the needle does not point more unerringly to the pole than I should have followed my magnet, though at liberty.

Little more was said until we had quitted the woods, and had reached the open fields of the clearing. I was permitted to assist my companion through the bushes, and in climbing a fence or two; the squatters, who were armed to a man, forming a circle around us, at a distance that enabled me to whisper a few words to Dus, in the way of encouragement. She had great natural intrepidity for a woman, and I believe I ought to escape the imputation of vanity, if I add that we both felt so happy at the explanations which had so lately been had, that this new calamity could not entirely depress us, so long as we were not separated.

"Be not downhearted, dearest Dus," I whispered, as we approached the storehouse; "after all, these wretches will not dare to transgress against the law, very far."

"I have few fears, with you and uncle Chainbearer so near me, Mordaunt," was her smiling answer, "It cannot be long before we hear from Frank, who is gone, as you must have been told, to Ravensnest, for authority and assistance. He left our huts at the same time we left them to come here, and must be on his return long before this."

I squeezed the hand of the dear girl, receiving a gentle pressure in return, and prepared myself to be separated from her, as I took it for granted that Prudence and her daughters would hold watch and ward over the female prisoner. I had hesitated, ever since quitting the woods, about giving her notice of the trial that probably awaited her; but, as no attempt to coerce a marriage could be made until the magistrate arrived, I thought it would be rendering her unnecessarily unhappy. The trial, if it did come at all, would come soon enough of itself; and I had no apprehension that one of Dus's spirit and character, and who had so recently and frankly admitted that her whole heart was mine, could be frightened into a concession that would give Zephaniah any claim to her. To own the truth, a mountain had been removed from my own breast, and I was too happy on this particular account, to be rendered very miserable on any other, just at that time. I do believe Dus was a little sustained by some similar sentiment.

Dus and I parted at the door of the first house, she being transferred to the keeping of Tobit's wife, a woman who was well bestowed on her brutal and selfish husband. No violence was used, however, toward the prisoner, who was permitted to go at large; though I observed that one or two of the females attached themselves to her person immediately, no doubt as her keepers.

In consequence of our having approached the dwelling of the squatters by a new path, Chainbearer knew nothing of the arrest of his niece, until the fact was communicated by me. He was not even aware of my being retaken, until he saw me about to enter the prison again; though he probably anticipated that such might be my fate. As for Susquesus, he seldom manifested surprise or emotion of any sort, let what would occur.

"Well, Mortaunt, my lat, I knowet you had vanishet py hook or py crook, ant nopoty knowet how; put I t'ought you would find it hart to t'row t'ese rascally squatters off your trail," cried Andries, giving me a hearty shake of the hand as I entered the prison. "Here we are, all t'ree of us, ag'in; and it's lucky we're such goot frients, as our quarters are none of t'e largest or pest. The Injin fount I was alone, so he took pack his parole, and ist a close prisoner like t'e rest of us, put in one sense a free man. You can tig up t'e hatchet ag'in t'ese squatters whenever you please now; is it not so, Sureflint?"

"Sartin--truce done--Susquesus prisoner like everybody. Give T'ousandacres p'role back ag'in--Injin free man, now."

I understood the Onondago's meaning well enough, though his freedom was of a somewhat questionable character. He merely wished to say that, having given himself up to the squatters, he was released from the conditions of his parole, and was at liberty to make his escape, or to wage war on his captors in any manner he saw fit. Luckily Jaap had escaped, for I could see no signs of even his presence being known to Thousandacres or to his sons. It was something to have so practised a woodsman and so true a friend still at large, and near us; and the information he could impart, should he fall in with Frank Malbone, with the constable and the posse, might be of the utmost service to us. All these points Chainbearer and I discussed at large, the Indian sitting by, an attentive but a silent listener. It was our joint opinion that Malbone could not now be very far distant with succor. What would be the effect of an attack on the squatters it was not easy to predict, since the last might make battle; and, small as was their force, it would be likely to prove very available in a struggle of that nature. The females of such a family were little less efficient than the males, when posted behind logs; and there were a hundred things in which their habits, experience, and boldness might be made to tell, should matters be pushed to extremities.

"Got knows--Got only knows, Mortaunt, what will come of it all," rejoined Chainbearer to one of my remarks, puffing coolly at his pipe at intervals, in order to secure the fire he had just applied to it. "Nut'in is more unsartain t'an war, as Sus, here, fery well knows py long exper'ence, ant as you ought to know yourself, my poy, hafin seen sarfice, ant warm sarfice, too. Shoult Frank Malbone make a charge on t'is settlement, as pein' an olt soltier, he will pe fery likely to do, we must make efery effort to fall in on one of his flanks, in orter to cover t'e atvance or t'e retreat, as may happen to pe t'e movement at t'e time."

"I trust it will be the advance, as Malbone does not strike me as a man likely to retreat very easily. But, are we certain 'Squire Newcome will grant the warrant he will ask for, being in such close communion himself with these squatters?"

"I haf t'ought of all t'at, too, Mortaunt, ant t'ere is goot sense in it. I t'ink he will at least sent wort to T'ousantacres, to let him know what is comin', ant make as many telays as possiple. T'e law is a lazy sarfant when it wishes to pe slow, ant many is t'e rogue t'at hast outrun it, when t'e race has peen to safe a pack or a fine. Nefert'eless, Mortaunt, t'e man who is right fights wit' great otts in his fafor, ant is fery apt to come out pest in t'e long run. It is a great advantage to pe always right; a trut' I've known ant felt from poyhoot, put which hast peen mate more ant more clear to me since t'e peace, ant I haf come pack to lif wit' Dus. T'at gal has teachet me much on all such matters; ant it woult do your heart goot to see her alone wit' an olt ignorant man in t'e woots, of a Sunday, a tryin' to teach him his piple, and how he ought to lofe ant fear Got!"

"Does Dus do this for you, my old friend?--Does that admirable creature really take on herself the solemn office of duty and love! Much as I admired and esteemed her before, for her reverence and affection for you, Chainbearer, I now admire and esteem her the more, for this proof of her most true and deep-seated interest in your welfare."

"I'll tell you what, poy--Dus is petter ast twenty tominies to call a stupporn olt fellow, t'at has got a conscience toughenet ant hartenet by lifin' t'reescore years ant ten in t'e worlt, pack from his wicketness into t'e ways of gotliness and peace. You're young, Mortaunt, and haf not yet got out of t'e gristle of sin into t'e pone, ant can hartly know how strong ist t'e holt t'at hapit and t'e worlt gets of an olt man; put I hope you may lif long enough to see it all, ant to feel it all." I did not even smile, for the childlike earnestness, and the sincere simplicity with which Andries delivered himself of this wish, concealed its absurdity behind a veil of truth and feeling too respectable to admit of a single disrespectful impulse. "Ant t'at is t'e worst wish I can wish you, my tear poy. You know how it hast peen wit' me, Mortaunt; a chainpearer's callin' is none of t'e pest to teach religion; which toes not seem to flourish in t'e woots; t'ough why I cannot tell; since, as Dus has ag'in ant ag'in shown to me. Got is in t'e trees, ant on t'e mountains, ant along t'e valleys, ant is to pe hearet in t'e prooks ant t'e rifers, as much if not more t'an he ist to pe hearet ant seen in t'e clearin's ant t'e towns. Put my life was not a religious life afore t'e war, ant war is not a pusiness to make a man t'ink of deat' as he ought; t'ough he hast it tay and night, as it might pe, afore his eyes."

"And Dus, the excellent, frank, buoyant, sincere, womanly and charming Dus, adds these admirable qualities to other merits, does she! I knew she had a profound sentiment on the subject of religion, Chainbearer, though I did not know she took so very lively an interest in the welfare of those she loves, in connection with that all-important interest."

"You may well call t'e gal py all t'em fine worts, Mortaunt, for she desarfs efery one of t'em, ant more too. No--no--Dus isn't known in a tay. A poty may lif in t'e same house wit' her, and see her smilin' face, and hear her merry song, mont's ant mont's, ant not l'arn all t'at t'ere ist of gotliness, ant meekness, ant virtue, ant love, and piety, in t'e pottom of her soul. One tay you'll tink well of Dus, Mortaunt Littlepage."

"I!--Tell me that I shall think well of Ursula Malbone, the girl that I almost worship! Think well of her whom I now love with an intensity that I did not imagine was possible, three months since! Think well of her who fills all my waking, and not a few of my sleeping thoughts--of whom I dream--to whom I am betrothed--who has heard my vows with favor, and has cheerfully promised, all parties that are interested consenting, to become at some early day my wife!"

Old Andries heard my energetic exclamation with astonishment; and even the Indian turned his head to look on me with a gratified attention. Perceiving that I had gone so far, under an impulse I had found irresistible, I felt the necessity of being still more explicit, and of communicating all I had to say on the subject.

"Yes," I added, grasping old Andries by the hand--"Yes, Chainbearer, I shall comply with your often-expressed wishes. Again and again have you recommended your lovely niece to me as a wife, and I come now to take you at your word, and to say that nothing will make me so happy as to be able to call you uncle."

To my surprise, Chainbearer expressed no delight at this announcement. I remarked that he had said nothing to me on his favorite old subject of my marrying his niece, since my arrival at the Nest; and now, when I was not only so ready, but so anxious to meet his wishes, I could plainly see that he drew back from my proposals, and wished they had not been made. Amazed, I waited for him to speak with a disappointment and uneasiness I cannot express.

"Mortaunt! Mortaunt!" at length broke out of the old man's very heart--"I wish to Heafen you hat nefer sait t'is! I lofe you, poy, almost as much as I lofe Dus, herself; put it griefs me--it griefs me to hear you talk of marryin' t'e gal!"

"You grieve, as much as you astonish me, Chainbearer, by making such a remark! How often have you, yourself, expressed to me the wish that I might become acquainted with your niece, and love her, and marry her! Now, when I have seen her--when I have become acquainted with her--when I love her to my heart's core, and wish to make her my wife, you meet my proposals as if they were unworthy of you and yours!"

"Not so, lat--not so. Nut'in' would make me so happy as to see you t'e huspant of Dus, supposin' it coult come to pass, ant wrong pe tone to no one; put it cannot pe so. I tid talk as you say, ant a foolish, selfish, conceitet olt man I was for my pains. I wast t'en in t'e army, and we wast captains alike; ant I wast t'e senior captain, and might orter you apout, ant tid orter you apout; ant I wore an epaulette, like any ot'er captain, and hat my grandfat'er's swort at my site, ant t'ought we wast equals, ant t'at it wast an honor to marry my niece; put all t'is was changet, lat, when I came into t'e woots ag'in, ant took up my chain, ant pegan to lif, ant to work, ant to feel poor, ant to see myself as I am. No--no--Mortaunt Littlepage, t'e owner of Ravensnest, ant t'e heir of Mooseritge, ant of Satanstoe, ant of Lilacsbush, ant of all t'e fine houses, ant stores, ant farms t'at are in York ant up ant town t'e country, is not a suitaple match for Dus Malbone!"

"This is so extraordinary a notion for you to take up, Chainbearer, and so totally opposed to all I have ever before heard from you on the subject, that I must be permitted to ask where you got it?"

"From Dus Malbone, herself--yes, from her own mout', ant in her own pretty manner of speech."

"Has, then, the probability of my ever offering to your niece been a subject of conversation between you?"

"T'at hast it--t'at hast it, ant time ant ag'in, too. Sit town on t'at log of woot, ant listen to what I haf to say, ant I will tell you t'e whole story. Susquesus, you neetn't go off into t'at corner, like a gentleman as you pe; t'ough it is only an Injin gentleman; for I haf no secrets from such a frient as yourself. Come pack, t'en, Injin, ant take your olt place, close at my site, where you haf so often peen when t'e inemy wast chargin' us poltly in front." Sureflint quietly did as desired, while Chainbearer turned toward me and continued the discourse. "You wilt see, Mortaunt, poy, t'ese here are t'e fery facts ant trut' of t'e case. When I came first from camp, ant I wast full of t'e prite, ant aut'ority, ant feelin's of a soltier, I pegan to talk to Dus apout you, as I hat peen accustomed to talk to you apout Dus. Ant I tolt her what a fine, bolt, hantsome, generous, well-principlet young fellow you wast"--the reader will overlook my repeating that to which the partiality of the Chainbearer so readily gave utterance--"ant I tolt her of your sarfice in t'e wars, ant of your wit, ant how you mate us all laugh, t'ough we might pe marchin' into pattle, ant what a fat'er you hat, ant what a grantfat'er, ant all t'at a goot ant a warm frient ought to say of anot'er, when it wast true, ant when it wast tolt to a hantsome ant heart-whole young woman t'at he wishet to fall in love wit' t'at fery same frient. Well, I tolt t'is to Dus, not once, Mortaunt; nor twice; put twenty times, you may depent on it."

"Which makes me the more curious to hear what Dus could or did say in reply."

"It's t'at reply, lat, t'at makes all t'e present tifficulty petween us. For a long time Dus sait little or not'in'. Sometimes she woult look saucy ant laugh--ant you know, lat, t'e gal can do bot' of t'em t'ings as well as most young women. Sometimes she woult pegin to sing a song, all about fait'less young men, perhaps, and proken-hearted virgins. Sometimes she woult look sorrowful, ant I coult fint tears startin' in her eyes; ant t'en I pecome as soft ant feeple-hearted as a gal, myself, to see one who smiles so easily mate to shet tears."

"But how did all this end? What can possibly have occurred, to cause this great change in your own wishes?"

"Tis not so much my wishes t'at be changet, Mortaunt, ast my opinion. If a poty coult haf t'ings just as he wishet, lat, Dus ant you shoult pe man ant wife, so far as it tepentet on me, pefore t'e week ist out. Put, we are not our own masters, nor t'e masters of what ist to happen to our nephews and nieces, any more t'an we are masters of what ist to happen to ourselves. Put, I wilt tell you just how it happenet. One tay, as I wast talking to t'e gal in t'e olt way, she listenet to all I hat to say more seriously t'an ast common, ant when she answeret, it wast much in t'is manner: 'I t'ank you from t'e pottom of my heart, uncle Chainpearer,' she sait, 'not only for all t'at you haf tone for me, t'e orphan da'ghter of your sister, put for all you wish in my pehalf. I perceive t'at t'is itee of my marryin' your young frient, Mr. Mortaunt Littlepage, hast a strong holt on your feelin's, ant it ist time to talk seriously on t'at supject. When you associatet with t'at young gentleman, uncle Chainpearer, you wast Captain Coejemans, of t'e New York State line, ant his senior officer, ant it was nat'ral to s'pose your niece fit to pecome his wife. Put it ist our tuty to look at what we now are, ant are likely to remain. Major Littlepage hast a fat'er ant a mot'er, I haf he'rt you say, uncle Chainpearer, ant sisters, too; now marriage ist a most serious t'ing. It ist to last for life, ant no one shoult form sich a connection wit'out reflectin' on all its pearin's. It ist hartly possiple t'at people in t'e prosperity ant happiness of t'ese Littlepages woult wish to see an only son, ant t'e heir of t'eir name ant estates, takin' for a wife a gal out of t'e woots; one t'at is not only a chainpearer's niece, put who hast peen a chainpearer herself, ant who can pring into t'eir family no one t'ing to compensate 'em for t'e sacrifice.'"

"And you had the heart to be quiet, Andries, and let Ursula say all this?"

"Ah! lat, how coult I help it? You woult have tone it yourself, Mortaunt, coult you haf he'rt how prettily she turnet her periots, as I hef he'rt you call it, and how efery syllaple she sait come from t'e heart. T'en t'e face of t'e gal wast enough to convince me t'at she wast right; she looket so 'arnest, ant sat, ant peautiful, Mortaunt! No, no; when an itee comes into t'e mint, wit' t'e ait of sich worts and looks, my poy, 'tis not an easy matter to get rit of it."

"You do not seriously mean to say, Chainbearer, that you will refuse me Dus?"

"Dus will do t'at herself, lat; for she ist still a chainpearer's niece, ant you are still General Littlepage's son ant heir. Try her, ant see what she wilt say."

"But I have tried her, as you call it; have told her of my love; have offered her my hand, and----"

"Ant what?"

"Why, she does not answer me as you say she answered you."

"Hast t'e gal sait she woult haf you, Mortaunt? Hast she said yes?"

"Conditionally she has. If my grandmother cheerfully consent, and my parents do the same; and my sister Kettletas and her husband, and my laughing, merry Kate, then Dus will accept me."

"T'is ist strange! Ah! I see how it is; t'e gal has seen you, and peen much wit' you, ant talket wit' you, ant sung wit' you, ant laughet wit' you; ant I s'pose, a'ter all, t'at will make a tifference in her judgment of you. I'm a patchelor, Mortaunt, ant haf no wife, nor any sweetheart, put it ist easy enough to comprehent how all t'ese matters must make a fery great tifference. I'm glat, howsefer, t'at t'e tifference is not so great as to make t'e gal forget all your frients; for if efery poty consents, ant is cheerful, why t'en my pein' a chainbearer, and Dus pein' so poor ant forsaken like, will not pe so likely to be rememperet hereafter, and bring you pitter t'oughts."

"Andries Coejemans, I swear to you, I would rather become your nephew at this moment, than become the son-in-law of Washington himself, had he a daughter."

"T'at means you'd rat'er haf Dus, t'an any ot'er gal of your acquaintance. T'at's nat'ral enough, and may make me look like his excellency, for a time, in your eyes; put when you come to t'ink and feel more coolly, my tear poy, t'ere ist t'e tanger t'at you wilt see some tifference petween t'e captain-general and commanter-in-chief of all t'e American armies, and a poor chainpearer, who in his pest tays was nut'in' more t'an a captain in t'e New York line. I know you lofe me, Mortaunt; put t'ere ist tanger t'at it might not pe exactly an uncle and nephew's love in t'e long run. I am only a poor Tutchman, when all is sait, wit'out much etication, ant wit' no money, ant not much more manners; while you've peen to college, and pe college l'arn't, ant pe as gay ant gallant a spark as can pe fount in t'e States, as we call t'e olt colonies now. Wast you a Yankee, Mortaunt, I'd see you marriet, and unmarriet twenty times, pefore I'd own as much as t'is; put a man may pe sensible of his ignorance, ant pat etication, and weaknesses, wit'out wishin' to pe tolt of it to his face, and laughed at apout it, py efery A B C scholar t'at comes out of New Englant. No, no--I'm a poor Tutchman, I know; ant a poty may say as much to a frient, when he woult tie pefore he woult own t'ere wast any t'ing poor apout it to an inimy."

"I would gladly pursue this discourse, Andries, and bring it to a happy termination," I answered; "but here come the squatters in a body, and I suppose some movement or proposal is in the wind. We will defer our matter, then; you remembering that I agree to none of your opinions or decisions. Dus is to be mine, if indeed we can protect her against the grasp of these wretches. I have something to say on that subject, too; but this is not the moment to utter it."

Chainbearer seized my hand, and gave it a friendly pressure, which terminated the discourse. On the subject of the intentions of Thousandacres toward Dus, I was now not altogether free from uneasiness; though the tumult of rapturous feeling through which I had just passed drove it temporarily from my mind. I had no apprehensions that Ursula Malbone would ever be induced, by ordinary means, to become the wife of Zephaniah; but I trembled as to what might be the influence of menaces against her uncle and myself. Nor was I altogether easy on the score of the carrying out of those menaces. It often happens with crime, as in the commission of ordinary sins, that men are impelled by circumstances, which drive them to deeds from which they would have recoiled in horror, had the consummation been directly presented to their minds, without the intervention of any mediate causes. But the crisis was evidently approaching, and I waited with as much calmness as I could assume for its development. As for Chainbearer, being still ignorant of the conversation I had overheard in the mill, he had no apprehensions of evil from the source of my greatest dread.

The day had advanced, all this time, and the sun had set, and night was close upon us, as Tobit and his brethren came to the door of our prison, and called upon Chainbearer and myself to come forth, leaving Susquesus behind. We obeyed with alacrity; for there was a species of liberty in being outside of those logs, with my limbs unfettered, though a vigilant watch was kept over us both. On each side of me walked an armed man, and Chainbearer was honored with a similar guard. For all this, old Andries cared but little. He knew and I knew that the time could not be very distant when we might expect to hear from Frank Malbone; and every minute that went by added to our confidence in this respect.

We were about half-way between the storehouse and the dwelling of Thousandacres, toward which our steps were directed, when Andries suddenly stopped, and asked leave to say a word to me in private. Tobit was at a loss how to take this request; but, there being an evident desire to keep on reasonably good terms with Chainbearer, after a short pause he consented to form an extended ring with his brothers, leaving me and my old friend in its centre.

"I'll tell you what I t'ink atvisaple in t'is matter," commenced Andries, in a sort of whisper. "It cannot pe long afore Malpone will be pack wit' t'e posse ant constaples, ant so fort'; now, if we tell t'ese rapscallions t'at we want taylight to meet our inimies in, ant t'at we haf no stomach for nightwork, perhaps t'ey'll carry us pack to jail, ant so gif more time to Frank to get here."

"It will be much better, Chainbearer, to prolong our interview with these squatters, so that you and I may be at large, or at least not shut up in the storehouse, when Malbone makes his appearance. In the confusion we may even escape and join our friends, which will be a thousand times better than to be found within four walls."

Andries nodded his head, in sign of acquiescence, and thenceforth he seemed to aim at drawing things out, in order to gain time, instead of bringing them to a speedy conclusion. As soon as our discourse was ended, the young men closed round us again, and we moved on in a body.

Darkness being so close upon us, Thousandacres had determined to hold his court, this time, within the house, having a care to a sufficient watchfulness about the door. There is little variation in the internal distribution of the room of what may be called an American cottage. About two-thirds of the space is given to the principal apartment, which contains the fireplace,[18] and is used for all the purposes of kitchen and sitting-room, while the rest of the building is partitioned into three several subdivisions. One of these subdivisions is commonly a small bedroom; another is the buttery, and the third holds the stairs, or ladders, by which to ascend to the loft, or to descend to the cellar. Such was the arrangement of the dwelling of Thousandacres, and such is the arrangement in thousands of other similar buildings throughout the land. The thriving husbandman is seldom long contented, however, with such narrow and humble accommodations; but the framed house, of two stories in height, and with five windows in front, usually soon succeeds this cottage, in his case. It is rare, indeed, that any American private edifice has more than five windows in front, the few exceptions which do exist to the rule being residences of mark, and the supernumerary windows are generally to be found in wings. Some of our old, solid, substantial, stone country houses occasionally stretch themselves out to eight or nine apertures of this sort, but they are rare. I cannot gossip here, however, about country houses and windows, when I have matters so grave before me to relate.

In the forest, and especially in the newer portions of New York, the evenings are apt to be cool, even in the warm months. That memorable night, I well remember, had a sharpness about it that threatened even a frost, and Prudence had lighted a fire on the yawning hearth of her rude chimney. By the cheerful blaze of that fire, which was renewed from time to time by dried brush, the American frontier substitute for the fagot, were the scenes I am about to mention enacted.

We found all the males, and several of the females, assembled in the large apartment of the building I have described, when Chainbearer and myself entered. The wife of Tobit, with one or two of the sisterhood, however, were absent; doubtless in attendance on Dus Lowiny, I remarked, stood quite near the fire, and the countenance of the girl seemed to me to be saddened and thoughtful. I trust I shall not be accused of being a coxcomb, if I add that the idea crossed my mind that the appearance and manners of a youth so much superior to those with whom she was accustomed to associate had made a slight impression on this girl's--I will not say heart, for imagination would be the better word--and had awakened sympathies that manifested themselves in her previous conduct; while the shade that was now cast across her brow came quite as much from the scene she had witnessed between myself and Dus, near the rock, as from seeing me again a prisoner. The friendship of this girl might still be of importance to me, and still more so to Ursula, and I will acknowledge that the apprehension of losing it was far from pleasant. I could only wait for the developments of time however, in order to reach any certainty on this, as well as on other most interesting topics.

Thousandacres had the civility to order us chairs, and we took our seats accordingly. On looking round the grave and attentive circle, I could trace no new signs of hostility; but, on the contrary, the countenances of all seemed more pacific than they were when we parted. I considered this as an omen that I and my friend should receive some propositions that tended toward peace. In this I was not mistaken; the first words that were uttered having that character.

"It's time this matter atween us, Chainbearer," commenced Thousandacres himself, "should be brought to suthin' like an eend. It keeps the b'ys from their lumberin', and upsets my whull family. I call myself a reasonable man; and be as ready to settle a difficulty on as accommodatin' tarms as any parson you'll find by lookin' up and down the land. Many is the difficulty that I've settled in my day; and I'm not too old to settle 'em now. Sometimes I've fit out, when I've fell in with an obstinate fellow; sometimes I've left it out to men; and sometimes I've settled matters myself. No man can say he ever know'd me refuse to hearken to reason, or know'd me to gi'n up a just cause, so long as there was a morsel of a chance to defend it. When overpowered by numbers, and look'd down by your accursed law, as you call it, I'll own that, once or twice in my time, when young and inexper'enced, I did get the worst of it; and so was obliged to sort o' run away. But use makes parfect. I've seen so much, by seventy odd, as to have l'arnt to take time by the forelock, and don't practyse delays in business. I look upon you, Chainbearer, as a man much like myself, reasonable, exper'enced, and willin' to accommodate. I see no great difficulty, therefore, in settlin' this matter on the spot, so as to have no more hard feelin's or hot words atween us. Sich be my notions; and I should like to hear your'n."

"Since you speak to me, T'ousantacres, in so polite and civil a manner, I'm reaty to hear you, ant to answer in t'e same temper," returned old Andries, his countenance losing much of the determined and angry expression with which he had taken his seat in the circle. "T'ere ist nuttin' t'at more pecomes a man t'an moteration; ant an olt man in partic'lar. I do not t'ink, however, t'at t'ere ist much resemplance petween you ant me, T'ousantacres, in any one t'ing, except it pe in olt age. We're pot' of us pretty well atvancet, ant haf reachet a time of life when it pehooves a man to examine ant reflect on t'e great trut's t'at are to pe fount in his piple. T'e piple ist a pook, Aaron, t'at ist not enough re't in t'e woots; t'ough Almighty Got hast all t'e same rights to t'e sacrifices ant worship of his creatures in t'e forest, as to t'e worship and sacrifices of his creatures in t'e settlements. I'm not a tellin' you t'is, T'ousantacres, py way of showin' off my own l'arnin'; for all I know on the supject, myself, I haf got from Dus, my niece, who ist as goot, ant as willin', ant as hanty in explainin' sich matters, as any tominie I ever talket wit'. I wish you would listen to her, yourself; you and Prutence; when I t'ink you woult allow t'at her tiscourse ist fery etifyin' ant improfin'. Now you seem in t'e right temper, ist a goot time to pe penefitet in t'at way; for t'ey tell me my niece ist here, ant at hant."

"She is; and I rej'ice that you have brought her name into the discourse so 'arly; as it was my design to mention it myself. I see we think alike about the young woman, Chainbearer, and trust and believe she'll be the means of reconciling all parties, and of making us good fri'nds. I've sent for the gal; and she'll soon be coming along, with Tobit's wife, who sets by her wonderfully already."

"Well, talkin' of wonterful t'ings, wonters wilt never cease, I do pelieve!" Chainbearer exclaimed, for he really believed that the family of the squatter was taken suddenly with a "religious turn," and that something like a conversion was about to occur. "Yes, yes; it ist so; we meet wit' wonters when we least expect 'em; and t'at it is t'at makes wonters so wonterful!"

CHAPTER XXV.

"Yes, Hastings, these are they
Who challenge to themselves thy country's love;
The true, the constant, who alone can weigh
What glory should demand, or liberty approve!"

--Akenside.

A pause succeeded this little opening, during which the assembly was waiting for the arrival of Ursula Malbone, and the semi-savage guardian that "set" so much by her, as not to leave her out of sight for a moment. All that time Thousandacres was ruminating on his own plans; while old Andries was probably reflecting on the singular circumstances that "wonters shoult pe so wonterful!" At length a little bustle and movement occurred near the door, the crowd collected in it opened, and Dus walked into the centre of the room, her color heightened by excitement, but her step firm, and her air full of spirit. At first, the blazing light affected her sight, and she passed a hand over her eyes. Then looking around I met her gaze, and was rewarded for all my anxiety by one of those glances, into which affection knows how to infuse so much that is meaning and eloquent. I was thus favored for a moment only; those eyes still turning until they met the fond, answering look of Chainbearer. The old man had arisen, and he now received his niece in his arms, as a parent would embrace a beloved child.

That outpouring of feeling lasted but a little while. It had been unpremeditated and impulsive, and was almost as suddenly suppressed. It gave me, however, the happiness of witnessing one of the most pleasant sights that man can behold; that of youth, and beauty, and delicacy, and female tenderness, pouring out their feelings on the bosom of age--on the ruder qualities of one hardened in person by the exposures of a life passed in the forest. To me the contrast between the fair, golden hair of Dus, and the few straggling, bleached locks of her uncle; the downy, peach-like cheek of the girl, and the red, wrinkled, and sun-dried countenance of Chainbearer, was perfectly delightful. It said how deep must lie those sympathies of our nature, which could bring together so closely two so differently constituted in all things, and set at defiance the apparent tendencies of taste and habit.

Dus suffered herself to be thus carried away by her feelings for only a moment. Accustomed in a degree, as she certainly was, to the rough associations of the woods, this was the first time she had ever been confronted with such an assembly, and I could see that she drew back into herself with womanly reserve, as she now gazed around her, and saw in what a wild and unwonted presence she stood. Still, I had never seen her look so supremely lovely as she did that evening, for she threw Pris Bayard and Kate, with all their advantages of dress and freedom from exposure, far into the shade. Perhaps the life of Ursula Malbone had given to her beauty the very completeness and fullness, that are most apt to be wanting to the young American girl, who has been educated in the over-tender and delicate manner of our ordinary parental indulgence. Of air and exercise she had already enjoyed enough, and they had imparted to her bloom and person the richness and development that are oftener found in the subordinate than in the superior classes of the country.

As for Thousandacres, though he watched every movement of Ursula Malbone with jealous interest, he said nothing to interrupt the current of her feelings. As soon as she left her uncle's arms, however, Dus drew back and took the rude seat that I had placed for her close to Chainbearer's side. I was paid for this little act of attention by a sweet smile from its subject, and a lowering look from the old squatter, that admonished me of the necessity of being cautious of manifesting too much of the interest I felt in the beloved object before me. As is usual in assemblages composed of the rude and unpractised, a long, awkward pause succeeded this introduction of Dus to our presence. After a time, however, Aaron resumed the subject in hand.

"We've met to settle all our difficulties, as I was sayin'," observed Thousandacres, in a manner as deliberative and considerate as if he were engaged in one of the most blameless pursuits of life, the outward appearances of virtue and vice possessing a surprising resemblance to each other. "When men get together on sich a purpose, and in a right spirit, it must be that there's a fault somewhere, if what's right can't be come at atween 'em. What's right atwixt man and man is my creed, Chainbearer."

"What's right petween man ant man is a goot creet, T'ousantacres; ant it's a goot religion, too," answered Andries, coldly.

"That it is! that it is! and I now see that you're in a reasonable temper, Chainbearer, and that there's a prospect of business in you. I despise a man that's so set in his notions that there's no gettin' him to give in an inch in a transaction--don't you hold to that, too, Captain Andries?"

"T'at depents on what t'e notions pe. Some notions do nopoty any goot, ant t'e sooner we're rit of 'em t'e petter; while some notions pe so fery excellent t'at a man hat pest lay town his life as lay t'em town."

This answer puzzled Thousandacres, who had no idea of a man's ever dying for opinion's sake; and who was probably anxious, just at that moment, to find his companion sufficiently indifferent to principle to make some sacrifices to expediency. It was quite evident this man was disposed to practise a ruse on this occasion, that is often resorted to by individuals, and sometimes by states, when disposed to gain a great advantage out of a very small right; that of demanding much more than they expect to receive, and of making a great merit of yielding points that they never had the smallest claim to maintain. But this disposition of the squatter's will make itself sufficiently apparent as we proceed.

"I don't see any use in talkin' about layin' down lives," Thousandacres returned to Chainbearer's remark, "seein' this is not a life and death transaction at all. The most that can be made of squattin', give the law its full swing, is trespass and damages, and them an't matters to frighten a man that has stood out ag'in 'em all his days. We're pretty much sich crittur's as sarcumstances make us. There be men, I don't question, that a body can skear half out of their wits with a writ, while a whull flock of sheep, skins and wool united, wunt intimidate them that's used to sich things. I go on the principle of doin' what's right, let the law say what it will of the matter; and this is the principle on which I wish to settle our present difficulty."

"Name your tarms--name your tarms!" cried Chainbearer, a little impatiently; "talkin' ist talkin', all t'e worlt ofer, ant actin' ist actin'. If you haf anyt'ing to propose, here we are, reaty ant willin' to hear it."

"That's hearty, and just my way of thinkin' and feelin', and I'll act up to it, though it was the gospel of St. Paul himself, and I was set on followin' it. Here, then, is the case, and any man can understand it. There's two rights to all the land on 'arth, and the whull world over. One of these rights is what I call a king's right, or that which depends on writin's, and laws, and sichlike contrivances; and the other depends on possession. It stands to reason, that fact is better than any writin' about it can be; but I'm willin' to put 'em on a footin' for the time bein', and for the sake of accommodatin'. I go all for accommodatin' matters, and not for stirrin' up ill blood; and that I tell Chainbearer, b'ys, is the right spirit to presarve harmony and fri'ndship!"

This appeal was rewarded by a murmur of general approbation in all that part of the audience which might be supposed to be in the squatter interest, while the part that might be called adverse, remained silent, though strictly attentive, old Andries included.

"Yes, that's my principles," resumed Thousandacres, taking a hearty draught of cider, a liquor of which he had provided an ample allowance, passing the mug civilly to Chainbearer, as soon as he had his swallow. "Yes, that's my principles, and good principles they be, for them that likes peace and harmony, as all must allow. Now, in this matter afore us, General Littlepage and his partner ripresents writin's, and I and mine ripresent fact. I don't say which is the best, for I don't want to be hard on any man's rights, and 'specially when the accommodatin' spirit is up and doin'; but I'm fact, and the gin'ral's pretty much writin's. But difficulties has sprung up atwixt us, and it's high time to put 'em down. I look upon you, Chainbearer, as the fri'nd of the t'other owners of this sile, and I'm now ready to make proposals, or to hear them, just as it may prove convenient."

"I haf no proposals to make, nor any aut'ority to offer t'em. I'm nut'in here put a chainpearer, wit' a contract to survey t'e patent into small lots, ant t'en my tuty ist tone. Put, here ist General Littlepage's only son, ant he ist empoweret, I unterstant, to do all t'at is necessary on t'is tract, as t'e attorney----"

"He is and he isn't an attorney!" interrupted Thousandacres, a little fiercely for one in whom "the accommodatin' spirit is up." "At one moment he says he's an attorney, and at the next he isn't. I can't stand this onsartainty any very great while."

"Pooh, pooh! T'ousantacres," returned Chainbearer, coolly, "you're frightenet at your own shadow; ant t'at comes, let me telt you, from not lifing in 'peace and harmony,' as you call it, yourself, wit' t'e law. A man hast a conscience, whet'er he pe a skinner or a cowboy, or efen a squatter; and he hast it, pecause Got has gifen it to him, and not on account of any sarfices of his own. T'at conscience it is, t'at makes my young frient Mortaunt here an attorney in your eyes, when he ist no more of a lawyer t'an you pe yourself."

"Why has he called himself an attorney, then, and why do you call him one? An attorney is an attorney, in my eyes, and little difference is there atween 'em. Rattlesnakes would fare better in a clearin' of Thousandacres' than the smartest attorney in the land!"

"Well, well, haf your own feelin's; for I s'pose Satan has put 'em into you, ant talkin' won't pring t'em out. T'is young gentleman, however, ist no attorney of t'e sort you mean, old squatter, put he hast been a soltier, like myself, ant in my own regiment, which wast his fat'er's, ant a prave young man he ist ant wast, ant one t'at has fou't gallantly for liperty----"

"If he's a fri'nd of liberty, he should be a fri'nd of liberty's people; should give liberty and take liberty. Now I call it liberty to let every man have as much land as he has need on, and no more, keepin' the rest for them that's in the same situation. If he and his father be true fri'nds of liberty, let 'em prove it like men, by giving up all claims to any more land than they want. That's what I call liberty! Let every man have as much land as he's need on; that's my religion, and it's liberty, too."[19]

"Why are you so moterate, T'ousantacres? why are you so unreasonaply moterate? Why not say t'at efery man hast a right to efery t'hing he hast need of, and so make him comfortaple at once! T'ere is no wistom in toin' t'ings by hafs, ant it ist always petter to surfey all t'e lant you want, while t'e compass is set ant t'e chains pe going. It's just as much liperty to haf a right to share in a man's tollars, as to share in his lants."

"I don't go as far as that, Chainbearer," put in Thousandacres, with a degree of moderation that ought to put the enemies of his principles to the blush. "Money is what a man 'arns himself, and he has a right to it, and so I say let him keep it; but land is necessary, and every man has a right to as much as he has need on--I wouldn't give him an acre more, on no account at all."

"Put money wilt puy lant; ant, in sharin' t'e tollars, you share t'e means of puyin' as much lant as a man hast neet of; t'en t'ere ist a great teal more lant ast money in t'is country, ant, in gifin' a man lant, you only gif him t'at which ist so cheap ant common, t'at he must pe a poor tefil if he can't get all t'e lant he wants wit'out much trouple and any squattin', if you wilt only gif him ever so little money. No, no, T'ousantacres--you're fery wrong; you shoult pegin to tivite wit' t'e tollars, ant t'at wilt not tisturp society, as tollars are in t'e pocket, ant go ant come efery day; whereast lant is a fixture, and some people lofe t'eir own hills, ant rocks, ant trees--when t'ey haf peen long in a family most especially."

There was a dark scowl gathering on the brow of Thousandacres, partly because he felt himself puzzled by the upright and straightforward common sense of Chainbearer, and partly for a reason that he himself made manifest in the answer that he quite promptly gave to my old friend's remarks.

"No man need say anything ag'in squattin' that wants to keep fri'nds with me," Thousandacres put in, with certain twitchings about the muscles of the mouth, that were so many signs of his being in earnest. "I hold to liberty and a man's rights, and that is no reason I should be deflected on. My notions be other men's notions, I know, though they be called squatters' notions. Congressmen have held 'em, and will hold 'em ag'in, if they expect much support, in some parts of the country, at election time. I dare say the day will come when governors will be found to hold 'em. Governors be but men a'ter all, and must hold doctrines that satisfy men's wants, or they won't be governors long.[20] But all this is nuthin' but talk, and I want to come to suthin' like business, Chainbearer. Here's this clearin', and here's the lumber. Now, I'm willin' to settle on some sich tarms as these: I'll keep the lumber, carryin' it off as soon as the water gets to be high enough, agreein' to pay for the privilege by not fellin' another tree, though I must have the right to saw up sich logs as be cut and hauled already; and then, as to the land and clearin', if the writin' owners want 'em, they can have 'em by payin' for the betterments, leavin' the price out to men in this neighborhood, sin' city-bred folks can't know nothin' of the toil and labor of choppin', and loggin', and ashin', and gettin' in, and croppin' new lands."

"Mortaunt, t'at proposal ist for you. I haf nut'in' to do wit' t'e clearin' put to surfey it; and t'at much will I perform, when I get as far ast t'e place, come t'ere goot, or come t'ere efil of it."

"Survey this clearin'!" put in Tobit, with his raven throat, and certainly in a somewhat menacing tone. "No, no, Chainbearer--the man is not out in the woods, that could ever get his chain across this clearin'."

"T'at man, I tell you, is Andries Coejemans, commonly called Chainpearer," answered my old friend, calmly. "No clearin', ant no squatter, ever stoppet him yet, nor do I t'ink he will pe stoppet here, from performin' his tuty. Put praggin' is a pat quality, ant we'll leaf time to show t'e trut'."

Thousandacres gave a loud hem, and looked very dark, though he said nothing until time had been given to his blood to resume its customary current. Then he pursued the discourse as follows--evidently bent on keeping on good terms with Chainbearer as long as possible.

"On the whull," he said, "I rather think, Tobit, 'twill be best if you leave this matter altogether to me. Years cool the blood, and allow time to reason to spread. Years be as necessary to judgment as a top to a fruit-tree. I kind o' b'lieve that Chainbearer and I, being both elderly and considerate men, will be apt to get along best together. I dare say, Chainbearer, that if the surveyin' of this clearin' be put to you on the footin' of defiance, that your back would get up, like anybody else's, and you'd bring on the chain, let who might stand in your way. But that's neither here nor there. You're welcome to chain out just as much of this part of the patent as you see fit, and 'twill help us along so much the better when we come to the trade. Reason's reason, and I'm of an accommodatin' spirit."

"So much t'e better, T'ousantacres; yes, so much t'e better," answered old Andries, somewhat mollified by the conciliatory temper in which the squatter now delivered himself. "When work ist to pe performet, it must pe performet; ant, as I'm hiret to surfey and chain t'e whole estate, t'e whole estate must be chainet ant surfeyet. Well, what else haf you to say?"

"I am not answered as to my first offer. I'll take the lumber, agreein' not to cut another tree, and the valie of the betterments can be left out to men."

"I am the proper person to answer this proposal," I thought it now right to say, lest Andries and Thousandacres should get to loggerheads again on some minor and immaterial point, and thus endanger every hope of keeping the peace until Malbone could arrive. "At the same time, I consider it no more than right to tell you, at once, that I have no power that goes so far as to authorize me to agree to your terms. Both Colonel Follock and my father have a stern sense of justice, and neither, in my opinion, will feel much of a disposition to yield to any conditions that, in the least, may have the appearance of compromising any of their rights as landlords. I have heard them both say that, in these particulars, 'yielding an inch would be giving an ell,' and I confess that, from all I have seen lately of settlers and settlements, I'm very much of the same way of thinking. My principals may concede something, but they'll never treat on a subject of which all the right is on their own side."

"Am I to understand you, young man, that you're onaccommodatin', and that my offers isn't to be listened to, in the spirit in which they're made?" demanded Thousandacres, somewhat dryly.

"You are to understand me as meaning exactly what I say, sir. In the first place, I have no authority to accept your offers, and shall not assume any, let the consequences to myself be what they may. Indeed, any promises made in duresse are good for nothing."

"Anan!" cried the squatter. "This is Mooseridge Patent, and Washington, late Charlotte County--and this is the place we are to sign and seal in, if writin's pass atween us."

"By promises made in duresse, I mean promises made while the party making them is in confinement, or not absolutely free to make them or not; such promises are good for nothing in law, even though all the 'writings' that could be drawn passed between the parties."

"This is strange doctrine, and says but little for your boasted law, then! At one time, it asks for writin's, and nothin' but writin's will answer; and then all the writin's on 'arth be of no account! Yet some folks complain, and have hard feelin's, if a man wunt live altogether up to law!"

"I rather think, Thousandacres, you overlook the objects of the law, in its naked regulations. Law is to enforce the right, and were it to follow naked rules, without regard to principles, it might become the instrument of effecting the very mischiefs it is designed to counteract."

I might have spared myself the trouble of uttering this fine speech; which caused the old squatter to stare at me in wonder, and produced a smile among the young men, and a titter among the females. I observed, however, that the anxious face of Lowiny expressed admiration, rather than the feeling that was so prevalent among the sisterhood.

"There's no use in talkin' to this young spark, Chainbearer," Thousandacres said, a little impatiently in the way of manner, too; "he's passed his days in the open country, and has got open-country ways, and notions, and talk; and them's things I don't pretend to understand. You're woods, mainly; he's open country; and I'm clearin'. There's a difference atween each; but woods and clearin' come clussest; and so I'll say my say to you. Be you, now, r'ally disposed to accommodate, or not, old Andries?"

"Any t'ing t'at ist right, ant just, ant reasonaple, T'ousantacres; ant nut'in' t'at ist not."

"That's just my way of thinkin'! If the law, now, would do as much as that for a man, the attorneys would soon starve. Wa-a-l, we'll try now to come to tarms, as soon as possible. You're a single man, I know, Chainbearer; but I've always supposed 'twas on account of no dislike to the married state, but because you didn't chance to light on the right gal; or maybe on account of the surveyin' principle, which keeps a man pretty much movin' about from tract to tract; though not much more than squattin' doos, neither, if the matter was inquired into."

I understood the object of this sudden change from fee-simples, and possessions, and the "accommodatin' spirit," to matrimony; but Chainbearer did not. He only looked his surprise; while, as to myself, if I looked at all as I felt, I must have been the picture of uneasiness. The beloved, unconscious Dus sat there in her maiden beauty, interested and anxious in her mind, beyond all question, but totally ignorant of the terrible blow that was meditated against herself. As Andries looked his desire to hear more, instead of answering the strange remark he had just heard, Thousandacres proceeded, "It's quite nat'ral to think of matrimony, afore so many young folks, isn't it, Chainbearer?" added the squatter, chuckling at his own conceits. "Here's lots of b'ys and gals about me; and I'm just as accommodatin' in findin' husbands or wives for my fri'nds and neighbors, as I am in settlin' all other difficulties. Anything for peace and a good neighborhood is my religion!"

Old Andries passed a hand over his eyes, in the way one is apt to do when he wishes to aid a mental effort by external application. It was evident he was puzzled to find out what the squatter would be at, though he soon put a question that brought about something like an explanation.

"I ton't unterstant you, T'ousantacres;--no, I ton't unterstant you. Is it your tesire to gif me one of your puxom ant fine-lookin' gals, here, for a wife?"

The squatter laughed heartily at this notion, the young men joining in the mirth; while the constant titter that the females had kept up ever since the subject of matrimony was introduced, was greatly augmented in zest. An indifferent spectator would have supposed that the utmost good feeling prevailed among us.

"With all my heart, Chainbearer, if you can persuade any of the gals to have you!" cried Thousandacres, with the most apparent acquiescence. "With such a son-in-law, I don't know but I should take to the chain, a'ter all, and measure out my clearin's as well as the grandee farmers, who take pride in knowin' where their lines be. There's Lowiny, she's got no spark, and might suit you well enough, if she'd only think so."

"Lowiny don't think any sich thing; and isn't likely to think any sich thing," answered the girl, in a quick, irritated manner.

"Wa-a-l, I do s'pose, a'ter all, Chainbearer," Thousandacres resumed, "we'll get no weddin' out of you. Three-score-and-ten is somewhat late for takin' a first wife; though I've known widowers marry ag'in when hard on upon ninety. When a man has taken one wife in 'arly life, he has a kind o' right to another in old age."

"Yes--yes--or a hundred either," put in Prudence, with spirit. "Give 'em a chance only, and they'll find wives as long as they can find breath to ask women to have 'em! Gals, you may make up your minds to that--no man will mourn long for any on you, a'ter you're once dead and buried."

I should think this little sally must have been somewhat common, as neither the "b'ys" nor the "gals" appeared to give it much attention. These matrimonial insinuations occur frequently in the world, and Prudence was not the first woman, by a million, who had ventured to make them.

"I will own I was not so much thinkin' of providin' a wife for you, Chainbearer, as I was thinkin' of providin' one for a son of mine," continued Thousandacres. "Here's Zephaniah, now, is as active and hard-workin', upright, honest and obedient a young man as can be found in this country. He's of a suitable age, and begins to think of a wife. I tell him to marry, by all means, for it's the blessedest condition of life, is the married state, that man ever entered into. You wouldn't think it, perhaps, on lookin' at old Prudence, there, and beholdin' what she now is; but I speak from exper'ence in recommendin' matrimony; and I wouldn't, on no account, say what I didn't really think in the matter. A little matrimony might settle all our difficulties, Chainbearer."

"You surely do not expect me to marry your son, Zephaniah, I must s'pose, T'ousantacres!" answered Andries, innocently.

The laugh, this time, was neither as loud or as general as before, intense expectation rendering the auditors grave.

"No, no; I'll excuse you from that, of a sartainty, old Andries; though you may have Lowiny, if you can only prevail on the gal. But, speakin' of Zephaniah, I can r'ally ricommend the young man; a thing I'd never do if he didn't desarve it, though he is my son. No one can say that I'm in the habit of ever ricommendin' my own things, even to the boards. The lumber of Thousandacres is as well known in all the markets below, they tell me, as the flour of any miller in the highest credit. It's just so with the b'ys, better lads is not to be met with; and I can ricommend Zephaniah with just as much confidence as I could ricommend any lot of boards I ever rafted."

"And what haf I to do wit' all t'is?" asked Chainbearer, gravely.

"Why, the matter is here, Chainbearer, if you'll only look a little into it. There's difficulty atween us, and pretty serious difficulty, too. In me the accommodatin' spirit is up, as I've said afore, and am willin' to say ag'in. Now I've my son, Zeph, here, as I've said, and he's lookin' about for a wife; and you've a niece here--Dus Malbone, I s'pose is her name--and they'd just suit each other. It seems they're acquainted somewhat, and have kept company some time already, and that'll make things smooth. Now what I offer is just this, and no more; not a bit of it. I offer to send off for a magistrate, and I'll do't at my own expense; it shan't cost you a farthin'; and as soon as the magistrate comes, we'll have the young folks married on the spot, and that will make etarnal peace forever, as you must suppose, atween you and me. Wa-a-l, peace made atween us, 'twill leave but little to accommodate with the writin' owners of the sile, seein' that you are on tarms with em' all, that a body may set you down all as one as bein' of the same family, like. If Gin'ral Littlepage makes a p'int of anything of the sort, I'll engage no one of my family, in all futur' time, shall ever squat on any lands he may lay claim to, whether he owns em or not."

I saw quite plainly that at first Chainbearer did not fully comprehend the nature of the squatter's proposal. Neither did Dus herself; though somewhat prepared for such a thing by her knowledge of Zephaniah's extravagant wishes on the subject. But when Thousandacres spoke plainly of sending for a magistrate, and of having "the young folks married on the spot," it was not easy to mistake his meaning, and astonishment was soon succeeded by offended pride, in the breast of old Andries, and that to a degree and in a manner I had never before witnessed in him. Perhaps I ought, in justice to my excellent friend, to add that his high principles and keen sense of right were quite as much wounded by the strange proposal as his personal feelings. It was some time before he could or would speak; when he did, it was with a dignity and severity of manner which I really had no idea he could assume. The thought of Ursula Malbone's being sacrificed to such a being as Zephaniah, and such a family as the squatter's, shocked all his sensibilities, and appeared for a moment to overcome him. On the other hand, nothing was plainer than that the breed of Thousandacres saw no such violation of the proprieties in their scheme. The vulgar, almost invariably, in this country, reduce the standard of distinction to mere money; and in this respect they saw, or fancied they saw, that Dus was not much better off than they were themselves. All those points which depended on taste, refinement, education, habits and principles, were Hebrew to them; and, quite as a matter of course, they took no account of qualities they could neither see nor comprehend. It is not surprising, therefore, that they could imagine the young squatter might make a suitable husband to one who was known to have carried chain in the forest.

"I pelieve I do begin to unterstant you, T'ousantacres," said the Chainbearer, rising from his chair, and moving to the side of his niece as if instinctively to protect her; "t'ough it ist not a fery easy t'ing to comprehent such a proposal. You wish Ursula Malpone to pecome t'e wife of Zephaniah T'ousantacres, ant t'ereupon you wish to patch up a peace wit' General Littlepage and Colonel Follock, ant optain an intemnity for all t'e wrong ant roppery you have done 'em----"

"Harkee, old Chainbearer; you'd best be kearful of your language----"

"Hear what t'at language ist to pe, pefore you interrupt me, T'ousantacres. A wise man listens pefore he answers. Alt'ough I haf nefer peen marriet myself, I know what ist tecent in pehavior, ant, t'erefore, I wilt t'ank you for t'e wish of pein' connectet wit' t'e Coejemans ant t'e Malpones. T'at tuty tone, I wish to say t'at my niece wilt not haf your poy----"

"You haven't given the gal a chance to speak for herself," cried Thousandacres, at the top of his voice, for he began to be agitated now with a fury that found a little vent in that manner. "You haven't given the gal a chance to answer for herself, old Andries. Zeph is a lad that she may go farther and fare worse, afore she'll meet his equal, I can tell you, though perhaps, bein' the b'y's own father, I shouldn't say it--but, in the way of accommodatin', I'm willin' to overlook a great deal."

"Zephaniah's an excellent son," put in Prudence, in the pride and feeling of a mother, nature having its triumph in her breast as well as in that of the most cultivated woman of the land. "Of all my sons, Zephaniah is the best; and I account him fit to marry with any who don't live in the open country, and with many that do."

"Praise your goots, ant extol your poy, if you see fit," answered Chainbearer, with a calmness that I knew bespoke some desperate resolution. "Praise your goots, ant extol your poy, I'll not teny your right to do as much of t'at as you wish; put t'is gal was left me py an only sister on her tyin' pet, ant may God forget me, when I forget the tuty I owe to her. She shalt nefer marry a son of T'ousantacres--she shalt nefer marry a squatter--she shalt nefer marry any man t'at ist not of a class, ant feelin's, ant hapits, and opinions, fit to pe t'e huspant of a laty!"

A shout of derision, in which was blended the fierce resentment of mortified pride, arose among that rude crew, but the thundering voice of Thousandacres made itself audible, even amid the hellish din.

"Beware, Chainbearer; beware how you aggravate us; natur' can't and won't bear everything."

"I want nut'in' of you or yours, T'ousantacres," calmly returned the old man, passing his arm around the waist of Dus, who clung to him, with a cheek that was flushed to fire, but an eye that was not accustomed to quail, and who seemed, at that fearful moment, every way ready and able to second her uncle's efforts. "You're nut'in' to me, ant I'll leaf you here, in your misteets ant wicket t'oughts. Stant asite, I orter you. Do not tare to stop t'e brod'er who is apout to safe his sister's da'ghter from pecoming a squatter's wife. Stant asite, for I'll stay wit' you no longer. An hour or two hence, miseraple Aaron, you'll see t'e folly of all t'is, ant wish you hat livet an honest man."

By this time the clamor of voices became so loud and confused, as to render it impossible to distinguish what was said. Thousandacres actually roared like a maddened bull, and he was soon hoarse with uttering his menaces and maledictions. Tobit said less, but was probably more dangerous. All the young men seemed violently agitated, and bent on closing the door on the exit of the Chainbearer; who, with his arm around Dus, still slowly advanced, waving the crowd aside, and commanding them to make way for him, with a steadiness and dignity that I began to think would really prevail. In the midst of this scene of confusion, a rifle suddenly flashed; the report was simultaneous, and old Andries Coejemans fell.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Ye midnight shades, o'er nature spread!
Dumb silence of the dreary hour!
In honor of th' approaching dead,
Around your awful terrors pour.
Yes, pour around,
On this pale ground,
Through all this deep surrounding gloom,
The sober thought,
The tear untaught,
Those meetest mourners at the tomb."

--Mallet.

It is a law of human nature, that the excesses of passion bring their own rebukes. The violence of man feeds itself, until some enormity committed under its influence suddenly rises before the transgressor, as the evidence of his blindness and the restorer of his senses. Guilt performs the office of reason, staying the hand, stilling the pulses, and arousing the conscience.

Thus it seemed to be with the squatters of Mooseridge. A stillness so profound succeeded the crack of that rifle, that I heard the stifled breathing of Dus, as she stood over the body of her uncle, astounded, and almost converted into a statue by the suddenness of the blow. No one spoke; no one attempted to quit the place; in fact, no one moved. It was never known who fired that shot. At first I ascribed it to the hand of Tobit; but it was owing more to what I knew of his temper and character, than to what I knew of his acts at that particular time. Afterward I inclined to the opinion that my friend had fallen by the hand of Thousandacres himself; though there were no means of bringing it home to him by legal proof. If any knew who was the criminal besides the wretch who executed the deed, the fact was never revealed. That family was faithful to itself, and seemed determined to stand or fall together. In the eye of the law, all who were present, aiding and abetting in the unlawful detention of Dus and her uncle, were equally guilty; but the hand on which the stain of blood rested in particular, was never dragged to light.

My first impulse, as soon as I could recollect myself, was to pass an arm around the waist of Dus and force her through the crowd, with a view to escape. Had this attempt been persevered in, I think it would have succeeded, so profound was the sensation made, even upon those rude and lawless men, by the deed of violence, that had just been done. But Dus was not one to think of self at such a moment. For a single instant her head fell on my shoulders, and I held her to my bosom, while I whispered my wish for her to fly. Then raising her head, she gently extricated her person from my arms, and knelt by the side of her uncle.

"He breathes!" she said huskily, but hastily. "God be praised, Mordaunt, he still breathes. The blow may not be as heavy as we at first supposed; let us do what we can to aid him."

Here were the characteristic decision and thoughtfulness of Ursula Malbone! Rising quickly, she turned to the group of silent but observant squatters, and appealed to any remains of humanity that might still be found in their bosoms, to lend their assistance. Thousandacres stood foremost in the dark cluster at the door, looking grimly at the motionless body, over which Dus stood, pale and heart-stricken, but still calm and collected.

"The hardest-hearted man among you will not deny a daughter's right to administer to a parent's wants!" she said, with a pathos in her voice, and a dignity in her manner, that filled me with love and admiration, and which had a visible effect on all who heard hear. "Help me to raise my uncle and to place him on a bed, while Major Littlepage examines his hurt. You'll not deny me this little comfort, Thousandacres, for you cannot know how soon you may want succor yourself!"

Zephaniah, who certainly had no hand in the murder of Chainbearer, now advanced; and he, myself, Lowiny and Dus, raised the still motionless body, and placed it on the bed of Prudence, which stood in the principal room. There was a consultation among the squatters, while we were thus employed, and one by one the family dropped off, until no one was left in the house but Thousandacres, and his wife, and Lowiny; the latter remaining with Dus, as a useful and even an affectionate assistant. The father sat, in moody silence, on one side of the fire while Prudence placed herself on the other. I did not like the aspect of the squatter's countenance, but he said and did nothing. It struck me he was brooding over the facts, nursing his resentments by calling up fancied wrongs to his mind, and plotting for the future. If such was the case, he manifested great nerve, inasmuch as neither alarm nor hurry was, in the slightest degree, apparent in his mien. Prudence was dreadfully agitated.

She said nothing, but her body worked to and fro with nervous excitement; and occasionally a heavy, but suppressed groan struggled through her efforts to resist it. Otherwise, she was as if not present.

I had been accustomed to seeing gunshot wounds, and possessed such a general knowledge of their effects as to be a tolerable judge of what would, and what would not, be likely to prove fatal. The first look I took at the hurt of Chainbearer convinced me there could be no hope for his life. The ball had passed between two of the ribs, and seemed to me to take a direction downward; but it was impossible to miss the vitals with a wound commencing at that point on the human body. The first shock of the injury had produced insensibility; but we had hardly got the sufferer on the bed, and applied a little water to his lips, ere he revived; soon regaining his consciousness, as well as the power to speak. Death was on him, however; and it was very obvious to me that his hours were numbered. He might live days, but it was not possible for him to survive.

"Got pless you, Mortaunt," my old friend murmured, after my efforts had thus partially succeeded. "Got forever pless ant preserf you, poy, ant repay you for all your kintness to me ant mine. T'em squatters haf killet me, lat; put I forgif t'em. T'ey are an ignorant, ant selfish, ant prutal preed; ant I may haf triet 'em too sorely. Put Dus can never pecome t'e wife of any of t'e family."

As Zephaniah was in the room, though not near the bed at the moment, I was anxious to change the current of the wounded man's thoughts; and I questioned him as to the nature of his hurt, well knowing that Chainbearer had seen so many soldiers in situations similar to his own unhappy condition, as to be a tolerable judge of his actual state.

"I'm killet, Mortaunt," old Andries answered, in a tone even firmer than that in which he had just spoken. "Apout t'at, t'ere can pe no mistake. T'ey haf shot t'rough my rips, and t'rough my vitals; ant life is impossible. But t'at does not matter much to me, for I am an olt man now, hafin' lifet my t'reescore years ant ten--no, t'at is no great matter, t'ough some olt people cling to life wit' a tighter grip t'an t'e young. Such ist not my case, howsefer; ant I am reaty to march when t'e great wort of commant comet'. I am fery sorry, Mortaunt, t'at t'is accitent shoult happen pefore t'e patent has peen fully surfeyet; put I am not pait for t'e work t'at is finishet, ant it ist a great comfort to me to know I shall not tie in tebt. I owe you, ant I owe my goot frient, t'e general, a great teal for kintnesses, I must confess; put, in t'e way of money, t'ere wilt pe no loss by t'is accitent."

"Mention nothing of this sort, I do entreat of you, Chainbearer; I know my father would gladly give the best farm he owns to see you standing, erect and well, as you were twenty minutes since."

"Well, I tares to say, t'at may pe true, for I haf always fount t'e general to pe friently and consiterate. I wilt tell you a secret, Mortaunt, t'at I haf nefer pefore revealet to mortal man, put which t'ere ist no great use in keepin' any longer, ant which I shoult haf peen willing to haf tolt long ago, hat not t'e general himself mate it a p'int t'at I shoult not speak of it----"

"Perhaps it might be better, my good friend, were you to tell me this secret another time. Talking may weary and excite you; whereas, sleep and rest may possibly do you service."

"No, no, poy--t'e hope of t'at ist all itleness ant vanity. I shalt nefer sleep ag'in, tilt I sleep t'e last long sleep of teat'; I feelt sartain my wound is mortal, ant t'at my time must soon come. Nefert'eless, it doesn't gif me pain to talk; ant, Mortaunt, my tear lat, fri'nts t'at pe apout to part for so long a time, ought not to part wit'out sayin' a wort to one anot'er pefore separation. I shoult pe glat, in partic'lar, to tell to a son all t'e kintness ant fri'ntship I haf receifet from his fat'er. You know fery well, yourself, Mortaunt, t'at I am not great at figures; and why it shoult pe so, ist a wonter ant a surprise to me, for my grantfat'er Van Syce was a wonterful man at arit'metic, and t'e first Coejemans in t'is country, t'ey say, kept all t'e tominie's accounts for him! Put, let t'at pe ast it wast, I nefer coult do anyt'ing wit' figures; ant it ist a secret not to pe concealet now, Mortaunt, t'at I nefer coult haf helt my commission of captain six weeks, put for your own fat'ers kintness to me. Fintin' out how impossible it was for me to get along wit' arit'metic, he offeret to do all t'at sort of tuty for me, ant t'e whole time we was toget'er, seven long years ant more, Colonel Littlepage mate out t'e reports of Coejemans' company. Capital goot reports was t'ey, too, ant t'e atmiration of all t'at see t'em; ant I often felt ashamet like, when I he'rt t'em praiset, and people wonterin' how an olt Tutchman ever l'arnet to do his tuty so well! I shalt nefer see t'e general ag'in, ant I wish you to tell him t'at Andries tit not forget his gootness to him, to t'e latest preat' t'at he trew."

"I will do all you ask of me, Chainbearer--surely it must give you pain to talk so much?"

"Not at all, poy; not at all. It is goot to t'e poty to lighten t'e soul of its opligations. Ast I see, howsefer, t'at Dus ist trouplet, I wilt shut my eyes, and look into my own t'oughts a little, for I may not tie for some hours yet."

It sounded fearful to me to hear one I loved so well speak so calmly, and with so much certainty, of his approaching end. I could see that Ursula almost writhed under the agony these words produced in her; yet that noble-minded creature wore an air of calmness that might have deceived one who knew her less well than she was known to me. She signed for me to quit the side of the bed, in the vain hope that her uncle might fall asleep, and placed herself silently on a chair, at hand, in readiness to attend to his wants. As for me, I took the occasion to examine the state of things without, and to reflect on what course I ought to take, in the novel and desperate circumstances in which we were so unexpectedly placed; the time for something decisive having certainly arrived.

It was now near an hour after the deed had been done--and there sat Thousandacres and his wife, one on each side of the fire, in silent thought. As I turned to look at the squatters, and the father of squatters, I saw that his countenance was set in that species of sullen moodiness, which might well be taken as ominous in a man of his looseness of principle and fierceness of temperament. Nor had the nervous twitchings of Prudence ceased. In a word, both of these strange beings appeared at the end of that hour just as they had appeared at its commencement. It struck me, as I passed them in moving toward the door, that there was even a sublimity in their steadiness in guilt. I ought, however, in some slight degree to exempt the woman, whose agitation was some proof that she repented of what had been done. At the door itself, I found no one; but two or three of the young men were talking in a low tone to each other at no great distance. Apparently they had an eye to what was going on within the building. Still no one of them spoke to me, and I began to think that the crime already committed had produced such a shock, that no further wrong to any of us was contemplated, and that I might consider myself at liberty to do and act as I saw fit. A twitch at my sleeve, however, drew my look aside, and I saw Lowiny cowering within the shadows of the house, seemingly eager to attract my attention. She had been absent some little time, and had probably been listening to the discourse of those without.

"Don't think of venturing far from the house," the girl whispered. "The evil spirit has got possession of Tobit; and he has just sworn the same grave shall hold you, and Chainbearer and Dus. 'Graves don't turn state's evidence,' he says. I never know'd him to be so awful as he is to-night; though he's dreadful in temper when anything goes amiss."

The girl glided past me as she ceased her hurried communication, and the next instant she was standing quietly at the side of Dus, in readiness to offer her assistance in any necessary office for the sick. I saw that she had escaped notice, and then reconnoitred my own position with some little care.

By this time the night had got to be quite dark; and it was impossible to recognize persons at the distance of twenty feet. It is true, one could tell a man from a stump at twice that number of yards, or even further; but the objects of the rude clearing began to be confounded together in a way to deprive the vision of much of its customary power. That group of young men, as I suppose, contained the formidable Tobit; but I could be by no means certain of the fact without approaching quite near to it. This I did not like to do, as there was nothing that I desired particularly to say to any of the family at the moment. Could they have known my heart, the squatters would have felt no uneasiness on the subject of my escaping, for were Dus quite out of the question, as she neither was nor could be, it would be morally impossible for me to desert the Chainbearer in his dying moments. Nevertheless, Tobit and his brethren did not know this; and it might be dangerous for me to presume too far on the contrary supposition.

The darkness was intensest near the house, as a matter of course; and I glided along close to the walls of logs until I reached an angle of the building, thinking the movement might be unseen. But I got an assurance that I was watched that would admit of no question, by a call from one of the young men, directing me not to turn the corner to go out of sight in any direction, at the peril of my life. This was plain speaking; and it induced a short dialogue between us, in which I avowed my determination not to desert my friends--for the Chainbearer would probably not outlive the night--and that I felt no apprehension for myself. I was heated and excited, and had merely left the house for air; if they offered no impediment I would walk to and fro near them for a few minutes, solely with a view to refresh my feverish pulses, pledging my word to make no attempt at escape. This explanation, with the accompanying assurance, seemed to satisfy my guard; and I was quietly permitted to do as I had proposed.

The walk I selected was between the group of squatters and the house, and at each turn it necessarily brought me close to the young men. At such moments I profited by my position to look in through the door of the dwelling at the motionless form of Dus, who sat at the bedside of her uncle in the patient, silent, tender, and attentive manner of woman, and whom I could plainly see in thus passing. Notwithstanding the fidelity of my homage to my mistress at these instants, I could perceive that the young men uniformly suspended the low dialogue they were holding together, as I approached them, and as uniformly renewed it as I moved away. This induced me gradually to extend my walk, lengthening it a little on each end, until I may have gone as far as a hundred feet on each side of the group, which I took for the centre. To have gone farther would have been imprudent, as it might seem preparatory to an attempt at escape, and to a consequent violation of my word.

In this manner, then, I may have made eight or ten turns in as many minutes, when I heard a low, hissing sound near me, while at the extremity of one of my short promenades. A stump stood there, and the sound came from the root of the stump. At first I fancied I had encroached on the domain of some serpent; though animals of that species, which would be likely to give forth such a menace, were even then very rare among us. But my uncertainty was soon relieved.

"Why you no stop at stump?" said Susquesus, in a voice so low as not to be heard at the distance of ten feet, while it was perfectly distinct and not in a whisper. "Got sut'in' tell--glad to hear."

"Wait until I can make one or two more turns; I will come back in a moment," was my guarded answer.

Then I continued my march, placing myself against a stump that stood at the other end of my walk, remaining leaning there for an entire minute or two, when I returned, passing the young men as before. This I did three several times, stopping at each turn, as if to rest or to reflect; and making each succeeding halt longer than the one that had preceded it. At length I took my stand against the very stump that concealed the Indian.

"How came you here, Susquesus?" I asked; "and are you armed?"

"Yes; got good rifle. Chainbearer's gun. He no want him any longer, eh?"

"You know then what has happened? Chainbearer is mortally wounded."

"Dat bad--must take scalp to pay for dat! Ole fri'nd--good fri'nd. Always kill murderer."

"I beg nothing of the sort will be attempted; but how came you here?--and how came you armed?"

"Jaap do him--come and break open door. Nigger strong--do what he like to. Bring rifle--say take him. Wish he come sooner--den Chainbearer no get kill. We see."

I thought it prudent to move on by the time this was said; and I made a turn or two ere I was disposed to come to another halt. The truth, however, was now apparent to me. Jaap had come in from the forest, forced the fastenings of the Onondago's prison, given him arms, and they were both out in the darkness, prowling round the building, watching for the moment to strike a blow, or an opportunity to communicate with me. How they had ascertained the fact of Chainbearer's being shot, I was left to conjecture; though Susquesus must have heard the report of the rifle; and an Indian, on such a night as that, left to pursue his own course, would soon ascertain all the leading points of any circumstance in which he felt an interest.

My brain was in a whirl as all these details presented themselves to my mind, and I was greatly at a loss to decide on my course. In order to gain time for reflection, I stopped a moment at the stump, and whispered to the Onondago a request that he would remain where he was until I could give him his orders. An expressive "good" was the answer I received, and I observed that the Indian crouched lower in his lair, like some fierce animal of the woods, that restrained his impatience, in order to make his leap, when it did come, more certain and fatal.

I had now a little leisure for reflection. There lay poor Chainbearer, stretched on his death-pallet, as motionless as if the breath had already left his body. Dus maintained her post, nearly as immovable as her uncle; while Lowiny stood at hand, manifesting the sympathy of her sex in the mourning scene before her. I caught glimpses, too, in passing, of Thousandacres and Prudence. It appeared to me as if the first had not stirred from the moment when he had taken his seat on the hearth. His countenance was as set, his air as moody, and his attitude as stubborn, as each had been in the first five minutes after the Chainbearer fell. Prudence, too, was as unchanged as her husband. Her body continued to rock, in nervous excitement, but not once had I seen her raise her eyes from the stone of the rude hearth that covered nearly one-half of the room. The fire had nearly burned down, and no one replenishing the brush which fed it, a flickering flame alone remained to cast its wavering light over the forms of these two conscience-stricken creatures, rendering them still more mysterious and forbidding. Lowiny had indeed lighted a thin, miserable candle of tallow, such as one usually sees in the lowest habitations; but it was placed aside, in order to be removed from before the sight of the supposed slumberer, and added but little to the light of the room. Notwithstanding, I could and did see all I have described, stopping for some little time at a point that commanded a view of the interior of the house.

Of Dus, I could ascertain but little. She was nearly immovable at the bedside of her uncle, but her countenance was veiled from view. Suddenly, and it was at one of those moments when I had stopped in front of the building, she dropped on her knees, buried her face in the coverlet, and became lost in prayer. Prudence started as she saw this act; then she arose, after the fashion of those who imagine they have contributed to the simplicity, and consequently to the beauty of worship, by avoiding the ceremony of kneeling to Almighty God, and stood erect, moving to and fro, as before, her tall, gaunt figure, resembling some half-decayed hemlock of the adjacent forest, that has lost the greater portion of its verdure, rocked by a tempest. I was touched, notwithstanding, at this silent evidence that the woman retained some of the respect and feeling for the services of the Deity, which, though strangely blended with fanaticism and a pertinacious self-righteousness, no doubt had a large influence in bringing those who belonged to her race, across the Atlantic, some five or six generations previously to her own.

It was just at this instant that I recognized the voice of Tobit, as he advanced toward the group composed of his brethren; and speaking to his wife, who accompanied him as far as his father's habitation, and there left him, apparently to return to her own. I did not distinguish what was said, but the squatter spoke sullenly, and in the tone of one whose humor was menacing. Believing that I might meet with some rudeness of a provoking character from this man, should he see me walking about in the manner I had now been doing for near a quarter of an hour, ere he had the matter explained, I thought it wisest to enter the building, and effect an object I had in view, by holding a brief conversation with Thousandacres.

This determination was no sooner formed than I put it in execution; trusting that the patience of the Indian, and Jaap's habits of obedience, would prevent anything like an outbreak from them, without orders. As I re-entered the room, Dus was still on her knees, and Prudence continued erect, oscillating as before, with her eyes riveted on the hearth. Lowiny stood near the bed, and I thought, like her mother, she was in some measure mingling in spirit with the prayer.

"Thousandacres," I commenced in a low voice, drawing quite near the squatter, and succeeding in causing him to look at me, by my address--"Thousandacres, this has been a most melancholy business, but everything should be done that can be done, to repair the evil. Will you not send a messenger through to the 'Nest, to obtain the aid of the physician?"

"Doctors can do but little good to a wound made by a rifle that was fired so cluss, young man. I want no doctors here, to betray me and mine to the law."

"Nay, your messenger can keep your secret; and I will give him gold to induce the physician to come, and come at once. He can be told that I am accidentally hurt, and might still reach us to be of service in alleviating pain; I confess there is no hope for anything else."

"Men must take their chances," coldly returned that obdurate being. "Them that live in the woods, take woodsmen's luck; and them that live in the open country, the open country luck. My family and lumber must be presarved at all risks; and no doctor shall come here."

What was to be done--what could be done, with such a being? All principle, all sense of right, was concentrated in self--in his moral system. It was as impossible to make him see the side of any question that was opposed to his interests, fancied or real, as it was to give sight to the physically blind. I had hoped contrition was at work upon him, and that some advantage might be obtained through the agency of so powerful a mediator; but no sooner was his dull nature aroused into anything like action, than it took the direction of selfishness, as the needle points to the pole.

Disgusted at this exhibition of the most confirmed trait of the squatter's character, I was in the act of moving from him, when a loud shout arose around the building, and the flashes and reports of three or four rifles were heard. Rushing to the door, I was in time to hear the tramp of men, who seemed to me to be pushing forward in all directions; and the crack of the rifle was occasionally heard, apparently retiring toward the woods. Men called to each other, in the excitement of a chase and conflict; but I could gain no information, the body of darkness which had settled on the place having completely hidden everything from view, at any distance.

In this state of most painful doubt I continued for five or six minutes, the noise of the chase receding the whole time, when a man came rushing up to the door of the hut where I stood, and, seizing my hand, I found it was Frank Malbone. The succor, then, had arrived, and I was no longer a captive.

"God be praised! you at least are safe," cried Malbone. "But my dear sister?"

"Is there unharmed, watching by the side of her uncle's dying bed. Is any one hurt without?"

"That is more than I can tell you. Your black acted as guide, and brought us down on the place so skilfully, that it was not my intention to resort to arms at all, since we might have captured all the squatters without firing a shot, had my orders been observed. But a rifle was discharged from behind a stump, and this drew a volley from the enemy. Some of our side returned the discharge, and the squatters then took to flight. The firing you have just heard is scattered discharges that have come from both sides, and can be only sound, as any aim is impossible in this obscurity. My own piece has not even been cocked, and I regret a rifle has been fired."

"Perhaps all is then well, and we have driven off our enemies without doing them any harm. Are you strong enough to keep them at a distance?"

"Perfectly so; we are a posse of near thirty men, led by an under-sheriff and a magistrate. All we wanted was a direction to this spot, to have arrived some hours earlier."

I groaned in spirit at hearing this, since those few hours might have saved the life of poor Chainbearer. As it was, however, this rescue was the subject of grateful rejoicing, and one of the happiest moments of my life was that in which I saw Dus fall on her brother's bosom and burst into tears. I was at their side, in the doorway of the hut, when this meeting took place; and Dus held out a hand affectionately to me, as she withdrew herself from her brother's arms. Frank Malbone looked a little surprised at this act; but, anxious to see and speak to Chainbearer, he passed into the building, and approached the bed. Dus and I followed; for the shouts and firing had reached the ears of the wounded man, and Andries was anxious to learn their meaning. The sight of Malbone let him into a general knowledge of the state of the facts; but a strong anxiety was depicted in his falling countenance, as he looked toward me for information.

"What is it, Mortaunt?" he asked, with considerable strength of voice, his interest in the answer probably stimulating his physical powers. "What is it, poy? I hope t'ere hast peen no useless fightin' on account of a poor olt man like me, who hast seen his t'reescore years ant ten, ant who owest to his Maker t'e life t'at wast grantet to him seventy long years ago. I hope no one hast peen injuret in so poor a cause."

"We know of no one beside yourself, Chainbearer, who has been hurt to-night. The firing you have heard, comes from the party of Frank Malbone, which has just arrived, and which has driven off the squatters by noise more than by any harm that has been done them."

"Got pe praiset! Got pe praiset! I am glat to see Frank pefore I tie, first to take leaf of him, as an olt frient, ant secontly to place his sister, Dus, in his care. T'ey haf wantet to gif Dus one of t'ese squatters for a huspant, by way of making peace petween t'ieves and honest people. T'at woult nefer do, Frank, as you well know Dus ist t'e ta'ghter of a gentleman, ant t'e ta'ghter of a laty; ant she ist a gentlewoman herself, ant ist not to pe marriet to a coarse, rute, illiterate, vulgar squatter. Wast I young, ant wast I not t'e gal's uncle, I shoult not venture to s'pose I coult make her a fit companion myself, peing too little edicated ant instructed to pe the huspant of one like Dus Malpone."

"There is no fear now, that any such calamity can befall my sister, my dear Chainbearer," answered Frank Malbone. "Nor do I think any threats or dangers could so far intimidate Dus, as to cause her to plight her faith to any man she did not love or respect. They would have found my sister difficult to coerce."

"It ist pest as it ist, Frank--yes, it ist pest as it ist. T'ese squatters are fery sat rascals, ant woult not pe apt to stop at trifles. Ant, now we are on t'is supject, I wilt say a wort more consarnin' your sister. I see she hast gone out of t'e hut to weep, ant she wilt not hear what I haf to say. Here ist Mortaunt Littlepage, who says he lofes Dus more ast man efer lovet woman pefore--" Frank started, and I fancied that his countenance grew dark--"ant what ist nat'ral enough, when a man dost truly lofe a woman in t'at tegree, he wishes fery, fery much to marry her"--Frank's countenance brightened immediately, and seeing my hand extended toward him, he grasped it and gave it a most cordial pressure. "Now, Mortaunt woult pe an excellent match for Dus--a most capital match, for he ist young ant goot lookin', ant prave, ant honoraple, ant sensiple, ant rich, all of which pe fery goot t'ings in matrimony; put, on t'e ot'er hant, he has a fat'er, ant a mot'er, ant sisters, ant it ist nat'ral, too, t'at t'ey shoult not like, overmuch, to haf a son ant a prot'er marry a gal t'at hasn't anyt'ing put a set of chains, a new compass, ant a few fielt articles t'at wilt fall to her share a'ter my teat'. No, no; we must t'ink of t'e honor of t'e Coejemans ant t'e Malpones, ant not let our peloved gal go into a family t'at may not want her."

I could see that Frank Malbone smiled, though sadly, as he listened to this warning; for, on him, it made little or no impression, since he was generous enough to judge me by himself, and did not believe any such mercenary considerations would influence my course. I felt differently, however. Obstinacy in opinion, was one of the weak points in Chainbearer's character, and I saw the danger of his leaving these sentiments as a legacy to Dus. She, indeed, had been the first to entertain them, and to communicate them to her uncle, and they might revive in her when she came to reflect on the true condition of things, and become confirmed by the dying requests of her uncle. It is true, that in our own interview, when I obtained from the dear girl the precious confession of her love, no such obstacle seemed to exist, but both of us appeared to look forward with confidence to our future union as to a thing certain; but at that moment, Dus was excited by my declarations of the most ardent and unutterable attachment, and led away by the strength of her own feelings. We were in the delirium of delight produced by mutual confidence, and the full assurance of mutual love, when Thousandacres came upon us, to carry us to the scenes of woe by which we had been, and were still, in a degree, surrounded. Under such circumstances, one might well fall under the influence of feelings and emotions that would prove to be more controllable in cooler moments. It was all-important, then, for me to set Chainbearer right in the matter, and to have a care he did not quit us, leaving the two persons he most loved on earth, very unnecessarily miserable, and that solely on account of the strength of his own prejudices. Nevertheless, the moment was not favorable to pursue such a purpose, and I was reflecting bitterly on the future, when we were all startled by a heavy groan that seemed to come out of the very depths of the chest of the squatter.

Frank and I turned instinctively toward the chimney, on hearing this unlooked-for interruption. The chair of Prudence was vacant, the woman having rushed from the hut at the first sound of the recent alarm; most probably in quest of her younger children. But Thousandacres remained in the very seat he had now occupied nearly, if not quite, two hours. I observed, however, that his form was not as erect as when previously seen. It had sunk lower in the chair, while his chin hung down upon his breast. Advancing nearer, a small pool of blood was seen on the stones beneath him, and a short examination told Malbone and myself, that a rifle-bullet had passed directly through his body, in a straight line, and that only three inches above the hips!

CHAPTER XXVII.

"With woful measures, wan despair--
Low, sullen sounds his grief beguil'd,
A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild."

--Collins.

Thousandacres had been shot in his chair, by one of the rifles first discharged that night. As it turned out, he was the only one that we could ascertain was hurt; though there was a report, to which many persons gave credence, that Tobit had a leg broken, also, and that he remained a cripple for life. I am inclined to believe this report may have been true; for Jaap told me, after all was over, that he let fly on a man who had just fired on himself, and who certainly fell, and was borne off limping, by two of his companions. It is quite probable that this hurt of Tobit's and the fate of his father, was the reason we received no more annoyance that night from the squatters, who had all vanished from the clearing so effectually, including most of the females and all the children, that no traces of their place of retreat were to be found next morning. Lowiny, however, did not accompany the family, but remained near Dus, rendering herself highly useful as an attendant in the melancholy scene that followed. I may as well add here, that no evidence was ever obtained concerning the manner in which Thousandacres received his death-wound. He was shot through the open door, beyond all question, as he sat in his chair; and necessarily in the early part of the fray, for then only was a rifle discharged very near the house, or from a point that admitted of the ball's hitting its victim. For myself, I believed from the first that Susquesus sacrificed the squatter to the manes of his friend Chainbearer; dealing out Indian justice, without hesitation or compunction. Still, I could not be certain of the fact; and the Onondago had either sufficient prudence or sufficient philosophy to keep his own secret. It is true that a remark or two did escape him soon after the affair occurred, that tended to sustain my suspicions; but, on the whole, he was remarkably reserved on the subject--less from any apprehension of consequences, than from self-respect and pride of character. There was little to be apprehended, indeed; the previous murder of Chainbearer, and the unlawful nature of all the proceedings of the squatters, justifying a direct and sudden attack on the part of the posse.

Just as Malbone and myself discovered the condition of Thousandacres, this posse, with 'Squire Newcome at its head, began to collect around the house, which might now be termed our hospital. As the party was large, and necessarily a little tumultuous, I desired Frank to lead them off to some of the other buildings, as soon as a bed had been prepared for the squatter, who was placed in the same room with Chainbearer to die. No one, in the least acquainted with injuries of that nature, could entertain any hope for either; though a messenger was sent to the settlements for the individual who was called "doctor," and who was really fast acquiring many useful notions about his profession, by practising on the human system. They say that "an ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory," and this disciple of Esculapius seemed to have set up in his art on this principle; having little or none of the last, while he was really obtaining a very respectable amount of the first, as he practised right and left, as the pugilist is most apt to hit in his rallies. Occasionally, however, he gave a knock-down blow.

As soon as the necessary arrangements were made in our hospital, I told Dus that we would leave her and Lowiny in attendance on the wounded, both of whom manifested weariness and a disposition to doze, while all the rest of the party would draw off, and take up their quarters for the night in the adjacent buildings. Malbone was to remain as a sentinel, a little distance from the door, and I promised to join him in the course of an hour.

"Lowiny can attend to the wants of her father, while you will have the tenderest care of your uncle, I well know. A little drink occasionally is all that can alleviate their sufferings----"

"Let me come in," interrupted a hoarse female voice at the door, as a woman forced her way through the opposing arms of several of the posse. "I am Aaron's wife, and they tell me he is hurt. God himself has ordered that a woman should cleave unto her husband, and Thousandacres is mine; and he is the father of my children, if he has murdered and been murdered in his turn."

There was something so commanding in the natural emotions of this woman, that the guard at the door gave way immediately, when Prudence entered the room. The first glance of the squatter's wife was at the bed of Chainbearer; but nothing there held her gaze riveted. That gaze only became fixed as her eyes fell on the large form of Thousandacres, as he lay extended on his death-bed. It is probable that this experienced matron, who had seen so many accidents in the course of a long life, and had sat by so many a bedside, understood the desperate nature of her husband's situation as soon as her eyes fell on the fallen countenance: for, turning to those near her, the first impulse was, to revenge the wrong which she conceived had been done to her and hers. I will acknowledge that I felt awed, and that a thrill passed through my frame as this rude and unnurtured female, roused by her impulses, demanded authoritatively:

"Who has done this? Who has taken the breath from my man before the time set by the Lord? Who has dared to make my children fatherless, and me a widow, ag'in law and right? I left my man seated on that hearth, heart-stricken and troubled at what had happened to another; and they tell me he has been murdered in his chair. The Lord will be on our side at last, and then we'll see whom the law will favor, and whom the law will condemn--!"

A movement and a groan, on the part of Thousandacres, would seem first to have apprised Prudence that her husband was not actually dead. Starting at this discovery, this tiger's mate and tiger's dam, if not tigress herself, ceased everything like appeal and complaint, and set herself about those duties which naturally suggested themselves to one of her experience, with the energy of a frontier woman--a woodman's wife, and the mother of a large brood of woodman's sons and daughters. She wiped the face of Thousandacres, wet his lips, shifted his pillow, such as it was, placed his limbs in postures she thought the easiest, and otherwise manifested a sort of desperate energy in her care. The whole time she was doing this, her tongue was muttering prayers and menaces, strangely blended together, and quite as strangely mixed up with epithets of endearment that were thrown away on her still insensible and least unconscious husband. She called him Aaron, and that too in a tone that sounded as if Thousandacres had a strong hold on her affections, and might at least have been kind and true to her.

I felt convinced that Dus had nothing to fear from Prudence, and I left the place as soon as the two nurses had everything arranged for their respective patients, and the house was quite free from the danger of intrusion. On quitting her who now occupied most of my thoughts, I ventured to whisper a request she would not forget the pledges given me in the forest, and asked her to summon me to the bedside of Chainbearer, should he rouse himself from the slumber that had come over him, and manifest a desire to converse. I feared he might renew the subject to which his mind had already once averted since receiving his wound, and imbue his niece with some of his own set notions on that subject. Ursula was kindness itself. Her affliction had even softened her feelings toward me more than ever; and, so far as she was concerned, I certainly had no ground for uneasiness. In passing Frank, who stood on post some twenty yards from the door of the house, he said: "God bless you, Littlepage--fear nothing. I am too much in your own situation, not to be warmly your friend." I returned his good wishes, and went my way, in one sense rejoicing.

The posse, as has been stated, were in possession of the different deserted habitations of the family of Thousandacres. The night being cool, fires were blazing on all the hearths, and the place wore an air of cheerfulness that it had probably never before known. Most of the men had crowded into two of the dwellings, leaving a third for the convenience of the magistrate, Frank Malbone, and myself, whenever we might choose to repair to it. By the time I appeared, the posse had supped, using the milk and bread, and other eatables of the squatters, ad libitum, and were disposing of themselves on the beds and on the floors, to take a little rest, after their long and rapid march. But in my own quarters I found 'Squire Newcome alone, unless the silent and motionless Onondago, who occupied a chair in a corner of the fireplace, could be called a companion. Jaap, too, in expectation of my arrival, was lounging near the door; and when I entered the house, he followed me in for orders.

It was easy for me, who knew of Newcome's relations with the squatters, to discover the signs of confusion in his countenance, as his eye first met mine. One who was not acquainted with the circumstances, most probably would have detected nothing out of the common way. It will be remembered that the "'squire" had no positive knowledge that I was acquainted with his previous visit to the mill; and it will be easy to see that he must have felt an itching and uneasy desire to ascertain that fact. A great deal depended on that circumstance; nor was it long before I had a specimen of his art in sounding round the truth, with a view to relieve his mind.

"Who'd 'a' thought of findin' Major Littlepage in the hands of the Philistines, in sich an out o' the way place as this!" exclaimed Mr. Newcome, as soon as our salutations had been exchanged. "I've heern say there was squatters down hereabouts; but such things are so common, that I never bethought me of givin' him a hint on the matter when I last saw the major."

Nothing could surpass the deferential manner of this person when he had an object to gain, it being quite common with him to use the third person, in this way, when addressing a superior; a practice that has almost become obsolete in the English language, and which is seldom if ever used in America, except by this particular class of men, who defer before your face, and endeavor to undermine when the back is turned. My humor was not to trifle with this fellow, though I did not know that it was exactly prudent, just then, to let him know that I had both seen and heard him in his former visit, and was fully aware of all his practices. It was not easy, however, to resist the opportunity given by his own remarks, to put him a little way on the tenter-hooks of conscience--that quality of the human mind being one of the keenest allies an assailant can possess, in cases of this sort.

"I had supposed, Mr. Newcome, that you were generally charged with the care of the Mooseridge lands, as one of the conditions annexed to the Ravensnest agency?" I somewhat dryly remarked.

"Sartain, sir; the colonel--or gin'ral, as he ought to be called now, I do s'pose--gave me the superintendence of both at the same time. But the major knows, I presume, that Mooseridge was not on sale?"

"No, sir; it would seem to have been only on plunder. One would think that an agent, intrusted with the care of an estate, and who heard of squatters being in possession, and stripping the land of its trees, would feel it to be his duty at least to apprise the owners of the circumstance, that they might look to the case, if he did not."

"The major hasn't rightly understood me," put in the 'squire, in a manner that was particularly deprecatory; "I don't mean to say that I know'd, with anything like positiveness, that there was squatters hereabouts; but that rumors was stirrin' of some sich things. But squatters is sich common objects in new countries, that a body scarce turns aside to look at them!"

"So it would seem, in your case at least, Mr. Newcome. This Thousandacres, however, they tell me, is a well-known character, and has done little since his youth but lumber on the property of other people. I should suppose you must have met him, in the course of five-and-twenty years' residence in this part of the world?"

"Lord bless the major! met Thousandacres? Why, I've met him a hundred times! We all know the old man well enough; and many and many is the time I've met him at raisin's, and trainin's, and town meetin's, and political meetin's, too. I've even seen him in court, though Thousandacres don't set much store by law, not half as much as he and every other man ought to do; for law is excellent, and society would be no better than a collection of wild beasts, as I often tell Miss Newcome, if it hadn't law to straighten it out, and to teach the misguided and evil-disposed what's right. I s'pose the major will coincide with that idee?"

"I have no particular objection to the sentiment, sir, but wish it was more general. As you have seen this person Thousandacres so often, perhaps you can tell me something of his character. My opportunities of knowing the man have been none of the best; for most of the time I was his prisoner he had me shut up in an out-building in which I believe he has usually kept his salt, and grain, and spare provisions."

"Not the old store'us'!" exclaimed the magistrate, looking a little aghast, for the reader will doubtless recollect that the confidential dialogue between him and the squatter, on the subject of the lumber, had occurred so near that building as to be overheard by me. "How long has the major been in this clearin', I wonder?"

"Not a very great while in fact, though long enough to make it appear a week. I was put into the storehouse soon after my seizure, and have passed at least half my time there since."

"I want to know! Perhaps the major got in that hole as 'arly as yesterday morn?"

"Perhaps I did, sir. But, Mr. Newcome, on looking round at the quantity of lumber these men have made, and recollecting the distance they are from Albany, I am at a loss to imagine how they could hope to get their ill-gotten gains to market without discovery. It would seem to me that their movements must be known, and that the active and honest agents of this part of the country would seize their rafts in the water-courses; thus making the very objects of the squatters' roguery the means of their punishment. Is it not extraordinary that theft, in a moral sense at least, can be systematically carried on, and that on so large a scale, with such entire impunity?"

"Wa-a-l--I s'pose the major knows how things turn, in this world. Nobody likes to meddle."

"How, sir--not meddle! This is contrary to all my experience of the habits of the country, and all I have heard of it! Meddling, I have been given to understand, is the great vice of our immigrant population, in particular, who never think they have their just rights, unless they are privileged to talk about, and sit in judgment on the affairs of all within twenty miles of them; making two-thirds of their facts as they do so, in order to reconcile their theories with the wished-for results."

"Ah! I don't mean meddlin' in that sense, of which there is enough, as all must allow. But folks don't like to meddle with things that don't belong to them in such serious matters as this."

"I understand you--the man who will pass days in discussing his neighbor's private affairs, about which he absolutely knows nothing but what has been obtained from the least responsible and most vulgar sources, will stand by and see that neighbor robbed and say nothing, under the influence of a sentiment so delicate, that it forbids his meddling with what don't belong to him."

Lest the reader should think I was unduly severe upon 'Squire Newcome, let me appeal to his own experience, and inquire if he never knew, not only individuals, but whole neighborhoods, which were sorely addicted to prying into every man's affairs, and to inventing when facts did not exactly sustain theories; in a word, convulsing themselves with that with which they have no real concern, draw themselves up in dignified reserve, as the witnesses of wrongs of all sorts, that every honest man is bound to oppose? I will go further, and ask if a man does happen to step forth to vindicate the right, to assert truth, to defend the weak and to punish the wrong-doer, if that man be not usually the one who meddles least in the more ordinary and minor transactions of life--the man who troubles his neighbors least, and has the least to say about their private affairs? Does it not happen that the very individual who will stand by and see his neighbor wronged, on account of his indisposition to meddle with that which does not belong to him, will occupy a large portion of his own time, in discussing, throwing out hints, and otherwise commenting on the private affairs of that very neighbor?

Mr. Newcome was shrewd, and he understood me well enough, though he probably found it a relief to his apprehensions to see the conversation inclining toward these generalities, instead of sticking to the storehouse. Nevertheless, "boards" must have been uppermost in his conscience; and after a pause he made an invasion into the career of Thousandacres, by way of diverting me from pushing matters too directly.

"This old squatter was a desperate man, Major Littlepage," he answered, "and it may be fortinate for the country that he is done with. I hear the old fellow is killed, and that all the rest of the family has absconded."

"It is not quite so bad as that. Thousandacres is hurt--mortally, perhaps--and all his sons have disappeared; but his wife and one of his daughters are still here, in attendance on the husband and father."

"Prudence is here, then!" exclaimed Mr. Newcome, a little indiscreetly as I thought.

"She is--but you seem to know the family well for a magistrate, 'squire, seeing their ordinary occupation--so well, as to call the woman by her name."

"Prudence, I think Thousandacres used to call his woman. Yes, the major is very right; we magistrates do get to know the neighborhood pretty gin'rally; what between summonses, and warrants, and bailings-out. But the major hasn't yet said when he first fell into the hands of these folks?"

"I first entered this clearing yesterday morning, not a long time after the sun rose, since which time, sir, I have been detained, here, either by force or by circumstances."

A long pause succeeded this announcement. The 'squire fidgeted, and seemed uncertain how to act; for, while my announcement must have given rise, in his mind, to the strong probability of my knowing of his connection with the squatters, it did not absolutely say as much. I could see that he was debating with himself on the expediency of coming out with some tale invented for the occasion, and I turned toward the Indian and the negro, both of whom I knew to be thoroughly honest--after the Indian and the negro fashions--in order to say a friendly word to each in turn.

Susquesus was in one of his quiescent moods, and had lighted a pipe, which he was calmly smoking. No one, to look at him, would suppose that he had so lately been engaged in a scene like that through which he had actually gone; but, rather, that he was some thoughtful philosopher, who habitually passed his time in reflection and study.

As this was one of the occasions on which the Onondago came nearest to admitting his own agency in procuring the death of the squatter, I shall relate the little that passed between us.

"Good evening, Sureflint," I commenced, extending a hand, which the other courteously took in compliance with our customs. "I am glad to see you at large, and no longer a prisoner in that storehouse."

"Store'us' poor gaol. Jaap snap off bolt like pipe-stem. Won'er T'ousandacres didn't t'ink of d'at."

"Thousandacres has had too much to think of this evening, to remember such a trifle. He has now to think of his end."

The Onondago was clearing the bowl of his pipe of its superfluous ashes as I said this, and he deliberately effected his purpose ere he answered--

"Sartain--s'pose he kill dis time."

"I fear his hurt is mortal, and greatly regret that it has happened. The blood of our tried friend, Chainbearer, was enough to be shed in so miserable an affair as this."

"Yes, 'fair pretty mis'rable; t'ink so, too. If squatter shoot surveyor, must t'ink surveyor's fri'nd will shoot squatter."

"That may be Indian law, Sureflint, but it is not the law of the pale-face, in the time of peace and quiet."

Susquesus continued to smoke, making no answer.

"It was a very wicked thing to murder Chainbearer, and Thousandacres should have been handed over to the magistrates, for punishment, if he had a hand in it; not shot, like a dog."

The Onondago drew his pipe from his mouth, looked round toward the 'squire, who had gone to the door in order to breathe the fresh air--then, turning his eyes most significantly on me, he answered--

"Who magistrate go to, eh? What use good law wit' poor magistrate? Better have redskin law, and warrior be his own magistrate--own gallows, too."

The pipe was replaced, and Sureflint appeared to be satisfied with what had passed; for he turned away, and seemed to be lost again, in his own reflections.

After all, the strong native intellect of this barbarian had let him into one of the greatest secrets connected with our social ills. Good laws, badly administered, are no better than an absence of all law, since they only encourage evil-doers by the protection they afford through the power conferred on improper agents. Those who have studied the defects of the American system, with a view to ascertain truth, say that the want of a great moving power to set justice in motion lies at the root of its feebleness. According to theory, the public virtue is to constitute this power; but public virtue is never one-half as active as private vice. Crime is only to be put down by the strong hand, and that hand must belong to the public in truth, not in name only; whereas, the individual wronged is fast getting to be the only moving power, and in very many cases local parties are formed, and the rogue goes to the bar sustained by an authority that has quite as much practical control as the law itself. Juries and grand juries are no longer to be relied on, and the bench is slowly, but steadily, losing its influence. When the day shall come--as come it must, if present tendencies continue--that verdicts are rendered directly in the teeth of law and evidence, and jurors fancy themselves legislators, then may the just man fancy himself approaching truly evil times, and the patriot begin to despair. It will be the commencement of the rough's paradise! Nothing is easier, I am willing to admit, than to over-govern men; but it ought not to be forgotten, that the political vice that comes next in the scale of facility, is to govern them too little.

Jaap, or Jaaf, had been humbly waiting for his turn to be noticed. There existed perfect confidence, as between him and myself, but there were also bounds, in the way of respect, that the slave never presumed to pass, without direct encouragement from the master. Had I not seen fit to speak to the black that night, he would not have commenced a conversation, which, begun by me, he entered into with the utmost frankness and freedom from restraint.

"You seem to have managed your part of this affair, Jaap," I said, "with discretion and spirit. I have every reason to be satisfied with you; more especially for liberating the Indian, and for the manner in which you guided the posse down into the clearing, from the woods."

"Yes, sah; s'pose you would t'ink dat was pretty well. As for Sus, t'ought it best to let him out, for he be won'erful sartain wid he rifle. We should do much better, masser Mordy, but 'e 'squire so werry backward about lettin' 'e men shoot 'em 'ere squatter! Gosh! massar Mordy, if he only say 'fire' when I want him, I don't t'ink so much as half a one get off."

"It is best as it is, Jaap. We are at peace, and in the bosom of our country; and bloodshed is to be avoided."

"Yes, sah; but Chainbearer! If 'ey don't like bloodshed, why 'ey shoot him, sah?"

"There is a feeling of justice in what you say, Jaap, but the community cannot get on in anything like safety unless we let the law rule. Our business was to take those squatters, and to hand them over to the law."

"Werry true, sah. Nobody can't deny dat, masser Mordy, but he nodder seize nor shot, now! Sartain, it best to do one or t'odder with sich rascal. Well, I t'ink dat Tobit, as dey calls him, will remember Jaap Satanstoe long as he live. Dat a good t'ing, anyway!"

"Good!" exclaimed the Onondago, with energy.

I saw it was useless, then, to discuss abstract principles with men so purely practical as my two companions, and I left the house to reconnoitre, ere I returned to our hospital for the night. The negro followed me, and I questioned him as to the manner of the attack, and the direction of the retreat of the squatters, in order to ascertain what danger there might be during the hours of darkness. Jaap gave me to understand that the men of Thousandacres' family had retired by the way of the stream, profiting by the declivity to place themselves under cover as soon as possible. As respects the women and children, they must have got into the woods at some other point, and it was probable the whole had sought some place of retreat that would naturally have been previously appointed by those who knew that they lived in the constant danger of requiring one. Jaap was very certain we should see no more of the men, and in that he was perfectly right. No more was ever seen of any one of them all in that part of the country, though rumors reached us, in the course of time, from some of the more western counties, that Tobit had been seen there, a cripple, as I have already stated, but maintaining his old character for lawlessness and disregard of the rights of others.

I next returned to Frank Malbone, who still stood on post at no great distance from the door, through which we could both see the form and features of his beautiful and beloved sister. Dus sat by her uncle's bedside, while Prudence had stationed herself by that of her husband. Frank and I advanced near the door, and looked in upon the solemn and singular sight that room afforded. It was indeed a strange and sad spectacle, to see those two aged men, each with his thin locks whitened by seventy years, drawing near their ends, the victims of lawless violence; for, while the death of Thousandacres was enveloped in a certain mystery, and might by some eyes be viewed as merited and legal, there could be no doubt that it was a direct consequence of the previous murder of Chainbearer. It is in this way that wrong extends and sometimes perpetuates its influence, proving the necessity of taking time by the forelock, and resorting to prevention in the earliest stages of the evil, instead of cure.

There lay the two victims of the false principles that the physical condition of the country, connected with its passive endurance of encroachments on the right, had gradually permitted to grow up among us. Squatting was a consequence of the thinness of the population and of the abundance of land, the two very circumstances that rendered it the less justifiable in a moral point of view; but which, by rendering the one side careless of its rights, and the other proportionably encroaching, had gradually led, not only to this violation of law, but to the adoption of notions that are adverse to the supremacy of law in any case. It is this gradual undermining of just opinions that forms the imminent danger of our social system; a spurious philanthropy on the subject of punishments, false notions on that of personal rights, and the substitution of numbers for principles, bidding fair to produce much the most important revolution that has ever yet taken place on the American continent. The lover of real liberty, under such circumstances, should never forget that the road to despotism lies along the borders of the slough of licentiousness, even when it escapes wallowing in its depths.

When Malbone and myself drew back from gazing on the scene within the house, he related to me in detail all that was connected with his own proceedings. The reader knows that it was by means of a meeting in the forest, between the Indian and the negro, that my friends first became acquainted with my arrest, and the probable danger in which I was placed. Chainbearer, Dus, and Jaap instantly repaired to the clearing of Thousandacres; while Malbone hastened on to Ravensnest, in pursuit of legal aid, and of a force to render my rescue certain. Meditating on all the facts of the case, and entertaining most probably an exaggerated notion of the malignant character of Thousandacres, by the time he reached the Nest my new friend was in a most feverish state of excitement. His first act was, to write a brief statement of the facts to my father, and to dispatch his letter by a special messenger, with orders to him to push on to Fishkill, all the family being there at the time, on a visit to the Kettletases; proceeding by land or by water, as the wind might favor. I was startled at this information, foreseeing at once that it would bring not only the general himself, but my dear mother and Kate, with Tom Bayard quite likely in her train, posthaste to Ravensnest. It might even cause my excellent old grandmother to venture so far from home; for my last letters had apprised me that they were all on the point of visiting my sister Anneke, which was the way Frank had learned where the family was to be found.

As Malbone's messenger had left the Nest early the preceding night, and the wind had been all day fresh at north, it came quite within the bounds of possibility that he might be at Fishkill at the very moment I was listening to the history of his message. The distance was about a hundred and forty miles, and nearly one hundred of it could be made by water. Such a messenger would care but little for the accommodations of his craft; and, on the supposition that he reached Albany that morning, and found a sloop ready to profit by the breeze, as would be likely to occur, it would be quite in rule to reach the landing at Fishkill in the course of the evening, aided by the little gale that had been blowing. I knew General Littlepage too well, to doubt either his affection or his promptitude. Albany could be reached in a day by land, and Ravensnest in another. I made my account, therefore, to see a part if not all of the family at the Nest, as soon as I should reach it myself; an event not likely to occur, however, for some little time, on account of the condition of Chainbearer.

I shall not deny that this new state of things, with the expectations connected with it, gave me sufficient food for reflection. I could not and did not blame Frank Malbone for what he had done, since it was natural and proper. Notwithstanding, it would precipitate matters as regarded my relation to Dus a little faster than I could have wished. I desired time to sound my family on the important subject of my marriage--to let the three or four letters I had already written, and in which she had been mentioned in a marked manner, produce their effect; and I counted largely on the support I was to receive through the friendship and representations of Miss Bayard. I felt certain that deep disappointment on the subject of Pris would be felt by the whole family; and it was my wish not to introduce Ursula to their acquaintance until time had a little lessened its feeling. But things must now take their course; and my determination was settled to deal as sincerely and simply as possible with my parents on the subject. I knew their deep affection for me, and relied strongly on that natural support.

I had half an hour's conversation with Dus while walking in front of the hospital that night, Frank taking his sister's place by the side of Chainbearer's bed. Then it was that I again spoke of my hopes, and explained the probabilities of our seeing all of my immediate family so shortly at Ravensnest. My arm was round the waist of the dear girl as I communicated these facts; and I felt her tremble, as if she dreaded the trial she was to undergo.

"This is very sudden and unexpected, Mordaunt," Dus remarked, after she had had a little time to recover her recollection; "and I have so much reason to fear the judgment of your respectable parents--of your charming sister, of whom I have heard so often through Priscilla Bayard--and indeed of all who have lived, as they have done, amid the elegancies of a refined state of society; I, Dus Malbone--a chainbearer's niece, and a chainbearer myself!"

"You have never borne any chain, love, that is as lasting or as strong as that which you have entwined around my heart, and which will forever bind me to you, let the rest of the world regard us both as it may. But you can have nothing to fear from any, and least of all from my friends. My father is not worldly-minded; and as for my dear, dear mother, Anneke Mordaunt, as the general even now often affectionately calls her, as if the name itself reminded him of the days of her maiden loveliness and pride--as for that beloved mother, Ursula, I do firmly believe that, when she comes to know you, she will even prefer you to her son."

"That is a picture of your blinded partiality, Mordaunt," answered the gratified girl, for gratified I could see she was, "and must not be too fondly relied on. But this is no time to talk of our own future happiness, when the eternal happiness or misery of those two aged men is suspended, as it might be, by a thread. I have read prayers once already with my dear uncle; and that strange woman, in whom there is so much of her sex, mingled with a species of ferocity like that of a she-bear, has muttered a hope that her own 'dying man,' as she calls him, is not to be forgotten. I have promised he should not be, and it is time to attend to that duty next."

What a scene followed! Dus placed the light on a chest near the bed of Thousandacres, and, with the prayer-book in her hand, she knelt beside it. Prudence stationed herself in such a posture that her head was buried in one of her own garments, that was suspended from a peg; and there she stood, while the melodious voice of Ursula Malbone poured out the petitions contained in the offices for the dying, in humble but fervent piety. I say stood, for neither Prudence nor Lowiny knelt. The captious temper of self-righteousness which had led their ancestors to reject kneeling at prayers as the act of formalists, had descended to them; and there they stood, praying doubtless in their hearts, but ungracious formalists themselves in their zeal against forms. Frank and I knelt in the doorway; and I can truly affirm that never did prayers sound so sweetly in my ears, as those which then issued from the lips of Ursula Malbone.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"Thence cum we to the horrour and the hel,
The large great kyngdomes, and the dreadful raygne
Of Pluto in his trone where he dyd dwell,
The wyde waste places, and the hugye playne:
The waylings, shrykes, and sundry sortes of payne.

The syghes, and sobbes, and diep and deadly groane,
Earth, ayer, and all resounding playnt and moane."

--Sackville.

In this manner did that memorable night wear away. The two wounded men slumbered much of the time; nor did their wants extend beyond occasional draughts of water, to cool their feverish mouths, or the wetting of lips. I prevailed on Dus to lie down on the bed of Lowiny, and try to get a little rest; and I had the pleasure to hear her say that she had slept sweetly for two or three hours, after the turn of the night. Frank and I caught naps, also, after the fashion of soldiers, and Lowiny slept in her chair, or leaning on her father's bed. As for Prudence, I do not think her watchfulness was lessened for a single instant. There she sat the livelong night; silent, tearless, moody, and heart-stricken by the great and sudden calamity that had befallen her race, but vigilant and attentive to the least movement in the huge frame of her wounded partner. No complaint escaped her; scarcely once did she turn to look at what was going on around her, nor in any manner did she heed aught but her husband. To him she seemed to be unerringly true; and whatever she may, and must have thought of his natural sternness, and occasional fits of severity toward herself, all now seemed to be forgotten.

At length light returned, after hours of darkness that seemed to me to be protracted to an unusual length. Then it was, when Jaap and the Indian were ready to take our places on the watch, that Frank and I went to one of the huts and lay down for two or three hours; and that was the time when Dus got her sweetest and most refreshing sleep. Lowiny prepared our morning's meal for us; which we three, that is, Dus, Frank and myself, took together in the best way we could, in the dwelling of Tobit. As for 'Squire Newcome, he left the clearing in the course of the night, or very early in the morning, doubtless exceedingly uneasy in his conscience, but still uncertain whether his connection with the squatters was or was not known to me; the excuse for this movement being the probable necessity of summoning a jury; Mr. Jason Newcome filling in his own person, or by deputy, the several offices and functions of justice of the peace, one of the coroners of the county, supervisor of the township of Ravensnest merchant, shopkeeper, miller, lumber-dealer, husbandman and innkeeper; to say nothing of the fact that he wrote all the wills of the neighborhood; was a standing arbitrator when disputes were "left out to men;" was a leading politician, a patriot by trade, and a remarkable and steady advocate of the rights of the people, even to minutiae. Those who know mankind will not be surprised, after this enumeration of his pursuits and professions, to hear it added that he was a remarkable rogue in the bargain.

There are two things I have lived long enough to receive as truths established by my own experience, and they are these; I never knew a man who made large professions of a love for the people, and of his wish to serve them on all occasions, whose aim was not to deceive them to his own advantage; and the other is, that I never knew a man who was compelled to come much in contact with the people, and who at the same time was personally popular, who had anything in him at the bottom. But it is time to quit Jason Newcome and his defects of character, in order to attend to the interesting scene that awaited us in the dwelling of Thousandacres, and to which we were now summoned by Jaap.

As the day advanced, both the Chainbearer and the squatter became aroused from the languor that had succeeded the receiving of their respective hurts, and more or less alive to what was passing around them. Life was ebbing fast in both, yet each seemed, just at that moment, to turn his thoughts backward on the world, in order, as it might be, to take a last look at those scenes in which he had now been an actor for the long period of threescore-and-ten years.

"Uncle Chainbearer is much revived, just now," said Dus, meeting Frank and myself at the door, "and he has asked for you both; more especially for Mordaunt, whose name he has mentioned three several times within the last five minutes. 'Send for Mordaunt, my child,' he has said to me, 'for I wish to speak with him before I quit you.' I am fearful he has inward admonitions of his approaching end."

"That is possible, dearest Ursula; for men can hardly lose their hold of life without being aware of the approaches of death. I will go at once to his bedside, that he may know I am here. It is best to let his own feelings decide whether he is able or not to converse."

The sound of Chainbearer's voice, speaking in a low but distinct tone, caught our ears as we approached him, and we all stopped to listen.

"I say, T'ousantacres," repeated Andries, on a key a little louder than before, "if you hear me, olt man, ant can answer, I wish you to let me know it. You ant I pe about to start on a fery long journey, ant it ist unreasonaple, as well as wicket, to set out wit' pad feelin's at t'e heart. If you hat hat a niece, now, like Dus t'ere, to tell you t'ese matters, olt Aaron, it might pe petter for your soul in t'e worlt into which we are poth apout to enter."

"He knows it--I'm sure he knows it, and feels it, too," muttered Prudence, rocking her body as before. "He has had pious forefathers, and cannot have fallen so far away from grace, as to forget death and eternity."

"Look you, Prutence, Aaron nefer coult fall away from what he nefer wast fastenet to. As for pious forefat'ers, t'ey may do to talk apout in Fourt' of July orations, put t'ey are of no great account in cleansin' a man from his sins. I s'pose t'em pious forefat'ers of which you speak was t'e people t'at first steppet on t'e rock town at Plymout'; put, let me telt you, Prutence, hat t'ere peen twice as many of t'em, and hat t'ey all peen twice as goot as you poast of t'eir hafin' peen, it wilt do no goot to your man, unless he wilt repent, and pe sorry for all t'e unlawful ant wicket t'ings he hast tone in t'is worlt, and his treatment of pountaries in jin'ral, ant of ot'er men's lants in partic'lar. Pious ancestors may pe pleasant to haf, put goot pehavior ist far petter as t'e last hour approaches."

"Answer him, Aaron," the wife rejoined--"answer him, my man, in order that we may all of us know the frame of mind in which you take your departure. Chainbearer is a kind-hearted man at the bottom, and has never wilfully done us any harm."

For the first time since Andries received his wound, I now heard the voice of Thousandacres. Previously to that moment, the squatter, whether hurt or not, had sat in moody silence, and I had supposed after he was wounded that he was unable to use his tongue. To my surprise, however, he now spoke with a depth and strength of voice that at first misled me, by inducing me to think that the injury he had received could not be fatal.

"If there wasn't no chainbearers," growled Thousandacres, "there wouldn't be no lines, or metes and bounds, as they call 'em; and where there's no metes and bounds, there can be no right of possession. If 'twasn't for your writin' titles, I shouldn't be lyin' here, breathin' my last."

"Forgive it all, my man; forgive it all, as behooves a good Christian," Prudence returned, to this characteristic glance at the past, in which the squatter had so clearly overlooked all his own delinquencies, and was anxious to impute consequences altogether to others. "It is the law of God to forgive your enemies, Aaron, and I want you to forgive Chainbearer, and not go to the world of spirits with gall in your heart."

"'Twoult pe much petter, Prutence, if T'ousantacres woult pray to Got to forgif himself," put in Chainbearer. "I am fery willin', ant happy to haf t'e forgifness of efery man, ant it ist not unlikely t'at I may haf tone somet'ing, or sait somet'ing t'at hast peen hart to t'e feelin's of your huspant; for we are rough, and plain-speakin', and plain-actin' enough, in t'e woots; so I'm willin' to haf even T'ousantacres' forgifness, I say, and wilt accept it wit' pleasure if he wilt offer it, and take mine in exchange."

A deep groan struggled out of the broad, cavern-like chest of the squatter. I took it as an admission that he was the murderer of Andries.

"Yes," resumed Chainbearer--"Dus hast mate me see----"

"Uncle!" exclaimed Ursula, who was intently listening, and who now spoke because unable to restrain the impulse.

"Yes, yes, gal, it hast peen all your own toin's. Pefore ast you come pack from school, ast we come into t'e woots, all alone like, you haf nefer forgotten to teach an olt, forgetful man his tuty----"

"Oh! uncle Chainbearer, it is not I, but God in his mercy who has enlightened your understanding and touched your heart."

"Yes, tarlin'; yes, Dus, my tear, I comprehent t'at too; but Got in His mercy sent an angel to pe his minister on 'art' wit' a poor ignorant Tutchman, who hast not t'e l'arnin' ant t'e grace he might ant ought to have hat, wit'out your ait, and so hast t'e happy change come apout. No--no--T'ousantacres, I wilt not tespise even your forgifness, little as you may haf to forgif; for it lightens a man's heart of heafy loats, when his time is short, to know he leafs no enemies pehind him. T'ey say it ist pest to haf t'e goot wishes of a tog, ant how much petter ist it to haf t'e goot wishes of one who hast a soul t'at only wants purifyin', to twell in t'e Almighty's presence t'roughout eternity!"

"I hope and believe," again growled Thousandacres, "that in the world we're goin' to, there'll be no law, and no attorneys."

"In t'at, t'en, Aaron, you pe greatly mistaken. T'at lant is all law, ant justice, ant right; t'ough. Got forgif me if I do any man an injury; put to pe frank wit' you, as pecomes two mortals so near t'eir ents, I do not pelief, myself, t'at t'ere wilt pe a great many attorneys to trouble t'em t'at are receivet into t'e courts of t'e Almighty, himself. T'eir practices on 'arth does not suit t'em for practice in heafen."

"If you'd always held them rational notions, Chainbearer, no harm might have come to you, and my life and your'n been spared. But this is a state of being in which short-sightedness prevails ag'in the best calkerlations. I never felt more sure of gettin' lumber to market than I felt three days ago, of gettin' this that's in the creek, safe to Albany; and now, you see how it is! the b'ys are disparsed, and may never see this spot again; the gals are in the woods, runnin' with the deer of the forest; the lumber has fallen into the hands of the law; and that, too, by the aid of a man that was bound in honesty to protect me, and I'm dyin' here!"

"Think no more of the lumber, my man, think no more of the lumber," said Prudence, earnestly; "time is desp'rate short at the best, and yours is shorter than common, even for a man of seventy, while etarnity has no eend. Forgit the boards, and forgit the b'ys, and forgit the gals, forgit 'arth and all it holds----"

"You wouldn't have me forgit you, Prudence," interrupted Thousandacres, "that's been my wife, now, forty long years, and whom I tuck when she was young and comely, and that's borne me so many children, and has always been a faithful and hard-working woman--you wouldn't have me forget you!"

This singular appeal, coming as it did from such a being, and almost in his agony, sounded strangely and solemnly, amid the wild and semi-savage appliances of a scene I can never forget. The effect on Ursula was still more apparent; she left the bedside of her uncle, and with strong womanly sympathy manifested in her countenance, approached that of this aged couple, now about to be separated for a short time, at least, where she stood gazing wistfully at the very man who was probably that uncle's murderer, as if she could gladly administer to his moral ailings. Even Chainbearer attempted to raise his head, and looked with interest toward the other group. No one spoke, however, for all felt that the solemn recollections and forebodings of a pair so situated, were too sacred for interruption. The discourse went on, without any hiatus, between them.

"Not I, not I, Aaron, my man," answered Prudence, with strong emotions struggling in her voice; "there can be no law, or call for that. We are one flesh, and what God has j'ined, God will not keep asunder long. I cannot tarry long behind you, my man, and when we meet together ag'in, I hope 'twill be where no boards, or trees or acres, can ever make more trouble for us!"

"I've been hardly treated about that lumber, a'ter all," muttered the squatter, who was now apparently more aroused to consciousness than he had been, and who could not but keep harping on what had been the one great business of his life, even as that life was crumbling beneath his feet--"hardly dealt by, do I consider myself, about that lumber, Prudence. Make the most of the Littlepage rights, it was only trees that they could any way claim, in reason; while the b'ys and I, as you well know, have convarted them trees into as pretty and noble a lot of han'some boards and planks as man ever rafted to market!"

"It's convarsion of another natur' that you want now, Aaron, my man; another sort of convarsion is the thing needful. We must all be convarted once in our lives; at least all such as be the children of Puritan parents and a godly ancestry; and it must be owned, takin' into account our years, and the importance of example in such a family as our'n, that you and I have put it off long enough. Come it must, or suthin' worse; and time and etarnity, in your case, Aaron, is pretty much the same thing."

"I should die easier in mind, Prudence, if Chainbearer would only admit that the man who chops and hauls, and saws and rafts a tree, does get some sort of a right, nat'ral or legal, to the lumber."

"I'm sorry, T'ousantacres," put in Andries, "t'at you feel any such admission from me necessary to you at t'is awful moment, since I nefer can make it ast an honest man. You hat petter listen to your wife, and get confarted if you can, ant as soon ast you can. You ant I haf put a few hours to lif; I am an olt solder, T'ousantacres, ant haf seen more t'an t'ree t'ousant men shot town in my own ranks, to say nut'in' of t'e ranks of t'e enemy; ant wit' so much exper'ence a man comes to know a little apout wounts ant t'eir tarminations. I gif it ast my chugment, t'erefore, t'at neit'er of us can haf t'e smallest hope to lif t'rough t'e next night. So get t'at confarsion as hastily ant ast well ast you can, for t'ere ist little time to lose, ant you a squatter! T'is ist t'e moment of all ot'ers, T'ousantacres, to proofe t'e true falue of professions, and trates, ant callin's, as well ast of t'e manner in which t'eir tuties haf peen fulfillet. It may pe more honoraple ant more profitaple to pe a calculating surveyor, ant to unterstant arit'metic, and to pe talket of in t'e worlt for work tone on a large scale; put efen his excellency himself, when he comes to t'e last moments, may pe glat t'at t'e temptations of such larnin', ant his pein so t'oroughly an honest man, toes not make him enfy t'e state of a poor chainpearer; who, if he titn't know much, ant coultn't do much, at least measuret t'e lant wit' fitelity, and tid his work ast well ast he knew how. Yes, yes, olt Aaron; get confartet, I tell you; ant shoult Prutence not know enough of religion ant her piple, ant of prayin' to Got to haf marcy on your soul, t'ere ist Dus Malpone, my niece, who understants, ant what ist far petter, who feels t'ese matters, quite as well ast most tominies, ant petter t'an some lazy ant selfish ones t'at I know, who treat t'eir flocks as if t'e Lort meant t'ey wast to pe sheart only, ant who wast too lazy to do much more t'an to keep cryin' out--not in t'e worts of t'e inspiret writer--'Watchman, what of t'e night?--watchman, what of t'e night?'--put, 'My pelovet, and most Christian, ant gotly-mintet people, pay, pay, pay!' Yes, t'ere ist too much of such afarice ant selfishness in t'e worlt, and it toes harm to t'e cause of t'e Safiour; put trut' is so clear ant peautiful an opject, my poor Aaron, t'at efen lies, ant fice, ant all manner of wicketnesses cannot long sully it. Take my atvice, ant talk to Dus; ant t'ough you wilt touptless continue to grow worse in poty, you wilt grow petter in spirit."

Thousandacres turned his grim visage round, and gazed intently and wistfully toward Ursula. I saw the struggle that was going on within, through the clear mirror of the sweet, ingenuous face of my beloved, and I saw the propriety of retiring. Frank Malbone understood my look, and we left the house together, closing the door behind us.

Two, to me, long and anxious hours succeeded, during most of which time my companion and myself walked about the clearing, questioning the men who composed the posse, and hearing their reports. These men were in earnest in what they were doing; for a respect for law is a distinguishing trait in the American character, and perhaps more so in New England, whence most of these people came, than in any other part of the country, the rascality of 'Squire Newcome to the contrary, notwithstanding. Some observers pretend that this respect for law is gradually decreasing among us, and that in its place, is sensibly growing up a disposition to substitute the opinions, wishes, and interests of local majorities, making the country subject to men instead of principles. The last are eternal and immutable; and coming of God, men, however unanimous in sentiment, have no more right to attempt to change them, than to blaspheme his holy name. All that the most exalted and largest political liberty can ever beneficially effect is to apply these principles to the good of the human race, in the management of their daily affairs; but when they attempt to substitute for these pure and just rules of right, laws conceived in selfishness and executed by the power of numbers, they merely exhibit tyranny in its popular form, instead of in its old aspect of kingly or aristocratic abuses. It is a fatal mistake to fancy that freedom is gained by the mere achievement of a right in the people to govern, unless the manner in which that right is to be both understood and practised, is closely incorporated with all the popular notions of what has been obtained. That right to govern means no more than the right of the people to avail themselves of the power thus acquired, to apply the great principles of justice to their own benefit, and from the possession of which they had hitherto been excluded. It confers no power to do that which is inherently wrong, under any pretence whatever; or would anything have been gained, had America, as soon as she relieved herself from a sway that diverted so many of her energies to the increase of the wealth and influence of a distant people, gone to work to frame a new polity which should inflict similar wrongs within her own bosom.

My old acquaintance, the hearty Rhode Islander, was one of the posse, and I had a short conversation with him, while thus kept out of the house, which may serve to let the reader somewhat into the secret of the state of things at the clearing. We met near the mill, when my acquaintance, whose name was Hosmer, commenced as follows:

"A good day to you, major, and a hearty welcome to the open air!" cried the sturdy yeoman, frankly but respectfully, offering his hand. "You fell into a pit here, or into a den among thieves; and it's downright providential you e'er saw and breathed the clear air ag'in! Wa-a-l, I've been trailin' a little this mornin' along with the Injin; and no hound has a more sartain scent than he has. We went into the hollow along the creek; and a desp'rate sight of boards them varmints have got into the water, I can tell you! If the lot's worth forty pounds York, it must be worth every shilling of five hundred. They'd 'a' made their fortin's, every blackguard among 'em. I don't know but I'd fit myself to save so many boards, and sich beautiful boards, whether wrongfully or rightfully lumbered!"

Here the hearty old fellow stopped to laugh, which he did exactly in the full-mouthed, contented way in which he spoke and did everything else. I profited by the occasion to put in a word in reply.

"You are too honest a man, major, to think of ever making your boards out of another man's trees," I answered. "These people have lived by dishonest practices all their lives, and any one can see what it has come to."

"Yes, I hope I am, 'Squire Littlepage--I do hope I am. Hard work and I an't nohow afeard of each other; and so long as a man can work, and will work, Satan don't get a full grip on him. But, as I was sayin', the Trackless struck the trail down the creek, though it was along a somewhat beaten path; but the Injin would make no more of findin' it in a highway, than you and I would of findin' our places in the Bible on Sabba'day, where we had left off the Sabba'day that was gone. I always mark mine with a string the old woman braided for me on purpose, and a right-down good method it is; for, while you're s'archin' for your specs with one hand, nothin' is easier than to open the Bible with t'other. Them's handy things to have, major; and, when you marry some great lady down at York, sich a one as your own mother was, for I know'd her and honored her, as we all did hereaway--but, when you get married ask your wife to braid a string for you, to find the place in the Bible with, and all will go right, take an old man's word for it."

"I thank you, friend, and will remember the advice, even though I might happen to marry a lady in this part of the world, and not down in York."

"This part of the world? No, we've got nobody our way, that's good enough for you. Let me see; Newcome has a da'ghter that's old enough, but she's desp'rate humbly (Anglice, homely--the people of New England reserve 'ugly' for moral qualities) and wouldn't suit, no how. I don't think the Littlepages would overmuch like being warp and fillin' with the Newcomes."

"No! My father was an old friend--or, an old acquaintance at least, of Mr. Newcome's, and must know and appreciate his merits."

"Yes--yes--I'll warrant ye the gin'ral knows him. Wa-a-l! Human natur' is human natur'; and I do s'pose, if truth must be spoken, none on us be half as good as we ought to be. We read about faithful stewards in the good book, and about onfaithful ones too, squire"--here the old yeoman stopped to indulge in one of his hearty laughs, rendering it manifest he felt the full application of his words. "Wa-a-l, all must allow the Bible's a good book. I never open it, without l'arnin' suthin', and what I l'arn, I strive not to forgit. But there's a messenger for you, major, from Thousandacres' hut, and I fancy it will turn out that he or Chainbearer is drawing near his eend."

Lowiny was coming to summon us to the house, sure enough, and I took my leave of my brother major for the moment. It was plain to me that this honest-minded yeoman, a good specimen of his class, saw through Newcome and his tricks, and was not unwilling to advert to them. Nevertheless, this man had a fault, and one very characteristic of his "order." He could not speak directly, but would hint round a subject, instead of coming out at once, and telling what he had to say; beating the bush to start his game, when he might have put it up at once, by going in at it directly. Before we parted, he gave me to understand that Susquesus and my fellow, Jaap, had gone on in pursuit of the retreating squatters, intending to follow their trail several miles, in order to make sure that Tobit and his gang were not hanging around the clearing to watch their property, ready to strike a blow when it might be least expected.

Dus met me at the door of the cabin, tearful and sad, but with such a holy calm reigning in her generally brilliant countenance, as denoted the nature of the solemn business in which she had just been engaged. She extended both hands to meet mine, and whispered, "Uncle Chainbearer is anxious to speak to us--on the subject of our engagement, I think it is." A tremor passed through the frame of Ursula, but she made an effort, smiled sadly, and continued: "Hear him patiently, dear Mordaunt, and remember that he is my father, in one sense, and as fully entitled to my obedience and respect as if I were really his daughter."

As I entered the room, I could see that Dus had been at prayer. Prudence looked comforted, but Thousandacres himself had a wild and uncertain expression of countenance, as if doubts had begun to beset him, at the very moment when they must have been the most tormenting. I observed that his anxious eye followed the form of Dus, and that he gazed on her as one would be apt to regard the being who had just been the instrument of awakening within him the consciousness of his critical state. But my attention was soon drawn to the other bed.

"Come near me, Mortaunt, lat; and come hit'er, Dus, my tearest ta'ghter ant niece. I haf a few worts of importance to say to you pefore I go, ant if t'ey pe not sait now, t'ey nefer may pe sait at all. It's always pest to 'take time py t'e forelock,' t'ey say; ant surely I cannot pe callet in haste to speak, when not only one foot, put pot' feet and half my poty in t'e pargain, may well pe sait to pe in t'e grafe. Now listen to an olt man's atfice, ant do not stop my worts until all haf peen spoken, for I grow weak fast, ant haf not strength enough to t'row away any of it in argument.

"Mortaunt hast sait ast much, in my hearin' ast to atmit t'at he lofes ant atmires my gal, ant t'at he wishes, ant hopes, ant expects to make her his wife. On t'e ot'er hant, Ursula, or Dus, my niece, confesses ant acknowledges t'at she lofes, ant esteems, ant hast a strong regart for Mortaunt, ant ist willin' to pecome his wife. All t'is is nat'ral, ant t'ere wast a time when it woult haf mate me ast happy ast t'e tay ist long to hear as much sait py t'e one or t'e ot'er of t'e parties. You know, my chiltren, t'at my affection for you is equal, ant t'at I consiter you, in all respects put t'at of worltly contition, to pe as well suitet to pecome man ant wife ast any young couple in America. Put tuty is tuty, ant it must pe tischarget. General Littlepage wast my olt colonel; ant an honest ant an honoraple man himself, he hast efery right to expect t'at efery one of his former captains, in partic'lar, woult do unto him as t'ey woult haf him do unto t'em. Now, t'ough heafen ist heafen, t'is worlt must pe regartet as t'is worlt, ant t'e rules for its gofernment are to pe respectet in t'eir place. T'e Malpones pe a respectaple family, I know; ant t'ough Dus's own fat'er wast a little wilt, ant t'oughtless, ant extrafagant----"

"Uncle Chainbearer!"

"True, gal, true; he wast your fat'er, ant t'e chilt shoult respect its parent. I atmit t'at, ant wilt say no more t'an ist apsolutely necessary; pesites, if Malpone hat his pat qualities, he hat his goot. A hantsomer man coult not pe fount, far ant near, ast my poor sister felt, I dares to say; ant he wast prave as a pull-dog, ant generous, ant goot-naturet, ant many persons was quite captivated py all t'ese showy atfantages, ant t'ought him petter ast he really wast. Yes, yes, Dus, my chilt, he hat his goot qualities, as well as his pat. Put, t'e Malpones pe gentlemen, as ist seen py Frank, Dus's prother, ant py ot'er mempers of t'e family. T'en my mot'er's family, py which I am relatet to Dus, wast very goot--even petter t'an t'e Coejemans--ant t'e gal is a gentlewoman py pirt'. No one can deny t'at; put ploot won't do eferyt'ing. Chiltren must pe fet, and clot'et; ant money ist necessary, a'ter all, for t'e harmony ant comfort of families. I know Matam Littlepage, in partic'lar. She ist a da'ter of olt Harman Mortaunt, who wast a grant gentleman in t'e lant, ant t'e owner of Ravensnest, ast well ast of ot'er estates, and who kept t'e highest company in t'e profince. Now Matam Littlepage, who hast peen t'us born, ant etucatet, ant associatet, may not like t'e itee of hafin' Dus Malpone, a chainpearer's niece, ant a gal t'at hast peen chainpearer herself, for which I honor ant lofe her so much t'e more, Mortaunt, lat; put for which an ill-chutgin' worlt wilt despise her----"

"My mother--my noble-hearted, right-judging and right-feeling mother--never!" I exclaimed, in a burst of feeling I found it impossible to control.

My words, manner and earnestness produced a profound impression on my auditors. A gleam of pained delight shot into and out of the countenance of Ursula, like the passage of the electric spark. Chainbearer gazed on me intently, and it was easy to trace, in the expression of his face, the deep interest he felt in my words, and the importance he attached to them. As for Frank Malbone, he fairly turned away to conceal the tears that forced themselves from his eyes.

"If I coult t'ink ast much--if I coult hope ast much, Mortaunt," resumed Chainbearer, "it woult pe a plesset relief to my partin' spirit, for I know General Littlepage well enough to pe sartain t'at he ist a just ant right-mintet man, ant t'at, in t'e long run, he woult see matters ast he ought to see t'em. Wit' Matam Littlepage I fearet it was tifferent; for I haf always hearet t'at t'e Mortaunts was tifferent people, ant felt ast toppin' people commonly do feel. T'is makes some change in my itees, ant some change in my plans. Howsefer, my young frients, I haf now to ask of you each a promise--a solemn promise mate to a tyin' man--ant it ist t'is----"

"First hear me, Chainbearer," I interposed eagerly, "before you involve Ursula heedlessly, and I had almost said cruelly, in any incautious promise, that may make both our lives miserable hereafter. You yourself first invited, tempted, courted me to love her; and now, when I know and confess her worth, you throw ice on my flame, and command me to do that of which it is too late to think."

"I own it, I own it, lat, ant hope t'e Lort, in his great marcy, wilt forgif ant parton t'e great mistake I mate. We haf talket of t'is pefore, Mortaunt, ant you may rememper I tolt you it was Dus herself who first mate me see t'e trut' in t'e matter, ant how much petter ant more pecomin' it wast in me to holt you pack, t'an to encourage ant leat you on. How comes it, my tear gal, t'at you haf forgot all t'is, ant now seem to wish me to do t'e fery t'ing you atviset me not to do?"

Ursula's face became pale as death; then it flashed to the brightness of a summer sunset, and she sank on her knees, concealing her countenance in the coarse quilt of the bed, as her truthful and ingenuous nature poured out her answer.

"Uncle Chainbearer," she said, "when we first talked on this subject I had never seen Mordaunt."

I knelt at the side of Ursula, folded her to my bosom, and endeavored to express the profound sentiment of gratitude that I felt at hearing this ingenuous explanation, by such caresses as nature and feeling dictated. Dus, however, gently extricated herself from my arms, and rising, we both stood waiting the effect of what had just been seen and heard on Chainbearer.

"I see t'at natur' is stronger t'an reason, ant opinion, ant custom," the old man resumed, after a long, meditative pause--"I haf put little time to spent in t'is matter, howsefer, my chiltren, ant must pring it to a close. Promise me, pot' of you, t'at you will nefer marry wit'out t'e free consent of General Littlepage, ant t'at of olt Matam Littlepage, ant young Matam Littlepage, each or all pein' lifin'."

"I do promise you, uncle Chainbearer," said Dus, with a promptitude that I could hardly pardon--"I do promise you, and will keep my promise, as I love you and fear and honor my Maker. 'Twould be misery to me to enter a family that was not willing to receive me----"

"Ursula!--dearest--dearest Ursula--do you reflect! Am I, then, nothing in your eyes?"

"It would also be misery to live without you, Mordaunt--but in one case I should be supported by a sense of having discharged my duty; while in the other, all that went wrong would appear a punishment for my own errors."

I would not promise; for, to own the truth, while I never distrusted my father or mother for a single instant, I did distrust my dear and venerable grandmother. I knew that she had not only set her heart on my marrying Priscilla Bayard; but that she had a passion for making matches in her own family; and I feared that she might have some of the tenacity of old age in maintaining her opinions. Dus endeavored to prevail on me to promise; but I evaded the pledge; and all solicitations were abandoned in consequence of a remark that was soon after made by Chainbearer.

"Nefer mint--nefer mint, darlint; your promise is enough. So long as you pe true, what matters it w'et'er Mortaunt is heatstrong or not? Ant now, children, ast I wish to talk no more of t'e matters of t'is worlt, put to gif all my metitations ant language to t'e t'ings of Got, I wilt utter my partin' worts to you. W'et'er you marry or not, I pray Almighty Got to gif you his pest plessin's in t'is life, ant in t'at which ist to come. Lif in sich a way, my tear chiltren, as to pe aple to meet t'is awful moment, in which you see me placed, wit' hope ant joy, so t'at we may all meet hereafter in t'e courts of Heafen. Amen."

A short, solemn pause succeeded this benediction, when it was interrupted by a fearful groan, that struggled out of the broad chest of Thousandacres. All eyes were turned on the other bed, which presented a most impressive contrast to the calm scene that surrounded the parting soul of him about whom we had been gathered. I alone advanced to the assistance of Prudence, who, woman-like, clung to her husband to the last; "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh." I must own, however, that horror paralyzed my limbs; and that when I got as far as the foot of the squatter's bed, I stood riveted to the place like a rooted tree.

Thousandacres had been raised, by means of quilts, until half his body lay almost in a sitting position; a change he had ordered during the previous scene. His eyes were open; ghastly, wandering, hopeless. As the lips contracted with the convulsive twitchings of death, they gave to his grim visage a species of sardonic grin that rendered it doubly terrific. At this moment a sullen calm came over the countenance, and all was still. I knew that the last breath remained to be drawn, and waited for it as the charmed bird gazes at the basilisk-eye of the snake. It came, drawing aside the lips so as to show every tooth, and not one was missing in that iron frame; when, finding the sight too frightful for even my nerves, I veiled my eyes. When my hand was removed, I caught one glimpse of that dark tenement in which the spirit of the murderer and squatter had so long dwelt, Prudence being in the act of closing the glary, but still fiery eyes. I never before had looked upon so revolting a corpse, and never wish to see its equal again.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"Mild as a babe reclines himself to rest,
And smiling sleeps upon the mother's breast--
Tranquil, and with a patriarch's hope, he gave
His soul to heaven, his body to the grave."

--Harte.

I saw that neither Chainbearer nor Dus looked at the revolting object presented in the corpse of Thousandacres, after that selfish and self-willed being ceased to live. I had another hut prepared immediately for its reception, and the body was removed to it without delay. Thither Prudence accompanied the senseless body; and there she passed the remainder of the day, and the whole of the succeeding night, attended by Lowiny--with occasional offers of food and assistance from the men of the posse. Two or three of the latter, carpenters by trade, made a coffin of pine, and the body was placed in it in the customary manner. Others dug a grave in the centre of one of those rough fields that the squatter had appropriated to his own uses, thus making everything ready for the interment, as soon as the coroner, who had been sent for, should have had his sitting over the body.

The removal of the remains of Thousandacres left a sort of holy calm in the cabin of Chainbearer. My old friend was fast sinking; and he said but little. His consciousness continued to the last, and Dus was often at prayer with him in the course of that day. Frank and I aided in doing the duty of nurses; and we prevailed on Ursula to retire to the loft, and catch some rest, after her unwearying watchfulness. It was near sunset that old Andries again addressed himself particularly to me, who was sitting at his side, Dus being then asleep.

"I shalt lif till mornin', I now fint, Mortaunt," he said; "put, let deat' come when it wilt, it ist sent py my Lort and Maker, ant it ist welcome. Deat' hast no fears for me."

"He never had, Captain Coejemans, as the history of your whole career in the army shows."

"Yes, lat, t'ere wast a time when I shoult haf peen glat to haf peen shot on t'e fielt, ant to haf diet with Montgomery, ant Laurens, ant Wooster, ant Warren, and sichlike gallant heroes; put t'at ist all gone, now. I'm like a man t'at hast peen walkin' over a wite plain, ant who hast come to its tarmination, where he sees pefore him an entless apyss into which he must next step. At sich a sight, lat, all t'e trouples, ant lapors, ant tifficulties of t'e plain seem so triflin', t'at t'ey pe forgotten. Mint, I do not wish to say t'at eternity is an apyss to me in fears, ant pains, ant tespair; for t'e gootness of Got hast enlightenet my mint on t'at supject, ant hope, ant love, ant longin' for t'e presence of my Maker, stant in t'eir places. Mortaunt, my lat, pefore I quit you, I coult wish to say a coople of worts to you on t'is sacret supject, if 'twill gif no offence?"

"Say all, and what you please, dear Chainbearer. We are friends of the camp and the field, and the advice of no one could be more welcome to me than yours, given at a moment as solemn and truthful as this."

"T'ank ye, Mortaunt; t'ank ye wit' all my heart. You know how it hast peen wit' me, since poyhoot; for often ant often you ant I haf talket over t'ese t'ings in camp. I wast t'rown young upon t'e worlt, and wast left wit'out fat'er, or mot'er, to pring myself up. An only chilt of my own fat'er, for Dus comes from a half-sister, you know, t'ere wast no one to care for me in partic'lar, and I growet up in great ignorance of t'e Lort of Hosts, ant my tuties to him, and to his plesset son, more ast anyt'ing else. Well, Mortaunt, you know how it ist in t'e woots, ant in t'e army. A man neet not pe fery pat, to pe far from pein' as goot as ist expectet of him by t'e Almighty, who gafe him his soul, ant who reteemet him from his sins, and who holts out taily t'e means of grace. When I come here, wit' Dus, a chilt knewest almost as much of t'e real natur' of religion ast I knewest. Put, t'at precious gal, t'rough Divine grace, hast been t'e means of pringin' an olt ant ignorant man to a sense of his true contition, ant to petter hapits, t'an t'ose you knowest in him. Once I lovet a frolic, Mortaunt, and punch ant ot'er savory liquors wast fery pleasant to me; ay, ant even a'ter years might and shoult haf teachet me t'e folly of sich ways. Put you haf not seen t'e glass at my lips t'is summer, lat, at unseemly moments, or in unseemly numpers of times, ant t'at ist owin' to the confersations I haf hat wit' Dus on t'e supject. It woult haf tone your heart goot, Mortaunt, to haf seen t'e tear gal seated on my knee, combin' my olt gray hairs wit' her telicate white fingers, ant playin' with my hart, ret cheeks, ast t'e infant plays wit' t'e cheeks of t'e mot'er, whilst she talket to me of t'e history of Christ, ant his sufferin's for us all--ant tolt me t'e way to learn to know my Safiour in trut' ant sincerity! You t'ink Dus hantsome; ant pleasant to look upon; ant pleasant to talk wit'--put you can nefer know t'e gal in her colors of golt, Mortaunt, till she pegins to converse wit' you, unreservetly, apout Got ant retemption!"

"I can believe anything in favor of Ursula Malbone, my dear Chainbearer; and no music could be sweeter, to my ears, than thus to hear you pronouncing her praise."

The death of Chainbearer occurred, as he had himself prognosticated, about the time of the return of light on the succeeding morning. A more tranquil end I never witnessed. He ceased to suffer pain hours before he drew his last breath; but he had whispered to me, in the course of that day, that he endured agony at moments. He wished me to conceal the fact from Dus, however, lest it should increase her grief. "So long ast t'e tear gal ist in ignorance of my sufferin's," the excellent old man added in his whisper, "she cannot feel so much for me; since she must have confitence in t'e value of her own goot work, ant s'pose me to pe only trawin' nearer to happiness. Put, you ant I know, Mortaunt, t'at men are not often shot t'rough t'e poty wit'out feelin' much pain; ant I haf hat my share--yes, I haf hat my share!" Nevertheless, it would have been difficult for one who was not in the secret to detect the smallest sign that the sufferer endured a tithe of the agony he actually underwent. Ursula was deceived; and to this hour she is ignorant how much her uncle endured. But, as I have said, this pain ceased altogether about nine o'clock, and Andries even slumbered for many minutes at a time. Not long before the light returned, however, he became aroused, and never slumbered again until he fell into the long, last sleep of death. His niece prayed with him about five; after which he seemed to consider himself as ready for the final march.

It might have been owing to the age of the patient; but in this instance death announced his near approach by a rapid loss of the senses. At first came a difficulty of hearing; and then the quick decay of the sense of sight. The first was made known to us by a repetition of questions that had already been more than once answered; while the painful fact that sight, if not absolutely gone, was going, was brought home to us by the circumstance that, while Dus was actually hovering over him like a guardian angel, he inquired anxiously where she was.

"I am here, uncle Chainbearer," answered the dear girl, in tremulous tones--"here, before you, and am about to wet your lips."

"I want t'e gal--t'at ist--I wish her to pe near when t'e spirit mounts to Heafen. Haf her callet, Frank or Mortaunt."

"Dear--dearest uncle, I am here, now--here before you--closest to you of all--almost in your arms," answered Dus, speaking loud enough to make herself heard, by an effort that cost her a great deal. "Do not think I can ever desert you, until I know that your spirit has gone to the mercy-seat of God!"

"I knowet it," said Chainbearer, endeavoring to raise his arms to feel for his niece, who met the effort by receiving his feeble and clammy hand in both her own. "Remember my wishes apout Mortaunt, gal--yet shoult t'e family agree, marry him wit' my plessin'--yes, my pest plessin'. Kiss me, Dus.--Wast t'em your lips?--t'ey felt colt; ant you are nefer colt of hant or heart. Mortaunt--kiss me, too, lat--t'at wast warmer, ant hat more feelin' in it. Frank, gif me your hant--I owe you money--t'ere ist a stockin' half full of tollars. Your sister wilt pay my tebts. Ant General Littlepage owes me money--put most he owest me goot will. I pray Got to pless him--ant to pless Matam Littlepage--ant olt Matam Littlepage, t'at I nefer did see--ant t'e major, or colonel, ast he is now callet--ant all our rijiment--ant your rijiment, too, Frank, which wast a fery goot rijiment. Farewell, Frank--Dus--sister--precious--Christ Jesus, receive my----"

These words came with difficulty, and were whispered, rather than uttered aloud. They came at intervals, too, especially toward the last, in the way to announce the near approach of the state of which they were the more immediate percursors. The last syllable I have recorded was no sooner uttered, than the breath temporarily ceased. I removed Dus by gentle force, placing her in the arms of her brother, and turned to note the final respiration. That final breath in which the spirit appears to be exhaled, was calm, placid, and as easy as comports with the separation of soul and body; leaving the hard, aged, wrinkled, but benevolent countenance of the deceased, with an expression of happy repose on it, such as the friends of the dead love to look upon. Of all the deaths I had then witnessed, this was the most tranquil, and the best calculated to renew the hopes of a Christian. As for myself, it added a profound respect for the character and moral qualities of Ursula Malbone, to the love and admiration I bore her already, the fruits of her beauty, wit, heart, and other attractions.

The two expected deaths had now taken place, and it only remained to dispose of the legal questions connected with the events which had caused them, inter the bodies, and return to the Nest. I saw that one of the cabins was prepared for the reception of Ursula and Lowiny, the latter still clinging to us, while the body of Chainbearer was laid out in a coffin that had been made by the same hands, and at the same time, as that of Thousandacres. About noon, the coroner arrived, not 'Squire Newcome, but another, for whom he had himself sent; and a jury was immediately collected from among the members of the posse. The proceedings were of no great length. I told my story, or as much of it as was necessary, from beginning to end, and others gave their testimony as to the proceedings at different periods in the events. The finding was, in the case of Chainbearer, "murder by the hand of some person unknown;" and in that of Thousandacres, "accidental death." The first was right, unquestionably; as to the last, I conceive, there was as little of "accident" as ever occurred, when a man was shot through the body by a steady hand, and an unerring eye. But such was the verdict, and I had nothing but conjectures for my opinion as to the agency of the Indian in killing the squatter.

That evening, and a cool autumnal night it was, we buried Thousandacres, in the centre of the field I have mentioned. Of all his numerous family, Prudence and Lowiny alone were present. The service was short, and the man of violence descended to mingle with the clods of the earth, without a common prayer, a verse from Holy Writ, or any religious rite whatever. The men who had borne the body, and the few spectators present, filled the grave, rounded it handsomely, and covered it with sods, and were turning away in silence, to retrace their steps to the dwellings, when the profound stillness which had reigned throughout the whole of the brief ceremony, was suddenly broken by the clear, full voice of Prudence, who spoke in a tone and manner that arrested every step.

"Men and brethren," said this extraordinary woman, who had so many of the vices of her condition, relieved by so many of the virtues of her sex and origin; "Men and brethren," she said "for I cannot call ye neighbors, and will not call you foes, I thank ye for this act of decent regard to the wants of both the departed and the living, and that ye have thus come to assist in burying my dead out of my sight."

Some such address, even a portion of these very words, were customary; but as no one had expected anything of the sort at that moment, they startled as much as they surprised us. As the rest of the party recovered from its wonder, however, it proceeded toward the huts, leaving me alone with Prudence, who stood, swinging her body as usual, by the side of the grave.

"The night threatens to be cool," I said, "and you had better return with me to the dwelling."

"What's the houses to me, now! Aaron is gone, the b'ys be fled, and their wives and children, and my children, be fled, leaving none in this clearin' but Lowiny, who belongs more to your'n in feelin', than to me and mine, and the body that lies beneath the clods! There's property in the housen, that I do s'pose even the law would give us, and maybe some one may want it. Give me that, Major Littlepage, to help to clothe and feed my young, and I'll never trouble this place ag'in. They'll not call Aaron a squatter for takin' up that small piece of 'arth; and one day, perhaps, you'll not grudge to me as much more by its side. It's little more squattin' that I can do, and the next pitch I make, will be the last."

"There is no wish on my part, good woman, to injure you. Your effects can be taken away from this place whenever you please, and I will even help you to do it," I answered, "in such a way as to put it in the power of your sons to receive the goods without risk to themselves. I remember to have seen a batteau of some size in the stream below the mill; can you tell me whether it remains there or not?"

"Why shouldn't it? The b'ys built it two years ago, to transport things in, and it's not likely to go off of itself."

"Well, then, I will use that boat to get your effects off with safety to yourself. To-morrow, everything of any value that can be found about this place, and to which you can have any right, shall be put in that batteau, and I will send the boat, when loaded, down the stream, by means of my own black and the Indian, who shall abandon it a mile or two below, where those you may send to look for it, can take possession and carry the effects to any place you may choose."

The woman seemed surprised, and even affected by this proposal, though she a little distrusted my motives.

"Can I depend on this, Major Littlepage?" she asked, doubtingly. "Tobit and his brethren would be desp'rate, if any scheme to take 'em should be set on foot under sich a disguise."

"Tobit and his brethren have nothing to fear from treachery of mine. Has the word of a gentleman no value in your eyes?"

"I know that gentlemen gin'rally do as they promise; and so I've often told Aaron, as a reason for not bein' hard on their property, but he never would hear to it. Waal, Major Littlepage, I'll put faith in you, and will look for the batteau at the place you've mentioned. God bless you for this, and may he prosper you in that which is nearest your heart! We shall never see each other ag'in--farewell."

"You surely will return to the house, and pass the night comfortably under a roof!"

"No; I'll quit you here. The housen have little in 'em now that I love, and I shall be happier in the woods."

"But the night is cool, and, ere it be morning, it will become even chilling and cold."

"It's colder in that grave," answered the woman, pointing mournfully with her long, skinny finger to the mound which covered the remains of her husband. "I'm used to the forest, and go to look for my children. The mother that looks for her children is not to be kept back by winds and frost. Farewell ag'in, Major Littlepage. May God remember what you have done, and will do, for me and mine!"

"But you forget your daughter. What is to become of your daughter?"

"Lowiny has taken desp'rately to Dus Malbone, and wishes to stay with her while Dus wishes to have her stay. If they get tired of each other, my da'ghter can easily find us. No gal of mine will be long put out in sich a s'arch."

As all this sounded probable and well enough, I had no further objections to urge. Prudence waved her hand in adieu, and away she went across the dreary-looking fields with the strides of a man, burying her tall, gaunt figure in the shadow of the wood, with as little hesitation as another would have entered the well-known avenues of some town. I never saw her afterward; though one or two messages from her did reach me through Lowiny.

As I was returning from the grave, Jaap and the Trackless came in from their scout. The report they made was perfectly satisfactory. By the trail, which they followed for miles, the squatters had actually absconded, pushing for some distant point, and nothing more was to be feared from them in that part of the country. I now gave my orders as respected the goods and chattels of the family, which were neither very numerous nor very valuable; and it may as well be said here as later, that everything was done next day, strictly according to promise. The first of the messages that I received from Prudence came within a month, acknowledging the receipt of her effects, even to the gear of the mill, and expressing her deep gratitude for the favor. I have reason to think, too, that nearly half the lumber fell into the hands of these squatters, quite that portion of it being in the stream at the time we removed from the spot, and floating off with the rains that soon set in. What was found at a later day was sold, and the proceeds were appropriated to meet the expenses of, and to make presents to the posse, as an encouragement to such persons to see the majesty of the laws maintained.

Early next morning we made our preparations to quit the deserted mill. Ten of the posse arranged themselves into a party to see the body of Chainbearer transported to the Nest. This was done by making a rude bier, that was carried by two horses, one preceding the other, and having the corpse suspended between them. I remained with the body; but Dus, attended by Lowiny, and protected by her brother, preceded us, halting at Chainbearer's huts for our arrival. At this point we passed the first night of our journey, Dus and Frank again preceding us, always on foot, to the Nest. At this place, the final halt of poor Andries, the brother and sister arrived at an hour before dinner, while we did not get in with the body until the sun was just setting.

As our little procession drew near the house, I saw a number of wagons and horses in the orchard that spread around it, which at first I mistook for a collection of the tenants, met to do honor to the manes of Chainbearer. A second look, however, let me into the true secret of the case. As we drew slowly near, the whole procession on foot, I discovered the persons of my own dear parents, that of Colonel Follock, those of Kate, Pris. Bayard, Tom Bayard, and even of my sister Kettletas, in the group. Last of all, I saw, pressing forward to meet me, yet a little repelled by the appearance of the coffin, my dear and venerable old grandmother, herself!

Here, then, were assembled nearly all of the house of Littlepage, with two or three near friends, who did not belong to it! Frank Malbone was among them, and doubtless had told his story so that our visitors could not be surprised at our appearance. On the other hand, I was at no loss to understand how all this had been brought about. Frank's express had found the party at Fishkill, had communicated his intelligence, set everybody in motion on the wings of anxiety and love, and here they were. The journey had not been particularly rapid either, plenty of time having elapsed between the time when my seizure by the squatters was first made known to my friends, and the present moment, to have got a message to Lilacsbush, and to have received its answer.

Kate afterward told me we made an imposing and solemn appearance, as we came up to the gate of Ravensnest, bearing the body of Chainbearer. In advance marched Susquesus and Jaap, each armed, and the latter carrying an axe, acting, as occasion required, in the character of a pioneer. The bearers and attendants came next, two and two, armed as a part of the posse, and carrying packs; next succeeded the horses with the bier, each led by a keeper; I was the principal mourner, though armed like the rest, while Chainbearer's poor slaves, now the property of Dus, brought up the rear, carrying his compass, chains, and other emblems of his calling.

We made no halt, but passing the crowd collected on the lawn, we went through the gateway, and only came to a stand when we had reached the centre of the court. As all the arrangements had been previously made, the next step was to inter the body. I knew that General Littlepage had often officiated on such occasions, and a request to that effect was made to him, through Tom Bayard. As for myself, I said not a word to any of my own family, begging them to excuse me until I had seen the last offices performed to the remains of my friend. In half an hour all was ready, and again the solemn procession was resumed. As before, Susquesus and Jaap led the way, the latter now carrying a shovel, and acting in the capacity of a sexton. The Indian bore a flaming torch of pine, the darkness having so far advanced as to render artificial light necessary. Others of the party had these natural flambeaux also, which added greatly to the solemnity and impressiveness of the scene. General Littlepage preceded the corpse, carrying a prayer-book. Then followed the bearers with the coffin, the horses being now dismissed. Dus, veiled in black from head to foot and leaning on Frank, appeared as chief mourner. Though this was not strictly in conformity with real New York habits, yet no one thought the occasion one on which to manifest the customary reserve of the sex. Everybody in or near the Nest, females as well as males, appeared to do honor to the memory of Chainbearer, and Dus came forth as the chief mourner. Priscilla Bayard, leaning on the arm of her brother Tom, edged herself in next to her friend, though they had not as yet exchanged a syllable together; and, after all was over, Pris. told me it was the first funeral she had ever attended, or the first time she had ever been at a grave. The same was true of my grandmother, my mother, and both my sisters. I mention this lest some antiquarian, a thousand years hence, might light on this manuscript, and mistake our customs. Of late years, the New Englanders are introducing an innovation on the old usage of the colony; but, among the upper real New York families, women do not even now attend funerals. In this respect, I apprehend, we follow the habits of England, where females of the humbler classes, as I have heard, do, while their superiors do not appear on such occasions. The reason of the difference between the two is very easily appreciated, though I limit my statements to what I conceive to be the facts, without affecting to philosophize on them.

But all our ladies attended the funeral of Chainbearer. I came next to Tom and Priscilla, Kate pressing up to my side, and placing my arm in mine, without speaking. As she did this, however, the dear girl laid her little hand on mine, and gave the latter a warm pressure, as much as to say how greatly she was rejoiced at finding me safe, and out of the hands of the Philistines. The rest of the party fell in behind, and, as soon as the Indian saw that everybody was placed, he moved slowly forward, holding his flaming torch so high as to light the footsteps of those near him.

Directions had been sent to the 'Nest to dig a grave for Andries, in the orchard, and at no great distance from the verge of the rocks. As I afterward ascertained, it was at the very spot where one of the most remarkable events in the life of the general had occurred, an event in which both Susquesus and Jaap had been conspicuous actors. Thither, then, we proceeded in funeral order, and with funeral tread, the torches throwing their wild and appropriate light over the nearer accessories of the scene. Never did the service sound more solemnly to me, there being a pathos and richness in my father's voice that were admirably adapted to the occasion. Then he felt what he was reading, which does not always happen even when a clergyman officiates; for not only was General Littlepage a close friend of the deceased, but he was a devout Christian. I felt a throb at the heart, as I heard the fall of the first clods on the coffin of Chainbearer; but reflection brought its calm, and from the moment Dus became, as it might be, doubly dear to me. It appeared to me as if all her uncle's love and care had been transferred to myself, and that, henceforth, I was to be his representative with his much-beloved niece. I did not hear a sob from Ursula during the whole ceremony. I knew that she wept, and wept bitterly; but her self-command was so great as to prevent any undue obtrusion of her griefs on others. We all remained at the grave until Jaap had rounded it with his utmost skill, and had replaced the last sod. Then the procession formed anew, and we accompanied Frank and Dus to the door of the house, when she entered and left us without. Priscilla Bayard, however, glided in after her friend, and I saw them locked in each other's arms, through the window of the parlor, by the light of the fire within. At the next moment, they retired together to the little room that Dus had appropriated to her own particular use.

Now it was that I embraced and was embraced by my friends. My mother held me long in her arms, called me her "dear, dear boy," and left tears on my face. Kate did pretty much the same, though she said nothing. As for Anneke, my dear sister Kettletas, her embrace was like herself, gentle, sincere, and warm-hearted. Nor must my dear old grandmother be forgotten; for though she came last of the females, she held me longest in her arms, and, after "thanking God" devoutly for my late escape, she protested that "I grew every hour more and more like the Littlepages." Aunt Mary kissed me with her customary affection.

A portion of the embraces, however, occurred after we had entered the parlor, which Frank, imitating Dus, had delicately, as well as considerately, left to ourselves. Colonel Follock, nevertheless, gave me his salutations and congratulations before we left the court; and they were as cordial and hearty as if he had been a second father.

"How atmiraply the general reats, Mortaunt," our old friend added, becoming very Dutch as he got to be excited. "I haf always sayet t'at Corny Littlepage woult make as goot a tominie as any rector t'ey ever hat in olt Trinity. Put he mate as goot a soltier, too. Corny ist an extraordinary man, Mortaunt, ant one tay he wilt pe gofernor."

This was a favorite theory of Colonel Van Valkenburgh's. For himself, he was totally without ambition, whereas he thought nothing good enough for his friend, Corny Littlepage. Scarce a year passed that he did not allude to the propriety of elevating "t'e general" to some high office or other; nor am I certain that his allusions of this nature may not have had their effect; since my father was elected to Congress as soon as the new constitution was formed, and continued to sit as long as his health and comfort would permit.

Supper was prepared for both parties of travellers, of course, and in due time we all took our seats at table. I say all; but that was not literally exact, inasmuch as neither Frank, Dus, nor Priscilla Bayard, appeared among us again that evening. I presume each had something to eat, though all took the meal apart from the rest of the family.

After supper I was requested to relate, seriatim, all the recent events connected with my visit to the 'Nest, my arrest and liberation. This I did, of course, seated at my grandmother's side, the old lady holding one of my hands the whole time I was speaking. The most profound attention was lent by all the party; and a thoughtful silence succeeded my narration, which ended only with the history of our departure from the mills.

"Ay," exclaimed Colonel Follock, who was the first to speak after I had terminated my own account. "So much for Yankee religion! I'll warrant you now, Corny, t'at t'e fellow, T'ousantacres, coult preach ant pray just like all t'e rest of our Pilgrim Fat'ers."

"There are rogues of New York birth and extraction, Colonel Follock, as well as of New England," answered my father, dryly; "and the practice of squatting is incidental to the condition of the country; as men are certain to make free with the property that is least protected and watched. Squatters are made by circumstances, and not by any peculiar disposition of a particular portion of the population to appropriate the land of others to their own uses. It would be the same with our hogs and our horses, were they equally exposed to the depredations of lawless men, let the latter come from Connecticut or Long Island."

"Let me catch one of t'ese gentry among my horses!" answered the colonel, with a menacing shake of his head, for, Dutchman-like, he had a wonderful love for the species--"I woult crop him wit' my own hands, wit'out chudge or chury."

"That might lead to evils almost as great as those produced by squatting, Dirck," returned my father.

"By the way, sir," I put in, knowing that Colonel Follock sometimes uttered extravagances on such subjects, though as honest and well-meaning a man as ever breathed--"I have forgotten to mention a circumstance that may have some interest, as 'Squire Newcome is an old acquaintance of yours." I then recounted all the facts connected with the first visit of Mr. Jason Newcome to the clearing of Thousandacres, and the substance of the conversation I had overheard between the squatter and that upright magistrate. General Littlepage listened with profound attention; and as for Colonel Follock, he raised his eyebrows, grunted, laughed as well as a man could with his lips compressing a pipe, and uttered in the best way he was able, under the circumstances, and with sufficient sententiousness, the single word "Danpury."

"No--no--Dirck," answered my father, "we must not put all the crimes and vices on our neighbors, for many of them grow, from the seedling to the tree bearing fruit in our own soil. I know this man, Jason Newcome, reasonably well; and while I have confided in him more than I ought, perhaps I have never supposed he was the person in the least influenced by our conventional notions of honor and integrity. What is called 'law honest,' I have believed him to be; but it would seem, in that I have been mistaken. Still I am not prepared to admit that the place of his birth, or his education, is the sole cause of his backslidings."

"Own t'e trut', Corny, like a man ast you pe, ant confess it ist all our pilgrim fat'ers' ant Tanpury itees. What use ist t'ere in misleetin' your own son, who wilt come, sooner or later, to see t'e whole trut'?"

"I should be sorry, Dirck, to teach my son any narrow prejudices. The last war has thrown me much among officers from New England, and the intercourse has taught me to esteem that portion of our fellow-citizens more than was our custom previously to the revolution."

"Tush for 'intercourse,' ant 'esteem,' ant 'teachin', Corny! T'e whole t'ing of squattin' hast crosset t'e Byram rifer, ant unless we look to it, t'e Yankees wilt get all our lants away from us!"

"Jason Newcome, when I knew him best, and I may say first," continued my father, without appearing to pay much attention to the observations of his friend the colonel, "was an exceedingly unfledged, narrow-minded provincial, with a most overweening notion, certainly, of the high excellences of the particular state of society from which he had not long before emerged. He had just as great a contempt for New York, and New York wit, and New York usages, and especially for New York religion and morals, as Dirck here seems to have for all those excellences as they are exhibited in New England. In a word, the Yankee despised the Dutchman and the Dutchman abominated the Yankee. In all this, there is nothing new, and I fancy the supercilious feeling of the New Englandman can very easily be traced to his origin in the mother country. But, differences do exist, I admit, and I consider the feeling with which every New Englander comes among us to be, by habit, adverse to our state of society in many particulars--some good and some bad--and this merely because he is not accustomed to them. Among other things, as a whole, the population of these States do not relish the tenures by which our large estates are held. There are plenty of men from that quarter of the country, who are too well taught, and whose honesty is too much of proof, not to wish to oppose anything that is wrong in connection with this subject; still, the prejudices of nearly all who come from the east are opposed to the relation of landlord and tenant, and this because they do not wish to see large landlords among them, not being large landlords themselves. I never found any gentleman, or man of education from New England, who saw any harm in a man's leasing a single farm to a single tenant, or half-a-dozen farms to half-a-dozen tenants; proof that it is not the tenure itself with which they quarrel, but with a class of men who are, or seem to be, their superiors."

"I have heard the argument used against the leasehold system, that it retards the growth and lessens the wealth of any district in which it may prevail."

"That it does not retard the growth, is proved by the fact that farms can be leased always, when it often requires years to sell them. This estate is half filled now, and will be entirely occupied, long ere Mooseridge will be a third sold. That the latter may be the richest and the best tilled district, in the end, is quite probable; and this for the simple reasons that richer men buy than rent, to begin with, and the owner usually takes better care of his farm than the mere tenant. Some of the richest, best cultivated, and most civilized regions on earth, however, are those in which the tenures of the actual occupants are, and ever have been, merely leasehold. It is easy to talk, and to feel, in these matters, but not quite so easy to come to just conclusions as some imagine. There are portions of England, for instance--Norfolk in particular--where the improvements are almost entirely owing to the resources and enterprise of the large proprietors. As a question of political economy, Mordaunt, depend on it, this is one that has two sides to it; as a question of mere stomach, each man will be apt to view it as his gorge is up or down."

Shortly after this was said, the ladies complained of fatigue, a feeling in which we all participated; and the party broke up for the night. It seems the general had sent back word by the express, of the accommodations he should require; which enabled the good people of the Nest to make such arrangements as rendered everybody reasonably comfortable.

CHAPTER XXX.

"Lid.--The victory is yours, sir."

"King.--It is a glorious one, and well sets off
Our scene of mercy; to the dead we tender
Our sorrow; to the living, ample wishes
Of future happiness."

--Beaumont and Fletcher.

Fatigue kept me in bed next morning until it was late. On quitting the house I passed through the gateway, then always left open--defence being no longer thought of--and walked musingly toward the grave of Chainbearer. Previously to doing this, I went as far as each corner of the building, however, to cast an eye over the fields. On one side of the house I saw my father and mother, arm in arm, gazing around them; while on the other, aunt Mary stood by herself, looking wistfully in the direction of a wooded ravine, which had been the scene of some important event in the early history of the country. When she turned to re-enter the building, I found her face bathed in tears. This respectable woman, who was now well turned of forty, had lost her betrothed in battle, on that very spot, a quarter of a century before, and was now gazing on the sad scene for the first time since the occurrence of the event.

Something almost as interesting, though not of so sad a nature, also drew my parents to the other side of the house. When I joined them, an expression of grateful happiness, a little saddened perhaps by incidental recollections, was on the countenance of each. My dear mother kissed me affectionately as I drew near, and the general cordially gave me his hand while wishing me good morning.

"We were talking of you," observed the last, "at the very moment you appeared. Ravensnest is now becoming a valuable property; and its income, added to the products of this large and very excellent farm that you have in your own hands, should keep a country house, not only in abundance, but with something more. You will naturally think of marrying ere long, and your mother and I were just saying that you ought to build a good, substantial stone dwelling on this very spot, and settle down on your own property. Nothing contributes so much to the civilization of a country, as to dot it with a gentry, and you will both give and receive advantages by adopting such a course. It is impossible for those who have never been witnesses of the result, to appreciate the effect produced by one gentleman's family in a neighborhood, in the way of manners, tastes, general intelligence, and civilization at large."

"I am very willing to do my duty, sir, in this, as in other particulars; but a good stone country house, such as a landlord ought to build on his property, will cost money, and I have no sum in hand to use for such a purpose."

"The house will cost far less than you suppose. Materials are cheap, and so is labor just now. Your mother and myself will manage to let you have a few extra thousands, for our town property is beginning to tell again, and fear nothing on that score. Make your selection of a spot, and lay the foundation of the house this autumn; order the lumber sawed, the lime burned, and other preparations made--and arrange matters so that you can eat your Christmas dinner, in the year 1785, in the new residence of Ravensnest. By that time you will be ready to get married, and we may all come up to the house-warming."

"Has anything occurred in particular, sir, to induce you to imagine I am in any haste to marry? You seem to couple matrimony and the new house together, in a way to make me think there has."

I caught the general there, and, while my mother turned her head aside and smiled, I saw that my father colored a little, though he made out to laugh. After a moment of embarrassment, however, he answered with spirit--my good, old grandmother coming up and linking her arm at his vacant side as he did so.

"Why, Mord, my boy, you can have very little of the sensibility of the Littlepages in you," he said, "if you can be a daily spectator of such female loveliness as is now near you, and not lose your heart."

Grandmother fidgeted, and so did my mother; for I could see that both thought the general had made too bold a demonstration. With the tact of their sex, they would have been more on their guard. I reflected a moment, and then determined to be frank; the present being as good a time as any other, to reveal my secret.

"I do not intend to be insincere with you, my dear sir," I answered, "for I know how much better it is to be open on matters that are of a common interest in a family, than to affect mysteriousness. I am a true Littlepage on the score of sensibility to the charms of the sex, and have not lived in daily familiar intercourse with female loveliness, without experiencing so much of its influence as to be a warm advocate for matrimony. It is my wish to marry, and that, too, before this new abode of Ravensnest can be completed."

The common exclamation of delight that followed this declamation, sounded in my ears like a knell, for I knew it must be succeeded by a disappointment exactly proportioned to the present hopes. But I had gone too far to retreat, and felt bound to explain myself.

"I'm afraid, my dear parents, and my beloved grandmother," I continued, as soon as I could speak, conscious of the necessity of being as prompt as possible, "that you have misunderstood me."

"Not at all, my dear boy--not at all," interrupted my father. "You admire Priscilla Bayard, but have not yet so far presumed on your reception as to offer. But what of that? Your modesty is in your favor; though I will acknowledge that, in my judgment, a gentleman is bound to let his mistress know, as soon as his own mind is made up, that he is a suitor for her hand, and that it is ungenerous and unmanly to wait until certain of success. Remember that, Mordaunt, my boy; modesty may be carried to a fault in a matter of this sort."

"You still misunderstand me, sir. I have nothing to reproach myself with on the score of manliness, though I may have gone too far in another way without consulting my friends. Beyond sincere good-will and friendship, Priscilla Bayard is nothing to me, and I am nothing to Priscilla Bayard."

"Mordaunt!" exclaimed a voice, that I never heard without its exciting filial tenderness.

"I have said but truth, dearest mother, and truth that ought to have been sooner said. Miss Bayard would refuse me to-morrow, were I to offer."

"You don't know that, Mordaunt--you can't know it until you try," interrupted my grandmother, somewhat eagerly. "The minds of young women are not to be judged by the same rules as those of young men. Such an offer will not come every day, I can tell her; and she's much too discreet and right-judging to do anything so silly. To be sure, I have no authority to say how Priscilla feels toward you; but, if her heart is her own, and Mordy Littlepage be not the youth that has stolen it, I am no judge of my own sex."

"But, you forget, dearest grandmother, that were your flattering opinions in my behalf all true--as I have good reason to believe they are not--but were they true, I could only regret it should be so; for I love another."

This time the sensation was so profound as to produce a common silence. Just at that moment an interruption occurred, of a nature both so sweet and singular, as greatly to relieve me at least, and to preclude the necessity of my giving any immediate account of my meaning. I will explain how it occurred.

The reader may remember that there were, originally, loops in the exterior walls of the house at Ravensnest, placed there for the purposes of defence, and which were used as small windows in these peaceable times. We were standing beneath one of those loops, not near enough, however, to be seen or heard by one at the loop, unless we raised our voices above the tone in which we were actually conversing. Out of this loop, at that precise instant, issued the low, sweet strains of one of Dus's exquisite Indian hymns, I might almost call them, set, as was usual with her, to a plaintive Scotch melody. On looking toward the grave of Chainbearer, I saw Susquesus standing over it, and I at once understood the impulse which led Ursula to sing this song. The words had been explained to me, and I knew that they alluded to a warrior's grave.

The raised finger, the delighted expression of the eye, the attitude of intense listening which my beloved mother assumed, each and all denoted the pleasure and emotion she experienced. When, however, the singer suddenly changed the language to English, after the last guttural words of the Onondago had died on our ears, and commenced to the same strain a solemn English hymn, that was short in itself, but full of piety and hope, the tears started out of my mother's and grandmother's eyes, and even General Littlepage sought an occasion to blow his nose in a very suspicious manner. Presently, the sounds died away, and that exquisite melody ceased.

"In the name of wonder, Mordaunt, who can this nightingale be?" demanded my father, for neither of the ladies could speak.

"That is the person, sir, who has my plighted faith--the woman I must marry or remain single."

"This, then, must be the Dus Malbone, or Ursula Malbone, of whom I have heard so much from Priscilla Bayard, within the last day or two," said my mother, in the tone and with the manner of one who is suddenly enlightened on any subject that has much interest with him, or her; "I ought to have expected something of the sort, if half the praises of Priscilla be true."

No one had a better mother than myself. Thoroughly a lady in all that pertains to the character, she was also an humble and pious Christian. Nevertheless, humility and piety are, in some respects, particularly the first, matters of convention. The fitness of things had great merit in the eyes of both my parents, and I cannot say that it is entirely without it in mine. In nothing is this fitness of things more appropriate than in equalizing marriages; and few things are less likely to be overlooked by a discreet parent, than to have all proper care that the child connects itself prudently; and that, too, as much in reference to station, habits, opinions, breeding in particular, and the general way of thinking, as to fortune. Principles are inferred among people of principle, as a matter of course; but subordinate to these, worldly position is ever of great importance in the eyes of parents. My parents could not be very different from those of other people, and I could see that both now thought that Ursula Malbone, the Chainbearer's niece, one who had actually carried chain herself, for I had lightly mentioned that circumstance in one of my letters, was scarcely a suitable match for the only son of General Littlepage. Neither said much, however; though my father did put one or two questions that were somewhat to the point, ere we separated.

"Am I to understand, Mordaunt," he asked, with a little of the gravity a parent might be expected to exhibit on hearing so unpleasant an announcement--"Am I to understand, Mordaunt, that you are actually engaged to this young--eh-eh-eh--this young person?"

"Do not hesitate, my dear sir, to call Ursula Malbone a lady. She is a lady by both birth and education. The last, most certainly, or she never could have stood in the relation she does to your family."

"And what relation is that, sir?"

"It is just this, my dear father. I have offered to Ursula--indiscreetly, hastily if you will, as I ought to have waited to consult you and my mother--but we do not always follow the dictates of propriety in a matter of so much feeling. I dare say, sir, you did better"--here I saw a slight smile on the pretty mouth of my mother, and I began to suspect that the general had been no more dutiful than myself in this particular--"but I hope my forgetfulness will be excused, on account of the influence of a passion which we all find so hard to resist."

"But what is the relation this young--lady--bears to my family, Mordaunt? You are not already married?"

"Far from it, sir; I should not so far have failed in respect to you three--or even to Anneke and Katrinke. I have offered, and have been conditionally accepted."

"Which condition is----"

"The consent of you three; the perfect approbation of my whole near connection. I believe that Dus, dear Dus, does love me, and that she would cheerfully give me her hand, were she certain of its being agreeable to you, but that no persuasion of mine will ever induce her so to do under other circumstances."

"This is something, for it shows the girl has principle," answered my father "Why, who goes there?"

"Who went there?" sure enough. There went Frank Malbone and Priscilla Bayard, arm in arm, and so engrossed in conversation that they did not see who were observing them. I dare say they fancied they were in the woods, quite sheltered from curious eyes, and at liberty to saunter about, as much occupied with each other as they pleased; or, what is more probable, that they thought of nothing, just then, but of themselves. They came out of the court, and walked off swiftly into the orchard, appearing to tread on air, and seemingly as happy as the birds that were carolling on the surrounding trees.

"There, sir," I said, significantly--"There, my dear mother, is the proof that Miss Priscilla Bayard will not break her heart on my account."

"This is very extraordinary, indeed!" exclaimed my much disappointed grandmother--"Is not that the young man who we were told acted as Chainbearer's surveyor, Corny?"

"It is, my good mother, and a very proper and agreeable youth he is, as I know by a conversation held with him last night. It is very plain we have all been mistaken"--added the general; "though I do not know that we ought to say that we have any of us been deceived."

"Here comes Kate, with a face which announces that she is fully mistress of the secret," I put in, perceiving my sister coming round our angle of the building, with a countenance which I knew betokened that her mind and heart were full. She joined us, took my arm without speaking, and followed my father, who led his wife and mother to a rude bench that had been placed at the foot of a tree, where we all took seats, each waiting for some other to speak. My grandmother broke the silence.

"Do you see Pris Bayard yonder, walking with that Mr. Frank Chainbearer, or Surveyor, or whatever his name is, Katrinke dear?" asked the good old lady.

"I do, grandmamma," answered the good young lady in a voice so pitched as to be hardly audible.

"And can you explain what it means, darling?"

"I believe I can, ma'am--if--if--Mordaunt wishes to hear."

"Don't mind me, Kate," returned I, smiling--"My heart will never be broken by Miss Priscilla Bayard."

The look of sisterly solicitude that I received from that honest-hearted girl ought to have made me feel very grateful; and it did make me feel grateful, for a sister's affection is a sweet thing. I believe the calmness of my countenance and its smiling expression encouraged the dear creature, for she now began to tell her story as fast as was at all in rule.

"The meaning, then, is this," said Kate. "That gentleman is Mr. Francis Malbone, and he is the engaged suitor of Priscilla. I have had all the facts from her own mouth."

"Will you, then, let us hear as many of them as it is proper we should know?" said the general, gravely.

"There is no wish on the part of Priscilla to conceal anything. She has known Mr. Malbone several years, and they have been attached all that time. Nothing impeded the affair but his poverty. Old Mr. Bayard objected to that, of course, you know, as fathers will, and Priscilla would not engage herself. But--do you not remember to have heard of the death of an old Mrs. Hazleton, at Bath, in England, this summer, mamma? The Bayards are in half-mourning for her now."

"Certainly, my dear--Mrs. Hazleton was Mr. Bayard's aunt. I knew her well once, before she became a refugee--her husband was a half-pay Colonel Hazleton of the royal artillery, and they were tories of course. The aunt was named Priscilla, and was godmother to our Pris."

"Just so--well, this lady has left Pris ten thousand pounds in the English funds, and the Bayards now consent to her marrying Mr. Malbone. They say, too, but I don't think that can have had any influence, for Mr. Bayard and his wife are particularly disinterested people, as indeed are all the family"--added Kate, hesitatingly and looking down; "but they say that the death of some young man will probably leave Mr. Malbone the heir of an aged cousin of his late father's."

"And now, my dear father and mother, you will perceive that Miss Bayard will not break her heart because I happen to love Dus Malbone. I see by your look, Katrinke, that you have had some hint of this backsliding also."

"I have; and what is more, I have seen the young lady, and can hardly wonder at it. Anneke and I have been passing two hours with her this morning; and since you cannot get Pris, I know no other, Mordaunt, who will so thoroughly supply her place. Anneke is in love with her also!"

Dear, good, sober-minded, judicious Anneke; she had penetrated into the true character of Dus, in a single interview; a circumstance that I ascribed to the impression left by the recent death of Chainbearer. Ordinarily, that spirited young woman would not have permitted a sufficiently near approach in a first interview, to permit a discovery of so many of her sterling qualities, but now her heart was softened, and her spirit so much subdued, one of Anneke's habitual gentleness would be very apt to win on her sympathies, and draw the two close to each other. The reader is not to suppose that Dus had opened her mind like a vulgar school-girl, and made my sister a confidant of the relation in which she and I stood to one another. She had not said, or hinted, a syllable on the subject. The information Kate possessed had come from Priscilla Bayard, who obtained it from Frank, as a matter of course; and my sister subsequently admitted to me that her friend's happiness was augmented by the knowledge that I should not be a sufferer by her earlier preference for Malbone, and that she was likely to have me for a brother-in-law. All this I gleaned from Kate, in our subsequent conferences.

"This is extraordinary!" exclaimed the general--"very extraordinary; and to me quite unexpected."

"We can have no right to control Miss Bayard's choice," observed my discreet and high-principled mother. "She is her own mistress, so far as we are concerned; and if her own parents approve of her choice, the less we say about it the better. As respects this connection of Mordaunt's, I hope he himself will admit of our right to have opinions."

"Perfectly so, my dearest mother. All I ask of you is, to express no opinion, however, until you have seen Ursula--have become acquainted with her, and are qualified to judge of her fitness to be not only mine, but any man's wife. I ask but this of your justice."

"It is just; and I shall act on the suggestion," observed my father. "You have a right to demand this of us, Mordaunt, and I can promise for your mother, as well as myself."

"After all, Anneke," put in grandmother, "I am not sure we have no right to complain of Miss Bayard's conduct toward us. Had she dropped the remotest hint of her being engaged to this Malbone, I would never have endeavored to lead my grandson to think of her seriously for one moment."

"Your grandson never has thought of her seriously for one moment, or for half a moment, dearest grandmother," I cried, "so give your mind no concern on that subject. Nothing of the sort could make me happier than to know that Priscilla Bayard is to marry Frank Malbone; unless it were to be certain I am myself to marry the latter's half-sister."

"How can this be?--How could such a thing possibly come to pass, my child! I do not remember ever to have heard of this person--much less to have spoken to you on the subject of such a connection."

"Oh! dearest grandmother, we truant children sometimes get conceits of this nature into our heads and hearts, without stopping to consult our relatives, as we ought to do."

But it is useless to repeat all that was said in the long and desultory conversation that followed. I had no reason to be dissatisfied with my parents, who ever manifested toward me not only great discretion, but great indulgence. I confess, when a domestic came to say that Miss Dus was at the breakfast-table, waiting for us alone, I trembled a little for the effect that might be produced on her appearance by the scenes she had lately gone through. She had wept a great deal in the course of the last week; and when I last saw her, which was the glimpse caught at the funeral, she was pale and dejected in aspect. A lover is so jealous of even the impression that his mistress will make on those he wishes to admire her, that I felt particularly uncomfortable as we entered first the court, then the house, and last the eating-room.

A spacious and ample board had been spread for the accommodation of our large party. Anneke, Priscilla, Frank Malbone, aunt Mary, and Ursula, were already seated when we entered, Dus occupying the head of the table. No one had commenced the meal, nor had the young mistress of the board even begun to pour out the tea and coffee (for my presence had brought abundance into the house), but there she sat, respectfully waiting for those to approach who might be properly considered the principal guests. I thought Dus had never appeared more lovely. Her dress was a neatly-arranged and tasteful half-mourning; with which her golden hair, rosy cheeks, and bright eyes contrasted admirably. The cheeks of Dus, too, had recovered their color, and her eyes their brightness. The fact was, that the news of her brother's improved fortunes had even been better than we were just told. Frank found letters for him at the 'Nest, announcing the death of his kinsman, with a pressing invitation to join the bereaved parent, then an aged and bed-ridden invalid, as his adopted son. He was urged to bring Dus with him; and he received a handsome remittance to enable him so to do without inconvenience to himself. This alone would have brought happiness back to the countenance of the poor and dependent. Dus mourned her uncle in sincerity, and she long continued to mourn for him; but her mourning was that of the Christian who hoped. Chainbearer's hurt had occurred several days before; and the first feeling of sorrow had become lessened by time and reflection. His end had been happy; and he was now believed to be enjoying the fruition of his penitence through the sacrifice of the Son of God.

It was easy to detect the surprise that appeared in the countenances of all my parents, as Miss Malbone rose, like one who was now confident of her position and claims to give and to receive the salutations that were proper for the occasion. Never did any young woman acquit herself better than Dus, who courtesied gracefully as a queen; while she returned the compliments she received with the self-possession of one bred in courts. To this she was largely indebted to nature, though her schooling had been good. Many of the first young women of the colony had been her companions for years; and in that day, manner was far more attended to than it is getting to be among us now. My mother was delighted; for, as she afterward assured me, her mind was already made up to receive Ursula as a daughter; since she thought it due to honor to redeem my plighted faith. General Littlepage might not have been so very scrupulous; though even he admitted the right of the obligations I had incurred; but Dus fairly carried him by storm. The tempered sadness of her mien gave an exquisite finish to her beauty, rendering all she said, did, and looked, that morning, perfect. In a word, everybody was wondering; but everybody was pleased. An hour or two later, and after the ladies had been alone together, my excellent grandmother came to me and desired to have a little conversation with me apart. We found a seat in the arbor of the court; and my venerable parent commenced as follows:--

"Well, Mordaunt, my dear, it is time that you should think of marrying and of settling in life. As Miss Bayard is happily engaged, I do not see that you can do better than to offer to Miss Malbone. Never have I seen so beautiful a creature; and the generous-minded Pris tells me she is as good, and virtuous, and wise as she is lovely. She is well born and well educated; and may have a good fortune in the bargain, if that old Mr. Malbone is as rich as they tell me he is, and has conscience enough to make a just will. Take my advice, my dear son, and marry Ursula Malbone."

Dear grandmother! I did take her advice; and I am persuaded that, to her dying day, she was all the more happy under the impression that she had materially aided in bringing about the connection.

As General Littlepage and Colonel Follock had come so far, they chose to remain a month or two, in order to look after their lands, and to revisit some scenes in that part of the world in which both felt a deep interest. My mother, and aunt Mary, too, seemed content to remain, for they remembered events which the adjacent country recalled to their minds with a melancholy pleasure. In the meanwhile Frank went to meet his cousin, and had time to return, ere our party was disposed to break up. During his absence everything was arranged for my marriage with his sister. This event took place just two months, to a day, from that of the funeral of Chainbearer. A clergyman was obtained from Albany to perform the ceremony, as neither party belonged to the Congregational order; and an hour after we were united, everybody left us alone at the 'Nest, on their return south. I say everybody, though Jaap and Susquesus were exceptions. These two remained and remain to this hour; though the negro did return to Lilacsbush and Satanstoe to assemble his family, and to pay occasional visits.

There was much profound feeling, but little parade, at the wedding. My mother had got to love Ursula as if she were her own child: and I had not only the pleasure, but the triumph of seeing the manner in which my betrothed rendered herself from day to day, and this without any other means than the most artless and natural, more and more acceptable to my friends.

"This is perfect happiness," said Dus to me, one lovely afternoon that we were strolling in company along the cliff, near the Nest--and a few minutes after she had left my mother's arms, who had embraced and blessed her, as a pious parent does both to a well-beloved child--"This is perfect happiness, Mordaunt, to be the chosen of you, and the accepted of your parents! I never knew, until now, what it is to have a parent. Uncle Chainbearer did all he could for me, and I shall cherish his memory to my latest breath--but uncle Chainbearer could never supply the place of a mother. How blessed, how undeservedly blessed does my lot promise to become! You will give me not only parents, and parents I can love as well as if they were those granted by nature, but you will give me also two such sisters as few others possess!"

"And I give you all, dearest Dus, encumbered with such a husband that I am almost afraid you will fancy the other gifts too dearly purchased, when you come to know him better."

The ingenuous, grateful look, the conscious blush, and the thoughtful, pensive smile, each and all said that my pleased and partial listener had no concern on that score. Had I then understood the sex as well as I now do, I might have foreseen that a wife's affection augments, instead of diminishing; that the love the pure and devoted matron bears her husband increases with time, and gets to be a part and parcel of her moral existence. I am no advocate of what are called, strictly, "marriages of reason"--I think the solemn and enduring knot should be tied by the hands of warm-hearted, impulsive affection, increased and strengthened by knowledge and confidential minglings of thought and feeling; but I have lived long enough to understand that, lively as are the passions of youth, they produce no delights like those which spring from the tried and deep affections of a happy married life.

And we were married! The ceremony took place before breakfast, in order to enable our friends to reach the great highway ere night should overtake them. The meal that succeeded was silent and thoughtful. Then my dear, dear mother took Dus in her arms, and kissed and blessed her again and again. My honored father did the same, bidding my weeping but happy bride remember that she was now his daughter. "Mordaunt is a good fellow, at the bottom, dear, and will love and cherish you as he has promised," added the general, blowing his nose to conceal his emotion; "but should he ever forget any part of his vows, come to me, and I will visit him with a father's displeasure."

"No fear of Mordaunt--no fear of Mordaunt," put in my worthy grandmother, who succeeded in the temporary leave-taking--"he is a Littlepage, and all the Littlepages make excellent husbands. The boy is as like what his grandfather was, at his time of life, as one pea is like another. God bless you, daughter--you will visit me at Satanstoe this fall, when I shall have great pleasure in showing you my general's picture."

Anneke and Kate, and Pris Bayard hugged Dus in such a way that I was afraid they would eat her up, while Frank took his leave of his sister with the manly tenderness he always showed her. The fellow was too happy himself, however, to be shedding many tears, though Dus actually sobbed on his bosom. The dear creature was doubtless running over the past, in her mind, and putting it in contrast with the blessed present.

At the end of the honey-moon, I loved Dus twice as much as I had loved her the hour we were married. Had any one told me this was possible, I should have derided the thought; but thus it was, and I may truly add, thus has it ever continued to be. At the end of that month, we left Ravensnest for Lilacsbush, when I had the pleasure of seeing my bride duly introduced to that portion of what is called the world, to which she properly belonged. Previously to quitting the Patent, however, all my plans were made, and contracts were signed, preparatory to the construction of the house that my father had mentioned. The foundation was laid that same season, and we did keep our Christmas holidays in it, the following year, by which time Dus had made me the father of a noble boy.

It is scarcely necessary to say that Frank and Pris were married, as were Tom and Kate, at no great distance of time after ourselves. Both of those matches have turned out to be perfectly happy. Old Mr. Malbone did not survive the winter, and he left the whole of a very sufficient estate to his kinsman. Frank was desirous of making his sister a sharer in his good fortune, but I would not hear of it. Dus was treasure enough of herself, and wanted not money to enhance her value in my eyes. I thought so in 1785, and I think so to-day. We got some plate and presents, that were well enough, but never would accept any portion of the property. The rapid growth of New York brought our vacant lots in that thriving town into the market, and we soon became richer than was necessary to happiness. I hope the gifts of Providence have never been abused. Of one thing I am certain; Dus has ever been far more prized by me than any other of my possessions.

I ought to say a word of Jaap and the Indian. Both are still living, and both dwell at the Nest. For the Indian I caused a habitation to be erected in a certain ravine, at no great distance from the house, and which had been the scene of one of his early exploits in that part of the country. Here he lives, and has lived, for the last twenty years, and here he hopes to die. He gets his food, blankets, and whatever else is necessary to supply his few wants, at the Nest, coming and going at will. He is now drawing fast on old age, but retains his elastic step, upright movement, and vigor. I do not see but he may live to be a hundred. The same is true of Jaap. The old fellow holds on, and enjoys life like a true descendant of the Africans. He and Sus are inseparable, and often stray off into the forest on long hunts, even in the winter, returning with loads of venison, wild turkeys, and other game. The negro dwells at the Nest, but half his time he sleeps in the wigwam, as we call the dwelling of Sus. The two old fellows dispute frequently, and occasionally they quarrel; but, as neither drinks, the quarrels are never very long or very serious. They generally grow out of differences of opinion on moral philosophy, as connected with their respective views of the past and the future.

Lowiny remained with us as a maid until she made a very suitable marriage with one of my own tenants. For a little while after my marriage I thought she was melancholy, probably through regret for her absent and dispersed family; but this feeling soon disappeared, and she became contented and happy. Her good looks improved under the influence of civilization, and I have the satisfaction of adding that she never has had any reason to regret having attached herself to us. To this moment she is an out-door dependent and humble friend of my wife, and we find her particularly useful in cases of illness among our children.

What shall I say of 'Squire Newcome? He lived to a good old age, dying quite recently; and with many who knew, or, rather, who did not know him, he passed for a portion of the salt of the earth. I never proceeded against him on account of his connection with the squatters, and he lived his time in a sort of lingering uncertainty as to my knowledge of his tricks. That man became a sort of a deacon in his church, was more than once a member of the Assembly, and continued to be a favorite recipient of public favors down to his last moment; and this simply because his habits brought him near to the mass, and because he took the most elaborate care never to tell them a truth that was unpleasant. He once had the temerity to run against me for Congress, but that experiment proved to be a failure. Had it been attempted forty years later, it might have succeeded better. Jason died poor and in debt, after all his knavery and schemes. Avidity for gold had overreached itself in his case, as it does in those of so many others. His descendants, notwithstanding, remain with us; and while they have succeeded to very little in the way of property, they are the legitimate heritors of their ancestor's vulgarity of mind and manners--of his tricks, his dissimulations, and his frauds. This is the way in which Providence "visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations."

Little more remains to be said. The owners of Mooseridge have succeeded in selling all the lots they wished to put into the market, and large sums stand secured on them, in the way of bonds and mortgages. Anneke and Kate have received fair portions of this property, including much that belonged to Colonel Follock, who now lives altogether with my parents. Aunt Mary, I regret to say, died a few years since, a victim to small-pox. She never married, of course, and left her handsome property between my sisters and a certain lady of the name of Ten Eyck, who needed it, and whose principal claim consisted in her being a third cousin of her former lover, I believe. My mother mourned the death of her friend sincerely, as did we all; but we had the consolation of believing her happy with the angels.

I caused to be erected, in the extensive grounds that were laid out around the new dwelling at the Nest, a suitable monument over the grave of Chainbearer. It bore a simple inscription, and one that my children now often read and comment on with pleasure. We all speak of him as "Uncle Chainbearer" to this hour, and his grave is never mentioned on other terms than those of "Uncle Chainbearer's grave." Excellent old man! That he was not superior to the failings of human nature, need not be said; but so long as he lived, he lived a proof of how much more respectable and estimable is the man who takes simplicity, and honesty, and principle, and truth for his guide, than he who endeavors to struggle through the world by the aid of falsehood, chicanery, and trick.

THE END.

THE REDSKINS

OR

INDIAN AND INJIN

BEING THE CONCLUSION OF
THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS

"In every work regard the writer's end
None e'er can compass more than they intend"

--Pope

"All of the girls but Mary Warren had entered the house.... She remained at the side of my grandmother."

PREFACE.

This book closes the series of the Littlepage Manuscripts, which have been given to the world, as containing a fair account of the comparative sacrifices of time, money, and labor, made respectively by the landlord and the tenants, on a New York estate; together with the manner in which usages and opinions are changing among us; as well as certain of the reasons of these changes. The discriminating reader will probably be able to trace in these narratives the progress of those innovations on the great laws of morals which are becoming so very manifest in connection with this interest, setting at naught the plainest principles that God has transmitted to man for the government of his conduct, and all under the extraordinary pretence of favoring liberty! In this downward course, our picture embraces some of the proofs of that looseness of views on the subject of certain species of property which is, in a degree perhaps, inseparable from the semi-barbarous condition of a new settlement; the gradation of the squatter, from him who merely makes his pitch to crop a few fields in passing, to him who carries on the business by wholesale; and last, though not least in this catalogue of marauders, the anti-renter.

It would be idle to deny that the great principle which lies at the bottom of anti-rentism, if principle it can be called, is the assumption of a claim that the interests and wishes of numbers are to be respected, though done at a sacrifice of the clearest rights of the few. That this is not liberty, but tyranny in its worst form, every right-thinking and right-feeling man must be fully aware. Every one who knows much of the history of the past, and of the influence of classes, must understand, that whenever the educated, the affluent, and the practised choose to unite their means of combination and money to control the political destiny of a country, they become irresistible; making the most subservient tools of those very masses who vainly imagine they are the true guardians of their own liberties. The well-known election of 1840 is a memorable instance of the power of such a combination; though that was a combination formed mostly for the mere purposes of faction, sustained perhaps by the desperate designs of the insolvents of the country. Such a combination was necessarily wanting in union among the affluent; it had not the high support of principles to give it sanctity, and it affords little more than the proof of the power of money and leisure, when applied in a very doubtful cause, in wielding the masses of a great nation, to be the instruments of their own subjection. No well-intentioned American legislator, consequently, ought ever to lose sight of the fact, that each invasion of the right which he sanctions is a blow struck against liberty itself, which, in a country like this, has no auxiliary so certain or so powerful as justice.

The State of New York contains about 43,000 square miles of land; or something like 27,000,000 of acres. In 1783, its population must have been about 200,000 souls. With such a proportion between people and surface it is unnecessary to prove that the husbandman was not quite as dependent on the landholder, as the landholder was dependent on the husbandman. This would have been true, had the State been an island; but we all know it was surrounded by many other communities similarly situated, and that nothing else was so abundant as land. All notions of exactions and monopolies, therefore, must be untrue, as applied to those two interests at that day.

In 1786-7, the State of New York, then in possession of all powers on the subject, abolished entails, and otherwise brought its law of real estate in harmony with the institutions. At that time, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the leases which have since become so obnoxious, were in existence. With the attention of the State drawn directly to the main subject, no one saw anything incompatible with the institutions in them. It was felt that the landlords had bought the tenants to occupy their lands by the liberality of their concessions, and that the latter were the obliged parties. Had the landlords of that day endeavored to lease for one year, or for ten years, no tenants could have been found for wild lands; but it became a different thing, when the owner of the soil agreed to part with it forever, in consideration of a very low rent, granting six or eight years free from any charge whatever, and consenting to receive the product of the soil itself in lieu of money. Then, indeed, men were not only willing to come into the terms, but eager; the best evidence of which is the fact, that the same tenants might have bought land, out and out, in every direction around them, had they not preferred the easier terms of the leases. Now that these same men, or their successors, have become rich enough to care more to be rid of the encumbrance of the rent than to keep their money, the rights of the parties certainly are not altered.

In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into operation; New York being a party to its creation and conditions. By that Constitution, the State deliberately deprived itself of the power to touch the covenants of these leases, without conceding the power to any other government; unless it might be through a change of the Constitution itself. As a necessary consequence, these leases, in a legal sense, belong to the institutions of New York, instead of being opposed to them. Not only is the spirit of the institutions in harmony with these leases, but so is the letter also. Men must draw a distinction between the "spirit of the institutions" and their own "spirits;" the latter being often nothing more than a stomach that is not easily satisfied. It would be just as true to affirm that domestic slavery is opposed to the institutions of the United States, as to say the same of these leases. It would be just as rational to maintain, because A does not choose to make an associate of B, that he is acting in opposition to the "spirit of the institutions," inasmuch as the Declaration of Independence advances the dogma that men are born equal, as it is to say it is opposed to the same spirit, for B to pay rent to A according to his covenant.

It is pretended that the durable leases are feudal in their nature. We do not conceive this to be true; but, admitting it to be so, it would only prove that feudality, to this extent, is a part of the institutions of the State. What is more, it would become a part over which the State itself has conceded all power of control, beyond that which it may remotely possess as one, out of twenty-eight communities. As respects this feudal feature, it is not easy to say where it must be looked for. It is not to be found in the simple fact of paying rent, for that is so general as to render the whole country feudal, could it be true; it cannot be in the circumstance that the rent is to be paid "in kind," as it is called, and in labor, for that is an advantage to the tenant, by affording him the option, since the penalty of a failure leaves the alternative of paying in money. It must be, therefore, that these leases are feudal because they run forever! Now the length of the lease is clearly a concession to the tenant, and was so regarded when received; and there is not probably a single tenant, under lives, who would not gladly exchange his term of possession for that of one of these detestable durable leases!

Among the absurdities that have been circulated on this subject of feudality, it has been pretended that the well-known English statute of quia emptores has prohibited fines for alienation; or that the quarter-sales, fifth-sales, sixth-sales, etc., of our own leases were contrary to the law of the realm, when made. Under the common law, in certain cases of feudal tenures, the fines for alienation were an incident of the tenure. The statute of quia emptores abolished that general principle, but it in no manner forbade parties to enter into covenants of the nature of quarter-sales, did they see fit. The common law gives all the real estate to the eldest son. Our statute divides the real estate among the nearest of kin, without regard even to sex. It might just as well be pretended that the father cannot devise all his lands to his eldest son, under our statute, as to say that the law of Edward I. prevents parties from bargaining for quarter-sales. Altering a provision of the common law does not preclude parties from making covenants similar to its ancient provisions.

Feudal tenures were originally divided into two great classes; those which were called the military tenures, or knight's service, and soccage. The first tenure was that which became oppressive in the progress of society. Soccage was of two kinds; free and villain. The first has an affinity to our own system, as connected with these leases; the last never existed among us at all. When the knight's service, or military tenures of England, were converted into free soccage, in the reign of Charles II., the concession was considered of a character so favorable to liberty as to be classed among the great measures of the time; one of which was the habeas corpus act!

The only feature of our own leases, in the least approaching "villain soccage," is that of the "days' works." But every one acquainted with the habits of American life, will understand that husbandmen, in general, throughout the northern States, would regard it as an advantage to be able to pay their debts in this way; and the law gives them an option, since a failure to pay "in kind," or "in work," merely incurs the forfeiture of paying what the particular thing is worth, in money. In point of fact, money has always been received for these "days' works," and at a stipulated price.

But, it is pretended, whatever may be the equity of these leasehold contracts, they are offensive to the tenants, and ought to be abrogated, for the peace of the State. The State is bound to make all classes of men respect its laws, and in nothing more so than in the fulfilment of their legal contracts. The greater the number of the offenders, the higher the obligation to act with decision and efficiency. To say that these disorganizers ought not to be put down, is to say that crime is to obtain impunity by its own extent; and to say that they cannot be put down "under our form of government," is a direct admission that the government is unequal to the discharge of one of the plainest and commonest obligations of all civilized society. If this be really so, the sooner we get rid of the present form of government the better. The notion of remedying such an evil by concession is as puerile as it is dishonest. The larger the concessions become, the greater will be the exactions of a cormorant cupidity. As soon as quiet is obtained by these means, in reference to the leasehold tenures, it will be demanded by some fresh combination to attain some other end.

When Lee told Washington, at Monmouth, "Sir, your troops will not stand against British grenadiers," Washington is said to have answered, "Sir, you have never tried them." The same reply might be given to those miserable traducers of this republic, who, in order to obtain votes, affect to think there is not sufficient energy in its government to put down so barefaced an attempt as this of the anti-renters to alter the conditions of their own leases to suit their own convenience. The county of Delaware has, of itself, nobly given the lie to the assertion, the honest portion of its inhabitants scattering the knaves to the four winds, the moment there was a fair occasion made for them to act. A single, energetic proclamation from Albany, calling a "spade a spade," and not affecting to gloss over the disguised robbery of these anti-renters, and laying just principles fairly before the public mind, would of itself have crushed the evil in its germ. The people of New York, in their general capacity, are not the knaves their servants evidently suppose.

The Assembly of New York, in its memorable session of 1846, has taxed the rents on long leases; thus, not only taxing the same property twice, but imposing the worst sort of income-tax, or one aimed at a few individuals. It has "thimble-rigged" in its legislation, as Mr. Hugh Littlepage not unaptly terms it; endeavoring to do that indirectly, which the Constitution will not permit it to do directly. In other words, as it can pass no direct law "impairing the obligation of contracts," while it can regulate descents, it has enacted, so far as one body of the legislature has power to enact anything, that on the death of a landlord the tenant may convert his lease into a mortgage, on discharging which he shall hold his land in fee!

We deem the first of these measures far more tyrannical than the attempt of Great Britain to tax her colonies, which brought about the Revolution. It is of the same general character, that of unjust taxation: while it is attended by circumstances of aggravation that were altogether wanting in the policy of the mother country. This is not a tax for revenue, which is not needed; but a tax to "choke off" landlords, to use a common American phrase. It is clearly taxing nothing, or it is taxing the same property twice. It is done to conciliate three or four thousand voters, who are now in the market, at the expense of three or four hundred who, it is known, are not to be bought. It is unjust in its motives, its means and its end. The measure is discreditable to civilization, and an outrage on liberty.

But, the other law mentioned is an atrocity so grave as to alarm every man of common principle in the State, were it not so feeble in its devices to cheat the Constitution as to excite contempt. This extraordinary power is exercised because the legislature can control the law of descents, though it cannot "impair the obligation of contracts!" Had the law said at once that on the death of a landlord each of his tenants should own his farm in fee, the ensemble of the fraud would have been preserved, since the "law of descents" would have been so far regulated as to substitute one heir for another; but changing the nature of a contract, with a party who has nothing to do with the succession at all, is not so very clearly altering, or amending, the law of descents! It is scarcely necessary to say that every reputable court in the country, whether state or federal, would brand such a law with the disgrace it merits.

But the worst feature of this law, or attempted law, remains to be noticed. It would have been a premium on murder. Murder has already been committed by these anti-renters, and that obviously to effect their ends; and they are to be told that whenever you shoot a landlord, as some have already often shot at them, you can convert your leasehold tenures into tenures in fee! The mode of valuation is so obvious, too, as to deserve a remark. A master was to settle the valuation on testimony. The witnesses of course would be "the neighbors," and a whole patent could swear for each other!

As democrats we protest most solemnly against such barefaced frauds, such palpable cupidity and covetousness, being termed anything but what they are. If they come of any party at all, it is the party of the devil. Democracy is a lofty and noble sentiment. It does not rob the poor to make the rich richer, nor the rich to favor the poor. It is just, and treats all men alike. It does not "impair the obligations of contracts." It is not the friend of a canting legislation, but, meaning right, dare act directly. There is no greater delusion than to suppose that true democracy has anything in common with injustice or roguery.

Nor is it an apology for anti-rentism, in any of its aspects, to say that leasehold tenures are inexpedient. The most expedient thing in existence is to do right. Were there no other objection to this anti-rent movement than its corrupting influence, that alone should set every wise man in the community firmly against it. We have seen too much of this earth to be so easily convinced that there is any disadvantage, nay, that there is not a positive advantage, in the existence of large leasehold estates, when they carry with them no political power, as is the fact here. The commonplace argument against them, that they defeat the civilization of a country, is not sustained by fact. The most civilized countries on earth are under this system; and this system, too, not entirely free from grave objections which do not exist among ourselves. That a poorer class of citizens have originally leased than have purchased lands in New York is probably true; and it is equally probable that the effects of this poverty, and even of the tenure in the infancy of a country, are to be traced on the estates. But this is taking a very one-sided view of the matter. The men who became tenants in moderate but comfortable circumstances, would have been mostly laborers on the farms of others, but for these leasehold tenures. That is the benefit of the system in a new country, and the ultra friend of humanity, who decries the condition of a tenant, should remember that if he had not been in this very condition, he might have been in a worse. It is, indeed, one of the proofs of the insincerity of those who are decrying leases, on account of their aristocratic tendencies, that their destruction will necessarily condemn a numerous class of agriculturists, either to fall back into the ranks of the peasant or day-laborer, or to migrate, as is the case with so many of the same class in New England. In point of fact, the relation of landlord and tenant is one entirely natural and salutary, in a wealthy community, and one that is so much in accordance with the necessities of men, that no legislation can long prevent it. A state of things which will not encourage the rich to hold real estate would not be desirable, since it would be diverting their money, knowledge, liberality, feelings and leisure, from the improvement of the soil, to objects neither so useful nor so praiseworthy.

The notion that every husbandman is to be a freeholder, is as Utopian in practice, as it would be to expect that all men were to be on the same level in fortune, condition, education, and habits. As such a state of things as the last never yet did exist, it was probably never designed by divine wisdom that it should exist. The whole structure of society must be changed, even in this country, ere it could exist among ourselves, and the change would not have been made a month before the utter impracticability of such a social fusion would make itself felt by all.

We have elsewhere imputed much of the anti-rent feeling to provincial education and habits. This term has given the deepest offence to those who were most obnoxious to the charge. Nevertheless, our opinion is unchanged. We know that the distance between the cataract at Niagara and the Massachusetts line is a large hundred leagues, and that it is as great between Sandy Hook and the 45th parallel of latitude. Many excellent things, moral and physical, are to be found within these limits, beyond a question; but we happen to know by an experience that has extended to other quarters of the world, for a term now exceeding forty years, that more are to found beyond them. If "honorable gentlemen" at Albany fancy the reverse, they must still permit us to believe they are too much under the influence of provincial notions.

THE REDSKINS.

CHAPTER I.

"Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said--thou wert my daughter; and thy father
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir
A princess;--no worse issued."

--Tempest.

My uncle Ro and myself had been travelling together in the East, and had been absent from home fully five years when we reached Paris. For eighteen months neither of us had seen a line from America, when we drove through the barriers, on our way from Egypt, via Algiers, Marseilles, and Lyons. Not once, in all that time, had we crossed our own track, in a way to enable us to pick up a straggling letter; and all our previous precautions to have the epistles meet us at different bankers in Italy, Turkey, and Malta were thrown away.

My uncle was an old traveller--I might almost say, an old resident--in Europe; for he had passed no less than twenty years of his fifty-nine off the American continent. A bachelor, with nothing to do but to take care of a very ample estate, which was rapidly increasing in value by the enormous growth of the town of New York, and with tastes early formed by travelling, it was natural he should seek those regions where he most enjoyed himself. Hugh Roger Littlepage was born in 1786--the second son of my grandfather, Mordaunt Littlepage, and of Ursula Malbone, his wife. My own father, Malbone Littlepage, was the eldest child of that connection; and he would have inherited the property of Ravensnest, in virtue of his birthright, had he survived his own parents; but, dying young, I stepped into what would otherwise have been his succession, in my eighteenth year. My uncle Ro, however, had got both Satanstoe and Lilacsbush; two country-houses and farms, which, while they did not aspire to the dignity of being estates, were likely to prove more valuable, in the long run, than the broad acres which were intended for the patrimony of the elder brother. My grandfather was affluent; for not only had the fortune of the Littlepages centred in him, but so did that of the Mordaunts, the wealthier family of the two, together with some exceedingly liberal bequests from a certain Colonel Dirck Follock, or Van Valkenburgh; who, though only a very distant connection, chose to make my great-grandmother's, or Anneke Mordaunt's descendants his heirs. We all had enough; my aunts having handsome legacies, in the way of bonds and mortgages on an estate called Mooseridge, in addition to some lots in town; while my own sister, Martha, had a clear fifty thousand dollars in money. I had town lots, also, which were becoming productive; and a special minority of seven years had made an accumulation of cash that was well vested in New York State stock, and which promised well for the future. I say a "special" minority; for both my father and grandfather, in placing, the one, myself and a portion of the property, and the other, the remainder of my estate, under the guardianship and ward of my uncle, had made a provision that I was not to come into possession until I had completed my twenty-fifth year.

I left college at twenty; and my uncle Ro, for so Martha and myself always called him, and so he was always called by some twenty cousins, the offspring of our three aunts;--but my uncle Ro, when I was done with college, proposed to finish my education by travelling. As this was only too agreeable to a young man, away we went, just after the pressure of the great panic of 1836-7 was over, and our "lots" were in tolerable security, and our stocks safe. In America it requires almost as much vigilance to take care of property, as it does industry to acquire it.

Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage--by the way, I bore the same name, though I was always called Hugh, while my uncle went by the different appellations of Roger, Ro, and Hodge, among his familiars, as circumstances had rendered the associations sentimental, affectionate, or manly--Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, senior, then, had a system of his own in the way of aiding the scales to fall from American eyes, by means of seeing more clearly than one does, or can, at home, let him belong where he may, and in clearing the specks of provincialism from off the diamond of republican water. He had already seen enough to ascertain that while "our country," as this blessed nation is very apt on all occasions, appropriate or not, to be called by all who belong to it, as well as by a good many who do not, could teach a great deal to the old world, there was a possibility--just a possibility, remark, is my word--that it might also learn a little. With a view, therefore, of acquiring knowledge seriatim, as it might be, he was for beginning with the hornbook, and going on regularly up to the belles-lettres and mathematics. The manner in which this was effected deserves a notice.

Most American travellers land in England, the country farthest advanced in material civilization; then proceed to Italy, and perhaps to Greece, leaving Germany, and the less attractive regions of the north, to come in at the end of the chapter. My uncle's theory was, to follow the order of time, and to begin with the ancients and end with the moderns; though, in adopting such a rule, he admitted he somewhat lessened the pleasure of the novice; since an American, fresh from the fresher fields of the western continent, might very well find delight in memorials of the past, more especially in England, which pall on his taste, and appear insignificant, after he has become familiar with the Temple of Neptune, the Parthenon, or what is left of it, and the Coliseum. I make no doubt that I lost a great deal of passing happiness in this way, by beginning at the beginning, in Italy, and travelling north.

Such was our course, however; and, landing at Leghorn, we did the peninsula effectually in a twelvemonth; thence passed through Spain up to Paris, and proceeded on to Moscow and the Baltic, reaching England from Hamburg. When we had got through with the British isles, the antiquities of which seemed flat and uninteresting to me, after having seen those that were so much more antique, we returned to Paris, in order that I might become a man of the world, if possible, by rubbing off the provincial specks that had unavoidably adhered to the American diamond while in its obscurity.

My uncle Ro was fond of Paris, and he had actually become the owner of a small hotel in the faubourg, in which he retained a handsome furnished apartment for his own use. The remainder of the house was let to permanent tenants; but the whole of the first floor, and of the entresol, remained in his hands. As a special favor, he would allow some American family to occupy even his own apartment--or rather appartement, for the words are not exactly synonymous--when he intended to be absent for a term exceeding six months, using the money thus obtained in keeping the furniture in repair, and his handsome suite of rooms, including a salon, salle a manger, antichambre cabinet, several chambres a coucher, and a boudoir--yes, a male boudoir! for so he affected to call it--in a condition to please even his fastidiousness.

On our arrival from England, we remained an entire season at Paris, all that time rubbing the specks off the diamond, when my uncle suddenly took it into his head that we ought to see the East. He had never been further than Greece, himself; and he now took a fancy to be my companion in such an excursion. We were gone two years and a half, visiting Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, the Holy Land, Petra, the Red Sea, Egypt quite to the second cataracts, and nearly the whole of Barbary. The latter region we threw in, by way of seeing something out of the common track. But so many hats and travelling-caps are to be met with, nowadays, among the turbans, that a well-mannered Christian may get along almost anywhere without being spit upon. This is a great inducement for travelling generally, and ought to be so especially to an American, who, on the whole, incurs rather more risk now of suffering this humiliation at home, than he would even in Algiers. But the animus is everything in morals.

We had, then, been absent two years and a half from Paris and had not seen a paper or received a letter from America in eighteen months, when we drove through the barrier. Even the letters and papers received or seen previously to this last term, were of a private nature, and contained nothing of a general character. The "twenty millions"--it was only the other day they were called the "twelve millions"--but, the "twenty millions," we knew, had been looking up amazingly after the temporary depression of the moneyed crisis it had gone through; and the bankers had paid our drafts with confidence, and without extra charges, during the whole time we had been absent. It is true, uncle Ro, as an experienced traveller, went well fortified in the way of credit--a precaution by no means unnecessary with America, after the cry that had been raised against us in the old world.

And here I wish to say one thing plainly, before I write another line. As for falling into the narrow, self-adulatory, provincial feeling of the American who has never left his mother's apron-string, and which causes him to swallow, open-mouthed, all the nonsense that is uttered to the world in the columns of newspapers, or in the pages of your yearling travellers, who go on "excursions" before they are half instructed in the social usages and the distinctive features of their own country, I hope I shall be just as far removed from such a weakness, in any passing remark that may flow from my pen, as from the crime of confounding principles, and denying facts, in a way to do discredit to the land of my birth and that of my ancestors. I have lived long enough in the "world," not meaning thereby the southeast corner of the northwest township of Connecticut, to understand that we are a vast way behind older nations, in thought as well as deed, in many things; while, on the opposite hand, they are a vast way behind us in others. I see no patriotism in concealing a wholesome truth; and least of all shall I be influenced by the puerility of a desire to hide anything of this nature, because I cannot communicate it to my countrymen, without communicating it to the rest of the world. If England or France had acted on this narrow principle, where would have been their Shakespeares, their Sheridans, their Beaumonts and Fletchers, and their Molieres! No, no! great national truths are not to be treated as the gossiping surmises of village crones. He who reads what I write, therefore, must expect to find what I think of matters and things, and not exactly what he may happen to think on the same subject. Any one is at liberty to compare opinions with me; but I ask the privilege of possessing some small liberty of conscience in what is, far and near, proclaimed to be the only free country on the earth. By "far and near," I mean from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande, and from Cape Cod to the entrance of St. Juan de Fuca, and a pretty farm it makes, the "interval" that lies between these limits! One may call it "far and near" without the imputation of obscurity, or that of vanity.

Our tour was completed, in spite of all annoyances; and here we were again, within the walls of magnificent Paris! The postilions had been told to drive to the hotel, in the Rue St. Dominique; and we sat down to dinner, an hour after our arrival, under our own roof. My uncle's tenant had left the apartment a month before, according to agreement; and the porter and his wife had engaged a cook, set the rooms in order, and prepared everything for our arrival.

"It must be owned, Hugh," said my uncle, as he finished his soup that day, "one may live quite comfortably in Paris, if he possess the savoir vivre. Nevertheless, I have a strong desire to get a taste of native air. One may say and think what he pleases about the Paris pleasures, and the Paris cuisine, and all that sort of thing: but 'home is home, be it ever so homely.' A 'd'Inde aux truffes' is capital eating; so is a turkey with cranberry sauce. I sometimes think I could fancy even a pumpkin pie, though there is not a fragment of the rock of Plymouth in the granite of my frame."

"I have always told you, sir, that America is a capital eating and drinking country, let it want civilization in other matters, as much as it may."

"Capital for eating and drinking, Hugh, if you can keep clear of the grease, in the first place, and find a real cook, in the second. There is as much difference between the cookery of New England, for instance, and that of the Middle States, barring the Dutch, as there is between that of England and Germany. The cookery of the Middle States, and of the Southern States, too, though that savors a little of the West Indies--but the cookery of the Middle States is English, in its best sense; meaning the hearty, substantial, savory dishes of the English in their true domestic life, with their roast-beef underdone, their beefsteaks done to a turn, their chops full of gravy, their mutton-broth, legs-of-mutton, et id omne genus. We have some capital things of our own, too; such as canvas-backs, reedbirds, sheepshead, shad, and blackfish. The difference between New England and the Middle States is still quite observable, though in my younger days it was patent. I suppose the cause has been the more provincial origin, and the more provincial habits of our neighbors. By George! Hugh, one could fancy clam-soup just now, eh!"

"Clam-soup, sir, well made, is one of the most delicious soups in the world. If the cooks of Paris could get hold of the dish, it would set them up for a whole season."

"What is 'creme de Baviere,' and all such nicknacks, boy, to a good plateful of clam-soup? Well made, as you say,--made as a cook of Jennings's used to make it, thirty years since. Did I ever mention that fellow's soup to you before, Hugh?"

"Often, sir. I have tasted very excellent clam-soup, however, that he never saw. Of course, you mean soup just flavored by the little hard-clam--none of your vulgar potage a la soft-clam?"

"Soft-clams be hanged! they are not made for gentlemen to eat. Of course I mean the hard-clam, and the small clam,

"Here's your fine clams,
As white as snow;
On Rockaway
These clams do grow."

The cries of New York are quite going out, like everything else at home that is twenty years old. Shall I send you some of this eternal poulet a la Marengo? I wish it were honest American boiled fowl, with a delicate bit of shoat-pork alongside of it. I feel amazingly homeish this evening, Hugh!"

"It is quite natural, my dear uncle Ro; and I own to the 'soft impeachment' myself. Here have we both been absent from our native land five years, and half that time almost without hearing from it. We know that Jacob"--this was a free negro who served my uncle, a relic of the old domestic system of the colonies, whose name would have been Jaaf, or Yop, thirty years before--"has gone to our banker's for letters and papers; and that naturally draws our thoughts to the other side of the Atlantic. I dare say we shall both feel relieved at breakfast to-morrow, when we shall have read our respective dispatches."

"Come, let us take a glass of wine together, in the good old York fashion, Hugh. Your father and I, when boys, never thought of wetting our lips with the half-glass of Madeira that fell to our share, without saying, 'Good health, Mall!' 'Good health, Hodge!'"

"With all my heart, uncle Ro. The custom was getting to be a little obsolete even before I left home; but it is almost an American custom, by sticking to us longer than to most people."

"Henri!"

This was my uncle's maitre d' hotel, whom he had kept at board-wages the whole time of our absence, in order to make sure of his ease, quiet, taste, skill, and honesty, on his return.

"Monsieur!"

"I dare say"--my uncle spoke French exceedingly well for a foreigner; but it is better to translate what he said as we go--"I dare say this glass of vin de Bourgogne is very good; it looks good, and it came from a wine-merchant on whom I can rely; but Monsieur Hugh and I are going to drink together, a l'Americaine, and I dare say you will let us have a glass of Madeira, though it is somewhat late in the dinner to take it."

"Tres volontiers, Messieurs--it is my happiness to oblige you."

Uncle Ro and I took the Madeira together; but I cannot say much in favor of its quality.

"What a capital thing is a good Newtown pippin!" exclaimed my uncle, after eating a while in silence. "They talk a great deal about their poire beurree, here at Paris; but, to my fancy, it will not compare with the Newtowners we grow at Satanstoe, where, by the way, the fruit is rather better, I think, than that one finds across the river, at Newtown itself."

"They are capital apples, sir; and your orchard at Satanstoe is one of the best I know, or rather what is left of it; for I believe a portion of your trees are in what is now a suburb of Dibbletonborough?"

"Yes, blast that place! I wish I had never parted with a foot of the old neck, though I did rather make money by the sale. But money is no compensation for the affections."

"Rather make money, my dear sir! Pray, may I ask what Satanstoe was valued at, when you got it from my grandfather?"

"Pretty well up, Hugh; for it was, and indeed is, a first-rate farm. Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will remember that there are quite five hundred acres of it, altogether."

"Which you inherited in 1829?"

"Of course; that was the year of my father's death. Why, the place was thought to be worth about thirty thousand dollars at that time; but land was rather low in Westchester in 1829."

"And you sold two hundred acres, including the point, the harbor, and a good deal of the sedges, for the moderate modicum of one hundred and ten thousand, cash. A tolerable sale, sir!"

"No, not cash. I got only eighty thousand down, while thirty thousand were secured by mortgage."

"Which mortgage you hold yet, I dare say, if the truth were told, covering the whole city of Dibbletonborough. A city ought to be good security for thirty thousand dollars?"

"It is not, nevertheless, in this case. The speculators who bought of me in 1835 laid out their town, built a hotel, a wharf, and a warehouse, and then had an auction. They sold four hundred lots, each twenty-five feet by a hundred, regulation size, you see, at an average of two hundred and fifty dollars, receiving one-half, or fifty thousand dollars down, and leaving the balance on mortgage. Soon after this, the bubble burst, and the best lot at Dibbletonborough would not bring, under the hammer, twenty dollars. The hotel and the warehouse stand alone in their glory, and will thus stand until they fall, which will not be a thousand years hence, I rather think."

"And what is the condition of the town-plot?"

"Bad enough. The landmarks are disappearing, and it would cost any man who should attempt it, the value of his lot, to hire a surveyor to find his twenty-five by a hundred."

"But your mortgage is good?"

"Ay, good in one sense; but it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to foreclose it. Why, the equitable interests in that town-plot people the place of themselves. I ordered my agent to commence buying up the rights, as the shortest process of getting rid of them; and he told me in the very last letter I received, that he had succeeded in purchasing the titles to three hundred and seventeen of the lots, at an average price of ten dollars. The remainder, I suppose, will have to be absorbed."

"Absorbed! That is a process I never heard of, as applied to land."

"There is a good deal of it done, notwithstanding, in America. It is merely including within your own possession, adjacent land for which no claimant appears. What can I do? No owners are to be found; and then my mortgage is always a title. A possession of twenty years under a mortgage is as good as a deed in fee-simple, with full covenants of warranty, barring minors and femes covert."

"You did better by Lilacsbush?"

"Ah, that was a clean transaction, and has left no drawbacks. Lilacsbush being on the island of Manhattan, one is sure there will be a town there, some day or other. It is true, the property lies quite eight miles from City Hall; nevertheless, it has a value, and can always be sold at something near it. Then the plan of New York is made and recorded, and one can find his lots. Nor can any man say when the town will not reach Kingsbridge."

"You got a round price for the bush, too, I have heard, sir?"

"I got three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, in hard cash. I would give no credit, and have every dollar of the money, at this moment, in good six per cent. stock of the States of New York and Ohio."

"Which some persons in this part of the world would fancy to be no very secure investment."

"More fools they. America is a glorious country, after all, Hugh; and it is a pride and a satisfaction to belong to it. Look back at it, as I can remember it, a nation spit upon by all the rest of Christendom----"

"You must at least own, my dear sir," I put in, somewhat pertly, perhaps, "the example might tempt other people; for, if ever there was a nation that is assiduously spitting on itself, it is our own beloved land."

"True, it has that nasty custom in excess, and it grows worse instead of better, as the influence of the better mannered and better educated diminishes; but this is a spot on the sun--a mere flaw in the diamond, that friction will take out. But what a country--what a glorious country, in truth, it is! You have now done the civilized parts of the old world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be persuaded, yourself, of the superiority of your native land."

"I remember you have always used this language, uncle Ro; yet have you passed nearly one-half of your time out of that glorious country, since you have reached man's estate."

"The mere consequence of accidents and tastes. I do not mean that America is a country for a bachelor to begin with; the means of amusement for those who have no domestic hearths, are too limited for the bachelor. Nor do I mean that society in America, in its ordinary meaning, is in any way as well-ordered, as tasteful, as well-mannered, as agreeable, or as instructive and useful, as society in almost any European country I know. I have never supposed that the man of leisure, apart from the affections, could ever enjoy himself half as much at home, as he may enjoy himself in this part of the world; and I am willing to admit that, intellectually, most gentlemen in a great European capital live as much in one day, as they would live in a week in such places as New York, and Philadelphia, and Baltimore."

"You do not include Boston, I perceive, sir."

"Of Boston I say nothing. They take the mind hard there, and we had better let such a state of things alone. But as respects a man or woman of leisure, a man or woman of taste, or man or woman of refinement generally, I am willing enough to admit that, caeteris paribus, each can find far more enjoyment in Europe than in America. But the philosopher, the philanthropist, the political economist--in a word, the patriot, may well exult in such elements of profound national superiority as may be found in America."

"I hope these elements are not so profound but they can be dug up at need, uncle Ro?"

"There will be little difficulty in doing that, my boy. Look at the equality of the laws, to begin with. They are made on the principles of natural justice, and are intended for the benefit of society--for the poor as well as the rich."

"Are they also intended for the rich as well as the poor?"

"Well, I will grant you, a slight blemish is beginning to appear, in that particular. It is a failing incidental to humanity, and we must not expect perfection. There is certainly a slight disposition to legislate for numbers, in order to obtain support at the polls, which has made the relation of debtor and creditor a little insecure, possibly; but prudence can easily get along with that. It is erring on the right side, is it not, to favor the poor instead of the rich, if either is to be preferred?"

"Justice would favor neither, but treat all alike. I have always heard that the tyranny of numbers was the worst tyranny in the world."

"Perhaps it is, where there is actually tyranny, and for a very obvious reason. One tyrant is sooner satisfied than a million, and has even a greater sense of responsibility. I can easily conceive that the Czar himself, if disposed to be a tyrant, which I am far from thinking to be the case with Nicholas, might hesitate about doing that, under his undivided responsibility, which one of our majorities would do, without even being conscious of the oppression it exercised, or caring at all about it. But, on the whole, we do little of the last, and not in the least enough to counterbalance the immense advantages of the system."

"I have heard very discreet men say that the worst symptom of our system is the gradual decay of justice among us. The judges have lost most of their influence, and the jurors are getting to be law-makers, as well as law-breakers."

"There is a good deal of truth in that, I will acknowledge, also; and you hear it asked constantly, in a case of any interest, not which party is in the right, but who is on the jury. But I contend for no perfection; all I say is, that the country is a glorious country, and that you and I have every reason to be proud that old Hugh Roger, our predecessor and namesake, saw fit to transplant himself into it, a century and a half since."

"I dare say now, uncle Ro, it would strike most Europeans as singular that a man should be proud of having been born an American--Manhattanese, as you and I both were."

"All that may be true, for there have been calculated attempts to bring us into discredit of late, by harping on the failure of certain States to pay the interest on their debts. But all that is easily answered, and more so by you and me as New Yorkers. There is not a nation in Europe that would pay its interest, if those who are taxed to do so had the control of these taxes, and the power to say whether they were to be levied or not."

"I do not see how that mends the matter. These countries tell us that such is the effect of your system there, while we are too honest to allow such a system to exist in this part of the world."

"Pooh! all gammon, that. They prevent the existence of our system for very different reasons, and they coerce the payment of the interest on their debts that they may borrow more. This business of repudiation, as it is called, however, has been miserably misrepresented; and there is no answering a falsehood by an argument. No American State has repudiated its debt, that I know of, though several have been unable to meet their engagements as they have fallen due."

"Unable, uncle Ro?"

"Yes, unable--that is the precise word. Take Pennsylvania, for instance; that is one of the richest communities in the civilized world; its coal and iron alone would make any country affluent, and a portion of its agricultural population is one of the most affluent I know of. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania, owing to a concurrence of events, could not pay the interest on her debt for two years and a half, though she is doing it now, and will doubtless continue to do it. The sudden breaking down of that colossal moneyed institution, the soi-disant Bank of the United States, after it ceased to be in reality a bank of the government, brought about such a state of the circulation as rendered payment, by any of the ordinary means known to government, impossible. I know what I say, and repeat impossible. It is well known that many persons, accustomed to affluence, had to carry their plate to the mint, in order to obtain money to go to market. Then something may be attributed to the institutions, without disparaging a people's honesty. Our institutions are popular, just as those of France are the reverse; and the people, they who were on the spot--the home creditor, with his account unpaid, and with his friends and relatives in the legislature, and present to aid him, contended for his own money, before any should be sent abroad."

"Was that exactly right, sir?"

"Certainly not; it was exactly wrong, but very particularly natural. Do you suppose the king of France would not take the money for his civil list, if circumstances should compel the country to suspend on the debt for a year or two, or the ministers their salaries? My word for it, each and all of them would prefer themselves as creditors, and act accordingly. Every one of these countries has suspended in some form or other, and in many instances balanced the account with the sponge. Their clamor against us is altogether calculated with a view to political effect."

"Still, I wish Pennsylvania, for instance, had continued to pay, at every hazard."

"It is well enough to wish, Hugh: but it is wishing for an impossibility. Then you and I, as New Yorkers, have nothing to do with the debt of Pennsylvania, no more than London would have to do with the debt of Dublin or Quebec. We have always paid our interest, and, what is more, paid it more honestly, if honesty be the point, than even England has paid hers. When our banks suspended, the State paid its interest in as much paper as would buy the specie in open market; whereas England made paper legal tender, and paid the interest on her debt in it for something like five-and-twenty years, and that, too, when her paper was at a large discount. I knew of one American who held near a million of dollars in the English debt, on which he had to take unconvertible paper for the interest for a long series of years. No, no! this is all gammon, Hugh, and is not to be regarded as making us a whit worse than our neighbors. The equality of our laws is the fact in which I glory!"

"If the rich stood as fair a chance as the poor, Uncle Ro."

"There is a screw loose there, I must confess; but it amounts to no great matter."

"Then the late bankrupt law?"

"Ay, that was an infernal procedure--that much I will acknowledge, too. It was special legislation enacted to pay particular debts, and the law was repealed as soon as it had done its duty. That is a much darker spot in our history than what is called repudiation, though perfectly honest men voted for it."

"Did you ever hear of a farce they got up about it at New York, just after we sailed?"

"Never; what was it, Hugh? though American plays are pretty much all farces."

"This was a little better than common, and, on the whole, really clever. It is the old story of Faust, in which a young spendthrift sells himself, soul and body, to the devil. On a certain evening, as he is making merry with a set of wild companions, his creditor arrives, and, insisting on seeing the master, is admitted by the servant. He comes on, club-footed and behorned, as usual, and betailed, too, I believe; but Tom is not to be scared by trifles. He insists on his guest being seated, on his taking a glass of wine, and then on Dick's finishing his song. But, though the rest of the company had signed no bonds to Satan, they had certain outstanding book-debts, which made them excessively uncomfortable; and the odor of brimstone being rather strong, Tom arose, approached his guest, and desired to know the nature of the particular business he had mentioned to his servant. 'This bond, sir,' said Satan, significantly. 'This bond? what of it, pray? It seems all right.' 'Is not that your signature?' 'I admit it.' 'Signed in your blood?' 'A conceit of your own; I told you at the time that ink was just as good in law.' 'It is past due, seven minutes and fourteen seconds.' 'So it is, I declare! but what of that?' 'I demand payment.' 'Nonsense! no one thinks of paying nowadays. Why, even Pennsylvania and Maryland don't pay.' 'I insist on payment' 'Oh! you do, do you?' Tom draws a paper from his pocket, and adds, magnificently, 'There, then, if you're so urgent--there is a discharge under the new bankrupt law, signed Smith Thompson.' This knocked the devil into a cocked-hat at once."

My uncle laughed heartily at my story; but, instead of taking the matter as I had fancied he might, it made him think better of the country than ever.

"Well, Hugh, we have wit among us, it must be confessed," he cried, with the tears running down his cheeks, "if we have some rascally laws, and some rascals to administer them. But here comes Jacob with his letters and papers--I declare, the fellow has a large basketful."

Jacob, a highly respectable black, and the great-grandson of an old negro named Jaaf, or Yop, who was then living on my own estate at Ravensnest, had just then entered, with the porter and himself lugging in the basket in question. There were several hundred newspapers, and quite a hundred letters. The sight brought home and America clearly and vividly before us; and having nearly finished the dessert, we rose to look at the packages. It was no small task to sort our mail, there being so many letters and packages to be divided.

"Here are some newspapers I never saw before," said my uncle, as he tumbled over the pile; "The Guardian of the Soil--that must have something to do with Oregon."

"I dare say it has, sir. Here are at least a dozen letters from my sister."

"Ay, your sister is single, and can still think of her brother; but mine are married, and one letter a year would be a great deal. This is my dear old mother's hand, however; that is something. Ursula Malbone would never forget her child. Well, bon soir, Hugh. Each of us has enough to do for one evening."

"Au revoir, sir. We shall meet at ten to-morrow, when we can compare our news, and exchange gossip."

CHAPTER II.

"Why droops my lord, like over-ripened corn,
Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?"

--King Henry VI.

I did not get into my bed that night until two, nor was I out of it until half-past nine. It was near eleven when Jacob came to tell me his master was in the salle a manger, and ready to eat his breakfast. I hastened up stairs, sleeping in the entresol, and was at table with my uncle in three minutes. I observed, on entering, that he was very grave, and I now perceived that a couple of letters, and several American newspapers, lay near him. His "Good-morrow, Hugh," was kind and affectionate as usual, but I fancied it sad.

"No bad news from home, I hope, sir?" I exclaimed, under the first impulse of feeling. "Martha's last letter is of quite recent date, and she writes very cheerfully. I know that my grandmother was perfectly well six weeks since."

"I know the same, Hugh, for I have a letter from herself, written with her own blessed hand. My mother is in excellent health for a woman of fourscore; but she naturally wishes to see us, and you in particular. Grandchildren are ever the pets with grandmothers."

"I am glad to hear all this, sir; for I was really afraid, on entering the room, that you had received some unpleasant news."

"And is all your news pleasant, after so long a silence?"

"Nothing that is disagreeable, I do assure you. Patt writes in charming spirits, and I dare say is in blooming beauty by this time, though she tells me that she is generally thought rather plain. That is impossible; for you know when we left her, at fifteen, she had every promise of great beauty."

"As you say, it is impossible that Martha Littlepage should be anything but handsome; for fifteen is an age when, in America, one may safely predict the woman's appearance. Your sister is preparing for you an agreeable surprise. I have heard old persons say that she was very like my mother at the same time of life; and Dus Malbone was a sort of toast once in the forest."

"I dare say it is all as you think; more especially as there are several allusions to a certain Harry Beekman in her letters, at which I should feel flattered, were I in Mr. Harry's place. Do you happen to know anything of such a family as the Beekmans, sir?"

My uncle looked up in a little surprise at this question. A thorough New Yorker by birth, associations, alliances and feelings, he held all the old names of the colony and State in profound respect; and I had often heard him sneer at the manner in which the new-comers of my day, who had appeared among us to blossom like the rose, scattered their odors through the land. It was but a natural thing that a community which had grown in population, in half a century, from half a million to two millions and a half, and that as much by immigration from adjoining communities as by natural increase, should undergo some change of feeling in this respect; but, on the other hand, it was just as natural that the true New Yorker should not.

"Of course you know, Hugh, that it is an ancient and respected name among us," answered my uncle, after he had given me the look of surprise I have already mentioned. "There is a branch of the Beekmans, or Bakemans, as we used to call them, settled near Satanstoe; and I dare say that your sister, in her frequent visits to my mother, has met with them. The association would be but natural; and the other feeling to which you allude is, I dare say, but natural to the association, though I cannot say I ever experienced it."

"You will still adhere to your asseverations of never having been the victim of Cupid, I find, sir."

"Hugh, Hugh! let us trifle no more. There is news from home that has almost broken my heart."

I sat gazing at my uncle in wonder and alarm, while he placed both his hands on his face, as if to exclude this wicked world, and all it contained, from his sight. I did not speak, for I saw that the old gentleman was really affected, but waited his pleasure to communicate more. My impatience was soon relieved, however, as the hands were removed, and I once more caught a view of my uncle's handsome, but clouded countenance.

"May I ask the nature of this news?" I then ventured to inquire.

"You may, and I shall now tell you. It is proper, indeed, that you should hear all, and understand it all; for you have a direct interest in the matter, and a large portion of your property is dependent on the result. Had not the manor troubles, as they were called, been spoken of before we left home?"

"Certainly, though not to any great extent. We saw something of it in the papers, I remember, just before we went to Russia; and I recollect you mentioned it as a discreditable affair to the State, though likely to lead to no very important result."

"So I then thought; but that hope has been delusive. There were some reasons why a population like ours should chafe under the situation of the estate of the late Patroon that I thought natural, though unjustifiable; for it is unhappily too much a law of humanity to do that which is wrong, more especially in matters connected with the pocket."

"I do not exactly understand your allusions, sir."

"It is easily explained. The Van Rensselaer property is, in the first place, of great extent--the manor, as it is still called and once was, spreading east and west eight-and-forty miles, and north and south twenty-four. With a few immaterial exceptions, including the sites of three or four towns, three of which are cities containing respectively six, twenty, and forty thousand souls, this large surface was the property of a single individual. Since his death, it has become the property of two, subject to the conditions of the leases, of which by far the greater portion are what are called durable."

"I have heard all this, of course, sir, and know something of it myself. But what is a durable lease? for I believe we have none of that nature at Ravensnest."

"No; your leases are all for three lives, and most of them renewals at that. There are two sorts of 'durable leases,' as we term them, in use among the landlords of New York. Both give the tenant a permanent interest, being leases forever, reserving annual rent, with the right to distrain and covenants of re-entry. But one class of these leases gives the tenant a right at any time to demand a deed in fee-simple, on the payment of a stipulated sum; while the other gives him no such privilege. Thus one class of these leases is called 'a durable lease with a clause of redemption,' while the other is a simple 'durable lease.'"

"And are there any new difficulties in relation to the manor rents?"

"Far worse than that; the contagion has spread, until the greatest ills that have been predicted from democratic institutions, by their worst enemies, seriously menace the country. I am afraid, Hugh, I shall not be able to call New York, any longer, an exception to the evil example of a neighborhood, or the country itself a glorious country."

"This is so serious, sir, that, were it not that your looks denote the contrary, I might be disposed to doubt your words."

"I fear my words are only too true. Dunning has written me a long account of his own, made out with the precision of a lawyer; and, in addition, he has sent me divers papers, some of which openly contend for what is substantially a new division of property, and what in effect would be agrarian laws."

"Surely, my dear uncle, you cannot seriously apprehend anything of that nature from our order-loving, law-loving, property-loving Americans?"

"Your last description may contain the secret of the whole movement. The love of property may be so strong as to induce them to do a great many things they ought not to do. I certainly do not apprehend that any direct attempt is about to be made in New York, to divide its property; nor do I fear any open, declared agrarian statute; for what I apprehend is to come through indirect and gradual innovations on the right, that will be made to assume the delusive aspect of justice and equal rights, and thus undermine the principles of the people, before they are aware of the dangers themselves. In order that you may not only understand me, but may understand facts that are of the last importance to your own pockets, I will first tell you what has been done, and then tell you what I fear is to follow. The first difficulty--or, rather, the first difficulty of recent occurrence--arose at the death of the late Patroon. I say of recent occurrence, since Dunning writes me that, during the administration of John Jay, an attempt to resist the payment of rent was made on the manor of the Livingstons; but he put it down instanter."

"Yes, I should rather think that roguery would not be apt to prosper, while the execution of the laws was intrusted to such a man. The age of such politicians, however, seems to have ended among us."

"It did not prosper. Governor Jay met the pretension as we all know such a man would meet it; and the matter died away, and has been nearly forgotten. It is worthy of remark, that he PUT THE EVIL DOWN. But this is not the age of John Jays. To proceed to my narrative: When the late Patroon died, there was due to him a sum of something like two hundred thousand dollars of back-rents, and of which he had made a special disposition in his will, vesting the money in trustees for a certain purpose. It was the attempt to collect this money which first gave rise to dissatisfaction. Those who had been debtors so long were reluctant to pay. In casting round for the means to escape from the payment of their just debts, these men, feeling the power that numbers ever give over right in America, combined to resist with others who again had in view a project to get rid of the rents altogether. Out of this combination grew what have been called the 'manor troubles.' Men appeared in a sort of mock-Indian dress, calico shirts thrown over their other clothes, and with a species of calico masks on their faces, who resisted the bailiffs' processes, and completely prevented the collection of rents. These men were armed, mostly with rifles; and it was finally found necessary to call out a strong body of the militia, in order to protect the civil officers in the execution of their duties."

"All this occurred before we went to the East. I had supposed those anti-renters, as they were called, had been effectually put down."

"In appearance they were. But the very governor who called the militia into the field, referred the subject of the 'griefs' of the tenants to the legislature, as if they were actually aggrieved citizens, when in truth it was the landlords, or the Rensselaers--for at that time the 'troubles' were confined to their property--who were the aggrieved parties. This false step has done an incalculable amount of mischief, if it do not prove the entering wedge to rive asunder the institutions of the State."

"It is extraordinary, when such things occur, that any man can mistake his duty. Why were the tenants thus spoken of, while nothing was said beyond what the law compelled in favor of the landlords?"

"I can see no reason but the fact that the Rensselaers were only two, and that the disaffected tenants were probably two thousand. With all the cry of aristocracy, and feudality, and nobility, neither of the Rensselaers, by the letter of the law, has one particle more of political power, or political right, than his own coachman or footman, if the last be a white man; while, in practice, he is in many things getting to be less protected."

"Then you think, sir, that this matter has gained force from the circumstance that so many votes depend on it?"

"Out of all question. Its success depends on the violations of principles that we have been so long taught to hold sacred, that nothing short of the overruling and corrupting influence of politics would dare to assail them. If there were a landlord to each farm, as well as a tenant, universal indifference would prevail as to the griefs of the tenants; and if two to one tenant, universal indignation at their impudence."

"Of what particular griefs do the tenants complain?"

"You mean the Rensselaer tenants, I suppose? Why, they complain of such covenants as they can, though their deepest affliction is to be found in the fact that they do not own other men's lands. The Patroon had quarter-sales on many of his farms--those that were let in the last century."

"Well, what of that? A bargain to allow of quarter-sales is just as fair as any other bargain."

"It is fairer, in fact, than most bargains, when you come to analyze it, since there is a very good reason why it should accompany a perpetual lease. Is it to be supposed that a landlord has no interest in the character and habits of his tenants? He has the closest interest in it possible, and no prudent man should let his lands without holding some sort of control over the assignment of leases. Now, there are but two modes of doing this; either by holding over the tenant a power through his interests, or a direct veto dependent solely on the landlord's will."

"The last would be apt to raise a pretty cry of tyranny and feudality in America!"

"Pretty cries on such subjects are very easily raised in America. More people join in them than understand what they mean. Nevertheless, it is quite as just, when two men bargain, that he who owns every right in the land before the bargain is made, should retain this right over his property, which he consents to part with only with limitations, as that he should grant it to another. These men, in their clamor, forget that, until their leases were obtained, they had no right in their lands at all, and that what they have got is through those very leases of which they complain; take away the leases, and they would have no rights remaining. Now on what principle can honest men pretend that they have rights beyond the leases? On the supposition, even, that the bargains are hard, what have governors and legislators to do with thrusting themselves in between parties so situated, as special umpires? I should object to such umpires, moreover, on the general and controlling principle that must govern all righteous arbitration--your governors and legislators are not impartial; they are political or party men, one may say, without exception; and such umpires, when votes are in the question, are to be sorely distrusted. I would as soon trust my interests to the decision of feed counsel, as trust them to such judges."

"I wonder the really impartial and upright portion of the community do not rise in their might, and put this thing down--rip it up, root and branch, and cast it away, at once."

"That is the weak point of our system, which has a hundred strong points, while it has this besetting vice. Our laws are not only made, but they are administered, on the supposition that there are both honesty and intelligence enough in the body of the community to see them well made, and well administered. But the sad reality shows that good men are commonly passive, until abuses become intolerable; it being the designing rogue and manager who is usually the most active. Vigilant philanthropists do exist, I will allow; but it is in such small numbers as to effect little on the whole, and nothing at all when opposed by the zeal of a mercenary opposition. No, no--little is ever to be expected, in a political sense, from the activity of virtue; while a great deal may be looked for from the activity of vice."

"You do not take a very favorable view of humanity, sir."

"I speak of the world as I have found it in both hemispheres, or, as your neighbor the magistrate 'Squire Newcome has it, the 'four hemispheres.' Our representation is, at the best, but an average of the qualities of the whole community, somewhat lessened by the fact that men of real merit have taken a disgust at a state of things that is not very tempting to their habits or tastes. As for a quarter-sale, I can see no more hardship in it than there is in paying the rent itself; and, by giving the landlord this check on the transfer of his lands, he compels a compromise that maintains what is just. The tenant is not obliged to sell, and he makes his conditions accordingly, when he has a good tenant to offer in his stead. When he offers a bad tenant, he ought to pay for it."

"Many persons with us would think it very aristocratic," I cried, laughingly, "that a landlord should have it in his power to say, I will not accept this or that substitute for yourself."

"It is just as aristocratic, and no more so, than it would be to put it in the power of the tenant to say to the landlord, you shall accept this or that tenant at my hands. The covenant of the quarter-sale gives each party a control in the matter; and the result has ever been a compromise that is perfectly fair, as it is hardly possible that the circumstance should have been overlooked in making the bargain; and he who knows anything of such matters, knows that every exaction of this sort is always considered in the rent. As for feudality, so long as the power to alienate exists at all in the tenant, he does not hold by a feudal tenure. He has bought himself from all such tenures by his covenant of quarter-sale; and it only remains to say whether, having agreed to such a bargain in order to obtain this advantage, he should pay the stipulated price or not."

"I understand you, sir. It is easy to come at the equity of this matter, if one will only go back to the original facts which color it. The tenant had no rights at all until he got his lease, and can have no rights which that lease does not confer."

"Then the cry is raised of feudal privileges, because some of the Rensselaer tenants are obliged to find so many days' work with their teams, or substitutes, to the landlord, and even because they have to pay annually a pair of fat fowls! We have seen enough of America, Hugh, to know that most husbandmen would be delighted to have the privilege of paying their debt in chickens and work, instead of in money, which renders the cry only so much the more wicked. But what is there more feudal in a tenant's thus paying his landlord, than in a butcher's contracting to furnish so much meat for a series of years, or a mail contractor's agreeing to carry the mail in a four-horse coach for a term of years, eh? No one objects to the rent in wheat, and why should they object to the rent in chickens? Is it because our republican farmers have got to be so aristocratic themselves, that they do not like to be thought poulterers? This is being aristocratic on the other side. These dignitaries should remember that if it be plebeian to furnish fowls, it is plebeian to receive them; and if the tenant has to find an individual who has to submit to the degradation of tendering a pair of fat fowls, the landlord has to find an individual who has to submit to the degradation of taking them, and of putting them away in the larder. It seems to me that one is an offset to the other."

"But if I remember rightly, uncle Ro, these little matters were always commuted for in money."

"They always must lie at the option of the tenant, unless the covenants went to forfeiture, which I never heard that they did; for the failure to pay in kind at the time stipulated, would only involve a payment in money afterward. The most surprising part of this whole transaction is, that men among us hold the doctrine that these leasehold estates are opposed to our institutions, when, being guaranteed by the institutions, they in truth form a part of them. Were it not for these very institutions, to which they are said to be opposed, and of which they virtually form a part, we should soon have a pretty kettle of fish between landlord and tenant."

"How do you make it out that they form a part of the institutions, sir?"

"Simply because the institutions have a solemn profession of protecting property. There is such a parade of this, that all our constitutions declare that property shall never be taken without due form of law; and to read one of them, you would think the property of the citizen is held quite as sacred as his person. Now, some of these very tenures existed when the State institutions were framed; and, not satisfied with this, we of New York, in common with our sister States, solemnly prohibited ourselves, in the Constitution of the United States, from ever meddling with them; nevertheless, men are found hardy enough to assert that a thing which in fact belongs to the institutions, is opposed to them."

"Perhaps they mean, sir, to their spirit, or to their tendency."

"Ah! there may be some sense in that, though much less than the declaimers fancy. The spirit of institutions is their legitimate object; and it would be hard to prove that a leasehold tenure, with any conditions of mere pecuniary indebtedness whatever, is opposed to any institutions that recognize the full rights of property. The obligation to pay rent no more creates political dependency, than to give credit from an ordinary shop; not so much, indeed, more especially under such leases as those of the Rensselaers; for the debtor on a book-debt can be sued at any moment, whereas the tenant knows precisely when he has to pay. There is the great absurdity of those who decry the system as feudal and aristocratic; for they do not see that those very leases are more favorable to the tenant than any other."

"I shall have to ask you to explain this to me, sir, being too ignorant to comprehend it."

"Why, these leases are perpetual, and the tenant cannot be dispossessed. The longer a lease is, other things being equal, the better it is for the tenant, all the world over. Let us suppose two farms, the one leased for five years, and the other forever. Which tenant is most independent of the political influence of his landlord, to say nothing of the impossibility of controlling votes in this way in America, from a variety of causes? Certainly he who has a lease forever. He is just as independent of his landlord as his landlord can be of him, with the exception that he has rent to pay. In the latter case, he is precisely like any other debtor--like the poor man who contracts debts with the same store-keeper for a series of years. As for the possession of the farm, which we are to suppose is a desirable thing for the tenant, he of the long lease is clearly most independent, since the other may be ejected at the end of each five years. Nor is there the least difference as to acquiring the property in fee, since the landlord may sell equally in either case, if so disposed; and if NOT DISPOSED, NO HONEST MAN, UNDER ANY SYSTEM, OUGHT TO DO ANYTHING TO COMPEL HIM SO TO DO, directly or indirectly; AND NO TRULY HONEST MAN WOULD."

I put some of the words of my uncle Ro in small capitals, as the spirit of the times, not of the institutions, renders such hints necessary. But, to continue our dialogue:

"I understand you now, sir, though the distinction you make between the spirit of the institutions and their tendencies is what I do not exactly comprehend."

"It is very easily explained. The spirit of the institutions is their intention; their tendencies are the natural direction they take under the impulses of human motives, which are always corrupt and corrupting. The 'spirit' refers to what things ought to be; the 'tendencies,' to what they are, or are becoming. The 'spirit' of all political institutions is to place a check on the natural propensities of men, to restrain them, and keep them within due bounds; while the tendencies follow those propensities, and are, quite often, in direct opposition to the spirit. That this outcry against leasehold tenures in America is following the tendencies of our institutions, I am afraid is only too true; but that it is in any manner in compliance with their spirit, I utterly deny."

"You will allow that institutions have their spirit, which ought always to be respected, in order to preserve harmony?"

"Out of all question. The first great requisite of a political system is the means of protecting itself; the second, to check its tendencies at the point required by justice, wisdom, and good faith. In a despotism, for instance, the spirit of the system is, to maintain that one man, who is elevated above the necessities and temptations of a nation--who is solemnly set apart for the sole purpose of government, fortified by dignity, and rendered impartial by position--will rule in the manner most conducive to the true interests of his subjects. It is just as much the theory of Russia and Prussia that their monarchs reign not for their own good, but for the good of those over whom they are placed, as it is the theory in regard to the President of the United States. We all know that the tendencies of a despotism are to abuses of a particular character; and it is just as certain that the tendencies of a republic, or rather of a democratic republic--for republic of itself means but little, many republics having had kings--but it is just as certain that the tendencies of a democracy are to abuses of another character. Whatever man touches, he infallibly abuses; and this more in connection with the exercise of political power, perhaps, than in the management of any one interest of life, though he abuses all, even to religion. Less depends on the nominal character of institutions, perhaps, than on their ability to arrest their own tendencies at the point required by everything that is just and right. Hitherto, surprisingly few grave abuses have followed from our institutions; but this matter looks frightfully serious; for I have not told you half, Hugh."

"Indeed, sir! I beg you will believe me quite equal to hearing the worst."

"It is true, anti-rentism did commence on the estate of the Rensselaers, and with complaints of feudal tenures, and of days' works, and fat fowls, backed by the extravagantly aristocratic pretension that a 'manor' tenant was so much a privileged being that it was beneath his dignity, as a free man, to do that which is daily done by mail-contractors, stage-coach owners, victuallers, and even by themselves, in their passing bargains to deliver potatoes, onions, turkeys, and pork, although they had solemnly covenanted with their landlords to pay the fat fowls, and to give the days' works. The feudal system has been found to extend much further, and 'troubles,' as they are called, have broken out in other parts of the State. Resistance to process, and a cessation of the payment of rents, have occurred on the Livingston property, in Hardenberg--in short, in eight or ten counties of the State. Even among the bona fide purchasers on the Holland Purchase, this resistance has been organized, and a species of troops raised, who appear disguised and armed wherever a levy is to be made. Several men have already been murdered, and there is the strong probability of a civil war."

"In the name of what is sacred and right, what has the government of the State been doing all this time?"

"In my poor judgment, a great deal that it ought not to have done, and very little that it ought. You know the state of politics at home, Hugh; how important New York is in all national questions, and how nearly tied is her vote--less than ten thousand majority in a canvass of near a half million of votes. When this is the case, the least-principled part of the voters attain an undue importance--a truth that has been abundantly illustrated in this question. The natural course would have been to raise an armed constabulary force, and to have kept it in motion, as the anti-renters have kept their 'Injins' in motion, which would have soon tired out the rebels, for rebels they are, who would thus have had to support one army in part, and the other altogether. Such a movement on the part of the State, well and energetically managed, would have drawn half the 'Injins' at once from the ranks of disaffection to those of authority; for all that most of these men want is to live easy, and to have a parade of military movements. Instead of that, the legislature substantially did nothing, until blood was spilt, and the grievance had got to be not only profoundly disgraceful for such a State and such a country, but utterly intolerable to the well-affected of the revolted counties, as well as to those who were kept out of the enjoyment of their property. Then, indeed, it passed the law which ought to have been passed the first year of the 'Injin' system--a law which renders it felony to appear armed and disguised; but Dunning writes me this law is openly disregarded in Delaware and Schoharie, in particular, and that bodies of 'Injins,' in full costume and armed, of a thousand men, have appeared to prevent levies or sales. Where it will end Heaven knows!"

"Do you apprehend any serious civil war?"

"It is impossible to say where false principles may lead, when they are permitted to make head and to become widely disseminated, in a country like ours. Still, the disturbances, as such, are utterly contemptible, and could and would be put down by an energetic executive in ten days after he had time to collect a force to do it with. In some particulars, the present incumbent has behaved perfectly well; while in others, in my judgment, he has inflicted injuries on the right that it will require years to repair, if, indeed, they are ever repaired."

"You surprise me, sir; and this the more especially, as I know you are generally of the same way of thinking, on political subjects, with the party that is now in power."

"Did you ever know me to support what I conceived to be wrong, Hugh, on account of my political affinities?" asked my uncle, a little reproachfully as to manner. "But let me tell you the harm that I conceive has been done by all the governors who have had anything to do with the subject; and that includes one of a party to which I am opposed, and two that are not. In the first place, they have all treated the matter as if the tenants had really some cause of complaint; when in truth all their griefs arise from the fact that other men will not let them have their property just as they may want it, and in some respects on their own terms."

"That is certainly a grief not to be maintained by reason in a civilized country, and in a Christian community."

"Umph! Christianity, like liberty, suffers fearfully in human hands; one is sometimes at a loss to recognize either. I have seen ministers of the gospel just as dogged, just as regardless of general morality, and just as indiffer-to the right, in upholding their parties, as I ever saw laymen; and I have seen laymen manifesting tempers, in this respect, that properly belong to devils. But our governors have certainly treated this matter as if the tenants actually had griefs; when in truth their sole oppression is in being obliged to to pay rents that are merely nominal, and in not being able to buy other men's property contrary to their wishes, and very much at their own prices. One governor has even been so generous as to volunteer a mode of settling disputes with which, by the way, he has no concern, there being courts to discharge that office, that is singularly presuming on his part, to say the least, and which looks a confounded sight more like aristocracy, or monarchy, than anything connected with leasehold tenure."

"Why, what can the man have done?"

"He has kindly taken on himself the office of doing that for which I fancy he can find no authority in the institutions, or in their spirit--no less than advising citizens how they may conveniently manage their own affairs so as to get over difficulties that he himself substantially admits, while giving this very advice, are difficulties that the law sanctions."

"This is a very extraordinary interference in a public functionary; because one of the parties to a contract that is solemnly guaranteed by the law, chooses to complain of its nature, rather than of its conditions, to pretend to throw the weight of his even assumed authority into the scales on either side of the question!"

"And that is a popular government, Hugh, in which it tells so strongly against a man to render him unpopular, that not one man in a million has the moral courage to resist public opinion, even when he is right. You have hit the nail on the head, boy; it is in the last degree presuming, and what would be denounced as tyrannical in any monarch in Europe. But he has lived in vain who has not learned that they who make the the loudest professions of a love of liberty, have little knowledge of the quality, beyond submission to the demands of numbers. Our executive has carried his fatherly care even beyond this; he has actually suggested the terms of a bargain by which he thinks the difficulty can be settled, which, in addition to the gross assumption of having a voice in a matter that in no manner belongs to him, has the palpable demerit of recommending a pecuniary compromise that is flagrantly wrong as a mere pecuniary compromise."

"You astonish me, sir! What is the precise nature of his recommendation?"

"That the Rensselaers should receive such a sum from each tenant as would produce an interest equal to the value of the present rent. Now, in the first place, here is a citizen who has got as much property as he wants, and who wishes to live for other purposes than to accumulate. This property is not only invested to his entire satisfaction, as regards convenience, security, and returns, but also in a way that is connected with some of the best sentiments of his nature. It is property that has descended to him through ancestors for two centuries; property that is historically connected with his name--on which he was born, on which he has lived, and on which he has hoped to die; property, in a word, that is associated with all the higher feelings of humanity. Because some interloper, perhaps, who has purchased an interest in one of his farms six months before, feels an aristocratic desire not to have a landlord, and wishes to own a farm in fee, that in fact he has no other right to than he gets through his lease, the Governor of the great State of New York throws the weight of his official position against the old hereditary owner of the soil, by solemnly suggesting, in an official document that is intended to produce an effect on public opinion, that he should sell that which he does not wish to sell, but wishes to keep, and that at a price which I conceive is much below its true pecuniary value. We have liberty with a vengeance, if these are some of its antics!"

"What makes the matter worse, is the fact that each of the Rensselaers has a house on his estate, so placed as to be convenient to look after his interest; which interests he is to be at the trouble of changing, leaving him his house on his hands, because, forsooth, one of the parties to a plain and equitable bargain wishes to make better conditions than he covenanted for. I wonder what his excellency proposes that the landlords shall do with their money when they get it? Buy new estates, and build new houses, of which to be dispossessed when a new set of tenants may choose to cry out against aristocracy, and demonstrate their own love for democracy by wishing to pull others down in order to shove themselves into their places?"

"You are right again, Hugh; but it is a besetting vice of America to regard life as all means, and as having no end, in a worldly point of view. I dare say men may be found among us who regard it as highly presuming in any man to build himself an ample residence, and to announce by his mode of living that he is content with his present means, and does not wish to increase them, at the very moment they view the suggestions of the governor as the pink of modesty, and excessively favorable to equal rights! I like that thought of yours about the house, too; in order to suit the 'spirit' of the New York institutions, it would seem that a New York landlord should build on wheels, that he may move his abode to a new State, when it suits the pleasure of his tenants to buy him out."

"Do you suppose the Rensselaers would take their money, the principal of the rent at seven per cent., and buy land with it, after their experience of the uncertainty of such possessions among us?"

"Not they," said my uncle Ro, laughing. "No, no! they would sell the Manor-House, and the Beverwyck, for taverns; and then any one might live in them who would pay the principal sum of the cost of a dinner; bag their dollars, and proceed forthwith to Wall Street, and commence the shaving of notes--that occupation having been decided, as I see by the late arrivals, to be highly honorable and praiseworthy. Hitherto they have been nothing but drones; but, by the time they can go to the quick with their dollars, they will become useful members of society, and be honored and esteemed accordingly."

What next might have been said I do not know, for just then we were interrupted by a visit from our common banker, and the discourse was necessarily changed.

CHAPTER III.

"Oh, when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,
Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?"

--Montgomery.

It was truly news for an American, who had been so long cut off from intelligence from home, thus suddenly to be told that some of the scenes of the middle ages--scenes connected with real wrongs and gross abuses of human rights--were about to be enacted in his own land; that country which boasted itself, not only to be the asylum of the oppressed, but the conservator of the right. I was grieved at what I had heard, for, during my travels, I had cherished a much-loved image of justice and political excellence, that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My uncle and myself decided at once to return home, a step that indeed was required by prudence. I was now of an age to enter into the full possession of my own property (so far as "new laws and new lords" would permit); and the letters received by my late guardian, as well as certain newspapers, communicated the unpleasant fact that a great many of the tenants of Ravensnest had joined the association, paid tribute for the support of "Injins," and were getting to be as bad as any of the rest of them, so far as designs and schemes to plunder were concerned, though they still paid their rents. The latter circumstance was ascribed by our agent to the fact that many leases were about to fall in, and it would be in my power to substitute more honest and better-disposed successors for the present occupants of the several farms. Measures were taken accordingly for quitting Paris as soon as possible, so that we might reach home late in the month of May.

"If we had time, I would certainly throw in a memorial or two to the legislature," observed my uncle, a day or two before we proceeded to Havre to join the packet. "I have a strong desire to protest against the invasion of my rights as a freeman that is connected with some of their contemplated laws. I do not at all like the idea of being abridged of the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can obtain it, which is one of the projects of some of the ultra reformers of free and equal New York. It is wonderful, Hugh, into what follies men precipitate themselves as soon as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of politics, religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite philanthropists who see a great evil affecting the rights of human nature in one man's hiring a farm from another for as long a term as he can obtain it, who are at the very extreme in their opinion on free trade! So free-trade are some of the journals which think it a capital thing to prevent landlords and tenants from making their own bargains, that they have actually derided the idea of having established fares for hackney-coaches, but that it would be better to let the parties stand in the rain and higgle about the price, on the free-trade principle. Some of these men are either active agents in stimulating the legislature to rob the citizen of this very simple control of his property, or passive lookers-on while others do it."

"Votes, sir, votes."

"It is indeed votes, sir, votes; nothing short of votes could reconcile these men to their own inconsistencies. As for yourself, Hugh, it might be well to get rid of that canopied pew----"

"Of what canopied pew? I am sure I do not understand you."

"Do you forget that the family-pew in St. Andrew's Church, at Ravensnest, has a wooden canopy over it--a relic of our colonial opinions and usages?"

"Now you mention it, I do remember a very clumsy, and, to own the truth, a very ugly thing, that I have always supposed was placed there, by those who built the church, by way of ornament."

"That ugly thing, by way of ornament, was intended for a sort of canopy, and was by no means an uncommon distinction in the State and colony, as recently as the close of the last century. The church was built at the expense of my grandfather, General Littlepage, and his bosom friend and kinsman, Colonel Dirck Follock, both good Whigs and gallant defenders of the liberty of their country. They thought it proper that the Littlepages should have a canopied pew, and that is the state in which they caused the building to be presented to my father. The old work still stands; and Dunning writes me that, among the other arguments used against your interests, is the fact that your pew is thus distinguished from those of the rest of the congregation."

"It is a distinction no man would envy me, could it be known that I have ever thought the clumsy, ill-shaped thing a nuisance, and detestable as an ornament. I have never even associated it in my mind with personal distinction, but have always supposed it was erected with a view to embellish the building, and placed over our pew as the spot where such an excrescence would excite the least envy."

"In all that, with one exception, you have judged quite naturally. Forty years ago such a thing might have been done, and the majority of the parishioners would have seen in it nothing out of place. But that day has gone by; and you will discover that, on your own estate, and in the very things created by your family and yourself, you will actually have fewer rights of any sort, beyond those your money will purchase, than any man around you. The simple fact that St. Andrew's Church was built by your great-grandfather, and by him presented to the congregation, will diminish your claim to have a voice in its affairs, with many of the congregation."

"This is so extraordinary, that I must ask the reason."

"The reason is connected with a principle so obviously belonging to human nature generally, and to American nature in particular, that I wonder you ask it. It is envy. Did that pew belong to the Newcomes, for instance, no one would think anything of it."

"Nevertheless, the Newcomes would make themselves ridiculous by sitting in a pew that was distinguished from those of their neighbors. The absurdity of the contrast would strike every one."

"And it is precisely because the absurdity does not exist in your case, that your seat is envied. No one envies absurdity. However, you will readily admit, Hugh, that a church and a church-yard are the two last places in which human distinction ought to be exhibited. All are equal in the eyes of Him we go to the one to worship, and all are equal in the grave. I have ever been averse to everything like worldly distinction in a congregation, and admire the usage of the Romish Church in even dispensing with pews altogether. Monuments speak to the world, and have a general connection with history, so that they be tolerated to a certain point, though notorious liars."

"I agree with you, sir, as to the unfitness of a church for all distinction, and shall be happy on every account to get rid of my canopy, though that has an historical connection, also. I am quite innocent of any feeling of pride while sitting under it, though I will confess to some of shame at its quizzical shape, when I see it has attracted the eyes of intelligent strangers."

"It is but natural that you should feel thus; for, while we may miss distinctions and luxuries to which we have ever been accustomed, they rarely excite pride in the possessor, even while they awaken envy in the looker-on."

"Nevertheless, I cannot see what the old pew has to do with the rents or my legal rights."

"When a cause is bad, everything is pressed into it that it is believed may serve a turn. No man who had a good legal claim for property, would ever think of urging any other; nor would any legislator who had sound and sufficient reasons for his measures--reasons that could properly justify him before God and man, for his laws--have recourse to slang to sustain him. If these anti-renters were right, they would have no need of secret combinations or disguises, blood-and-thunder names, and special agents in the legislature of the land. The right requires no false aid to make it appear the right; but the wrong must get such support as it can press into its service. Your pew is called aristocratic, though it confers no political power; it is called a patent of nobility, though it neither gives nor takes away, and it is hated, and you with it, for the very reason that you can sit in it and not make yourself ridiculous. I suppose you have not examined very closely the papers I gave you to read?"

"Enough so to ascertain that they are filled with trash."

"Worse than trash, Hugh; with some of the loosest principles, and most atrocious feelings, that degrade poor human nature. Some of the reformers propose that no man shall hold more than a thousand acres of land, while others lay down the very intelligible and distinct principle that no man ought to hold more than he can use. Even petitions to that effect, I have been told, have been sent to the legislature."

"Which has taken care not to allude to their purport, either in debate or otherwise, as I see nothing to that effect in the reports."

"Ay, I dare say the slang-whangers of those honorable bodies will studiously keep all such enormities out of sight, as some of them doubtless hope to step into the shoes of the present landlords, as soon as they can get the feet out of them which are now in. But these are the projects and the petitions in the columns of the journals, and they speak for themselves. Among other things, they say it is nobility to be a landlord."

"I see by the letter of Mr. Dunning, that they have petitioned the legislature to order an inquiry into my title. Now, we hold from the crown----"

"So much the worse, Hugh. Faugh! hold from a crown in a republican country! I am amazed you are not ashamed to own it. Do you not know, boy, that it has been gravely contended in a court of justice that, in obtaining our national independence from the King of Great Britain, the people conquered all his previous grants, which ought to be declared void and of none effect?"

"That is an absurdity of which I had not heard," I answered, laughing; "why, the people of New York, who held all their lands under the crown, would in that case have been conquering them for other persons! My good grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom actually fought and bled in the revolution, must have been very silly thus to expose themselves to take away their own estates, in order to give them to a set of immigrants from New England and other parts of the world."

"Quite justly said, Hugh," added my uncle, joining in the laugh. "Nor is this half of the argument. The State, too, in its corporate character, has been playing the swindler all this time. You may not know the fact, but I as your guardian do know, that the quit-rents reserved by the crown when it granted the lands of Mooseridge and Ravensnest, were claimed by the State; and that, wanting money to save the people from taxes, it commuted with us, receiving a certain gross sum in satisfaction of all future claims."

"Ay, that I did not know. Can the fact be shown?"

"Certainly--it is well known to all old fellows like myself, for it was a very general measure, and very generally entered into by all the landholders. In our case, the receipts are still to be found among the family papers. In the cases of the older estates, such as those of the Van Rensselaers, the equity is still stronger in their favor, since the conditions to hold the land included an obligation to bring so many settlers from Europe within a given time; conditions that were fulfilled at great cost, as you may suppose, and on which, in truth, the colony had its foundation."

"How much it tells against a people's honesty to wish to forget such facts, in a case like this!"

"There is nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably never known to those who prate about the conquered rights from the crown. As you say, however, the civilization of a community is to be measured by its consciousness of the existence of all principles of justice, and a familiarity with its own history. The great bulk of the population of New York have no active desire to invade what is right in this anti-rent struggle, having no direct interests at stake; their crime is a passive inactivity, which allows those who are either working for political advancement, or those who are working to obtain other men's property, to make use of them, through their own laws."

"But is it not an embarrassment to such a region as that directly around Albany, to have such tenures to the land, and for so large a body of people to be compelled to pay rent, in the very heart of the State, as it might be, and in situations that render it desirable to leave enterprise as unshackled as possible?"

"I am not prepared to admit this much, even, as a general principle. One argument used by these anti-renters is, for instance, that the patroons, in their leases, reserved the mill-seats. Now, what if they did? Some one must own the mill-seats; and why not the patroon as well as another? To give the argument any weight, not as law, not as morals, but as mere expediency, it must be shown that the patroons would not let these mill-seats at as low rents as any one else; and my opinion is, that they would let them at rents of not half the amount that would be asked, were they the property of so many individuals scattered up and down the country. But, admitting that so large an estate of this particular sort has some inconveniences in that particular spot, can there be two opinions among men of integrity about the mode of getting rid of it? Every thing has its price, and, in a business sense, everything is entitled to its price. No people acknowledge this more than the Americans, or practise on it so extensively. Let the Rensselaers be tempted by such offers as will induce them to sell, but do not let them be invaded by that most infernal of all acts of oppression, special legislation, in order to bully or frighten them from the enjoyment of what is rightfully their own. If the State think such a description of property injurious in its heart, let the State imitate England in her conduct toward the slaveholders--buy them out; not tax them out, and wrong them out, and annoy them out. But, Hugh, enough of this at present; we shall have much more than we want of it when we get home. Among my letters, I have one from each of my other wards."

"'Still harping on my daughter,' sir!" I answered, laughing. "I hope that the vivacious Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, and the meek Miss Anne Marston, are both perfectly well!"

"Both in excellent health, and both write charmingly. I must really let you see the letter of Henrietta, as I do think it is quite creditable to her; I will step into my room and get it."

I ought to let the reader into a secret here that will have some connection with what is to follow. A dead-set had been made at me, previously to leaving home, to induce me to marry either of three young ladies--Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, Miss Anne Marston, and Miss Opportunity Newcome. The advances in the case of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke and Miss Anne Marston came from my uncle Ro, who, as their guardian, had a natural interest in their making what he was pleased to think might be a good connection for either; while the advances on account of Miss Opportunity Newcome came from herself. Under such circumstances, it may be well to say who these young ladies actually were.

Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke was the daughter of an Englishman of good family, and some estate, who had emigrated to America and married, under the impulse of certain theories in politics which induced him to imagine that this was the promised land. I remember him as a disappointed and dissatisfied widower, who was thought to be daily growing poorer under the consequences of indiscreet investments, and who at last got to be so very English in his wishes and longings, as to assert that the common Muscovy was a better bird than the canvas-back! He died, however, in time to leave his only child an estate which, under my uncle's excellent management, was known by me to be rather more than one hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, and which produced a net eight thousand a year. This made Miss Henrietta a belle at once; but, having a prudent friend in my grandmother, as yet she had not married a beggar. I knew that uncle Ro went quite as far as was proper, in his letters, in the way of hints touching myself; and my dear, excellent, honest-hearted, straightforward old grandmother had once let fall an expression, in one of her letters to myself, which induced me to think that these hints had actually awakened as much interest in the young lady's bosom, as could well be connected with what was necessarily nothing but curiosity.

Miss Anne Marston was also an heiress, but on a very diminished scale. She had rather more than three thousand a year in buildings in town, and a pretty little sum of about sixteen thousand dollars laid by out of its savings. She was not an only child, however, having two brothers, each of whom had already received as much as the sister, and each of whom, as is very apt to be the case with the heirs of New York merchants, was already in a fair way of getting rid of his portion in riotous living. Nothing does a young American so much good, under such circumstances, as to induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a downright fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in so short a time, that the agony is soon over. If only vain and frivolous, because young and ill-educated, the latter being a New York endemic, but with some foundation of native mind, he lets his whiskers grow, becomes fuzzy about the chin, dresses better, gets to be much better mannered, soon loses his taste for the low and vulgar indulgences of his youth, and comes out such a gentleman as one can only make who has entirely thrown away the precious moments of youth. If tolerably educated in boyhood, with capacity to build on, the chances are that the scales will fall from his eyes very fast on landing in the old world--that his ideas and tastes will take a new turn--that he will become what nature intended him for, an intellectual man; and that he will finally return home, conscious alike of the evils and blessings, the advantages and disadvantages, of his own system and country--a wiser, and it is to be hoped a better man. How the experiment had succeeded with the Marstons, neither myself nor my uncle knew; for they had paid their visit while we were in the East, and had already returned to America. As for Miss Anne, she had a mother to take care of her mind and person, though I had learned she was pretty, sensible and discreet.

Miss Opportunity Newcome was a belle of Ravensnest, a village on my own property; a rural beauty, and of rural education, virtues, manners and habits. As Ravensnest was not particularly advanced in civilization, or, to make use of the common language of the country, was not a very "aristocratic place," I shall not dwell on her accomplishments, which did well enough for Ravensnest, but would not essentially ornament my manuscript.

Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid, who was the son of Jason, of the house of Newcome. In using the term "house," I adopt it understandingly; for the family had dwelt in the same tenement, a leasehold property of which the fee was in myself, and the dwelling had been associated with the name of Newcome from time immemorial; that is, for about eighty years. All that time had a Newcome been the tenant of the mill, tavern, store, and farm, that lay nearest the village of Ravensnest, or Little Nest, as it was commonly called; and it may not be impertinent to the moral of my narrative if I add that, for all that time, and for something longer, had I and my ancestors been the landlords. I beg the reader to bear this last fact in mind, as there will soon be occasion to show that there was a strong disposition in certain persons to forget it.

As I have said, Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid. There was also a brother, who was named Seneca, or Seneky, as he always pronounced it himself, the son of Ovid, the son of Jason, the first of the name at Ravensnest. This Seneca was a lawyer, in the sense of a license granted by the Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as by the Court of Common Pleas, in and for the county of Washington. As there had been a sort of hereditary education among the Newcomes for three generations, beginning with Jason, and ending with Seneca; and as the latter was at the bar, I had occasionally been thrown into the society of both brother and sister. The latter, indeed, used to be fond of visiting the Nest, as my house was familiarly called, Ravensnest being its true name, whence those of the "patent" and village; and as Opportunity had early manifested a partiality for my dear old grandmother, and not less dear young sister, who occasionally passed a few weeks with me during the vacations, more especially in the autumns, I had many occasions of being brought within the influence of her charms--opportunities that I feel bound to state, Opportunity did not neglect. I have understood that her mother, who bore the same name, had taught Ovid the art of love by a very similar demonstration, and had triumphed. That lady was still living, and may be termed Opportunity the Great, while the daughter can be styled Opportunity the Less. There was very little difference between my own years and those of the young lady; and, as I had last passed through the fiery ordeal at the sinister age of twenty, there was not much danger in encountering the risk anew, now I was five years older. But I must return to my uncle and the letter of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke.

"Here it is, Hugh," cried my guardian, gayly; "and a capital letter it is! I wish I could read the whole of it to you; but the two girls made me promise never to show their letters to any one, which could mean only you, before they would promise to write anything to me beyond commonplaces. Now, I get their sentiments freely and naturally, and the correspondence is a source of much pleasure to me. I think, however, I might venture just to give you one extract."

"You had better not, sir; there would be a sort of treachery in it, that I confess I would rather not be accessory to. If Miss Coldbrooke does not wish me to read what she writes, she can hardly wish that you should read any of it to me."

Uncle Ro glanced at me, and I fancied he seemed dissatisfied with my nonchalance. He read the letter through to himself, however, laughing here, smiling there, then muttering "capital!" "good!" "charming girl!" "worthy of Hannah More!" etc., etc., as if just to provoke my curiosity. But I had no desire to read "Hannah More," as any young fellow of five-and-twenty can very well imagine, and I stood it all with the indifference of a stoic. My guardian had to knock under, and put the letters in his writing desk.

"Well, the girls will be glad to see us," he said, after a moment of reflection, "and not a little surprised. In my very last letter to my mother, I sent them word that we should not be home until October; and now we shall see them as early as June, at least."

"Patt will be delighted, I make no doubt. As for the other two young ladies, they have so many friends and relations to care for, that I fancy our movements give them no great concern."

"Then you do both injustice, as their letters would prove. They take the liveliest interest in our proceedings, and speak of my return as if they look for it with the greatest expectation and joy."

I made my uncle Ro a somewhat saucy answer; but fair dealing compels me to record it.

"I dare say they do, sir," was my reply; "but what young lady does not look with 'expectation and joy' for the return of a friend, who is known to have a long purse, from Paris?"

"Well, Hugh, you deserve neither of those dear girls; and, if I can help it, you shall have neither."

"Thank'ee, sir!"

"Poh! this is worse than silly--it is rude. I dare say neither would accept you, were you to offer to-morrow."

"I trust not, sir, for her own sake. It would be a singularly palpable demonstration were either to accept a man she barely knew, and whom she had not seen since she was fifteen."

Uncle Ro laughed, but I could see he was confoundedly vexed; and, as I loved him with all my heart, though I did not love match-making, I turned the discourse, in a pleasant way, on our approaching departure.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Hugh," cried my uncle, who was a good deal of a boy in some things, for the reason, I suppose, that he was an old bachelor; "I'll just have wrong names entered on board the packet, and we'll surprise all our friends. Neither Jacob nor your man will betray us, we know; and, for that matter, we can send them both home by the way of England. Each of us has trunks in London to be looked after, and let the two fellows go by the way of Liverpool. That is a good thought, and occurred most happily."

"With all my heart, sir. My fellow is of no more use to me at sea than an automaton would be, and I shall be glad to get rid of his rueful countenance. He is a capital servant on terra firma, but a perfect Niobe on the briny main."

The thing was agreed on; and, a day or two afterward, both our body-servants, that is to say, Jacob the black and Hubert the German, were on their way to England. My uncle let his apartment again, for he always maintained I should wish to bring my bride to pass a winter in it; and we proceeded to Havre in a sort of incognito. There was little danger of our being known on board the packet, and we had previously ascertained that there was not an acquaintance of either in the ship. There was a strong family resemblance between my uncle and myself, and we passed for father and son in the ship, as old Mr. Davidson and young Mr. Davidson, of Maryland--or Myr-r-land, as it is Doric to call that State. We had no concern in this part of the deception, unless abstaining from calling my supposed father "uncle," as one would naturally do in strange society, can be so considered.

The passage itself--by the way, I wish all landsmen would be as accurate as I am here, and understand that a "voyage" means "out" and "home," or "thence" and "back again," while a "passage" means from place to place--but our passage was pregnant with no events worth recording. We had the usual amount of good and bad weather, the usual amount of eating and drinking, and the usual amount of ennui. The latter circumstance, perhaps, contributed to the digesting of a further scheme of my uncle's, which it is now necessary to state.

A reperusal of his letters and papers had induced him to think the anti-rent movement a thing of more gravity, even, than he had at first supposed. The combination on the part of the tenants, we learned also from an intelligent New Yorker who was a fellow-passenger, extended much further than our accounts had given us reason to believe; and it was deemed decidedly dangerous for landlords, in many cases, to be seen on their own estates. Insult, personal degradation, or injury, and even death, it was thought, might be the consequences in many cases. The blood actually spilled had had the effect to check the more violent demonstrations, it is true; but the latent determination to achieve their purposes was easily to be traced among the tenants, in the face of all their tardy professions of moderation, and a desire for nothing but what was right. In this case, what was right was the letter and spirit of the contracts; and nothing was plainer than the fact that these were not what was wanted.

Professions pass for nothing, with the experienced, when connected with a practice that flatly contradicts them. It was only too apparent to all who chose to look into the matter, and that by evidence which could not mislead, that the great body of the tenants in various counties of New York were bent on obtaining interests in their farms that were not conveyed by their leases, without the consent of their landlords, and insomuch that they were bent on doing that which should be discountenanced by every honest man in the community. The very fact that they supported, or in any manner connived at, the so-called "Injin" system, spoke all that was necessary as to their motives; and, when we come to consider that these "Injins" had already proceeded to the extremity of shedding blood, it was sufficiently plain that things must soon reach a crisis.

My uncle Roger and myself reflected on all these matters calmly, and decided on our course, I trust, with prudence. As that decision has proved to be pregnant with consequences that are likely to affect my future life, I shall now briefly give an outline of what induced us to adopt it.

It was all-important for us to visit Ravensnest in person, while it might be hazardous to do so openly. The Nest house stood in the very centre of the estate, and, ignorant as we were of the temper of the tenants, it might be indiscreet to let our presence be known; and circumstances favored our projects of concealment. We were not expected to reach the country at all until autumn, or "fall," as that season of the year is poetically called in America; and this gave us the means of reaching the property unexpectedly, and, as we hoped, undetected. Our arrangement, then, was very simple, and will be best related in the course of the narrative.

The packet had a reasonably short passage, as we were twenty-nine days from land to land. It was on a pleasant afternoon in May when the hummock-like heights of Nevesink were first seen from the deck; and an hour later we came in sight of the tower-resembling sails of the coasters which were congregating in the neighborhood of the low point of land that is so very appropriately called Sandy Hook. The light-houses rose out of the water soon after, and objects on the shore of New Jersey next came gradually out of the misty background, until we got near enough to be boarded, first by the pilot, and next by the news-boat; the first preceding the last, for a wonder, news usually being far more active, in this good republic, than watchfulness to prevent evil. My uncle Ro gave the crew of this news-boat a thorough scrutiny, and, finding no one on board her whom he had ever before seen, he bargained for a passage up to town.

We put our feet on the Battery just as the clocks of New York were striking eight. A custom-house officer had examined our carpet-bags and permitted them to pass, and we had disburdened ourselves of the effects in the ship, by desiring the captain to attend to them. Each of us had a town-house, but neither would go near his dwelling; mine being only kept up in winter, for the use of my sister and aunt, who kindly took charge of her during the season, while my uncle's was opened principally for his mother. At that season, we had reason to think neither was tenanted but by one or two old family servants; and it was our cue also to avoid them. But "Jack Dunning," as my uncle always called him, was rather more of a friend than of an agent; and he had a bachelor establishment in Chambers Street that was precisely the place we wanted. Thither, then, we proceeded, taking the route of Greenwich Street, fearful of meeting some one in Broadway by whom we might be recognized.

CHAPTER IV.

Cit. "Speak, speak."
I Cit. "You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?"
Cit. "Resolved, resolved."
I Cit. "First you know, Caius Marcus is chief enemy to the people."
Cit. "We know't, we know't."
I Cit. "Let's kill him, and we'll have corn at our price.
Is't a verdict?"

--Coriolanus.

The most inveterate Manhattanese, if he be anything of a man of the world, must confess that New York is, after all, but a rag-fair sort of a place, so far as the eye is concerned. I was particularly struck with this fact, even at that hour, as we went stumbling along over an atrociously bad sidewalk, my eyes never at rest, as any one can imagine, after five years of absence. I could not help noting the incongruities; the dwellings of marble in close proximity with miserable, low constructions in wood; the wretched pavements; and, above all, the country air of a town of near four hundred thousand souls: I very well know that many of the defects are to be ascribed to the rapid growth of the place, which gives it a sort of hobble-de-hoy look; but, being a Manhattanese by birth, I thought I might just as well own it all at once, if it were only for the information of a particular portion of my townsmen, who may have been under a certain delusion on the subject. As for comparing the bay of New York with that of Naples on the score of beauty, I shall no more be guilty of any such folly, to gratify the cockney feelings of Broadway and Bond Street, than I should be guilty of the folly of comparing the commerce of the ancient Parthenope with that of old New York, in order to excite complacency in the bosom of some bottegajo in the Toledo, or on the Chiaja. Our fast-growing Manhattan is a great town in its way--a wonderful place--without a parallel, I do believe, on earth, as a proof of enterprise and of the accumulation of business; and it is not easy to make such a town appear ridiculous by any jibes and innuendoes that relate to the positive things of this world, though nothing is easier than to do it for itself by setting up to belong to the sisterhood of such places as London, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. There is too much of the American notion of the omnipotence of numbers among us Manhattanese, which induces us to think that the higher rank in the scale of places is to be obtained by majorities. No, no; let us remember the familiar axiom of "ne sutor ultra crepidum." New York is just the queen of "business," but not yet the queen of the world. Every man who travels ought to bring back something to the common stock of knowledge; and I shall give a hint to my townsmen, by which I really think they may be able to tell for themselves, as by feeling a sort of moral pulse, when the town is rising to the level of a capital. When simplicity takes the place of pretension, is one good rule; but, as it may require a good deal of practice, or native taste, to ascertain this fact, I will give another that is obvious to the senses, which will at least be strongly symptomatic; and that is this: when squares cease to be called parks; when horse-bazaars and fashionable streets are not called Tattersalls and Bond Street; when Washington market is rechristened Bear market, and Franklin and Fulton, and other great philosophers and inventors, are plucked of the unmerited honors of having shambles named after them; when commercial is not used as a prefix to emporium; when people can return from abroad without being asked "if they are reconciled to their country?" and strangers are not interrogated at the second question, "how do you like our city?" then may it be believed that the town is beginning to go alone, and that it may set up for itself.

Although New York is, out of all question, decidedly provincial, laboring under the peculiar vices of provincial habits and provincial modes of thinking, it contains many a man of the world, and some, too, who have never quitted their own fireside. Of this very number was the Jack Dunning, as my uncle Ro called him, to whose house in Chambers Street we were now proceeding.

"If we were going anywhere but to Dunning's," said my uncle, as we turned out of Greenwich Street, "I should have no fear of being recognized by the servants; for no one here thinks of keeping a man six months. Dunning, however, is of the old school, and does not like new faces; so he will have no Irishman at his door, as is the case with two out of three of the houses at which one calls nowadays."

In another minute we were at the bottom of Mr. Dunning's "stoup"--what an infernal contrivance it is to get in and out at the door by, in a hotty-cold climate like ours!--but there we were, and I observed that my uncle hesitated.

"Parlez au Suisse," said I; "ten to one he is fresh from some Bally-this, or Bally-that."

"No, no; it must be old Garry, the nigger"--my uncle Ro was of the old school himself, and would say "nigger"--"Jack can never have parted with Garry."

"Garry" was the diminutive of Garret, a somewhat common Dutch Christian name among us.

We rang, and the door opened--in about five minutes. Although the terms "aristocrat" and "aristocracy" are much in men's mouths in America just now, as well as those of "feudal" and the "middle ages," and this, too, as applied to modes of living as well as to leasehold tenures, there is but one porter in the whole country; and he belongs to the White House, at Washington. I am afraid even that personage, royal porter as he is, is often out of the way; and the reception he gives when he is there, is not of the most brilliant and princely character. When we had waited three minutes, my uncle Ro said:

"I am afraid Garry is taking a nap by the kitchen fire; I'll try him again."

Uncle Ro did try again, and, two minutes later, the door opened.

"What is your pleasure?" demanded the Suisse, with a strong brogue.

My uncle started back as if he had met a sprite; but he asked if Mr. Dunning was at home.

"He is, indeed, sir."

"Is he alone, or is he with company?"

"He is, indeed."

"But what is he indeed?"

"He is that."

"Can you take the trouble to explain which that it is? Has he company, or is he alone?"

"Just that, sir. Walk in, and he'll be charmed to see you. A fine gentleman is his honor, and pleasure it is to live with him, I'm sure!"

"How long is it since you left Ireland, my friend?"

"Isn't it a mighty bit, now, yer honor!" answered Barney, closing the door. "T'irteen weeks, if it's one day."

"Well, go ahead, and show us the way. This is a bad omen, Hugh, to find that Jack Dunning, of all men in the country, should have changed his servant--good, quiet, lazy, respectable, old, gray-headed Garry, the nigger--for such a bog-trotter as that fellow, who climbs those stairs as if accustomed only to ladders."

Dunning was in his library on the second floor, where he passed most of his evenings. His surprise was equal to that which my uncle had just experienced, when he saw us two standing before him. A significant gesture, however, caused him to grasp his friend and client's hand in silence; and nothing was said until the Swiss had left the room, although the fellow stood with the door in his hand a most inconvenient time, just to listen to what might pass between the host and his guests. At length we got rid of him, honest, well-meaning fellow that he was after all; and the door was closed.

"My last letters have brought you home, Roger?" said Jack, the moment he could speak; for feeling, as well as caution, had something to do with his silence.

"They have, indeed. A great change must have come over the country, by what I hear; and one of the very worst symptoms is that you have turned away Garry, and got an Irishman in his place."

"Ah! old men must die, as well as old principles, I find. My poor fellow went off in a fit, last week, and I took that Irishman as a pis aller. After losing poor Garry who was born a slave in my father's house, I became indifferent, and accepted the first comer from the intelligence office."

"We must be careful, Dunning, not to give up too soon. But hear my story, and then to other matters."

My uncle then explained his wish to be incognito, and his motive. Dunning listened attentively, but seemed uncertain whether to dissent or approve. The matter was discussed briefly, and then it was postponed for further consideration.

"But how comes on this great moral dereliction, called anti-rentism? Is it on the wane, or the increase?"

"On the wane to the eye, perhaps; but on the increase so far as principles, the rights, and facts, are concerned. The necessity of propitiating votes is tempting politicians of all sides to lend themselves to it; and there is imminent danger now that atrocious wrongs will be committed under the form of law."

"In what way can the law touch an existing contract? The Supreme Court of the United States will set that right."

"That is the only hope of the honest, let me tell you. It is folly to expect that a body composed of such men as usually are sent to the State Legislature can resist the temptation to gain power by conciliating numbers. That is out of the question. Individuals of these bodies may resist; but the tendency there will be as against the few, and in favor of the many, bolstering their theories by clap-traps and slang political phrases. The scheme to tax the rents, under the name of quit-rents, will be resorted to, in the first place."

"That will be a most iniquitous proceeding, and would justify resistance just as much as our ancestors were justified in resisting the taxation of Great Britain."

"It would more so, for here we have a written covenant to render taxation equal. The landlord already pays one tax on each of these farms--a full and complete tax, that is reserved from the rent in the original bargain with the tenant; and now the wish is to tax the rents themselves; and this not to raise revenue, for that is confessedly not wanted, but most clearly with a design to increase the inducements for the landlords to part with their property. If that can be done, the sales will be made on the principle that none but the tenant must be, as indeed no one else can be, the purchaser; and then we shall see a queer exhibition--men parting with their property under the pressure of a clamor that is backed by as much law as can be pressed into its service, with a monopoly of price on the side of the purchaser, and all in a country professing the most sensitive love of liberty, and where the prevailing class of politicians are free-trade men?"

"There is no end of these inconsistencies among politicians."

"There is no end of knavery when men submit to 'noses,' instead of principles. Call things by their right names, Ro, as they deserve to be. This matter is so plain, that he who runs can read."

"But will this scheme of taxation succeed? It does not affect us, for instance, as our leases are for three lives."

"Oh! that is nothing; for you they contemplate a law that will forbid the letting of land, for the future, for a period longer than five years. Hugh's leases will soon be falling in, and then he can't make a slave of any man for a longer period than five years."

"Surely no one is so silly as to think of passing such a law, with a view to put down aristocracy, and to benefit the tenant!" I cried, laughing.

"Ay, you may laugh, young sir," resumed Jack Dunning; "but such is the intention. I know very well what will be your course of reasoning; you will say, the longer the lease the better for the tenant, if the bargain be reasonably good; and landlords cannot ask more for the use of their lands than they are really worth in this country, there happening to be more land than there are men to work it. No, no; landlords rather get less for their lands than they are worth, instead of more, for that plain reason. To compel the tenant to take a lease, therefore, for a term as short as five years, is to injure him, you think; to place him more at the control of his landlord, through the little interest connected with the cost and trouble of moving, and through the natural desire he may possess to cut the meadows he has seeded, and to get the full benefit of manure he has made and carted. I see how you reason, young sir; but you are behind the age--you are sadly behind the age."

"The age is a queer one, if I am! All over the world it is believed that long leases are favors, or advantages, to tenants; and nothing can make it otherwise, caeteris paribus. Then what good will the tax do, after violating right and moral justice, if not positive law, to lay it? On a hundred dollars of rent, I should have to pay some fifty-five cents of taxes, as I am assessed on other things at Ravensnest; and does anybody suppose I will give up an estate that has passed through five generations of my family, on account of a tribute like that!"

"Mighty well, sir--mighty well, sir! This is fine talk; but I would advise you not to speak of your ancestors at all. Landlords can't name their ancestors with impunity just now."

"I name mine only as showing a reason for a natural regard for my paternal acres."

"That you might do, if you were a tenant; but not as a landlord. In a landlord it is aristocratic and intolerable pride, and to the last degree offensive--as Dogberry says, 'tolerable and not to be endured.'"

"But it is a fact, and it is natural one should have some feelings connected with it."

"The more it is a fact, the less it will be liked. People associate social position with wealth and estates, but not with farms; and the longer one has such things in a family, the worse for them!"

"I do believe, Jack," put in my uncle Ro, "that the rule which prevails all over the rest of the world is reversed here, and that with us it is thought a family's claim is lessened, and not increased, by time."

"To be sure it is!" answered Dunning, without giving me a chance to speak. "Do you know that you wrote me a very silly letter once, from Switzerland, about a family called De Blonay, that had been seated on the same rock, in a little castle, some six or eight hundred years, and the sort of respect and veneration the circumstance awakened! Well, all that was very foolish, as you will find when you pay your incognito visit to Ravensnest. I will not anticipate the result of your schooling; but, go to school."

"As the Rensselaers and other great landlords, who have estates on durable leases, will not be very likely to give them up, except on terms that will suit themselves, for a tax as insignificant as that mentioned by Hugh," said my uncle, "what does the Legislature anticipate from passing the law?"

"That its members will be called the friends of the people, and not the friends of the landlords. Would any man tax his friends, if he could help it?"

"But what will that portion of the people who compose the anti-renters gain by such a measure?"

"Nothing; and their complaints will be just as loud, and their longings as active, as ever. Nothing that can have any effect on what they wish will be accomplished by any legislation in the matter. One committee of the Assembly has actually reported, you may remember, that the State might assume the lands, and sell them to the tenants, or some one else; or something of the sort."

"The Constitution of the United States must be Hugh's aegis."

"And that alone will protect him, let me tell you. But for that noble provision of the Constitution of the Federal Government, his estate would infallibly go for one-half of its true value. There is no use in mincing things, or in affecting to believe men more honest than they are--AN INFERNAL FEELING OF SELFISHNESS IS SO MUCH TALKED OF, AND CITED, AND REFERRED TO, ON ALL OCCASIONS, IN THIS COUNTRY, THAT A MAN ALMOST RENDERS HIMSELF RIDICULOUS WHO APPEARS TO REST ON PRINCIPLE."

"Have you heard what the tenants of Ravensnest aim at, in particular?"

"They want to get Hugh's lands, that's all; nothing more, I can assure you."

"On what conditions, pray?" demanded I.

"As you 'light of chaps,' to use a saying of their own. Some even profess a willingness to pay a fair price."

"But I do not wish to sell for even a fair price. I have no desire to part with property that is endeared to me by family feeling and association. I have an expensive house and establishment on my estate, which obtains its principal value from the circumstance that it is so placed that I can look after my interests with the least inconvenience to myself. What can I do with the money but buy another estate? and I prefer this that I have."

"Poh! boy, you can shave notes, you'll recollect," said Uncle Ro, dryly. "The calling is decided to be honorable by the highest tribunal; and no man should be above his business."

"You have no right, sir, in a free country," returned the caustic Jack Dunning, "to prefer one estate to another, more especially when other people want it. Your lands are leased to honest, hard-working tenants, who can eat their dinners without silver forks, and whose ancestors----"

"Stop!" I cried, laughing; "I bar all ancestry. No man has a right to ancestry in a free country, you'll remember!"

"That means landlord ancestry; as for tenant ancestry, one can have a pedigree as long as the Maison de Levis. No, sir; every tenant you have has every right to demand that his sentiment of family feeling should be respected. His father planted that orchard, and he loves the apples better than any other apples in the world----"

"And my father procured the grafts, and made him a present of them."

"His grandfather cleared that field, and converted its ashes into pots and pearls----"

"And my grandfather received that year ten shillings of rent, for land off which his received two hundred and fifty dollars for his ashes."

"His great-grandfather, honest and excellent man--nay, superhonest and confiding creature--first 'took up' the land when a wilderness, and with his own hands felled the timber, and sowed the wheat."

"And got his pay twenty-fold for it all, or he would not have been fool enough to do it. I had a great-grandfather, too; and I hope it will not be considered aristocratic if I venture to hint as much. He--a dishonest, pestilent knave, no doubt--leased that very lot for six years without any rent at all, in order that the 'poor confiding creature' might make himself comfortable, before he commenced paying his sixpence or shilling an acre rent for the remainder of three lives, with a moral certainty of getting a renewal on the most liberal terms known to a new country; and who knew, the whole time, he could buy land in fee, within ten miles of his door, but who thought this a better bargain than that."

"Enough of this folly," cried Uncle Ro, joining in the laugh; "we all know that in our excellent America, he who has the highest claims to anything must affect to have the least, to stifle the monster envy; and being of one mind as to principles, let us come to facts. What of the girls, Jack, and of my honored mother?"

"She, noble heroic woman! she is at Ravensnest at this moment; and as the girls would not permit her to go alone, they are all with her."

"And did you, Jack Dunning, suffer them to go unattended into a part of the country that is in open rebellion?" demanded my uncle, reproachfully.

"Come, come! Hodge Littlepage, this is very sublime as a theory, but not so clear when reduced to practice. I did not go with Mrs. Littlepage and her young fry, for the good and substantial reason that I did not wish to be 'tarred and feathered.'"

"So you leave them to run the risk of being 'tarred and feathered' in your stead?"

"Say what you will about the cant of freedom that is becoming so common among us, and from which we were once so free; say what you will, Ro, of the inconsistency of those who raise the cry of 'feudality,' and 'aristocracy,' and 'nobility,' at the very moment they are manifesting a desire for exclusive rights and privileges in their own persons; say what you will of dishonesty, envy, that prominent American vice, knavery, covetousness, and selfishness, and I will echo all you can utter; but do not say that a woman can be in serious danger among any material body of Americans, even if anti-renters and mock-redskins in the bargain."

"I believe you are right there, Jack, on reflection. Pardon my warmth; but I have lately been living in the Old World, and in a country in which women were not long since carried to the scaffold on account of their politics."

"Because they meddled with politics. Your mother is in no serious danger, though it needs nerve in a woman to be able to think so. There are few women in the State, and fewer of her time of life anywhere, that would do what she has done; and I give the girls great credit for sticking by her. Half the young men in town are desperate at the thought of three such charming creatures thus exposing themselves to insult. Your mother has only been sued."

"Sued! Whom does she owe, or what can she have done to have brought this indignity on her?"

"You know, or ought to know, how it is in this country, Littlepage; we must have a little law, even when most bent on breaking it. A downright, straightforward rascal, who openly sets law at defiance, is a wonder. Then we have a great talk of liberty, when plotting to give it the deepest stab; and religion even gets to share in no small portion of our vices. Thus it is that the anti-renters have dragged in the law in aid of their designs. I understand one of the Rensselaers has been sued for money borrowed in a ferryboat to help him across a river under his own door, and for potatoes bought by his wife in the streets of Albany!"

"But neither of the Rensselaers need borrow money to cross the ferry, as the ferrymen would trust him; and no lady of the Rensselaer family ever bought potatoes in the streets of Albany, I'll answer for it."

"You have brought back some knowledge from your travels, I find!" said Jack Dunning, with comic gravity. "Your mother writes me that she has been sued for twenty-seven pairs of shoes furnished her by a shoemaker whom she never saw, or heard of, until she received the summons!"

"This, then, is one of the species of annoyances that has been adopted to bully the landlords out of their property?"

"It is; and if the landlords have recourse even to the covenants of their leases, solemnly and deliberately made, and as solemnly guaranteed by a fundamental law, the cry is raised of 'aristocracy' and 'oppression' by these very men, and echoed by many of the creatures who get seats in high places among us--or what would be high places, if filled with men worthy of their trusts."

"I see you do not mince your words, Jack."

"Why should I? Words are all that is left me. I am of no more weight in the government of this State than that Irishman who let you in just now will be five years hence--less, for he will vote to suit a majority; and as I shall vote understandingly, my vote will probably do no one any good."

Dunning belonged to a school that mingles a good deal of speculative and impracticable theory with a great deal of sound and just principles; but who render themselves useless because they will admit of no compromises. He did not belong to the class of American doctrinaires, however, or to those who contend--no, not contend, for no one does that any longer in this country, whatever may be his opinion on the subject--but those who think that political power, as in the last resort, should be the property of the few, for he was willing New York should have a very broad constituency. Nevertheless, he was opposed to the universal suffrage, in its wide extent, that does actually exist; as I suppose quite three-fourths of the whole population are opposed to it, in their hearts, though no political man of influence, now existing, has the moral calibre necessary to take the lead in putting it down. Dunning deferred to principles, and not to men. He well knew that an infallible whole was not to be composed of fallible parts; and while he thought majorities ought to determine many things, that there are rights and principles that are superior to even such unanimity as man can manifest, and much more to their majorities. But Dunning had no selfish views connected with his political notions, wanting no office, and feeling no motive to affect that which he neither thought nor wished. He never had quitted home, or it is highly probable his views of the comparative abuses of the different systems that prevail in the world would have been essentially modified. Those he saw had unavoidably a democratic source, there being neither monarch nor aristocrat to produce any other; and, under such circumstances, as abuses certainly abound, it is not at all surprising that he sometimes a little distorted facts and magnified evils.

"And my noble, high-spirited, and venerable mother has actually gone to the Nest to face the enemy!" exclaimed my uncle, after a thoughtful pause.

"She has, indeed; and the noble, high-spirited, though not venerable, young ladies have gone with her," returned Mr. Dunning, in his caustic way.

"All three, do you mean?"

"Every one of them--Martha, Henrietta, and Anne."

"I am surprised that the last should have done so. Anne Marston is such a meek, quiet, peace-loving person, that I should think she would have preferred remaining, as she naturally might have done, without exciting remark, with her own mother."

"She has not, nevertheless. Mrs. Littlepage would brave the anti-renters, and the three maidens would be her companions. I dare say, Ro, you know how it is with the gentle sex, when they make up their minds?"

"My girls are all good girls, and have given me very little trouble," answered my uncle, complacently.

"Yes, I dare say that may be true. You have only been absent from home five years this trip."

"An attentive guardian, notwithstanding, since I left you as a substitute. Has my mother written to you since her arrival among the hosts of the Philistines?"

"She has, indeed, Littlepage," answered Dunning, gravely; "I have heard from her three times, for she writes to urge my not appearing on the estate. I did intend to pay her a visit; but she tells me that it might lead to a violent scene, and can do no good. As the rents will not be due until autumn, and Master Hugh is now of age, and was to be here to look after his own affairs, I have seen no motive for incurring the risk of the tarring and feathering. We American lawyers, young gentleman, wear no wigs."

"Does my mother write herself, or employ another?" inquired my uncle, with interest.

"She honors me with her own hand. Your mother writes much better than you do yourself, Roger."

"That is owing to her once having carried chain, as she would say herself. Has Martha written to you?"

"Of course. Sweet little Patty and I are bosom friends, as you know."

"And does she say anything of the Indian and the negro?"

"Jaaf and Susquesus? To be sure she does. Both are living still, and both are well. I saw them myself, and even ate of their venison, so lately as last winter."

"Those old fellows must have each lived a great deal more than his century, Jack. They were with my grandfather in the old French war, as active, useful men--older than my grandfather!"

"Ay! a nigger or a redskin, before all others, for holding on to life, when they have been temperate. Let me see--that expedition of Abercrombie's was about eighty years since; why, these fellows must be well turned of their hundred, though Jaap is rather the oldest, judging from appearances."

"I believe no one knows the age of either. A hundred each has been thought now for many years. Susquesus was surprisingly active, too, when I last saw him--like a healthy man of eighty."

"He has failed of late, though he actually shot a deer, as I told you, last winter. Both the old fellows stray down to the Nest, Martha writes me; and the Indian is highly scandalized at the miserable imitations of his race that are now abroad. I have even heard that he and Yop have actually contemplated taking the field against them. Seneca Newcome is their especial aversion."

"How is Opportunity?" I inquired. "Does she take any part in this movement?"

"A decided one, I hear. She is anti-rent, while she wishes to keep on good terms with her landlord; and that is endeavoring to serve God and Mammon. She is not the first, however, by a thousand, that wears two faces in this business."

"Hugh has a deep admiration of Opportunity," observed my uncle, "and you had needs be tender in your strictures. The modern Seneca, I take it, is dead against us?"

"Seneky wishes to go to the legislature, and of course he is on the side of votes. Then his brother is a tenant at the mill, and naturally wishes to be the landlord. He is also interested in the land himself. One thing has struck me in this controversy as highly worthy of notice; and it is the naivete with which men reconcile the obvious longing of covetousness with what they are pleased to fancy the principles of liberty! When a man has worked a farm a certain number of years, he boldly sets up the doctrine that the fact itself gives him a high moral claim to possess it forever. A moment's examination will expose the fallacy by which these sophists apply the flattering unction to their souls. They work their farms under a lease, and in virtue of its covenants. Now, in a moral sense, all that time can do in such a case, is to render these covenants the more sacred, and consequently more binding; but these worthies, whose morality is all on one side, imagine that these time-honored covenants give them a right to fly from their own conditions during their existence, and to raise pretensions far exceeding anything they themselves confer, the moment they cease."

"Poh, poh! Jack; there is no need of refining at all, to come at the merits of such a question. This is a civilized country, or it is not. If it be a civilized country, it will respect the rights of property, and its own laws; and if the reverse, it will not respect them. As for setting up the doctrine, at this late day, when millions and millions are invested in this particular species of property, that the leasehold tenure is opposed to the spirit of institutions of which it has substantially formed a part, ever since those institutions have themselves had an existence, it requires a bold front, and more capacity than any man at Albany possesses, to make the doctrines go down. Men may run off with the notion that the tendencies to certain abuses, which mark every system, form their spirit; but this is a fallacy that a very little thought will correct. Is it true that proposals have actually been made, by these pretenders to liberty, to appoint commissioners to act as arbitrators between the landlords and tenants, and to decide points that no one has any right to raise?"

"True as Holy Writ; and a regular 'Star Chamber' tribunal it would be! It is wonderful, after all, how extremes do meet!"

"That is as certain as the return of the sun after night. But let us now talk of our project, Jack, and of the means of getting among these self-deluded men--deluded by their own covetousness--without being discovered; for I am determined to see them, and to judge of their motives and conduct for myself."

"Take care of the tar-barrel, and of the pillow-case of feathers, Roger!"

"I shall endeavor so to do."

We then discussed the matter before us at length and leisurely. I shall not relate all that was said, as it would be going over the same ground twice, but refer the reader to the regular narrative. At the usual hour, we retired to our beds, retaining the name of Davidson, as convenient and prudent. Next day Mr. John Dunning busied himself in our behalf, and made himself exceedingly useful to us. In his character of an old bachelor, he had many acquaintances at the theatre; and through his friends of the greenroom he supplied each of us with a wig. Both my uncle and myself spoke German reasonably well, and our original plan was to travel in the character of immigrant trinket and essence pedlers. But I had a fancy for a hand-organ and a monkey; and it was finally agreed that Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, senior, was to undertake this adventure with a box of cheap watches and gilded trinkets; while Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior, was to commence his travels at home, in the character of a music-grinder. Modesty will not permit me to say all I might, in favor of my own skill in music in general; but I sang well for an amateur, and played both on the violin and flute, far better than is common.

Everything was arranged in the course of the following day, our wigs of themselves completely effecting all the disguises that were necessary. As for my uncle, he was nearly bald, and a wig was no great encumbrance; but my shaggy locks gave me some trouble. A little clipping, however, answered the turn; and I had a hearty laugh at myself, in costume, that afternoon, before Dunning's dressing-room glass. We got round the felony law, about being armed and disguised, by carrying no weapons but our tools in the way of trade.

CHAPTER V.

"And she hath smiles to earth unknown--
Smiles, that with motion of their own
Do spread, and sink, and rise:
That come and go with endless play
And ever, as they pass away,
Are hidden in her eyes."

--Wordsworth.

I was early in costume the following morning. I question if my own mother could have known me, had she lived long enough to see the whiskers sprout on my cheeks, and to contemplate my countenance as a man. I went into Dunning's library, drew the little hurdy-gurdy from its hiding-place, slung it, and began to play "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," with spirit, and, I trust I may add, with execution. I was in the height of the air, when the door opened, and Barney thrust his high-cheeked-bone face into the room, his mouth as wide open as that of a frozen porker.

"Where the divil did ye come from!" demanded the new footman, with the muscles of that vast aperture of his working from grin to grim, and grim to grin again. "Yee's wilcome to the tchune; but how comes ye here?"

"I coomes vrom Halle, in Preussen. Vat isht your vaterland?"

"Bee yees a Jew?"

"Nein--I isht a goot Christian. Vilt you haf Yankee Tootle?"

"Yankee T'under! Ye'll wake up the masther, and he'll be displaise'd, else ye might work on that tchune till the end of time. That I should hear it here, in my own liberary, and ould Ireland t'ree thousand laigues away!"

A laugh from Dunning interrupted the dialogue, when Barney vanished, no doubt anticipating some species of American punishment for a presumed delinquency. Whether the blundering, well-meaning, honest fellow really ascertained who we were that breakfasted with his master, I do not know; but we got the meal and left the house without seeing his face again, Dunning having a young yellow fellow to do the service of the table.

I need scarcely say that I felt a little awkward at finding myself in the streets of New York in such a guise; but the gravity and self-possession of my uncle were a constant source of amusement to me. He actually sold a watch on the wharf before the boat left it, though I imputed his success to the circumstance that his price was what a brother dealer, who happened to be trading in the same neighborhood, pronounced "onconscionably low." We took a comfortable state-room between us, under the pretence of locking up our property, and strolled about the boat, gaping and looking curious, as became our class.

"Here are at least a dozen people that I know," said my uncle, as we were lounging around--loafing around is the modern Doric--about the time that the boat was paddling past Fort Washington; "I have reconnoitred in all quarters, and find quite a dozen. I have been conversing with an old school-fellow, and one with whom I have ever lived in tolerable intimacy, for the last ten minutes, and find my broken English and disguise are perfect. I am confident my dear mother herself would not recognize me."

"We can then amuse ourselves with my grandmother and the young ladies," I answered, "when we reach the Nest. For my part, it strikes me that we had better keep our own secret to the last moment."

"Hush! As I live, there is Seneca Newcome this moment! He is coming this way, and we must be Germans again."

Sure enough, there was 'Squire Seneky, as the honest farmers around the Nest call him; though many of them must change their practices, or it will shortly become so absurd to apply the term "honest" to them, that no one will have the hardihood to use it. Newcome came slowly toward the forecastle, on which we were standing; and my uncle determined to get into conversation with him, as a means of further proving the virtue of our disguises, as well as possibly of opening the way to some communications that might facilitate our visit to the Nest. With this view, the pretended pedler drew a watch from his pocket, and offering it meekly to the inspection of the quasi lawyer, he said--

"Puy a vatch, shentlemans?"

"Hey! what? Oh a watch," returned Seneca, in that high, condescending, vulgar key, with which the salt of the earth usually affect to treat those they evidently think much beneath them in intellect, station, or some other great essential, at the very moment they are bursting with envy, and denouncing as aristocrats all who are above them. "Hey! a watch is it? What countryman are you, friend?"

"A Charmans--ein Teutscher."

"A German--ine Tycher is the place you come from, I s'pose?"

"Nein--ein Teutscher isht a Charman."

"Oh, yes! I understand. How long have you been in Ameriky?"

"Twelf moont's."

"Why, that's most long enough to make you citizens. Where do you live?"

"Nowhere; I lifs jest asht it happens--soometimes here, ant soometimes dere."

"Ay, ay! I understand--no legal domicile, but lead a wandering life. Have you many of these watches for sale?"

"Yees--I haf asht many as twenty. Dey are as sheep as dirt, and go like pig clocks."

"And what may be your price for this?"

"Dat you can haf for only eight tollars. Effery poty wilt say it is golt, dat doesn't know petter."

"Oh! it isn't gold then--I swan!"--what this oath meant I never exactly knew, though I suppose it to be a Puritan mode of saying "I swear!" the attempts to cheat the devil in this way being very common among their pious descendants, though even "Smith Thompson" himself can do no man any good in such a case of conscience--"I swan! you come plaguy near taking even me in! Will you come down from that price any?"

"If you wilt gif me some atfice, perhaps I may. You look like a goot shentlemans, and one dat woultn't sheat a poor Charmans; ant effery poty wants so much to sheat de poor Charmans, dat I will take six, if you will drow in some atfice."

"Advice? You have come to the right man for that? Walk a little this way, where we shall be alone. What is the natur' of the matter--action on the case, or a tort?"

"Nein, nein! it isht not law dat I wants, put atfice."

"Well, but advice leads to law, ninety-nine times in a hundred."

"Ya, ya," answered the pedler, laughing; "dat may be so; put it isht not vat I vants--I vants to know vere a Charman can trafel wit' his goots in de country, and not in de pig towns."

"I understand you--six dollars, hey! That sounds high for such a looking watch"--he had just before mistaken it for gold--"but I'm always the poor man's friend, and despise aristocracy"--what Seneca hated with the strongest hate he ever fancied he despised the most, and by aristocracy he merely understood gentlemen and ladies, in the true signification of the words--"why, I'm always ready to help along the honest citizen. If you could make up your mind, now, to part with this one watch for nawthin', I think I could tell you a part of the country where you might sell the other nineteen in a week."

"Goot!" exclaimed my uncle, cheerfully. "Take him--he ist your broberty, and wilcome. Only show me de town where I canst sell de nineteen udders."

Had my uncle Ro been a true son of peddling, he would have charged a dollar extra on each of the nineteen, and made eleven dollars by his present liberality.

"It is no town at all--only a township," returned the liberal Seneca. "Did you expect it would be a city?"

"Vat cares I? I woult radder sell my vatches to goot, honest country men, dan asht to de best burghers in de land."

"You're my man! The right spirit is in you. I hope you're no patroon--no aristocrat?"

"I don't know vat isht badroon, or vat isht arishtocrat."

"No! You are a happy man in your ignorance. A patroon is a nobleman who owns another man's land; and an aristocrat is a body that thinks himself better than his neighbors, friend."

"Well, den, I isht no badroon, for I don't own no land at all, not even mine own; and I ishn't petter asht no poty at all."

"Yes, you be; you've only to think so, and you'll be the greatest gentleman of 'em all."

"Well, den, I will dry and dink so, and pe petter asht de greatest shentlemans of dem all. But dat won't do, nudder, as dat vilt make me petter dan you; for you are one of de greatest of dem all, shentlemans."

"Oh! as for me, let me alone. I scorn being on their level. I go for 'down with the rents!' and so'll you, too, afore you've been a week in our part of the country."

"Vat isht de rent dat you vants to git down?"

"It's a thing that's opposed to the spirit of the institutions, as you can see by my feelin's at this very moment. But no matter? I'll keep the watch, if you say so, and show you the way into that part of the country, as your pay."

"Agreed, shentlemans. Vat I vants is atfice, and vat you vants is a watch."

Here uncle Ro laughed so much like himself, when he ought clearly to have laughed in broken English, that I was very much afraid he might give the alarm to our companion; but he did not. From that time the best relation existed between us and Seneca, who, in the course of the day, recognized us by sundry smiles and winks, though I could plainly see he did not like the anti-aristocratic principle sufficiently to wish to seem too intimate with us. Before we reached the islands, however, he gave us directions where to meet him in the morning, and we parted, when the boat stopped alongside of the pier at Albany that afternoon, the best friends in the world.

"Albany! dear, good old Albany!" exclaimed my uncle Ro, as we stopped on the draw of the bridge to look at the busy scene in the basin, where literally hundreds of canal-boats were either lying to discharge or to load, or were coming and going, to say nothing of other craft: "dear, good old Albany! you are a town to which I ever return with pleasure, for you at least never disappoint me. A first-rate country-place you are; and, though I miss your quaint old Dutch church, and your rustic-looking old English church from the centre of your principal street, almost every change you make is respectable. I know nothing that tells so much against you as changing the name of Market Street by the paltry imitation of Broadway; but, considering that a horde of Yankees have come down upon you since the commencement of the present century, you are lucky that the street was not called the Appian Way. But, excellent old Albany! whom even the corruptions of politics cannot change in the core, lying against the hill-side, and surrounded with thy picturesque scenery, there is an air of respectability about thee that I admire, and a quiet prosperity that I love. Yet, how changed since my boyhood! Thy simple stoops have all vanished; thy gables are disappearing; marble and granite are rising in thy streets, too, but they take honest shapes, and are free from the ambition of mounting on stilts; thy basin has changed the whole character of thy once semi-sylvan, semi-commercial river; but it gives to thy young manhood an appearance of abundance and thrift that promise well for thy age!"

The reader may depend on it that I laughed heartily at this rhapsody; for I could hardly enter into my uncle's feelings. Albany is certainly a very good sort of a place, and relatively a more respectable-looking town than the "commercial emporium," which, after all, externally, is a mere huge expansion of a very marked mediocrity, with the pretension of a capital in its estimate of itself. But Albany lays no claim to be anything more than a provincial town, and in that class it is highly placed. By the way, there is nothing in which "our people," to speak idiomatically, more deceive themselves, than in their estimate of what composes a capital. It would be ridiculous to suppose that the representatives of such a government as this could impart to any place the tone, opinions, habits and manners of a capital, for, if they did, they would impart it on the novel principle of communicating that which they do not possess in their own persons. Congress itself, though tolerably free from most shackles, including those of the Constitution, is not up to that. In my opinion, a man accustomed to the world might be placed blindfolded in the most finished quarter of New York, and the place has new quarters in which the incongruities I have already mentioned do not exist, and, my life on it, he could pronounce, as soon as the bandage was removed, that he was not in a town were the tone of a capital exists. The last thing to make a capital is trade. Indeed, the man who hears the words "business" and "the merchants" ringing in his ears, may safely conclude, de facto, that he is not in a capital. Now a New York village is often much less rustic than the villages of the most advanced country of Europe; but a New York town is many degrees below any capital of a large state in the old world.

Will New York ever be a capital? Yes--out of all question, yes. But the day will not come until after the sudden changes of condition which immediately and so naturally succeeded the Revolution, have ceased to influence ordinary society, and those above again impart to those below more than they receive. This restoration to the natural state of things must take place as soon as society gets settled; and there will be nothing to prevent a town living under our own institutions--spirit, tendencies and all--from obtaining the highest tone that ever yet prevailed in a capital. The folly is in anticipating the natural course of events. Nothing will more hasten these events, however, than a literature that is controlled, not by the lower, but by the higher opinion of the country; which literature is yet, in a great degree, to be created.

I had dispensed with the monkey, after trying to get along with the creature for an hour or two, and went around only with my music. I would rather manage an army of anti-renters than one monkey. With the hurdy-gurdy slung around my neck, therefore, I followed my uncle, who actually sold another watch before we reached a tavern. Of course we did not presume to go to Congress Hall, or the Eagle, for we knew we should not be admitted. This was the toughest part of our adventures. I am of opinion my uncle made a mistake; for he ventured to a second-class house, under the impression that one of the sort usually frequented by men of our supposed stamp might prove too coarse for us altogether. I think we should have been better satisfied with the coarse fare of a coarse tavern, than with the shabby-genteel of the house we blundered into. In the former, everything would have reminded us, in a way we expected to be reminded, that we were out of the common track; and we might have been amused with the change, though it is one singularly hard to be endured. I remember to have heard a young man, accustomed from childhood to the better habits of the country, but who went to sea, a lad before the mast, declare that the coarseness of his shipmates--and there is no vulgarity about a true sailor, even when coarsest--gave him more trouble to overcome, than all the gales, physical sufferings, labor, exposures and dangers, put together. I must confess, I have found it so, too, in my little experience. While acting as a strolling musician, I could get along with anything better than the coarse habits which I encountered at the table. Your silver-forkisms, and your purely conventional customs, as a matter of course, no man of the world attaches any serious importance to; but there are conventionalities that belong to the fundamental principles of civilized society, which become second nature, and with which it gets to be hard, indeed, to dispense. I shall say as little as possible of the disagreeables of my new trade, therefore, but stick to the essentials.

The morning of the day which succeeded that of our arrival at Albany, my uncle Ro and I took our seats in the train, intending to go to Saratoga, via Troy. I wonder the Trojan who first thought of playing this travestie on Homer, did not think of calling the place Troyville, or Troyborough! That would have been semi-American, at least, whereas the present appellation is so purely classical! It is impossible to walk through the streets of this neat and flourishing town, which already counts its twenty thousand souls, and not have the images of Achilles and Hector, and Priam, and Hecuba, pressing on the imagination a little Uncomfortably. Had the place been called Try, the name would have been a sensible one; for it is trying all it can to get the better of Albany; and, much as I love the latter venerable old town, I hope Troy may succeed in its trying to prevent the Hudson from being bridged. By the way, I will here remark, for the benefit of those who have never seen any country but their own, that there is a view on the road between Schenectady and this Grecian place, just where the heights give the first full appearance of the valley of the Hudson, including glimpses of Waterford, Lansingburg and Albany, with a full view of both Troys, which gives one a better idea of the affluence of European scenery than almost any other spot I can recall in America. To my hurdy-gurdy:

I made my first essay as a musician in public beneath the windows of the principal inn of Troy. I cannot say much in favor of the instrument, though I trust the playing itself was somewhat respectable. This I know full well, that I soon brought a dozen fair faces to the windows of the inn, and that each was decorated with a smile. Then it was that I regretted the monkey. Such an opening could not but awaken the dormant ambition of even a "patriot" of the purest water, and I will own I was gratified.

Among the curious who thus appeared, were two whom I at once supposed to be father and daughter. The former was a clergyman, and, as I fancied by something in his air of "the Church," begging pardon of those who take offence at this exclusive title, and to whom I will just give a hint in passing. Any one at all acquainted with mankind, will at once understand that no man who is certain of possessing any particular advantage, ever manifests much sensibility because another lays claim to it also. In the constant struggles of the jealous, for instance, on the subject of that universal source of jealous feeling, social position, that man or woman who is conscious of claims never troubles himself or herself about them. For them the obvious fact is sufficient. If it be answered to this that the pretension of "the Church" is exclusive, I shall admit it is, and "conclusive" too. It is not exclusive, however, in the sense urged, since no one denies that there are many branches to "the Church," although those branches do not embrace everything. I would advise those who take offence at "our" styling "ourselves" "the Church," to style themselves "the Church," just as they call all their parsons bishops, and see who will care about it. That is a touchstone which will soon separate the true metal from the alloy.

My parson, I could easily see, was a Church clergyman--not a meeting-house clergyman. How I ascertained that fact at a glance, I shall not reveal; but I also saw in his countenance some of that curiosity which marks simplicity of character: it was not a vulgar feeling, but one which induced him to beckon me to approach a little nearer. I did so, when he invited me in. It was a little awkward, at first, I must acknowledge, to be beckoned about in this manner; but there was something in the air and countenance of the daughter that induced me not to hesitate about complying. I cannot say that her beauty was so very striking, though she was decidedly pretty; but the expression of her face, eyes, smile, and all put together, was so singularly sweet and feminine, that I felt impelled by a sympathy I shall not attempt to explain, to enter the house, and ascend to the door of a parlor that I saw at once was public, though it then contained no one but my proper hosts.

"Walk in, young man," said the father in a benevolent tone of voice. "I am curious to see that instrument; and my daughter here, who has a taste for music, wishes it as much as I do myself. What do you call it."

"Hurty-gurty," I answered.

"From what part of the world do you come, my young friend?" continued the clergyman, raising his meek eyes to mine still more curiously, "Vrom Charmany; vrom Preussen, vere did reign so late de good Koenig Wilhelm."

"What does he say, Molly?"

So the pretty creature bore the name of Mary. I liked the Molly, too; it was a good sign, as none but the truly respectable dare use such familiar appellations in these ambitious times. Molly sounded as if these people had the aplomb of position and conscious breeding. Had they been vulgar, it would have been Mollissa.

"It is not difficult to translate, father," answered one of the sweetest voices that had ever poured its melody on my ear, and which was rendered still more musical by the slight laugh that mingled with it. "He says he is from Germany--from Prussia, where the good King William lately reigned."

I liked the "father," too--that sounded refreshing, after passing a night among a tribe of foul-nosed adventurers in humanity, every one of whom had done his or her share toward caricaturing the once pretty appellatives of "pa" and "ma." A young lady may still say "papa," or even "mamma," though it were far better that she said "father" and "mother;" but as for "pa" and "ma," they are now done with in respectable life. They will not even do for the nursery.

"And this instrument is a hurdy-gurdy?" continued the clergyman. "What have we here--the name spelt on it?"

"Dat isht de maker's name--Hochstiel fecit."

"Fecit?" repeated the clergyman; "is that German?"

"Nein--dat isht Latin; facio, feci, factum, facere--feci, fecisti, FECIT. It means make, I suppose you know."

The parson looked at me and at my dress and figure with open surprise, and smiled as his eye glanced at his daughter. If asked why I made this silly display of lower-form learning, I can only say that I chafed at being fancied a mere every-day street musician, that had left his monkey at home, by the charming girl who stood gracefully bending over her father's elbow, as the latter examined the inscription that was stamped on a small piece of ivory which had been let into the instrument. I could see that Mary shrunk back a little under the sensitive feeling, so natural to her sex, that she was manifesting too much freedom of manner for the presence of a youth who was nearer to her own class than she could have supposed it possible for a player on the hurdy-gurdy to be. A blush succeeded; but the glance of the soft blue eye that instantly followed, seemed to set all at rest, and she leaned over her father's elbow again.

"You understand Latin, then?" demanded the parent, examining me over his spectacles from head to foot.

"A leetle, sir--just a ferry leetle. In my coontry, efery mans isht obliget to be a soldier some time, and them t'at knows Latin can be made sergeants and corporals."

"That is Prussia, is it?"

"Ya--Preussen, vere so late did reign de goot Koenig Wilhelm."

"And is Latin much understood among you? I have heard that, in Hungary, most well-informed persons even speak the tongue."

"In Charmany it isht not so. We all l'arnts somet'ing, but not all dost l'arn eferyt'ing."

I could see a smile struggling around the sweet lips of that dear girl, after I had thus delivered myself, as I fancied, with a most accurate inaccuracy; but she succeeded in repressing it, though those provoking eyes of hers continued to laugh, much of the time our interview lasted.

"Oh! I very well know that in Prussia the schools are quite good, and that your government pays great attention to the wants of all classes," rejoined the clergyman; "but I confess some surprise that you should understand anything of Latin. Now, even in this country, where we boast so much----"

"Ye-e-s," I could not refrain from drawling out, "dey does poast a great teal in dis coontry!"

Mary actually laughed; whether it was at my words, or at the somewhat comical manner I had assumed--a manner in which simplicity was tant soit peu blended with irony--I shall not pretend to say. As for the father, his simplicity was of proof; and, after civilly waiting until my interruption was done, he resumed what he had been on the point of saying.

"I was about to add," continued the clergyman, "that even in this country, where we boast so much"--the little minx of a daughter passed her hand over her eyes, and fairly colored with the effort she made not to laugh again--"of the common schools, and of their influence on the public mind, it is not usual to find persons of your condition who understand the dead languages."

"Ye-e-e-s," I replied; "it isht my condition dat misleats you, sir. Mine fat'er wast a shentlemans, and he gifet me as goot an etication as de Koenig did gif to de Kron Prinz."

Here, my desire to appear well in the eyes of Mary caused me to run into another silly indiscretion. How I was to explain the circumstance of the son of a Prussian gentleman, whose father had given him an education as good as that which the king of his country had given to its crown prince, being in the streets of Troy, playing on a hurdy-gurdy, was a difficulty I did not reflect on for a moment. The idea of being thought by that sweet girl a mere uneducated boor, was intolerable to me; and I threw it off by this desperate falsehood--false in its accessories, but true in its main facts--as one would resent an insult. Fortune favored me, however, far more than I had any right to expect.

There is a singular disposition in the American character to believe every well-mannered European at least a count. I do not mean that those who have seen the world are not like other persons in this respect; but a very great proportion of the country never has seen any other world than a world of "business." The credulity on this subject surpasseth belief; and, were I to relate facts of this nature that might be established in a court of justice, the very parties connected with them would be ready to swear that they are caricatures. Now, well-mannered I trust I am, and, though plainly dressed and thoroughly disguised, neither my air nor attire was absolutely mean. As my clothes were new, I was neat in my appearance; and there were possibly some incongruities about the last, that might have struck eyes more penetrating than those of my companions. I could see that both father and daughter felt a lively interest in me, the instant I gave them reason to believe I was one of better fortunes. So many crude notions exist among us on the subject of convulsions and revolutions in Europe, that I dare say, had I told any improbable tale of the political condition of Prussia, it would have gone down; for nothing so much resembles the ignorance that prevails in America, generally, concerning the true state of things in Europe, as the ignorance that prevails in Europe, generally, concerning the true state of things in America. As for Mary, her soft eyes seemed to me to be imbued with thrice their customary gentleness and compassion, as she recoiled a step in native modesty, and gazed at me, when I had made my revelation.

"If such is the case, my young friend," returned the clergyman, with benevolent interest, "you ought, and might easily be placed in a better position than this you are now in. Have you any knowledge of Greek?"

"Certainly--Greek is moch study in Charmany."

"In for a penny, in for a pound," I thought.

"And the modern languages--do you understand any of them?"

"I speaks de five great tongues of Europe, more ast less well; and I read dem all, easily."

"The five tongues!" said the clergyman, counting on his fingers; "what can they be, Mary?"

"French, and German, and Spanish, and Italian, I suppose, sir."

"These make but four. What can be the fifth, my dear?"

"De yoong laty forgets de Englisch. De Englisch is das funf."

"Oh! yes, the English!" exclaimed the pretty creature, pressing her lips together to prevent laughing in my face.

"True--I had forgotten the English, not being accustomed to think of it as a mere European tongue. I suppose, young man, you naturally speak the English less fluently than any other of your five languages?"

"Ya!"

Again the smile struggled to the lips of Mary.

"I feel a deep interest in you as a stranger, and am sorry we have only met to part so soon. Which way shall you be likely to direct your steps, my Prussian young friend?"

"I go to a place which is callet Ravensnest--goot place to sell vatch, dey tells me."

"Ravensnest!" exclaimed the father.

"Ravensnest!" repeated the daughter, and that in tones which put the hurdy-gurdy to shame.

"Why, Ravensnest is the place where I live, and the parish of which I am the clergyman--the Protestant Episcopal clergyman, I mean."

This, then, was the Rev. Mr. Warren, the divine who had been called to our church the very summer I left home, and who had been there ever since! My sister Martha had written me much concerning these people, and I felt as if I had known them for years. Mr. Warren was a man of good connections, and some education, but of no fortune whatever, who had gone into the Church--it was the church of his ancestors, one of whom had actually been an English bishop, a century or two ago--from choice, and contrary to the wishes of his friends. As a preacher, his success had never been great; but for the discharge of his duties no man stood higher, and no man was more respected. The living of St. Andrew's, Ravensnest, would have been poor enough, had it depended on the contributions of the parishioners. These last gave about one hundred and fifty dollars a year, for their share of the support of a priest. I gave another hundred, as regularly as clock-work, and had been made to do so throughout a long minority; and my grandmother and sister made up another fifty between them. But there was a glebe of fifty acres of capital land, a wood-lot, and a fund of two thousand dollars at interest; the whole proceeding from endowments made by my grandfather, during his lifetime. Altogether, the living may have been worth a clear five hundred dollars a year, in addition to a comfortable house, hay, wood, vegetables, pasture, and some advantages in the way of small crops. Few country clergymen were better off than the rector of St. Andrew's, Ravensnest, and all as a consequence of the feudal and aristocratic habits of the Littlepages, though I say it, perhaps, who might better not, in times like these.

My letters had told me that the Rev. Mr. Warren was a widower; that Mary was his only child; that he was a truly pious, not a sham-pious, and really zealous clergyman; a man of purest truth, whose word was gospel--of great simplicity and integrity of mind and character; that he never spoke evil of others, and that a complaint of this world and its hardships seldom crossed his lips. He loved his fellow-creatures, both naturally and on principle; mourned over the state of the diocese, and greatly preferred piety even to high-churchism. High-churchman he was, nevertheless; though it was not a high-churchmanship that outweighed the loftier considerations of his Christian duties, and left him equally without opinions of his own in matters of morals, and without a proper respect, in practice, for those that he had solemnly vowed to maintain.

His daughter was described as a sweet-tempered, arch, modest, sensible, and well-bred girl, that had received a far better education than her father's means would have permitted him to bestow, through the liberality and affection of a widowed sister of her mother's, who was affluent, and had caused her to attend the same school as that to which she had sent her own daughters. In a word, she was a most charming neighbor; and her presence at Ravensnest had rendered Martha's annual visits to the "old house" (built in 1785) not only less irksome, but actually pleasant. Such had been my sister's account of the Warrens and their qualities, throughout a correspondence of five years. I have even fancied that she loved this Mary Warren better than she loved any of her uncle's wards, herself of course excepted.

The foregoing flashed through my mind, the instant the clergyman announced himself; but the coincidence of our being on the way to the same part of the country, seemed to strike him as forcibly as it did myself. What Mary thought of the matter, I had no means of ascertaining.

"This is singular enough," resumed Mr. Warren. "What has directed your steps toward Ravensnest?"

"Dey tell mine ooncle 'tis goot place to sell moch vatch."

"You have an uncle, then? Ah! I see him there in the street, showing a watch at this moment to a gentleman. Is your uncle a linguist, too, and has he been as well educated as you seem to be yourself?"

"Certain--he moch more of a shentleman dan ast de shentleman to whom he now sell vatch."

"These must be the very persons," put in Mary, a little eagerly, "of whom Mr. Newcome spoke, as the"--the dear girl did not like to say pedlers, after what I had told them of my origin; so she added--"dealers in watches and trinkets, who intended to visit our part of the country."

"You are right, my dear, and the whole matter is now clear. Mr. Newcome said he expected them to join us at Troy, when we should proceed in the train together as far as Saratoga. But here comes Opportunity herself, and her brother cannot be far off."

At that moment, sure enough, my old acquaintance, Opportunity Newcome, came into the room, a public parlor, with an air of great self-satisfaction, and a nonchalance of manner that was not a little more peculiar to herself than it is to most of her caste. I trembled for my disguise, since, to be quite frank on a very delicate subject, Opportunity had made so very dead a set at me--"setting a cap" is but a pitiful phrase to express the assault I had to withstand--as scarcely to leave a hope that her feminine instinct, increased and stimulated with the wish to be mistress of the Nest house, could possibly overlook the thousand and one personal peculiarities that must still remain about one whose personal peculiarities she had made her particular study.

CHAPTER VI.

"Oh, sic a geek she gave her head,
And sic a toss she gave her feather;
Man, saw ye ne'er a bonnier lass
Before, among the blooming heather?"

--Allan Cunningham.

"Ah! here are some charming French vignettes!" cried Opportunity, running up to a table where lay some inferior colored engravings, that were intended to represent the cardinal virtues, under the forms of tawdry female beauties. The workmanship was French, as were the inscriptions. Now, Opportunity knew just enough French to translate these inscriptions, simple and school-girl as they were, as wrong as they could possibly be translated, under the circumstances.

"La Vertue," cried Opportunity, in a high, decided way, as if to make sure of an audience, "The Virtue; La Solitude," pronouncing the last word in a desperately English accent, "The Solitude; La Charite, The Charity. It is really delightful, Mary, as 'Sarah Soothings' would say, to meet with these glimmerings of taste in this wilderness of the world."

I wondered who the deuce "Sarah Soothings" could be, but afterward learned this was the nom-de-guerre of a female contributor to the magazines, who, I dare say, silly as she might be, was never silly enough to record the sentiments Opportunity had just professed to repeat. As for The la Charite, and The la Vertue, they did not in the least surprise me; for Martha, the hussy, often made herself merry by recording that young lady's tours de force in French. On one occasion I remember she wrote me, that when Opportunity wished to say, On est venu me chercher, instead of saying "I am come for," in homely English, which would have been the best of all, she had flown off in the high flight of "Je suis venue pour."

Mary smiled, for she comprehended perfectly the difference between la Solitude and the Solitude; but she said nothing. I must acknowledge that I was so indiscreet as to smile also, though Opportunity's back being turned toward us, these mutual signs of intelligence that escaped us both through the eyes, opened a species of communication that, to me at least, was infinitely agreeable.

Opportunity, having shown the owner of the strange figure at which she had just glanced on entering the room, that she had studied French, now turned to take a better look at him. I have reason to think my appearance did not make a very happy impression on her; for she tossed her head, drew a chair, seated herself in the manner most opposed to the descent of down, and opened her budget of news, without the least regard to my presence, and apparently with as little attention to the wishes and tastes of her companions. Her accent, and jumping, hitching mode of speaking, with the high key in which she uttered her sentiments, too, all grated on my ears, which had become a little accustomed to different habits, in young ladies in particular, in the other hemisphere. I confess myself to be one of those who regard an even, quiet, graceful mode of utterance, as even a greater charm in a woman than beauty. Its effect is more lasting, and seems to be directly connected with the character. Mary Warren not only pronounced like one accustomed to good society; but the modulations of her voice, which was singularly sweet by nature, were even and agreeable, as is usual with well-bred women, and as far as possible from the jerking, fluttering, now rapid, now drawling manner of Opportunity. Perhaps, in this age of "loose attire," loose habits, and free-and-easy deportment, the speech denotes the gentleman, or the lady, more accurately than any other off-hand test.

"Sen is enough to wear out anybody's patience!" exclaimed Opportunity. "We must quit Troy in half an hour; and I have visits that I ought to pay to Miss Jones, and Miss White, and Miss Black, and Miss Green, and Miss Brown, and three or four others; and I can't get him to come near me."

"Why not go alone?" asked Mary, quietly. "It is but a step to two or three of the houses, and you cannot possibly lose your way. I will go with you, if you desire it."

"Oh! lose my way? no, indeed! I know it too well for that. I wasn't educated in Troy, not to know something of the streets. But it looks so, to see a young lady walking in the streets without a beau! I never wish to cross a room in company without a beau: much less to cross a street. No; if Sen don't come in soon, I shall miss seeing every one of my friends, and that will be a desperate disappointment to us all; but it can't be helped; walk without a beau I will not, if I never see one of them again."

"Will you accept of me, Miss Opportunity?" asked Mr. Warren. "It will afford me pleasure to be of service to you."

"Lord! Mr. Warren, you don't think of setting up for a beau at your time of life, do you? Everybody would see that you're a clergyman, and I might just as well go alone. No, if Sen don't come in at once, I must lose my visits; and the young ladies will be so put about it, I know! Araminta Maria wrote me, in the most particular manner, never to go through Troy without stopping to see her, if I didn't see another mortal; and Katherine Clotilda has as much as said she would never forgive me if I passed her door. But Seneca cares no more for the friendship of young ladies, than he does"--Miss Newcome pronounced this word "doos," notwithstanding her education, as she did "been," "ben," and fifty others just as much out of the common way--"But Seneca cares no more for the friendship of young ladies, than he does for the young patroon. I declare, Mr. Warren, I believe Sen will go crazy unless the anti-renters soon get the best of it; he does nothing but think and talk of 'rents,' and 'aristocracy,' and 'poodle usages,' from morning till night."

We all smiled at the little mistake of Miss Opportunity, but it was of no great consequence; and I dare say she knew what she meant as well as most others who use the same term, though they spell it more accurately. "Poodle usages" are quite as applicable to anything now existing in America, as "feudal usages."

"Your brother is, then, occupied with a matter of the last importance to the community of which he is a member," answered the clergyman, gravely. "On the termination of this anti-rent question hangs, in my judgment, a vast amount of the future character, and much of the future destiny, of New York."

"I wonder, now? I'm surprised to hear you say this, Mr. Warren, for generally you're thought to be unfriendly to the movement. Sen says, however, that everything looks well, and that he believes the tenants will get their lands throughout the State before they've done with it. He tells me we shall have Injins enough this summer at Ravensnest. The visit of old Mrs. Littlepage has raised a spirit that will not easily be put down, he says."

"And why should the visit of Mrs. Littlepage to the house of her grandson, and to the house built by her own husband, and in which she passed the happiest days of her life, 'raise a spirit,' as you call it, in any one in that part of the country?"

"Oh! you're Episcopal, Mr. Warren; and we all know how the Episcopals feel about such matters. But, for my part, I don't think the Littlepages are a bit better than the Newcomes, though I won't liken them to some I could name at Ravensnest; but I don't think they are any better than you, yourself; and why should they ask so much more of the law than other folks?"

"I am not aware that they do ask more of the law than others; and, if they do, I'm sure they obtain less. The law in this country is virtually administered by jurors, who take good care to graduate justice, so far as they can, by a scale suited to their own opinions, and, quite often, to their prejudices. As the last are so universally opposed to persons in Mrs. Littlepage's class in life, if there be a chance to make her suffer, it is pretty certain it will be improved."

"Sen says he can't see why he should pay rent to a Littlepage, any more than a Littlepage should pay rent to him."

"I am sorry to hear it, since there is a very sufficient reason for the former, and no reason at all for the latter. Your brother uses the land of Mr. Littlepage, and that is the reason why he should pay him rent. If the case were reversed, then, indeed, Mr. Littlepage should pay rent to your brother."

"But what reason is there that these Littlepages should go on from father to son, from generation to generation, as our landlords, when we're just as good as they? It's time there was some change. Besides, only think, we've been at the mills, now, hard upon eighty years, grandpa having first settled there; and we have had them very mills, now, for three generations among us."

"High time, therefore, Opportunity, that there should be some change," put in Mary, with a demure smile.

"Oh! you're so intimate with Marthy Littlepage, I'm not surprised at anything you think or say. But reason is reason for all that. I haven't the least grudge in the world against young Hugh Littlepage; if foreign lands haven't spoilt him, as they say they're desperate apt to do, he's an agreeable young gentleman, and I can't say that he used to think himself any better than other folks."

"I should say none of the family are justly liable to the charge of so doing," returned Mary.

"Well, I'm amazed to hear you say that, Mary Warren. To my taste, Marthy Littlepage is as disagreeable as she can be. If the anti-rent cause had nobody better than she is to oppose it, it would soon triumph."

"May I ask, Miss Newcome, what particular reason you have for so thinking?" asked Mr. Warren, who had kept his eye on the young lady the whole time she had been thus running on, with an interest that struck me as somewhat exaggerated, when one remembered the character of the speaker, and the value of her remarks.

"I think so, Mr. Warren, because everybody says so," was the answer. "If Marthy Littlepage don't think herself better than other folks, why don't she act like other folks? Nothing is good enough for her in her own conceit."

Poor little Patt, who was the very beau ideal of nature and simplicity, as nature and simplicity manifest themselves under the influence of refinement and good-breeding, was here accused of fancying herself better than this ambitious young lady, for no other reason than the fact of the little distinctive peculiarities of her air and deportment, which Opportunity had found utterly unattainable, after one or two efforts to compass them. In this very fact is the secret of a thousand of the absurdities and vices that are going up and down the land at this moment, like raging lions, seeking whom they may devour. Men often turn to their statute-books and constitution to find the sources of obvious evils, that, in truth, have their origin in some of the lowest passions of human nature. The entrance of Seneca at that moment, however, gave a new turn to the discourse, though it continued substantially the same. I remarked that Seneca entered with his hat on, and that he kept his head covered during most of the interview that succeeded, notwithstanding the presence of the two young ladies and the divine. As for myself, I had been so free as to remove my cap, though many might suppose it was giving myself airs, while others would have imagined it was manifesting a degree of respect to human beings that was altogether unworthy of freemen. It is getting to be a thing so particular and aristocratic to take off the hat on entering a house, that few of the humbler democrats of America now ever think of it!

As a matter of course, Opportunity upbraided her delinquent brother for not appearing sooner to act as her beau; after which, she permitted him to say a word for himself. That Seneca was in high good-humor was easily enough to be seen; he even rubbed his hands together in the excess of his delight.

"Something has happened to please Sen," cried the sister, her own mouth on a broad grin, in her expectation of coming in for a share of the gratification. "I wish you would get him to tell us what it is, Mary; he'll tell you anything."

I cannot describe how harshly this remark grated on my nerves. The thought that Mary Warren could consent to exercise even the most distant influence over such a man as Seneca Newcome was to the last degree unpleasant to me, and I could have wished that she would openly and indignantly repel the notion. But Mary Warren treated the whole matter very much as a person who was accustomed to such remarks would be apt to do. I cannot say that she manifested either pleasure or displeasure; but a cold indifference was, if anything, uppermost in her manner. Possibly, I should have been content with this; but I found it very difficult to be so. Seneca, however, did not wait for Miss Warren to exert her influence to induce him to talk, but appeared well enough disposed to do it of his own accord.

"Something has happened to please me, I must own," he answered; "and I would as lief Mr. Warren should know what it is, as not. Things go ahead finely among us anti-renters, and we shall carry all our p'ints before long!"

"I wish I were certain no points would be carried but those that ought to be carried, Mr. Newcome," was the answer. "But what has happened, lately, to give a new aspect to the affair?"

"We're gaining strength among the politicians. Both sides are beginning to court us, and the 'spirit of the institutions' will shortly make itself respected."

"I am delighted to hear that! It is in the intention of the institutions to repress covetousness, and uncharitableness, and all frauds, and to do nothing but what is right," observed Mr. Warren.

"Ah! here comes my friend the travelling jeweller," said Seneca, interrupting the clergyman, in order to salute my uncle, who at that instant showed himself in the door of the room, cap in hand. "Walk in, Mr. Dafidson, since that is your name. Rev. Mr. Warren--Miss Mary Warren--Miss Opportunity Newcome, my sister, who will be glad to look at your wares. The cars will be detained on some special business, and we have plenty of time before us."

All this was done with a coolness and indifference of manner which went to show that Seneca had no scruples whatever on the subject of whom he introduced to any one. As for my uncle, accustomed to these free and easy manners, and probably not absolutely conscious of the figure he cut in his disguise, he bowed rather too much like a gentleman for one of his present calling, though my previous explanation of our own connection and fallen fortunes had luckily prepared the way for this deportment.

"Come in, Mr. Dafidson, and open your box--my sister may fancy some of your trinkets; I never knew a girl that didn't."

The imaginary pedler entered, and placed his box on a table near which I was standing, the whole party immediately gathering around it. My presence had attracted no particular attention from either Seneca or his sister, the room being public, and my connection with the vender of trinkets known. In the meantime, Seneca was too full of his good news to let the subject drop; while the watches, rings, chains, brooches, bracelets, etc., were passed under examination.

"Yes, Mr. Warren, I trust we are about to have a complete development of the spirit of our institutions, and that in futur' there will be no privileged classes in New York, at least."

"The last will certainly be a great gain, sir," the divine coldly answered. "Hitherto, those who have most suppressed the truth, and who have most contributed to the circulation of flattering falsehoods, have had undue advantages in America."

Seneca, obviously enough, did not like this sentiment; but I thought, by his manner, that he was somewhat accustomed to meeting with such rebuffs from Mr. Warren.

"I suppose you will admit there are privileged classes now among us, Mr. Warren?"

"I am ready enough to allow that, sir; it is too plain to be denied."

"Wa-all, I should like to hear you p'int 'em out; that I might see if we agree in our sentiments."

"Demagogues are a highly privileged class. The editors of newspapers are another highly privileged class; doing things, daily and hourly, which set all law and justice at defiance, and invading, with perfect impunity the most precious rights of their fellow-citizens. The power of both is enormous; and, as in all cases of great and irresponsible power, both enormously abuse it."

"Wa-all, that's not my way of thinking at all. In my judgment, the privileged classes in this country are your patroons and your landlords; men that's not satisfied with a reasonable quantity of land, but who wish to hold more than the rest of their fellow-creatur's."

"I am not aware of a single privilege that any patroon--of whom, by the way, there no longer exists one, except in name--or any landlord, possesses over any one of his fellow-citizens."

"Do you call it no privilege for a man to hold all the land that may happen to be in a township? I call that a great privilege; and such as no man should have in a free country. Other people want land as well as your Van Rensselaers and Littlepages; and other people mean to have it, too."

"On that principle, every man who owns more of any one thing than his neighbor is privileged. Even I, poor as I am, and am believed to be, am privileged over you, Mr. Newcome. I own a cassock, and have two gowns, one old and one new, and various other things of the sort, of which you have not one. What is more, I am privileged in another sense; since I can wear my cassock and gown, and bands, and do wear them often; whereas you cannot wear one of them at all without making yourself laughed at."

"Oh! but them are not privileges I care anything about; if I did I would put on the things, as the law does not prohibit it."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Newcome; the law does prohibit you from wearing my cassock and gown contrary to my wishes."

"Wa-all, wa-all, Mr. Warren; we never shall quarrel about that; I don't desire to wear your cassock and gown."

"I understand you, then; it is only the things that you desire to use that you deem it a privilege for the law to leave me."

"I am afraid we shall never agree, Mr. Warren, about this anti-rent business; and I'm very sorry for it, as I wish particularly to think as you do," glancing his eye most profanely toward Mary as he spoke. "I am for the movement-principle, while you are too much for the stand-still doctrine."

"I am certainly for remaining stationary, Mr. Newcome, if progress mean taking away the property of old and long-established families in the country, to give it to those whose names are not to be found in our history; or, indeed, to give it to any but those to whom it rightfully belongs."

"We shall never agree, my dear sir, we shall never agree;" then, turning toward my uncle with the air of superiority that the vulgar so easily assume--"What do you say to all this, friend Dafidson--are you up-rent or down-rent?"

"Ja, mynheer," was the quiet answer; "I always downs mit der rent vens I leave a house or a garten. It is goot to pay de debts; ja, it ist herr goot."

This answer caused the clergyman and his daughter to smile, while Opportunity laughed outright.

"You won't make much of your Dutch friend, Sen," cried this buoyant young lady; "he says you ought to keep on paying rent!"

"I apprehend Mr. Dafidson does not exactly understand the case," answered Seneca, who was a good deal disconcerted, but was bent on maintaining his point. "I have understood you to say that you are a man of liberal principles, Mr. Dafidson, and that you've come to America to enjoy the light of intelligence and the benefits of a free government."

"Ja; ven I might coome to America, I say, vell, dat 'tis a goot coontry, vhere an honest man might haf vhat he 'arns, ant keep it, too. Ja, ja! dat ist vhat I say, and vhat I dinks."

"I understand you, sir; you come from a part of the world where the nobles eat up the fat of the land, taking the poor man's share as well as their own, to live in a country where the law is, or soon will be, so equal that no citizen will dare to talk about his estates, and hurt the feelin's of such as haven't got any."

My uncle so well affected an innocent perplexity at the drift of this remark as to make me smile, in spite of an effort to conceal it. Mary Warren saw that smile, and another glance of intelligence was exchanged between us; though the young lady immediately withdrew her look, a little consciously and with a slight blush.

"I say that you like equal laws and equal privileges, friend Dafidson," continued Seneca, with emphasis; "and that you have seen too much of the evils of nobility and of feudal oppression in the Old World, to wish to fall in with them in the New."

"Der noples ant der feudal privileges ist no goot," answered the trinket-pedler, shaking his head with an appearance of great distaste.

"Ay, I knew it would be so; you see, Mr. Warren, no man who has ever lived under a feudal system can ever feel otherwise."

"But what have we to do with feudal systems, Mr. Newcome? and what is there in common between the landlords of New York and the nobles of Europe, and between their leases and feudal tenures?"

"What is there? A vast deal too much, sir, take my word for it. Do not our very governors, even while ruthlessly calling on one citizen to murder another----"

"Nay, nay, Mr. Newcome," interrupted Mary Warren, laughing, "the governors call on the citizens not to murder each other."

"I understand you, Miss Mary; but we shall make anti-renters of you both before we are done. Surely, sir, there is a great deal too much resemblance between the nobles of Europe and our landlords, when the honest and freeborn tenants of the last are obliged to pay tribute for permission to live on the very land that they till, and which they cause to bring forth its increase."

"But men who are not noble let their lands in Europe; nay, the very serfs, as they become free and obtain riches, buy lands and let them, in some parts of the old world, as I have heard and read."

"All feudal, sir. The whole system is pernicious and feudal, serf or no serf."

"But, Mr. Newcome," said Mary Warren, quietly, though with a sort of demure irony in her manner that said she was not without humor and understood herself very well, "even you let your land--land that you lease, too, and which you do not own, except as you hire it from Mr. Littlepage."

Seneca gave a hem, and was evidently disconcerted; but he had too much of the game of the true progressive movement--which merely means to lead in changes, though they may lead to the devil--to give the matter up. Repeating the hem, more to clear his brain than to clear his throat, he hit upon his answer, and brought it out with something very like triumph.

"That is one of the evils of the present system, Miss Mary. Did I own the two or three fields you mean, and to attend to which I have no leisure, I might sell them; but now it is impossible, since I can give no deed. The instant my poor uncle dies--and he can't survive a week, being, as you must know, nearly gone--the whole property, mills, taverns, farms, timber-lot and all, fall in to young Hugh Littlepage, who is off frolicking in Europe, doing no good to himself or others, I'll venture to say, if the truth were known. That is another of the hardships of the feudal system; it enables one man to travel in idleness, wasting his substance in foreign lands, while it keeps another at home, at the plough-handles and the cart-tail."

"And why do you suppose Mr. Hugh Littlepage wastes his substance, and is doing himself and country no good, in foreign lands, Mr. Newcome? That is not at all the character I hear of him, nor is it the result that I expect to see from his travels."

"The money he spends in Europe might do a vast deal of good at Ravensnest, sir."

"For my part, my dear sir," put in Mary again, in her quiet but pungent way, "I think it remarkable that neither of our late governors has seen fit to enumerate the facts just mentioned by Mr. Newcome among those that are opposed to the spirit of the institutions. It is, indeed, a great hardship that Mr. Seneca Newcome cannot sell Mr. Hugh Littlepage's land."

"I complain less of that," cried Seneca, a little hastily, "than of the circumstance that all my rights in the property must go with the death of my uncle. That, at least, even you, Miss Mary, must admit is a great hardship."

"If your uncle were unexpectedly to revive, and live twenty years, Mr. Newcome----"

"No, no, Miss Mary," answered Seneca, shaking his head in a melancholy manner; "that is absolutely impossible. It would not surprise me to find him dead and buried on our return."

"But, admit that you may be mistaken, and that your lease should continue--you would still have a rent to pay?"

"Of that I wouldn't complain in the least. If Mr. Dunning, Littlepage's agent, will just promise, in as much as half a sentence, that we can get a new lease on the old terms, I'd not say a syllable about it."

"Well, here is one proof that the system has its advantages!" exclaimed Mr. Warren, cheerfully. "I'm delighted to hear you say this; for it is something to have a class of men among us whose simple promises, in a matter of money, have so much value! It is to be hoped that their example will not be lost."

"Mr. Newcome has made an admission I am also glad to hear," added Mary, as soon as her father had done speaking. "His willingness to accept a new lease on the old terms is a proof that he has been living under a good bargain for himself hitherto, and that down to the present moment he has been the obliged party."

This was very simply said, but it bothered Seneca amazingly. As for myself, I was delighted with it, and could have kissed the pretty, arch creature who had just uttered the remark; though I will own that as much might have been done without any great reluctance, had she even held her tongue. As for Seneca, he did what most men are apt to do when they have the consciousness of not appearing particularly well in a given point of view; he endeavored to present himself to the eyes of his companions in another.

"There is one thing, Mr. Warren, that I think you will admit ought not to be," he cried, exulting, "whatever Miss Mary thinks about it; and that is, that the Littlepage pew in your church ought to come down."

"I will not say that much, Mr. Newcome, though I rather think my daughter will. I believe, my dear, you are of Mr. Newcome's way of thinking in respect to this canopied pew, and also in respect to the old hatchments?"

"I wish neither was in the church," answered Mary, in a low voice.

From that moment I was fully resolved neither should be, as soon as I got into a situation to control the matter.

"In that I agree with you entirely, my child," resumed the clergyman; "and were it not for this movement connected with the rents, and the false principles that have been so boldly announced of late years, I might have taken on myself the authority, as rector, to remove the hatchments. Even according to the laws connected with the use of such things, they should have been taken away a generation or two back. As to the pew, it is a different matter. It is private property; was constructed with the church, which was built itself by the joint liberality of the Littlepages and mother Trinity; and it would be a most ungracious act to undertake to destroy it under such circumstances, and more especially in the absence of its owner."

"You agree, however, that it ought not to be there?" asked Seneca, with exultation.

"I wish with all my heart it were not. I dislike everything like worldly distinction in the house of God; and heraldic emblems, in particular, seem to be very much out of place where the cross is seen to be in its proper place."

"Wa-all now, Mr. Warren, I can't say I much fancy crosses about churches either. What's the use in raising vain distinctions of any sort. A church is but a house, after all, and ought so to be regarded."

"True," said Mary, firmly; "but the house of God."

"Yes, yes, we all know, Miss Mary, that you Episcopalians look more at outward things, and more respect outward things, than most of the other denominations of the country."

"Do you call leases 'outward things,' Mr. Newcome?" asked Mary, archly; "and contracts, and bargains, and promises, and the rights of property, and the obligation to 'do as you would be done by?'"

"Law! good folks," cried Opportunity, who had been all this time tumbling over the trinkets, "I wish it was 'down with the rent' for ever, with all my heart; and that not another word might ever be said on the subject. Here is one of the prettiest pencils, Mary, I ever did see; and its price is only four dollars. I wish, Sen, you'd let the rent alone, and make me a present of this very pencil."

As this was an act of which Seneca had not the least intention of being guilty, he merely shifted his hat from one side of his head to the other, began to whistle, and then he coolly left the room. My uncle Ro profited by the occasion to beg Miss Opportunity would do him the honor to accept the pencil as an offering from himself.

"You an't surely in earnest!" exclaimed Opportunity, flushing up with surprise and pleasure. "Why, you told me the price was four dollars, and even that seems to me desperate little!"

"Dat ist de price to anudder," said the gallant trinket-dealer; "but dat ist not de price to you, Miss Opportunity. Ve shall trafel togedder; ant vhen ve gets to your coontry you vill dell me de best houses vhere I might go mit my vatches ant drinkets."

"That I will; and get you in at the Nest house, in the bargain," cried Opportunity, pocketing the pencil without further parley.

In the meantime my uncle selected a very neat seal, the handsomest he had, being of pure metal, and having a real topaz in it, and offered it to Mary Warren, with his best bow. I watched the clergyman's daughter with anxiety, as I witnessed the progress of this galanterie, doubting and hoping at each change of the ingenuous and beautiful countenance of her to whom the offering was made. Mary colored, smiled, seemed embarrassed, and, as I feared, for a single moment doubting; but I must have been mistaken, as she drew back, and, in the sweetest manner possible, declined to accept the present. I saw that Opportunity's having just adopted a different course added very much to her embarrassment, as otherwise she might have said something to lessen the seeming ungraciousness of the refusal. Luckily for herself, however, she had a gentleman to deal with, instead of one in the station that my uncle Ro had voluntarily assumed. When this offering was made, the pretended pedler was ignorant altogether of the true characters of the clergyman and his daughter, not even knowing that he saw the rector of St. Andrew's, Ravensnest. But the manner of Mary at once disabused him of an error into which he had fallen through her association with Opportunity, and he now drew back himself with perfect tact, bowing and apologizing in a way that I thought must certainly betray his disguise. It did not, however; for Mr. Warren, with a smile that denoted equally satisfaction at his daughter's conduct and a grateful sense of the other's intended liberality, but with a simplicity that was of proof, turned to me and begged a tune on the flute, which I had drawn from my pocket and was holding in my hand, as expecting some such invitation.

If I have any accomplishment, it is connected with music; and particularly with the management of the flute. On this occasion I was not at all backward about showing off, and I executed two or three airs, from the best masters, with as much care as if I had been playing to a salon in one of the best quarters of Paris. I could see that Mary and her father were both surprised at the execution, and that the first was delighted. We had a most agreeable quarter of an hour together; and might have had two, had not Opportunity--who was certainly well named, being apropos of everything--begun of her own accord to sing, though not without inviting Mary to join her. As the latter declined this public exhibition, as well as my uncle Ro's offering, Seneca's sister had it all to herself; and she sang no less than three songs, in quick succession, and altogether unasked. I shall not stop to characterize the music or the words of these songs, any further than to say they were all, more or less, of the Jim Crow school, and executed in a way that did them ample justice.

As it was understood that we were all to travel in the same train, the interview lasted until we were ready to proceed; nor did it absolutely terminate then. As Mary and Opportunity sat together, Mr. Warren asked me to share his seat, regardless of the hurdy-gurdy; though my attire, in addition to its being perfectly new and neat, was by no means of the mean character that it is usual to see adorning street-music in general. On the whole, so long as the instrument was not en evidence, I might not have seemed very much out of place seated at Mr. Warren's side. In this manner we proceeded to Saratoga, my uncle keeping up a private discourse the whole way, with Seneca, on matters connected with the rent movement.

As for the divine and myself, we had also much interesting talk together. I was questioned about Europe in general, and Germany in particular; and had reason to think my answers gave surprise as well as satisfaction. It was not an easy matter to preserve the Doric of my assumed dialect, though practice and fear contributed their share to render me content to resort to it. I made many mistakes, of course, but my listeners were not the persons to discover them. I say my listeners, for I soon ascertained that Mary Warren, who sat on the seat directly before us, was a profoundly attentive listener to all that passed. This circumstance did not render me the less communicative, though it did increase the desire I felt to render what I said worthy of such a listener. As for Opportunity, she read a newspaper a little while, munched an apple a very little while, and slept the rest of the way. But the journey between modern Troy and Saratoga is not a long one, and was soon accomplished.

CHAPTER VII.

"I will tell you;
If you'll bestow a small (of what you have little),
Patience, a while, you'll hear the belly's answer."

--Menenius Agrippa.

At the springs we parted, Mr. Warren and his friends finding a conveyance, with their own horses, in readiness to carry them the remainder of the distance. As for my uncle and myself, it was understood that we were to get on in the best manner we could, it being expected that we should reach Ravensnest in the course of a day or two. According to the theory of our new business, we ought to travel on foot, but we had a reservation in petto that promised us also the relief of a comfortable wagon of some sort or other.

"Well," said my uncle, the moment we had got far enough from our new acquaintance to be out of ear-shot, "I must say one thing in behalf of Mr. Seneky, as he calls himself, or Sen, as his elegant sister calls him, and that is, that I believe him to be one of the biggest scoundrels the State holds."

"This is not drawing his character en beau," I answered, laughing. "But why do you come out so decidedly upon him at this particular moment?"

"Because this particular moment happens to be the first in which I have had an opportunity to say anything since I have known the rascal. You must have remarked that the fellow held me in discourse from the time we left Troy until we stopped here."

"Certainly; I could see that his tongue was in motion unceasingly; what he said, I have to conjecture."

"He said enough to lay bare his whole character. Our subject was anti-rent, which he commenced with a view to explain it to a foreigner; but I managed to lead him on, step by step, until he let me into all his notions and expectations on the subject. Why, Hugh, the villain actually proposed that you and I should enlist, and turn ourselves into two of the rascally mock redskins."

"Enlist! Do they still persevere so far as to keep up that organization, in the very teeth of the late law?"

"The law! What do two or three thousand voters care for any penal law, in a country like this? Who is to enforce the law against them? Did they commit murder, and were they even convicted, as might happen under the excitement of such a crime, they very well know nobody would be hanged. Honesty is always too passive in matters that do not immediately press on its direct interests. It is for the interest of every honest man in the State to set his face against this anti-rent movement, and to do all he can, by his vote and influence, to put it down into the dirt, out of which it sprang, and into which it should be crushed; but not one in a hundred, even of those who condemn it toto coelo, will go a foot out of their way even to impede its progress. All depends on those who have the power; and they will exert that power so as to conciliate the active rogue, rather than protect the honest man. You are to remember that the laws are executed here on the principle that 'what is everybody's business is nobody's business.'"

"You surely do not believe that the authorities will wink at an open violation of the laws!"

"That will depend on the characters of individuals; most will, but some will not. You and I would be punished soon enough, were there a chance, but the mass would escape. Oh! we have had some precious disclosures in our corner of the car! The two or three men who joined Newcome are from anti-rent districts, and, seeing me with their friend, little reserve has been practised. One of those men is an anti-rent lecturer; and, being somewhat didactic, he favored me with some of his arguments, seriatim."

"How! Have they got to lectures? I should have supposed the newspapers would have been the means of circulating their ideas."

"Oh, the newspapers, like hogs swimming too freely, have cut their own throats; and it seems to be fashionable, just at this moment, not to believe them. Lecturing is the great moral lever of the nation at present."

"But a man can lie in a lecture, as well as in a newspaper."

"Out of all question; and if many of the lecturers are of the school of this Mr. Holmes--'Lecturer Holmes,' as Seneca called him--but, if many are of his school, a pretty set of liberty-takers with the truth must they be."

"You detected him, then, in some of these liberties?"

"In a hundred: nothing was easier than for a man in my situation to do that; knowing, as I did, so much of the history of the land-titles of the State. One of his arguments partakes so largely of the weak side of our system, that I must give it to you. He spoke of the gravity of the disturbances--of the importance to the peace and character of the State of putting an end to them; and then, by way of corollary to his proposition, produced a scheme for changing the titles, IN ORDER TO SATISFY THE PEOPLE!"

"The people, of course, meaning the tenants; the landlords and their rights passing for nothing."

"That is one beautiful feature of the morality--an eye, or a cheek, if you will--but here is the nose, and highly Roman it is. A certain portion of the community wish to get rid of the obligations of their contracts; and finding it cannot be done by law, they resort to means that are opposed to all law in order to effect their purposes. Public law-breakers, violators of the public peace, they make use of their own wrong as an argument for perpetuating another that can be perpetuated in no other way. I have been looking over some of the papers containing proclamations, etc., and find that both law-makers and law-breakers are of one mind as to this charming policy. Without a single manly effort to put down the atrocious wrong that is meditated, the existence of the wrong itself is made an argument for meeting it with concessions, and thus sustaining it. Instead of using the means the institutions have provided for putting down all such unjust and illegal combinations, the combinations are a sufficient reason of themselves why the laws should be altered, and wrong be done to a few, in order that many may be propitiated, and their votes secured."

"This is reasoning that can be used only where real grievances exist. But there are no real grievances in the case of the tenants. They may mystify weak heads in the instance of the manor leases, with their quarter-sales, fat hens, loads of wood, and days' works; but my leases are all on three lives, with rent payable in money, and with none of the conditions that are called feudal, though no more feudal than any other bargain to pay articles in kind. One might just as well call a bargain made by a butcher, to deliver pork for a series of years, feudal. However, feudal or not, my leases, and those of most other landlords, are running on lives; and yet, by what I can learn, the discontent is general; and the men who have solemnly bargained to give up their farms at the expiration of their lives are just as warm for the 'down rent' and titles in fee as the manor tenants themselves! They say that the obligations given for actual purchases are beginning to be discredited."

"You are quite right; and there is one of the frauds practised on the world at large. In the public documents only the manor leases, with their pretended feudal covenants, and their perpetuity, are kept in view, while the combination goes to all leases, or nearly all, and certainly to all sorts of leases, where the estates are of sufficient extent to allow of the tenants to make head against the landlords. I dare say there are hundreds of tenants, even on the property of the Rensselaers, who are honest enough to be willing to comply with their contracts if the conspirators would let them; but the rapacious spirit is abroad among the occupants of other lands, as well as among the occupants of theirs, and the government considers its existence a proof that concessions should be made. The discontented must be appeased, right or not!"

"Did Seneca say anything on the subject of his own interests?"

"He did; not so much in conversation with me as in the discourse he held with 'Lecturer Holmes.' I listened attentively, happening to be familiar, through tradition and through personal knowledge, with all the leading facts of the case. As you will soon be called on to act in that matter for yourself, I may as well relate them to you. They will serve, also, as guides to the moral merits of the occupation of half the farms on your estate. These are things, moreover, you would never know by public statements, since all the good bargains are smothered in silence, while those that may possibly have been a little unfavorable to the tenant are proclaimed far and near. It is quite possible that, among the many thousands of leased farms that are to be found in the State, some bad bargains may have been made by the tenants; but what sort of a government is that which should undertake to redress evils of this nature? If either of the Rensselaers, or you yourself, were to venture to send a memorial to the Legislature setting forth the grievances you labor under in connection with this very 'mill-lot'--and serious losses do they bring to you, let me tell you, though grievances, in the proper sense of the term, they are not--you and your memorial would be met with a general and merited shout of ridicule and derision. One man has no rights, as opposed to a dozen."

"So much difference is there between 'de la Rochefoucauld et de la Rochefoucauld.'"

"All the difference in the world; but let me give you the facts, for they will serve as a rule by which to judge of many others. In the first place, my great-grandfather Mordaunt, the 'patentee,' as he was called, first let the mill-lot to the grandfather of this Seneca, the tenant then being quite a young man. In order to obtain settlers, in that early day, it was necessary to give them great advantages, for there was vastly more land than there were people to work it. The first lease, therefore, was granted on highly advantageous terms to that Jason Newcome, whom I can just remember. He had two characters; the one, and the true, which set him down as a covetous, envious, narrow-minded provincial, who was full of cant and roguery. Some traditions exist among us of his having been detected in stealing timber, and in various other frauds. In public he is one of those virtuous and hard-working pioneers who have transmitted to their descendants all their claims, those that are supposed to be moral, as well as those that are known to be legal. This flummery may do for elderly ladies, who affect snuff and bohea, and for some men who have minds of the same calibre, but they are not circumstances to influence such legislators and executives as are fit to be legislators and executives. Not a great while before my father's marriage, the said Jason still living and in possession, the lease expired, and a new one was granted for three lives, or twenty-one years certain, of which one of the lives is still running. That lease was granted, on terms highly favorable to the tenant, sixty years since; old Newcome, luckily for himself and his posterity, having named this long-lived son as one of his three lives. Now Seneky, God bless him! is known to lease a few of the lots that have fallen to his share of the property for more money than is required to meet all your rent on the whole. Such, in effect, has been the fact with that mill-lot for the last thirty years, or even longer; and the circumstance of the great length of time so excellent a bargain has existed, is used as an argument why the Newcomes ought to have a deed of the property for a nominal price; or, indeed, for no price at all, if the tenants could have their wishes."

"I am afraid there is nothing unnatural in thus perverting principles; half mankind appear to me really to get a great many of their notions dessus dessous."

"Half is a small proportion; as you will find, my boy, when you grow older. But was it not an impudent proposal of Seneca, when he wished you and me to join the corps of 'Injins?'"

"What answer did you make? Though I suppose it would hardly do for us to go disguised and armed, now that the law makes it a felony, even while our motive at the bottom might be to aid the law."

"Catch me at that act of folly! Why, Hugh, could they prove such a crime on either of us, or any one connected with an old landed family, we should be the certain victims. No governor would dare pardon us. No, no; clemency is a word reserved for the obvious and confirmed rogues."

"We might get a little favor on the score of belonging to a very powerful body of offenders."

"True, I forgot that circumstance. The more numerous the crimes and the criminals, the greater the probability of impunity; and this, too, not on the general principle that power cannot be resisted, but on the particular principle that a thousand or two votes are of vast importance, where three thousand can turn an election. God only knows where this thing is to end!"

We now approached one of the humbler taverns of the place, where it was necessary for those of our apparent pretensions to seek lodgings, and the discourse was dropped. It was several weeks too early in the season for the springs to be frequented, and we found only a few of those in the place who drank the waters because they really required them. My uncle had been an old stager at Saratoga--a beau of the "purest water," as he laughingly described himself--and he was enabled to explain all that was necessary for me to know. An American watering-place, however, is so very much inferior to most of those in Europe, as to furnish very little, in their best moments, beyond the human beings they contain, to attract the attention of the traveller.

In the course of the afternoon we availed ourselves of the opportunity of a return vehicle to go as far as Sandy Hill, where we passed the night. The next morning, bright and early, we got into a hired wagon and drove across the country until near night, when we paid for our passage, sent the vehicle back, and sought a tavern. At this house, where we passed the night, we heard a good deal of the "Injins" having made their appearance on the Littlepage lands, and many conjectures as to the probable result. We were in a township, or rather on a property, that was called Mooseridge, and which had once belonged to us, but which, having been sold, and in a great measure paid for by the occupants, no one thought of impairing the force of the covenants under which the parties held. The most trivial observer will soon discover that it is only when something is to be gained that the aggrieved citizen wishes to disturb a covenant. Now, I never heard anyone say a syllable against either of the covenants of his lease under which he held his farm, let him be ever so loud against those which would shortly compel him to give it up! Had I complained of the fact--and such facts abounded--that my predecessors had incautiously let farms at such low prices that the lessees had been enabled to pay the rents for half a century by subletting small portions of them, as my uncle Ro had intimated, I should be pointed at as a fool. "Stick to your bond" would have been the cry, and "Shylock" would have been forgotten. I do not say that there is not a vast difference between the means of acquiring intelligence, the cultivation, the manners, the social conditions, and, in some senses, the social obligations of an affluent landlord and a really hard-working, honest, well-intentioned husbandman, his tenant--differences that should dispose the liberal and cultivated gentleman to bear in mind the advantages he has perhaps inherited, and not acquired by his own means, in such a way as to render him, in a certain degree, the repository of the interests of those who hold him; but, while I admit all this, and say that the community which does not possess such a class of men is to be pitied, as it loses one of the most certain means of liberalizing and enlarging its notions, and of improving its civilization, I am far from thinking that the men of this class are to have their real superiority of position, with its consequences, thrown into their faces only when they are expected to give, while they are grudgingly denied it on all other occasions! There is nothing so likely to advance the habits, opinions, and true interests of a rural population, as to have them all directed by the intelligence and combined interests that ought to mark the connection between landlord and tenant. It may do for one class of political economists to prate about a state of things which supposes every husbandman a freeholder, and rich enough to maintain his level among the other freeholders of the State. But we all know that as many minute gradations in means must and do exist in a community, as there exist gradations in characters. A majority soon will, in the nature of things, be below the level of the freeholder, and by destroying the system of having landlords and tenants two great evils are created--the one preventing men of large fortunes from investing in lands, as no man will place his money where it will be insecure or profitless, thereby cutting off real estate generally from the benefits that might be and would be conferred by their capital, as well as cutting it off from the benefits of the increased price which arise from having such buyers in the market; and the other is, to prevent any man from being a husbandman who has not the money necessary to purchase a farm. But they who want farms now, and they who will want votes next November, do not look quite so far ahead as that; while shouting "equal rights," they are, in fact, for preventing the poor husbandman from being anything but a day-laborer.

We obtained tolerably decent lodging at our inn, though the profoundest patriot America possesses, if he know anything of other countries, or of the best materials of his own, cannot say much in favor of the sleeping arrangements of an ordinary country inn. The same money and the same trouble would render that which is now the very beau ideal of discomfort, at least tolerable, and in many instances good. But who is to produce this reform? According to the opinions circulated among us, the humblest hamlet we have has already attained the highest point of civilization; and as for the people, without distinction of classes, it is universally admitted that they are the best educated, the acutest, and the most intelligent in Christendom;--no, I must correct myself; they are all this, except when they are in the act of leasing lands, and then the innocent and illiterate husbandmen are the victims of the arts of designing landlords, the wretches![21]

We passed an hour on the piazza, after eating our supper, and there being a collection of men assembled there, inhabitants of the hamlet, we had an opportunity to get into communication with them. My uncle sold a watch, and I played on the hurdy-gurdy, by way of making myself popular. After this beginning, the discourse turned on the engrossing subject of the day, anti-rentism. The principal speaker was a young man about six-and-twenty, of a sort of shabby-genteel air and appearance, whom I soon discovered to be the attorney of the neighborhood. His name was Hubbard, while that of the other principal speaker was Hall. The last was a mechanic, as I ascertained, and was a plain-looking working-man of middle age. Each of these persons seated himself on a common "kitchen chair," leaning back against the side of the house, and, of course, resting on the two hind-legs of the rickety support, while he placed his own feet on the rounds in front. The attitudes were neither graceful nor picturesque, but they were so entirely common as to excite no surprise. As for Hall, he appeared perfectly contented with his situation, after fidgeting a little to get the two supporting legs of his chair just where he wanted them; but Hubbard's eye was restless, uneasy, and even menacing, for more than a minute. He drew a knife from his pocket--a small, neat penknife only, it is true--gazed a little wildly about him, and just as I thought he intended to abandon his nicely poised chair, and to make an assault on one of the pillars that upheld the roof of the piazza, the innkeeper advanced, holding in his hand several narrow slips of pine board, one of which he offered at once to 'Squire Hubbard. This relieved the attorney, who took the wood, and was soon deeply plunged in, to me, the unknown delights of whittling. I cannot explain the mysterious pleasure that so many find in whittling, though the prevalence of the custom is so well known. But I cannot explain the pleasure so many find in chewing tobacco, or in smoking. The precaution of the landlord was far from being unnecessary, and appeared to be taken in good part by all to whom he offered "whittling-pieces," some six or eight in the whole. The state of the piazza, indeed, proved that the precaution was absolutely indispensable, if he did not wish to see the house come tumbling down about his head. In order that those who have never seen such things may understand their use, I will go a little out of the way to explain.

The inn was of wood, a hemlock frame with a "siding" of clapboards. In this there was nothing remarkable, many countries of Europe, even, still building principally of wood. Houses of lath and plaster were quite common, until within a few years, even in large towns. I remember to have seen some of these constructions while in London, in close connection with the justly celebrated Westminster Hall; and of such materials is the much-talked of miniature castle of Horace Walpole, at Strawberry Hill. But the inn of Mooseridge had some pretensions to architecture, besides being three or four times larger than any other house in the place. A piazza it enjoyed, of course; it must be a pitiful village inn that does not; and building, accessories and all, rejoiced in several coats of a spurious white lead. The columns of this piazza, as well as the clapboards of the house itself, however, exhibited the proofs of the danger of abandoning your true whittler to his own instincts. Spread-eagles, five-points, American flags, huzzas for Polk! the initials of names, and names at full length, with various other similar conceits, records, and ebullitions of patriotic or party-otic feelings, were scattered up and down with an affluence that said volumes in favor of the mint in which they had been coined. But the most remarkable memorial of the industry of the guests was to be found on one of the columns; and it was one at a corner, too, and consequently of double importance to the superstructure--unless, indeed, the house were built on that well-known principle of American architecture of the last century, which made the architrave uphold the pillar, instead of the pillar the architrave. The column in question was of white pine, as usual--though latterly, in brick edifices, bricks and stucco are much resorted to--and, at a convenient height for the whittlers, it was literally cut two-thirds in two. The gash was very neatly made--that much must be said for it--indicating skill and attention; and the surfaces of the wound were smoothed in a manner to prove that appearances were not neglected.

"Vat do das?" I asked of the landlord, pointing to this gaping wound in the main column of his piazza.

"That! Oh! That's only the whittlers," answered the host, with a good-natured smile.

Assuredly the Americans are the best-natured people on earth! Here was a man whose house was nearly tumbling down about his ears--always bating the principle in architecture just named--and he could smile as Nero may be supposed to have done when fiddling over the conflagration of Rome.

"But vhy might de vhittler vhittle down your house?"

"Oh! this is a free country, you know, and folks do pretty much as they like in it," returned the still smiling host. "I let 'em cut away as long as I dared, but it was high time to get out 'whittling-pieces,' I believe you must own. It's best always to keep a ruff (roof) over a man's head, to be ready for bad weather. A week longer would have had the column in two."

"Vell, I dinks I might not bear dat! Vhat ist mein house ist mein house, ant dey shall not so moch vittles."

"By letting 'em so much vittles there, they so much vittles in the kitchen; so you see there is policy in having your underpinnin' knocked away sometimes, if it's done by the right sort of folks."

"You're a stranger in these parts, friend?" observed Hubbard, complacently, for by this time his "whittling-piece" was reduced to a shape, and he could go on reducing it, according to some law of the art of whittling with which I am not acquainted. "We are not so particular in such matters as in some of your countries in the old world."

"Ja--das I can see. But does not woot ant column cost money in America, someding?"

"To be sure it does. There is not a man in the country who would undertake to replace that pillar with a new one, paint and all, for less than ten dollars."

This was an opening for a discussion on the probable cost of putting a new pillar into the place of the one that was injured. Opinions differed, and quite a dozen spoke on the subject; some placing the expense as high as fifteen dollars, and others bringing it down as low as five. I was struck with the quiet and self-possession with which each man delivered his opinion, as well as with the language used. The accent was uniformly provincial, that of Hubbard included, having a strong and unpleasant taint of the dialect of New England in it; and some of the expressions savored a little of the stilts of the newspapers; but, on the whole, the language was sufficiently accurate and surprisingly good, considering the class in life of the speakers. The conjectures, too, manifested great shrewdness and familiarity with practical things, as well as, in a few instances, some reading. Hall, however, actually surprised me. He spoke with a precision and knowledge of mechanics that would have done credit to a scholar, and with a simplicity that added to the influence of what he said. Some casual remark induced me to put in--"Vell, I might s'pose an Injin voult cut so das column, but I might not s'pose a vhite man could." This opinion gave the discourse a direction toward anti-rentism, and in a few minutes it caught all the attention of my uncle Ro and myself.

"This business is going ahead after all!" observed Hubbard, evasively, after others had had their say.

"More's the pity," put in Hall. "It might have been put an end to in a month, at any time, and ought to be put an end to in a civilized land."

"You will own, neighbor Hall, notwithstanding, it would be a great improvement in the condition of the tenants all over the State, could they change their tenures into freeholds."

"No doubt 'twould; and so it would be a great improvement in the condition of my journeyman in my shop if he could get to be the boss. But that is not the question here; the question is, What right has the State to say any man shall sell his property unless he wishes to sell it? A pretty sort of liberty we should have if we all held our houses and gardens under such laws as that supposes!"

"But do we not all hold our houses and gardens, and farms, too, by some such law?" rejoined the attorney, who evidently respected his antagonist, and advanced his own opinions cautiously. "If the public wants land to use, it can take it by paying for it."

"Yes, to use; but use is everything. I've read that old report of the committee of the house, and don't subscribe to its doctrines at all. Public 'policy,' in that sense, doesn't at all mean public 'use.' If land is wanted for a road, or a fort, or a canal, it must be taken, under a law, by appraisement, or the thing could not be had at all; but to pretend, because one side to a contract wishes to alter it, that the State has a right to interfere, on the ground that the discontented can be bought off in this way easier and cheaper than they can be made to obey the laws, is but a poor way of supporting the right. The same principle, carried out, might prove it would be easier to buy off pickpockets by compromising than to punish them. Or it would be easy to get round all sorts of contracts in this way."

"But all governments use this power when it becomes necessary, neighbor Hall."

"That word necessary covers a great deal of ground, 'Squire Hubbard. The most that can be made of the necessity here is to say it is cheaper, and may help along parties to their objects better. No man doubts that the State of New York can put down these anti-renters; and, I trust, will put them down so far as force is concerned. There is, then, no other necessity in the case, to begin with, than the necessity which demagogues always feel, of getting as many votes as they can."

"After all, neighbor Hall, these votes are pretty powerful weapons in a popular government."

"I'll not deny that; and now they talk of a convention to alter the constitution, it is a favorable moment to teach such managers they shall not abuse the right of suffrage in this way."

"How is it to be prevented? You are a universal suffrage man, I know?"

"Yes, I'm for universal suffrage among honest folks; but do not wish to have my rulers chosen by them that are never satisfied without having their hands in their neighbors' pockets. Let 'em put a clause into the constitution providing that no town, or village, or county, shall hold a poll within a given time after the execution of process has been openly resisted in it. That would take the conceit out of all such law-breakers in very short order."

It was plain that this idea struck the listeners, and several even avowed their approbation of the scheme aloud. Hubbard received it as a new thought, but was more reluctant to admit its practicability. As might be expected from a lawyer accustomed to practice in a small way, his objections savored more of narrow views than of the notions of a statesman.

"How would you determine the extent of the district to be disfranchised?" he asked.

"Take the legal limits as they stand. If process be resisted openly by a combination strong enough to look down the agents of the law in a town, disfranchise that town for a given period; if in more than one town, disfranchise the offending towns; if a county, disfranchise the whole county."

"But in that way you would punish the innocent with the guilty."

"It would be for the good of all; besides, you punish the innocent for the guilty, or with the guilty rather, in a thousand ways. You and I are taxed to keep drunkards from starving, because it is better to do that than to offend humanity by seeing men die of hunger, or tempting them to steal. When you declare martial law you punish the innocent with the guilty, in one sense; and so you do in a hundred cases. All we have to ask is, if it be not wiser and better to disarm demagogues, and those disturbers of the public peace who wish to pervert their right of suffrage to so wicked an end, by so simple a process, than to suffer them to effect their purposes by the most flagrant abuse of their political privileges?"

"How would you determine when a town should lose the right of voting?"

"By evidence given in open court. The judges would be the proper authority to decide in such a case; and they would decide, beyond all question, nineteen times in twenty, right. It is the interest of every man who is desirous of exercising the suffrage on right principles, to give him some such protection against them that wish to exercise the suffrage on wrong. A peace-officer can call on the posse comitatus or on the people to aid him; if enough appear to put down the rebels, well and good; but if enough do not appear, let it be taken as proof that the district is not worthy of giving the votes of freemen. They who abuse such a liberty as man enjoys in this country are the least entitled to our sympathies. As for the mode, that could easily be determined, as soon as you settle the principle."

The discourse went on for an hour, neighbor Hall giving his opinions still more at large. I listened equally with pleasure and surprise. "These, then, after all," I said to myself, "are the real bone and sinew of the country. There are tens of thousands of this sort of men in the State, and why should they be domineered over, and made to submit to a legislation and to practices that are so often without principle, by the agents of the worst part of the community? Will the honest forever be so passive, while the corrupt and dishonest continue so active?" On my mentioning these notions to my uncle, he answered:

"Yes, it ever has been so, and, I fear, ever will be so. There is the curse of this country," pointing to a table covered with newspapers, the invariable companion of an American inn of any size. "So long as men believe what they find there, they can be nothing but dupes or knaves."

"But there is good in newspapers."

"That adds to the curse. If they were nothing but lies, the world would soon reject them; but how few are able to separate the true from the false! Now, how few of these pages speak the truth about this very anti-rentism! Occasionally an honest man in the corps does come out; but where one does this, ten affect to think what they do not believe, in order to secure votes--votes, votes, votes. In that simple word lies all the mystery of the matter."

"Jefferson said, if he were to choose between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would take the last."

"Ay, Jefferson did not mean newspapers as they are now. I am old enough to see the change that has taken place. In his day, three or four fairly convicted lies would damn any editor; now, there are men that stand up under a thousand. I'll tell you what, Hugh, this country is jogging on under two of the most antagonist systems possible--Christianity and the newspapers. The first is daily hammering into every man that he is a miserable, frail, good-for-nothing being, while the last is eternally proclaiming the perfection of the people and the virtues of self-government."

"Perhaps too much stress ought not to be laid on either."

"The first is certainly true, under limitations that we all understand; but as to the last, I will own I want more evidence than a newspaper eulogy to believe it."

After all, my uncle Ro is sometimes mistaken; though candor compels me to acknowledge that he is very often right.

CHAPTER VIII.

"I see thee still,
Remembrance, faithful to her trust,
Calls thee in beauty from the dust;
Thou comest in the morning light,
Thou'rt with me through the gloomy night;
In dreams I meet thee as of old:
Then thy soft arms my neck enfold,
And thy sweet voice is in my ear:
In every sense to memory dear
I see thee still."

--Sprague.

It was just ten in the morning of the succeeding day when my uncle Ro and myself came in sight of the old house at the Nest. I call it old, for a dwelling that has stood more than half a century acquires a touch of the venerable, in a country like America. To me it was truly old, the building having stood there, where I then saw it, for a period more than twice as long as that of my own existence, and was associated with all my early ideas. From childhood I had regarded that place as my future home, as it had been the home of my parents and grandparents, and, in one sense, of those who had gone before them for two generations more. The whole of the land in sight--the rich bottoms, then waving with grass--the side-hills, the woods, the distant mountains--the orchards, dwellings, barns, and all the other accessories of rural life that appertained to the soil, were mine, and had thus become without a single act of injustice to any human being, so far as I knew and believed. Even the red man had been fairly bought by Herman Mordaunt, the patentee, and so Susquesus, the Redskin of Ravensnest, as our old Onondago was often called, had ever admitted the fact to be. It was natural that I should love an estate thus inherited and thus situated. No civilized man, no man, indeed, savage or not, had ever been the owner of those broad acres, but those who were of my own blood. This is what few besides Americans can say; and when it can be said truly, in parts of the country where the arts of life have spread, and amid the blessings of civilization, it becomes the foundation of a sentiment so profound, that I do not wonder those adventurers-errant who are flying about the face of the country, thrusting their hands into every man's mess, have not been able to find it among their other superficial discoveries. Nothing can be less like the ordinary cravings of avarice than the feeling that is thus engendered; and I am certain that the general tendency of such an influence is to elevate the feelings of him who experiences it.

And there were men among us, high in political station--high as such men ever can get, for the consequence of having such men in power is to draw down station itself nearer to their own natural level--but men in power had actually laid down propositions in political economy which, if carried out, would cause me to sell all that estate, reserving, perhaps, a single farm for my own use, and reinvest the money in such a way as that the interest I obtained might equal my present income! It is true, this theory was not directly applied to me, as my farms were to fall in by the covenants of their leases, but it had been directly applied to Stephen and William Van Rensselaer, and, by implication, to others; and my turn might come next. What business had the Rensselaers, or the Livingstons, or the Hunters, or the Littlepages, or the Morgans, or the Verplancks, or the Wadsworths, or five hundred others similarly placed, to entertain "sentiments" that interfered with "business," or that interfered with the wishes of any straggling Yankee who had found his way out of New England, and wanted a particular farm on his own terms? It is aristocratic to put sentiment in opposition to trade; and TRADE ITSELF IS NOT TO BE TRADE ANY LONGER THAN ALL THE PROFIT IS TO BE FOUND ON THE SIDE OF NUMBERS. Even the principles of holy trade are to be governed by majorities!

Even my uncle Ro, who never owned a foot of the property, could not look at it without emotion. He too had been born there--had passed his childhood there--and loved the spot without a particle of the grovelling feeling of avarice. He took pleasure in remembering that our race had been the only owners of the soil on which he stood, and had that very justifiable pride which belongs to enduring respectability and social station.

"Well, Hugh," he cried, after both of us had stood gazing at the gray walls of the good and substantial, but certainly not very beautiful dwelling, "here we are, and we now may determine on what is next to be done. Shall we march down to the village, which is four miles distant, you will remember, and get our breakfasts there? shall we try one of your tenants? or shall we plunge at once in medias res, and ask hospitality of my mother and your sister?"

"The last might excite suspicion, I fear, sir. Tar and feathers would be our mildest fate did we fall into the hands of the Injins."

"Injins! Why not go at once to the wigwam of Susquesus, and get out of him and Yop the history of the state of things. I heard them speaking of the Onondago at our tavern last night, and while they said he was generally thought to be much more than a hundred, that he was still like a man of eighty. That Indian is full of observation, and may let us into some of the secrets of his brethren."

"They can at least give us the news from the family; and though it might seem in the course of things for pedlers to visit the Nest house, it will be just as much so for them to halt at the wigwam."

This consideration decided the matter, and away we went toward the ravine or glen, on the side of which stood the primitive-looking hut that went by the name of the "wigwam." The house was a small cabin of logs, neat and warm, or cool, as the season demanded. As it was kept up, and was whitewashed, and occasionally furnished anew by the landlord--the odious creature! he who paid for so many similar things in the neighborhood--it was never unfit to be seen, though never of a very alluring, cottage-like character. There was a garden, and it had been properly made that very season, the negro picking and pecking about it, during the summer, in a way to coax the vegetables and fruits on a little, though I well knew that the regular weedings came from an assistant at the Nest, who was ordered to give it an eye and an occasional half-day. On one side of the hut there was a hog-pen and a small stable for a cow; but on the other the trees of the virgin forest, which had never been disturbed in that glen, overshadowed the roof. This somewhat poetical arrangement was actually the consequence of a compromise between the tenants of the cabin, the negro insisting on the accessories of his rude civilization, while the Indian required the shades of the woods to reconcile him to his position. Here had these two singularly associated beings--the one deriving his descent from the debased races of Africa, and the other from the fierce but lofty-minded aboriginal inhabitant of this continent--dwelt for nearly the whole period of an ordinary human life. The cabin itself began to look really ancient, while those who dwelt in it had little altered within the memory of man! Such instances of longevity, whatever theorists may say on the subject, are not unfrequent among either the blacks or the "natives," though probably less so among the last than among the first, and still less so among the first of the northern than of the southern sections of the republic. It is common to say that the great age so often attributed to the people of these two races is owing to ignorance of the periods of their births, and that they do not live longer than the whites. This may be true, in the main, for a white man is known to have died at no great distance from Ravensnest, within the last five-and-twenty years, who numbered more than his six-score of years; but aged negroes and aged Indians are nevertheless so common, when the smallness of their whole numbers is remembered, as to render the fact apparent to most of those who have seen much of their respective people.

There was no highway in the vicinity of the wigwam, for so the cabin was generally called, though wigwam, in the strict meaning of the word, it was not. As the little building stood in the grounds of the Nest house, which contain two hundred acres, a bit of virgin forest included, and exclusively of the fields that belonged to the adjacent farm, it was approached only by foot-paths, of which several led to and from it, and by one narrow, winding carriage-road, which, in passing for miles through the grounds, had been led near the hut, in order to enable my grandmother and sister, and, I dare say, my dear departed mother, while she lived, to make their calls in their frequent airings. By this sweeping road we approached the cabin.

"There are the two old fellows, sunning themselves this fine day!" exclaimed my uncle, with something like a tremor in his voice, as we drew near enough to the hut to distinguish objects. "Hugh, I never see these men without a feeling of awe, as well as of affection. They were the friends, and one was the slave of my grandfather; and as long as I can remember, have they been aged men! They seem to be set up here as monuments of the past, to connect the generations that are gone with those that are to come."

"If so, sir, they will soon be all there is of their sort. It really seems to me that, if things continue much longer in their present direction, men will begin to grow jealous and envious of history itself, because its actors have left descendants to participate in any little credit they may have gained."

"Beyond all contradiction, boy, there is a strange perversion of the old and natural sentiments on this head among us. But you must bear in mind the fact, that of the two millions and a half the State contains, not half a million, probably, possess any of the true York blood, and can consequently feel any of the sentiments connected with the birthplace and the older traditions of the very society in which they live. A great deal must be attributed to the facts of our condition; though I admit those facts need not, and ought not to unsettle principles. But look at those two old fellows! There they are, true to the feelings and habits of their races, even after passing so long a time together in this hut. There squats Susquesus on a stone, idle and disdaining work, with his rifle leaning against the apple-tree; while Jaaf--or Yop, as I believe it is better to call him--is pecking about in the garden, still a slave at his work, in fancy at least."

"And which is the happiest, sir--the industrious old man or the idler?"

"Probably each finds most happiness in indulging his own early habits. The Onondago never would work, however, and I have heard my father say, great was his happiness when he found he was to pass the remainder of his day in otium cum dignitate, and without the necessity of making baskets."

"Yop is looking at us; had we not better go up at once and speak to them?"

"Yop may stare the most openly, but my life on it the Indian sees twice as much. His faculties are the best, to begin with; and he is a man of extraordinary and characteristic observation. In his best days nothing ever escaped him. As you say, we will approach."

My uncle and myself then consulted on the expediency of using broken English with these two old men, of which, at first, we saw no necessity; but when we remembered that others might join us, and that our communication with the two might be frequent for the next few days, we changed our minds, and determined rigidly to observe our incognitos.

As we came up to the door of the hut, Jaaf slowly left his little garden and joined the Indian, who remained immovable and unmoved on the stone which served him for a seat. We could see but little change in either during the five years of our absence, each being a perfect picture, in his way, of extreme but not decrepit old age in the men of his race. Of the two, the black--if black he could now be called, his color being a muddy gray--was the most altered, though that seemed scarcely possible when I saw him last. As for the Trackless, or Susquesus, as he was commonly called, his temperance throughout a long life did him good service, and his half-naked limbs and skeleton-like body, for he wore the summer-dress of his people, appeared to be made of a leather long steeped in a tannin of the purest quality. His sinews, too, though much stiffened, seemed yet to be of whipcord, and his whole frame a species of indurated mummy that retained its vitality. The color of the skin was less red than formerly, and more closely approached to that of the negro, as the latter now was, though perceptibly different.

"Sago--sago," cried my uncle, as we came quite near, seeing no risk in using that familiar semi-Indian salutation.[22] "Sago, sago, dis charmin' mornin'; in my tongue, dat might be guten tag."

"Sago," returned the Trackless, in his deep, guttural voice, while old Yop brought two lips together that resembled thick pieces of overdone beefsteak, fastened his red-encircled gummy eyes on each of us in turn, pouted once more, working his jaws as if proud of the excellent teeth they still held, and said nothing. As the slave of a Littlepage, he held pedlers as inferior beings; for the ancient negroes of New York ever identified themselves, more or less, with the families to which they belonged, and in which they so often were born. "Sago," repeated the Indian slowly, courteously, and with emphasis, after he had looked a moment longer at my uncle, as if he saw something about him to command respect.

"Dis ist charmin' day, frients," said uncle Ro, placing himself coolly on a log of wood that had been hauled for the stove, and wiping his brow. "Vat might you calls dis coontry?"

"Dis here?" answered Yop, not without a little contempt. "Dis is York colony; where you come from to ask sich a question?"

"Charmany. Dat ist far off, but a goot country; ant dis ist goot country, too."

"Why you leab him, den, if he be good country, eh?"

"Vhy you leaf Africa, canst you dell me dat?" retorted uncle Ro, somewhat coolly.

"Nebber was dere," growled old Yop, bringing his blubber lips together somewhat in the manner the boar works his jaws when it is prudent to get out of his way. "I'm York-nigger born, and nebber seen no Africa; and nebber want to see him, nudder."

It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaaf belonged to a school by which the term of "colored gentleman" was never used. The men of his time and stamp called themselves "niggers;" and ladies and gentlemen of that age took them at their word, and called them "niggers," too; a word that no one of the race ever uses now, except in the way of reproach, and which, by one of the singular workings of our very wayward and common nature, he is more apt to use than any other, when reproach is intended.

My uncle paused a moment to reflect before he continued a discourse that had not appeared to commence under very flattering auspices.

"Who might lif in dat big stone house?" asked uncle Ro, as soon as he thought the negro had had time to cool a little.

"Anybody can see you no Yorker, by dat werry speech," answered Yop, not at all mollified by such a question. "Who should lib dere but Gin'ral Littlepage!"

"Vell, I dought he wast dead, long ago."

"What if he be? It is his house, and he lib in it; and ole young missus lib dere too."

Now, there had been three generations of generals among the Littlepages, counting from father to son. First, there had been Brigadier-General Evans Littlepage, who held that rank in the militia, and died in service during the revolution. The next was Brigadier-General Cornelius Littlepage, who got his rank by brevet, at the close of the same war, in which he had actually figured as a colonel of the New York line. Third, and last, was my own grandfather, Major-General Mordaunt Littlepage: he had been a captain in his father's regiment at the close of the same struggle, got the brevet of major at its termination, and rose to be a major-general of the militia, the station he held for many years before he died. As soon as the privates had the power to elect their own officers, the position of a major-general in the militia ceased to be respectable, and few gentlemen could be induced to serve. As might have been foreseen, the militia itself fell into general contempt, where it now is, and where it will ever remain until a different class of officers shall be chosen. The people can do a great deal, no doubt, but they cannot make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear." As soon as officers from the old classes shall be appointed, the militia will come up; for in no interest in life is it so material to have men of certain habits, and notions, and education, in authority, as in those connected with the military service. A great many fine speeches may be made, and much patriotic eulogy expended on the intrinsic virtue and intelligence of the people, and divers projects entertained to make "citizen-soldiers," as they are called; but citizens never can be, and never will be turned into soldiers at all, good or bad, until proper officers are placed over them. To return to Yop--

"Bray vhat might be de age of das laty dat you callet olt young missus?" asked my uncle.

"Gosh! she nutten but gal--born some time just a'ter old French war. Remember her well 'nough when she Miss Dus Malbone. Young masser Mordaunt take fancy to her, and make her he wife."

"Vell, I hopes you hafn't any objection to der match?"

"Not I; she clebber young lady den, and she werry clebber young lady now."

And this of my venerable grandmother, who had fairly seen her fourscore years!

"Who might be der master of das big house now?"

"Gin'ral Littlepage, doesn't I tell ye! Masser Mordaunt's name, my young master. Sus, dere, only Injin; he nebber so lucky as hab a good master. Niggers gettin' scarce, dey tells me, nowadays, in dis world!"

"Injins, too, I dinks; dere ist no more redskins might be blenty."

The manner in which the Onondago raised his figure, and the look he fastened on my uncle, were both fine and startling. As yet he had said nothing beyond the salutation; but I could see he now intended to speak.

"New tribe," he said, after regarding us for half a minute intently: "what you call him--where he come from?"

"Ja, ja--das ist der anti-rent redskins. Haf you seen 'em, Trackless?"

"Sartain; come to see me--face in bag--behave like squaw; poor Injin--poor warrior!"

"Yees, I believe dat ist true enough. I can't bear soch Injin--might not be soch Injin in the world. Vhat you call 'em, eh?"

Susquesus shook his head slowly, and with dignity. Then he gazed intently at my uncle; after which he fastened his eyes in a similar manner on me. In this manner his looks turned from one to the other for some little time, when he again dropped them to the earth, calmly and in silence. I took out the hurdy-gurdy, and began to play a lively air--one that was very popular among the American blacks, and which, I am sorry to say, is getting to be not less so among the whites. No visible effect was produced on Susquesus, unless a slight shade of contempt was visible on his dark features. With Jaaf, however, it was very different. Old as he was, I could see a certain nervous twitching of the lower limbs, which indicated that the old fellow actually felt some disposition to dance. It soon passed away, though his grim, hard, wrinkled, dusky-gray countenance continued to gleam with a sort of dull pleasure for some time. There was nothing surprising in this, the indifference of the Indian to melody being almost as marked as the negro's sensitiveness to its power.

It was not to be expected that men so aged would be disposed to talk much. The Onondago had ever been a silent man: dignity and gravity of character uniting with prudence to render him so. But Jaaf was constitutionally garrulous, though length of days had necessarily much diminished the propensity. At that moment a fit of thoughtful and melancholy silence came over my uncle, too, and all four of us continued brooding on our own reflections for two or three minutes after I had ceased to play. Presently the even, smooth approach of carriage-wheels was heard, and a light summer vehicle that was an old acquaintance, came whirling round the stable, and drew up within ten feet of the spot where we were all seated.

My heart was in my mouth at this unexpected interruption, and I could perceive that my uncle was scarcely less affected. Amid the flowing and pretty drapery of summer shawls, and the other ornaments of the female toilet, were four youthful and sunny faces, and one venerable with years. In a word, my grandmother, my sister, and my uncle's two other wards, and Mary Warren were in the carriage; yes, the pretty, gentle, timid, yet spirited and intelligent daughter of the rector was of the party, and seemingly quite at home and at her ease, as one among friends. She was the first to speak even, though it was in a low, quiet voice, addressed to my sister, and in words that appeared extorted by surprise.

"There are the very two pedlers of whom I told you, Martha," she said, "and now you may hear the flute well played."

"I doubt if he can play better than Hugh," was my dear sister's answer. "But we'll have some of his music, if it be only to remind us of him who is so far away."

"The music we can and will have, my child," cried my grandmother, cheerfully; "though that is not wanted to remind us of our absent boy. Good-morrow, Susquesus; I hope this fine day agrees with you."

"Sago," returned the Indian, making a dignified and even graceful forward gesture with one arm, though he did not rise. "Weadder good--Great Spirit good, dat reason. How squaws do?"

"We are all well, I thank you, Trackless. Good-morrow, Jaaf; how do you do, this fine morning?"

Yop, or Jaap, or Jaaf, rose tottering, made a low obeisance, and then answered in the semi-respectful, semi-familiar manner of an old, confidential family servant, as the last existed among our fathers:

"Tank 'ee, Miss Dus, wid all my heart," he answered. "Pretty well to-day; but old Sus, he fail, and grow ol'er and ol'er desp'ate fast!"

Now, of the two, the Indian was much the finest relic of human powers, though he was less uneasy and more stationary than the black. But the propensity to see the mote in the eye of his friend, while he forgot the beam in his own, was a long-established and well-known weakness of Jaaf, and its present exhibition caused everybody to smile. I was delighted with the beaming, laughing eyes of Mary Warren in particular, though she said nothing.

"I cannot say I agree with you, Jaaf," returned my smiling grandmother. "The Trackless bears his years surprisingly; and I think I have not seem him look better this many a day than he is looking this morning. We are none of us as young as we were when we first became acquainted, Jaaf--which is now near, if not quite, threescore of years ago."

"You nuthin' but gal, nudder," growled the negro. "Ole Sus be raal ole fellow; but Miss Dus and Masser Mordaunt, dey get married only tudder day. Why dat was a'ter the revylooshen!"

"It was, indeed," replied the venerable woman, with a touch of melancholy in her tones; "but the revolution took place many, many a long year since!"

"Well, now, I be surprise, Miss Dus! How you call dat so long, when he only be tudder day?" retorted the pertinacious negro, who began to grow crusty, and to speak in a short, spiteful way, as if displeased by hearing that to which he could not assent. "Masser Corny was little ole, p'r'aps, if he lib, but all de rest ob you nuttin' but children. Tell me one t'ing, Miss Dus, be it true dey's got a town at Satanstoe?"

"An attempt was made, a few years since, to turn the whole country into towns, and, among other places, the Neck; but I believe it will never be anything more than a capital farm."

"So besser. Dat good land, I tell you! One acre down der wort' more than twenty acre up here."

"My grandson would not be pleased to hear you say that, Jaaf."

"Who your grandson, Miss Dus. Remember you had little baby tudder day; but baby can't hab baby."

"Ah, Jaaf, my old friend, my babies have long since been men and women, and are drawing on to old age. One, and he was my first-born, is gone before us to a better world, and his boy is now your young master. This young lady, that is seated opposite to me, is the sister of that young master, and she would be grieved to think you had forgotten her."

Jaaf labored under the difficulty so common to old age, he was forgetful of things of more recent date, while he remembered those which had occurred a century ago! The memory is a tablet that partakes of the peculiarity of all our opinions and habits. In youth it is easily impressed, and the images then engraved on it are distinct, deep, and lasting, while those that succeed become crowded, and take less root, from the circumstance of finding the ground already occupied. In the present instance, the age was so great that the change was really startling, the old negro's recollections occasionally coming on the mind like a voice from the grave. As for the Indian, as I afterward ascertained, he was better preserved in all respects than the black; his great temperance in youth, freedom from labor, exercise in the open air, united to the comforts and abundance of semi-civilized habits, that had now lasted for nearly a century, contributed to preserve both mind and body. As I now looked at him, I remembered what I had heard in my boyhood of his history.

There had ever been a mystery about the life of the Onondago. If any one of our set had ever been acquainted with the facts, it was Andries Coejemans, a half-uncle of my dear grandmother, a person who has been known among us by the sobriquet of the Chainbearer. My grandmother had told me that "uncle Chainbearer," as we all called the old relative, did know about Susquesus, in his time--the reason why he had left his tribe, and become a hunter, and warrior, and runner among the pale-faces--and that he had always said the particulars did his red friend great credit, but that he would reveal it no further. So great, however, was uncle Chainbearer's reputation for integrity, that such an opinion was sufficient to procure for the Onondago the fullest confidence of the whole connection, and the experience of fourscore years and ten had proved that this confidence was well placed. Some imputed the sort of exile in which the old man had so long lived to love, others to war, and others, again, to the consequences of those fierce personal feuds that are known to occur among men in the savage state. But all was just as much a mystery and matter of conjecture, now we were drawing near the middle of the nineteenth century, as it had been when our forefathers were receding from the middle of the eighteenth! To return to the negro.

Although Jaaf had momentarily forgotten me, and quite forgotten my parents, he remembered my sister, who was in the habit of seeing him so often. In what manner he connected her with the family, it is not easy to say; but he knew her not only by sight, but by name, and, as one might say, by blood.

"Yes, yes," cried the old fellow, a little eagerly, "champing" his thick lips together, somewhat as an alligator snaps his jaws, "yes, I knows Miss Patty, of course. Miss Patty is werry han'some, and grows han'somer and han'somer ebbery time I sees her--yah, yah, yah!" The laugh of that old negro sounded startling and unnatural, yet there was something of the joyous in it, after all, like every negro's laugh. "Yah, yah, yah! Yes, Miss Patty won'erful han'some, and werry like Miss Dus. I s'pose, now, Miss Patty was born about 'e time dat Gin'ral Washington die."

As this was a good deal more than doubling my sister's age, it produced a common laugh among the light-hearted girls in the carriage. A gleam of intelligence that almost amounted to a smile also shot athwart the countenance of the Onondago, while the muscles of his face worked, but he said nothing. I had reason to know afterward that the tablet of his memory retained its records better.

"What friends have you with you to-day, Jaaf?" inquired my grandmother, inclining her head toward us pedlers graciously, at the same time; a salutation that my uncle Ro and myself rose hastily to acknowledge.

As for myself, I own honestly that I could have jumped into the vehicle and kissed my dear grandmother's still good-looking, but colorless cheeks, and hugged Patt, and possibly some of the others, to my heart. Uncle Ro had more command of himself, though I could see that the sound of his venerable parent's voice, in which the tremor was barely perceptible, was near overcoming him.

"Dese be pedler, ma'am, I do s'pose," answered the black. "Dey's got box wid somet'in' in him, and dey's got new kind of fiddle. Come, young man, gib Miss Dus a tune--a libely one; sich as make an ole nigger dance."

I drew round the hurdy-gurdy, and was beginning to flourish away, when a gentle sweet voice, raised a little louder than usual by eagerness, interrupted me.

"Oh! not that thing, not that; the flute, the flute!" exclaimed Mary Warren, blushing to the eyes at her own boldness, the instant she saw that she was heard, and that I was about to comply.

It is hardly necessary to say that I bowed respectfully, laid down the hurdy-gurdy, drew the flute from my pocket, and, after a few flourishes, commenced playing one of the newest airs, or melodies, from a favorite opera. I saw the color rush into Martha's cheeks the moment I had got through a bar or two, and the start she gave satisfied me that the dear girl remembered her brother's flute. I had played on that very instrument ever since I was sixteen, but I had made an immense progress in the art during the five years just passed in Europe. Masters at Naples, Paris, Vienna, and London had done a great deal for me; and I trust I shall not be thought vain if I add, that nature had done something too. My excellent grandmother listened in profound attention, and all four of the girls were enchanted.

"That music is worthy of being heard in a room," observed the former, as soon as I concluded the air; "and we shall hope to hear it this evening, at the Nest House, if you remain anywhere near us. In the meantime, we must pursue our airing."

As my grandmother spoke she leaned forward, and extended her hand to me, with a benevolent smile. I advanced, received the dollar that was offered, and, unable to command my feelings, raised the hand to my lips, respectfully but with fervor. Had Martha's face been near me, it would have suffered also. I suppose there was nothing in this respectful salutation that struck the spectators as very much out of the way, foreigners having foreign customs, but I saw a flush in my venerable grandmother's cheek, as the carriage moved off. She had noted the warmth of the manner. My uncle had turned away, I dare say to conceal the tears that started to his eyes, and Jaaf followed toward the door of the hut, whither my uncle moved, in order to do the honors of the place. This left me quite alone with the Indian.

"Why no kiss face of grandmodder?" asked the Onondago, coolly and quietly.

Had a clap of thunder broken over my head, I could not have been more astonished! The disguise that had deceived my nearest relations--that had baffled Seneca Newcome, and had set at naught even his sister Opportunity--had failed to conceal me from that Indian, whose faculties might be supposed to have been numbed with age!

"Is it possible that you know me, Susquesus!" I exclaimed, signing toward the negro at the same time, by way of caution; "that you remember me at all! I should have thought this wig, these clothes, would have concealed me."

"Sartain," answered the aged Indian, calmly. "Know young chief soon as see him; know fader--know mudder; know gran'fader, gran'mudder--great-gran'fader; his fader, too; know all. Why forget young chief?"

"Did you know me before I kissed my grandmother's hand, or only by that act?"

"Know as soon as see him. What eyes good for, if don't know? Know uncle, dere, sartain; welcome home!"

"But you will not let others know us, too, Trackless? We have always been friends, I hope?"

"Be sure, friends. Why ole eagle, wid white head, strike young pigeon? Nebber hatchet in 'e path between Susquesus and any of de tribe of Ravensnest. Too ole to dig him up now."

"There are good reasons why my uncle and myself should not be known for a few days. Perhaps you have heard something of the trouble that has grown up between the landlords and the tenants, in the land?"

"What dat trouble?"

"The tenants are tired of paying rent, and wish to make a new bargain, by which they can become owners of the farms on which they live."

A grim light played upon the swarthy countenance of the Indian: his lips moved, but he uttered nothing aloud.

"Have you heard anything of this, Susquesus?"

"Little bird sing sich song in my ear--didn't like to hear it."

"And of Indians who are moving up and down the country, armed with rifles and dressed in calico?"

"What tribe, dem Injin," asked the Trackless, with a quickness and a fire I did not think it possible for him to retain. "What 'ey do, marchin' 'bout?--on war-path, eh?"

"In one sense they may be said to be so. They belong to the anti-rent tribe; do you know such a nation?"

"Poor Injin dat, b'lieve. Why come so late?--why no come when 'e foot of Susquesus light as feather of bird!--why stay away till pale-faces plentier dan leaf on tree, or snow in air? Hundred year ago, when dat oak little, sich Injin might be good; now, he good for nuttin'."

"But you will keep our secret, Sus?--will not even tell the negro who we are?"

The Trackless simply nodded his head in assent. After this he seemed to me to sink back in a sort of brooding lethargy, as if indisposed to pursue the subject. I left him to go to my uncle, in order to relate what had just passed. Mr. Roger Littlepage was as much astonished as I had been myself, at hearing that one so aged should have detected us through disguises that had deceived our nearest of kin. But the quiet penetration and close observation of the man had long been remarkable. As his good faith was of proof, however, neither felt any serious apprehension of being betrayed, as soon as he had a moment for reflection.

CHAPTER IX.

"He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility;
And the devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is the pride that apes humility."

--Devil's Thoughts.

It was now necessary to determine what course we ought next to pursue. It might appear presuming in men of our pursuits to go to the Nest before the appointed time; and did we proceed on to the village, we should have the distance between the two places to walk over twice, carrying our instruments and jewel-box. After a short consultation, it was decided to visit the nearest dwellings, and to remain as near my own house as was practicable, making an arrangement to sleep somewhere in its immediate vicinity. Could we trust any one with our secret, our fare would probably be all the better; but my uncle thought it most prudent to maintain a strict incognito until he had ascertained the true state of things in the town.

We took leave of the Indian and the negro, therefore, promising to visit them again in the course of that or the succeeding day, and followed the path that led to the farm-house. It was our opinion that we might, at least, expect to meet with friends in the occupants of the home farm. The same family had been retained in possession there for three generations, and being hired to manage the husbandry and to take care of the dairy, there was not the same reason for the disaffection, that was said so generally to exist among the tenantry, prevailing among them. The name of this family was Miller, and it consisted of the two heads and some six or seven children, most of the latter being still quite young.

"Tom Miller was a trusty lad, when I knew much of him," said my uncle, as we drew near to the barn, in which we saw the party mentioned, at work; "and he is said to have behaved well in one or two alarms they have had at the Nest, this summer; still, it may be wiser not to let even him into our secret as yet."

"I am quite of your mind, sir," I answered; "for who knows that he has not just as strong a desire as any of them to own the farm on which he lives? He is the grandson of the man who cleared it from the forest, and has much the same title as the rest of them."

"Very true; and why should not that give him just as good a right to claim an interest in the farm, beyond that he has got under his contract to work it, as if he held a lease? He who holds a lease gets no right beyond his bargain; nor does this man. The one is paid for his labor by the excess of his receipts over the amount of his annual rent, while the other is paid partly in what he raises, and partly in wages. In principle there is no difference whatever, not a particle; yet I question if the veriest demagogue in the State would venture to say that the man, or the family, which works the farm for hire, even for a hundred years, gets the smallest right to say he shall not quit it, if its owner please, as soon as his term of service is up!"

"'The love of money is the root of all evil;' and when that feeling is uppermost, one can never tell what a man will do. The bribe of a good farm, obtained for nothing, or for an insignificant price, is sufficient to upset the morality of even Tom Miller."

"You are right, Hugh; and here is one of the points in which our political men betray the cloven foot. They write, and proclaim, and make speeches, as if the anti-rent troubles grew out of the durable lease system solely, whereas we all know that it is extended to all descriptions of obligations given for the occupancy of land--life leases, leases for a term of years, articles for deeds, and bonds and mortgages. It is a wide-spread, though not yet universal attempt of those who have the least claim to the possession of real estate, to obtain the entire right, and that by agencies that neither the law nor good morals will justify. It is no new expedient for partisans to place en evidence no more of their principles and intentions than suits their purposes. But, here we are within ear-shot, and must resort to the High Dutch. Guten tag, guten tag," continued uncle Ro, dropping easily into the broken English of our masquerade, as we walked into the barn, where Miller, two of his older boys, and a couple of hired men were at work, grinding scythes and preparing for the approaching hay-harvest. "It might be warm day, dis fine mornin'."

"Good-day, good-day," cried Miller, hastily, and glancing his eye a little curiously at our equipments. "What have you got in your box--essences?"

"Nein; vatches and drinkets;" setting down the box and opening it at once, for the inspection of all present. "Von't you burchase a goot vatch, dis bleasant mornin'?"

"Be they ra-al gold?" asked Miller, a little doubtingly. "And all them chains and rings, be they gold too?"

"Not true golt; nein, I might not say dat. But goot enough golt for blain folks, like you and me."

"Them things would never do for the grand quality over at the big house!" cried one of the laborers, who was unknown to me, but whose name I soon ascertained was Joshua Brigham, and who spoke with a sort of malicious sneer that at once betrayed he was no friend. "You mean 'em for poor folks, I s'pose?"

"I means dem for any bodies dat vill pay deir money for 'em," answered my uncle. "Vould you like a vatch?"

"That would I; and a farm, too, if I could get 'em cheap," answered Brigham, with a sneer he did not attempt to conceal. "How do you sell farms to-day?"

"I haf got no farms; I sells drinkets and vatches, but I doesn't sell farms. Vhat I haf got I vill sell, but I cannot sells vhat I haf not got."

"Oh! you'll get all you want if you'll stay long enough in this country! This is a free land, and just the place for a poor man; or it will be, as soon as we get all the lords and aristocrats out of it."

This was the first time I had ever heard this political blarney with my own ears, though I had understood it was often used by those who wish to give to their own particular envy and covetousness a grand and sounding air.

"Vell, I haf heards dat in America dere might not be any noples ant aristocrats," put in my uncle, with an appearance of beautiful simplicity; "and dat dere ist not ein graaf in der whole coontry."

"Oh! there's all sorts of folks here, just as they are to be found elsewhere," cried Miller, seating himself coolly on the end of the grindstone-frame, to open and look into the mysteries of one of the watches. "Now, Joseph Brigham, here, calls all that's above him in the world aristocrats, but lie doesn't call all that's below him his equals."

I liked that speech; and I liked the cool, decided way in which it was uttered. It denoted, in its spirit, a man who saw things as they are, and who was not afraid to say what he thought about them. My uncle Ro was surprised, and that agreeably, too, and he turned to Miller to pursue the discourse.

"Den dere might not be any nopility in America, after all?" he asked, inquiringly.

"Yes, there's plenty of such lords as Josh here, who want to be uppermost so plaguily that they don't stop to touch all the rounds of the ladder. I tell him, friend, he wants to get on too fast, and that he mustn't set up for a gentleman before he knows how to behave himself."

Josh looked a little abashed at a rebuke that came from one of his own class, and which he must have felt, in secret, was merited. But the demon was at work in him, and he had persuaded himself that he was the champion of a quality as sacred as liberty, when, in fact, he was simply and obviously doing neither more nor less than breaking the tenth commandment. He did not like to give up, while he skirmished with Miller, as the dog that has been beaten already two or three times growls over a bone at the approach of his conqueror.

"Well, thank heaven," he cried, "I have got some spirit in my body."

"That's very true, Joshua," answered Miller, laying down one watch and taking up another; "but it happens to be an evil spirit."

"Now, here's them Littlepages; what makes them better than other folks?"

"You had better let the Littlepages alone, Joshua, seein' they're a family that you know nothing at all about."

"I don't want to know them; though I do happen to know all I want to know. I despise 'em."

"No, you don't, Joshy, my boy; nobody despises folks they talk so spitefully about. What's the price of this here watch, friend?"

"Four dollars," said my uncle, eagerly, falling lower than was prudent, in his desire to reward Miller for his good feeling and sound sentiments. "Ja, ja--you might haf das vatch for four dollars."

"I'm afraid it isn't good for anything," returned Miller, feeling the distrust that was natural at hearing a price so low. "Let's have another look at its inside."

No man, probably, ever bought a watch without looking into its works with an air of great intelligence, though none but a mechanician is any wiser for his survey. Tom Miller acted on this principle, for the good looks of the machine he held in his hand, and the four dollars, tempted him sorely. It had its effect, too, on the turbulent and envious Joshua, who seemed to understand himself very well in a bargain. Neither of the men had supposed the watches to be of gold, for though the metal that is in a watch does not amount to a great deal, it is usually of more value than all that was asked for the "article" now under examination. In point of fact, my uncle had this very watch "invoiced to him" at twice the price he now put it at.

"And what do you ask for this?" demanded Joshua, taking up another watch of very similar looks and of equal value to the one that Miller still retained open in his hand. "Won't you let this go for three dollars?"

"No; der brice of dat is effery cent of forty dollars," answered Uncle Ro, stubbornly.

The two men now looked at the pedler in surprise. Miller took the watch from his hired man, examined it attentively, compared it with the other, and then demanded its price anew.

"You might haf eider of dem vatches for four dollars," returned my uncle, as I thought, incautiously.

This occasioned a new surprise, though Brigham fortunately referred the difference to a mistake.

"Oh!" he said, "I understood you to say forty dollars. Four dollars is a different matter."

"Josh," interrupted the more observant and cooler-headed Miller, "it is high time, now, you and Peter go and look a'ter them sheep. The conch will soon be blowing for dinner. If you want a trade, you can have one when you get back."

Notwithstanding the plainness of his appearance and language, Tom Miller was captain of his own company. He gave this order quietly, and in his usual familiar way, but it was obviously to be obeyed without a remonstrance. In a minute the two hired men were off in company, leaving no one behind in the barn but Miller, his sons, and us two. I could see there was a motive for all this, but did not understand it.

"Now he's gone," continued Tom, quietly, but laying an emphasis that sufficiently explained his meaning, "perhaps you'll let me know the true price of this watch. I've a mind for it, and maybe we can agree."

"Four dollars," answered my uncle, distinctly. "I haf said you might haf it for dat money, and vhat I haf said once might always be."

"I will take it, then. I almost wish you had asked eight, though four dollars saved is suthin' for a poor man. It's so plaguy cheap I'm a little afraid on't; but I'll ventur'. There; there's your money, and in hard cash."

"Dank you, sir. Won't das ladies choose to look at my drinkets?"

"Oh! if you want to deal with ladies who buy chains and rings, the Nest house is the place. My woman wouldn't know what to do with sich things, and don't set herself up for a fine lady at all. That chap who has just gone for the sheep is the only great man we have about this farm."

"Ja, ja; he ist a nople in a dirty shirt, ja, ja; why hast he dem pig feelin's?"

"I believe you have named them just as they ought to be, pig's feelin's. It's because he wishes to thrust his own snout all over the trough, and is mad when he finds anybody else's in the way. We're getting to have plenty of such fellows up and down the country, and an uncomfortable time they give us. Boys, I do believe it will turn out a'ter all, that Josh is an Injin!"

"I know he is," answered the oldest of the two sons, a lad of nineteen; "where else should he be so much of nights and Sundays, but at their trainin's?--and what was the meanin' of the calico bundle I saw under his arm a month ago, as I told you on at the time?"

"If I find it out to be as you say, Harry, he shall tramp off of this farm. I'll have no Injins here!"

"Vell, I dought I dit see an olt Injin in a hut up yonder ast by der woots!" put in my uncle, innocently.

"Oh! that is Susquesus, an Onondago; he is a true Injin, and a gentleman; but we have a parcel of the mock gentry about, who are a pest and an eyesore to every honest man in the country. Half on 'em are nothing but thieves in mock Injin dresses. The law is ag'in 'em, right is ag'in 'em, and every true friend of liberty in the country ought to be ag'in 'em."

"Vhat ist der matter in dis coontry? I hear in Europe how America ist a free lant, ant how efery man hast his rights; but since I got here dey do nothin' but talk of barons, and noples, and tenants, and arisdograts, and all der bat dings I might leaf behint me in der Olt Worlt."

"The plain matter is, friend, that they who have got little, envy them that's got much; and the struggle is, to see which is the strongest. On the one side is the law, and right, and bargains, and contracts; and on the other thousands--not of dollars, but of men. Thousands of voters; d'ye understand?"

"Ja, ja--I oonderstands; dat ist easy enough. But vhy do dey dalk so much of noples and arisdograts?--ist der noples and arisdograts in America?"

"Well, I don't much understand the natur' of sich things; there sartainly is a difference in men, and a difference in their fortun's, and edications, and such sort of things."

"Und der law, den, favors der rich man at der cost of der poor, in America, too, does it? Und you haf arisdograts who might not pay taxes, and who holt all der offices, and get all der pooblic money, and who ist petter pefore de law, in all dings, dan ast dem dat be not arisdograts? Is it so?"

Miller laughed outright, and shook his head at this question, continuing to examine the trinkets the whole time.

"No, no, my friend, we've not much of that, in this part of the world, either. Rich men get very few offices, to begin with; for it's an argooment in favor of a man for an office, that he's poor, and wants it. Folks don't so much ask who the office wants, as who wants the office. Then, as for taxes, there isn't much respect paid to the rich on that score. Young 'Squire Littlepage pays the tax on this farm directly himself, and it's assessed half as high ag'in, all things considered, as any other farm on his estate."

"But dat is not right."

"Right! Who says it is?--or who thinks there is anything right about assessments, anywhere? I have heard assessors, with my own ears, use such words as these:--'Sich a man is rich, and can afford to pay,' and 'sich a man is poor, and it will come hard on him.' Oh! they kiver up dishonesty, nowadays, under all sorts of argooments."

"But der law; der rich might haf der law on deir side, surely!"

"In what way, I should like to know? Juries be everything, and juries will go accordin' to their feelin's, as well as other men. I've seen the things with my own eyes. The country pays just enough a day to make poor men like to be on juries, and they never fail to attend, while them that can pay their fines stay away, and so leave the law pretty much in the hands of one party. No rich man gains his cause, unless his case is so strong it can't be helped."

I had heard this before, there being a very general complaint throughout the country of the practical abuses connected with the jury system. I have heard intelligent lawyers complain, that whenever a cause of any interest is to be tried, the first question asked is not "what are the merits?" "which has the law and the facts on his side?" but "who is likely to be on the jury?"--thus obviously placing the composition of the jury before either law or evidence. Systems may have a very fair appearance on paper and as theories, that are execrable in practice. As for juries, I believe the better opinion of the intelligent of all countries is, that while they are a capital contrivance to resist the abuse of power in narrow governments, in governments of a broad constituency they have the effect, which might easily be seen, of placing the control of the law in the hands of those who would be most apt to abuse it; since it is adding to, instead of withstanding and resisting the controlling authority of the State, from which, in a popular government, most of the abuses must unavoidably proceed.

As for my uncle Ro, he was disposed to pursue the subject with Miller, who turned out to be a discreet and conscientious man. After a very short pause, as if to reflect on what had been said, he resumed the discourse.

"Vhat, den, makes arisdograts in dis coontry?" asked my uncle.

"Wa-a-l"--no man but an American of New England descent, as was the case with Miller, can give this word its Attic sound--"Wa-a-l, it's hard to say. I hear a great deal about aristocrats, and I read a great deal about aristocrats, in this country and I know that most folks look upon them as hateful, but I'm by no means sartain I know what an aristocrat is. Do you happen to know anything about it, friend?"

"Ja, ja; an arisdograt ist one of a few men dat hast all de power of de government in deir own hands."

"King! That isn't what we think an aristocrat in this part of the world. Why, we call them critters here DIMIGOGUES! Now, young 'Squire Littlepage, who owns the Nest house, over yonder, and who is owner of all this estate, far and near, is what we call an aristocrat, and he hasn't power enough to be named town-clerk, much less to anything considerable, or what is worth having."

"How can he be an arisdograt, den?"

"How, sure enough, if your account be true! I tell you 'tis the dimigogues that be the aristocrats of America. Why, Josh Brigham, who has just gone for the sheep, can get more votes for any office in the country than young Littlepage!"

"Berhaps dis young Littlebage ist a pat yoong man?"

"Not he; he's as good as any on 'em, and better than most. Besides, if he was as wicked as Lucifer, the folks of the country don't know anything about it, sin' he's be'n away ever sin' he has be'n a man."

"Vhy, den, gan't he haf as many votes as dat poor, ignorant fellow might haf?--das ist ott."

"It is odd, but it's true as gospel. Why, it may not be so easy to tell. Many men, many minds, you know. Some folks don't like him because he lives in a big house; some hate him because they think he is better off than they are themselves; others mistrust him because he wears a fine coat; and some pretend to laugh at him because he got his property from his father, and grand'ther, and so on, and didn't make it himself. Accordin' to some folks' notions, nowadays, a man ought to enj'y only the property he heaps together himself."

"If dis be so, your Herr Littlebage ist no arisdograt."

"Wa-a-l, that isn't the idee, hereaway. We have had a great many meetin's, latterly, about the right of the people to their farms; and there has been a good deal of talk at them meetin's consarnin' aristocracy and feudal tenors; do you know what a feudal tenor is?"

"Ja; dere ist moch of dat in Teutchland--in mine coontry. It ist not ferry easy to explain it in a few vords, but der brincipal ding ist dat der vassal owes a serfice to hist lort. In de olten dimes dis serfice vast military, und dere ist someding of dat now. It ist de noples who owe der feudal serfice, brincipally, in mine coontry, and dey owes it to the kings and brinces."

"And don't you call giving a chicken for rent feudal service, in Germany?"

Uncle Ro and I laughed, in spite of our efforts to the contrary, there being a bathos in this question that was supremely ridiculous. Curbing his merriment, however, as soon as he could, my uncle answered the question.

"If der landlort has a right to coome and dake as many chickens as he bleases, und ast often ast he bleases, den dat wouldt look like a feudal right; but if de lease says dat so many chickens moost be paid a year, for der rent, vhy dat ist all der same as baying so much moneys; und it might be easier for der tenant to bay in chicken ast it might be to bay in der silver. Vhen a man canst bay his debts in vhat he makes himself, he ist ferry interpentent."

"It does seem so, I vow! Yet there's folks about here and some at Albany, that call it feudal for a man to have to carry a pair of fowls to the landlord's office, and the landlord an aristocrat for asking it!"

"But der man canst sent a poy, or a gal, or a nigger wid his fowls, if he bleases?"

"Sartain; all that is asked is that the fowls should come."

"Und vhen der batroon might owe hist tailor, or hist shoemaker, must he not go to hist shop, or find him and bay him vhat he owes, or be suet for der debt?"

"That's true, too; boys, put me in mind of telling that to Josh, this evening. Yes, the greatest landlord in the land must hunt up his creditor, or be sued, all the same as the lowest tenant."

"Und he most bay in a partic'lar ding; he most bay in golt or silver?"

"True; lawful tender is as good for one as 'tis for t'other."

"Und if your Herr Littlebage signs a baper agreein' to gif der apples from dat orchart to somebody on his landts, most he send or carry der apples, too?"

"To be sure; that would be the bargain."

"Und he most carry der ferry apples dat grows on dem ferry drees, might it not be so?"

"All true as gospel. If a man contracts to sell the apples of one orchard, he can't put off the purchaser with the apples of another."

"Und der law ist der same for one ast for anudder, in dese t'ings?"

"There is no difference; and there should be none."

"Und der batroons und der landlordts wants to haf der law changet, so dat dey may be excuset from baying der debts accordin' to der bargains, und to gif dem atfantages over der poor tenants?"

"I never heard anything of the sort, and don't believe they want any such change."

"Of vhat, den, dost der beople complain?"

"Of having to pay rent at all; they think the landlords ought to be made to sell their farms, or give them away. Some stand out for the last."

"But der landlordts don't vant to sell deir farms; und dey might not be made to sell vhat ist deir own, und vhat dey don't vant to sell, any more dan der tenants might be made to sell deir hogs and deir sheep, vhen dey don't vant to sell dem."

"It does seem so, boys, as I've told the neighbors, all along. But I'll tell this Dutchman all about it, Some folks want the State to look a'ter the title of young Littlepage, pretending he has no title."

"But der State wilt do dat widout asking for it particularly, vill it not?"

"I never heard that it would."

"If anybody hast a claim to der broperty, vilt not der courts try it?"

"Yes, yes--in that way; but a tenant can't set up a title ag'n his landlord."

"Vhy should he? He canst haf no title but his landlort's, and it vould be roguery and cheatery to let a man get into der bossession of a farm under der pretence of hiring it, und den come out und claim it as owner. If any tenant dinks he hast a better right dan his landlort, he can put der farm vhere it vast before he might be a tenant, und den der State wilt examine into der title, I fancy."

"Yes, yes--in that way; but these men want it another way. What they want is, for the State to set up a legal examination, and turn the landlords off altogether, if they can, and then let themselves have the farms in their stead."

"But dat would not be honest to dem dat hafen't nothing to do wid der farms. If der State owns der farms, it ought to get as moch as it can for dem, and so safe all der people from baying taxes. It looks like roguery, all roundt."

"I believe it is that, and nothing else! As you say, the State will examine into the title as it is, and there is no need of any laws about it."

"Would der State, dink you, pass a law dat might inquire into de demands dat are made against der batroons, vhen der tratesman sent in deir bills?"

"I should like to see any patroon ask sich a thing! He would be laughed at from York to Buffalo."

"Und he would desarf if. By vhat I see, frient, your denants be der arisdograts, und der landlordts der vassals."

"Why, you see--what may your name be?--as we're likely to become acquainted, I should like to know your name."

"My name is Greisenbach, und I comes from Preussen."

"Well, Mr. Greisenbach, the difficulty about aristocracy is this: Hugh Littlepage is rich, and his money gives him advantages that other men can't enj'y. Now, that sticks in some folks' crops."

"Oh! den it ist meant to divite broperty in dis coontry; und to say no man might haf more ast anudder!"

"Folks don't go quite as far as that, yet; though some of their talk does squint that-a-way, I must own. Now, there are folks about here that complain that old Madam Littlepage and her young ladies don't visit the poor."

"Vell, if deys be hard-hearted, und hast no feelin's for der poor and miseraple----"

"No, no; that is not what I mean, neither. As for that sort of poor, everybody allows they do more for them than anybody else about here. But they don't visit the poor that isn't in want."

"Vell, it ist a ferry coomfortable sort of poor dat ist not in any vant. Berhaps you mean dey don't associate wid 'em, as equals?"

"That's it. Now, on that head, I must say there is some truth in the charge, for the gals over at the Nest never come here to visit my gal, and Kitty is as nice a young thing as there is about."

"Und Gitty goes to visit the gal of the man who lives over yonter, in de house on der hill?" pointing to a residence of a man of the very humblest class in the town.

"Hardly! Kitty's by no means proud, but I shouldn't like her to be too thick there."

"Oh! you're an arisdograt, den, after all; else might your daughter visit dat man's daughter."

"I tell you, Grunzebach, or whatever your name may be," returned Miller, a little angrily, though a particularly good-natured man in the main, "that my gal shall not visit old Steven's da'ghters."

"Vell, I'm sure she might do as she bleases; but I dinks der Mademoiselles Littlepage might do ast dey pleases, too."

"There is but one Littlepage gal; if you saw them out this morning in the carriage, you saw two York gals and parson Warren's da'ghter with her."

"Und dis parson Warren might be rich, too?"

"Not he; he hasn't a sixpence on 'arth but what he gets from the parish. Why, he is so poor his friends had to edicate his da'ghter, I have heern say, over and over!"

"Und das Littlepage gal und de Warren gal might be goot friends?"

"They are the thickest together of any two young women in this part of the world. I've never seen two gals more intimate. Now, there's a young lady in the town, one Opportunity Newcome, who, one might think, would stand before Mary Warren at the big house, any day in the week, but she doesn't! Mary takes all the shine out on her."

"Which ist der richest, Obbordunity or Mary?"

"By all accounts Mary Warren has nothing, while Opportunity is thought to come next to Matty herself, as to property, of all the young gals about here. But Opportunity is no favorite at the Nest."

"Den it would seem, after all, dat dis Miss Littlebage does not choose her friends on account of riches. She likes Mary Warren, who ist boor, und she does not like Obbordunity, who ist vell to do in de vorlt. Berhaps der Littlepages be not as big arisdograts as you supposes."

Miller was bothered, while I felt a disposition to laugh. One of the commonest errors of those who, from position and habits, are unable to appreciate the links which connect cultivated society together, is to refer everything to riches. Riches, in a certain sense, as a means and through their consequences, may be a principal agent in dividing society into classes; but, long after riches have taken wings, their fruits remain, when good use has been made of their presence. So untrue is the vulgar opinion--or it might be better to say the opinion of the vulgar--that money is the one tie which unites polished society, that it is a fact which all must know who have access to the better circles, of even our own commercial towns, that those circles, loosely and accidentally constructed as they are receive with reluctance, nay, often sternly exclude, vulgar wealth from their associations, while the door is open to the cultivated who have nothing. The young, in particular, seldom think much of money, while family connections, early communications, similarity of opinions, and, most of all, of tastes, bring sets together, and often keep them together long after the golden band has been broken.

But men have great difficulty in comprehending things that lie beyond their reach; and money being apparent to the senses, while refinement, through its infinite gradations, is visible principally, and in some cases exclusively, to its possessors, it is not surprising that common minds should refer a tie that, to them, would otherwise be mysterious, to the more glittering influence, and not to the less obvious. Infinite, indeed, are the gradations of cultivated habits; nor are as many of them the fruits of caprice and self-indulgence as men usually suppose. There is a common sense, nay, a certain degree of wisdom, in the laws of even etiquette, while they are confined to equals, that bespeak the respect of those who understand them. As for the influence of associations on men's manners, on their exteriors, and even on their opinions, my uncle Ro has long maintained that it is so apparent, that one of his time of life could detect the man of the world, at such a place as Saratoga even, by an intercourse of five minutes; and what is more, that he could tell the class in life from which he originally emerged. He tried it, the last summer, on our return from Ravensnest, and I was amused with his success, though he made a few mistakes, it must be admitted.

"That young man comes from the better circles, but he has never travelled," he said, alluding to one of a group which still remained at table; "while he who is next him has travelled, but commenced badly." This may seem a very nice distinction, but I think it is easily made. "There are two brothers, of an excellent family in Pennsylvania," he continued, "as one might know from the name; the eldest has travelled, the youngest has not." This was a still harder distinction to make, but one who knew the world as well as my uncle Ro could do it. He went on amusing me by his decisions--all of which were respectable, and some surprisingly accurate--in this way for several minutes. Now, like has an affinity to like, and in this natural attraction is to be found the secret of the ordinary construction of society. You shall put two men of superior minds in a room full of company, and they will find each other out directly, and enjoy the accident. The same is true as to the mere modes of thinking that characterize social castes; and it is truer in this country, perhaps, than most others, from the mixed character of our associations. Of the two, I am really of opinion that the man of high intellect, who meets with one of moderate capacity, but of manners and social opinions on a level with his own, has more pleasure in the communication than with one of equal mind, but of inferior habits.

That Patt should cling to one like Mary Warren seemed to me quite as natural as that she should be averse to much association with Opportunity Newcome. The money of the latter, had my sister been in the least liable to such an influence, was so much below what she had been accustomed, all her life, to consider affluence, that it would have had no effect, even had she been subject to so low a consideration in regulating her intercourse with others. But this poor Tom Miller could not understand. He could "only reason from what he knew," and he knew little of the comparative notions of wealth, and less of the powers of cultivation on the mind and manners. He was struck, however, with a fact that did come completely within the circle of his own knowledge, and that was the circumstance that Mary Warren, while admitted to be poor, was the bosom friend of her whom he was pleased to call, sometimes, the "Littlepage gal." It was easy to see he felt the force of this circumstance; and it is to be hoped that, as he was certainly a wiser, he also became a better man, on one of the most common of the weaknesses of human frailty.

"Wa-a-l," he replied to my uncle's last remark, after fully a minute of silent reflection, "I don't know! It would seem so, I vow; and yet it hasn't been my wife's notion, nor is it Kitty's. You're quite upsetting my idees about aristocrats; for though I like the Littlepages, I've always set 'em down as desp'rate aristocrats."

"Nein, nein; dem as vat you calls dimigogues be der American arisdograts. Dey gets all der money of der pooblic, und haf all der power, but dey gets a little mads because dey might not force demselves on der gentlemen and laties of der coontry, as well as on der lands und der offices!"

"I swan! I don't know but this may be true! A'ter all, I don't know what right anybody has to complain of the Littlepages."

"Does dey dreat beoples vell, as might coome to see dem?"

"Yes, indeed! if folks treat them well, as sometimes doesn't happen. I've seen hogs here"--Tom was a little Saxon in his figures, but their nature will prove their justification--"I've seen hogs about here, bolt right in before old Madam Littlepage, and draw their chairs up to her fire, and squirt about the tobacco, and never think of even taking off their hats. Them folks be always huffy about their own importance, though they never think of other people's feelin's."

We were interrupted by the sound of wheels, and looking round, we perceived that the carriage of my grandmother had driven up to the farm-house door, on its return home. Miller conceived it to be no more than proper to go and see if he were wanted, and we followed him slowly, it being the intention of my uncle to offer his mother a watch, by way of ascertaining if she could penetrate his disguise.

CHAPTER X.

"Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape?--

Come to the peddler,
Money's a meddler
That doth utter all men's ware-a."

--Winter's Tale.

There they sat, those four young creatures, a perfect galaxy of bright and beaming eyes. There was not a plain face among them; and I was struck with the circumstance of how rare it was to meet with a youthful and positively ugly American female. Kitty, too, was at the door by the time we reached the carriage, and she also was a blooming and attractive-looking girl. It was a thousand pities that she spoke, however; the vulgarity of her utterance, tone of voice, cadences, and accents, the latter a sort of singing whine, being in striking contrast to a sort of healthful and vigorous delicacy that marked her appearance. All the bright eyes grew brighter as I drew nearer, carrying the flute in my hand; but neither of the young ladies spoke.

"Buy a vatch, ma'ams," said uncle Ro, approaching his mother, cap in hand, with his box open.

"I thank you, friend; but I believe all here are provided with watches already."

"Mine ist ferry sheaps."

"I dare say they may be," returned dear grandmother, smiling; "though cheap watches are not usually the best. Is that very pretty pencil gold?"

"Yes, ma'ams; it ist of goot gold. If it might not be I might not say so."

I saw suppressed smiles among the girls; all of whom, however, were too well-bred to betray to common observers the sense of the ridiculous that each felt at the equivoque that suggested itself in my uncle's words.

"What is the price of this pencil?" asked my grandmother.

Uncle Roger had too much tact to think of inducing his mother to take a purchase as he had influenced Miller, and he mentioned something near the true value of the "article," which was fifteen dollars.

"I will take it," returned my grandmother, dropping three half-eagles into the box; when, turning to Mary Warren, she begged her acceptance of the pencil, with as much respect in her manner as if she solicited instead of conferred a favor.

Mary Warren's handsome face was covered with blushes; she looked pleased, and she accepted the offering, though I thought she hesitated one moment about the propriety of so doing, most probably on account of its value. My sister asked to look at this little present, and after admiring it, it passed from hand to hand, each praising its shape and ornaments. All my uncle's wares, indeed, were in perfect good taste, the purchase having been made of an importer of character, and paid for at some cost. The watches, it is true, were, with one or two exceptions, cheap, as were most of the trinkets; but my uncle had about his person a watch or two, and some fine jewelry, that he had brought from Europe himself, expressly to bestow in presents, among which had been the pencil in question, and which he had dropped into the box but a moment before it was sold.

"Wa-a-l, Madam Littlepage," cried Miller, who used the familiarity of one born on the estate, "this is the queerest watch-pedler I've met with yet. He asks fifteen dollars for that pencil, and only four for this watch!" showing his own purchase as he concluded.

My grandmother took the watch in her hand, and examined it attentively.

"It strikes me as singularly cheap!" she remarked, glancing a little distrustfully, as I fancied, at her son, as if she thought he might be selling his brushes cheaper than those who only stole the materials, because he stole them ready made. "I know that these watches are made for very little in the cheap countries of Europe, but one can hardly see how this machinery was put together for so small a sum."

"I has 'em, matam, at all brices," put in my uncle.

"I have a strong desire to purchase a good lady's watch, but should a little fear buying of any but a known and regular dealer."

"You needn't fear us, ma'am," I ventured to say. "If we might sheat anypodies, we shouldn't sheat so goot a laty."

I do not know whether my voice struck Patt's ear pleasantly, or a wish to see the project of her grandmother carried out at once induced my sister to interfere; but interfere she did, and that by urging her aged parent to put confidence in us. Years had taught my grandmother caution, and she hesitated.

"But all these watches are of base metal, and I want one of good gold and handsome finish," observed my grandmother.

My uncle immediately produced a watch that he had bought of Blondel, in Paris, for five hundred francs, and which was a beautiful little ornament for a lady's belt. He gave it to my grandmother, who read the name of the manufacturer with some little surprise. The watch itself was then examined attentively, and was applauded by all.

"And what may be the price of this?" demanded my grandmother.

"One hoondred dollars, matam: and sheaps at dat."

Tom Miller looked at the bit of tinsel in his own hand, and at the smaller, but exquisitely-shaped "article" that my grandmother held up to look at, suspended by its bit of ribbon, and was quite as much puzzled as he had evidently been a little while before, in his distinctions between the rich and the poor. Tom was not able to distinguish the base from the true; that was all.

My grandmother did not appear at all alarmed at the price, though she cast another distrustful glance or two over her spectacles at the imaginary pedler. At length the beauty of the watch overcame her.

"If you will bring this watch to yonder large dwelling, I will pay you the hundred dollars for it," she said; "I have not as much money with me here."

"Ja, ja--ferry goot; you might keep das vatch, laty, und I will coome for der money after I haf got some dinners of somebodys."

My grandmother had no scruple about accepting of the credit, of course, and she was about to put the watch in her pocket, when Patt laid her little gloved hand on it, and cried--

"Now, dearest grandmother, let it be done at once--there is no one but us three present, you know!"

"Such is the impatience of a child!" exclaimed the elder lady, laughing. "Well, you shall be indulged. I gave you that pencil for a keepsake, Mary, only en attendant, it having been my intention to offer a watch, as soon as a suitable one could be found, as a memorial of the sense I entertain of the spirit you showed during that dark week in which the anti-renters were so menacing. Here, then, is such a watch as I might presume to ask you to have the goodness to accept."

Mary Warren seemed astounded! The color mounted to her temples; then she became suddenly pale. I had never seen so pretty a picture of gentle female distress--a distress that arose from conflicting, but creditable feelings.

"Oh! Mrs. Littlepage!" she exclaimed, after looking in astonishment at the offering for a moment, and in silence. "You cannot have intended that beautiful watch for me!"

"For you, my dear; the beautiful watch is not a whit too good for my beautiful Mary."

"But, dear, dear Mrs. Littlepage, it is altogether too handsome for my station--for my means."

"A lady can very well wear such a watch; and you are a lady in every sense of the word, and so you need have no scruples on that account. As for the means, you will not misunderstand me if I remind you that it will be bought with my means, and there can be no extravagance in the purchase."

"But we are so poor, and that watch has so rich an appearance! It scarcely seems right."

"I respect your feelings and sentiments, my dear girl, and can appreciate them. I suppose you know I was once as poor, nay, much poorer than you are yourself."

"You, Mrs. Littlepage! No, that can hardly be. You are of an affluent and very respectable family, I know."

"It is quite true, nevertheless, my dear. I shall not affect extreme humility, and deny that the Malbones did and do belong to the gentry of the land, but my brother and myself were once so much reduced as to toil with the surveyors, in the woods, quite near this property. We had then no claim superior to yours, and in many respects were reduced much lower. Besides, the daughter of an educated and well-connected clergyman has claims that, in a worldly point of view alone, entitle her to a certain consideration. You will do me the favor to accept my offering?"

"Dear Mrs. Littlepage! I do not know how to refuse you, or how to accept so rich a gift! You will let me consult my father, first?"

"That will be no more than proper, my dear," returned my beloved grandmother, quietly putting the watch into her own pocket; "Mr. Warren, luckily, dines with us, and the matter can be settled before we sit down to table."

This ended the discussion, which had commenced under an impulse of feeling that left us all its auditors. As for my uncle and myself, it is scarcely necessary to say we were delighted with the little scene. The benevolent wish to gratify, on the one side, with the natural scruples on the other, about receiving, made a perfect picture for our contemplation. The three girls, who were witnesses of what passed, too much respected Mary's feelings to interfere, though Patt restrained herself with difficulty. As to Tom Miller and Kitty, they doubtless wondered why "Warren's gal" was such a fool as to hesitate about accepting a watch that was worth a hundred dollars. This was another point they did not understand.

"You spoke of dinner," continued my grandmother, looking at my uncle. "If you and your companion will follow us to the house, I will pay you for the watch, and order you a dinner in the bargain."

We were right down glad to accept this offer, making our bows and expressing our thanks, as the carriage whirled off. We remained a moment, to take our leave of Miller.

"When you've got through at the Nest," said that semi-worthy fellow, "give us another call here. I should like my woman and Kitty to have a look at your finery, before you go down to the village with it."

With a promise to return to the farm-house, we proceeded on our way to the building which, in the familiar parlance of the country, was called the Nest, or the Nest house, from Ravensnest, its true name, and which Tom Miller, in his country dialect, called the "Neest." The distance between the two buildings was less than half a mile, the grounds of the family residence lying partly between them. Many persons would have called the extensive lawns which surrounded my paternal abode a park, but it never bore that name with us. They were too large for a paddock, and might very well have come under the former appellation; but, as deer, or animals of any sort, except those that are domestic, had never been kept within it, the name had not been used. We called them the grounds--a term which applies equally to large and small enclosures of this nature--while the broad expanse of verdure which lies directly under the windows goes by the name of the lawn. Notwithstanding the cheapness of land among us, there has been very little progress made in the art of landscape gardening; and if we have anything like park scenery, it is far more owing to the gifts of a bountiful nature than to any of the suggestions of art. Thanks to the cultivated taste of Downing, as well as to his well-directed labors, this reproach is likely to be soon removed, and country life will acquire this pleasure, among the many others that are so peculiarly its own. After lying for more than twenty years--a stigma on the national taste--disfigured by ravines or gullies, and otherwise in a rude and discreditable condition, the grounds of the White House have been brought into a condition to denote that they are the property of a civilized country. The Americans are as apt at imitation as the Chinese, with a far greater disposition to admit of change; and little beyond good models is required to set them on the right track. But it is certain that, as a nation, we have yet to acquire nearly all that belongs to the art I have mentioned that lies beyond avenues of trees, with an occasional tuft of shrubbery. The abundance of the latter, that forms the wilderness of sweets, the masses of flowers that spot the surface of Europe, the beauty of curved lines, and the whole finesse of surprises, reliefs, backgrounds and vistas, are things so little known among us as to be almost "arisdogratic," as my uncle Ro would call the word.

Little else had been done at Ravensnest than to profit by the native growth of the trees, and to take advantage of the favorable circumstances in the formation of the grounds. Most travellers imagine that it might be an easy thing to lay out a park in the virgin forest, as the axe might spare the thickets, and copses, and woods, that elsewhere are the fruits of time and planting. This is all a mistake, however, as the rule; though modified exceptions may and do exist. The tree of the American forest shoots upward toward the light, growing so tall and slender as to be unsightly; and even when time has given its trunk a due size, the top is rarely of a breadth to ornament a park or a lawn, while its roots, seeking their nourishment in the rich alluvium formed by the decayed leaves of a thousand years, lie too near the surface to afford sufficient support after losing the shelter of its neighbors. It is owing to reasons like these that the ornamental grounds of an American country-house have usually to be commenced ab origine, and that natural causes so little aid in furnishing them.

My predecessors had done a little toward assisting nature, at the Nest, and what was of almost equal importance, in the state of knowledge on this subject as it existed in the country sixty years since, they had done little to mar her efforts. The results were, that the grounds of Ravensnest possess a breadth that is the fruit of the breadth of our lands, and a rural beauty which, without being much aided by art, was still attractive. The herbage was kept short by sheep, of which one thousand, of the fine wool, were feeding on the lawns, along the slopes, and particularly on the distant heights, as we crossed the grounds on our way to the doors.

The Nest house was a respectable New York country dwelling, as such buildings were constructed among us in the last quarter of the past century, a little improved and enlarged by the second and third generations of its owners. The material was of stone, the low cliff on which it stood supplying enough of an excellent quality; and the shape of the main corps de batiment as near a square as might be. Each face of this part of the constructions offered five windows to view, this being almost the prescribed number for a country residence in that day, as three have since got to be in towns. These windows, however, had some size, the main building being just sixty feet square, which was about ten feet in each direction larger than was common so soon after the revolution. But wings had been added to the original building, and that on a plan which conformed to the shape of a structure in square logs, that had been its predecessor on its immediate site. These wings were only of a story and a half each, and doubling on each side of the main edifice just far enough to form a sufficient communication, they ran back to the very verge of a cliff some forty feet in height, overlooking, at their respective ends, a meandering rivulet, and a wide expanse of very productive flats, that annually filled my barns with hay and my cribs with corn. Of this level and fertile bottomland there was near a thousand acres, stretching in three directions, of which two hundred belonged to what was called the Nest farm. The remainder was divided among the farms of the adjacent tenantry. This little circumstance, among the thousand-and-one other atrocities that were charged upon me, had been made a ground of accusation, to which I shall presently have occasion to advert. I shall do this the more readily, because the fact has not yet reached the ears and set in motion the tongues of legislators--heaven bless us, how words do get corrupted by too much use!--in their enumeration of the griefs of the tenants of the State.

Everything about the Nest was kept in perfect order, and in a condition to do credit to the energy and taste of my grandmother, who had ordered all these things for the last few years, or since the death of my grandfather. This circumstance, connected with the fact that the building was larger and more costly than those of most of the other citizens of the country, had, of late years, caused Ravensnest to be termed an "aristocratic residence." This word "aristocratic," I find since my return home, has got to be a term of expansive signification, its meaning depending on the particular habits and opinions of the person who happens to use it. Thus, he who chews tobacco thinks it aristocratic in him who deems the practice nasty not to do the same; the man who stoops accuses him who is straight in the back of having aristocratic shoulders; and I have actually met with one individual who maintained that it was excessively aristocratic to pretend not to blow one's nose with his fingers. It will soon be aristocratic to maintain the truth of the familiar Latin axiom of "de gustibus non disputandum est."

As we approached the door of the Nest house, which opened on the piazza that stretched along three sides of the main building, and the outer ends of both wings, the coachman was walking his horses away from it, on the road that led to the stables. The party of ladies had made a considerable circuit after quitting the farm, and had arrived but a minute before us. All the girls but Mary Warren had entered the house, careless on the subject of the approach of two pedlers; she remained, however, at the side of my grandmother, to receive us.

"I believe in my soul," whispered uncle Ro, "that my dear old mother has a secret presentiment who we are, by her manifesting so much respect. T'ousand t'anks, matam, t'ousand t'anks," he continued, dropping into his half-accurate, half-blundering broken English, "for dis great honor, such as we might not expect das laty of das house to wait for us at her door."

"This young lady tells me that she has seen you before, and that she understands you are both persons of education and good manners, who have been driven from your native country by political troubles. Such being the case, I cannot regard you as common pedlers. I have known what it was to be reduced in fortune"--my dear grandmother's voice trembled a little--"and can feel for those who thus suffer."

"Matam, dere might be moch trut' in some of dis," answered my uncle, taking off his cap, and bowing very much like a gentleman, an act in which I imitated him immediately. "We haf seen petter tays; und my son, dere, hast peen edicated at an university. But we are now poor pedlers of vatches, und dem dat might make moosic in der streets."

My grandmother looked as a lady would look under such circumstances, neither too free to forget present appearances, nor coldly neglectful of the past. She knew that something was due to her own household, and to the example she ought to set it, while she felt that far more was due to the sentiment that unites the cultivated. We were asked into the house, were told a table was preparing for us, and were treated with a generous and considerate hospitality that involved no descent from her own character, or that of the sex; the last being committed to the keeping of every lady.

In the meantime, business proceeded with my uncle. He was paid his hundred dollars; and all his stores of value, including rings, brooches, earrings, chains, bracelets, and other trinkets that he had intended as presents to his wards, were produced from his pockets, and laid before the bright eyes of the three girls--Mary Warren keeping in the background, as one who ought not to look on things unsuited to her fortune. Her father had arrived, however, had been consulted, and the pretty watch was already attached to the girdle of the prettier waist. I fancied the tear of gratitude that still floated in her serene eyes was a jewel of a far higher price than any my uncle could exhibit.

We had been shown into the library, a room that was in the front of the house, and of which the windows all opened on the piazza. I was at first a little overcome at thus finding myself, and unrecognized, under the paternal roof, and in a dwelling that was my own, after so many years of absence. Shall I confess it! Everything appeared diminutive and mean, after the buildings to which I had been accustomed in the old world. I am not now drawing comparisons with the palaces of princes and the abodes of the great, as the American is apt to fancy, whenever anything is named that is superior to the things to which he is accustomed; but to the style, dwellings, and appliances of domestic life that pertain to those of other countries who have not a claim in anything to be accounted my superiors--scarcely my equals. In a word, American aristocracy, or that which it is getting to be the fashion to stigmatize as aristocratic, would be deemed very democratic in most of the nations of Europe. Our Swiss brethren have their chateaux and their habits, that are a hundred times more aristocratic than anything about Ravensnest, without giving offence to liberty; and I feel persuaded, were the proudest establishment in all America pointed out to a European as an aristocratic abode, he would be very apt to laugh at it, in his sleeve. The secret of this charge among ourselves is the innate dislike which is growing up in the country to see any man distinguished from the mass around him in anything, even though it should be in merit. It is nothing but the expansion of the principle which gave rise to the traditionary feud between the "plebeians and patricians" of Albany at the commencement of this century, and which has now descended so much farther than was then contemplated by the soi-disant "plebeians" of that day, as to become quite disagreeable to their own descendants. But to return to myself--

I will own that, so far from finding any grounds of exultation in my own aristocratical splendor, when I came to view my possessions at home, I felt mortified and disappointed. The things that I had fancied really respectable, and even fine, from recollection, now appeared very commonplace, and in many particulars mean. "Really," I found myself saying, sotto voce, "all this is scarcely worthy of being the cause of deserting the right, setting sound principles at defiance, and of forgetting God and his commandments!" Perhaps I was too inexperienced to comprehend how capacious is the maw of the covetous man, and how microscopic the eye of envy.

"You are welcome to Ravensnest," said Mr. Warren, approaching and offering his hand in a friendly way, much as he would address any other young friend; "we arrived a little before you, and I have had my ears and eyes open ever since, in the hope of hearing your flute, and of seeing your form in the highway, near the parsonage, where you promised to visit me."

Mary was standing at her father's elbow, as when I first saw her, and she gazed wistfully at my flute, as she would not have done had she seen me in my proper attire, assuming my proper character.

"I danks you, sir," was my answer. "We might haf plenty of times for a little moosic, vhen das laties shall be pleaset to say so. I canst blay 'Yankee Doodle,' 'Hail Coloombias,' and der 'Star Spangled Banner,' und all dem airs, as dey so moch likes at der taverns and on der road."

Mr. Warren laughed, and he took the flute from my hand, and began to examine it. I now trembled for the incognito! The instrument had been mine for many years, and was a very capital one, with silver keys, stops, and ornaments. What if Patt--what if my dear grandmother should recognize it! I would have given the handsomest trinket in my uncle's collection to get the flute back again into my own hands; but, before an opportunity offered for that, it went from hand to hand, as the instrument that had produced the charming sounds heard that morning, until it reached those of Martha. The dear girl was thinking of the jewelry, which, it will be remembered, was rich, and intended in part for herself, and she passed the instrument on, saying, hurriedly:

"See, dear grandmother, this is the flute which you pronounced the sweetest-toned of any you had ever heard!"

My grandmother took the flute, started, put her spectacles closer to her eyes, examined the instrument, and turned pale--for her cheeks still retained a little of the color of their youth--and then cast a glance hurriedly and anxiously at me. I could see that she was pondering on something profoundly in her most secret mind, for a minute or two. Luckily the others were too much occupied with the box of the pedler to heed her movements. She walked slowly out of the door, almost brushing me as she passed, and went into the hall. Here she turned, and, catching my eye, she signed for me to join her. Obeying this signal, I followed, until I was led into a little room, in one of the wings, that I well remembered as a sort of private parlor attached to my grandmother's own bedroom. To call it a boudoir would be to caricature things, its furniture being just that of the sort of room I have mentioned, or of a plain, neat, comfortable, country parlor. Here my grandmother took her seat on a sofa, for she trembled so she could not stand, and then she turned to gaze at me wistfully, and with an anxiety it would be difficult for me to describe.

"Do not keep me in suspense!" she said, almost awfully in tone and manner, "am I right in my conjecture?"

"Dearest grandmother, you are!" I answered in my natural voice.

No more was needed: we hung on each other's necks, as had been my wont in boyhood.

"But who is that pedler, Hugh?" demanded my grandmother, after a time. "Can it possibly be Roger, my son?"

"It is no other; we have come to visit you, incog."

"And why this disguise?--Is it connected with the troubles?"

"Certainly; we have wished to take a near view with our own eyes, and supposed it might be unwise to come openly, in our proper characters."

"In this you have done well; yet I hardly know how to welcome you, in your present characters. On no account must your real names be revealed. The demons of tar and feathers, the sons of liberty and equality, who illustrate their principles as they do their courage, by attacking the few with the many, would be stirring, fancying themselves heroes and martyrs in the cause of justice, did they learn you were here. Ten armed and resolute men might drive a hundred of them, I do believe; for they have all the cowardice of thieves, but they are heroes with the unarmed and feeble. Are you safe yourselves, appearing thus disguised, under the new law?"

"We are not armed, not having so much as a pistol; and that will protect us."

"I am sorry to say, Hugh, that this country is no longer what I once knew it. Its justice, if not wholly departed, is taking to itself wings, and its blindness, not in a disregard of persons, but in a faculty of seeing only the stronger side. A landlord, in my opinion, would have but little hope, with jury, judge, or executive, for doing that which thousands of the tenants have done, still do, and will continue to do, with perfect impunity, unless some dire catastrophe stimulate the public functionaries to their duties, by awakening public indignation."

"This is a miserable state of things, dearest grandmother; and what makes it worse is the cool indifference with which most persons regard it. A better illustration of the utter selfishness of human nature cannot be given, than in the manner in which the body of the people look on, and see wrong thus done to a few of their number."

"Such persons as Mr. Seneca Newcome would answer, that the public sympathizes with the poor, who are oppressed by the rich, because the last do not wish to let the first rob them of their estates! We hear a great deal of the strong robbing the weak, all over the world, but few among ourselves, I am afraid, are sufficiently clear-sighted to see how vivid an instance of the truth now exists among ourselves."

"Calling the tenants the strong, and the landlords the weak?"

"Certainly; numbers make strength in this country, in which all power in practice, and most of it in theory, rests with the majority. Were there as many landlords as there are tenants, my life on it, no one would see the least injustice in the present state of things."

"So says my uncle; but I hear the light steps of the girls--we must be on our guard."

At that instant Martha entered, followed by all three of the girls, holding in her hand a very beautiful Manilla chain that my uncle had picked up in his travels, and had purchased as a present to my future wife, whomsoever she might turn out to be, and which he had had the indiscretion to show to his ward. A look of surprise was cast by each girl in succession, as she entered the room, on me, but neither said, and I fancy neither thought much of my being shut up there with an old lady of eighty, after the first moment. Other thoughts were uppermost at the moment.

"Look at this, dearest grandmamma!" cried Patt, holding up the chain as she entered the room. "Here is just the most exquisite chain that was ever wrought, and of the purest gold; but the pedler refuses to part with it!"

"Perhaps you do not offer enough, my child; it is, indeed, very, very beautiful; pray what does he say is its value?"

"One hundred dollars, he says; and I can readily believe it, for its weight is near half the money. I do wish Hugh were at home; I am certain he would contrive to get it, and make it a present to me!"

"Nein, nein, young lady," put in the pedler, who, a little unceremoniously, had followed the girls into the room, though he knew, of course, precisely where he was coming; "dat might not be. Dat chain is der broperty of my son, t'ere, und I haf sworn it shalt only be gifen to his wife."

Patt colored a little, and she pouted a good deal; then she laughed outright.

"If it is only to be had on those conditions, I am afraid I shall never own it," she said, saucily, though it was intended to be uttered so low as not to reach my ears. "I will pay the hundred dollars out of my own pocket-money, however, if that will buy it. Do say a good word for me, grandmamma?"

How prettily the hussy uttered that word of endearment, so different from the "paw" and "maw" one hears among the dirty-noses that are to be found in the mud-puddles! But our grandparent was puzzled, for she knew with whom she had to deal, and of course saw that money would do nothing. Nevertheless, the state of the game rendered it necessary to say and do something that might have an appearance of complying with Patty's request.

"Can I have more success in persuading you to change your mind, sir?" she said, looking at her son in a way that let him know at once, or at least made him suspect at once, that she was in his secret. "It would give me great pleasure to be able to gratify my granddaughter, by making her a present of so beautiful a chain."

My uncle Ro advanced to his mother, took the hand she had extended with the chain in it, in order the better to admire the trinket, and he kissed it with a profound respect, but in such a manner as to make it seem to the lookers-on an act of European usage, rather than what it was, the tempered salute of a child to his parent.

"Laty," he then said, with emphasis, "if anyboty might make me change a resolution long since made, it would be one as fenerable, und gracious, und goot as I am sartain you most be. But I haf vowet to gif dat chain to das wife of mine son, vhen he might marry, one day, some bretty young American; und it might not be."

Dear grandmother smiled; but now she understood that it was really intended the chain was to be an offering to my wife, she no longer wished to change its destination. She examined the bauble a few moments, and said to me:

"Do you wish this, as well as your un--father, I should say? It is a rich present for a poor man to make."

"Ja, ja, laty, it ist so; but vhen der heart goes, golt might be t'ought sheap to go wid it."

The old lady was half ready to laugh in my face, at hearing this attempt at Germanic English; but the kindness, and delight, and benevolent tenderness of her still fine eyes made me wish to throw myself in her arms again, and kiss her. Patt continued to bouder for a moment or two longer, but her excellent nature soon gave in, and the smiles returned to her countenance as the sun issues from behind a cloud in May.

"Well, the disappointment may and must be borne," she said, good-naturedly; "though it is much the most lovely chain I have ever seen."

"I dare say the right person will one day find one quite as lovely to present to you!" said Henrietta Coldbrooke, a little pointedly.

I did not like this speech. It was an allusion that a well-bred young woman ought not to have made, at least before others, even pedlers; and it was one that a young woman of a proper tone of feeling would not be apt to make. I determined from that instant the chain should never belong to Miss Henrietta, though she was a fine, showy girl, and though such a decision would disappoint my uncle sadly. I was a little surprised to see a slight blush on Patt's cheeks, and then I remembered something of the name of the traveller, Beekman. Turning toward Mary Warren, I saw plain enough that she was disappointed because my sister was disappointed, and for no other reason in the world.

"Your grandmother will meet with another chain, when she goes to town, that will make you forget this," she whispered, affectionately, close at my sister's ears.

Patt smiled, and kissed her friend with a warmth of manner that satisfied me these two charming young creatures loved each other sincerely. But my dear old grandmother's curiosity had been awakened, and she felt a necessity for having it appeased. She still held the chain, and as she returned it to me, who happened to be nearest to her, she said:

"And so, sir, your mind is sincerely made up to offer this chain to your future wife?"

"Yes, laty; or what might be better, to das young frau, before we might be marriet."

"And is your choice made?" glancing round at the girls, who were grouped together, looking at some other trinkets of my uncle's. "Have you chosen the young woman who is to possess so handsome a chain?"

"Nein, nein," I answered, returning the smile, and glancing also at the group; "dere ist so many peautiful laties in America, one needn't be in a hurry. In goot time I shalt find her dat ist intended for me."

"Well, grandmamma," interrupted Patt, "since nobody can have the chain, unless on certain conditions, here are the three other things that we have chosen for Ann, Henrietta, and myself, and they are a ring, a pair of bracelets, and a pair of earrings. The cost, altogether, will be two hundred dollars; can you approve of that?"

My grandmother, now she knew who was the pedler, understood the whole matter, and had no scruples. The bargain was soon made, when she sent us all out of the room, under the pretence we should disturb her while settling with the watchseller. Her real object, however, was to be alone with her son, not a dollar passing between them, of course.

CHAPTER XI.

"Our life was changed. Another love
In this lone woof began to twine;
But oh! the golden thread was wove
Between my sister's heart and mine."

--Willis.

Half an hour later, Uncle Ro and myself were seated at table, eating our dinners as quietly as if we were in an inn. The footman who had set the table was an old family servant, one who had performed the same sort of duty in that very house for a quarter of a century. Of course he was not an American, no man of American birth ever remained so long a time in an inferior station, or in any station so low as that of a house-servant. If he has good qualities enough to render it desirable to keep him he is almost certain to go up in the world; if not, one does not care particularly about having him. But Europeans are less elastic and less ambitious, and it is no uncommon thing to find one of such an origin remaining a long time in the same service. Such had been the fact with this man, who had followed my own parents from Europe, when they returned from their marriage tour, and had been in the house on the occasion of my birth. From that time he had continued at the Nest, never marrying, nor ever manifesting the smallest wish for any change. He was an Englishman by birth; and what is very unusual in a servant of that country, when transferred to America, the "letting-up," which is certain to attend such a change from the depression of the original condition to that in which he is so suddenly placed, had not made him saucy. An American is seldom what is called impudent, under any circumstances; he is careless, nay ignorant, of forms; pays little or no purely conventional respect; does not understand half the social distinctions which exist among the higher classes of even his own countrymen, and fancies there are equalities in things about which, in truth, there is great inequality between himself and others, merely because he has been taught that all men are equal in rights; but he is so unconscious of any pressure as seldom to feel a disposition to revenge himself by impudence.

But, while John was not impudent either, he had a footman's feeling toward those whom he fancied no better than himself. He had set the table with his customary neatness and method, and he served the soup with as much regularity as he would have done had we sat there in our proper characters, but then he withdrew. He probably remembered that the landlord, or upper servant of an English hotel, is apt to make his appearance with the soup, and to disappear as that disappears. So it was with John; after removing the soup, he put a dumb-waiter near my uncle, touched a carving-knife or two, as much as to say "help yourselves," and quitted the room. As a matter of course, our dinner was not a very elaborate one, it wanting two or three hours to the regular time of dining, though my grandmother had ordered, in my hearing, one or two delicacies to be placed on the table that had surprised Patt. Among the extraordinary things for such guests was wine. The singularity, however, was a little explained by the quality commanded, which was Rhenish.

My uncle Ro was a little surprised at the disappearance of John; for, seated in that room, he was so accustomed to his face, that it appeared as if he were not half at home without him.

"Let the fellow go," he said, withdrawing his hand from the bell-cord, which he had already touched to order him back again; "we can talk more freely without him. Well, Hugh, here you are, under your own roof, eating a charitable dinner, and treated as hospitably as if you did not own all you can see for a circle of five miles around you. It was a lucky idea of the old lady's, by the way, to think of ordering this Rudesheimer, in our character of Dutchmen! How amazingly well she is looking, boy!"

"Indeed she is; and I am delighted to see it. I do not know why my grandmother may not live these twenty years; for even that would not make her near as old as Sus, who, I have often heard her say, was a middle-aged man when she was born."

"True; she seems like an elder sister to me, rather than as a mother; and is altogether a most delightful old woman. But, if we had so charming an old woman to receive us, so are there also some very charming young women--hey, Hugh?"

"I am quite of your way of thinking, sir; and must say I have not, in many a day, seen two as charming creatures as I have met with here."

"Two!--umph; a body would think one might suffice. Pray, which may be the two, Master Padishah?"

"Patt and Mary Warren, of course. The other two are well enough, but these two are excellent."

My uncle Ro looked grum, but he said nothing for some time. Eating is always an excuse for a broken conversation, and he ate away as if resolute not to betray his disappointment. But it is a hard matter for a gentleman to do nothing but eat at table, and so he was obliged to talk.

"Everything looks well here, after all, Hugh," observed my uncle. "These anti-renters may have done an infinite deal of harm in the way of abusing principles, but they do not seem to have yet destroyed any material things."

"It is not their cue, sir. The crops are their own; and as they hope to own the farms, it would be scarcely wise to injure what, no doubt, they begin to look on as their own property, too. As for the Nest house, grounds, farm, etc., I dare say they will be very willing to leave me them for a while longer, provided they can get everything else away from me."

"For a time longer, at least; though that is the folly of those who expect to get along by concessions; as if men were ever satisfied with the yielding of a part, when they ask that which is wrong in itself, without sooner or later expecting to get the whole. As well might one expect the pickpocket who had abstracted a dollar to put back two-and-sixpence change. But things really look well around the place."

"So much the better for us. Though, to my judgment and taste, Miss Mary Warren looks better than anything else I have yet seen in America."

Another "umph" expressed my uncle's dissatisfaction--displeasure would be too strong a word--and he continued eating.

"You have really some good Rhenish in your cellar, Hugh," resumed Uncle Ro, after tossing off one of the knowing green glasses full--though I never could understand why any man should wish to drink his wine out of green, when he might do it out of crystal. "It must have been a purchase of mine, made when we were last in Germany, and for the use of my mother."

"As you please, sir; it neither adds nor subtracts from the beauty of Martha and her friend."

"Since you are disposed to make these boyish allusions, be frank with me, and say, at once, how you like my wards."

"Meaning, of course, sir, my own sister exclusively. I will be as sincere as possible, and say that, as to Miss Marston, I have no opinion at all; and as to Miss Coldbrooke, she is what, in Europe, would be called a 'fine' woman."

"You can say nothing as to her mind, Hugh, for you have had no opportunity for forming an opinion."

"Not much of a one, I will own. Nevertheless, I should have liked her better had she spared the allusion to the 'proper person' who is one day to forge a chain for my sister, to begin with."

"Poh, poh! that is the mere squeamishness of a boy. I do not think her in the least pert or forward, and your construction would be tant soi peu vulgar."

"Put your own construction on it, mon oncle; I do not like it."

"I do not wonder young men remain unmarried; they are getting to be so ultra in their tastes and notions."

A stranger might have retorted on an old bachelor, for such a speech, by some allusion to his own example; but I well knew that my uncle Ro had once been engaged, and that he lost the object of his passion by death, and too much respected his constancy and true sentiments ever to joke on such subjects. I believe he felt the delicacy of my forbearance rather more than common, for he immediately manifested a disposition to relent, and to prove it by changing the subject.

"We can never stay here to-night," he said. "It would be at once to proclaim our names--our name, I might say--a name that was once so honored and beloved in this town, and which is now so hated!"

"No, no; not as bad as that. We have done nothing to merit hatred."

"Raison de plus for hating us so much the more heartily. When men are wronged, who have done nothing to deserve it, the evil-doer seeks to justify his wickedness to himself by striving all he can to calumniate the injured party; and the more difficulty he finds in doing that to his mind, the more profound is his hatred. Rely on it, we are most sincerely disliked here on the spot where we were once both much beloved. Such is human nature."

At that moment John returned to the room, to see how we were getting on, and to count his forks and spoons, for I saw the fellow actually doing it. My uncle, somewhat indiscreetly, I fancied, but by merely following the chain of thought then uppermost in his mind, detained him in conversation.

"Dis broperty," he said, inquiringly, "is de broperty of one Yeneral Littlepage, I hears say?"

"Not of the General, who was Madam Littlepage's husband, and who has long been dead, but of his grandson, Mr. Hugh."

"Und vhere might he be, dis Mr. Hugh?--might he be at hand, or might he not?"

"No; he's in Europe; that is to say, in Hengland." John thought England covered most of Europe, though he had long gotten over his wish to return. "Mr. Hugh and Mr. Roger be both habsent from the country, just now."

"Dat ist unfortunate, for dey dells me dere might be moch troobles hereabouts, and Injin-acting."

"There is, indeed; and a wicked thing it is, that there should be anything of the sort."

"Und vhat might be der reason of so moch troobles?--and vhere ist der blame?"

"Well, that is pretty plain, I fancy," returned John, who in consequence of being a favored servant at head-quarters, fancied himself a sort of cabinet minister, and had much pleasure in letting his knowledge be seen. "The tenants on this estate wants to be landlords; and as they can't be so, so long as Mr. Hugh lives and won't let 'em, why they just tries all sorts of schemes and plans to frighten people out of their property. I never go down to the village but I has a talk with some of them, and that in a way that might do them some good, if anything can."

"Und vhat dost you say?--and vid whom dost you talk, as might do dem moch goot?"

"Why, you see, I talks more with one 'Squire Newcome, as they calls him, though he's no more of a real 'squire than you be--only a sort of an attorney, like, such as they has in this country. You come from the old countries, I believe?"

"Ja, ja--dat ist, yes--we comes from Charmany; so you can say vhat you pleases."

"They has queer 'squires in this part of the world, if truth must be said. But that's neither here nor there, though I give this Mr. Seneca Newcome as good as he sends. What is it you wants? I says to him--you can't all be landlords--somebody must be tenants; and if you didn't want to be tenants, how come you to be so? Land is plenty in this country, and cheap, too; and why didn't you buy your land at first, instead of coming to rent of Mr. Hugh; and now when you have rented, to be quarrelling about the very thing you did of your own accord?"

"Dere you didst dell 'em a goot t'ing; and vhat might der 'squire say to dat?"

"Oh! he was quite dumfounded, at first; then he said that in old times, when people first rented these lands, they didn't know as much as they do now, or they never would have done it."

"Und you could answer dat; or vast it your durn to be dumfounded?"

"I pitched it into him, as they says; I did. Says I, how's this, says I--you are forever boasting how much you Americans know--and how the people knows everything that ought to be done, about politics and religion--and you proclaim far and near that your yeomen are the salt of the earth--and yet you don't know how to bargain for your leases! A pretty sort of wisdom is this, says I! I had him there; for the people round about here is only too sharp at a trade."

"Did he own that you vast right, and dat he vast wrong, dis Herr 'Squire Newcome?"

"Not he; he will never own anything that makes against his own doctrine, unless he does it ignorantly. But I haven't told you half of it. I told him, says I, how is it you talk of one of the Littlepage family cheating you, when, as you knows yourselves, you had rather have the word of one of the family than have each other's bonds, says I. You know, sir, it must be a poor landlord that a tenant can't and won't take his word: and this they all know to be true; for a gentleman as has a fine estate is raised above temptation, like, and has a pride in him to do what is honorable and fair; and, in my opinion, it is good to have a few such people in a country, if it be only to keep the wicked one from getting it altogether in his own keeping."

"Und did you say dat moch to der 'squire?"

"No; that I just say to you two, seeing that we are here, talking together in a friendly way; but a man needn't be ashamed to say it anywhere, for it's a religious truth. But I says to him, Newcome, says I, you, who has been living so long on the property of the Littlepages, ought to be ashamed to wish to strip them of it; but you're not satisfied with keeping gentlemen down quite as much out of sight as you can, by holding all the offices yourselves, and taking all the money of the public you can lay your hands on for your own use, but you wants to trample them under your feet, I says, and so take your revenge for being what you be, says I."

"Vell, my friend," said my uncle, "you vast a bolt man to dell all dis to der beoples of dis coontry, vhere, I have heard, a man may say just vhat he hast a mind to say, so dat he dost not speak too moch trut!"

"That's it--that's it; you have been a quick scholar, I find. I told this Mr. Newcome, says I, you're bold enough in railing at kings and nobles, for you very well know, says I, that they are three thousand miles away from you, and can do you no harm; but you would no more dare get up before your masters, the people, here, and say what you really think about 'em, and what I have heard you say of them in private, than you would dare put your head before a cannon, as the gunner touched it off. Oh! I gave him a lesson, you may be sure!"

Although there was a good deal of the English footman in John's logic and feeling, there was also a good deal of truth in what he said. The part where he accused Newcome of holding one set of opinions in private, concerning his masters, and another in public, is true to the life. There is not, at this moment, within the wide reach of the American borders, one demagogue to be found who might not, with justice, be accused of precisely the same deception. There is not one demagogue in the whole country, who, if he lived in a monarchy, would not be the humblest advocate of men in power, ready to kneel at the feet of those who stood in the sovereign's presence. There is not, at this instant, a man in power among us, a senator or a legislator, who is now the seeming advocate of what he wishes to call the rights of the tenants, and who is for overlooking principles and destroying law and right, in order to pacify the anti-renters by extraordinary concessions, that would not be among the foremost, under a monarchial system, to recommend and support the freest application of the sword and the bayonet to suppress what would then be viewed, ay, and be termed, "the rapacious longings of the disaffected to enjoy the property of others without paying for it." All this is certain; for it depends on a law of morals that is infallible. Any one who wishes to obtain a clear index to the true characters of the public men he is required to support, or oppose, has now the opportunity; for each stands before a mirror that reflects him in his just proportions, and in which the dullest eye has only to cast a glance, in order to view him from head to foot.

The entrance of my grandmother put a stop to John's discourse. He was sent out of the room on a message, and then I learned the object of this visit. My sister had been let into the secret of our true characters, and was dying to embrace me. My dear grandmother, rightly enough, had decided it would be to the last degree unkind to keep her in ignorance of our presence; and, the fact known, nature had longings which must be appeased. I had myself been tempted twenty times that morning to snatch Patt to my heart and kiss her, as I used to do just after my beard began to grow, and she was so much of a child as to complain. The principal thing to be arranged, then, was to obtain an interview for me without awakening suspicion in the observers. My grandmother's plan was arranged, however, and she now communicated it to us.

There was a neat little dressing-room annexed to Martha's bedroom; in that the meeting was to take place.

"She and Mary Warren are now there, waiting for your appearance, Hugh----"

"Mary Warren!--Does she, then, know who I am?"

"Not in the least; she has no other idea than that you are a young German, of good connections and well educated, who has been driven from his own country by political troubles, and who is reduced to turn his musical taste and acquisitions to account, in the way you seem to do, until he can find some better employment. All this she had told us before we met you, and you are not to be vain, Hugh, if I add, that your supposed misfortunes, and great skill with the flute, and good behavior, have made a friend of one of the best and most true-hearted girls I ever had the good fortune to know. I say good behavior, for little, just now, can be ascribed to good looks."

"I hope I am not in the least revolting in appearance, in this disguise. For my sister's sake----"

The hearty laugh of my dear old grandmother brought me up, and I said no more; coloring, I believe, a little, at my own folly. Even Uncle Ro joined in the mirth, though I could see he wished Mary Warren even safely translated along with her father, and that the latter was Archbishop of Canterbury. I must acknowledge that I felt a good deal ashamed of the weakness I had betrayed.

"You are very well, Hugh, darling," continued my grandmother; "though I must think you would be more interesting in your own hair, which is curling, than in that long wig. Still, one can see enough of your face to recognize it, if one has the clew; and I told Martha, at the first, that I was struck with a certain expression of the eyes and smile that reminded me of her brother. But, there they are, Mary and Martha, in the drawing-room, waiting for your appearance. The first is so fond of music, and, indeed, is so practised in it, as to have been delighted with your flute; and she has talked so much of your skill as to justify us in seeming to wish for a further exhibition of your skill. Henrietta and Ann, having less taste that way, have gone together to select bouquets, in the greenhouse, and there is now an excellent opportunity to gratify your sister. I am to draw Mary out of the room, after a little while, when you and Martha may say a word to each other in your proper characters. As for you, Roger, you are to open your box again, and I will answer for it that will serve to amuse your other wards, should they return too soon from their visit to the gardener."

Everything being thus explained, and our dinner ended, all parties proceeded to the execution of the plan, each in his or her designated mode. When my grandmother and I reached the dressing-room, however, Martha was not there, though Mary Warren was, her bright but serene eyes full of happiness and expectation. Martha had retired to the inner room for a moment, whither my grandmother, suspecting the truth, followed her. As I afterward ascertained, my sister, fearful of not being able to suppress her tears on my entrance, had withdrawn, in order to struggle for self-command without betraying our secret. I was told to commence an air, without waiting for the absent young lady, as the strain could easily be heard through the open door.

I might have played ten minutes before my sister and grandmother came out again. Both had been in tears, though the intense manner in which Mary Warren was occupied with the harmony of my flute, probably prevented her from observing it. To me, however, it was plain enough; and glad was I to find that my sister had succeeded in commanding her feelings. In a minute or two my grandmother profited by a pause to rise and carry away with her Mary Warren, though the last left the room with a reluctance that was very manifest. The pretence was a promise to meet the divine in the library, on some business connected with the Sunday-schools.

"You can keep the young man for another air, Martha," observed my grandmother, "and I will send Jane to you, as I pass her room."

Jane was my sister's own maid, and her room was close at hand, and I dare say dear grandmother gave her the order, in Mary Warren's presence, as soon as she quitted the room, else might Mary Warren well be surprised at the singularity of the whole procedure; but Jane did not make her appearance, nevertheless. As for myself, I continued to play as long as I thought any ear was near enough to hear me; then I laid aside my flute. In the next instant Patt was in my arms, where she lay some time weeping, but looking inexpressibly happy.

"Oh! Hugh, what a disguise was this to visit your own house in!" she said, as soon as composed enough to speak.

"Would it have done to come here otherwise? You know the state of the country, and the precious fruits our boasted tree of liberty is bringing forth. The owner of the land can only visit his property at the risk of his life!"

Martha pressed me in her arms in a way to show how conscious she was of the danger I incurred in even thus visiting her; after which we seated ourselves, side by side, on a little divan, and began to speak of those things that were most natural to a brother and sister who so much loved each other, and who had not met for five years. My grandmother had managed so well as to prevent all interruption for an hour, if we saw fit to remain together, while to others it should seem as if Patt had dismissed me in a few minutes.

"Not one of the other girls suspects, in the least, who you are," said Martha, smiling, when we had got through with the questions and answers so natural to our situation. "I am surprised that Henrietta has not, for she prides herself on her penetration. She is as much in the dark as the others, however."

"And Miss Mary Warren--the young lady who has just left the room--has she not some small notion that I am not a common Dutch music-grinder?"

Patt laughed, and that so merrily as to cause the tones of her sweet voice to fill me with delight, as I remembered what she had been in childhood and girlhood five years before, and she shook her bright tresses off her cheeks ere she would answer.

"No, Hugh," she replied, "she fancies you an uncommon Dutch music-grinder; an artiste that not only grinds, but who dresses up his harmonies in such a way as to be palatable to the most refined taste. How came Mary to think you and my uncle two reduced German gentlemen?"

"And does the dear girl believe--that is, does Miss Mary Warren do us so much honor, as to imagine that?"

"Indeed she does, for she told us as much as soon as she got home; and Henrietta and Ann have made themselves very merry with their speculations on the subject of Miss Warren's great incognito. They call you Herzog von Geige."

"Thank them for that." I am afraid I answered a little too pointedly, for I saw that Patt seemed surprised. "But your American towns are just such half-way things as to spoil young women; making them neither refined and polished as they might be in real capitals, while they are not left the simplicity and nature of the country."

"Well, Master Hugh, this is being very cross about a very little, and not particularly complimentary to your own sister. And why not your American towns, as well as ours?--are you no longer one of us?"

"Certainly; one of yours, always, my dearest Patt, though not one of every chattering girl who may set up for a belle, with her Dukes of Fiddle! But, enough of this;--you like the Warrens?"

"Very much so; father and daughter. The first is just what a clergyman should be; of a cultivation and intelligence to fit him to be any man's companion, and a simplicity like that of a child. Your remember his predecessor--so dissatisfied, so selfish, so lazy, so censorious, so unjust to every person and thing around him, and yet so exacting; and, at the same time, so----"

"What? Thus far you have drawn his character well: I should like to hear the remainder."

"I have said more than I ought already; for one has an idea that, by bringing a clergyman into disrepute, it brings religion and the Church into discredit, too. A priest must be a very bad man to have injurious things said of him, in this country, Hugh."

"That is, perhaps, true. But you like Mr. Warren better than him who has left you?"

"A thousand times, and in all things. In addition to having a most pious and sincere pastor, we have an agreeable and well-bred neighbor, from whose mouth, in the five years that he has dwelt here, I have not heard a syllable at the expense of a single fellow-creature. You know how it is apt to be with the other clergy and ours, in the country--forever at swords' points; and if not actually quarrelling, keeping up a hollow peace."

"That is only too true--or used to be true, before I went abroad."

"And it is so now elsewhere, I'll answer for it, though it be so no longer here. Mr. Warren and Mr. Peck seem to live on perfectly amicable terms, though as little alike at bottom as fire and water."

"By the way, how do the clergy of the different sects, up and down the country, behave on the subject of anti-rent?"

"I can answer only from what I hear, with the exception of Mr. Warren's course. He has preached two or three plain and severe sermons on the duty of honesty in our worldly transactions, one of which was from the tenth commandment. Of course he said nothing of the particular trouble, but everybody must have made the necessary application of the home-truths he uttered. I question if another voice has been raised, far and near, on the subject, although I have heard Mr. Warren say the movement threatens more to demoralize New York than anything that has happened in his time."

"And the man down at the village?"

"Oh, he goes, of course, with the majority. When was one of that sect known to oppose his parish, in anything?"

"And Mary is as sound and as high-principled as her father?"

"Quite so; though there has been a good deal said about the necessity of Mr. Warren's removing, and giving up St. Andrew's, since he preached against covetousness. All the anti-renters say, I hear, that they know he meant them, and that they won't put up with it."

"I dare say; each one fancying he was almost called out by name; that is the way, when conscience works."

"I should be very, very sorry to part with Mary; and almost as much so to part with her father. There is one thing, however, that Mr. Warren himself thinks we had better have done, Hugh; and that is to take down the canopy from over our pew. You can have no notion of the noise that foolish canopy is making up and down the country."

"I shall not take it down. It is my property, and there it shall remain. As for the canopy, it was a wrong distinction to place in a church, I am willing to allow; but it never gave offence until it has been thought that a cry against it would help to rob me of my lands at half-price, or at no price at all, as it may happen."

"All that may be true; but if improper for a church, why keep it?"

"Because I do not choose to be bullied out of what is my own, even though I care nothing about it. There might have been a time when the canopy was unsuited to the house of God, and that was when those who saw it might fancy it canopied the head of a fellow-creature who had higher claims than themselves to divine favor; but in times like these, when men estimate merit by beginning at the other end of the social scale, there is little danger of any one's falling into the mistake. The canopy shall stand, little as I care about it; now, I would actually prefer it should come down, and I can fully see the impropriety of making any distinctions in the temple; but it shall stand until concessions cease to be dangerous. It is a right of property, and as such I will maintain it. If others dislike it, let them put canopies over their pews, too. The best test, in such a matter, is to see who could bear it. A pretty figure Seneca Newcome would cut, for instance, seated in a canopied pew! Even his own set would laugh at him, which, I fancy, is more than they yet do at me."

Martha was disappointed; but she changed the subject. We next talked of our own little private affairs, as they were connected with smaller matters.

"For whom is that beautiful chain intended, Hugh?" asked Patt, laughingly. "I can now believe the pedler when he says it is reserved for your future wife. But who is that wife to be? Will her name be Henrietta or Ann?"

"Why not ask, also, if it will be Mary?--why exclude one of your companions, while you include the other two?"

Patt started--seemed surprised; her cheeks flushed, and then I saw that pleasure was the feeling predominant.

"Am I too late to secure that jewel, as a pendant to my chain?" I asked, half in jest, half seriously.

"Too soon, at least, to attract it by the richness and beauty of the bawble. A more natural and disinterested girl than Mary Warren does not exist in the country."

"Be frank with me, Martha, and say at once; has she a favored suitor?"

"Why, this seems really serious!" exclaimed my sister, laughing. "But, to put you out of your pain, I will answer, I know of but one. One she has certainly, or female sagacity is at fault."

"But is he one that is favored? You can never know how much depends on your answer."

"Of that you can judge for yourself. It is 'Squire Seneky Newcome, as he is called hereabouts--the brother of the charming Opportunity, who still reserves herself for you."

"And they are as rank anti-renters as any male and female in the country."

"They are rank Newcomites; and that means that each is for himself. Would you believe it, but Opportunity really gives herself airs with Mary Warren!"

"And how does Mary Warren take such an assumption?"

"As a young person should--quietly and without manifesting any feeling. But there is something quite intolerable in one like Opportunity Newcome's assuming a superiority over any true lady! Mary is as well educated and as well connected as any of us, and is quite as much accustomed to good company; while Opportunity--" here Patt laughed, and then added, hurriedly, "but you know Opportunity as well as I do."

"Oh! yes; she is la vertue, or the virtue, and je suis venue pour."

The latter allusion Patt understood well enough, having laughed over the story a dozen times; and she laughed again when I explained the affair of "the solitude."

Then came a fit of sisterly feeling. Patt insisted on taking off my wig, and seeing my face in its natural dress. I consented to gratify her, when the girl really behaved like a simpleton. First she pushed about my curls until they were arranged to suit the silly creature, when she ran back several steps, clapped her hands in delight, then rushed into "my arms and kissed my forehead and eyes, and called me her brother"--her "only brother"--her "dear, dear Hugh," and by a number of other such epithets, until she worked herself, and me too, into such an excess of feeling that we sat down, side by side, and each had a hearty fit of crying. Perhaps some such burst as this was necessary to relieve our minds, and we submitted to it wisely.

My sister wept the longest, as a matter of course; but, as soon as she had dried her eyes, she replaced the wig, and completely restored my disguise, trembling the whole time lest some one might enter and detect me.

"You have been very imprudent, Hugh, in coming here at all," she said, while thus busy. "You can form no notion of the miserable state of the country, or how far the anti-rent poison has extended, or the malignant nature of its feeling. The annoyances they have attempted with dear grandmother are odious; you they would scarcely leave alive."

"The country and the people must have strangely altered, then, in five years. Our New York population has hitherto had very little of the assassin-like character. Tar and feathers are the blackguards', and have been the petty tyrants' weapons, from time immemorial, in this country; but not the knife."

"And can anything sooner or more effectually alter a people than longings for the property of others? Is not the 'love of money the root of all evil?'--and what right have we to suppose our Ravensnest population is better than another, when that sordid feeling is thoroughly aroused? You know you have written one yourself, that all the American can or does live for is money."

"I have written you, dear, that the country, in its present condition, leaves no other incentive to exertion, and therein it is cursed. Military fame, military rank, even, are unattainable, under our system; the arts, letters, and science bring little or no reward; and there being no political rank that a man of refinement would care for, men must live for money, or live altogether for another state of being. But I have told you, at the same time, Martha, that, notwithstanding all this, I believe the American a less mercenary being, in the ordinary sense of the word, than the European; that two men might be bought, for instance, in any European country, for one here. This last I suppose to be the result of the facility of making a living, and the habits it produces."

"Never mind causes; Mr. Warren says there is a desperate intention to rob existing among these people, and that they are dangerous. As yet they do a little respect women, but how long they will do that one cannot know."

"It may all be so. It must be so, respecting what I have heard and read; yet this vale looks as smiling and as sweet, at this very moment, as if an evil passion never sullied it! But depend on my prudence, which tells me that we ought now to part. I shall see you again and again before I quit the estate, and you will, of course, join us somewhere--at the Springs, perhaps--as soon as we find it necessary or expedient to decamp."

Martha promised this, of course, and I kissed her, previously to separating. No one crossed my way as I descended to the piazza, which was easily done, since I was literally at home. I lounged about on the lawn a few minutes, and then, showing myself in front of the library windows, I was summoned to the room, as I had expected.

Uncle Ro had disposed of every article of the fine jewelry that he had brought home as presents for his wards. The pay was a matter to be arranged with Mrs. Littlepage, which meant no pay at all; and, as the donor afterward told me, he liked this mode of distributing the various ornaments better than presenting them himself, as he was now certain each girl had consulted her own fancy.

As the hour of the regular dinner was approaching, we took our leave soon after, not without receiving kind and pressing invitations to visit the Nest again ere we left the township. Of course we promised all that was required, intending most faithfully to comply. On quitting the house we returned toward the farm, though not without pausing on the lawn to gaze around us on a scene so dear to both, from recollection, association, and interest. But I forget, this is aristocratical; the landlord has no right to sentiments of this nature, which are feelings that the sublimated liberty of the law is beginning to hold in reserve solely for the benefit of the tenant!

CHAPTER XII.

"There shall be, in England, seven half penny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass."--Jack Cade.

"I do not see, sir," I remarked, as we moved on from the last of these pauses, "why the governors and the legislators, and writers on this subject of anti-rentism, talk so much of feudality, and chickens, and days' works, and durable leases, when we have none of these, while we have all the disaffection they are said to produce."

"You will understand that better as you come to know more of men. No party alludes to its weak points. It is just as you say; but the proceedings of your tenants, for instance, give the lie to the theories of the philanthropists, and must be kept in the background. It is true that the disaffection has not yet extended to one-half, or to one-fourth of the leased estates in the country, perhaps not to one-tenth, if you take the number of the landlords as the standard, instead of the extent of their possessions, but it certainly will, should the authorities tamper with the rebels much longer."

"If they tax the incomes of the landlords under the durable rent system, why would not the parties aggrieved have the same right to take up arms to resist such an act of oppression as our fathers had in 1776?"

"Their cause would be better; for that was only a constructive right, and one dependent on general principles, whereas this is an attempt at a most mean evasion of a written law, the meanness of the attempt being quite as culpable as its fraud. Every human being knows that such a tax, so far as it has any object beyond that of an election-sop, is to choke off the landlords from the maintenance of their covenants, which is a thing that no State can do directly, without running the risk of having its law pronounced unconstitutional by the courts of the United States, if, indeed, not by its own courts."

"The Court of Errors, think you?"

"The Court of Errors is doomed, by its own abuses. Catiline never abused the patience of Rome more than that mongrel assembly has abused the patience of every sound lawyer in the State. 'Fiat justitia, ruat coelum,' is interpreted, now, into 'Let justice be done, and the court fall.' No one wishes to see it continued, and the approaching convention will send it to the Capulets, if it do nothing else to be commended. It was a pitiful imitation of the House of Lords system, with this striking difference; the English lords are men of education, and men with a vast deal at stake, and their knowledge and interests teach them to leave the settlement of appeals to the legal men of their body, of whom there are always a respectable number, in addition to those in possession of the woolsack and the bench; whereas our Senate is a court composed of small lawyers, country doctors, merchants, farmers, with occasionally a man of really liberal attainments. Under the direction of an acute and honest judge, as most of our true judges actually are, the Court of Errors would hardly form such a jury as would allow a creditable person to be tried by his peers, in a case affecting character, for instance, and here we have it set up as a court of the last resort, to settle points of law!"

"I see it has just made a decision in a libel suit, at which the profession sneers."

"It has, indeed. Now look at that very decision, for instance, as the measure of its knowledge. An editor of a newspaper holds up a literary man to the world as one anxious to obtain a small sum of money, in order to put it into Wall Street, for 'shaving purposes.' Now, the only material question raised was the true signification of the word 'shaving.' If to say a man is a 'shaver,' in the sense in which it is applied to the use of money, be bringing him into discredit, then was the plaintiff's declaration sufficient; if not, it was insufficient, being wanting in what is called an 'innuendo.' The dictionaries, and men in general, understand by 'shaving,' 'extortion,' and nothing else. To call a man a 'shaver' is to say he is an 'extortioner,' without going into details. But, in Wall Street, and among money-dealers, certain transactions that, in their eyes, and by the courts, are not deemed discreditable, have of late been brought within the category of 'shaving.' Thus it is technically, or by convention among bankers, termed 'shaving' if a man buy a note at less than its face, which is a legal transaction. On the strength of this last circumstance, as is set forth in the published opinions, the highest Court of Appeals in New York has decided that it does not bring a man into discredit to say he is a 'shaver!'--thus making a conventional signification of the brokers of Wall Street higher authority for the use of the English tongue than the standard lexicographers, and all the rest of those who use the language! On the same principle, if a set of pickpockets at the Five Points, should choose to mystify their trade a little by including in the term 'to filch' the literal borrowing of a pocket-handkerchief, it would not be a libel to accuse a citizen of 'filching his neighbor's handkerchief!'"

"But the libel was uttered to the world, and not to the brokers of Wall Street only, who might possibly understand their own terms."

"Very true; and was uttered in a newspaper that carried the falsehood to Europe; for the writer of the charge, when brought up for it, publicly admitted that he had no ground for suspecting the literary man of any such practices. He called it a 'joke.' Every line of the context, however, showed it was a malicious charge. The decision is very much as if a man who is sued for accusing another of 'stealing' should set up a defence that he meant 'stealing' hearts, for the word is sometimes used in that sense. When men use epithets that convey discredit in their general meaning, it is their business to give them a special signification in their own contexts, if such be their real intention. But I much question if there be a respectable money-dealer, even in Wall Street, who would not swear, if called on in a court of justice so to do, that he thought the general charge of 'shaving' discreditable to any man."

"And you think the landlords whose rents were taxed, sir, would have a moral right to resist?"

"Beyond all question; as it would be an income-tax on them only of all in the country. What is more, I am fully persuaded that two thousand men embodied to resist such tyranny would look down the whole available authority of the State; inasmuch as I do not believe citizens could be found to take up arms to enforce a law so flagrantly unjust. Men will look on passively and see wrongs inflicted, that would never come out to support them by their own acts. But we are approaching the farm, and there are Tom Miller and his hired men waiting our arrival."

It is unnecessary to repeat, in detail, all that passed in this our second visit to the farm-house. Miller received us in a friendly manner, and offered us a bed, if we would pass the night with him. This business of a bed had given us more difficulty than anything else in the course of our peregrinations. New York has long got over the "two-man" and "three-man bed" system, as regards its best inns. At no respectable New York inn is a gentleman now asked to share even his room, without an apology and a special necessity, with another, much less his bed; but the rule does not hold good as respects pedlers and music-grinders. We had ascertained that we were not only expected to share the same bed, but to occupy that bed in a room filled with other beds. There are certain things that get to be second nature, and that no masquerading will cause to go down; and, among others, one gets to dislike sharing his room and his tooth-brush. This little difficulty gave us more trouble that night at Tom Miller's than anything we had yet encountered. At the taverns, bribes had answered our purpose; but this would not do so well at a farm residence. At length the matter was got along with by putting me in the garret, where I was favored with a straw bed under my own roof, the decent Mrs. Miller making many apologies for not having a feather-smootherer, into which to "squash" me. I did not tell the good woman that I never used feathers, summer or winter; for, had I done so, she would have set me down as a poor creature from "oppressed" Germany, where the "folks" did not know how to live. Nor would she have been so much out of the way quoad the beds, for in all my journeyings I never met with such uncomfortable sleeping as one finds in Germany, off the Rhine and out of the large towns.[23]

While the negotiation was in progress I observed that Josh Brigham, as the anti-rent disposed hireling of Miller's was called, kept a watchful eye and an open ear on what was done and said. Of all men on earth, the American of that class is the most "distrustful," as he calls it himself, and has his suspicions the soonest awakened. The Indian on the war-path--the sentinel who is posted in a fog, near his enemy, an hour before the dawn of day--the husband that is jealous, or the priest that has become a partisan, is not a whit more apt to fancy, conjecture, or assert, than the American of that class who has become "distrustful." This fellow, Brigham, was the very beau ideal of the suspicious school, being envious and malignant, as well as shrewd, observant, and covetous. The very fact that he was connected with the "Injins," as turned out to be the case, added to his natural propensities the consciousness of guilt, and rendered him doubly dangerous. The whole time my uncle and myself were crossing over and figuring in, in order to procure for each a room, though it were only a closet, his watchful, distrustful looks denoted how much he saw in our movements to awaken curiosity, if not downright suspicion. When all was over, he followed me to the little lawn in front of the house, whither I had gone to look at the familiar scene by the light of the setting sun, and began to betray the nature of his own suspicions by his language.

"The old man" (meaning my uncle Ro) "must have plenty of gold watches about him," he said, "to be so plaguy partic'lar consarnin' his bed. Peddlin' sich matters is a ticklish trade, I guess, in some parts?"

"Ja; it ist dangerous somevhere, but it might not be so in dis goot coontry."

"Why did the old fellow, then, try so hard to get that little room all to himself, and shove you off into the garret? We hired men don't like the garret, which is a hot place in summer."

"In Charmany one man hast ever one bed," I answered, anxious to get rid of the subject.

I bounced a little, as "one has one-half of a bed" would be nearer to the truth, though the other half might be in another room.

"Oh! that's it, is't? Wa-a-l, every country has its ways, I s'pose. Jarmany is a desp'ate aristocratic land, I take it."

"Ja; dere ist moch of de old feudal law, and feudal coostum still remaining in Charmany."

"Landlords a plenty, I guess, if the truth was known. Leases as long as my arm, I calkerlate?"

"Vell, dey do dink, in Charmany, dat de longer might be de lease, de better it might be for de denant."

As that was purely a German sentiment, or at least not an American sentiment, according to the notions broached by statesmen among ourselves, I made it as Dutch as possible by garnishing it well with d's.

"That's a droll idee! Now, we think, here, that a lease is a bad thing; and the less you have of a bad thing, the better."

"Vell, dat ist queer, so queer as I don't know! Vhat vill dey do as might help it?"

"Oh! the legislature will set it all right. They mean to pass a law to prevent any more leases at all."

"Und vill de beople stand dat? Dis ist a free country, efferybody dells me, and vilt der beoples agree not to hire lands if dey vants to?"

"Oh! you see we wish to choke the landlords off from their present leases; and, by and by, when that is done, the law can let up again."

"But ist dat right? Der law should be joost, und not hold down und let oop, as you calls it."

"You don't understand us yet, I see. Why that's the prettiest and the neatest legislation on airth! That's just what the bankrupt law did."

"Vhat did her bankroopt law do, bray? Vhat might you mean now?--I don't know."

"Do! why, it did wonders for some on us, I can tell you! It paid our debts, and let us up when we was down; and that's no trifle, I can tell you. I took 'the benefit,' as it is called, myself."

"You!--you might take der benefit of a bankrupt law! You, lifing here ast a hiret man, on dis farm!"

"Sartain; why not? All a man wanted under that law was about $60 to carry him through the mill; and if he could rake and scrape that much together, he might wipe off as long a score as he pleased. I had been dealin' in speckylation, and that's a make or break business, I can tell you. Well, I got to be about $423.22 wuss than nothin'; but, having about $90 in hand, I went through the mill without getting cogged the smallest morsel! A man doos a good business, to my notion, when he can make twenty cents pay a whull dollar of debt."

"Und you did dat goot business?"

"You may say that; and now I means to make anti-rentism get me a farm cheap--what I call cheap; and that an't none of your $30 or $40 an acre, I can tell you!"

It was quite clear that Mr. Joshua Brigham regarded these transactions as so many Pragmatic Sanctions, that were to clear the moral and legal atmospheres of any atoms of difficulty that might exist in the forms of old opinions, to his getting easily out of debt, in the one case, and suddenly rich in the other. I dare say I looked bewildered, but I certainly felt so, at thus finding myself face to face with a low knave, who had a deliberate intention, as I now found, to rob me of a farm. It is certain that Joshua so imagined, for, inviting me to walk down the road with him a short distance, he endeavored to clear up any moral difficulties that might beset me, by pursuing the subject.

"You see," resumed Joshua, "I will tell you how it is. These Littlepages have had this land long enough, and it's time to give poor folks a chance. The young spark that pretends to own all the farms you see, far and near, never did anything for 'em in his life; only to be his father's son. Now, to my notion, a man should do suthin' for his land, and not be obligated for it to mere natur'. This is a free country, and what right has one man to land more than another?"

"Or do his shirt, or do his dobacco, or do his coat, or do anyding else."

"Well, I don't go as far as that. A man has a right to his clothes, and maybe to a horse, or a cow, but he has no right to all the land in creation. The law gives a right to a cow as ag'in' execution."

"Und doesn't der law gif a right to der landt, too? You must not depend on der law, if you might succeed."

"We like to get as much law as we can on our side. Americans like law: now, you'll read in all the books--our books, I mean, them that's printed here--that the Americans be the most lawful people on airth, and that they'll do more for the law than any other folks known!"

"Vell, dat isn't vhat dey says of der Americans in Europe; nein, nein, dey might not say dat."

"Why, don't you think it is so? Don't you think this the greatest country on airth, and the most lawful?"

"Vell, I don'ts know. Das coontry ist das coontry, und it ist vhat it ist, you might see."

"Yes; I thought you would be of my way of thinking, when we got to understand each other." Nothing is easier than to mislead an American on the estimate foreigners place on them: in this respect they are the most deluded people living, though, in other matters, certainly among the shrewdest. "That's the way with acquaintances, at first; they don't always understand one another: and then you talk a little thick, like. But now, friend, I'll come to the p'int--but first swear you'll not betray me."

"Ja, ja--I oonderstandst; I most schwear I won't bedray you: das ist goot."

"But, hold up your hand. Stop; of what religion be you?"

"Gristian, to be sure. I might not be a Chew. Nein, nein; I am a ferry vat Gristian."

"We are all bad enough, for that matter; but I lay no stress on that. A little of the devil in a man helps him along, in this business of ourn. But you must be suthin' more than a Christian, I s'pose, as we don't call that bein' of any religion at all, in this country. Of what supportin' religion be you?"

"Soobortin'; vell, I might not oonderstands dat. Vhat is soobortin' religion? Coomes dat vrom Melanchton und Luther?--or coomes it vrom der Pope? Vhat ist dat soobortin' religion?"

"Why, what religion do you patronize? Do you patronize the standin' order, or the kneelin' order?--or do you patronize neither? Some folks thinks its best to lie down at prayer, as the least likely to divart the thoughts."

"I might not oonderstand. But nefer mindt der religion, und coome to der p'int dat you mentioned."

"Well, that p'int is this. You're a Jarman, and can't like aristocrats, and so I'll trust you; though, if you do betray me, you'll never play on another bit of music in this country, or any other! If you want to be an Injin, as good an opportunity will offer to-morrow as ever fell in a man's way?"

"An Injin! Vhat goot vill it do to be an Injin? I dought it might be better to be a vhite man, in America?"

"Oh! I mean only an anti-rent Injin. We've got matters so nicely fixed now, that a chap can be an Injin without any paint at all, or any washin' or scrubbin', but can convart himself into himself ag'in, at any time, in two minutes. The wages is good and the work light; then we have rare chances in the stores, and round about among the farms. The law is, that an Injin must have what he wants, and no grumblin', and we take care to want enough. If you'll be at the meetin', I'll tell you how you'll know me."

"Ja, ja--dat ist goot; I vill be at der meetin', sartainly. Vhere might it be?"

"Down at the village. The word came up this a'ternoon, and we shall all be on the ground by ten o'clock."

"Vilt der be a fight, dat you meet so bunctually, and wid so moch spirit?"

"Fight! Lord, no; who is there to fight, I should like to know? We are pretty much all ag'in the Littlepages, and there's none of them on the ground but two or three women. I'll tell you how it's all settled. The meetin' is called on the deliberative and liberty-supportin' plan. I s'pose you know we've all sorts of meetin's in this country?"

"Nein; I dought dere might be meetin's for bolitics, vhen der beople might coome, but I don't know vhat else."

"Is't possible! What, have you no 'indignation meetin's' in Jarmany? We count a great deal on our indignation meetin's, and both sides have 'em in abundance, when things get to be warm. Our meetin' to-morrow is for deliberation and liberty-principles generally. We may pass some indignation resolutions about aristocrats, for nobody can bear them critturs in this part of the country, I can tell you."

Lest this manuscript should get into the hands of some of those who do not understand the real condition of New York society, it may be well to explain that "aristocrat" means, in the parlance of the country, no other than a man of gentleman-like tastes, habits, opinions, and associations. There are gradations among the aristocracy of the State, as well as among other men. Thus he who is an aristocrat in a hamlet, would be very democratic in a village; and he of the village might be no aristocrat in the town, at all; though, in the towns generally, indeed always, when their population has the least of a town character, the distinction ceases altogether, men quietly dropping into the traces of civilized society, and talking or thinking very little about it. To see the crying evils of American aristocracy, then, one must go into the country. There, indeed, a plenty of cases exist. Thus, if there happen to be a man whose property is assessed at twenty-five per cent. above that of all his neighbors--who must have right on his side bright as a cloudless sun to get a verdict, if obliged to appeal to the laws--who pays fifty per cent. more for everything he buys, and receives fifty per cent. less for everything he sells, than any other person near him--who is surrounded by rancorous enemies, in the midst of a seeming state of peace--who has everything he says and does perverted, and added to, and lied about--who is traduced because his dinner-hour is later than that of "other folks"--who don't stoop, but is straight in the back--who presumes to doubt that this country in general, and his own township in particular, is the focus of civilization--who hesitates about signing his name to any flagrant instance of ignorance, bad taste, or worse morals, that his neighbors may get up in the shape of a petition, remonstrance, or resolution--depend on it that man is a prodigious aristocrat, and one who, for his many offences and manner of lording it over mankind, deserves to be banished. I ask the reader's pardon for so abruptly breaking in upon Joshua's speech, but such very different notions exist about aristocrats, in different parts of the world, that some such explanation was necessary in order to prevent mistakes. I have forgotten one mark of the tribe that is, perhaps, more material than all the rest, which must not be omitted, and is this:--if he happen to be a man who prefers his own pursuits to public life, and is regardless of "popularity," he is just guilty of the unpardonable sin. The "people" will forgive anything sooner than this; though there are "folks" who fancy it as infallible a sign of an aristocrat not to chew tobacco. But, unless I return to Joshua, the reader will complain that I cause him to stand still.

"No, no," continued Mr. Brigham; anything but an aristocrat for me. I hate the very name of the sarpents, and wish there warn't one in the land. To-morrow we are to have a great anti-rent lecturer out----"

"A vhat?"

"A lecturer; one that lectur's, you understand, on anti-rentism, temperance, aristocracy, government, or any other grievance that may happen to be uppermost. Have you no lecturers in Jarmany?"

"Ja, ja; dere ist lecturers in das universities--blenty of dem."

"Well, we have 'em universal and partic'lar, as we happen to want 'em. To-morrow we're to have one, they tell me, the smartest man that has appeared in the cause. He goes it strong, and the Injins mean to back him up with all sorts of shrieks and whoopin's. Your hurdy-gurdy, there, makes no sort of music to what our tribe can make when we fairly open our throats."

"Vell, dis ist queer! I vast told dat der Americans vast all philosophers, und dat all dey didt vast didt in a t'oughtful and sober manner; und now you dells me dey screams deir arguments like Injins!"

"That we do! I wish you'd been here in the hard-cider and log-cabin times, and you'd a seen reason and philosophy, as you call it! I was a whig that summer, though I went democrat last season. There's about five hundred on us in this country that makes the most of things, I can tell you. What's the use of a vote, if a body gets nothin' by it? But to-morrow you'll see the business done up, and matters detarmined for this part of the world, in fine style. We know what we're about, and we mean to carry things through quite to the end."

"Und vhat do you means to do?"

"Well, seein' that you seem to be of the right sort, and be so likely to put on the Injin shirt, I'll tell you all about it. We mean to get good and old farms at favorable rates. That's what we mean to do. The people's up and in 'arnest, and what the people want they'll have! This time they want farms, and farms they must have. What's the use of havin' a government of the people, if the people's obliged to want farms? We've begun ag'in' the Rensselaers, and the durables, and the quarter-sales, and the chickens; but we don't, by no manner of means, think of eending there. What should we get by that? A man wants to get suthin' when he puts his foot into a matter of this natur'. We know who's our fri'nds and who's our inimies! Could we have some men I could name for governors, all would go clear enough the first winter. We would tax the landlords out, and law 'em about in one way and another, so as to make 'em right down glad to sell the last rod of their lands, and that cheap, too!"

"Und who might own these farms, all oop and down der coontry, dat I see?"

"As the law now stands, Littlepage owns 'em; but if we alter the law enough, he wun't. If we can only work the legislature up to the stickin' p'int, we shall get all we want. Would you believe it, the man wun't sell a single farm, they say; but wishes to keep every one on 'em for himself! Is that to be borne in a free country? They'd hardly stand that in Jarmany, I'm thinkin'. A man that is such an aristocrat as to refuse to sell anything, I despise."

"Vell, dey stand to der laws in Charmany, and broperty is respected in most coontries. You vouldn't do away wid der rights of broperty, if you mights, I hopes?"

"Not I. If a man owns a watch, or a horse, or a cow, I'm for having the law such that a poor man can keep 'em, even ag'in execution. We're getting the laws pretty straight on them p'ints, in old York, I can tell you; a poor man, let him be ever so much in debt, can hold on to a mighty smart lot of things, nowadays, and laugh at the law right in its face! I've known chaps that owed as much as $200, hold on to as good as $300; though most of their debts was for the very things they held on to!"

What a picture is this, yet is it not true? A state of society in which a man can contract a debt for a cow, or his household goods, and laugh at his creditor when he seeks his pay, on the one hand; and on the other, legislators and executives lending themselves to the chicanery of another set, that are striving to deprive a particular class of its rights of property, directly in the face of written contracts! This is straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel, with a vengeance; and all for votes! Does any one really expect a community can long exist, favored by a wise and justice-dispensing Providence, in which such things are coolly attempted--ay, and coolly done? It is time that the American began to see things as they are, and not as they are said to be, in the speeches of governors, Fourth-of-July orations, and electioneering addresses. I write warmly, I know, but I feel warmly; and I write like a man who sees that a most flagitious attempt to rob him is tampered with by some in power, instead of being met, as the boasted morals and intelligence of the country would require, by the stern opposition of all in authority. Curses--deep, deep curses--ere long, will fall on all who shrink from their duty in such a crisis. Even the very men who succeed, if succeed they should, will, in the end, curse the instruments of their own success.[24]

"A first-rate lecturer on feudal tenors" (Joshua was not in the least particular in his language, but, in the substance, he knew what he was talking about as well as some who are in high places), "chickens and days' works. We expect a great deal from this man, who is paid well for coming."

"Und who might bay him?--der State?"

"No--we haven't got to that yet; though some think the State will have to do it, in the long run. At present the tenants are taxed so much on the dollar, accordin' to rent, or so much an acre, and that way the needful money is raised. But one of our lecturers told us, a time back, that it was money put out at use, and every man ought to keep an account of what he give, for the time was not far off when he would get it back, with double interest. 'It is paid now for a reform,' he said, 'and when the reform is obtained, no doubt the State would feel itself so much indebted to us all, that it would tax the late landlords until we got all our money back again, and more too.'"

"Dat vould pe a bretty speculation; ja, dat might be most bootiful!"

"Why, yes, it wouldn't be a bad operation, living on the inimy, as a body might say. But you'll not catch our folks livin' on themselves, I can tell you. That they might do without societies. No, we've an object; and when folks has an object, they commonly look sharp a'ter it. We don't let on all we want and mean openly; and you'll find folks among us that'll stoutly deny that anti-renters has anything to do with the Injin system; but folks an't obliged to believe the moon is all cheese, unless they've a mind to. Some among us maintain that no man ought to hold more than a thousand acres of land, while others think natur' has laid down the law on that p'int, and that a man shouldn't hold more than he has need on."

"Und vich side dost you favor?--vich of dese obinions might not be yours?"

"I'm not partic'lar, so I get a good farm. I should like one with comfortable buildin's on't, and one that hasn't been worked to death. For them two principles I think I'd stand out; but, whether there be four hundred acres, or four hundred and fifty, or even five hundred, I'm no way onaccommodatin'. I expect there'll be trouble in the eend, when we come to the division, but I'm not the man to make it. I s'pose I shall get my turn at the town offices, and other chances, and, givin' me my rights to them, I'll take up with almost any farm young Littlepage has, though I should rather have one in the main valley here, than one more out of the way; still, I don't set myself down as at all partic'lar."

"Und vhat do you expect to bay Mr. Littlepage for der farm, ast you might choose?"

"That depends on circumstances. The Injins mainly expect to come in cheap. Some folks think it's best to pay suthin', as it might stand ag'in law better, should it come to that; while other some see no great use in paying anything. Them that's willing to pay, mainly hold out for paying the principal of the first rents."

"I doesn't oonderstandt vhat you means by der brincipal of der first rents."

"It's plain enough, when you get the lay on't. You see, these lands were let pretty low, when they were first taken up from the forest, in order to get folks to live here. That's the way we're obliged to do in America, or people won't come. Many tenants paid no rent at all for six, eight, or ten years; and a'ter that, until their three lives run out, as it is called, they paid only sixpence an acre, or six dollars and a quarter on the hundred acres. That was done, you see, to buy men to come here at all; and you can see by the price that was paid, how hard a time they must have had on't. Now, some of our folks hold that the whull time ought to be counted--that which was rent free, and that which was not--in a way that I'll explain to you; for I'd have you to know I haven't entered into this business without looking to the right and the wrong on't."

"Exblain, exblain; I might hear you exblain, and you most exblain."

"Why, you're in a hurry, friend Griezenbach, or whatever your name be. But I'll explain, if you wish it. S'pose, now, a lease run thirty years--ten on nothin', and twenty on sixpences. Well, a hundred sixpences makes fifty shillings, and twenty times fifty makes a thousand, as all the rent paid in thirty years. If you divide a thousand by thirty, it leaves thirty-three shillings and a fraction"--Joshua calculated like an American of his class, accurately and with rapidity--"for the average rent of the thirty years. Calling thirty-three shillings four dollars, and it's plaguey little more, we have that for the interest, which, at seven per cent., will make a principal of rather more than fifty dollars, though not as much as sixty. As sich matters ought to be done on liberal principles, they say Littlepage ought to take fifty dollars, and give a deed for the hundred acres."

"Und vhat might be der rent of a hoondred acres now:--he might get more dan sixpence to-day?"

"That he does. Most all of the farms are running out on second, and some on third leases. Four shilling an acre is about the average of the rents, accordin' to circumstances."

"Den you dinks der landlort ought to accept one year's rent for der farms?"

"I don't look on it in that light. He ought to take fifty dollars for a hundred acres. You forget the tenants have paid for their farms, over and over again, in rent. They feel as if they have paid enough, and that it was time to stop."

Extraordinary as this reasoning may seem in most men's minds, I have since found it is a very favorite sentiment among anti-renters. "Are we to go on, and pay rent forever?" they ask, with logical and virtuous indignation!

"Und vhat may be der aferage value of a hoondred acre farm, in dis part of de coontry?" I inquired.

"From two thousand five hundred to three thousand dollars. It would be more, but tenants won't put good buildings on farms, you know, seein' that they don't own them. I heard one of our leaders lamentin' that he didn't foresee what times were comin' to, when he repaired his old house, or he would have built a new one. But a man can't foretell everything. I dare say many has the same feelin's, now."

"Den you dinks Herr Littlebage ought to accept $50 for vhat is worth $2,500? Das seems fery little."

"You forget the back rent that has been paid, and the work the tenant has done. What would the farm be good for without the work that has been done on it?"

"Ja, ja--I oonderstandst; und vhat vould der work be goot for vidout der landt on which it vast done?"

This was rather an incautious question to put to a man as distrustful and roguish as Joshua Brigham. The fellow cast a lowering and distrustful look at me; but ere there was time to answer, Miller, of whom he stood in healthful awe, called him away to look after the cows.

Here, then, I had enjoyed an opportunity of hearing the opinions of one of my own hirelings on the interesting subject of my right to my own estate. I have since ascertained that, while these sentiments are sedulously kept out of view in the proceedings of the government, which deals with the whole matter as if the tenants were nothing but martyrs to hard bargains, and the landlords their taskmasters, of greater or less lenity, they are extensively circulated in the "infected districts," and are held to be very sound doctrines by a large number of the "bone and sinew of the land." Of course the reasoning is varied a little, to suit circumstances, and to make it meet the facts. But of this school is a great deal, and a very great deal, of the reasoning that circulates on the leased property; and, from what I have seen and heard already, I make no doubt that there are quasi legislators among us, who, instead of holding the manly and only safe doctrine which ought to be held on such a subject, and saying that these deluded men should be taught better, are ready to cite the very fact that such notions do exist as a reason for the necessity of making concessions, in order to keep the peace at the cheaper rate. That profound principle of legislation, which concedes the right in order to maintain quiet, is admirably adapted to forming sinners; and, if carried out in favor of all who may happen to covet their neighbors' goods, would, in a short time, render this community the very paradise of knaves.

As for Joshua Brigham, I saw no more of him that night; for he quitted the farm on leave, just as it got to be dark. Where he went I do not know; but the errand on which he left us could no longer be a secret to me. As the family retired early, and we ourselves were a good deal fatigued, everybody was in bed by nine o'clock, and, judging from myself, soon asleep. Previously to saying "good-night," however, Miller told us of the meeting of the next day, and of his intention to attend it.

CHAPTER XIII.

"He knows the game; how true he keeps the wind!
Silence."

--King Henry VI.

After an early breakfast, next morning, the signs of preparation for a start became very apparent in the family. Not only Miller, but his wife and daughter, intended to go down to "Little Neest," as the hamlet was almost invariably called in that fragment of the universe, in contradistinction to the "Neest" proper. I found afterward that this very circumstance was cited against me in the controversy, it being thought lese-majeste for a private residence to monopolize the major of the proposition, while a hamlet had to put up with the minor; the latter, moreover, including two taverns, which are exclusively the property of the public, there being exclusiveness with the public as well as with aristocrats--more especially in all things that pertain to power or profit. As to the two last, even Joshua Brigham was much more of an aristocrat than I was myself. It must be admitted that the Americans are a humane population, for they are the only people who deem that bankruptcy gives a claim to public favor.[25]

As respects the two "Nests," had not so much more serious matter been in agitation, the precedence of the names might actually have been taken up as a question of moment. I have heard of a lawsuit in France, touching a name that has been illustrious in that country for a period so long as to extend beyond the reach of man--as, indeed, was apparent by the matter in controversy--and which name has obtained for itself a high place in the annals of even our own republic. I allude to the house of Grasse, which was seated, prior to the revolution, and may be still, at a place called Grasse, in the southern part of the kingdom, the town being almost as famous for the manufacture of pleasant things as the family for its exploits in arms. About a century since, the Marquis de Grasse is said to have had a proces with his neighbors of the place, to establish the fact whether the family gave its name to the town, or the town gave its name to the family. The marquis prevailed in the struggle, but greatly impaired his fortune in achieving that new victory. As my house, or its predecessor, was certainly erected and named while the site of Little Nest was still in the virgin forest, one would think its claims to the priority of possession beyond dispute; but such might not prove to be the case on a trial. There are two histories among us, as relates to both public and private things; the one being as nearly true as is usual, while the other is invariably the fruits of the human imagination. Everything depending so much on majorities, that soon gets to be the most authentic tradition which has the most believers; for, under the system of numbers, little regard is paid to superior advantages, knowledge, or investigation, all depending on three as against two, which makes one majority. I find a great deal of this spurious history is getting to be mixed up with the anti-rent controversy, facts coming out daily that long have lain dormant in the graves of the past. These facts affect the whole structure of the historical picture of the State and colony, leaving touches of black where the pencil had originally put in white, and placing the high lights where the shadows have before always been understood to be. In a word, men are telling the stories as best agrees with their present views, and not at all as they agree with the fact.

It was the intention of Tom Miller to give my uncle Ro and me a dearborn to ourselves, while he drove his wife, Kitty and a help, as far as the "Little Neest," in a two-horse vehicle that was better adapted to such a freight. Thus disposed of, then, we all left the place in company, just as the clock in the farm-house entry struck nine. I drove our horse myself; and mine he was, in fact, every hoof, vehicle and farming utensil on the Nest farm, being as much my property, under the old laws, as the hat on my head. It is true, the Millers had now been fifty years or more, nay, nearly sixty, in possession, and by the new mode of construction it is possible some may fancy that we had paid them wages so long for working the land, and for using the cattle and utensils, that the title, in a moral sense, had passed out of me, in order to pass into Tom Miller. If use begets a right, why not to a wagon and horse, as well as to a farm.

As we left the place I gazed wistfully toward the Nest House, in the hope of seeing the form of some one that I loved, at a window, on the lawn, or in the piazza. Not a soul appeared, however, and we trotted down the road a short distance in the rear of the other wagon, conversing on such things as came uppermost in our minds. The distance we had to go was about four miles, and the hour named for the commencement of the lecture, which was to be the great affair of the day, had been named at eleven. This caused us to be in no hurry, and I rather preferred to coincide with the animal I drove, and move very slowly, than hurry on, and arrive an hour or two sooner than was required. In consequence of this feeling on our part, Miller and his family were soon out of sight, it being their wish to obtain as much of the marvels of the day as was possible.

The road, of course, was perfectly well known to my uncle and myself; but, had it not been, there was no danger of missing our way, as we had only to follow the general direction of the broad valley through which it ran. Then Miller had considerately told us that we must pass two churches, or a church and a "meetin'-'us'," the spires of both of which were visible most of the way, answering for beacons. Referring to this term of "meeting-house," does it not furnish conclusive evidence, of itself, of the inconsistent folly of that wisest of all earthly beings, man? It was adopted in contradistinction from, and in direct opposition to, the supposed idolatrous association connected with the use of the word "church," at a time when certain sects would feel offended at hearing their places of worship thus styled; whereas, at the present day, those very sectarians are a little disposed to resent this exclusive appropriation of the proscribed word by the sects who have always adhered to it as offensively presuming, and, in a slight degree, "arisdogradic!" I am a little afraid that your out-and-outers in politics, religion, love of liberty, and other human excellences, are somewhat apt to make these circuits in their eccentric orbits, and to come out somewhere quite near the places from which they started.

The road between the Nest House and Little Nest, the hamlet, is rural, and quite as agreeable as is usually found in a part of the country that is without water-views or mountain scenery. Our New York landscapes are rarely, nay, never grand, as compared with the noble views one finds in Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the finer parts of Europe; but we have a vast many that want nothing but a finish to their artificial accessories to render them singularly agreeable. Such is the case with the principal vale of Ravensnest, which, at the very moment we were driving through it, struck my uncle and myself as presenting a picture of rural abundance, mingled with rural comfort, that one seldom sees in the old world, where the absence of enclosures, and the concentration of the dwellings in villages, leave the fields naked and with a desolate appearance, in spite of their high tillage and crops.

"This is an estate worth contending for, now," said my uncle, as we trotted slowly on, "although it has not hitherto been very productive to its owner. The first half-century of an American property of this sort rarely brings much to its proprietor beyond trouble and vexation."

"And after that time the tenant is to have it, pretty much at his own price, as a reward for his own labor!"

"What evidences are to be found, wherever the eye rests, of the selfishness of man, and his unfitness to be left to the unlimited control of his own affairs! In England they are quarrelling with the landlords, who do compose a real aristocracy, and make the laws, about the manner in which they protect themselves and the products of their estates; while here the true owner of the soil is struggling against the power of numbers, with the people, who are the only aristocrats we possess, in order to maintain his right of property in the simplest and most naked form! A common vice is at the bottom of both wrongs, and that is the vice of selfishness."

"But how are abuses like those of which we complain here--abuses of the most formidable character of any that can exist, since the oppressors are so many, and so totally irresponsible by their numbers--to be avoided, if you give the people the right of self-government?"

"God help the nation where self-government, in its literal sense, exists, Hugh! The term is conventional, and, properly viewed, means a government in which the source of authority is the body of the nation, and does not come from any other sovereign. When a people that has been properly educated by experience calmly selects its agents, and coolly sets to work to adopt a set of principles to form its fundamental law or constitution, the machine is on the right track, and will work well enough so long as it is kept there; but this running off, and altering the fundamental principles every time a political faction has need of recruits, is introducing tyranny in its worst form--a tyranny that is just as dangerous to real liberty as hypocrisy is to religion!"

We were now approaching St. Andrew's church and the rectory, with its glebe, the latter lying contiguous to the church-yard, or, as it is an Americanism to say, the "graveyard." There had been an evident improvement around the rectory since I had last seen it. Shrubbery had been planted, care was taken of the fences, the garden was neatly and well worked, the fields looked smooth, and everything denoted that it was "new lords and new laws." The last incumbent had been a whining, complaining, narrow-minded, selfish and lazy priest, the least estimable of all human characters, short of the commission of the actual and higher crimes; but his successor had the reputation of being a devout and real Christian--one who took delight in the duties of his holy office, and who served God because he loved him. I am fully aware how laborious is the life of a country priest, and how contracted and mean is the pittance he in common receives, and how much more he merits than he gets, if his reward were to be graduated by things here. But this picture, like every other, has its different sides, and occasionally men do certainly enter the church from motives as little as possible connected with those that ought to influence them.

"There is the wagon of Mr. Warren, at his door," observed my uncle, as we passed the rectory. "Can it be that he intends visiting the village also, on an occasion like this?"

"Nothing more probable, sir, if the character Patt has given of him be true," I answered. "She tells me he has been active in endeavoring to put down the covetous spirit that is getting uppermost in the town, and has even preached boldly, though generally, against the principles involved in the question. The other man, they say, goes for popularity, and preaches and prays with the anti-renters."

No more was said, but on we went, soon entering a large bit of wood, a part of the virgin forest. This wood, exceeding a thousand acres in extent, stretched down from the hills along some broken and otherwise little valuable land, and had been reserved from the axe to meet the wants of some future day. It was mine, therefore, in the fullest sense of the word; and, singular as it may seem, one of the grounds of accusation brought against me and my predecessors was that we had declined leasing it! Thus, on the one hand, we were abused for having leased our land, and, on the other, for not having leased it. The fact is, we, in common with other extensive landlords, are expected to use our property as much as possible for the particular benefit of other people, while those other people are expected to use their property as much as possible for their own particular benefit.

There was near a mile of forest to pass before we came out again in the open country, at about a mile and a half's distance from the hamlet. On our left this little forest did not extend more than a hundred rods, terminating at the edge of the rivulet--or creek, as the stream is erroneously called, and for no visible reason but the fact that it was only a hundred feet wide--which swept close under the broken ground mentioned at this point. On our right, however, the forest stretched away for more than a mile, until, indeed, it became lost and confounded with other portions of wood that had been reserved for the farms on which they grew. As is very usual in America, in cases where roads pass through a forest, a second growth had shot up on each side of this highway, which was fringed for the whole distance with large bushes of pine, hemlock, chestnut, and maple. In some places these bushes almost touched the track, while in others a large space was given. We were winding our way through this wood, and had nearly reached its centre, at a point where no house was visible--and no house, indeed, stood within half a mile of us--with the view in front and in rear limited to some six or eight rods in each direction by the young trees, when our ears were startled by a low, shrill, banditti-like whistle. I must confess that my feelings were anything but comfortable at that interruption, for I remembered the conversation of the previous night. I thought by the sudden jump of my uncle, and the manner he instinctively felt where he ought to have had a pistol, to meet such a crisis, that he believed himself already in the hands of the Philistines.

A half minute sufficed to tell us the truth. I had hardly stopped the horse, in order to look around me, when a line of men, all armed and disguised, issued in single file from the bushes, and drew up in the road, at right angles to its course. There were six of these "Injins," as they are called, and, indeed, call themselves, each carrying a rifle, horn, and pouch, and otherwise equipped for the field. The disguises were very simple, consisting of a sort of loose calico hunting-shirt and trowsers that completely concealed the person. The head was covered by a species of hood or mask, equally of calico, that was fitted with holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and which completed the disguise. There were no means of recognizing a man thus equipped, unless it might be by the stature, in cases in which the party was either unusually tall or unusually short. A middle-sized man was perfectly safe from recognition, so long as he did not speak and could keep his equipments. Those who did speak altered their voices, as we soon found, using a jargon that was intended to imitate the imperfect English of the native owners of the soil. Although neither of us had ever seen one of the gang before, we knew these disturbers of the public peace to be what in truth they were, the instant our eyes fell on them. One could not well be mistaken, indeed, under the circumstances in which we were placed; but the tomahawks that one or two carried, the manner of their march, and other pieces of mummery that they exhibited, would have told us the fact, had we met them even in another place.

My first impulse was to turn the wagon, and to endeavor to lash the lazy beast I drove into a run. Fortunately, before the attempt was made, I turned my head to see if there was room for such an exploit, and saw six others of these "Injins" drawn across the road behind us. It was now so obviously the wisest course to put the best face on the matter, that we walked the horse boldly up to the party in front, until he was stopped by one of the gang taking him by the bridle.

"Sago, sago," cried one who seemed to act as a chief, and whom I shall thus designate, speaking in his natural voice, though affecting an Indian pronunciation. "How do, how do?--where come from, eh?--where go, eh? What you say, too--up rent or down rent, eh?"

"Ve ist two Charmans," returned Uncle Ro, in his most desperate dialect, the absurdity of men who spoke the same language resorting to such similar means of deception tempting me sorely to laugh in the fellows' faces; "Ve ist two Charmans dat ist goin' to hear a man's sbeak about bayin rent, und to sell vatches. Might you buy a vatch, goot shentlemans?"

Although the fellows doubtless knew who we were, so far as our assumed characters went, and had probably been advised of our approach, this bait took, and there was a general jumping up and down, and a common pow-wowing among them, indicative of the pleasure such a proposal gave. In a minute the whole party were around us, with some eight or ten more, who appeared from the nearest bushes. We were helped out of the wagon with a gentle violence that denoted their impatience. As a matter of course, I expected that all the trinkets and watches, which were of little value, fortunately, would immediately disappear; for who could doubt that men engaged in attempting to rob on so large a scale as these fellows were engaged in, would hesitate about doing a job on one a little more diminutive. I was mistaken, however; some sort of imperceptible discipline keeping those who were thus disposed, of whom there must have been some in such a party, in temporary order. The horse was left standing in the middle of the highway, right glad to take his rest, while we were shown the trunk of a fallen tree, near by, on which to place our box of wares. A dozen watches were presently in the hands of as many of these seeming savages, who manifested a good deal of admiration at their shining appearance. While this scene, which was half mummery and half nature, was in the course of enactment, the chief beckoned me to a seat on the further end of the tree, and, attended by one or two of his companions, he began to question me as follows:

"Mind, tell truth," he said, making no very expert actor in the way of imitation. "Dis 'Streak o' Lightning,'" laying his hand on his own breast, that I might not misconceive the person of the warrior who bore so eminent a title--"no good lie to him--know ebbery t'ing afore he ask, only ask for fun--what do here, eh?"

"Ve coomes to see der Injins und der beoples at der village, dat ve might sell our vatches."

"Dat all; sartain?--can call 'down rent,' eh?"

"Dat ist ferry easy; 'down rent, eh?'"

"Sartain Jarman, eh?--you no spy?--you no sent here by gubbernor, eh?--landlord no pay you, eh?"

"Vhat might I spy? Dere ist nothin' to spy, but mans vid calico faces. Vhy been you afraid of der governor?--I dinks der governors be ferry goot frients of der anti-rents."

"Not when we act this way. Send horse, send foot a'ter us, den. T'ink good friend, too, when he dare."

"He be d--d!" bawled out one of the tribe, in as good, homely, rustic English as ever came out of the mouth of a clown. "If he's our friend, why did he send the artillery and horse down to Hudson?--and why has he had Big Thunder up afore his infarnal courts? He be d--d!"

There was no mistaking this outpouring of the feelings; and so "Streak o' Lightning" seemed to think too, for he whispered one of the tribe, who took the plain-speaking Injin by the arm and led him away, grumbling and growling, as the thunder mutters in the horizon after the storm has passed on. For myself, I made several profitable reflections concerning the inevitable fate of those who attempt to "serve God and Mammon." This anti-rentism is a question in which, so far as a governor is concerned, there is but one course to pursue, and that is to enforce the laws by suppressing violence, and leaving the parties to the covenants of leases to settle their differences in the courts, like the parties to any other contracts. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Many a landlord has made a hard bargain for himself; and I happen to know of one case in particular, in which a family has long been, and is still, kept out of the enjoyment of a very valuable estate, as to any benefit of importance, purely by the circumstance that a weak-minded possessor of the property fancied he was securing souls for paradise by letting his farms on leases for ninety-nine years, at nominal rents, with a covenant that the tenant should go twice to a particular church! Now, nothing is plainer than that it is a greater hardship to the citizen who is the owner of many farms so situated, than to the citizen who is the lessee of only one with a hard covenant; and, on general principles, the landlord in question would be most entitled to relief, since one man who suffers a good deal is more an object of true commiseration than many who suffer each a little. What would a governor be apt to say if my landlord should go with his complaints to the foot of the executive chair, and tell him that the very covenant which had led his predecessor into the mistake of thus wasting his means was openly disregarded; that farms worth many thousands of dollars had now been enjoyed by the tenants for near a century for mere nominal rents, and that the owner of the land in fee had occasion for his property, etc., etc.? Would the governor recommend legislative action in that case? Would the length of such leases induce him to recommend that no lease should exceed five years in duration? Would the landlords who should get up a corps of Injins to worry their tenants into an abandonment of their farms be the objects of commiseration?--and would the law slumber for years over their rebellions and depredations, until two or three murders aroused public indignation? Let them answer that know. As a landlord, I should be sorry to incur the ridicule that would attend even a public complaint of the hardships of such a case. A common sneer would send me to the courts for my remedy, if I had one, and the whole difference between the "if and ifs" of the two cases would be that a landlord gives but one vote, while his tenants may be legion.[26]

"He be d----d," muttered the plain-speaking Injin, as long as I could hear him. As soon as released from his presence, Streak o' Lightning continued his examination, though a little vexed at the undramatical character of the interruption.

"Sartain no spy, eh?--sartain gubbernor no send him, eh?--sartain come to sell watch, eh?"

"I coomes, as I tell ye, to see if vatches might be solt, und not for der gobbernor; I neffer might see der mans."

As all this was true, my conscience felt pretty easy on the score of whatever there might be equivocal about it.

"What folks think of Injin down below, eh?--what folks say of anti-rent, eh?--hear him talk about much?"

"Vell, soome does dink anti-rent ist goot, and soome does dink anti-rent ist bad. Dey dinks as they wishes."

Here a low whistle came down the road, or rather down the bushes, when every Injin started up; each man very fairly gave back the watch he was examining, and in less than half a minute we were alone on the log. This movement was so sudden that it left us in a little doubt as to the proper mode of proceeding. My uncle, however, coolly set about replacing his treasures in their box, while I went to the horse, which had shaken off his head-stall, and was quietly grazing along the road-side. A minute or two might have been thus occupied, when the trotting of a horse and the sound of wheels announced the near approach of one of those vehicles which have got to be almost national--a dearborn, or a one-horse wagon. As it came out from behind a screen of bushes formed by a curvature in the road, I saw that it contained the Rev. Mr. Warren and his sweet daughter.

The road being narrow, and our vehicle in its centre, it was not possible for the new-comers to proceed until we got out of the way, and the divine pulled up as soon as he reached the spot where we stood.

"Good morning, gentlemen," said Mr. Warren, cordially, and using a word that, in his mouth, I felt meant all it expressed. "Good morning, gentlemen. Are you playing Handel to the wood-nymphs, or reciting eclogues?"

"Neider, neider, Herr Pastor; we meet wid coostomers here, and dey has joost left us," answered uncle Ro, who certainly enacted his part with perfect aplomb, and the most admirable mimicry as to manner. "Guten tag, guten tag. Might der Herr Pastor been going to der village?"

"We are. I understand there is to be a meeting there of the misguided men called anti-renters, and that several of my parishioners are likely to be present. On such an occasion I conceive it to be my duty to go among my own particular people, and whisper a word of advice. Nothing can be farther from my notions of propriety than for a clergyman to be mingling and mixing himself up with political concerns in general, but this is a matter that touches morality, and the minister of God is neglectful of his duty who keeps aloof when a word of admonition might aid in preventing some wavering brother from the commission of a grievous sin. This last consideration has brought me out to a scene I could otherwise most heartily avoid."

This might be well enough, I said to myself, but what has your daughter to do in such a scene? Is the mind of Mary Warren then, after all, no better than vulgar minds in general?--and can she find a pleasure in the excitement of lectures of this cast, and in that of public meetings? No surer test can be found of cultivation, than the manner in which it almost intuitively shrinks from communion unnecessarily with tastes and principles below its own level; yet here was the girl with whom I was already half in love--and that was saying as little as could be said, too--actually going down to the "Little Nest" to hear an itinerant lecturer on political economy utter his crudities, and to see and be seen! I was grievously disappointed, and would at the moment have cheerfully yielded the best farm on my estate to have had the thing otherwise. My uncle must have had some similar notion, by the remark he made.

"Und doost das jung frau go to see the Injins, too; to bersuade 'em dey ist fery vicked?"

Mary's face had been a little pale for her, I thought, as the wagon drew up; but it immediately became scarlet. She even suffered her head to droop a little, and then I perceived that she cast an anxious and tender glance at her father. I cannot say whether this look were or were not intended for a silent appeal, unconsciously made; but the father, without even seeing it, acted as if he fancied it might be.

"No, no," he said, hurriedly; "this dear girl is doing violence to all her feelings but one, in venturing to such a place. Her filial piety has proved stronger than her fears and her tastes, and when she found that go I would, no argument of mine could persuade her to remain at home. I hope she will not repent it."

The color did not quit Mary's face, but she looked grateful at finding her true motives appreciated; and she even smiled, though she said nothing. My own feelings underwent another sudden revulsion. There was no want of those tastes and inclinations that can alone render a young woman attractive to any man of sentiment, but there was high moral feeling and natural affection enough to overcome them in a case in which she thought duty demanded the sacrifice! It was very little probable that anything would or could occur that day to render the presence of Mary Warren in the least necessary or useful; but it was very pleasant to me and very lovely in her to think otherwise, under the strong impulses of her filial attachment.

Another idea, however, and one far less pleasant, suggested itself to the minds of my uncle and myself, and almost at the same instant; it was this: the conversation was carried on in a high key, or loud enough to be heard at some little distance, the horse and part of the wagon interposing between the speakers; and there was the physical certainty that some of those whom we knew to be close at hand, in the bushes, must hear all that was said, and might take serious offense at it. Under this apprehension, therefore, my uncle directed me to remove our own vehicle as fast as possible, in order that the clergyman might pass. Mr. Warren, however, was in no hurry to do this, for he was utterly ignorant of the audience he had, and entertained that feeling toward us that men of liberal acquirements are apt to feel when they see others of similar educations reduced by fortune below their proper level. He was consequently desirous of manifesting his sympathy with us, and would not proceed, even after I had opened the way for him.

"It is a painful thing," continued Mr. Warren, "to find men mistaking their own cupidity for the workings of a love of liberty. To me nothing is more palpable than that this anti-rent movement is covetousness incited by the father of evil; yet you will find men among us who fancy they are aiding the cause of free institutions by joining in it, when, in truth, they are doing all they can to bring them into discredit, and to insure their certain downfall, in the end."

This was sufficiently awkward; for, by going near enough to give a warning in a low voice, and have that warning followed by a change in the discourse, we should be betraying ourselves, and might fall into serious danger. At the very moment the clergyman was thus speaking I saw the masked head of Streak o' Lightning appearing through an opening in some small pines that grew a little in the rear of the wagon, a position that enabled him to hear every syllable that was uttered. I was afraid to act myself, and trusted to the greater experience of my uncle.

Whether the last also saw the pretended chief was more than I knew, but he decided to let the conversation go on, rather leaning to the anti-rent side of the question, as the course that could do no serious evil, while it might secure our own safety. It is scarcely necessary to say all these considerations glanced through our minds so swiftly as to cause no very awkward or suspicious pause in the discourse.

"B'rhaps dey doosn't like to bay rent?" put in my uncle, with a roughness of manner that was in accordance with the roughness of the sentiment "Beoples might radder haf deir landts for nuttin', dan bay rents for dem."

"In that case, then, let them go and buy lands for themselves; if they do not wish to pay rent, why did they agree to pay rent?"

"May be dey changes deir minds. Vhat is goot to-day doosn't always seem goot to-morrow."

"That may be true; but we have no right to make others suffer for our own fickleness. I dare say, now, that it might be better for the whole community that so large a tract of land as that included in the Manor of Rensselaerwyck, for instance, and lying as it does in the very heart of the State, should be altogether in the hands of the occupants, than have it subject to the divided interest that actually exists; but it does not follow that a change is to be made by violence, or by fraudulent means. In either of the latter cases the injury done the community would be greater than if the present tenures were to exist a thousand years. I dare say much the larger portion of those farms can be bought off at a moderate advance on their actual money-value; and that is the way to get rid of the difficulty; not by bullying owners out of their property. If the State finds a political consideration of so much importance for getting rid of the tenures, let the State tax itself to do so, and make a liberal offer, in addition to what the tenants will offer, and I'll answer for it the landlords will not stand so much in their own way as to decline good prices."

"But maybes dey won't sell all der landts; dey may wants to keep some of dem."

"They have a right to say yes or no, while we have no right to juggle or legislate them out of their property. The Legislature of this State has quite lately been exhibiting one of the most pitiable sights the world has seen in my day. It has been struggling for months to find a way to get round the positive provisions of laws and constitutions, in order to make a sacrifice of the rights of a few, to secure the votes of the many."

"Votes ist a goot ding, at election dimes--haw, haw, haw!" exclaimed my uncle.

Mr. Warren looked both surprised and offended. The coarseness of manner that my uncle had assumed effected its object with the Injins, but it almost destroyed the divine's previous good opinion of our characters, and quite upset his notions of our refinement and principles. There was no time for explanations, however; for, just as my uncle's broad and well-acted "haw, haw, haw" was ended, a shrill whistle was heard in the bushes, and some forty or fifty of the Injins came whooping and leaping out from their cover, filling the road in all directions, immediately around the wagons.

Mary Warren uttered a little scream at this startling scene, and I saw her arm clinging to that of her father, by a sort of involuntary movement, as if she would protect him at all hazards. Then she seemed to rally, and from that instant her character assumed an energy, an earnestness, a spirit and an intrepidity that I had least expected in one so mild in aspect, and so really sweet in disposition.

All this was unnoticed by the Injins. They had their impulses, too, and the first thing they did was to assist Mr. Warren and his daughter to alight from the wagon. This was done not without decorum of manner, and certainly not without some regard to the holy office of one of the parties, and to the sex of the other. Nevertheless, it was done neatly and expeditiously, leaving us all, Mr. Warren and Mary, my uncle and myself, with a cluster of some fifty Injins around us, standing in the centre of the highway.

CHAPTER XIV.

"No toil in despair,
No tyrant, no slave,
No bread-tax is there,
With a maw like the grave."

All this was so suddenly done as scarce to leave us time to think. There was one instant, notwithstanding, while two Injins were assisting Mary Warren to jump from the wagon, when my incognito was in great danger. Perceiving that the young lady was treated with no particular disrespect, I so far overcame the feeling as to remain quiet, though I silently changed my position sufficiently to get near her elbow, where I could and did whisper a word or two of encouragement. But Mary thought only of her father, and had no fears for herself. She saw none but him, trembled only for him, dreaded and hoped for him alone.

As for Mr. Warren himself, he betrayed no discomposure. Had he been about to enter the desk, his manner could not have been more calm. He gazed around him, to ascertain if it were possible to recognize any of his captors, but suddenly turned his head away, as if struck with the expediency of not learning their names, even though it had been possible. He might be put on the stand as a witness against some misguided neighbor, did he know his person. All this was so apparent in his benevolent countenance, that I think it struck some among the Injins, and still believe it may have had a little influence on their treatment of him. A pot of tar and a bag of feathers had been brought into the road when the gang poured out of the bushes, but whether this were merely accidental, or it had originally been intended to use them on Mr. Warren, I cannot say. The offensive materials soon and silently disappeared, and with them every sign of any intention to offer personal injury.

"What have I done that I am thus arrested in the public highway, by men armed and disguised, contrary to law?" demanded the divine, as soon as the general pause which succeeded the first movement invited him to speak. "This is a rash and illegal step, that may yet bring repentance."

"No preachee now," answered Streak o' Lightning; "preachee for meetin', no good for road."

Mr. Warren afterward admitted to me that he was much relieved by this reply, the substitution of the word "meeting" for "church" giving him the grateful assurance that this individual, at least, was not one of his own people.

"Admonition and remonstrance may always be useful when crime is meditated. You are now committing a felony, for which the State's Prison is the punishment prescribed by the laws of the land, and the duties of my holy office direct me to warn you of the consequences. The earth itself is but one of God's temples, and his ministers need never hesitate to proclaim his laws on any part of it."

It was evident that the calm severity of the divine, aided, no doubt, by his known character, produced an impression on the gang, for the two who had still hold of his arms released them, and a little circle was now formed, in the centre of which he stood.

"If you will enlarge this circle, my friends," continued Mr. Warren, "and give room, I will address you here, where we stand, and let you know my reasons why I think your conduct ought to be----"

"No, no--no preachee here," suddenly interrupted Streak o' Lightning; "go to village, go to meetin'-'us'--preachee there--Two preacher, den.--Bring wagon and put him in. March, march; path open."

Although this was but an "Injin" imitation of Indian sententiousness, and somewhat of a caricature, everybody understood well enough what was meant. Mr. Warren offered no resistance, but suffered himself to be placed in Miller's wagon, with my uncle at his side, without opposition. Then it was, however, that he bethought himself of his daughter, though his daughter had never ceased to think of him. I had some little difficulty in keeping her from rushing into the crowd and clinging to his side. Mr. Warren rose, and, giving her an encouraging smile, bade her be calm, told her he had nothing to fear, and requested that she would enter his own wagon again and return home, promising to rejoin her as soon as his duties at the village were discharged.

"Here is no one to drive the horse, my child, but our young German acquaintance. The distance is very short, and if he will thus oblige me he can come down to the village with the wagon, as soon as he has seen you safe at our own door."

Mary Warren was accustomed to defer to her father's opinions, and she so far submitted, now, as to permit me to assist her into the wagon, and to place myself at her side, whip in hand, proud of and pleased with the precious charge thus committed to my care. These arrangements made, the Injins commenced their march, about half of them preceding, and the remainder following the wagon that contained their prisoner. Four, however, walked on each side of the vehicle, thus preventing the possibility of escape. No noise was made, and little was said; the orders being given by signs and signals, rather than by words.

Our wagon continued stationary until the party had got at least a hundred yards from us, no one giving any heed to our movements. I had waited thus long for the double purpose of noting the manner of the proceedings among the Injins, and to obtain room to turn at a spot in the road a short distance in advance of us, and which was wider than common. To this spot I now walked the horse, and was in the act of turning the animal's head in the required direction, when I saw Mary Warren's little gloved hand laid hurriedly on the reins. She endeavored to keep the head of the horse in the road.

"No, no," said the charming girl, speaking earnestly, as if she would not be denied, "we will follow my father to the village. I may not, must not, cannot quit him."

The time and place were every way propitious, and I determined to let Mary Warren know who I was. By doing it I might give her confidence in me at a moment when she was in distress, and encourage her with the hope that I might also befriend her father. At any rate, I was determined to pass for an itinerant Dutch music-grinder with her no longer.

"Miss Mary, Miss Warren," I commenced, cautiously, and with quite as much hesitation and diffidence of feeling as of manner, "I am not what I seem--that is, I am no music-grinder."

The start, the look, and the alarm of my companion, were all eloquent and natural. Her hand was still on the reins, and she now drew on them so hard as actually to stop the horse. I thought she intended to jump out of the vehicle, as a place no longer fit for her.

"Be not alarmed, Miss Warren," I said, eagerly, and, I trust, so earnestly as to inspire a little confidence. "You will not think the worse of me at finding I am your countryman instead of a foreigner, and a gentleman instead of a music-grinder. I shall do all you ask, and will protect you with my life."

"This is so extraordinary!--so unusual. The whole country appears unsettled! Pray, sir, if you are not the person whom you have represented yourself to be, who are you?"

"One who admires your filial love and courage--who honors you for them both. I am the brother of your friend, Martha--I am Hugh Littlepage!"

The little hand now abandoned the reins, and the dear girl turned half round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! I had been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I was compelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as unnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becoming as a horridly unbecoming disguise. Off went my cap, therefore, and off went the wig after it, leaving my own shaggy curls for the sole setting of my face.

Mary made a slight exclamation as she gazed at me, and the deadly paleness of her countenance was succeeded by a slight blush. A smile, too, parted her lips, and I fancied she was less alarmed.

"Am I forgiven, Miss Warren," I asked; "and will you recognize me for the brother of your friend?"

"Does Martha--does Mrs. Littlepage know of this?" the charming girl at length asked.

"Both; I have had the happiness of being embraced by both my grandmother and my sister. You were taken out of the room yesterday by the first, that I might be left alone with the last, for that very purpose!"

"I see it all now; yes, I thought it singular then, though I felt there could be no impropriety in any of Mrs. Littlepage's acts. Dearest Martha! how well she played her part, and how admirably she has kept your secret!"

"It is very necessary. You see the condition of the country, and will understand that it would be imprudent in me to appear openly, even on my own estate. I have a written covenant authorizing me to visit every farm near us, to look after my own interests; yet it may be questioned if it would be safe to visit one among them all, now that the spirits of misrule and covetousness are up and doing."

"Replace your disguise at once, Mr. Littlepage" said Mary, eagerly; "do--do not delay an instant."

I did as desired, Mary watching the process with interested and, at the same time, amused eyes. I thought she looked as sorry as I felt myself when that lank, villanous wig was again performing its office.

"Am I as well arranged as when we first met, Miss Warren? Do I appear again the music-grinder?"

"I see no difference," returned the dear girl, laughing. How musical and cheering to me were the sounds of her voice in that little burst of sweet, feminine merriment. "Indeed, indeed, I do not think even Martha could know you now, for the person you the moment before seemed."

"My disguise is, then, perfect. I was in hopes it left a little that my friends might recognize, while it effectually concealed me from my enemies."

"It does--oh! it does. Now I know who you are, I find no difficulty in tracing in your features the resemblance to your portrait in the family gallery, at the Nest. The eyes, too, cannot be altered without artificial brows, and those you have not."

This was consoling; but all that time Mr. Warren and the party in front had been forgotten. Perhaps it was excusable in two young persons thus situated, and who had now known each other a week, to think more of what was just then passing in the wagon, than to recollect the tribe that was marching down the road, and the errand they were on. I felt the necessity, however, of next consulting my companion as to our future movements. Mary heard me in evident anxiety, and her purpose seemed unsettled, for she changed color under each new impulse of her feelings.

"If it were not for one thing," she answered, after a thoughtful pause, "I should insist on following my father."

"And what may be the reason of this change of purpose?"

"Would it be altogether safe for you, Mr. Littlepage, to venture again among those misguided men?"

"Never think of me, Miss Warren. You see I have been among them already undetected, and it is my intention to join them again, even should I first have to take you home. Decide for yourself."

"I will, then, follow my father. My presence may be the means of saving him from some indignity."

I was rejoiced at this decision, on two accounts; of which one might have been creditable enough to me, while the other, I am sorry to say, was rather selfish. I delighted in the dear girl's devotion to her parent, and I was glad to have her company as long as possible that morning. Without entering into a very close analysis of motives, however, I drove down the road, keeping the horse on a very slow gait, being in no particular hurry to quit my present fair companion.

Mary and I had now a free, and in some sense, a confidential dialogue. Her manner toward me had entirely changed; for while it maintained the modesty and retenue of her sex and station, it displayed much of that frankness which was the natural consequence of her great intimacy at the Nest, and, as I have since ascertained, of her own ingenuous nature. The circumstance, too, that she now felt she was with one of her own class, who had opinions, habits, tastes, and thoughts like her own, removed a mountain of restraint, and made her communications natural and easy. I was near an hour, I do believe, in driving the two miles that lay between the point where the Injins had met and the village, and in that hour Mary Warren and I became better acquainted than would have been the case, under ordinary circumstances, in a year.

In the first place, I explained the reasons and manners of my early and unexpected return home, and the motives by which I had been governed in thus coming in disguise on my own property. Then I said a little of my future intentions, and of my disposition to hold out to the last against every attempt on my rights, whether they might come from the open violence and unprincipled designs of those below, or the equally unprincipled schemes of those above. A spurious liberty and political cant were things that I despised, as every intelligent and independent man must; and I did not intend to be persuaded I was an aristocrat, merely because I had the habits of a gentleman, at the very moment when I had less political influence than the hired laborers in my own service.

Mary Warren manifested a spirit and an intelligence that surprised me. She expressed her own belief that the proscribed classes of the country had only to be true to themselves to be restored to their just rights, and that on the very principle by which they were so fast losing them. The opinions she thus expressed are worthy of being recorded.

"Everything that is done in that way," said this gentle, but admirable creature, "has hitherto been done on a principle that is quite as false and vicious as that by which they are now oppressed. We have had a great deal written and said, lately, about uniting people of property, but it has been so evidently with an intention to make money rule, and that in its most vulgar and vicious manner, that persons of right feelings would not unite in such an effort; but it does seem to me, Mr. Littlepage, that if the gentlemen of New York would form themselves into an association in defence of their rights, and for nothing else, and let it be known that they would not be robbed with impunity, they are numerous enough and powerful enough to put down this anti-rent project by the mere force of numbers. Thousands would join them for the sake of principles, and the country might be left to the enjoyment of the fruits of liberty, without getting any of the fruits of its cant."

This is a capital idea, and might easily be carried out. It requires nothing but a little self-denial, with the conviction of the necessity of doing something, if the downward tendency is to be ever checked short of civil war, and a revolution that is to let in despotism in its more direct form; despotism, in the indirect, is fast appearing among us, as it is.

"I have heard of a proposition for the legislature to appoint special commissioners, who are to settle all the difficulties between the landlords and the tenants," I remarked, "a scheme in the result of which some people profess to have a faith. I regard it as only one of the many projects that have been devised to evade the laws and institutions of the country, as they now exist."

Mary Warren seemed thoughtful for a moment; then her eye and face brightened as if she were struck with some thought suddenly; after which the color deepened on her cheek, and she turned to me as if half doubting, and yet half desirous of giving utterance to the idea that was uppermost.

"You wish to say something, Miss Warren?"

"I dare say it will be very silly--and I hope you won't think it pedantic in a girl, but really it does look so to me--what difference would there be between such a commission and the Star-Chamber judges of the Stuarts, Mr. Littlepage?"

"Not much in general principles, certainly, as both would be the instruments of tyrants; but a very important one in a great essential. The Star-Chamber courts were legal, whereas this commission would be flagrantly illegal; the adoption of a special tribunal to effect certain purposes that could exist only in the very teeth of the constitution, both in its spirit and its letter. Yet this project comes from men who prate about the 'spirit of the institutions,' which they clearly understand to be their own spirit, let that be what it may."

"Providence, I trust, will not smile on such desperate efforts to do wrong!" said Mary Warren, solemnly.

"One hardly dare look into the inscrutable ways of a Power that has its motives so high beyond our reach. Providence permits much evil to be done, and is very apt to be, as Frederick of Prussia expressed it, on the side of strong battalions, so far as human vision can penetrate. Of one thing, however, I feel certain, and that is, that they who are now the most eager to overturn everything to effect present purposes, will be made to repent of it bitterly, either in their own persons, or in those of their descendants."

"That is what is meant, my father says, by visiting 'the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations.' But there is the party, with their prisoners, just entering the village. Who is your companion, Mr. Littlepage?--One hired to act as an assistant?"

"It is my uncle himself. You have often heard, I should think, of Mr. Roger Littlepage?"

Mary gave a little exclamation at hearing this, and she almost laughed. After a short pause she blushed brightly, and turned to me as she said--

"And my father and I have supposed you, the one a pedler, and the other a street-musician!"

"But beddlars and moosic-grinders of goot etications, as might be panished for deir bolitics."

Now, indeed, she laughed out, for the long and frank dialogue we had held together made this change to broken English seem as if a third person had joined us. I profited by the occasion to exhort the dear girl to be calm, and not to feel any apprehension on the subject of her father. I pointed out how little probable it was that violence would be offered to a minister of the gospel, and showed her, by the number of persons that had collected in the village, that it was impossible he should not have many warm and devoted friends present. I also gave her permission to, nay, requested she would, tell Mr. Warren the fact of my uncle's and my own presence, and the reasons of our disguises, trusting altogether to the very obvious interest the dear girl took in our safety, that she would add, of her own accord, the necessary warning on the subject of secrecy. Just as this conversation ended we drove into the hamlet, and I helped my fair companion to alight.

Mary Warren now hastened to seek her father, while I was left to take care of the horse. This I did by fastening him to the rails of a fence, that was lined for a long distance by horses and wagons drawn up by the wayside. Surprisingly few persons in the country, at this day, are seen on horseback. Notwithstanding the vast difference in the amount of the population, ten horsemen were to be met with forty years ago, by all accounts, on the highways of the State, for one to-day. The well-known vehicle, called a dearborn, with its four light wheels and mere shell of a box, is in such general use as to have superseded almost every other species of conveyance. Coaches and chariots are no longer met with, except in the towns; and even the coachee, the English sociable, which was once so common, has very generally given way to a sort of carriage-wagon, that seems a very general favorite. My grandmother, who did use the stately-looking and elegant chariot in town, had nothing but this carriage-wagon in the country; and I question if one-half of the population of the State would know what to call the former vehicle, if they should see it.

As a matter of course, the collection of people assembled at Little Nest on this occasion had been brought together in dearborns, of which there must have been between two and three hundred lining the fences and crowding the horse-sheds of the two inns. The American countryman, in the true sense of the word, is still quite rustic in many of his notions; though, on the whole, less marked in this particular than his European counterpart. As a rule, he has yet to learn that the little liberties which are tolerated in a thinly peopled district, and which are of no great moment when put in practice under such circumstances, become oppressive and offensive when reverted to in places of much resort. The habits of popular control, too, come to aid in making them fancy that what everybody does in their part of the country can have no great harm in it. It was in conformity with this tendency of the institutions, perhaps, that very many of the vehicles I have named were thrust into improper places, stopping up the footways, impeding the entrances to doors, here and there letting down bars without permission, and garnishing orchards and pastures with one-horse wagons. Nothing was meant by all these liberties beyond a desire to dispose of the horses and vehicles in the manner easiest to their owners. Nevertheless, there was some connection between the institutions and these little liberties which some statesmen might fancy existed in the spirit of the former. This, however, was a capital mistake, inasmuch as the spirit of the institutions is to be found in the laws, which prohibit and punish all sorts of trespasses, and which are enacted expressly to curb the tendencies of human nature! No, no, as my uncle Ro says, nothing can be less alike, sometimes, than the spirit of institutions and their tendencies.

I was surprised to find nearly as many females as men had collected at the Little Nest on this occasion. As for the Injins, after escorting Mr. Warren as far as the village, as if significantly to admonish him of their presence, they had quietly released him, permitting him to go where he pleased. Mary had no difficulty in finding him, and I saw her at his side, apparently in conversation with Opportunity and her brother, Seneca, as soon as I moved down the road, after securing the horses. The Injins themselves kept a little aloof, having my uncle in their very centre; not as a prisoner, for it was clear no one suspected his character, but as a pedler. The watches were out again, and near half of the whole gang seemed busy in trading, though I thought that some among them were anxious and distrustful.

It was a singular spectacle to see men who were raising the cry of "aristocracy" against those who happened to be richer than themselves, while they did not possess a single privilege or power that, substantially, was not equally shared by every other man in the country, thus openly arrayed in defiance of law, and thus violently trampling the law under their feet. What made the spectacle more painful was the certainty that was obtained by their very actions on the ground, that no small portion of these Injins were mere boys, led on by artful and knavish men, and who considered the whole thing as a joke. When the laws fall so much into disrepute as to be the subjects of jokes of this sort, it is time to inquire into their mode of administration. Does any one believe that fifty landlords could have thus flown into the face of a recent enactment, and committed felony openly, and under circumstances that had rendered their intentions no secret, for a time long enough to enable the authorities to collect a force sufficient to repress them? My own opinion is, that had Mr. Stephen Rensselaer, and Mr. William Rensselaer, and Mr. Harry Livingston, and Mr. John Hunter, and Mr. Daniel Livingston, and Mr. Hugh Littlepage, and fifty more that I could name, been caught armed and disguised, in order to defend the rights of property that are solemnly guaranteed in these institutions, of which it would seem to be the notion of some that it is the "spirit" to dispossess them, we should all of us have been the inmates of States' prisons, without legislators troubling themselves to pass laws for our liberation! This is another of the extraordinary features of American aristocracy, which almost deprives the noble of the every-day use and benefit of the law. It would be worth our while to lose a moment in inquiring into the process by which such strange results are brought about, but it is fortunately rendered unnecessary by the circumstance that the principle will be amply developed in the course of the narrative.

A stranger could hardly have felt the real character of this meeting by noting the air and manner of those who had come to attend it. The "armed and disguised" kept themselves in a body, it is true, and maintained, in a slight degree, the appearance of distinctness from "the people," but many of the latter stopped to speak to these men, and were apparently on good terms with them. Not a few of the gentler sex, even, appeared to have acquaintances in the gang; and it would have struck a political philosopher from the other hemisphere with some surprise, to have seen the "people" thus tolerating fellows who were openly trampling on a law that the "people" themselves had just enacted! A political philosopher from among ourselves, however, might have explained the seeming contradiction by referring it to the "spirit of the institutions." If one were to ask Hugh Littlepage to solve the difficulty, he would have been very apt to answer that the "people" of Ravensnest wanted to compel him to sell lands which he did not wish to sell, and that not a few of them were anxious to add to the compulsory bargains conditions as to price that would rob him of about one-half of his estate; and that what the Albany philosophers called the "spirit of the institutions," was, in fact, a "spirit of the devil," which the institutions were expressly designed to hold in subjection!

There was a good deal of out-door management going on, as might be seen by the private discussions that were held between pairs, under what is called the "horse-shedding" process. This "horse-shedding" process, I understand, is well known among us, and extends not only to politics, but to the administration of justice. Your regular "horse-shedder" is employed to frequent taverns where jurors stay, and drop hints before them touching the merits of causes known to be on the calendars; possibly contrives to get into a room with six or eight beds, in which there may accidentally be a juror, or even two, in a bed, when he drops into a natural conversation on the merits of some matter at issue, praises one of the parties, while he drops dark hints to the prejudice of the other, and makes his own representations of the facts in a way to scatter the seed where he is morally certain it will take root and grow. All this time he is not conversing with a juror, not he; he is only assuming the office of the judge by anticipation, and dissecting evidence before it has been given, in the ear of a particular friend. It is true there is a law against doing anything of the sort; it is true there is law to punish the editor of a newspaper who shall publish anything to prejudice the interests of litigants; it is true the "horse-shedding process" is flagrantly wicked, and intended to destroy most of the benefits of the jury system; but, notwithstanding all this, the "spirit of the institutions" carries everything before it, and men regard all these laws and provisions, as well as the eternal principles of right, precisely as if they had no existence at all, or as if a freeman were above the law. He makes the law, and why should he not break it? Here is another effect of the "spirit of the institutions."

At length the bell rang, and the crowd began to move toward the "meetin'-'us'." This building was not that which had been originally constructed, and at the raising of which I have heard it said, my dear old grandmother, then a lovely and spirited girl of nineteen, had been conspicuous for her coolness and judgment, but a far more pretending successor. The old building had been constructed on the true model of the highest dissenting spirit--a spirit that induced its advocates to quarrel with good taste as well as religious dogmas, in order to make the chasm as wide as possible--while in this, some concessions had been made to the temper of the times. I very well remember the old "meetin'-'us'," at the "Little Nest," for it was pulled down to give place to its more pretending successor after I had attained my sixteenth year. A description of both may let the reader into the secret of our rural church architecture.

The "old Neest meetin'-'us'," like its successor, was of a hemlock frame, covered with pine clapboards, and painted white. Of late years, the paint had been of a most fleeting quality, the oil seeming to evaporate, instead of striking in and setting, leaving the coloring matter in a somewhat decomposed condition, to rub off by friction and wash away in the rains. The house was a stiff, formal parallelogram, resembling a man with high shoulders, appearing to be "stuck up." It had two rows of formal, short and ungraceful windows, that being a point in orthodoxy at the period of its erection. It had a tower, uncouth, and in some respects too large and others too small, if one can reconcile the contradiction; but there are anomalies of this sort in art, as well as in nature. On top of this tower stood a long-legged belfry, which had got a very dangerous, though a very common, propensity in ecclesiastical matters; in other words, it had begun to "cant." It was this diversion from the perpendicular which had suggested the necessity of erecting a new edifice, and the building in which the "lecture" on feudal tenures and aristocracy was now to be delivered.

The new meeting-house at Little Nest was a much more pretending edifice than its predecessor. It was also of wood, but a bold diverging from "first principles" had been ventured on, not only in the physical, but in the moral church. The last was "new-school;" as, indeed, was the first. What "new-school" means, in a spiritual sense, I do not exactly know, but I suppose it to be some improvement on some other improvement of the more ancient and venerable dogmas of the sect to which it belongs. These improvements on improvements are rather common among us, and are favorably viewed by a great number under the name of progress; though he who stands at a little distance can, half the time, discover that the parties in progress very often come out at the precise spot from which they started.

For my part, I find so much wisdom in the Bible--so profound a knowledge of human nature, and of its tendencies--counsel so comprehensive and so safe, and this solely in reference to the things of this life, that I do not believe everything is progress in the right direction because it sets us in motion on paths that are not two thousand years old! I believe that we have quite as much that ought to be kept, as of that which ought to be thrown away; and while I admit the vast number of abuses that have grown up in the old world, under the "spirit of their institutions," as our philosophers would say, I can see a goodly number that are also growing up here, certainly not under the same "spirit," unless we refer them both, as a truly wise man would, to our common and miserable nature.

The main departure from first principles, in the sense of material things, was in the fact that the new meeting-house had only one row of windows, and that the windows of that row had the pointed arch. The time has been when this circumstance would have created a schism in the theological world; and I hope that my youth and inexperience will be pardoned, if I respectfully suggest that a pointed arch, or any other arch in wood, ought to create another in the world of taste.

But in we went, men, women and children; uncle Ro, Mr. Warren, Mary, Seneca, Opportunity, and all, the Injins excepted. For some reason connected with their policy, those savages remained outside, until the whole audience had assembled in grave silence. The orator was in, or on, a sort of stage, which was made, under the new-light system in architecture, to supersede the old, inconvenient, and ugly pulpit, supported on each side by two divines, of what denomination I shall not take on myself to say. It will be sufficient if I add, Mr. Warren was not one of them. He and Mary had taken their seats quite near the door, and under the gallery. I saw that the rector was uneasy the moment the lecturer and his two supporters entered the pulpit and appeared on the stage; and at length he arose, and, followed by Mary, he suddenly left the building. In an instant I was at their side, for it struck me indisposition was the cause of so strange a movement. Fortunately, at this moment, the whole audience rose in a body, and one of the ministers commenced an extempore prayer.

At that instant, the Injins had drawn themselves up around the building, close to its sides, and under the open windows, in a position that enabled them to hear all that passed. As I afterward learned, this arrangement was made with an understanding with those within, one of the ministers having positively refused to address the throne of grace so long as any of the tribe were present. Well has it been said, that man often strains at a gnat, and swallows a camel!

CHAPTER XV.

"I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier means to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and put a new nap upon it."--King Henry VI.

As I knew Mary must have communicated to her father my real name, I did not hesitate, as I ought to have done in my actual dress and in my assumed character, about following them, in order to inquire if I could be of any service. I never saw distress more strongly painted in any man's countenance than it was in that of Mr. Warren, when I approached. So very obvious, indeed, was his emotion, that I did not venture to obtrude myself on him, but followed in silence; and he and Mary slowly walked, side by side, across the street to the stoop of a house, of which all the usual inmates had probably gone in the other direction. Here Mr. Warren took a seat, Mary still at his side, while I drew near, standing before him.

"I thank you, Mr. Littlepage," the divine at length said, with a smile so painful it was almost haggard, "for, so Mary tells me you should be called--I thank you for this attention, sir--but, it will be over in another minute--I feel better now, and shall be able to command myself."

No more was then said, concerning the reason of this distress; but Mary has since explained to me its cause. When her father went into the meeting-house, he had not the smallest idea that anything like a religious service would be dragged into the ceremonies of such a day. The two ministers on the stage first gave him the alarm; when a most painful struggle occurred in his mind, whether or not he should remain, and be a party to the mockery of addressing God in prayer, in an assembly collected to set at naught one of the plainest of his laws--nay, with banded felons drawn up around the building, as principal actors in the whole mummery. The alternative was for him, a minister of the altar, to seem to quit those who were about to join in prayer, and to do this moreover under circumstances which might appear to others as if he rejected all worship but that which was in accordance with his own views of right, a notion that would be certain to spread far and near, greatly to the prejudice of his own people. But the first, as he viewed the matter, involved a species of blasphemy; and yielding to his feelings, he took the decided step he had, intending to remain out of the building, until the more regular business of the day commenced.

It is certain Mr. Warren, who acted under the best impulse of Christian feeling, a reverence for God, and a profound wish not to be a party in offending him with the mockery of worship under such circumstances, has lost much influence, and made many enemies, by the step he then took. The very same feeling which has raised the cry of aristocracy against every gentleman who dwells in sufficiently near contact with the masses to distinguish his habits from those around him; which induces the eastern emigrant, who comes from a state of society where there are no landlords, to fancy those he finds here ought to be pulled down, because he is not a landlord himself; which enables the legislator to stand up in his place, and unblushingly talk about feudal usages, at the very instant he is demonstrating that equal rights are denied to those he would fain stigmatize as feudal lords, has extended to religion, and the Church of which Mr. Warren was a minister, is very generally accused of being aristocratic, too! This charge is brought because it has claims which other Churches affect to renounce and reject as forming no part of the faith; but the last cannot remain easy under their own decision; and while they shout, and sing that they have found "a Church without a bishop," they hate the Church that has a bishop, because it has something they do not possess themselves, instead of pitying its deluded members, if they believe them wrong. This will not be admitted generally, but it is nevertheless true; and betrays itself in a hundred ways. It is seen in the attempt to call their own priests bishops, in the feeling so manifest whenever a cry can be raised against their existence, and in the general character of these theological rallies, whenever they do occur.

For one, I see a close analogy between my own Church, as it exists in this country, and comparing it with that from which it sprung, and to those which surround it, and the true political circumstances of the two hemispheres. In discarding a vast amount of surplusage, in reducing the orders of the ministry, in practice as well as in theory, to their primitive number, three, and in rejecting all connection with the state, the American branch of the Episcopal Church has assumed the position it was desirous to fill; restoring, as near as may be, the simplicity of the apostolical ages, while it does not disregard the precepts and practices of the apostles themselves. It has not set itself above antiquity and authority, but merely endeavored to sustain them, without the encumbrances of more modern abuses. Thus, too, has it been in political things. No attempt has been made to create new organic social distinctions in this country, but solely to disencumber those that are inseparable from the existence of all civilized society, of the clumsy machinery with which the expedients of military oppressors had invested them. The real sages of this country, in founding its institutions, no more thought of getting rid of the landlords of the country, than the Church thought of getting rid of its bishops. The first knew that the gradations of property were an inevitable incident of civilization; that it would not be wise, if it were possible, to prevent the affluent from making large investments in the soil; and that this could not be done in practice, without leaving the relation of landlord and tenant. Because landlords, in other parts of the world, possessed privileges that were not necessary to the natural or simple existence of the character, was no reason for destroying the character itself; any more than the fact that the bishops of England possess an authority the apostles knew nothing of, rendered it proper for the American branch of the Church to do away with an office that came from the apostles. But envy and jealousy do not pause to reflect on such things; it is enough for them, in the one case, that you and yours have estates and occupy social positions, that I and mine do not, and cannot easily, occupy and possess; therefore I will oppose you, and join my voice to the cry of those who wish to get their farms for nothing; and in the other, that you have bishops when we can have none, without abandoning our present organization and doctrines.

I dwell on these points at some little length, because the movement of Mr. Warren and myself, at that moment, had a direct influence on the circumstances that will soon be related. It is probable that fully one-half of those collected in the Little Nest meeting-house, that morning, as they stood up, and lent a sort of one-sided and listless attention to the prayer, were thinking of the scandalous and aristocratical conduct of Mr. Warren, in "goin' out o' meetin' just as meetin' went to prayers!" Few, indeed, were they who would be likely to ascribe any charitable motive for the act; and probably not one of those present thought of the true and conscientious feeling that had induced it. So the world wags! It is certain that a malignant and bitter feeling was got up against the worthy rector on that occasion, and for that act, which has not yet abated, and which will not abate in many hundreds, until the near approach of death shall lay bare to them the true character of so many of their own feelings.

It was some minutes before Mr. Warren entirely regained his composure. At length he spoke to me, in his usual benevolent and mild way, saying a few words that were complimentary, on the subject of my return, while he expressed his fears that my uncle Ro and myself had been imprudent in thus placing ourselves, as it might be, in the lion's jaws.

"You have certainly made your disguises so complete," he added, smiling, "as to have escaped wonderfully well so far. That you should deceive Mary and myself is no great matter, since neither of us ever saw you before; but, the manner in which your nearest relatives have been misled, is surprising. Nevertheless, you have every inducement to be cautious, for hatred and jealousy have a penetration that does not belong even to love."

"We think we are safe, sir," I answered, "for we are certainly within the statute. We are too well aware of our miserable aristocratical condition to place ourselves within the grasp of the law, for such are our eminent privileges as a landed nobility, that we are morally certain either of us would not only be sent to the State's prison were he to be guilty of the felony those Injins are committing, and will commit, with a perfect impunity, but that he would be kept there, as long as a single tear of anguish could be wrung from one of those who are classed with the aristocracy. Democracy alone finds any sympathy in the ordinary administration of American justice."

"I am afraid that your irony has only too much truth in it. But the movement around the building would seem to say that the real business of the day is about to commence, and we had better return to the church."

"Those men in disguise are watching us, in a most unpleasant and alarming manner," said Mary Warren, delighting me far more by the vigilance she thus manifested in my behalf, than alarming me by the fact.

That we were watched, however, became obviously apparent, as we walked toward the building, by the actions of some of the Injins. They had left the side of the church where they had posted themselves during the prayer, and head was going to head, among those nearest to us; or, it would be nearer to appearances, were I to say bunch of calico was going to bunch of calico, for nothing in the form of a head was visible among them. Nothing was said to Mr. Warren and Mary, however, who were permitted to go into the meeting-house, unmolested; but two of these disguised gentry placed themselves before me, laying their rifles across my path, and completely intercepting my advance.

"Who you?" abruptly demanded one of the two;--"where go--where come from?"

The answer was ready, and I trust was sufficiently steady.

"I coomes from Charmany, und I goes into der kerch, as dey say in mine coontry; what might be callet a meetin'-'us, here."

What might have followed, it is not easy to say, had not the loud, declamatory voice of the lecturer just then been heard, as he commenced his address. This appeared to be a signal for the tribe to make some movement, for the two fellows who had stopped me, walked silently away, though bag of calico went to bag of calico, as they trotted off together, seemingly communicating to each other their suspicions. I took advantage of the opening, and passed into the church, where I worked my way through the throng, and got a seat at my uncle's side.

I have neither time, room, nor inclination to give anything like an analysis of the lecture. The speaker was fluent, inflated, and anything but logical. Not only did he contradict himself, but he contradicted the laws of nature. The intelligent reader will not require to be reminded of the general character of a speech that was addressed to the passions and interests of such an audience, rather than to their reason. He commented, at first, on the particular covenants of the leases on the old estates of the colony, alluding to the quarter-sales, chickens, days' work, and durable tenures, in the customary way. The reservation of the mines, too, was mentioned as a tyrannical covenant, precisely as if a landlord were obliged to convey any more of the rights that were vested in him, than he saw fit; or the tenant could justly claim more than he had hired! This man treated all these branches of the subject, as if the tenants had acquired certain mysterious interests by time and occupation, overlooking the fact that the one party got just as good a title as the other by this process; the lease being the instrument between them, that was getting to be venerable. If one party grew old as a tenant, so did the other as a landlord. I thought that this lecturer would have been glad to confine himself to the Manor leases, that being the particular branch of the subject he had been accustomed to treat; but, such was not the precise nature of the job he was now employed to execute. At Ravensnest, he could not flourish the feudal grievance of the quarter-sales, the "four fat fowls," the "days' works," and the length of the leases. Here it was clearly his cue to say nothing of the three first, and to complain of the shortness of the leases, as mine were about to fall in, in considerable numbers. Finding it was necessary to take new ground, he determined it should be bold ground, and such as would give him the least trouble to get along with.

As soon as the lecturer had got through with his general heads, and felt the necessity of coming down to particulars, he opened upon the family of Littlepage, in a very declamatory way. What had they ever done for the country, he demanded, that they should be lords in the land? By some process known to himself, he had converted landlords into lords in the land, and was now aiming to make the tenants occupy the latter station--nay, both stations. Of course, some services of a public character, of which the Littlepages might boast, were not touched upon at all, everything of that nature being compressed into what the lecturer and his audience deemed serving the people, by helping to indulge them in all their desires, however rapacious or wicked. As everybody who knows anything of the actual state of matters among us, must be aware how rarely the "people" hear the truth, when their own power and interests are in question, it is not surprising that a very shallow reasoner was enabled to draw wool over the eyes of the audience of Ravensnest on that particular subject.

But my interest was most awakened when this man came to speak of myself. It is not often that a man enjoys the same opportunity as that I then possessed to hear his own character delineated, and his most private motives analyzed. In the first place, the audience were told that this "young Hugh Littlepage had never done anything for the land that he proudly, and like a great European noble, calls his 'estate.' Most of you, fellow-citizens, can show your hard hands, and recall the burning suns under which you have opened the swath, through those then lovely meadows yonder, as your titles to these farms. But Hugh Littlepage never did a day's work in his life"--ten minutes before he had been complaining of the "days' work" in the Manor leases as indignities that a freeman ought not to submit to--"no, fellow-citizens, he never had that honor, and never will have it, until by a just division of his property, or what he now calls his property, you reduce him to the necessity of laboring to raise the crops he wants to consume."

"Where is this Hugh Littlepage at this very moment? In Paris, squandering your hard earnings in riotous living, according to the best standards of aristocracy. He lives in the midst of abundance, dresses richly and fares richly, while you and yours are eating the sweat of your brows. He is no man for a pewter spoon and two-pronged fork! No, my countrymen! He must have a gold spoon for some of his dishes, and you will find it hard to believe--plain, unpretending, republican farmers as you are, but it is not the less true--he must have forks of silver! Fellow-citizens, Hugh Littlepage would not put his knife into his mouth, as you and I do, in eating--as all plain, unpretending republicans do--for the world. It would choke him; no, he keeps silver forks to touch his anointed lips!" Here there was an attempt to get up something like applause, but it totally failed. The men of Ravensnest had been accustomed all their lives to see the Littlepages in the social station they occupied; and, after all, it did not seem so very extraordinary that we should have silver forks, any more than that others should have silver spoons. The lecturer had the tact to see that he had failed on this point and he turned to another.

The next onset was made against our title. Whence did it come? demanded the lecturer. From the King of England; and the people had conquered the country from that sovereign, and put themselves in his place. Now, is it not a good principle in politics, that to the victors belong the spoils? He believed it was; and that in conquering America, he was of opinion that the people of America had conquered the land, and that they had a right to take the land, and to keep it. Titles from kings he did not respect much; and he believed the American people, generally, did not think much of them. If Hugh Littlepage wished an "estate," as he called it, let him come to the people and "starve them" and see what sort of an estate they would give him.

But there was one portion of his speech which was so remarkable, that I must attempt to give it as it was uttered. It was while the lecturer was expatiating on this subject of titles, that he broke out in the following language:--"Don't talk to me," he bellowed--for by this time his voice had risen to the pitch of a Methodist's in a camp-meeting--"Don't talk to me of antiquity, and time, and length of possession, as things to be respected. They're nawthin'--jest nawthin' at all. Possession's good in law, I'll admit; and I contind that's jest what the tenants has. They've got the lawful possession of this very property, that layeth (not eggs, but) up and down, far and near, and all around; a rich and goodly heritage, when divided up among hard-working and honest folks; but too much, by tens of thousands of acres, for a young chap, who is wasting his substance in foreign lands, to hold. I contind that the tenants has this very precise, lawful possession, at this blessed moment, only the law won't let 'em enj'y it. It's all owing to that accursed law, that the tenant can't set up a title ag'in his landlord. You see by this one fact, fellow-citizens, that they are a privileged class, and ought to be brought down to the level of gin'ral humanity. You can set up title ag'in anybody else, but you shan't set up title ag'in a landlord. I know what is said in the primisis," shaking his head, in derision of any arguments on the other side of this particular point; "I know that circumstances alter cases. I can see the hardship of one neighbor's coming to another, and asking to borrow or hire his horse for a day, and then pretendin' to hold him on some other ketch. But horses isn't land; you must all allow that. No, if horses was land, the case would be altered. Land is an element, and so is fire, and so is water, and so is air. Now who will say that a freeman hasn't a right to air, hasn't a right to water, and, on the same process, hasn't a right to land? He has, fellow-citizens--he has. These are what are called in philosophy elementary rights; which is the same thing as a right to the elements, of which land is one, and a principal one. I say a principal one; for, if there was no land to stand on, we should drop away from air, and couldn't enj'y that; we should lose all our water in vapor, and couldn't put it to millin' and manafacterin' purposes; and where could we build our fires? No; land is the first elementary right, and connected with it comes the first and most sacred right to the elements.

"I do not altogether disregard antiquity, neither. No; I respect and revere pre-emption rights; for they fortify and sustain the right to the elements. Now I do not condemn squattin' as some does. It's actin' accordin' to natur', and natur' is right. I respect and venerate a squatter's possession; for it's held under the sacred principle of usefulness. It says, 'Go and make the wilderness blossom as the rose,' and means 'progress.' That's an antiquity I respect. I respect the antiquity of your possessions here, as tenants; for it is a hard-working and useful antiquity--an antiquity that increases and multiplies. If it be said that Hugh Littlepage's ancestors--your noble has his 'ancestors,' while us 'common folks' are satisfied with forefathers"--[this hit took with a great many present, raising a very general laugh]--"but if this Hugh's ancestors did pay anything for the land, if I was you, fellow-citizens, I'd be gin'rous, and let him have it back ag'in. Perhaps his forefathers gave a cent an acre to the king--may be two; or say sixpence, if you will. I'd let him have his sixpence an acre back again, by way of shutting his mouth. No; I'm for nawthin' that's ungin'rous.

"Fellow-citizens, I profess to be what is called a democrat. I know that many of you be what is called whigs; but I apprehend there isn't much difference between us on the subject of this system of leasing land. We are all republicans, and leasing farms is anti-republican. Then, I wish to be liberal even to them I commonly oppose at elections, and I will freely admit, then, on the whull, the whigs have rather outdone us democrats, on the subject of this anti-rentism. I am sorry to be obliged to own in it, but it must be confessed that, while in the way of governors there hasn't been much difference--yes, put 'em in a bag, and shake 'em up, and you'd hardly know which would come out first--which has done himself the most immortal honor, which has shown himself the most comprehensive, profound, and safe statesman; I know that some of our people complain of the governors for ordering out troops ag'in the Injins, but they could not help that--they wouldn't have done it, in my judgment, had there been any way of getting round it; but the law was too strong for them, so they druv' in the Injins, and now they join us in putting down aristocracy, and in raising up gin'ral humanity. No; I don't go ag'in the governors, though many does.

"But I profess to be a democrat, and I'll give an outline of my principles, that all may see why they can't, and don't, and never will agree with aristocracy or nobility, in any form or shape. I believe one man is as good as another in all things. Neither birth, nor law, nor edication, nor riches, nor poverty, nor anything else, can ever make any difference in this principle, which is sacred and fundamental, and is the chief stone of the corner in true democracy. One man is as good as another, I say, and has just the same right to the enj'yment of 'arth and its privileges, as any other man. I think the majority ought to rule in all things, and that it is the duty of the minority to submit. Now I've had this here sentiment thrown back upon me, in some places where I have spoken, and been asked, 'how is this--the majority must rule, and the minority must submit--in that case, the minority isn't as good as the majority in practice, and hasn't the same right. They are made to own what they think ought not to be done?' The answer to this is so plain, I wonder a sensible man can ask the question, for all the minority has to do, is to join the majority, to have things as they want 'em. The road is free, and it is this open road that makes true liberty. Any man can fall in with the majority, and sensible folks commonly do, when they can find it, and that makes a person not only a man, as the saying is, but a FREEMAN, a still more honorable title.

"Fellow-citizens, a great movement is in progress. 'Go ahead!' is the cry, and the march is onward; our thoughts already fly about on the wings of the lightning, and our bodies move but little slower, on the vapor of steam--soon our principles will rush ahead of all, and let in the radiance of a glorious day of universal reform, and loveliness, and virtue and charity, when the odious sound of rent will never be heard, when every man will sit down under his own apple, or cherry tree, if not under his own fig-tree.

"I am a democrat--yes, a democrat. Glorious appellation! I delight in it! It is my pride, my boast, my very virtue. Let but the people truly rule, and all must come well. The people has no temptation to do wrong. If they hurt the State, they hurt themselves, for they are the State. Is a man likely to hurt himself? Equality is my axiom. Nor, by equality, do I mean your narrow pitiful equality before the law, as it is sometimes tarmed, for that may be no equality at all; but I mean an equality that is substantial, and which must be restored, when the working of the law has deranged it. Fellow-citizens, do you know what leap-year means? I dare say some of you don't, the ladies in partic'lar not giving much attention to astronomy. Well, I have inquired, and it is this: The 'arth revolves around the sun in a year, as we all know. And we count three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, we all know. But the 'arth is a few hours longer than three hundred and sixty-five days in making its circuit--nearly six hours longer. Now everybody knows that four times six makes twenty-four, and so a twenty-ninth day is put into February, every fourth year, to restore the lost time; another change being to be made a long distance ahead to settle the fractions. Thus will it be with democracy. Human natur' can't devise laws yet, that will keep all things on an exactly equal footing, and political leap-years must be introduced into the political calendar, to restore the equilibrium. In astronomy we must divide up anew the hours and minutes; in humanity, we must, from time to time, divide up the land."

But I cannot follow this inflated fool any longer; for he was quite as much of fool as of knave, though partaking largely of the latter character. It was plain that he carried many of his notions much further than a good portion of his audience carried theirs; though, whenever he touched upon anti-rentism, he hit a chord that vibrated through the whole assembly. That the tenants ought to own their farms, and pay no more rents, AND POCKET ALL THE BENEFITS OF THEIR OWN PREVIOUS LABORS, THOUGH THESE LABORS HAD BEEN CONSIDERED IN THE EARLIER RENTS, AND WERE, INDEED, STILL CONSIDERED IN THE LOW RATES AT WHICH THE LANDS WERE LET, was a doctrine all could understand; and few were they, I am sorry to say, who did not betray how much self-love and self-interest had obscured the sense of right.

The lecture, such as it was, lasted more than two hours; and when it was done, an individual rose, in the character of a chairman--when did three Americans ever get together to discuss anything, that they had not a chairman and secretary, and all the parliamentary forms?--and invited any one present, who might entertain views different from the speaker, to give his opinion. Never before did I feel so tempted to speak in public. My first impulse was to throw away the wig, and come out in my own person, and expose the shallow trash that had just been uttered. I believe even I, unaccustomed as I was to public speaking, could easily have done this, and I whispered as much to my uncle, who was actually on his feet, to perform the office for me, when the sound of "Mr. Chairman," from a different part of the church, anticipated him. Looking round, I recognized at once the face of the intelligent mechanic, named Hall, whom we had met at Mooseridge, on our way to the Nest. I took my seat at once, perfectly satisfied that the subject was in good hands.

This speaker commenced with great moderation, both of manner and tone, and, indeed, he preserved them throughout. His utterance, accent, and language, of course, were all tinctured by his habits and associations; but his good sense and his good principles were equally gifts from above. More of the "true image of his Maker" was to be found in that one individual than existed in fifty common men. He saw clearly, spoke clearly, and demonstrated effectively. As he was well known in that vicinity and generally respected, he was listened to with profound attention, and spoke like a man who stood in no dread of tar and feathers. Had the same sentiments been delivered by one in a fine coat, and a stranger, or even by myself, who had so much at stake, very many of them would have been incontinently set down as aristocratic, and not to be tolerated, the most sublimated lover of equality occasionally falling into these little contradictions.

Hall commenced by reminding the audience that they all knew him, and knew he was no landlord. He was a mechanic, and a laboring man, like most of themselves, and had no interest that could be separated from the general good of society. This opening was a little homage to prejudice, since reason is reason, and right right, let them come whence they will. "I, too, am a democrat," he went on to say, "but I do not understand democracy to mean anything like that which has been described by the last speaker. I tell that gentleman plainly, that if he is a democrat, I am none, and if I am a democrat, he is none. By democracy I understand a government in which the sovereign power resides in the body of the nation; and not in a few, or in one. But this principle no more gives the body of the people authority to act wrong, than in a monarchy, in which the sovereign power resides in one man, that one man has a right to act wrong. By equality, I do not understand anything more than equality before the law--now if the law had said that when the late Malbone Littlepage died, his farms should go not to his next of kin, or to his devisee, but to his neighbors, then that would have been the law to be obeyed, although it would be a law destructive of civilization, since men would never accumulate property to go to the public. Something nearer home is necessary to make men work, and deny themselves what they like.

"The gentleman has told us of a sort of a political leap-year that is to regulate the social calendar. I understand him to mean that when property has got to be unequal, it must be divided up, in order that men may make a new start. I fear he will have to dispense with leap-years, and come to leap-months, or leap-weeks, ay, or even to leap-days; for, was the property of this township divided up this very morning, and in this meetin'-'us, it would get to be unequal before night. Some folks can't keep money when they have it; and others can't keep their hands off it.

"Then, again, if Hugh Littlepage's property is to be divided, the property of all of Hugh Littlepage's neighbors ought to be divided too, to make even an appearance of equality; though it would be but an appearance of equality, admitting that were done, since Hugh Littlepage has more than all the rest of the town put together. Yes, fellow-citizens, Hugh Littlepage pays, at this moment, one-twentieth of the taxes of this whole county. That is about the proportion of Ravensnest; and that tax, in reality, comes out of his pockets, as much as the greater part of the taxes of Rensselaer and Albany Counties, if you will except the cities they contain, are paid by the Rensselaers. It wun't do to tell me the tenants pay the taxes, for I know better. We all know that the probable amount of the taxes is estimated in the original bargain, and is so much deducted from the rent, and comes out of the landlord if it comes out of anybody. There is a good reason why the tenant should pay it, and a reason that is altogether in his interest; because the law would make his oxen, and horses, and carts liable for the taxes, should the landlord neglect to pay the taxes. The collector always sells personals for a tax if he can find them on the property; and by deducting it from the rent, and paying it himself, the tenant makes himself secure against that loss. To say that a tenant don't take any account of the taxes he will be likely to pay, in making his bargain, is as if one should say he is non com., and not fit to be trusted with his own affairs. There are men in this community, I am sorry to say, who wish a law passed to tax the rents on durable leases, or on all leases, in order to choke the landlords off from their claims, but such men are true friends to neither justice nor their country. Such a law would be a tax on the incomes of a particular class of society, and on no other. It is a law that would justify the aggrieved parties in taking up arms to resist it, unless the law would give 'em relief, as I rather think it would. By removing into another State, however, they would escape the tax completely, laugh at those who framed it, who would incur the odium of doing an impotent wrong, and get laughed at as well as despised, besides injuring the State by drawing away its money to be spent out of its limits. Think, for one moment, of the impression that would be made of New York justice, if a hundred citizens of note and standing were to be found living in Philadelphia or Paris, and circulating to the world the report that they were exiles to escape a special taxation! The more the matter was inquired into, the worse it must appear; for men may say what they please, to be ready ag'in election time, as there is but one piece or parcel of property to tax, it is an income tax, and nothing else. What makes the matter still worse is, that every man of sense will know that it is taxing the same person twice, substantially for the same thing, since the landlord has the direct land-tax deducted from the rent in the original bargain.

"As for all this cry about aristocracy, I don't understand it. Hugh Littlepage has just as good a right to his ways as I have to mine. The gentleman says he needs gold spoons and silver forks to eat with. Well, what of that? I dare say the gentleman himself finds a steel knife and fork useful, and has no objection to silver, or, at least, to a pewter spoon. Now, there are folks that use wooden forks, or no forks, and who are glad to get horn spoons; and they might call that gentleman himself an aristocrat. This setting of ourselves up as the standard in all things is anything but liberty. If I don't like to eat my dinner with a man who uses a silver fork, no man in this country can compel me. On the other hand, if young Mr. Littlepage don't like a companion who chews tobacco, as I do, he ought to be left to follow his own inclination.

"Then, this doctrine that one man's as good as another has got two sides to it. One man ought to have the same general rights as another, I am ready to allow; but if one man is as good as another, why do we have the trouble and cost of elections? We might draw lots, as we do for jurors, and save a good deal of time and money. We all know there is ch'ice in men, and I think that so long as the people have their ch'ice in sayin' who shall and who shall not be their agents, they've got all they have any right to. So long as this is done, the rest of the world may be left to follow their own ways, provided they obey the laws.

"Then, I am no great admirer of them that are always telling the people they're parfect. I know this county pretty well, as well as most in it; and if there be a parfect man in Washington County, I have not yet fallen in with him. Ten millions of imparfect men won't make one parfect man, and so I don't look for parfection in the people any more than I do in princes. All I look for in democracy is to keep the reins in so many hands as to prevent a few from turning everything to their own account; still, we must'nt forget that when a great many do go wrong, it is much worse than when a few go wrong.

"If my son didn't inherit the property of Malbone Littlepage, neither will Malbone Littlepage's son inherit mine. We are on a footing in that respect. As to paying rent, which some persons think so hard, what would they do if they had no house to live in, or farm to work? If folks wish to purchase houses and farms, no one can prevent them if they have money to do it with; and if they have not, is it expected other people have to provide them with such things out of their own----"

Here the speaker was interrupted by a sudden whooping, and the Injins came pressing into the house, in a way to drive all in the aisles before them. Men, women and children leaped from the windows, the distance being trifling, while others made their escape by the two side-doors, the Injins coming in only by the main entrance. In less time than it takes to record the fact, the audience had nearly all dispersed.

CHAPTER XVI.

"And yet it is said--Labor in thy vocation; which is as much as to say--let the magistrates be laboring men; and therefore should we be magistrates."--King Henry VI.

In a minute or two the tumult ceased, and a singular scene presented itself. The church had four separate groups or parties left in it, beside the Injins, who crowded the main aisle. The chairman, secretary, two ministers, and lecturer, remained perfectly tranquil in their seats, probably understanding quite well they had nothing to fear from the intruders. Mr. Warren and Mary were in another corner, under the gallery, he having disdained flight, and prudently kept his daughter at his side. My uncle and myself were the pendants of the two last named, occupying the opposite corner, also under the gallery. Mr. Hall, and two or three friends who stuck by him, were in a pew near the wall, but about half-way down the church, the former erect on a seat, where he had placed himself to speak.

"Proceed with your remarks, sir," coolly observed the chairman, who was one of those paradoxical anti-renters who had nothing to do with the Injins, though he knew all about them, and, as I have been told, was actually foremost in collecting and disbursing their pay. At this instant, Seneca Newcome sneaked in at the side door, keeping as far as possible from the "disguised and armed," but curious to ascertain what would come next.

As for Hall, he behaved with admirable self-possession. He probably knew that his former auditors were collecting under the windows, and by raising his voice he would be easily heard. At all events, he did elevate his voice, and went on as if nothing had happened.

"I was about to say a word, Mr. Chairman, on the natur' of the two qualities that have, to me at least, seemed uppermost in the lecturer's argooment"--yes, this sensible, well-principled man, actually used that detestable sound, just as I have written it, calling "argument" "argooment"--what a pity it is that so little attention is paid to the very first principles of speaking the language well in this country, the common schools probably doing more harm than they do good in this respect--"that have, to me at least, seemed uppermost in the lecturer's argooment, and they are both those that God himself has viewed as of so great importance to our nature as to give his express commandments about them. He has commanded us not to steal, and he has commanded us not to covet our neighbor's goods; proof sufficient that the possession of property is sanctioned by divine authority, and that it is endowed with a certain sanctity of privilege. Now for the application.

"You can do nothing as to leases in existence, because the State can't impair a contract. A great deal is said about this government's being one of the people, and that the people ought to do as they please. Now, I'm a plain man, and am talking to plain men, and mean to talk plainly. That this is a government of the people, being a democracy, or because the sovereign power, in the last resort, resides in the body of the people, is true; but that this is a government of the people, in the common signification, or as too many of the people themselves understand it, is not true. This very interest about which there is so much commotion, or the right to interfere with contracts, is put beyond the people of the State by a clause in the Constitution of the United States. Now, the Constitution of the United States might be altered, making another provision, saying that 'no State shall ever pass any law to do away with the existence of durable leases,' and every man, woman, and child in New York be opposed to such a change, but they would have to swallow it. Come, let us see what figures will do. There are twenty-seven States in actual existence, and soon will be thirty. I don't care on which number you calculate; say thirty, if you please, as that is likely to be the number before the Constitution could be altered. Well, twenty-three of these States can put a clause into the Constitution, saying you shan't meddle with leases. This might leave the seven most populous States, with every voter, opposed to the change. I've made a calculation, and find what the seven most populous States had in 1840, and I find that more than half of all the population of the country is contained in them seven States, which can be made to submit to a minority. Nor is this all; the alteration may be carried by only one vote in each of the twenty-three States, and, deducting these from the electors in the seven dissenting States, you might have a Constitutional change made in the country against a majority of say two millions! It follows that the people, in the common meaning, are not as omnipotent as some suppose. There's something stronger than the people, after all, and that's principles, and if we go to work to tear to pieces our own----"

It was impossible to hear another word that the speaker said. The idea that the people are not omnipotent was one little likely to find favor among any portion of the population that fancy themselves to be peculiarly the people. So much accustomed to consider themselves invested with the exercise of a power which, in any case, can be rightfully exercised by only the whole people, have local assemblages got to be, that they often run into illegal excesses, fancying even their little fragment of the body politic infallible, as well as omnipotent, in such matters at least. To have it openly denied, therefore, that the popular fabric of American institutions is so put together as to leave it in the power of a decided minority to change the organic law, as is unquestionably the fact in theory, however little likely to occur in practice, sounded in the ears of Mr. Hall's auditors like political blasphemy. Those under the windows groaned, while the gang in the aisle whooped and yelled, and that in a fashion that had all the exaggeration of a caricature. It was very apparent that there was an end of all the deliberative part of the proceedings of the day.

Hall seemed neither surprised nor uneasy. He wiped his face very coolly, and then took his seat, leaving the Injins to dance about the church, flourishing their rifles and knives, in a way that might have frightened one less steady. As for Mr. Warren, he led Mary out, though there was a movement that threatened to stop him. My uncle and myself followed, the whooping and screaming being really unpleasant to the ear. As to the chairman, the secretary, and the two ministers of the gospel, they kept their stations on the stage, entirely self-possessed and unmolested. No one went near them, a forbearance that must have been owing to the often alleged fact that the real anti-renters, the oppressed tenantry of New York, and these vile masqueraders, had nothing to do with each other!

One of the astounding circumstances of the times, is the general prevalence of falsehood among us, and the almost total suppression of truth. No matter what amount of evidence there may be to contradict a statement, or how often it has been disproved, it is reaffirmed, with just as much assurance, as if the matter had never been investigated; ay, and believed, as if its substance were uncontradicted. I am persuaded there is no part of the world, in which it is more difficult to get a truth into the public mind, when there is a motive to suppress it, than among ourselves. This may seem singular, when it is remembered how many journals there are, which are uttered with the avowed purpose to circulate information. Alas! the machinery which can be used to give currency to truth, is equally efficient in giving currency to falsehood. There are so many modes, too, of diluting truth, in addition to the downright lies which are told, that I greatly question, if one alleged fact out of twenty, that goes the rounds of the public prints, those of the commoner sort excepted, is true in all its essentials. It requires so much integrity of purpose, so much discrimination, such a sensitiveness of conscience, and often so large a degree of self-sacrifice, in men, to speak nothing but truth, that one is not to expect that their more vulgar and irresponsible agents are to possess a quality that is so very rare among the very best of the principals.

If I was glad to get out of the church myself, the reader may depend on it, I was rejoiced when I saw Mr. Warren leading Mary toward the place where I had left his wagon, as if about to quit a scene that now promised nothing but clamor and wrangling, if not something more serious. Uncle Ro desired me to bring out the wagon in which we had left the farm; and, in the midst of a species of general panic, in which the women, in particular, went flying about in all directions, I proceeded to comply. It was at this moment that a general pause to all movements was produced by the gang of Injins pouring out of the church, bringing in their centre the late speaker, Mr. Hall. As the chairman, secretary, lecturer, and the two "ministers of the gospel" followed, it was conclusive as to the termination of anything like further discussion.

My uncle called me back, and I thought was disposed to assist Hall, who, manfully supported by the two or three friends that had stood by him the whole day, was now moving toward us, surrounded by a cluster of wrangling and menacing Injins; the whole party bearing no little resemblance to a pack of village curs that set upon the strange dog that has ventured in among them.

Oaths and threats filled the air; and poor Hall's ears were offended by an imputation that, I dare say, they then heard for the first time. He was called a "d----d aristocrat," and a hireling is the pay of "d----d aristocrats." To all this, however, the sturdy and right-thinking blacksmith was very indifferent; well knowing there was not a fact connected with his existence, or a sentiment of his moral being, that would justify any such charge. It was in answer to this deadly imputation, that I first heard him speak again, after he had been interrupted in the church.

"Call me what you please," he cried, in his clear full voice; "I don't mind hard names. There isn't a man among you who thinks I'm an aristocrat, or the hireling of any one; but I hope I am not yet so great a knave as to wish to rob a neighbor because he happens to be richer than I am myself."

"Who gave Hugh Littlepage his land?" demanded one in the midst of the gang, speaking without the affectation of mimicry, though the covering to his head sufficiently changed his voice. "You know yourself it came from the king."

"He never worked for an acre of it!" bawled another. "If he was a hard-working, honest man, like yourself, Tim Hall, we might bear it; but you know he is not. He's a spendthrift and an aristocrat."

"I know that hard hands don't make a man honest, any more than soft hands make him a rogue," answered Tim Hall, with spirit. "As for the Littlepages, they are gentlemen in every sense of the word, and always have been. Their word will pass even now, when the bond of many a man who sets himself up ag'in them wouldn't be looked at."

I was grateful and touched with this proof that a character, which I fully believed to be merited, was not lost on one of the most intelligent men of his class, in that part of the country. Envy, and covetousness, and malignancy, may lie as they will, but the upright recognize the upright; the truly poor know who most assuage their sorrows and relieve their wants; and the real lover of liberty understands that its privileges are not to be interpreted altogether in his own favor. I did not like the idea of such a man's being ill-treated by a gang of disguised blackguards--fellows who added to the crime of violating a positive law, the high moral offence of prostituting the sacred principles of liberty, by professing to drag them into the service of a cause, which wanted very little, in its range, to include all the pickpockets and thieves in the land.

"They will do that noble fellow some injury, I fear," I whispered to my uncle.

"If it were not for the mortification of admitting our disguise, I would go forward at once, and attempt to bring him out of the crowd," was the answer. "But that will not do, under the circumstances. Let us be patient, and observe what is to follow."

"Tar and feathers!" shouted some one among the Injins; "Tar and feather him!" "Crop him, and send him home!" answered others. "Tim Hall has gone over to the enemy," added the Injin who asked whence I had my lands.

I fancied I knew that voice, and when its tones had been repeated two or three times, it struck me it was that of Seneca Newcome. That Seneca was an anti-renter, was no secret; but that he, a lawyer, would be guilty of the great indiscretion of committing felony, was a matter about which one might well entertain a doubt. To urge others to be guilty was a different matter, but to commit himself seemed unlikely. With a view to keep an eye on the figure I distrusted, I looked out for some mode by which he might be known. A patch, or rather gore in the calico, answered admirably, for on looking at others, I saw that this gore was accidental, and peculiar to that particular dress, most probably owing to a deficiency in the material originally supplied.

All this time, which indeed was but a minute or two, the tumult continued. The Injins seemed undetermined what to do; equally afraid to carry out their menaces against Hall, and unwilling to let him go. At the very instant when we were looking for something serious, the storm abated, and an unexpected calm settled on the scene. How this was effected, I never knew; though it is reasonable to suppose an order had been communicated to the Injins, by some signal that was known only to themselves. Of the result there was no doubt; the crowd around Hall opened, and that sturdy and uncompromising freeman came out of it, wiping his face, looking heated and a little angry. He did not yield, however, remaining near the spot, still supported by the two or three friends who had accompanied him from Mooseridge.

My uncle Ro, on reflection, conceived it wisest not to seem in a hurry to quit the village, and as soon as I had ascertained that Mr. Warren had come to a similar decision, and had actually taken refuge in the house of a parishioner, I "was agreeable," as the English say. While the pedler, therefore, made a new display of his watches, I strolled round among the crowd, Injins and others intermixed, to see what could be seen, and to glean intelligence. In the course of my wanderings, chance brought me close to the side of the masker in the dress with the gore. Tickling him gently on the elbow, I induced him to step a little aside with me, where our conversation would not be overheard.

"Why might you be Injin--gentleman as you be?" I asked, with as much of an air of simplicity as I could assume.

The start with which this question was met convinced me I was right; and I scarce needed farther confirmation of the justice of my suspicion. If I had, however, it was afforded.

"Why ask Injin dat?" returned the man with the gore.

"Vell, dat might do, and it might not do, 'Squire Newcome; but it might not do wid one as knows you as vell as I know you. So dell me; vy might you be Injin?"

"Harkee," said Seneca, in his natural speech, and evidently much disturbed by my discovery: "you must, on no account, let it be known who I am. You see, this Injin business is ticklish work, and the law might--that is--you could get nothing by mentioning what you know, but as you have said, as I'm a gentleman, and an attorney at law, it wouldn't sound well to have it said that I was caught dressed up in this manner, playing Injin."

"Ja--ja--I oonderstants--gentlemans might not do sich dings, und not be laughed at--dat's all."

"Ye-e-e-s--that's all, as you say, so be careful what you say or hint about it. Well, since you have found me out, it's my treat. What shall't be?"

This was not very elegant for a "gentleman," and "an attorney at law," certainly, but, as it belonged to the school of Mr. Newcome, it struck me it might not be prudent for me to betray that I belonged to one of a different sort. Affecting contentment, therefore, I told him, what he pleased, and he led me to a store of all business, that was kept by his brother, and in which, as I afterward found, he himself was a partner. Here he generously treated me to a glass of fiery whiskey, which I managed to spill in a way that prevented my being choked. This was adroitly enough effected, as a refusal to drink would have been taken as a most suspicious circumstance in a German. As respects Americans of my assumed class, I am happy to say it is now more possible for one to refuse a glass than to accept it. It says a good deal in favor of the population of a country, when even the coachman declines his whet. Nevertheless, a nation may become perfectly sober, and fall away with fearful rapidity on other great essentials. On the subject of sobriety, I agree altogether with my uncle, in thinking that the Americans drink much less than most, if not less than any European nation; the common notion that long prevailed to the contrary in the country, being no more than the fruits of the general disposition, in other people, to decry democracy, aided somewhat, perhaps, by the exaggerations that are so common in all the published statistics of morals.

I remarked that very few even of the Injins drank, though they now began to circulate freely among the crowd, and in the stores. Seneca left me as soon as he fancied he had clinched my discretion with a treat, and I stood looking round at the manner in which the "armed and disguised" conducted themselves. One fellow, in particular, attracted my attention; and his deportment may be taken as a specimen of that of many of his comrades.

I was soon struck by the fact that Orson Newcome, Seneca's brother and partner, was obviously desirous of having as little to do with any of the Injins as possible. As soon as one entered his store, he appeared uneasy, and whenever one left it, he seemed glad. At first, I was inclined to think that Orson--what names will not the great Eastern family adopt, before they have got through with their catalogue?--really, they seem to select their appellations as they do so many other things, or to prove that they'll do as they please; but Orson, I fancied at first, was influenced by principle, and did not care to conceal the disgust he felt at such audacious and illegal proceedings. But I soon discovered my mistake, by ascertaining the true cause of his distaste for the presence of an Injin.

"Injin want calico, for shirt"--said one of these worthies, significantly, to Orson, who at first affected not to hear him.

The demand was repeated, however, with additional significance, when the cloth was reluctantly thrown on the counter.

"Good," said the Injin, after examining the quality; "cut Injin twenty yard--good measure, hear?"

The calico was cut, with a sort of desperate submission; the twenty yards were folded, enveloped, and handed to the customer, who coolly put the bundle under his arm, saying, as he turned to leave the store--"Charge it to Down Rent."

The mystery of Orson's sullenness was now explained. As invariably follows the abandonment of principle, the fomenters of wrong were suffering smartly through the encroachments of their own agents. I ascertained afterward that these very Injins, who had been embodied in hundreds, with a view to look down law, and right, and the sacred character of contracts, had begun to carry out their main principle, and were making all sorts of demands on the pockets and property of their very employers, under one pretence or another, but with very obvious tendencies toward their own benefit. The "spirit of anti-rentism" was beginning to develop itself in this form, under the system of violence; as, under that of legislative usurpation, and legislative truckling to numbers, which is most to be feared from the character of our representatives, it will as certainly be developed, unless suppressed in the bud, by such further demands on its complaisant ministers, as will either compel them to repent of their first false step, will drive the State to civil war, or will drive all the honest men out of it.

I did not remain long in the store. After quitting it, I went in quest of Mr. Warren and Mary, anxious to know if I could be of any service to them. The father thanked me for this attention, and let me know that he was now about to quit the village, as he saw others beginning to go away, among whom was Hall, who was an old and much valued acquaintance of his, and whom he had invited to stop at the rectory to dine. He advised us to imitate the example, as there were strangers among the Injins, who might be addicted to drinking.

On this information I hunted up my uncle, who had actually sold most of his trinkets, and all his watches but one, the secret of his great success being the smallness of his prices. He sold for what he had bought, and in some instances for even less, quitting the place with the reputation of being the most reasonable jewel-pedler who had ever appeared in it.

The road was beginning to be lined with vehicles carrying home the people who had collected to hear the lecture. As this was the first occasion which offered for witnessing such an exhibition since my return, I examined the different parties we passed, with a view to comparison. There is a certain air of rusticity, even in the large towns of America, which one does not meet with in the capitals of the old world. But the American country is less rustic than any part of the world with which I am acquainted, England alone excepted. Of course, in making such a remark, no allusion is intended to the immediate environs of very large towns; though I am far from certain that the population of St. Ouen, the Runnymede of France, and which stands within a league of the walls of Paris, would not have offered a more decidedly rustic spectacle than that which we then saw. As respects females, this was very strikingly true; scarce one being visible who had that air of coarseness, and ignorance, and vulgarity, which denotes a degraded condition and a life of hardships. There was little apparent that marked a peasantry in the moral sense of the word; but the whole population seemed to be at their ease, using neat and well-kept vehicles; solid, active horses; and being themselves reasonably well, though not very tastefully clad. Yet, all this was on a leased estate, under the dire oppression of a landlord, and beneath the shadow of aristocracy! A short dialogue which took place between my uncle and two sturdy weather-beaten husbandmen, who drove their horses to a short distance on a walk at the side of ours, made the impression produced by such facts deeper than it might otherwise have been. I will relate it.

"You are Jarmans, I b'lieve," commenced the oldest of the two men, a gray-headed tenant of my own, of the name of Holmes, who was well known to us both--"Jarmans, from the old countries, I hear?"

"Ja--we bees from der olt coontries; und dat is a great vay off."

"Ye-e-es, I s'pose it is--I've heern tell of them coontries, often. Does the landlord system exist there?"

"Ja--dere ist lantlordts all ofer dis worlt, I do dinks; und tenants, doo."

"Well, and how is the plan liked there; or be folks thinking of getting red (rid) on't?"

"Nein--how might dey gets red of it? It ist der law, you might see, and vhat ist der law moost be done."

This answer puzzled old Holmes a good deal. He passed a hand over his face, and turned to his companion, one Tubbs, also a tenant on my estate, as if to ask assistance. Tubbs was one of the new school; a school that makes more laws than it respects, and belongs to the movement. He is a man that fancies the world never knew anything of principles, facts, or tendencies, until the commencement of this century.

"What sort of a goverment had you, in your own country?" demanded Tubbs.

"Bretty goot. Mein coontry was Preussen; und dat might be t'ought a bretty goot gofernment."

"Yes, but it's a kingly government, I take it;--it seems to me, I have heern tell of kings in that land."

"Ja, ja--dere ist ein koenig--one king. De last might be der goot koenig Vilhelm, und now dere ist his son, who ist a goot koenig, too, as I might dink. Ja, ja--dere ist a king."

"That explains it all," cried Tubbs, with a sort of triumph. "You see, they have a king, and so they have tenants; but, here we have no king, and we have no need of landlords. Every man, in a free country, should be his own landlord; that's my doctrine, and to that I'll stick."

"There is some reason in that, fri'nd; isn't that your idee?" asked Holmes.

"Vell, I might not oonderstandt. Dost der shentlemans object to landlordts, in his coontry, because dere might be landlordts in dem coontries as might haf kings."

"That's it! That's just the reason on't, and the true principle!" answered Tubbs. "Kings and liberty can't go together, and landlords and liberty can't go together."

"But might not der law in this coontry be to haf landlordts, too? I hear dat it ist so."

"Yes, that is the law, as it stands; but we mean to alter it all. We have got so many votes now, as to be sure to have both parties with us at the gin'ral election; and give us the Governor on our side, with the sartainty of votes enough to turn an election, and we're pretty confident of success. Votes is all that is wanting, in a truly free country, for men to have things pretty much in their own way."

"Und dost you mean to haf not'in dat might be in de coontries ast haf kings?"

"To be sure not. What do we want of any of your lordly contrivances, to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer."

"Vell, you moost alter de law of nature, if de rich vilt not get riches, und de poor vill not feel dey be poor. De Piple dells us dat de misery of de poor ist deir poverty."

"Ay, ay, Bible talk don't go for much in politics. Sabba' days are set aside for the Bible, and week-days for public and private matters. Now, here is Hugh Littlepage, of the same flesh and blood as my neighbor Holmes and myself be--no better and no worse; yes, I'm willing to allow he's no worse, in the main, though in some things I do think we might claim the preference; but I'll allow he's no worse, for the sake of argooment. Each on us rents a farm of this Littlepage, of a hundred acres good. Wa-al, this land we till, and crop, and labor, with our own hands, and the hands of our sons, and hired help, perhaps; and yet we have to pay fifty dollars apiece, annually, to that youngster, Hugh Littlepage, for rent; which money he takes and squanders where he pleases, in riotous livin', for't we know. Now, is that right, I ask; and isn't it an onsuitable state of things for a republican country?"

"Und you dinks yoong Littlebage might spend his money in riotous lifin' in foreign landts?"

"Sartain--that's the tale hereabouts; and I have seen a man who knows another, that has an acquaintance who has been in Paris, and who tells the people of his neighborhood that he stood at the door of the king's palace one day, and actually saw both the Littlepages going in to pay 'tribute unto Caesar,' as it is called--I suppose you know; and they tell me that all that goes to see a king, has to kneel and kiss his hand--some say his toe. Do you happen to know how it is in the old countries?"

"It ist not so; I haf seen more kings as half a dozen, und dey dost not kneel down and kiss deir hants, except on sartain business. Dey might not allvays hear what is true, in dis country."

"Wa-a-l, I don't know, I never was there to see," answered Tubbs, in that peculiar manner, which, whenever it is used by an American, may safely be interpreted to mean, "I'll not contradict you, but I'll believe what I please." "That is what I've heern say. But, why should we pay rent to young Littlepage to spend in riotous living?"

"I might not know, oonless you haf hiret his landt, und agree't to pay him rent; in which case you might do as you agree't."

"But when the bargain's of a kingly natur', I say no. Every country has its natur', and every government has its natur', and all things should be in conformity with natur'. Now it's ag'in natur' to pay rent in a republican country. We want nothing here, that's in common with lords and kings."

"Vell, den, you most alter your whole coontry. You might not haf wifes und children; you might not lif in houses; and plough de landt; you might not eat und drink; and you might not wear any shirt."

Tubbs looked a little astonished. Like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, he was amazed to find he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it. There is no question that laws unsuitable to the institutions of a republic might exist in a kingdom, but it is equally certain that the law which compels the tenant to pay for the use of his house or farm is not one of the number. Tubbs, however, had been so thoroughly persuaded, by dint of talking, there was something exceedingly anti-republican in one man's paying rent to another, that he was not disposed to give the matter up so easily.

"Ay, ay," he answered, "we have many things in common with kingdoms as men, I must allow; but why should we have anything in common of this aristocratic natur'? A free country should contain freemen, and how can a man be free if he doesn't own the land out of which he makes his living?"

"Und if he makes his lifin' out of anoder man's land, he might be honest enough to pay for its use, I dinks."

"But, we hold it ought not to be another man's land, but the land of him who works it."

"Dell me dis--dost you efer let out a field to a poor neighbor on shares?"

"Sartain; we will do that, both to accommodate folks, and to get crops when we are crowded with work ourselves."

"Und why might not all dat crop pelong to him dat works de field?"

"Oh! that's doin' business on a small scale, and can't do anybody harm. But the American institutions never intended that there should be a great privileged class among us, like the lords in Europe."

"Did you efer haf any difficulty in getting your hire for a field dat might be so let out?"

"Sartain. There's miserable neighbors as well as them that isn't. I had to sue the very last chap I had such dealin's with."

"Und dit das law let you haf your money?"

"To be sure it did! What would law be good for, if it didn't help a body to his rights?"

"Und dost den tenants of dis broperty let Hugh Littlebage haf his rents, as might be due?"

"That's a different thing, I tell you. Hugh Littlepage has more than he wants, and spends his money in riotous livin' in foreign parts."

"Vell, und sooppose your neighpors might vants to ask you what you do wit' your tollars after you shall sell your pork and beef, to see you mate goot use of it--might dat be liperty?"

"That! Why, who do you think would trouble himself about my 'arnin's. It's the big fish only that folks talk about, and care about, in such matters."

"Den folks make Hugh Littlebage a big fish, by dair own mettlin', und enfy, und cofetousness--is it not so?"

"Harkee, fri'nd, I some think you're leanin' yourself to kingly ways, and to the idees in which you was brought up. Take my advice, and abandon all these notions as soon as you can, for they'll never be popular in this part of the world."

Popular! How broad has the signification of this word got to be! In the eyes of two-thirds of the population it already means, "what is right." Vox populi, vox dei! To what an extent is this little word made to entwine itself around all the interests of life! When it is deemed expedient to inculcate certain notions in the minds of the people, the first argument used is to endeavor to persuade the inhabitants of New York that the inhabitants of Pennsylvania are already of that mind. A simulated public opinion is the strongest argument used, indeed, on every occasion of the public discussion of any disputed point. He that can count the most voices is a better man than he who can give the most reasons; numbers carrying more weight with them than facts or law. It is evident, that, while in some things, such a system may work well, there are others, and those of overshadowing importance, in which its tendency is direct and fearful toward corruption.

As soon as Tubbs had given his admonition, he applied the whip to his horse, and trotted on, leaving us to follow at the best gait we could extort from Tom Miller's hack.

CHAPTER XVII.

"If he were with me, King of Tuscarora,
Gazing as I upon thy portrait now,
In all its medalled, fringed, and bearded glory,
Its eyes' dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow--

"Its brow, half martial, half diplomatic;
Its eye, upsoaring, like an eagle's wings;
Well might he boast that we, the democratic,
Outrival Europe--even in our kings."

--Red Jacket.

My uncle Ro said nothing when the two tenants left us; though I saw, by his countenance, that he felt all the absurdity of the stuff we had just been listening to. We had got within half a mile of the woods, when eight Injins came galloping up to a wagon that was directly behind us, which contained another of my tenants, with his eldest son, a lad of sixteen, whom he had brought with him as a scholar, in having his sense of right unsettled by the selfish mystification that was going on in the land; a species of fatherly care that was of very questionable merit. I said there were eight of these Injins, but there were only four horses, each beast carrying double. No sooner did the leaders of the party reach the wagon I have mentioned, than it was stopped, and its owner was commanded to alight. The man was a decided down-renter, but he obeyed the order with a very ill-grace; and did not obey at all, indeed, until he was helped out of the wagon, by a little gentle violence of this fragment of his own corps d'armee. The boy was soon put into the highway, when two of the "disguised and armed" leaped into the vacant places, and drove on, passing us at a furious pace, making a parting nod to the owner of the vehicle, and consoling him for its temporary loss by calling out, "Injin want him--Injin good fellow, you know."

Whether the discomfited farmer knew or not, we could not tell; but he looked as if he wished the Injins anywhere but in their "happy hunting grounds." We drove on laughing, for it was in human nature to be amused at such an exhibition of the compulsory system, or of "liberty and equality carried out;" and more particularly so, when I was certain that the "honest, hard-working, horny-handed tiller of the soil," wanted to cheat me out of a farm; or to put his case in the most favorable point of view, wanted to compel me to sell him one at his own price. Nor did our amusement stop here. Before we reached the woods, we found Holmes and Tubbs in the highway, too; the other two worthies who had been mounted en croupe having dispossessed them of their wagon also, and told them to "charge it to Injin." We afterward learned that this practice was very general; the owner recovering his horse and team, in the course of a few days, by hearing it had been left secretly at some tavern within a few miles of his residence. As for old Holmes, he was in an honest indignation, when we came up with him, while even Tubbs looked soured and discontented, or as if he thought friends were entitled to better treatment.

"Vhat ist der matter?" cried out uncle Ro, who could hardly keep from laughing the whole time; "vhat ist der matter now? Vhere might be your hantsome vaggin and your gay horse?"

"It's too bad!--yes, it's eeny most too bad!" grunted Holmes. "Here am I, past threescore-and-ten, which is the full time of man, the Bible says--and what the Bible says must be true, you know?--here have they trundled me into the highway, as they would a sack of potatoes, and left me to walk every step of four miles to reach my own door! It's too bad--it's eeny most too bad!"

"Oh! dat might be a trifle, compared to vhat it vould be to haf peen drundelled out of your farm."

"I know't!--I know't!--I understand it!--it's all meant for the good cause--to put down aristocracy, and make men raa'ly equal as the law intends them to be--but this I say is eeny most too bad!"

"Und you so olt!"

"Seventy-six, if I'm a day. My time can't be long, and my legs is weak, they be. Yes, the Bible says a man's time is limited pretty much to threescore-and-ten--and I'll never stand out ag'in the Bible."

"Und vhat might der Piple say apout vanting to haf your neighpors' goots?"

"It cries that down dreadfully! Yes, there's plenty of that in the good book, I know from havin' heard it read--ay, and havin' read it myself, these threescore years; it doos cry it down, the most awfully. I shall tell the Injins this, the next time they want my wagon. There's Bible ag'in all sich practices."

"Der Piple ist a good pook."

"That it is--that it is--and great is the consolation and hope that I have known drawn from its pages. I'm glad to find that they set store by the Bible in Jarmany. I was pretty much of the notion, we had most of the religion that's goin', in Ameriky, and it's pleasant to find there is some in Jarmany."

All this time old Holmes was puffing along on foot, my uncle Ro walking his horse, in order to enjoy his discourse.

"Oh! ja--ja, ja--dere might be some religion left in der olt worlt--de Puritans, as you might call dem, did not pring it all away."

"Desp'rate good people them! We got all our best sarcumstances from our Puritan forefathers. Some folks say that all America has got, is owing to them very saints!"

"Ja--und if it bees not so, nefer mind; for dey will be sartain to get all Ameriky."

Holmes was mystified, but he kept tugging on, casting wistful glances at our wagon, as he endeavored to keep up with it. Fearful we might trot on and leave him, the old man continued the discourse. "Yes," he said, "our authority for everything must come from the Bible, a'ter all. It tells us we hadn't ought to bear malice, and that's a rule I endivor to act up to; for an old man, you see, can't indulge his sinful natur' if he would. Now I've been down to Little Neest to attend a Down-Rent meetin',--but I bear no more malice ag'in Hugh Littlepage, not I, no more than if he weren't a bit of my landlord! All I want of him is my farm, on such a lay as I can live by, and the b'ys a'ter me. I look on it as dreadful hard and oppressive that the Littlepages should refuse to let us have the place, seein' that I have worked it now for the tarm of three whull lives."

"Und dey agreet dat dey might sell you de farm, when dem dree lifes wast up?"

"No, not in downright language they didn't, as I must allow. In the way of bargain, I must own the advantage is altogether on the side of Littlepage. That was his grand'ther's act; and if you wun't drive quite so fast, as I'm getting a little out of wind, I'll tell you all about it. That is just what we complain on; the bargain being so much in his favor. Now my lives have hung on desp'rately, haven't they, Shabbakuk?" appealing to Tubbs. "It's every hour of forty-five years sin' I tuck that lease, and one life, that of my old woman, is still in bein', as they call it, though it's a sort of bein' that a body might as well not have as have. She can't stand it a great while longer, and then that farm that I set so much store by, out of which I've made my livelihood most of my life, and on which I've brought up fourteen children, will go out of my hands to enrich Hugh Littlepage, who's got so much now he can't spend it at hum like honest folks, but must go abroad, to waste it in riotous living, as they tell us. Yes, onless the Governor and the Legislature helps me out of my difficulty, I don't see but Hugh Littlepage must get it all, making the 'rich richer, and the poor poorer.'"

"Und vhy must dis cruel ding come to pass? Vhy might not mans keep his own in Ameriky?"

"That's jest it, you see. It isn't my own, in law, only by natur', like, and the 'speret of the institutions,' as they call it. I'm sure I don't kear much how I get it, so it only comes. If the Governor can only make the landlords sell, or even give away, he may sartainly count on my support providin' they don't put the prices too high. I hate high prices, which is onsuitable to a free country."

"Fery drue. I sooppose your lease might gif you dat farm quite reasonaple, as it might be mate so long ago?"

"Only two shillings the acre," answered the old fellow, with a knowing look, which as much as boasted of the capital bargain he had in the affair, "or twenty-five dollars a year for a hundred acres. That's no great matter, I'm ready to allow; but my lives havin' held on so desp'rately, until land's got up to forty dollars an acre about here, I can't no more expect sich another lay than I can expect to go to Congress. I can rent that place, to-morrow mornin', for $150 of as good money as any man can pay."

"Und how much might you expect 'Squire Littlepage woult ask on a new lease?"

"Some think as much as $62.50; though other some think he would let it go to me for $50, for three lives longer. The old gin'ral told me when he signed the lease that I was gettin' a bargain, 'but, niver mind,' said he, 'if I give you good tarms, you'll make the better tenant, and I look to posterity and their benefit as much as I do to my own. If I don't get the advantage I might,' says he, 'my children, or my children's children, will. A man musn't altogether live for himself in this world, especially if he has children.' Them was good idees, wasn't they?"

"You might not dink differently. Und, how moch woult you love to bay for a deet of de farm?"

"Wa-a-l, there's differences of opinion on that subject. The most approved notion is, that Hugh Littlepage ought to be made to give warrantees, with full covenants, as it's called; and covenants is all in all, in a deed, you know----"

"But might not be in a lease?" put in uncle Ro, somewhat dryly.

"That depinds--but some say them deeds ought to be given, if the tenants allow the landlords the worth of the land when the patentee got it, and interest down to the present day. It does not seem a desp'rate price to pay for land, to give principal and interest, and to throw in all that has been paid beside?"

"Haf you made a calculation, to see vhat it might come to?"

"Shabbakuk has; tell the gentleman, Shabbakuk, how much you made it come to, the acre."

Shabbakuk was a far deeper rogue than his neighbor, Holmes. The last was merely a man of selfish and narrow views, who, from passing a long life with no other object before him than that of scraping together property, had got his mind completely ensnared in the meshes of this world's net; whereas, his companion took the initiative, as the French have it, in knavery, and not only carried out, but invented the schemes of the wicked. He clearly did not like this appeal to his arithmetic, but having no suspicion to whom he was talking, and fancying every man in the lower conditions of life must be an ally in a plan to make the "rich poorer, and the poor richer," he was a little more communicative than might otherwise have been the case. After reflecting a moment, he gave us his answer, reading from a paper in his hand, on which the whole sum had been elaborately worked for the occasion of the late meeting.

"The land was worth ten cents an acre, maybe, when the first Littlepage got it, and that is a liberal price. Now that was eighty years since, for we don't count old Herman Mordaunt's time as anything; seeing that the land was worth next to nothin' in his time. The interest on ten cents at seven per cent, is seven mills a year, or five hundred and sixty mills for eighty years. This is without compound; compound being unlawful, and nothin' agin law should be taken into the account. Add the ten cents to the five hundred and sixty mills, and you get six hundred and sixty mills, or sixty-six cents. Now this sum, or a sum calculated on the same principles, all the tenants are willing to pay for their farms,[27] and if justice prevails they will get 'em."

"Dat seems but little to bay for landt dat might now rent for a dollar an acre each year."

"You forgit that the Littlepages have had the rent these eighty years, the whull time."

"Und de denants haf hat de farms dese eighty years, de whole time, too."

"Oh! we put the land ag'in the work. If my neighbor, Holmes, here, has had his farm forty-five years, so the farm has had his work forty-five years, as an offset. You may depind on't, the Governor and the Legislature understand all that."

"If dey does," answered Uncle Ro, whipping his horse into a trot, "dey must be fit for deir high stations. It is goot for a country to haf great governors, and great legisladors. Guten Tag."

Away he went, leaving neighbor Holmes, Shabbakuk Tubbs, the Governor and Legislature, with their joint morals, wisdom, logic, and philosophy, in the highway together. My uncle Ro shook his head, and then he laughed, as the absurdity of what had just passed forced itself on his imagination.

I dare say many may be found, who have openly professed principles and opinions identical, in substance, with what has just been related here, who will be disposed to deny them, when they are thrown into their faces. There is nothing unusual in men's refusing to recognize their own children, when they are ashamed of the circumstances that brought them into being. But, in the course of this controversy, I have often heard arguments in discourse, and have often read them in the journals, as they have been put into the mouths of men in authority, and that, too, in their public communications, which, stripped of their very thin coverings, are pretty much on the level with those of Holmes and Tubbs. I am aware that no governor has, as yet; alluded to the hardships of the tenants, under the limited leases, but it would be idle to deny that the door has been opened to principles, or want of principles, that must sweep away all such property in the current of reckless popular clamor, unless the evil be soon arrested. I say evil, for it must prove a curse to any community to break down the securities of property, as it is held in what has hitherto been thought its most secure form, and, what is of still more importance in a moral point of view, all to appease the cravings of cupidity, as they are exhibited in the masses.

We were soon out of sight of Holmes and Tubbs, and in the woods. I confess that I expected each instant to overtake Hall in the hands of the Injins; for the movement among that class of persons had appeared to me as one directed particularly against him. We saw nothing of the sort, however, and had nearly reached the northern limits of the bit of forest, when we came in sight of the two wagons which had been so cavalierly taken possession of, and of the two horses ridden by the mounted men. The whole were drawn up on one side of the highway, under the charge of a single Injin, in a manner to announce that we were approaching a point of some interest.

My uncle and myself fully expected to be again stopped, as we drove up to the place just mentioned; not only was the track of the road left clear, however, but we were suffered to pass without a question. All the horses had been in a lather, as if driven very hard; though, otherwise, there was nothing to indicate trouble, if we except the presence of the solitary sentinel. From this fellow neither signs nor order molested us; but on we went at Tom Miller's horse's favorite amble, until we were so near the verge of the wood, as to get a view into the open fields beyond. Here, indeed, we obtained a sight of certain movements that, I confess, gave me some little concern.

Among the bushes that lined the highway, and which have been already mentioned, I got a glimpse of several of the "disguised and armed," who were evidently lying in ambush. Their number might have been twenty in all, and it was now sufficiently apparent that those who had pressed the wagons had been hurrying forward to re-enforce their party. At this point, I felt quite certain we should be stopped; but we were not. We were suffered to pass without question, as we had just passed the wagons and horses, though it must have been known to the party that we were fully aware of their presence at that particular spot. But on we went, and were soon, unmolested, in the open country.

It was not long, however, before the mystery was explained. A road descended from the higher ground, which lay to the westward of us, a little on our left, and a party of men was coming down it, at a quick walk, which, at the first glance, I mistook for a detachment of the Injins, but which, at a second look, I ascertained to be composed of Indians, or real red men. The difference between the two is very great, as every American will at once admit, though many who read this manuscript will be obliged to me for an explanation. There is "Indian" and "Injin." The Injin is a white man, who, bent on an unworthy and illegal purpose, is obliged to hide his face, and to perform his task in disguise. The Indian is a red man, who is neither afraid nor ashamed to show his countenance, equally to friend or enemy. The first is the agent of designing demagogues, the hireling of a discontented and grasping spirit, who mocks at truth and right by calling himself one who labors to carry out "the spirit of those institutions" which he dishonors and is afraid to trust; while the other serves himself only, and is afraid of nothing. One is skulking from, and shirking the duties of civilization, while the other, though a savage, is, at least, true to his own professions.

There they were, sure enough, a party of some sixteen or eighteen of the real aborigines. It is not an uncommon thing to meet with an Indian or two, strolling about the country selling baskets--formerly it was brooms of birch, but the march of improvement has nearly banished so rude a manufacture from the country--with a squaw or two in company; but it is now very unusual to meet a true Indian warrior in the heart of the State, carrying his rifle and tomahawk, as was the case with all those who were so swiftly descending the road. My uncle Ro was quite as much astonished as I was myself; and he pulled up at the junction of the two highways, in order to await the arrival of the strangers.

"These are real redskins, Hugh--and of a noble tribe," cried my uncle, as a still nearer approach gave him a better and better view. "Warriors of the West, out of all question, with one white man in attendance--what can such a party possibly want at Ravensnest!"

"Perhaps the anti-renters intend to enlarge their plans, and have a scheme to come out upon us, with an alliance formed with the true sons of the forest--may they not intend intimidation?"

"Whom could they thus intimidate, but their own wives and children? But, here they come, in a noble body, and we can speak to them."

There they did come, indeed; seventeen of the finer specimens of the Redskins, as they are now sometimes seen passing among us in bodies, moving to or from their distant prairies; for the white man has already forced the Indian, with the bears, and the elk, and the moose, out of the forests of America, upon those vast plains.

What is to be the end of the increase of this nation is one of the mysteries of Divine Providence. If faithful to the right, if just, not in the sense of yielding to the clamors of the many, but in the sense of good laws, if true to themselves, the people of this republic may laugh at European interference and European power, when brought to bear on their home interests, as so much of the lumbering policy of ages no longer suited to the facts and feelings of our own times, and push on to the fulfilment of a destiny, which, if carried out on the apparent designs of the Ruler of the earth, will leave that of all other states which have preceded us, as much in the shade, as the mountain leaves the valley. But, it must not be forgotten that the brightest dawns often usher in the darkest days; that the most brilliant youths frequently precede manhoods of disappointment and baffled wishes; that even the professed man of God can fall away from his vows and his faith, and finish a career that was commenced in virtue and hope, in profligacy and sin. Nations are no more safe from the influence of temptation than individuals, and this has a weakness peculiarly its own. Instead of falling back on its popular principle, in extremities, as its infallible safeguard, it is precisely in the irresponsible and grasping character of that principle that its danger is to be apprehended. That principle, which, kept within the limits of right, is so admirably adapted to restraining the ordinary workings of cupidity and selfishness, as they are familiarly seen in narrow governments, when permitted to overrun the boundaries placed for its control, becomes a torrent that has broken out of its icy bed, in the spring, and completely defaces all that is beneficial or lovely, in either nature or art, that may happen to lie in its course. As yet, the experience of two centuries has offered nothing so menacing to the future prosperity of this country, as the social fermentation which is at this moment at work in the State of New York. On the result of this depends the solution of the all-important question, whether principles are to rule this republic, or men; and these last, too, viewed in their most vulgar and repulsive qualities, or as the mere creatures of self, instead of being the guardians and agents of that which ought to be. It is owing to this state of things, that we have already seen a Legislature occupied with discussing the modes of evading the provisions of its own laws, and men who ought to stand before the world, stern and uncompromising in their public morals, manifesting a most pernicious ingenuity in endeavoring to master and overreach each other in wielding the arts of the demagogue.

As the Indians entered the north and south road, or that in which we had stopped, the whole party came to a halt, with characteristic courtesy, as if to meet our wish to speak to them. The foremost of the band, who was also the oldest, being a man of sixty, if not older, nodded his head, and uttered the usual conventional salutation of "Sago, sago."

"Sago," said my uncle, and "Sago" put in I.

"How do?" continued the Indian, who we now discovered spoke English. "What call this country?"

"This is Ravensnest. The village of Little Nest is about a mile and a half on the other side of that wood."

The Indian now turned, and in his deep guttural tones communicated this intelligence to his fellows. The information obviously was well received, which was as much as saying that they had reached the end of their journey. Some conversation next succeeded, delivered in brief, sententious remarks, when the old chief again turned to us. I call him chief, though it was evident that the whole party was composed of chiefs. This was apparent by their medals, their fine appearance generally, and by their quiet, dignified, not so say lofty bearing. Each of them was in a light summer attire, wearing the moccason and leggings, etc.; the calico shirt, or a thin blanket, that was cast around the upper part of the person, much as the Roman may be supposed to have worn his toga; all carrying the rifle, the bright, well-scoured tomahawk, and the sheathed knife. Each, too, had his horn and his bullet-pouch, and some of the more youthful were a little elaborate in their ornaments, in the way of feathers, and such presents as they had received on their long journey. Not one of them all, however, was painted.

"This Raven-nest, eh?" continued the old chief, speaking directly, but with sufficient courtesy.

"As I have said. The village lies on the other side of that wood; the house from which the name is taken is a mile and a half in the other direction."

This, too, was translated, and a low, but general expression of pleasure was given.

"Any Injins 'bout here, eh?" demanded the chief, looking so earnestly at the same time as to surprise us both.

"Yes," answered my uncle. "There are Injins--a party is in the edge of the woods, there, within thirty rods of you at this moment."

With great rapidity this fact was communicated to the eager listeners, and there was a sensation in the party, though it was a sensation betrayed as such feelings are only betrayed among the aborigines of this part of the world; quietly, reservedly, and with a coldness amounting nearly to indifference. We were amused, however, at noting how much more interest this news awakened than would probably have been excited had these red-men been told a town like London was on the other side of the wood. As children are known to feel most interest in children, so did these children of the forest seem to be most alive to an interest in these unexpected neighbors, brethren of the same habits and race, as they unquestionably imagined. After some earnest discourse among themselves, the old chief, whose named turned out to be Prairiefire, once more addressed himself to us.

"What tribe, eh? Know tribe?"

"They are called Anti rent Injins--a new tribe in this part of the country, and are not much esteemed."

"Bad Injin, eh?"

"I am afraid so. They are not honest enough to go in paint, but wear shirts over their faces."

Another long and wondering conference succeeded. It is to be supposed that such a tribe as that of the Anti-renters was hitherto unknown among the American savages. The first intelligence of the existence of such a people would naturally awaken great interest, and we were soon requested to show them the way to the spot where this unheard of tribe might be found. This was going somewhat further than my uncle had anticipated, but he was not a man to beat a retreat when he had once undertaken an enterprise. After a short deliberation with himself, he signified his assent; and alighting from our wagon, we fastened Tom Miller's horse to a stake of one of the fences, and set off, on foot, as guides to our new brethren, in seeking the great tribe of the Anti-renters! We had not gone half the distance to the woods before we met Holmes and Tubbs, who, getting a cast in another wagon, until they reached the place where their own vehicle was stationed, had recovered that, and were now on their way home, apprehensive that some new freak of their great allies might throw them out into the highway again. This wagon, our own excepted, was the only one that had yet emerged from the wood, the owners of some twenty others preferring to remain in the background until the development of the meeting between the tribes should occur.

"What, in natur', does all this mean?" exclaimed old Holmes, as we approached him, reining in his horse, for the purposes of a conference. "Is the governor sending out ra-al Injins ag'in' us, in order to favor the landlords?"

This was taking a harsh and most uncharitable view of the course of the governor, for an anti-renter; but that functionary having made the capital blunder of serving, altogether, neither "God nor Mammon" in this great question, must expect to take it right and left, as neither God nor Mammon will be very likely to approve of his course.

"Vell, I don't know," was my uncle's answer. "Dese ist ra-al red-men, und dem younder ist ra-al Injins, dat's all. Vhat might bring dese warriors here, joost now, you must ask of demselves, if you wants to l'arn."

"There can be no harm in asking; I'm no way skeary about redskins, having seen 'em often, and my father fit 'em in his day, as I've heern him tell. Sago, sago."

"Sago," answered Prairiefire, with his customary courtesy.

"Where, in natur', do you red-men all come from, and where can ye be goin'?"

It was apparent that Holmes belonged to a school that never hesitated about putting any question; and that would have an answer, if an answer was to be got. The old chief had probably met with such pale-faces before, the untrained American being certainly among the most diligent of all the human beings of that class. But, on the other hand, the red-man regards the indulgence of a too eager curiosity as womanish, and unworthy of the self-command and dignity of a warrior. The betraying of surprise, and the indulgence of a curiosity fit only for squaws, were two things that Prairiefire had doubtless been early told were unworthy of his sex; for to some such in-and-in breeding alone could be referred the explanation of the circumstance that neither Holmes's manner, address, nor language, caused in him the least expression of emotion. He answered the questions, however, and that with a coldness that seemed of proof.

"Come from setting sun--been to see Great Father, at Washington--go home," was the sententious reply.

"But how come ye to pass by Ravensnest?--I'm afeared the governor, and them chaps at Albany, must have a hand in this, Shabbakuk."

What Shabbakuk thought of the "governor, and them chaps at Albany" is not known, as he did not see fit to make any reply. His ordinary propensity to meddle was probably awed by the appearance of these real redskins.

"I say, why do ye come this-a-way?" Holmes continued, repeating his question. "If you've been to Washington, and found him to hum (Anglice, 'at home'), why didn't ye go back by the way ye come?"

"Come here to find Injin; got no Injin here, eh?"

"Injin? why, of one sort we've got more of the critturs than a body can very well git along with. Of what color be the Injins you want to find? Be they of the pale-face natur', or be they red like yourselves?"

"Want to find red-man. He ole, now; like top of dead hemlock, wind blow t'rough his branches till leaf all fall off."

"By George, Hugh," whispered my uncle, "these redskins are in search of old Susquesus!" Then entirely forgetting the necessity of maintaining his broken English in the presence of his two Ravensnest listeners, Shabbakuk Tubbs in particular, he turned, somewhat inconsiderately for one of his years, to the Prairiefire, and hastily remarked--

"I can help you in your search. You are looking for a warrior of the Onondagoes; one who left his tribe a hundred summers ago, a red-man of great renown for finding his path in the forest, and who would never taste fire-water. His name is Susquesus."

Until this moment, the only white man who was in company with this strange party--strange at least in our portion of the State of New York, though common enough, perhaps, on the great thoroughfares of the country--broke silence. This man was an ordinary interpreter, who had been sent with the party in case of necessity; but being little more acquainted with the ways of civilization than those whom he was to guide, he had prudently held his tongue until he saw that he might be of some use. We afterward learned that the subagent who had accompanied the chiefs to Washington, had profited by the wish of the Indians to pay their passing homage to the "Withered Hemlock, that still stands," as they poetically called Susquesus in their own dialects--for Indians of several tribes were present--to pay a visit to his own relatives in Massachusetts, his presence not being deemed necessary in such a purely pious pilgrimage.

"You're right," observed the interpreter. "These chiefs have not come to look up any tribe, but there are two of the ancient Onondagoes among them, and their traditions tell of a chief, called Susquesus, that has outlived everything but tradition; who left his own people long, long ago, and who left a great name behind him for vartue, and that is a thing a redskin never forgets."

"And all these warriors have come fifty miles out of their way, to pay this homage to Susquesus?"

"Such has been their wish, and I asked permission of the Bureau at Washington, to permit them to come. It costs Uncle Sam $50 or a $100 more than it otherwise might, but such a visit will do all the warriors of the West a million of dollars of good; no men honor right and justice more than redskins, though it's in their own fashion."

"I am sure Uncle Sam has acted no more than righteously, as I hope he always may act as respects these people. Susquesus is an old friend of mine, and I will lead you to him."

"And who in natur' be you?" demanded Holmes, his curiosity starting off on a new track.

"Who am I?--You shall know who I am," answered uncle Ro, removing his wig, an action that I imitated on the spot--"I am Roger Littlepage, the late trustee of this estate, and this is Hugh Littlepage, its owner." Old Holmes was good pluck in most matters; of far better stuff at the bottom, than the sneaking, snivelling, prating demagogue at his side; but by this discovery he was dumfounded! He looked at my uncle, then he looked at me; after which, he fastened a distressed and inquiring gaze on Shabbakuk. As for the Indians, notwithstanding their habitual self-command, a common "hugh!" was uttered among them, when they saw two men, as it might be, thus scalping themselves. Uncle Ro was excited, and his manner was, in the last degree, theatrical, as with one hand he removed his cap, and with the other his wig; holding the last, with an extended arm, in the direction of the Indians. As a red-man is rarely guilty of any act of rudeness, unless he means to play the brute in good earnest, it is possible that the Chippewa toward whom the hand which held the wig was extended, mistook the attitude for an invitation to examine that curious article, for himself. It is certain he gently forced it from my uncle's grasp, and, in the twinkling of an eye, all the savages were gathered round it, uttering many but low and guarded expressions of surprise. Those men were all chiefs, and they restrained their astonishment at this point. Had there been any of the ignoble vulgar among them, there is little doubt that the wig would have passed from hand to hand, and been fitted to a dozen heads, already shaved to receive it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"The Gordon is gude in a hurry,
An' Campbell is steel to the bane,
An' Grant, an' Mackenzie, an' Murray,
An' Cameron will truckle to name."

--Hogg.

The interruption of this scene came from old Holmes, who cried to his companion, on the high key in which it was usual for him to speak:

"This is downright bad, Shabbakuk--we'll never get our leases a'ter this!"

"Nobody can say"--answered Tubbs, giving a loud hem, as if determined to brazen the matter out. "Maybe the gentleman will be glad to compromise the matter. It's ag'in law, I believe, for anyone to appear on the highway disguised--and both the 'Squire Littlepages, you'll notice, neighbor Holmes, be in the very middle of the road, and both was disguised, only a minute ago."

"That's true. D'ye think anything can be got out o' that? I want profitable proceedin's."

Shabbakuk gave another hem, looked behind him, as if to ascertain what had become of the Injins, for he clearly did not fancy the real "article" before him, and then he answered:

"We may get our farms, neighbor Holmes, if you'll agree as I'm willin' to do, to be reasonable about this matter, so long as 'Squire Littlepage wishes to hearken to his own interests."

My uncle did not deign to make any answer, but, knowing we had done nothing to bring us within the view of the late statute, he turned toward the Indians, renewing his offer to them to be their guide.

"The chiefs want very much to know who you are, and how you two came by double scalps," said the interpreter, smiling like one who understood, for his own part, the nature of a wig very well.

"Tell them that this young gentleman is Hugh Littlepage, and that I am his uncle. Hugh Littlepage is the owner of the land that you see on every side of you."

The answer was communicated, and we waited for its effect on the Indians. To our surprise, several of them soon gathered around, evidently regarding us both with interest and respect.

"The claims of a landlord seem to be better understood among these untutored savages, than among your own tenants, Hugh," said my uncle. "But there goes old Holmes, the inbred rogue, and his friend Shabbakuk, back to the woods; we may have an affair on hand with his Injins."

"I think not, sir. It does not appear to me that there is valor enough in that tribe, to face this. In general, the white man is fully a match for the redskin; but it may be doubted whether chiefs like these would not prove too much for twice their number of varlets, of the breed of yonder skulking scoundrels."

"Why do the chiefs manifest so much interest in us?" asked my uncle, of the interpreter. "Is it possible that they pay so much respect to us, on account of our connection with this estate?"

"Not at all--not at all. They know the difference between a chief and a common man well enough, it is true," was the answer; "and twenty times, as we have come down through the country, have they expressed their surprise to me, that so many common men should be chiefs, among the pale-faces; but they care nothing for riches. He is the greatest man among them, who is best on a war-path, and at a council-fire; though they do honor them that has had great and useful ancestors."

"But, they seem to betray some unusual and extraordinary interest in us, too; perhaps they are surprised at seeing gentlemen in such dresses?"

"Lord, sir, what do men care for dresses, that are used to see the heads of factories and forts half the time dressed in skins? They know that there be holidays and workin'-days; times for every-day wear, and times for feathers and paint. No--no--they look at you both, with so much interest, on account of their traditions."

"Their traditions! What can these have to do with us? We have never had anything to do with Indians."

"That's true of you, and may be true of your fathers; but it's not true of some of your ancestors. Yesterday, after we had got to our night's stopping-place, two of the chiefs, this smallish man with the double plate on his breast, and that elderly warrior, who has been once scalped, as you can see by his crown, began to tell of some of the treacheries of their own tribe, which was once a Canada people. The elderly chief related the adventures of a war-path, that led out of Canada, across the large waters, down to a settlement where they expected to get a great many scalps, but where in the end they lost more scalps than they found; and where they met Susquesus, the upright Onondago, as they call him in that tongue, as well as the Yengeese owner of the land, at this very spot, whom they called by a name something like your own, who was a warrior of great courage and skill by their traditions. They suppose you to be the descendants of the last, and honor you accordingly; that's all."

"And, is it possible that these untutored beings have traditions as reliable as this?"

"Lord, if you could hear what they say among themselves, about the lies that are read to them out of the pale-face prints, you would l'arn how much store they set by truth! In my day, I have travelled through a hundred miles of wilderness, by a path that was no better, nor any worse, than an Indian tradition of its manner of running; and a tradition that must have been at least a hundred summers old. They know all about your forefathers, and they know something about you, too, if you be the gentleman that finds the upright Onondago, or the Withered Hemlock, in his old age, with a wigwam, and keeps it filled with food and fuel."

"Is this possible! And all this is spoken of, and known among the savages of the Far West?"

"If you call these chiefs savages," returned the interpreter, a little offended at hearing such a term applied to his best friends and constant associates. "To be sure they have their ways, and so have the pale-faces; but Injin ways be not so very savage, when a body gets a little used to them. Now, I remember it was a long time before I could get reconciled to seeing a warrior scalp his enemy; but as I reasoned on it, and entered into the spirit of the practice, I began to feel it was all right."

I was walking just in front of my uncle, for we were in motion again on our way to the wood, but could not help turning and saying to him with a smile--

"So it would seem that this matter of the 'spirit' is to be found in other places beside the legislature. There is the 'spirit of scalping,' as well as the 'spirit of the institutions!'"

"Ay, Hugh; and the 'spirit of fleecing,' as a consequence of what is profanely termed the last. But it may be well to go no nearer to the wood than this spot. The Injins I have told you of are in these bushes in front, and they are armed; I leave you to communicate with them in any manner you please. They are about twenty in number."

The interpreter informed his chiefs of what had been said, who spoke together in earnest consultation for a moment. Then Prairiefire himself plucked a branch off the nearest bush, and holding it up he advanced close to the cover, and called out aloud in some one, or in many of the different dialects with which he was acquainted. I saw, by the moving of the branches, that men were in the bushes; but no answer of any sort was made. There was one savage in our band, who betrayed manifest impatience at these proceedings. He was a large, athletic Iowa chief, called in English Flintyheart, and, as we subsequently learned, of great renown for martial exploits. It was always difficult to hold him in when there was a prospect of scalps, and he was now less restrained than common, from the circumstance of his having no superior of his own particular tribe present. After Prairiefire had called two or three times in vain to the party in the cover, Flintyheart stepped out, spoke a few words with energy and spirit, terminating his appeal by a most effective, not to say appalling, whoop. That sound was echoed back by most of the band, when they all broke off, right and left, stealing more like snakes than bipeds to the fences, under cover of which they glanced forward to the wood, in which every man of them buried himself in the twinkling of an eye. In vain had the interpreter called to them, to remind them where they were, and to tell them that they might displease their great father, at Washington, and Prairiefire stood his ground, exposed to any shot the supposed foe might send at him; on they went, like so many hounds that have struck a scent too strong to be held in restraint by any whipper-in.

"They expect to find Injins," said the interpreter, in a sort of despair; "and there's no holdin' 'em back. There can be no enemies of their'n down hereaway, and the agent will be awfully angry if blood is drawn; though I shouldn't mind it a bit if the party was some of them scoundrels, the Sacs and Foxes, whom it's often a marcy to kill. It's different down here, however, and I must say I wish this hadn't happened."

My uncle and myself just waited long enough to hear this when we rushed forward, along the highway, and entered the wood, joined by Prairiefire, who, fancying by our movement that all was right, now raised such a whoop himself as to demonstrate it was not for want of "knowing how" that he had hitherto been silent. The road made a curve at the very point where it penetrated the forest, and being fringed with the bushes already mentioned, the two circumstances shut out the view of what was passing behind the scenes, until we reached the turn, where a common halt of the wagons had been made, when the whole view burst upon us at once in all its magnificence.

A rout of a "grand army" could scarcely have been more picturesque! The road was lined with vehicles in full retreat, to use a military term, or, to speak in the more common parlance, scampering off. Every whip was in active use, every horse was on the run, while half the faces were turned behind their owners, the women sending back screams to the whoops of the savages. As for the Injins, they had instinctively abandoned the woods, and poured down into the highway--speed like theirs demanding open ground for its finest display. Some had leaped into wagons, piling themselves up among those virtuous wives and daughters of that portion of the honest yeomanry who had collected to devise the means of cheating me out of my property. But, why dwell on this scene, since the exploits of these Indians, for the last six years, have amply proved that the only thing in which they excel, is in running away? They are heroes when a dozen can get round a single man to tar and feather him; valiant, as a hundred against five or six, and occasionally murderers, when each victim can be destroyed by five or six bullets, to make sure of him. The very cowardice of the scoundrels should render them loathsome to the whole community; the dog that has spirit only to hunt in packs being cur at the bottom.

I must add one other object to the view, however. Holmes and Shabbakuk brought up the rear, and both were flogging their devoted beast as if his employers--I dare not call them "masters," as I might be accused of aristocracy for using so offensive a term in this age of common-sense liberty, while "employers" is a very significant expression for the particular occasion--as if his "employers," then, had left something behind them, at "Little Neest," and were hurrying back to obtain it before it fell into other hands. Old Holmes kept looking behind, as if chased by the covenants of forty leases, while the "spirit of the institutions," headed by two governors, and "the honorable gentleman from Albany," was in full pursuit. If the "spirit of the institutions" was really there, it was quite alone; for I looked in vain for the exhibition of any other spirit. In much less time than it has taken me to write this account, the road was cleared, leaving my uncle, myself, and Prairiefire, in quiet possession; the latter uttering a very significant "hugh!" as the last wagon went out of sight in a cloud of dust.

It was but a moment, however, before our own tribe, or tribes would be more accurate, came down upon us, collecting in the road at the very spot where we stood. The victory had been bloodless, but it was complete. Not only had the savage Indians completely routed the virtuous and much-oppressed-by-aristocracy Injins, but they had captured two specimens of virtue and depression in the persons of as many of the band. So very significant and expressive was the manner of the captives, that Flintyheart, into whose hands they had fallen, not only seemed to hold their scalps in contempt, but actually had disdained to disarm them. There they stood, bundles of calico, resembling children in swaddling-clothes, with nothing partaking of that natural freedom of which their party love to boast, but their legs, which were left at perfect liberty, by way of a dernier resort. My uncle now assumed a little authority, and commanded these fellows to take off their disguises. He might as well have ordered one of the oaks, or maples, to lay down its leaves before the season came round; for neither would obey.

The interpreter, however, whose name was Manytongues, rendered into English from the Indian dialects, was a man of surprisingly few words, considering his calling, on an occasion like this. Walking up to one of the prisoners, he first disarmed him, and then removed his calico hood, exposing the discomfited countenance of Brigham, Tom Miller's envious laborer. The "hughs!" that escaped the Indians were very expressive, on finding that not only did a pale-face countenance appear from beneath the covering, but one that might be said to be somewhat paler than common. Manytongues had a good deal of frontier waggery about him, and, by this time he began to comprehend how the land lay. Passing his hand over Josh's head, he coolly remarked--

"That scalp would be thought more of, in Iowa, than it's ra-ally worth, I'm thinking, if truth was said. But let us see who we have here."

Suiting the action to the words, as it is termed, the interpreter laid hold of the hood of the other captive, but did not succeed in removing it without a sharp struggle. He effected his purpose, assisted by two of the younger chiefs, who stepped forward to aid him. I anticipated the result, for I had early recognized the gore; but great was the surprise; of my uncle when he saw Seneca Newcome's well-known face developed by the change!

Seneca--or, it might be better now to use his own favorite orthoepy, and call him Seneky, at once, for he had a particularly sneaking look as he emerged from under the calico, and this would be suiting the sound to appearances--Seneky, then, was in a "mingled tumult," as it is called, of rage and shame. The first predominated, however, and, as is only too common in cases of military disasters, instead of attributing his capture to circumstances, the prowess of his enemies, or any fault of his own, he sought to mitigate his own disgrace by heaping disgrace on his comrade. Indeed, the manner in which these men went at each other, as soon as unsacked, reminded me of two game-cocks that are let out of their bags within three feet of each other, with this exception--neither crowed.

"This is all your fault, you cowardly dog," said Seneky, almost fiercely, for shame had filled his face with blood. "Had you kept on your feet, and not run me down, in your haste to get off, I might have retreated, and got clear with the rest of them."

This assault was too much for Joshua, who gained spirit to answer by its rudeness and violence, not to say injustice; for, as we afterward ascertained, Newcome had actually fallen in his eagerness to retreat; and Brigham, so far from being the cause of his coming down, had only prevented his getting up, by falling on top of him. In this prostrate condition they had further fallen into the hands of their enemies.

"I want nothin' from you, 'Squire Newcome," answered Joshua quite decidedly as to tone and manner; "your character is well known, all up and down the country."

"What of my character? What have you got to say ag'in' me or my character?" demanded the attorney-at-law, in a tone of high defiance. "I want to see the man who can say anything ag'in' my character."

This was pretty well, considering that the fellow had actually been detected in the commission of a felony; though I suppose that difficulty would have been gotten over, in a moral sense, by the claim of being taken while struggling in defence of human rights, and the "spirit of the institutions." The defiance was too much for Brigham's patience, and being fully assured, by this time, that he was not in much danger of being scalped, he turned upon Seneca, and cried, with something more than spirit, with downright rancor:

"You're a pretty fri'nd of the poor man, and of the people, if truth must be said, an't you? Everybody in the county that's in want of money knows what you be, you d----d shaver."

As the last words came out, Seneky's fist went in upon Brigham's nose, causing the blood to flow freely. My uncle Ro now thought it time to interfere, and he rebuked the irritated lawyer with dignity.

"Why did he call me a d----d shaver, then?" retorted Seneky, still angry and red. "I'll stand that from no man."

"Why, what harm can there be in such a charge, Mr. Newcome? You are a member of the bar, and ought to understand the laws of your country, and cannot stand in need of being told that it has been decided by the highest tribunal of your State that it is no reproach to be called a shaver! Some of the honorable members of that learned body, indeed, seem to think, on the contrary, that it is matter of commendation and congratulation. I am ashamed of you, Mr. Newcome--I'm quite ashamed of you."

Seneky muttered something, in which I fancied I understood the words "the Court of Errors be d----d," or "the Court of Errors" might go to some very bad place, which I will not name; but I will not take on myself that any man of decency could really use such irreverent language about a body so truly eminent, though a person in a passion is sometimes disposed to forget propriety. My uncle now thought it time to put an end to this scene; and, without deigning to enter into any explanation, he signified to Manytongues his readiness to lead his chiefs to the point where they desired to go.

"As to these two Injins," he added, "their capture will do us no honor; and now we know who they are, they can be taken at any time by the deputy sheriffs or constables. It is hardly worth while to encumber your march with such fellows."

The chiefs assented to this proposal, too, and we quitted the woods in a body, leaving Seneky and Joshua on the ground. As we subsequently learned, our backs were no sooner turned, than the last pitched into the first, and pounded him not only until he owned he was "a shaver," but that he was "a d----d shaver" in the bargain. Such was the man, and such the class, that the deluded anti-renters of New York wish to substitute, in a social sense, for the ancient landlords of the country? A pretty top-sheaf they would make to the stack of the community, and admirably would the grain be kept that was protected by their covering! One would like to see fellows of this moral calibre interpreting their covenants; and it would be a useful, though a painful lesson, to see the change effected for a twelvemonth, in order to ascertain, after things had got back into the old natural channel, how many would then wish to "return, like the dog to his vomit, or the sow to her wallowing in the mire."

After giving some directions to Manytongues, my uncle and I got into our wagon and drove up the road, leaving the Indians to follow. The rendezvous was at the Nest, whither we had now determined to proceed at once and assume our proper characters. In passing the rectory, we found time to stop and run in, to inquire after the welfare of Mr. and Miss Warren. Great was my joy at learning they had gone on to the Nest, where they were all to dine. This intelligence did not tend to lessen the speed of Miller's horse, or my horse, it would be better to say, for I am the real owner of everything on the Nest farm, and shall probably so remain, unless the "spirit of the institutions" gets at my property there, as well as in other places. In the course of half an hour we drove on the lawn, and stopped at the door. It will be recollected that the Indians had our wigs, which had been left by my uncle and myself in their hands, as things of no further use to us. Notwithstanding our dresses, the instant we presented ourselves without these instruments of disguise we were recognized, and the cry went through the house and grounds that "Mr. Hugh had come home!" I confess I was touched with some signs of interest and feeling that escaped the domestics, as well as those who belonged out of doors, when they saw me again standing before them in health, if not in good looks. My uncle, too, was welcome; and there were a few minutes during which I forgot all my grounds for vexation, and was truly happy.

Although my grandmother, and sister, and Mary Warren all knew what the cry of "Mr. Hugh has got home" meant, it brought everybody out upon the piazza. Mr. Warren had related the events of the day, as far as he was acquainted with them; but even those who were in the secret, were surprised at our thus returning unwigged, and in our proper characters. As for myself I could not but note the manner in which the four girls came out to meet me. Martha flew into my embrace, cast her arms around my neck, kissing me six or eight times without stopping. Then Miss Colebrooke came next, with Ann Marston leaning on her arm, both smiling, though greatly surprised, and both bright, and pretty, and lady-like. They were glad to see me, and met my salutations frankly and like old friends; though I could see they did not fancy my dress in the least. Mary Warren was behind them all, smiling, blushing, and shy; but it did not require two looks from me to make certain that her welcome was as sincere as that of my older friends. Mr. Warren was glad to have it in his power to greet us openly, and to form an acquaintance with those to whose return he had now been looking, with anxiety and hope, for three or four years.

A few minutes sufficed for the necessary explanations, a part of which, indeed, had already been made by those who were previously in the secret; when my dear grandmother and Patt insisted on our going up to our old room, and of dressing ourselves in attire more suitable to our stations. A plenty of summer clothes had been left behind us, and our wardrobes had been examined that morning in anticipation of our soon having need of them, so that no great time was necessary to make the change. I was a little fuller than when I left home, but the clothes being loose, there was no difficulty in equipping myself. I found a handsome blue dress-coat that did very well, and vests and pantaloons ad libitum. Clothing is so much cheaper in Europe than at home, that Americans who are well supplied do not often carry much with them when they go abroad; and this had been a rule with my uncle all his life. Each of us, moreover, habitually kept a supply of country attire at the Nest, which we did not think of removing. In consequence of these little domestic circumstances, as has been said, there was no want of the means of putting my uncle and myself on a level with others of our class, as respects outward appearance, in that retired part of the country, at least.

The apartments of my uncle and myself were quite near each other, in the north wing of the house, or that which looked in the direction of a part of the meadows under the cliff, the wooded ravine, and the wigwam, or cabin of the "Upright Onondago." The last was very plainly in view from the window of my dressing-room; and I was standing at the latter, contemplating the figures of the two old fellows, as they sat basking in the sun, as was their practice of an afternoon, when a tap at the door proved to be the announcement of the entrance of John.

"Well, John, my good fellow," I said, laughingly; "I find a wig makes a great difference with your means of recognizing an old friend. I must thank you, nevertheless, for the good treatment you gave me in my character of a music-grinder."

"I am sure, Mr. Hugh, you are heartily welcome to my services, come as you may to ask them. It was a most surprisingest deception, sir, as I shall ever hadmit; but I thought the whole time you wasn't exactly what you seemed to be, as I told Kitty as soon as I went down stairs: 'Kitty,' says I, 'them two pedlers is just the two genteelest pedlers as hever I see in this country, and I shouldn't wonder if they had known better days.' But, now you have been to see the hanti-renters with your own eyes, Mr. Hugh, what do you think of them, if I may be so bold as to ask the question?"

"Very much as I thought, before I had been to see them. They are a set of fellows who are canting about liberty, at the very moment when they are doing all they can to discredit its laws, and who mistake selfishness for patriotism; just as their backers in the State government are doing, by using the same cant, when their object is nothing but votes. If no tenant had a vote, this question would never have been raised, or dreamt of--but I see those two old fellows, Jaaf and Sus, seem to enjoy themselves still."

"Indeed they do, sir, in the most surprisingest manner! They was both antiquities, as we says in Hengland, when I came to this country, sir--and that was before you was born, Mr. Hugh--an age agone. But there they sits, sir, day in and day out, looking like monumentals of past times. The nigger"--John had been long enough in the country to catch the vernacular--"The nigger grows uglier and uglier every year, and that is most of a change I can see in him; while I do think, sir, that the Indian grows 'andsomer and 'andsomer. He's the 'andsomest old gentleman, sir, as I know of, far and near!"

"Old gentleman!" What an expressive term that was, in this case! No human being would ever think of calling Jaaf an "old gentleman," even in these "aristrocratic" days, when "gentlemen" are plentier than blackberries; while any one might feel disposed thus to describe Susquesus. The Onondago was a gentleman, in the best meaning of the word; though he may, and certainly did, want a great deal in the way of mere conventional usages. As for John, he never would have used the word to me, except in a case in which he felt the party had a claim to the appellation.

"Susquesus is a magnificent sight, with his gray or white head, fiery eyes, composed features, and impressive air," I answered; "and Jaaf is no beauty. How do the old men get on together?"

"Why, sir, they quarrel a good deal--that is, the nigger quarrels; though the Indian is too much above him to mind what he says. Nor will I say that Yop actually quarrels, sir, for he has the greatest possible regard for his friend; but he aggravates in the most surprisingest manner--just like a nigger, howsever, I do suppose."

"They have wanted for nothing, I trust, during my absence. Their table and other comforts have been seen to carefully, I hope?"

"No fear of that, sir, so long as Mrs. Littlepage lives! She has the affection of a child for the old men, and has everything provided for them that they can possibly want. Betty Smith, sir--you remember Betty, the widow of the old coachman, that died when you was at college, sir--well, Betty has done nothing, these four years, but look after them two old men. She keeps everything tidy in their hut, and washes it out twice a week, and washes their clothes for them, and darns, and sews, and cooks, and looks after all their comforts. She lives hard by, in the other cottage, sir, and has everything handy."

"I am glad of that. Does either of the old men ever stray over as far as the Nest House now, John? Before I went abroad, we had a visit from each, daily."

"That custom has fallen away a little, sir; though the nigger comes much the oftenest. He is sure to be here once or twice a week, in good weather. Then he walks into the kitchen, where he will sit sometimes for a whole morning telling the hardest stories, sir--ha, ha, ha!--yes, sir, just the hardest stories one ever heard!"

"Why, what can he have to say of that nature, that it seems to amuse you so?"

"According to his notion, sir, everything in the country is falling away, and is inferior like to what it may have been in his young days. The turkeys arn't so large, sir; and the fowls is poorer, sir; and the mutton isn't so fat, sir; and sich sort of enormities."

Here John laughed very heartily, though it was plain enough he did not much fancy the comparisons.

"And Susquesus," I said, "he does not share in his friend's criticism?"

"Sus never enters the kitchen, sir, at all. He knows that all the quality and upper class come to the great door of the house, and is too much of a gentleman to come in at any other entrance. No, sir, I never saw Sus in the kitchen or hoffices, at all; nor does Mrs. Littlepage 'ave his table set anywhere but in the hupper rooms, or on the piazza, when she wishes to treat him to anything nice. The old gentleman has what he calls his traditions, sir, and can tell a great many stories of old times; but they ar'n't about turkeys, and 'orses, and garden-stuff, and such things as Yop dwells on so much, and so uncomfortably."

I now dismissed John, after again thanking him for his civilities to one of my late appearance, and joined my uncle. When we entered the little drawing-room, where the whole party was waiting to meet us, previously to going to the table, a common exclamation of pleasure escaped them all. Martha again kissed me, declaring I was now Hugh; that I looked as she had expected to see Hugh; that she would now know me for Hugh, and many other similar things; while my dear grandmother stood and parted my hair, and gazed into my face with tears in her eyes, for I reminded her of her first-born, who had died so young! As for the other ladies, the two heiress-wards of Uncle Ro seemed smiling and friendly, and willing to renew our ancient amicable relations; but Mary Warren still kept herself in the background, though I thought by her modest and half-averted eye, and flushed cheeks, that she sympathized as deeply in her friend Patt's present happiness as any of the others; possibly more deeply.

Before we went to the table I sent a servant to the top of the house, with orders to look down the road, in order to ascertain when my red friends might be expected. This man reported that they were advancing along the highway, and would probably reach the door in the course of half an hour. They had stopped; and he thought that he could perceive, by means of his glass, that they were painting their faces, and otherwise arranging their toilets, in preparation for the anticipated interview. On receiving this information we took our seats at table, expecting to be ready to receive the chiefs, as soon as they should arrive.

Ours was a happy dinner. For the moment, the condition of the country and the schemes of my tenants were forgotten, and we chatted of those nearer interests and feelings that naturally presented themselves to our minds at such a time. At length dear grandmother pleasantly remarked--"You must have an instinct for the discovery of discretion, Hugh, for no one could have made a better choice of a confidant than you did, while going to the village this morning."

Mary blushed like an Italian sky at eventide, and looked down, to conceal her confusion.

"I do not know whether it was discretion or vanity, grandmother," was my answer, "for I am conscious of feeling an unconquerable reluctance to passing for a common music-grinder in Miss Warren's eyes."

"Nay, Hugh," put in the saucy Patt, "I had told you before that you passed for a very uncommon music-grinder in her eyes. As for the grinding, she said but little; for it was of the flute, and of the manner in which it was played, that Miss Warren spoke the most eloquently."

The "Martha!" of Mary Warren, lowly, but half reproachfully uttered, showed that the charming girl was beginning to be really distressed, and my observant parent changed the discourse by a gentle and adroit expedient such as a woman alone knows thoroughly how to put in practice. It was simply handing Mr. Warren a plate of greengages; but the act was so performed as to change the discourse.

During the whole of that meal I felt certain there was a secret, mysterious communication between me and Mary Warren, which, while it probably did escape the notice of others, was perfectly evident to ourselves. This fact I felt to be true; while there was a consciousness betrayed in Mary's blushes, and even in her averted eyes, that I found extremely eloquent on the same subject.

CHAPTER XIX.

"With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil;
With motions graceful as a bird's in air;
Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil
That e'er clinched fingers in a captive's hair."

--Red Jacket.

Although an immense progress has been made in liberating this country from the domination of England, in the way of opinion and usages, a good deal remains to be done yet. Still, he who can look back forty years must see the great changes that have occurred in very many things; and it is to be hoped that he who lives forty years hence will find very few remaining that have no better reasons for their existence among ourselves than the example of a people so remote, with a different climate, different social organization, and different wants. I am for no more condemning a usage, however, simply because it is English, than I am for approving it simply because it is English. I wish everything to stand on its own merits, and feel certain that no nation ever can become great, in the higher signification of the term, until it ceases to imitate, because it is imitation of a certain fixed model. One of the very greatest evils of this imitative spirit is even now developing itself in what is called the "progress" of the country, which is assailing principles that are as old as the existence of man, and which may almost be said to be eternal as social truths, at the very moment that notions derived from our ancestors are submitted to in the highest places, the Senate of the United States for example, that are founded in facts which not only have no existence among ourselves, but which are positively antagonistic to such as have. So much easier is it to join in the hurrah! of a "progress," than to ascertain whether it is making in the right direction, or whether it be progress at all. But, to return from things of moment to those of less concern.

Among other customs to be condemned that we have derived from England, is the practice of the men sitting at table after the women have left it. Much as I may wish to see this every-way offensive custom done away with, and the more polished and humanizing usage of all the rest of Christendom adopted in its stead, I should feel ashamed at finding, as I make no doubt I should find it, that our custom would be abandoned within a twelvemonth after it might be understood it was abandoned in England. My uncle had long endeavored to introduce into our own immediate circle the practice of retaining the ladies at table for a reasonable time, and of then quitting it with them at the expiration of that time; but it is hard to "kick against the pricks." Men who fancy it "society" to meet at each other's houses to drink wine, and taste wine, and talk about wine, and to outdo each other in giving their guests the most costly wines, are not to be diverted easily from their objects. The hard-drinking days are past, but the hard "talking days" are in their vigor. If it could be understood, generally, that even in England it is deemed vulgar to descant on the liquor that is put upon the table, perhaps we might get rid of the practice too. Vulgar in England! It is even deemed vulgar here, by the right sort, as I am ready to maintain, and indeed know of my own observation. That one or two friends who are participating in the benefits of some particularly benevolent bottle, should say a word in commendation of its merits, is natural enough, and well enough; no one can reasonably find any fault with such a sign of grateful feeling; but I know of nothing more revolting than to see twenty grave faces arrayed around a table, employed as so many tasters at a Rhenish wine sale, while the cheeks of their host look like those of Boreas, owing to the process of sucking syphons.

When my dear grandmother rose, imitated by the four bright-faced girls, who did as she set the example, and said, as was customary with the old school, "Well, gentlemen, I leave you to your wine; but you will recollect that you will be most welcome guests in the drawing-room," my uncle caught her hand, and insisted she should not quit us. There was something exceedingly touching, to my eyes, in the sort of intercourse, and in the affection, which existed between my uncle Ro and his mother. A bachelor himself, while she was a widow, they were particularly fond of each other; and many is the time that I have seen him go up to her, when we were alone, and pat her cheeks, and then kiss them, as one might do to a much-beloved sister. My grandmother always received these little liberties with perfect good humor, and with evident affection. In her turn, I have frequently known her to approach "Roger," as she always called him, and kiss his bald head in a way that denoted she vividly remembered the time when he was an infant in her arms. On this occasion she yielded to his request, and resumed her seat, the girls imitating her, nothing loath, as they had done in rising. The conversation then, naturally enough, reverted to the state of the country.

"It has much surprised me, that the men in authority among us have confined all their remarks and statements to the facts of the Rensselaer and Livingston estates," observed my grandmother, "when there are difficulties existing in so many others."

"The explanation is very simple, my good mother," answered Uncle Ro. "The Rensselaer estates have the quarter-sales, and chickens, and days' works; and there is much of the ad captandum argument about such things, that does very well to work up for political effect; whereas, on the other estates, these great auxiliaries must be laid aside. It is just as certain, as it is that the sun has risen this day, that an extensive and concerted plan exists to transfer the freehold rights of the landlords, on nearly every property in the State, to the tenants; and that, too, on conditions unjustly favorable to the last; but you will find nothing of the sort in the messages of governors, or speeches of legislators, who seem to think all is said, when they have dwelt on the expediency of appeasing the complaints of the tenants, as a high political duty, without stopping to inquire whether those complaints are founded in right or not. The injury that will be done to the republic, by showing men how much can be effected by clamor, is of itself incalculable. It would take a generation to do away the evil consequences of the example, were the anti-rent combination to be utterly defeated to-morrow."

"I find that the general argument against the landlords is a want of title, in those cases in which nothing better can be found," observed Mr. Warren. "The lecturer, to-day, seemed to condemn any title that was derived from the king, as defeated by the conquest over that monarch, by the war of the revolution."

"A most charming consummation that would have been for the heroic deeds of the Littlepages! There were my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, all in arms, in that war; the two first as general officers, and the last as a major; and the result of all their hardships and dangers is to be to rob themselves of their own property! I am aware that this silly pretence has been urged, even in a court of justice; but folly, and wrong, and madness, are not yet quite ripe enough among us, to carry such a doctrine down. As 'coming events cast their shadows before,' it is possible we are to take this very movement, however, as the dawn of the approaching day of American reason, and not as a twilight left by the departed rays of a sun of a period of mental darkness."

"You surely do not apprehend, Uncle Ro, that these people can really get Hugh's lands away from him!" exclaimed Patt, reddening with anxiety and anger.

"No one can say, my dear; for, certainly, no one is safe when opinions and acts, like those which have been circulated and attempted among us of late years, can be acted on without awakening very general indignation. Look to the moneyed classes at this very moment, agonized and excited on the subject of a war about Oregon--a thing very little likely to occur, though certainly possible; while they manifest the utmost indifference to this anti-rentism, though the positive existence of everything connected with just social organization is directly involved in its fate. One is a bare possibility, but it convulses the class I have named; while the other is connected with the existence of civilized society itself; yet it has ceased to attract attention, and is nearly forgotten! Every man in the community, whose means raise him at all above the common level, has a direct interest in facing this danger, and in endeavoring to put it down; but scarcely any one appears to be conscious of the importance of the crisis. We have only one or two more steps to make, in order to become like Turkey; a country in which the wealthy are obliged to conceal their means, in order to protect it from the grasp of the government; but no one seems to care at all about it!"

"Some recent travellers among us have said that we have nearly reached that pass already, as our rich affect great simplicity and plainness in public, while they fill their houses in private with all the usual evidences of wealth and luxury. I think De Tocqueville, among others, makes that remark."

"Ay, that is merely one of the ordinarily sagacious remarks of the Europeans, who, by not understanding the American history, confound causes and make mistakes. The plainness of things in public is no more than an ancient habit of the country, while the elegance and luxury in private are a very simple and natural consequence of the tastes of women who live in a state of society in which they are limited to the very minimum of refined habits and intellectual pleasures. The writer who made this mistake is a very clever man, and has exceeding merit, considering his means of ascertaining truth; but he has made very many similar blunders."

"Nevertheless, Mr. Littlepage," resumed the rector, who was a gentleman, in all the senses of the word, and knew the world, and the best part of it, too, even while he had preserved an admirable simplicity of character, "changes have certainly taken place among us, of the nature alluded to by M. de Tocqueville."

"That is quite true, sir; but they have also taken place elsewhere. When I was a boy, I can well remember to have seen coaches-and-six in this country, and almost every man of fortune drove his coach-and-four; whereas, now such a thing is of the rarest occurrence possible. But the same is true all over Christendom; for when I first went to Europe, coaches-and-six, with outriders, and all that sort of state, was an every-day thing; whereas, it is now never, or at least very seldom, seen. Improved roads, steamboats, and railroads, can produce such changes, without having recourse to the oppression of the masses."

"I am sure," put in Patt, laughing, "if publicity be what Mons. De Tocqueville requires, there is publicity enough in New York! All the new-fashioned houses are so constructed, with their low balconies and lower windows, that anybody can see in at their windows. If what I have read and heard of a Paris house be true, standing between cour et jardin, there is infinitely more of privacy there than here; and one might just as well say that the Parisians bury themselves behind porte cocheres, and among trees, to escape the attacks of the Faubourg St. Antoine, as to say we retreat into our houses to be fine, lest the mobocracy would not tolerate us."

"The girl has profited by your letters, I see, Hugh," said my uncle, nodding his head in approbation; "and what is more, she makes a suitable application of her tuition, or rather of yours. No, no, all that is a mistake; and, as Martha says, no houses are so much in the street as those of the new style in our own towns. It would be far more just to say that, instead of retiring within doors to be fine, as Patt calls it, unseen by envious neighbors, the Manhattanese, in particular, turn their dwellings wrong side out, lest their neighbors should take offence at not being permitted to see all that is going on within. But neither is true. The house is the more showy because it is most under woman's control; and it would be just as near the truth to say that the reason why the American men appear abroad in plain blue, and black, and brown clothes, while their wives and daughters are at home in silks and satins--ay, even in modern brocades--is an apprehension of the masses, as to ascribe the plainness of street life, compared to that within doors, to the same cause. There is a good deal of difference between a salon in the Faubourg, or the Chaussee d'Antin, and even on the Boulevard des Italiens. But, John is craning with his neck, out there on the piazza, as if our red brethren were at hand."

So it was, in point of fact, and everybody now rose from table, without ceremony, and went forth to meet our guests. We had barely time to reach the lawn, the ladies having run for their hats in the meantime, before Prairiefire, Flintyheart, Manytongues, and all the rest of them, came up, on the sort of half-trot that distinguishes an Indian's march.

Notwithstanding the change in our dresses, my uncle and myself were instantly recognized, and courteously saluted by the principal chiefs. Then our wigs were gravely offered to us by two of the younger men; but we declined receiving them, begging the gentlemen who had them in keeping to do us the honor to accept them as tokens of our particular regard. This was done with great good-will, and with a pleasure that was much too obvious to be concealed. Half an hour later, I observed that each of the young forest dandies had a wig on his otherwise naked head, with a peacock's feather stuck quite knowingly in the lank hair. The effect was somewhat ludicrous; particularly on the young ladies; but I saw that each of the warriors himself looked round, as if to ask for the admiration that he felt his appearance ought to awaken!

No sooner were the salutations exchanged than the red-men began to examine the house--the cliff on which it stood--the meadows beneath, and the surrounding ground. At first we supposed that they were struck with the extent and solidity of the buildings, together with a certain air of finish and neatness that is not everywhere seen in America, even in the vicinity of its better-class houses; but Manytongues soon undeceived us. My uncle asked him why all the red-men had broken off, and scattered themselves around the buildings, some looking here, others pointing there, and all manifestly earnest and much engaged with something; though it was not easy to understand what that something was; intimating his supposition that they might be struck with the buildings.

"Lord bless ye, no, sir," answered the interpreter; "they don't care a straw about the house, or any house. There's Flintyheart, in particular; he's a chief that you can no more move with riches and large housen, and sichlike matters, than you can make the Mississippi run up stream. When we went to Uncle Sam's house, at Washington, he scarce condescended to look at it; and the Capital had no more effect on any on 'em, than if it had been a better sort of wigwam; not so much, for that matter, as Injins be curious in wigwams. What's put 'em up on a trail like, just now, is the knowledge that this is the spot where a battle was fit, something like ninety seasons ago, in which the Upright Onondago was consarned, as well as some of their own people on t'other side--that's what's put 'em in commotion."

"And why does Flintyheart talk to those around him with so much energy; and point to the flats, and the cliff, and the ravine yonder, that lies beyond the wigwam of Susquesus?"

"Ah! is that, then, the wigwam of the Upright Onondago?" exclaimed the interpreter, betraying some such interest as one might manifest on unexpectedly being told that he saw Mount Vernon or Monticello for the first time in his life. "Well, it's something to have seen that; though it will be more to see the man himself; for all the tribes on the upper prairies, are full of his story and his behavior. No Injin, since the time of Tamenund himself, has made as much talk, of late years, as Susquesus, the Upright Onondago, unless it might be Tecumthe, perhaps. But what occupies Flintyheart, just at this moment, is an account of the battle, in which his father's grandfather lost his life, though he did not lose his scalp. That disgrace, he is now telling on 'em, he escaped, and glad enough is his descendant that it was so. It's no great matter to an Injin to be killed; but he'd rather escape losing his scalp, or being struck at all by the inimy, if it can possibly made to turn out so. Now he's talking of some young pale-face that was killed, whom he calls Lover of Fun--and now he's got on some nigger, who he says fit like a devil."

"All these persons are known to us, by our traditions, also!" exclaimed my uncle, with more interest than I had known him to manifest for many a day. "But I'm amazed to find that the Indians retain so accurate an account of such small matters for so long a time."

"It isn't a small matter to them. Their battles is seldom on a very great scale, and they make great account of any skrimmage in which noted warriors have fallen." Here Manytongues paused for a minute, and listened attentively to the discourse of the chiefs, after which he resumed his explanations. "They have met with a great difficulty in the house," he continued, "while everything else is right. They understand the cliff of rocks, the position of the buildings themselves, that ravine thereaway, and all the rest of the things hereabouts, except the house."

"What may be the difficulty with the house? Does it not stand in the place it ought to occupy?"

"That's just their difficulty. It does stand where it ought to stand, but it isn't the right sort of house, though they say the shape agrees well enough--one side out to the fields, like; two sides running back to the cliff, and the cliff itself for the other. But their traditions say that their warriors indivor'd to burn out your forefathers, and that they built a fire ag'in the side of the buildin', which they never would have done had it been built of stone, as this house is built. That's what partic'larly puzzles them."

"Then their traditions are surprisingly minute and accurate! The house which then stood on, or near this spot, and which did resemble the present building in the ground plan, was of squared logs, and might have been set on fire, and an attempt was actually made to do so, but was successfully resisted. Your chiefs have had a true account; but changes have been made here. The house of logs stood near fifty years, when it was replaced by this dwelling, which was originally erected about sixty years ago, and has been added to since, on the old design. No, no--the traditions are surprisingly accurate."

This gave the Indians great satisfaction, as soon as the fact was communicated to them; and from that instant all their doubts and uncertainty were ended. Their own knowledge of the progress of things in a settlement gave them the means of comprehending any other changes; though the shape of this building having so nearly corresponded with that of which their traditions spoke, they had become embarrassed by the difference in the material. While they were still continuing their examinations, and ascertaining localities to their own satisfaction, my uncle and myself continued the discourse with Manytongues.

"I am curious to know," said my uncle, "what may be the history of Susquesus, that a party of chiefs like these should travel so far out of their way to pay him the homage of a visit. Is his great age the cause?"

"That is one reason, sartainly; though there is another, that is of more account, but which is known only to themselves. I have often tried to get the history out of them, but never could succeed. As long as I can remember, the Onondagoes, and Tuscaroras, and the Injins of the old New York tribes, that have found their way up to the prairies, have talked of the Upright Onondago, who must have been an old man when I was born. Of late years they have talked more and more of him; and so good an opportunity offering to come and see him, there would have been great disappointment out West had it been neglected. His age is, no doubt, one principal cause; but there is another, though I have never been able to discover what it is."

"This Indian has been in communication, and connected with my immediate family, now near, if not quite ninety years. He was with my grandfather, Cornelius Littlepage, in the attack on Ty, that was made by Abercrombie, in 1758; and here we are within twelve or thirteen years of a century from that event. I believe my great-grandfather, Herman Mordaunt, had even some previous knowledge of him. As long as I can remember, he has been a gray-headed old man; and we suppose both he and the negro who lives with him to have seen fully a hundred and twenty years, if not more."

"Something of importance happened to Susquesus, or the Trackless, as he was then called, about ninety-three winters ago; that much I've gathered from what has fallen from the chiefs at different times; but what that something was, it has exceeded my means to discover. At any rate, it has quite as much to do with this visit, as the Withered Hemlock's great age. Injins respect years; and they respect wisdom highly; but they respect courage and justice most of all. The tarm 'Upright' has its meaning, depend on't."

We were greatly interested by all this, as indeed were my grandmother and her sweet companions. Mary Warren, in particular, manifested a lively interest in Susquesus's history, as was betrayed in a brief dialogue I now had with her, walking to and fro in front of the piazza, while the rest of the party were curiously watching the movements of the still excited savages.

"My father and I have often visited the two old men, and have been deeply interested in them," observed this intelligent, yet simple-minded girl--"with the Indian, in particular, we have felt a strong sympathy, for nothing is plainer than the keenness with which he still feels on the subject of his own people. We have been told that he is often visited by red-men--or, at least, as often as any come near him; and they are said ever to exhibit a great reverence for his years, and respect for his character."

"This I know to be true, for I have frequently seen those who have come to pay him visits. But they have usually been merely your basket-making, half-and-half sort of savages, who have possessed the characteristics of neither race, entirely. This is the first instance in which I have heard of so marked a demonstration of respect--how is that, dear grandmother? can you recall any other instance of Susquesus's receiving such a decided mark of homage from his own people as this?"

"This is the third within my recollection, Hugh. Shortly after my marriage, which was not long after the Revolution, as you may know, there was a party here on a visit to Susquesus. It remained ten days. The chiefs it contained were said to be Onondagoes altogether, or warriors of his own particular people; and something like a misunderstanding was reported to have been made up; though what it was, I confess I was too thoughtless then to inquire. Both my father-in-law, and my uncle Chainbearer, it was always believed, knew the whole of the Trackless's story, though neither ever related it to me. I do not believe your grandfather knew it," added the venerable speaker, with a sort of tender regret, "or I think I should have heard it. But that first visit was soon after Susquesus and Jaaf took possession of their house, and it was reported, at the time, that the strangers remained so long, in the hope of inducing Sus to rejoin his tribe. If such was their wish, however, it failed; for there he is now, and there he has ever been since he first went to the hut."

"And the second visit, grandmother--you mentioned that there were three."

"Oh! tell us of them all, Mrs. Littlepage," added Mary earnestly, blushing up to the eyes the moment after at her own eagerness. My dear grandmother smiled benevolently on both, and I thought she looked a little archly at us, as old ladies sometimes will, when the images of their own youth recur to their minds.

"You appear to have a common sympathy in these red-men, my children," she answered, Mary fairly blushing scarlet at hearing herself thus coupled with me in the term "children,"--"and I have great pleasure in gratifying your curiosity. The second great visit that Susquesus received from Indians occurred the very year you were born, Hugh, and then we really felt afraid we might lose the old man; so earnest were his own people in their entreaties that he would go away with them. But he would not. Here he has remained ever since, and a few weeks ago he told me that here he should die. If these Indians hope to prevail any better, I am sure they will be disappointed."

"So he told my father, also," added Mary Warren, "who has often spoken to him of death, and has hoped to open his eyes to the truths of the gospel."

"With what success, Miss Warren? That is a consummation which would terminate the old man's career most worthily."

"With little, I fear," answered the charming girl, in a low, melancholy tone. "At least, I know that my father has been disappointed. Sus listens to him attentively, but he manifests no feeling beyond respect for the speaker. Attempts have been made to induce him to enter the church before, but----"

"You were about to add something, Miss Warren, which still remains to be said."

"I can add it for her," resumed my grandmother, "for certain I am that Mary Warren will never add it herself. The fact is, as you must know, Hugh, from your own observation, that Mr. Warren's predecessor was an unfaithful and selfish servant of the Church--one who did little good to any, not even himself. In this country it takes a good deal in a clergyman to wear out the patience of a people; but it can be done; and when they once get to look at him through the same medium as that with which other men are viewed, a reaction follows, under which he is certain to suffer. We could all wish to throw a veil over the conduct of the late incumbent of St. Andrew's, but it requires one so much thicker and larger than common, that the task is not easy. Mary has merely meant that better instruction, and a closer attention to duty, might have done more for Trackless twenty years ago, than they can do to-day."

"How much injury, after all, faithless ministers can do to the Church of God! One such bad example unsettles more minds than twenty good examples keep steady."

"I do not know that, Hugh; but of one thing I am certain--that more evil is done by pretending to struggle for the honor of the Church, by attempting to sustain its unworthy ministers, than could be done by at once admitting their offences, in cases that are clear. We all know that the ministers of the altar are but men, and as such are to be expected to fall--certain to do so without Divine aid--but if we cannot make its ministers pure, we ought to do all we can to keep the altar itself from contamination."

"Yes, yes, grandmother--but the day has gone by for ex officio religion in the American branch of the Church"--here Mary Warren joined the other girls--"at least. And it is so best. Suspicions may be base and unworthy, but a blind credulity is contemptible. If I see a chestnut forming on yonder branch, it would be an act of exceeding folly in me to suppose that the tree was a walnut, though all the nursery-men in the country were ready to swear to it."

My grandmother smiled, but she also walked away, when I joined my uncle again.

"The interpreter tells me, Hugh," said the last, "that the chiefs wish to pay their first visit to the hut this evening. Luckily, the old farm-house is empty just now, since Miller has taken possession of the new one; and I have directed Mr. Manytongues to establish himself there, while he and his party remain here. There is a kitchen, all ready for their use, and it is only to send over a few cooking utensils, that is to say, a pot or two, and fifty bundles of straw, to set them up in housekeeping. For all this I have just given orders, not wishing to disturb you, or possibly unwilling to lay down a guardian's authority; and there is the straw already loading up in yonder barn-yard. In half an hour they may rank themselves among the pot-wallopers of Ravensnest."

"Shall we go with them to the house before or after they have paid their visit to Susquesus?"

"Before, certainly. John has volunteered to go over and let the Onondago know the honor that is intended him, and to assist him in making his toilet; for the red-man would not like to be taken in undress any more than another. While this is doing, we can install our guests in their new abode, and see the preparations commenced for their supper. As for the "Injins" there is little to apprehend from them, I fancy, so long as we have a strong party of the real Simon Pures within call."

After this, we invited the interpreter to lead his chiefs toward the dwelling they were to occupy, preceding the party ourselves, and leaving the ladies on the lawn. At that season, the days were at the longest, and it would be pleasanter to pay the visit to the hut in the cool of the evening than to go at an earlier hour. My grandmother ordered her covered wagon before we left her, intending to be present at an interview which everybody felt must be most interesting.

The empty building which was thus appropriated to the use of the Indians was quite a century old, having been erected by my ancestor, Herman Mordaunt, as the original farm-house on his own particular farm. For a long time it had been used in its original character; and when it was found convenient to erect another, in a more eligible spot, and of more convenient form, this old structure had been preserved as a relic, and from year to year its removal had been talked of, but not effected. It remained, therefore, for me to decide on its fate, unless, indeed, the "spirit of the institutions" should happen to get hold of it, and take its control out of my hands, along with that of the rest of my property, by way of demonstrating to mankind how thoroughly the great State of New York is imbued with a love of rational liberty!

As we walked toward the "old farm-house," Miller came from the other building to meet us. He had learned that his friends, the pedlers, were his--what I shall call myself? "Master" would be the legal term, and it would be good English; but it would give the "honorable gentleman" and his friends mortal offence, and I am not now to learn that there are those among us who deny facts that are as plain as the noses on their faces, and who fly right into the face of the law whenever it is convenient. I shall not, however, call myself a "boss" to please even these eminent statesmen, and therefore must be content with using a term that, if the moving spirits of the day can prevail, will soon be sufficiently close in its signification, and call myself Tom Miller's--nothing.

It was enough to see that Miller was a good deal embarrassed with the dilemma in which he was placed. For a great many years he and his family had been in the employment of me and mine, receiving ample pay, as all such men ever do--when they are so unfortunate as to serve a malignant aristocrat--much higher pay than they would get in the service of your Newcomes, your Holmeses and Tubbses, besides far better treatment in all essentials; and now he had only to carry out the principles of the anti-renters to claim the farm he and they had so long worked, as of right. Yes, the same principles would just as soon give this hireling my home and farm as it would give any tenant on my estate that which he worked. It is true, one party received wages, while the other paid rent; but these facts do not affect the principle at all; since he who received the wages got no other benefit from his toil, while he who paid the rent was master of all the crops--I beg pardon, the boss of all the crops. The common title of both--if any title at all exist--is the circumstance that each had expended his labor on a particular farm, and consequently had a right to own it for all future time.

Miller made some awkward apologies for not recognizing me, and endeavored to explain away one or two little things that he must have felt put him in rather an awkward position, but to which neither my uncle nor myself attached any moment. We knew that poor Tom was human, and that the easiest of all transgressions for a man to fall into were those connected with his self-love; and that the temptation to a man who has the consciousness of not being anywhere near the summit of the social ladder, is a strong inducement to err when he thinks there is a chance of getting up a round or two; failing of success in which it requires higher feelings, and perhaps a higher station, than that of Tom Miller's, not to leave him open to a certain demoniacal gratification which so many experience at the prospect of beholding others dragged down to their own level. We heard Tom's excuses kindly, but did not commit ourselves by promises or declarations of any sort.

CHAPTER XX.

"Two hundred years! two hundred years!
How much of human power and pride,
What glorious hopes, what gloomy fears,
Have sunk beneath their noiseless tide!"

--Pierpont.

It wanted about an hour to sunset--or sun-down, to use our common Americanism--when we all left the new quarters of our red brethren, in order to visit the huts. As the moment approached, it was easy to trace in the Indians the evidence of strong interest; mingled, as we fancied, with a little awe. Several of the chiefs had improved the intervening time, to retouch the wild conceits that they had previously painted on their visages, rendering their countenances still more appalling. Flintyheart, in particular, was conspicuous in his grim embellishments; though Prairiefire had not laid any veil between the eye and his natural hue.

As the course of my narrative will now render it necessary to relate conversations that occurred in languages and dialects of which I know literally nothing, it may be well to say here, once for all, that I got as close a translation of everything that passed, as it was possible to obtain, from Manytongues; and wrote it all down, either on the spot, or immediately after returning to the Nest. This explanation may be necessary in order to prevent some of those who may read this manuscript, from fancying that I am inventing.

The carriage of my grandmother had left the door, filled with its smiling freight, several minutes before we took up our line of march. This last, however, was not done without a little ceremony, and some attention to order. As Indians rarely march except in what is called "Indian file," or singly, each man following in the footsteps of his leader, such was the mode of advancing adopted on the present occasion. The Prairiefire led the line, as the oldest chief, and the one most distinguished in council. Flintyheart was second, while the others were arranged by some rule of precedency that was known to themselves. As soon as the line had formed, it commenced its march; my uncle, the interpreter, and myself walking at the side of Prairiefire, while Miller, followed by half-a-dozen of the curious from the Nest House and the farm, followed in the rear.

It will be remembered that John had been sent to the hut to announce the intended visit. His stay had been much longer than was anticipated; but when the procession had gone about half the distance it was to march, it was met by this faithful domestic, on his return. The worthy fellow wheeled into line, on my flank, and communicated what he had to say while keeping up with the column.

"To own the truth, Mr. Hugh," he said, "the old man was more moved by hearing that about fifty Indians had come a long distance to see him----"

"Seventeen--you should have said seventeen, John; that being the exact number."

"Is it, sir? Well, I declared that I thought there might be fifty--I once thought of calling 'em forty, sir, but it then occurred to me that it might not be enough." All this time John was looking over his shoulder to count the grave-looking warriors who followed in a line; and satisfied of his mistake, one of the commonest in the world for men of his class, that of exaggeration, he resumed his report. "Well, sir, I do believe you are right, and I have been a little hout. But old Sus was quite moved, sir, when I told him of the intended visit, and so I stayed to help the old gentleman to dress and paint; for that nigger, Yop, is of no more use now, you know, sir, than if he had never lived in a gentleman's family at all. It must have been hawful times, sir, when the gentry of York had nothing but niggers to serve 'em, sir."

"We did pretty well, John, notwithstanding," answered my uncle, who had a strong attachment to the old black race, that once so generally filled all the menial stations of the country, as is apt to be the case with all gentlemen of fifty; "we did pretty well, notwithstanding; Jaaf, however, never acted strictly as a body-servant, though he was my grandfather's own man."

"Well, sir, if there had been nobody but Yop at the hut, Sus would never have been decently dressed and painted for this occasion. As it is, I hope that you will be satisfied, sir, for the old gentleman looks remarkably well;--Indian fashion, you know, sir."

"Did the Onondago ask any questions?"

"Why, you know how it is with him in that particular, Mr. Hugh. He's a very silent person, is Susquesus; most remarkable so when he 'as any one has can entertain him with conversation. I talked most of the time myself, sir, has I commonly does when I pays him a visit. Indians is remarkably silent, in general, I believe, sir."

"And whose idea was it to paint and dress--yours, or the Onondago's?"

"Why, sir, I supposes the hidear to be Indian, by origin, though in this case it was my suggestion. Yes, sir, I suggested the thought; though I will not take it on myself to say Sus had not some hinclination that way, even before I 'inted my hopinion."

"Did you think of the paint!" put in uncle Ro. "I do not remember to have seen the Trackless in his paint these thirty years. I once asked him to paint and dress on a Fourth of July; it was about the time you were born, Hugh--and I remember the old fellow's answer as well as if it were given yesterday. 'When the tree ceases to bear fruit,' was the substance of his reply, 'blossoms only remind the observer of its uselessness.'"

"I have heard that Susquesus was once considered very eloquent, even for an Indian."

"I remember him to have had some such reputation, though I will not answer for its justice. Occasionally, I have heard strong expressions in his brief, clipping manner of speaking English--but in common, he has been content to be simple and taciturn. I remember to have heard my father say that when he first made the acquaintance of Susquesus, and that must have been quite sixty years since, the old man had great apprehension of being reduced to mortifying necessity of making baskets and brooms; but, his dread on that subject once removed, he had ever after seemed satisfied and without care."

"Without care is the condition of those who have least, I believe, sir. It would not be an easy matter for the government of New York to devise ways and means to deprive Sus of his farms, either by instituting suits for title, destroying quarter-sales, laying taxes, or resorting to any other of the ingenious expedients known to the Albany politics."

My uncle did not answer for quite a minute; when he did, it was thoughtfully and with great deliberation of manner.

"Your term of 'Albany politics' has recalled to my mind," he said, "a consideration that has often forced itself upon my reflections. There is doubtless an advantage--nay, there may be a necessity for cutting up the local affairs of this country; by intrusting their management to so many local governments; but there is, out of all question, one great evil consequent on it. When legislators have the great affairs of state on their hands, the making of war and peace, the maintaining of armies, and the control of all those interests which connect one country with another, the mind gets to be enlarged, and with it the character and disposition of the man. But, bring men together, who must act, or appear incapable of acting, and set them at work upon the smaller concerns of legislation, and it's ten to one but they betray the narrowness of their education by the narrowness of their views. This is the reason of the vast difference that every intelligent man knows to exist between Albany and Washington."

"Do you then think our legislators so much inferior to those of Europe?"

"Only as they are provincial; which nine in ten necessarily are, since nine Americans in ten, even among the educated classes, are decidedly provincial. This term 'provincial' covers quite one-half of the distinctive sins of the country, though many laugh at a deficiency, of which, in the nature of things, they can have no notion, as purely a matter of the imagination. The active communications of the Americans certainly render them surprisingly little obnoxious to such a charge, for their age and geographical position. These last disadvantages produce effects, nevertheless, that are perhaps unavoidable. When you have had an opportunity of seeing something of the society of the towns, for instance, after your intercourse with the world of Europe, you will understand what I mean, for it is a difference much more readily felt than described. Provincialism, however, may be defined as a general tendency to the narrow views which mark a contracted association, and an ignorance of the great world--not in the sense of station solely, but in the sense of liberality, intelligence, and a knowledge of all the varied interests of life. But, here we are, at the hut."

There we were sure enough. The evening was delightful. Susquesus had seated himself on a stool, on the green sward that extended for some distance around the door of his habitation, and where he was a little in shade, protected from the strong rays of a setting, but June, sun. A tree cast its shadow over his person. Jaaf was posted on one side, as no doubt, he himself thought best became his color and character. It is another trait of human nature, that while the negro affects a great contempt and aversion for the red-man, the Indian feels his own mental superiority to the domestic slave. I had never seen Susquesus in so grand costume, as that in which he appeared this evening. Habitually he wore his Indian vestments; the leggings, moccason, breech-piece, blanket or calico shirt, according to the season; but I had never before seen him in his ornaments and paint. The first consisted of two medals which bore the images, the one of George III., the other of his grandfather--of two more, bestowed by the agents of the republic; of large rings in his ears, that dropped nearly to his shoulders, and of bracelets formed of the teeth of some animal, that, at first, I was afraid was a man. A tomahawk that was kept as bright as friction could make it, and a sheathed knife, were in his girdle, while his well-tried rifle stood leaning against a tree; weapons that were now exhibited as emblems of the past, since their owner could scarcely render either very effective. The old man had used the paint with unusual judgment for an Indian, merely tingeing his cheeks with a color that served to give brightness to eyes that had once been keen as intense expression could render them, but which were now somewhat dimmed by age. In other respects, nothing was changed in the customary neat simplicity that reigned in and around the cabin, though Jaaf had brought out, as if to sun, an old livery coat of his own, that he had formerly worn, and a cocked hat, in which I have been told he was wont actually to exhibit himself of Sundays, and holidays; reminders of the superiority of a "nigger" over an "Injin."

Three or four rude benches, which belonged to the establishment of the hut, were placed at a short distance in front of Susquesus, in a sort of semicircle, for the reception of his guests. Toward these benches, then, Prairiefire led the way, followed by all the chiefs. Although they soon ranged themselves in the circle, not one took his seat for fully a minute. That time they all stood gazing intently, but reverently, toward the aged man before them, who returned their look as steadily and intently as it was given. Then, at a signal from their leader, who on this occasion was Prairiefire, every man seated himself. This change of position, however, did not cause the silence to be broken; but there they all sat, for quite ten minutes, gazing at the Upright Onondago, who, in his turn, kept his look steadily fastened on his visitors. It was during this interval of silence that the carriage of my grandmother drove up, and stopped just without the circle of grave, attentive Indians, not one of whom even turned his head to ascertain who or what caused the interruption. No one spoke; my dear grandmother being a profoundly attentive observer of the scene, while all the bright faces around her were so many eloquent pictures of curiosity, blended with some gentler and better feelings, exhibited in the most pleasing form of which humanity is susceptible.

At length Susquesus himself arose, which he did with great dignity of manner, and without any visible bodily effort, and spoke. His voice was a little tremulous, I thought, though more through feeling than age; but, on the whole, he was calm, and surprisingly connected and clear, considering his great age. Of course, I was indebted to Manytongues for the interpretation of all that passed.

"Brethren," commenced Susquesus, "you are welcome. You have travelled on a long, and crooked, and thorny path, to find an old chief, whose tribe ought ninety summers ago to have looked upon him as among the departed. I am sorry no better sight will meet your eyes at the end of so long a journey. I would make the path back toward the setting sun broader and straighter if I knew how. But I do not know how. I am old. The pine in the woods is scarce older; the villages of the pale-faces, through so many of which you have journeyed, are not half so old; I was born when the white race were like the moose on the hills; here and there one; now they are like the pigeons after they have hatched their young. When I was a boy my young legs could never run out of the woods into a clearing; now, my old legs cannot carry me into the woods, they are so far off. Everything is changed in the land, but the red-man's heart. That is like the rock which never alters. My children, you are welcome."

That speech, pronounced in the deep husky tones of extreme old age, yet relieved by the fire of a spirit that was smothered rather than extinct, produced a profound impression. A low murmur of admiration passed among the guests, though neither rose to answer, until a sufficient time had seemed to pass, in which the wisdom that they had just been listeners to might make its proper impression. When this pause was thought to be sufficiently long to have produced its effect, Prairiefire, a chief more celebrated in council even than in the field, arose to answer. His speech, freely translated, was in the following words.

"Father: your words are always wise--they are always true. The path between your wigwam and our village is a long one--it is a crooked path, and many thorns and stones have been found on it. But all difficulties may be overcome. Two moons ago we were at one end of it; now we are at the other end. We have come with two notches on our sticks. One notch told us to go to the great Council House of the pale-face, to see our great pale-face father--the other notch told us to come here, to see our great red father. We have been to the great Council House of the pale-faces; we have seen Uncle Sam. His arm is very long; it reaches from the salt lake, the water of which we tried to drink, but it is too salt, to our own lakes, near the setting sun, of which the water is sweet. We never tasted water that was salt before, and we do not find it pleasant. We shall never taste it again; it is not worth while to come so far to drink water that is salt.

"Uncle Sam is a wise chief. He has many counsellors. The council at his council-fire must be a great council--it has much to say. Its words ought to have some good in them, they are so many. We thought of our red father while listening to them, and wanted to come here. We have come here. We are glad to find our red father still alive and well. The Great Spirit loves a just Indian, and takes care of him. A hundred winters, in his eyes, are like a single winter. We are thankful to him for having led us by the crooked and long path, at the end of which we have found the Trackless--the Upright of the Onondagoes. I have spoken."

A gleam of happiness shot into the swarthy lineaments of Susquesus, as he heard, in his own language, a well-merited appellation that had not greeted his ears for a period as long as the ordinary life of man. It was a title, a cognomen that told the story of his connection with his tribe; and neither years, nor distance, nor new scenes, nor new ties, nor wars, nor strifes had caused him to forget the smallest incident connected with that tale. I gazed at the old man with awe, as his countenance became illuminated by the flood of recollections that was rushing into it, through the channel of his memory, and the expressive glance my uncle threw at me, said how much he was impressed also. One of the faculties of Manytongues was to be able to interpret pari passu with the speaker; and, standing between us and the carriage, he kept up, sentence by sentence, a low accompaniment of each speech, so that none of us lost a syllable of what was said.

As soon as Prairiefire resumed his seat, another silence succeeded. It lasted several minutes, during which the only audible sounds were various discontented grunts, accompanied by suppressed mutterings on the part of old Jaaf, who never could tolerate any Indian but his companion. That the negro was dissatisfied with this extraordinary visit was sufficiently apparent to us, but not one of all the red-men took heed of his deportment. Sus, who was nearest to him, must have heard his low grumbling, but it did not induce him to change his look from the countenances of those in his front for a single moment. On the other hand, the visitors themselves seemed totally unconscious of the negro's presence, though in fact they were not, as subsequently appeared. In a word, the Upright Onondago was the centre of attraction for them, all other things being apparently forgotten for the time.

At length there was a slight movement among the redskins, and another arose. This man was positively the least well-looking of the whole party. His stature was lower than that of the rest of the Indians; his form was meagre and ungraceful--the last at least, while his mind was in a state of rest; and his appearance, generally, was wanting in that nobleness of exterior which so singularly marked that of every one of his companions. As I afterward learned, the name of this Indian was Eaglesflight, being so called from the soaring character of the eloquence in which he had been known to indulge. On the present occasion, though his manner was serious and his countenance interested, the spirit within was not heaving with any of its extraordinary throes. Still, such a man could not rise to speak and avoid creating some slight sensation among his expectant auditors. Guarded as are the red-men in general on the subject of betraying their emotions, we could detect something like a suppressed movement among his friends when Eaglesflight stood erect. The orator commenced in a low, but solemn manner, his tones changing from the deep, impressive guttural to the gentle and pathetic, in a way to constitute eloquence of itself. As I listened, I fancied that never before did the human voice seem to possess so much winning power. The utterance was slow and impressive, as is usually the case with true orators.

"The Great Spirit makes men differently," commenced Eaglesflight. "Some are like willows, that bend with the breeze, and are broken in the storm. Some are pines, with slender trunks, few branches, and a soft wood. Now and then there is an oak among them, which grows on the prairie, stretching its branches a great way, and making a pleasant shade. This wood is hard; it lasts a long time. Why has the Great Spirit made this difference in trees?--why does the Great Spirit make this difference in men? There is a reason for it. He knows it, though we may not. What he does is always right!

"I have heard orators at our council-fires complain that things should be as they are. They say that the land, and the lakes, and the rivers, and the hunting-grounds, belong to the red-man only, and that no other color ought ever to be seen there. The Great Spirit has thought otherwise, and what he thinks happens. Men are of many colors. Some are red, which is the color of my father. Some are pale, which is the color of my friends. Some are black, which is the color of my father's friend. He is black, though old age is changing his skin. All this is right; it comes from the Great Spirit, and we must not complain.

"My father says he is very old--that the pine in the woods is scarce older. We know it. That is one reason why we have come so far to see him, though there is another reason. My father knows what that other reason is; so do we. For a hundred winters and summers, that reason has not gone out of our minds. The old men have told it to the young men; and the young men, when they have grown older, have told it to their sons. In this way it has reached our ears. How may bad Indians have lived in that time, have died, and are forgotten! It is the good Indian that lives longest in our memories. We wish to forget that the wicked ever were in our tribes. We never forget the good.

"I have seen many changes. I am but a child, compared with my father; but I feel the cold of sixty winters in my bones. During all that time, the red-men have been travelling toward the setting sun. I sometimes think I shall live to reach it! It must be a great way off, but the man who never stops goes far. Let us go there, pale-faces will follow. Why all this is, I do not know. My father is wiser than his son, and he may be able to tell us. I sit down to hear his answer."

Although Eaglesflight had spoken so quietly, and concluded in a manner so different from what I had expected, there was a deep interest in what was now going on. The particular reason why these red-men had come so far out of their way to visit Susquesus had not yet been revealed, as we all hoped would be the case; but the profound reverence that these strangers, from the wilds of the far west, manifested for our aged friend, gave every assurance that when we did learn it, there would be no reason for disappointment. As usual, a pause succeeded the brief address of the last speaker; after which, Susquesus once more arose and spoke.

"My children," he said, "I am very old. Fifty autumns ago, when the leaves fell, I thought it was time for me to pass on to the happy hunting-grounds of my people, and be a redskin again. But my name was not called. I have been left alone here, in the midst of the pale-face fields, and houses, and villages, without a single being of my own color and race to speak to. My head was almost grown white. Still, as years came on my head, the spirit turned more toward my youth. I began to forget the battles, and hunts, and journeys of middle life, and to think of the things seen when a young chief among the Onondagoes. My day is now a dream, in which I dream of the past. Why is the eye of Susquesus so far-seeing, after a hundred winters and more? Can any one tell? I think not. We do not understand the Great Spirit, and we do not understand his doings. Here I am, where I have been for half my days. That big wigwam is the wigwam of my best friends. Though their faces are pale, and mine is red, our hearts have the same color. I never forget them--no, not one of them. I see them all, from the oldest to the youngest. They seem to be of my blood. This comes from friendship, and many kindnesses. These are all the pale-faces I now see. Red-men stand before my eyes in all other places. My mind is with them.

"My children, you are young. Seventy winters are a great many for one of you. It is not so with me. Why I have been left standing alone here near the hunting-grounds of our fathers, is more than I can say. So it is, and it is right. A withered hemlock is sometimes seen standing by itself in the fields of the pale-faces. I am such a tree. It is not cut down, because the wood is of no use, and even the squaws do not like it to cook by. When the winds blow, they seem to blow around it. It is tired of standing there alone, but it cannot fall. That tree wishes for the axe, but no man puts the axe to its root. Its time has not come. So it is with me--my time has not come.

"Children, my days now are dreams of my tribe. I see the wigwam of my father. It was the best in the village. He was a chief, and venison was never scarce in his lodge. I see him come off the war-path with many scalps on his pole. He had plenty of wampum, and wore many medals. The scalps on his pole were sometimes from red-men, sometimes from pale-faces. He took them all himself. I see my mother, too. She loved me as the she-bear loves her cubs. I had brothers and sisters, and I see them, too. They laugh and play, and seem happy. There is the spring where we dipped up water in our gourds, and here is the hill where we lay waiting for the warriors to come in from the war-paths and the hunt. Everything looks pleasant to me. That was a village of the Onondagoes, my own people, and I loved them a hundred and twenty winters ago. I love them now, as if the time were but one winter and one summer. The mind does not feel time. For fifty seasons I thought but little of my own people. My thoughts were on the hunt and the war-path, and on the quarrels of the pale-faces, with whom I lived. Now, I say again, I think most of the past, and of my young days. It is a great mystery why we can see things that are so far off so plainly, and cannot see things that are so near by. Still, it is so.

"Children, you ask why the red-men keep moving toward the setting sun, and why the pale-faces follow? You ask if the place where the sun sets will ever be reached, and if pale-men will go there to plough and to build, and to cut down the trees. He that has seen what has happened, ought to know what will happen again. I am very old, but I see nothing new. One day is like another. The same fruits come each summer, and the winters are alike. The bird builds in the same tree many times.

"My children, I have lived long among the pale-faces. Still, my heart is of the same color as my face. I have never forgotten that I am a red-man; never forgotten the Onondagoes. When I was young, beautiful woods covered these fields. Far and near the buck and the moose leaped among the trees. Nothing but the hunter stopped them. It is all changed! The plough has frightened away the deer. The moose will not stay near the sound of the church-bell. He does not know what it means. The deer goes first. The red-man keeps on his trail, and the pale-face is never far behind. So it has been since the big canoes of the stranger first came into our waters; so it will be until another salt lake is reached beneath the setting sun. When that other lake is seen, the red-man must stop, and die in the open fields, where rum, and tobacco, and bread are plenty, or march on into the great salt lake of the west and be drowned. Why this is so, I cannot tell. That it has been so, I know; that it will be so, I believe. There is a reason for it; none can tell what that reason is but the Great Spirit."

Susquesus had spoken calmly and clearly, and Manytongues translated as he proceeded, sentence by sentence. So profound was the attention of the savage listeners that I heard their suppressed breathings. We white men are so occupied with ourselves, and our own passing concerns, look on all other races of human beings as so much our inferiors, that it is seldom we have time or inclination to reflect on the consequences of our own acts. Like the wheel that rolls along the highway, however, many is the inferior creature that we heedlessly crush in our path. Thus has it been with the red-man, and, as the Trackless had said, thus will it continue to be. He will be driven to the salt lake of the far west, where he must plunge in and be drowned, or turn and die in the midst of abundance.

My uncle Ro knew more of the Indians, and of their habits, than any one else of our party, unless it might be my grandmother. She, indeed, had seen a good deal of them in early life; and when quite a young girl, dwelling with that uncle of her own who went by the sobriquet of the "Chainbearer," she had even dwelt in the woods, near the tribe of Susquesus, and had often heard him named there as an Indian in high repute, although he was even at that distant day an exile from his people. When our old friend resumed his seat, she beckoned her son and myself to the side of the carriage, and spoke to us on the subject of what had just been been uttered, the translation of Manytongues having been loud enough to let the whole party hear what he said.

"This is not a visit of business, but one of ceremony only," she said. "To-morrow, probably, the real object of the strangers will be made known. All that has passed, as yet, has been complimentary, mixed with a little desire to hear the wisdom of the sage. The red-man is never in a hurry, impatience being a failing that he is apt to impute to us women. Well, though we are females, we can wait. In the meantime, some of us can weep, as you see is particularly the case with Miss Mary Warren."

This was true enough; the fine eyes of all four of the girls glistening with tears, while the cheeks of the person named were quite wet with those that had streamed down them. At this allusion to such an excess of sympathy, the young lady dried her eyes, and the color heightened so much in her face, that I thought it best to avert my looks. While this by-play was going on, Prairiefire arose again, and concluded the proceedings of that preliminary visit, by making another short speech:

"Father," he said, "we thank you. What we have heard will not be forgotten. All red-men are afraid of that great salt lake, under the setting sun, and in which some say it dips every night. What you have told us, will make us think more of it. We have come a great distance, and are tired. We will now go to our wigwam, and eat, and sleep. To-morrow, when the sun is up here," pointing to a part of the heavens that would indicate something like nine o'clock, "we will come again, and open our ears. The Great Spirit who has spared you so long, will spare you until then, and we shall not forget to come. It is too pleasant to us to be near you, for us to forget. Farewell."

The Indians now rose in a body, and stood regarding Susquesus fully a minute, in profound silence, when they filed off at a quick pace, and followed their leader toward their quarters for the night. As the train noiselessly wound its way from before him, a shade passed athwart the dark countenance of the Trackless, and he smiled no more that day.

All this time the negro, the contemporary of the Indian, kept muttering his discontent at seeing so many redskins in his presence, unheeded and indeed unheard by his friend.

"What you do wid dem Injin," he growled, as the party disappeared. "No good ebber come of sich as dem. How many time dey work debbletry in a wood, and you and I not werry far off, Sus. How ole you got, redskin; and forgetful! Nobody can hold out wid color' man. Gosh! I do b'lieve I lib for ebber, sometime! It won'erful to think of, how long I stay on dis werry 'arth!"

Such exclamations were not uncommon with the aged Jaaf, and no one noted them. He did not seem to expect any answer himself, nor did any one appear to deem it at all necessary to make one. As for the Trackless, he arose with a saddened countenance, and moved into his hut like one who wished to be left alone with his thoughts. My grandmother ordered the carriage to move on, and the rest of us returned to the house on foot.

CHAPTER XXI.

"With all thy rural echoes come,
Sweet comrade of the rosy day,
Wafting the wild bee's gentle hum,
Or cuckoo's plaintive roundelay."

--Campbell.

That night was passed under my own roof, in the family circle. Although my presence on the estate was now generally known, to all who were interested in it, I cannot say that I thought much of the anti-renters, or of any risks incurred by the discovery. The craven spirit manifested by the "Injins" in presence of the Indians, the assumed before the real, had not a tendency to awaken much respect for the disaffected, and quite likely disposed me to be more indifferent to their proceedings than I might otherwise have been. At all events, I was happy with Patt and Mary, and my uncle's wards, and did not give the disorganizers a thought, until quite at the close of the evening. The manner in which John went about to barricade the doors and windows, after the ladies had retired, struck me unpleasantly, however, and it did not fail to produce the same effect on my uncle. This seemingly important duty was done, when my faithful maitre-d'hotel, for such, in a measure, was the Englishman's station, came to me and my uncle, who were waiting for his appearance in the library, armed like Robinson Crusoe. He brought us each a revolving pistol, and a rifle, with a proper allowance of ammunition.

"Missus," so John persevered in calling my grandmother, though it was very unlike an English servant to do so, after he had been in the country three months--"Missus 'as hordered harms to be laid in, in quantities, Mr. Hugh, and hall of us has our rifles and pistols, just like these. She keeps some for herself and Miss Martha, in her own room still, but as she supposes you can make better use of these than the maids, I had her orders to bring them down out of the maids' room, and hoffer them to yourselves, gentlemen. They are hall loaded, and smart weapons be they."

"Surely there has been no occasion as yet, for using such things as these!" exclaimed my uncle.

"One doesn't know, Mr. Roger, when the hinimy may come. We have had only three alarms since the ladies arrived, and most luckily no blood was shed; though we fired at the hinimy, and the hinimy fired at us. When I says no blood was spilt, I should add, on our side; for there was no way to know how much the anti's suffered, and they hadn't good stone walls to cover them, as we 'ad on our side."

"Gracious Providence! I had no notion of this! Hugh, the country is in a worse state than I had supposed, and we ought not to leave the ladies here an hour after to-morrow!"

As the ladies who came within my uncle's category, did not include Mary Warren, I did not take exactly the same view of the subject as he did himself. Nothing further was said on the subject, however; and shortly after each shouldered his rifle, and retired to his own room.

It was past midnight when I reached my apartment, but I felt no inclination for sleep. That had been an important day to me, one full of excitement, and I was still too much under the influence of its circumstances to think of my bed. There was soon a profound silence in the house, the closing of doors and the sound of footsteps having ceased, and I went to a window, to gaze on the scene without. There was a three-quarters' moon, which gave light enough to render all the nearer objects of the landscape distinctly visible. The view had nothing remarkable in it, but it was always rural and pretty. The little river, and the broad meadows, were not to be seen from my side of the house, which commanded the carriage road that wound through the lawn--the farm-house--the distant church--the neat and pretty rectory--the dwelling of Mary, and a long reach of farms, that lay along the valley, and on the broad breast of the rising ground to the westward.

Everything, far and near, seemed buried in the quiet of deep night. Even the cattle in the fields had lain down to sleep; for, like men, they love to follow the law of nature, and divide the hours by light and darkness. John had placed the candles in my dressing-room, and closed the inner shutters; but I had taken a seat by a window of the bedroom and sat in no other light but that which came from the moon, which was now near setting. I might have been ruminating on the events of the day half an hour or more, when I fancied some object was in motion on a path that led toward the village, but which was quite distinct from the ordinary highway. This path was private, indeed, running fully a mile through my own farm and grounds, bounded for a considerable distance by high fences on each side of it, and running among the copses and thickets of the lawn, as soon as it emerged from the fields. It had been made in order to enable my grandfather to ride to his fields, uninterrupted by gates or bars; and issuing into the bit of forest already described, it passed through that by a short cut, and enabled us to reach the hamlet by a road that saved nearly a mile in the whole distance. This path was often used by those who left the Nest, or who came to it, in the saddle, but rarely by any but those who belonged to the family. Though old as the place itself, it was little known by others, not suiting the general taste for publicity, there not being a solitary dwelling on it between the Nest House itself and the point where it emerged into the highway, beyond the wood, which was quite near to the village.

I could see the whole line of this private path, with the exception, here and there, of intervals that were hid by trees and thickets, from the point where it terminated until it entered the wood. There could be no mistake. Late as was the hour, some one mounted was galloping along that path, winding his or her way among the rails of the fences; now plainly visible, then lost to view. I had caught a glimpse of this phantom (for at that unusual hour, and by that delusive light, it required no great effort of the imagination thus to fancy the equestrian), just as it emerged from the wood, and could not well be mistaken as to the accuracy of my discovery. The path led through a pretty wooded ravine in the lawn, and no sooner did I lose sight of this strange object than I turned my eyes eagerly to the spot where it ought to reappear, on emerging from its cover.

The path lay in shadow for twenty rods on quitting the ravine, after which it wound across the lawn to the door, for about twice that distance in full moonlight. At the termination of the shadow there was a noble oak, which stood alone, and beneath its wide branches was a seat much frequented by the ladies in the heats of summer. My eye kept moving from this point, where the light became strong, to that where the path issued from the ravine. At the latter it was just possible to distinguish a moving object, and, sure enough, there I got my next view of the person I was watching. The horse came up the ascent on a gallop--a pace that was continued until its rider drew the rein beneath the oak. Here, to my surprise, a female sprang from the saddle with great alacrity, and secured her steed within the shadow of the tree. This was no sooner done than she moved on toward the house, in much apparent haste. Fearful of disturbing the family, I now left my room on tiptoe, and without a candle, the light of the moon penetrating the passages in sufficient quantity to serve my purpose, descending as fast as possible to the lower floor. Swift and prompt as had been my own movement, it had been anticipated by another. To my great surprise, on reaching the little side door to which the path led, and where the ladies had long been accustomed to get into the saddle, when they used it, I found a female figure, with her hand on the massive lock, as if ready to turn its key at some expected summons. To my great astonishment, on drawing nearer, I recognized, by the faint light that penetrated through a little window over the door, the person of Mary Warren!

I certainly started at this unexpected discovery, but, if she who caused that start in me submitted to any similar emotion, I did not discover it. She may have heard my step, however, descending the stairs, and have been prepared for the meeting.

"You have seen her, too, have you, Mr. Littlepage!" exclaimed Mary, though she used the precaution to speak in a suppressed tone. "What can have brought her here at this late hour?"

"You know who it is, then, Miss Warren?" I answered, feeling an indescribable pleasure succeed my surprise, as I remembered the dear girl, who was fully dressed, just as she had left the drawing-room an hour before, must have been gazing out upon the moonlight view as well as myself; a species of romance that proved something like a similiarity of tastes, if not a secret sympathy between us.

"Certainly," returned Mary steadily. "I cannot well be mistaken in the person, I think. It is Opportunity Newcome."

My hand was on the key, and I turned it in the lock. A bar remained, and this I also removed, when we opened the door. Sure enough, there came the person just named, within ten feet of the steps, which she doubtless intended to ascend. She manifested surprise on ascertaining who were her porters, but hastened into the house, looking anxiously behind her, as if distrustful of pursuit or observation. I led the way to the library, lighted its lamp, and then returned to my two silent companions, looking a request for explanation.

Opportunity was a young woman, in her twenty-sixth year, and was not without considerable personal charms. The exercise and excitement through which she had just gone had heightened the color in her cheeks, and rendered her appearance unusually pleasing. Nevertheless, Opportunity was not a woman to awaken anything like the passion of love in me, though I had long been aware such was her purpose. I suspected that her present business was connected with this scheme, I will own, and was prepared to listen to her communication with distrust. As for Opportunity herself, she hesitated about making her disclosures, and the very first words she uttered were anything but delicate or feminine.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Opportunity, "I did not expect to find you two alone at this time of night!"

I could have given her tongue a twitch to cure it of its propensity to speak evil, but concern for Mary Warren induced me to turn anxiously toward her. Never did the steady self-possession of perfect innocence better assert itself than in the dear girl at this rude assault; the innocence which can leave no latent intention, or wish, to alarm the feelings.

"We had all retired," answered the pure-minded girl, "and everybody on my side of the house is in bed and asleep, I believe; but I did not feel any drowsiness, and was sitting at a window, looking out upon the view by this lovely moonlight, when I saw you ride out of the woods, and follow the lane. As you came up to the oak I knew who it was, Opportunity, and ran down to admit you; for I was certain something extraordinary must bring you here at this late hour."

"Oh! nothing extraordinary, at all!" cried Miss Opportunity, in a careless way. "I love moonlight as well as yourself, Mary, and am a desperate horse-woman, as you know. I thought it would be romantic to gallop over to the Nest, and go back between one and two in the morning. Nothing more, I can assure you."

The coolness with which this was said amazed me not a little, though I was not so silly as to believe a syllable of it. Opportunity had a great deal of vulgar sentimentalism about her, it is true--such as some girls are apt to mistake for refinement; but she was not quite so bad as to travel that lane, at midnight, and alone, without some special object. It occurred to me that this object might be connected with her brother, and that she would naturally wish to make her communications privately. We had all taken seats at a table which occupied the centre of the room, Mary and myself quite near each other, and Opportunity at a distant angle. I wrote on a slip of paper a short request for Mary to leave me alone with our visitor, and laid it under her eyes, without exciting Opportunity's suspicion; talking to her, the whole time, about the night, and the weather, and her ride. While we were thus engaged, Miss Warren rose, and quietly glided out of the room. So silently was this done, that I do not believe my remaining companion was conscious of it at the moment.

"You have driven Mary Warren away, Miss Opportunity," I remarked, "by the hint about our being alone together."

"Lord! there's no great harm in that! I am used to being alone with gentlemen, and think nothing of it. But, are we really alone, Mr. Hugh, and quite by ourselves?"

"Quite, as you see. Our two selves and Mary Warren I believe to be the only persons in the house out of our beds. She has left us, a little hurt, perhaps, and we are quite alone."

"Oh! As for Mary Warren's feelings, I don't mind them much, Mr. Hugh. She's a good critter"--yes, this elegant young lady actually used that extraordinary word--"and as forgiving as religion. Besides, she's only the Episcopal clergyman's daughter; and, take your family away, that's a denomination that would not stand long at Ravensnest, I can tell you."

"I am very glad, then, my family is not away, for it is a denomination I both honor and love. So long as the grasping and innovating spirit of the times leaves the Littlepages anything, a fair portion of their means shall be given to support that congregation. As for Miss Warren, I am pleased to hear that her temperament is so forgiving."

"I know that well, and did not speak in the hope of making any change in your views, Mr. Hugh. Mary Warren, however, will not think much of my remark to-morrow; I do not believe she thought half as much about it to-night as I should have done, had it been made to me."

I fancy this was quite true; Mary Warren having listened to the insinuation as the guileless and innocent hear innuendos that bring no consciousness with them, while Opportunity's spirit would have been very apt to buckle on the armor which practice had rendered well-fitting.

"You have not taken this long ride merely to admire the moon, Miss Opportunity," I now carelessly remarked, willing to bring things to a head. "If you would favor me with its real object, I should be pleased to learn it."

"What if Mary should be standing at the keyhole, listening?" said this elegant "critter," with the suspicion of a vulgar mind. "I wouldn't have her hear what I've got to tell you, for a mint of money."

"I do not think there is much danger of that," I answered, rising notwithstanding, and throwing open the door. "You perceive there is no one here, and we can converse in safety."

Opportunity was not so easily satisfied. Of a gossiping, craving disposition herself, in all things that pertain to curiosity, it was not easy for her to imagine another could be less guided by that feeling than herself. Rising, therefore, she went on tiptoe to the passage, and examined it for herself. Satisfied, at length, that we were not watched, she returned to the room, closed the door softly, motioned for me to be seated, placed herself quite near me, and then appeared disposed to proceed to business.

"This has been a dreadful day, Mr. Hugh," the young woman now commenced, actually looking sorrowful, as I make little doubt she really felt. "Who could have thought that the street-musician was you, and that old German pedler of watches, Mr. Roger! I declare, the world seems to be getting upside-down, and folks don't know when they're in their right places!"

"It was a foolish adventure, perhaps; but it has let us into some most important secrets."

"That's just the difficulty. I defend you all I can, and tell my brothers that you've not done anything they wouldn't do in a minute, if only half a farm depended on it, while, in your case, it may be more than a hundred."

"Your brothers, then, complain of my having appeared among the anti-renters in disguise?"

"They do, desperately, Mr. Hugh, and seem quite put out about it. They say it was ungenerous to come in that way into your own country, and steal their secrets from them! I say all I can in your favor, but words won't pass for much with men in such a taking. You know, Mr. Hugh, I've always been your friend, even from our childish days, having got myself into more than one scrape to get you out of them."

As Opportunity made this declaration, one a little loose as to facts, by the way, she sighed gently, dropped her eyes, and looked as conscious and confused as I believe it was at all in her nature to appear. It was not my cue to betray undue bashfulness at such a moment, and as for any scruples on the subject of misleading a confiding heart, I should as soon have thought of feeding an anaconda or a boa constrictor with angle-worms. I took the young lady's hand, therefore, squeezed it with as sentimental a pressure as I knew now to use, and looked green enough about the eyes, I dare say.

"You are only too good, Opportunity," I answered. "Yes, I have ever relied on you as a friend, and have never doubted you would defend me, when I was not present to defend myself."

Here I released the hand, a little apprehensive I might have the young lady sobbing on my shoulder, unless some little moderation were observed. Opportunity manifested a reluctance to let go her hold, but what could a young woman do, when the gentleman himself exhibited so much discretion?

"Yes, Seneky, in particular, is in a dreadful taking," she resumed, "and to pacify him, I consented to ride over myself, at this time of night, to let you know what is threatened."

"That is most kind of you, Opportunity; and, as it is so late, had you not better tell your story at once, and then go to a room and rest yourself, after so sharp a ride?"

"Tell my tale I will, for it's high time you heard it; but, as for rest, I must jump on my horse and gallop back the moment the moon sets; sleep I must in my own bed this night. Of course you and Mary Warren will both be silent as to my visit, since it has been made for your good."

I promised for myself and Mary, and then pressed my companion to delay no longer in imparting the information she had ridden so far to bring. The story was soon told and proved to be sufficiently alarming. One portion of the facts I got directly from Opportunity herself, while another has been subsequently gleaned from various sources, all being certain. The particular circumstances were these:

When Seneca followed the band of "Injins" and his co-anti-renters, in their precipitate retreat on the hamlet, his revelations produced a general consternation. It then became known that the young Paris spendthrift was on his own estate, that he had actually been among the disaffected that day, had learned many of their secrets, and had probably made black marks against certain of the tenants, whose leases were nearly expired. Bad as this was, of itself, it was not the worst of the matter. Nothing was more certain than the fact that this young landlord knew a few of those who had committed felony, and might have sundry highly probable suspicions as to others. The guilty lay at his mercy, as a matter of course; and there was a sufficiency of common sense left among these conspirators, to understand that a man, who must feel that attempts were making to rob him of his estate, would be very likely to turn the tables on his assailants, did an occasion offer. When men embark in an undertaking as innately nefarious as that of anti-rentism certainly is, when it is stripped of its pretentions and stands in its naked deformity, they are not apt to stop at trifles. To this desperate character of its mischief, the country owes the general depression of truth that has accompanied its career, its false and dangerous principles, its confusion between right and wrong, and finally its murders. It has been the miserable prerogative of demagogues alone, to defend its career and its demoralization. Thus has it happened that the country has seen the same quasi legislators--legislators by the vote of a party and the courtesy of the country, if by no other tenure--supporting with an air of high pretension, the very doubtful policy of attempting to make men moral by statute law, on the one side, while they go the full length of these property depredators, on the other! In such a state of society, it is not surprising that any expedient should be adopted to intimidate and bully me into silence. It was consequently determined, in a conclave of the chiefs, that a complaint should be made against my uncle and myself, before an anti-rent justice of the peace, for felony under the recent statute, in appearing "disguised and armed," as a means of preventing our complaints against real offenders. It is true, we were not in masks, but our disguises, nevertheless, were so effectual as possibly to meet the contingency contemplated by the law, had we been armed. As to weapons, however, we had been totally and intentionally without anything of the sort; but oaths cost villains, like those engaged in this plot, very little. Those oaths had been taken, and warrants were actually signed by the magistrate, of which the service was suspended at Seneca's solicitation, merely to enable the last to effect a compromise. It was not thought sufficient, however, to menace my uncle and myself with a prosecution of this nature; intimidation of another sort was to be put in requisition, to enforce the dread of the legal proceedings; a measure which should let us see that our assailants were in downright earnest. Opportunity had ascertained that something serious was to be attempted, and she believed that very night, though what it was precisely was more than she knew; or knowing, was willing to communicate.

The object of this late visit, then, was to make terms for her brother, or brothers; to apprise me of some unknown but pressing danger, and to obtain all that influence in my breast that might fairly be anticipated from services so material. Beyond a question, I was fortunate in having such a friend in the enemy's camp, though past experience had taught me to be wary how I trusted my miserable and sensitive heart within the meshes of a net that had been so often cast.

"I am very sensible of the importance of your services, Miss Opportunity," I said, when the voluble young lady had told her tale, "and shall not fail to bear it in mind. As for making any direct arrangement with your brother Seneca, that is out of the question, since it would be compromising felony, and subject me to punishment; but I can be passive, if I see fit, and your wishes will have great weight with me. The attempt to arrest my uncle and myself, should it ever be made, will only subject its instigators to action for malicious prosecutions, and gives me no concern. It is very doubtful how far we were disguised, in the sense of the statute, and it is certain we were not armed, in any sense. Without perjury therefore, such a prosecution must fail----"

"Folks take desperate oaths in anti-rent times!" interrupted Opportunity, with a significant look.

"I am quite aware of that. Human testimony, at the best, is very frail, and often to be distrusted; but in seasons of excitement, and passion, and cupidity, it is common to find it corrupt. The most material thing, at present, is to know precisely the nature of the evil they meditate against us."

Opportunity's eye did not turn away, as mine was fastened on her while she answered this question, but retained all the steadiness of sincerity.

"I wish I could tell you, Mr. Hugh," she said; "but I can say no more than I have. Some injury will be attempted this night, I feel certain; but what that injury will be, is more than I know myself. I must now go home; for the moon will be nearly down, and it will never do for me to be seen by any of the antis. The little I have said in favor of the Littlepages has made me enemies, as it is; but I never should be forgiven, was this ride to be known."

Opportunity now rose, and smiling on me, as any other rover might be supposed to fire a parting broadside, in order to render the recollection of her presence as memorable as possible, she hurried away. I accompanied her to the oak, as a matter of course, and assisted her into her saddle. Sundry little passages of country coquetry occurred during these movements, and the young lady manifested a reluctance to depart, even when all was ready, though she was in so great a hurry. Her game was certainly as desperate as that of the anti-renters themselves, but it was a game she was determined to play out. The moon was not yet quite down, and that circumstance served as a pretence for delay, while I fancied that she might still have something in reserve to communicate.

"This has been so kind in you, dear Opportunity," I said, laying my hand gently on the one of hers which held the bridle--"so like old times--so like yourself, indeed--that I scarce know how to thank you. But we shall live to have old-fashioned times again, when the former communications can be opened among us. Those were happy days, when we all went galloping over the hills together; mere boys and girls, it is true, but delighted boys and girls I hope you will allow."

"That they was"--Opportunity's education and graces did not extend to good grammar, in her ordinary discourse, which many persons among us seem to fancy is anti-republican--"That they was! And I should like to live 'em over again. Never mind, Hugh; you'll live to put down these people, and then you'll settle and marry. You mean to marry, of course?"

This was a pretty plain demonstration; but I was used to it, as what young man of fortune is not?--and a danger known is a danger avoided. I pressed the hand I held gently, relinquished it, and then observed, in a somewhat disappointed tone----

"Well, I ought not to ask again, what is the particular injury I am to expect to-night. A brother is nearer than a friend, I know; and I can appreciate your difficulties."

Opportunity had actually given the spirited beast she rode the rein, and was on the point of galloping off, when these last words touched her heart. Leaning forward, and bending her head down, so as to bring our faces within a foot of each other, she said, in a low voice----

"Fire is a good servant, but a hard master. A teakettle of water thrown on it, at first, would have put out the last great conflagration in York."

These words were no sooner uttered than the bold young woman struck her horse a smart blow, and away she went galloping over the turf with an almost noiseless hoof. I watched her for a moment, and saw her descend into the ravine; when, left quite alone, there was abundant opportunity for reflection, though no longer any Opportunity to look at.

"Fire!"--That was an ominous word. It is the instrument of the low villain, and is an injury against which it is difficult, indeed, to guard. It had been used in these anti-rent troubles, though less, perhaps, than would have been the case in almost any other country; the institutions of this, even if they have introduced so many false and exaggerated notions of liberty, having had a most beneficial effect in lessening some of the other evils of humanity. Still, fire had been resorted to, and the term of "barn-burner" had got to be common among us; far more common, I rejoice to say, than the practice which gave it birth. Nevertheless, it was clearly of the last importance to certain persons at Ravensnest to frighten me from complaining, since their crimes could only lead them to the State's prison, were justice done. I determined, therefore, not to lay my head on a pillow that night, until assured that the danger was past.

The moon had now set, but the stars shed their twinkling rays on the dusky landscape. I was not sorry for the change, as it enabled me to move about with less risk of being seen. The first thing was to seek some auxiliaries to aid me in watching, and I at once decided to look for them among my guests, the Indians. If "fire will fight fire," "Indian" ought to be a match for "Injin" any day. There is just the difference between these two classes of men, that their names would imply. The one is natural, dignified, polished in his way--nay, gentleman-like; while the other is a sneaking scoundrel, and as vulgar as his own appellation. No one would think of calling these last masquerading rogues "Indians;" by common consent, even the most particular purist in language terms them "Injins." "Il y a chapeau et chapeau," and there are "Indian" and "Injin."

Without returning to the house, I took my way at once toward the quarters of my red guests. Familiar with every object around me, I kept so much within the shadows, and moved across the lawn and fields by a route so hidden, that there was not much risk of my being seen, even had there been enemies on the lookout. The distance was not great, and I soon stood at the foot of the little knoll on which the old farm-house stood, sheltered in a manner by a dark row of aged currants, which lined the bottom of an old and half-deserted garden. Here I paused to look about me, and to reflect a moment, before I proceeded any further.

There stood the good old substantial residence of my fathers, in shadowy outline, looming large and massive in its form and aspect. It might be fired, certainly, but not with much facility, on its exterior. With the exception of its roof, its piazza, and its outside doors, little wood was exposed to an incendiary without; and a slight degree of watchfulness might suffice against such a danger. Then the law punished arson of an inhabited dwelling with death, as it should do, and your sneaking scoundrels seldom brave such a penalty in this country. Much is said about the impotency of the punishment of the gallows, but no man can tell how many thousand times it has stayed the hand and caused the heart to quail. Until some one can appear among us, who is able to reveal this important secret, it is idle to talk about the few cases in which it is known that the risk of death has been insufficient to prevent crime. One thing we all know; other punishments exist, and crime is perpetrated directly in their face, daily and hourly; and I cannot see why such a circumstance should not be just as much of an argument against the punishment of the penitentiary, as against punishment by the gallows. For one, I am clearly for keeping in existence the knowledge that there is a power in the country, potent to sweep away the offender, when cases of sufficient gravity occur to render the warning wholesome.

CHAPTER XXII.

"O, time and death! with certain pace
Though still unequal, hurrying on,
O'erturning, in your awful race,
The cot, the palace, and the throne!

"Not always in the storm of war,
Nor by the pestilence that sweeps
From the plague-smitten realms afar,
Beyond the old and solemn deeps."

--Sands.

Besides the house with its walls of stone, however, there were numerous out-buildings. The carriage-house, stables, and home-barn were all of stone also; but a brand thrown into a hay-mow would easily produce a conflagration. The barns, hay-ricks, etc., on the flats, and near the dwelling of Miller, were all of wood, according to the custom of the country, and it was not death to set fire to a barn. The "disguised and armed" who should commit this last offence would incur no other risk than that which had already been incurred in carrying out his desperate plans. I thought of these things for a moment, when I opened a passage through the currant bushes, intending to pass by a breach in the decayed fence into the garden, and thus by a private way to the house. To my astonishment, and in a slight degree to my alarm, a man stood before me the instant I emerged from the thicket.

"Who be--where go--what want?" demanded one of the real redskins, significantly; this being a sentinal of the party, whose vigilance even my guarded approach had not eluded.

I told him who I was, and that I came to seek the interpreter, Manytongues. No sooner was I recognized, than my red friend offered me his hand to shake, American fashion, and seemed satisfied. He asked no question, manifested no curiosity at this visit at an hour so unusual, and took it all as one in ordinary life would receive a call in a morning between the permitted hours of twelve and three. Something had brought me there, he must have known; but what that something was, appeared to give him no concern. This man accompanied me to the house, and pointed to the spot where I should find the person I sought, snoring on his well-shaken bundles of straw.

At the first touch of my finger, Manytongues awoke, and stood erect. He recognized me in an instant, dark as was the room, and touching my arm as a signal to follow, led the way into the open air. After moving out of ear-shot, he stopped and proceeded to business himself, like one accustomed to such interruptions.

"Anything stirring to-night?" demanded this frontier-man, with the coolness of one who was ever ready. "Am I to call my redskins, or is it only a notice that is to be given?"

"Of that you shall judge for yourself. You doubtless know the condition of this part of the country, and the troubles that exist on the subject of the rents paid for the use of the farms. What you saw to-day is a specimen of the scenes that are now constantly acted among us."

"Colonel, I can't say I do rightly understand the state of things down hereaway," drawled out the interpreter, after yawning like a hound, and giving me the most favorite title of the frontiers. "It seems to be neither one thing nor t'other; nuther tomahawk nor law. I can understand both of them, but this half-and-half sort of thing bothers me, and puts me out. You ought to have law, or you hadn't ought; but what you have should be stuck to."

"You mean that you do not find this part of the country either civilized or savage. Not submitting to the laws, nor yet permitting the natural appeal to force?"

"Something of that sort. The agent told me, when I came on with this party of redskins, that I was comin' down into a quarter of the country where there was justices of the peace, and that no man, red or pale, could or should right himself. So we've all on us indivor'd to go by that rule; and I can qualify that not a critter has been shot or scalped since we crossed the Mississippi. Some sich law was necessary among us, as we came from different and hostile tribes, and nothing would be easier than to breed a quarrel among ourselves, if a body was so disposed. But, I must say, that I'm not only disapp'inted myself, but most of my chiefs be dreadfully disapp'inted likewise."

"In what particular have you been most disappointed?"

"In many matters. The first thing that set me athinkin' was to hear folks read them newspapers. The way men talk of each other, in them things, is wonderful, and to me it's a surprise any's left, at the end of the year, to begin the same game the next. Why, Colonel Littlepage----"

"I am no colonel--not even an ensign--you must be confounding me with some other of my family."

"You ought to be, sir, and I shall not do you the injustice to call you by any lower title. I've known gentlemen of not one-quarter your pretensions tarmed gin'rals, out west. I've hunted on the prer-ies these twenty-five years, and have now crossed the upper lakes six times, and know what is due to a gentleman as well as any man. And so, as I was sayin', Colonel Littlepage, was men to talk of each other out on the prer-ies as they print of each other down here among the meetin'-'uses, scalps would be so plenty as to fall considerable in valie. I'm not at all spiteful, but my feelin's has been r'iled at only just hearin' 'em things read, for, as for reading myself, that's a thing I never condescended to. This somewhat prepared me for findin' things different as I got deeper into the settlement, and I've not been disapp'inted so far as them expectations went--it's the old idee that's been crossed."

"I am not astonished to hear this, and agree with you entirely in thinking that the nations which can withstand a press of which the general character is as degraded as that of this country, must be composed of beings of a higher order than man. But, to come to business; you must have some notions of these mock savages, and of the people called anti-renters?"

"Sort o', and sort o' not. I can't understand when a man has agreed to pay rent, why he should not pay it. A bargain is a bargain, and the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond."

"These opinions would surprise some among us, a few legislators included. They appear to think that the moral test of every engagement is whether the parties like it or not."

"One word, if you please, colonel. Do they give in as much to complaints of the owners of the sile as to the complaints of them that hire the land in order to work it?"

"Not at all. The complaints of the landlords would not find a single sympathetic chord in the breast of the softest-hearted politician in America, let them be ever so well-founded. Surely, you, who are a rover on the prairies, can have no great respect for land titles?"

"The prer-ie is the prer-ie, colonel, and men live and act by prer-ie law on prer-ie ground. But right is right, too, colonel, as well as prer-ie is prer-ie; and I like to see it prevail. I do not think you will find a redskin among all the chiefs who are asleep under that roof who will not give his voice again flying from the tarms of a solemn bargain. A man must be well steeped in the ways of the law, I should judge, to bring his mind to such an act."

"Do these red-men, then, know anything of the nature of the difficulties that exist here?"

"They have heard on 'em, and have talked a good deal together on the subject. It's opposyte to the very natur' of an Indian, like, to agree to one thing, and to do another. But, here is a Chippewa, who is on the lookout. I will ask him a question, and you shall hear his answer."

Manytongues now spoke to the sentinel, who was sauntering near. After a brief exchange of questions and answers in the tongue of the latter, the interpreter communicated what had passed.

"This Chippewa has heard somewhere," he said, "that there are folks in this part of the world who get into wigwams, by agreeing to pay rent for them, and, when once in possession, they want to fly from their agreements, and make the man they got it from prove his right to it. Is that true, colonel?"

"It is true, out of all question, and not only do the tenants wish to enact this treachery, but they have found others, that call themselves legislators, who are willing to sustain them in the fraud. It is much as if you should borrow, or hire a rifle for a day's sporting, and when the man who let you have it, came to claim it at night, you should tell him to prove he was the right owner."

"What's that to me? I got the rifle of him; have no right but such as he had; and am bound to stand by my bargain. No, no, colonel; not a redskin on the prer-ies but would revolutionize at that! But what may have brought you here, at this time o' night? Them that sleep in beds, don't like to quit them till mornin' comes to tell 'em to rise."

I then gave Manytongues an account of the visit I had received, without mentioning the name of Opportunity, however, and related the nature of the warning I had heard. The interpreter was in nowise disturbed at this prospect of a collision with the Injins, against whom he had a grudge, not only on account of the little affair of the preceding day, but mainly in consequence of their having brought real savages into discredit, by the craven and clumsy manner in which they had carried out their imitation.

"Nothin' better is to be expected from such critturs," he observed, after we had discussed the matter together, at some little length, "though fire is held to be lawful warfare, even on the prer-ies. For my part, I'm not at all sorry there is something to do; nor will my chiefs be melancholy on this account, for it is dull work to be doing nothing, for months and months at a time, but smoking at councils, making speeches to folks who live by talking, and eating and drinking. Activity is the natur' of a prer-ie man, and he's always glad to pick his flint, after a spell of considerable quiet. I'll tell the Chippewa to step in and bring out the redskins, a'ter which you can give your orders."

"I could wish watchfulness rather than violence. The men can lie in watch, near the principal buildings, and it might be well to have some water ready, to extinguish any flames that may be lighted, before they get too far ahead."

"Just as you say, colonel, for you are my captain-general. But I can tell you how I did once, out on the prer-ies, when I caught a rascal of a Sioux blowing a fire he had kindled at one of my own lodges. I just laid him on the flames, and let him put them out himself by bleeding on them."

"We must have no violence, unless it become indispensable to save the buildings. The law will not justify us in using our arms, except in the least extremity. Prisoners I wish you to take; for they may serve as hostages, besides furnishing examples to intimidate other offenders. I rely on you to give due warning to our red friends on this subject."

The interpreter gave a sort of grunt, but he said nothing. The conversation went no farther, however, just then; for, by this time, the Indians came stealing out of the house, every man of them armed, looking dusky, prepared and full of wariness. Manytongues did not keep them long, but soon told his story. After this, his authority appeared, in a great measure, to cease. Flintyheart was now the most prominent of the party, though Prairiefire, and another warrior, were also connected with the orders given to the rest. I observed that Eaglesflight had no part in these arrangements, which were peculiarly military, though he appeared armed and ready, and went forth on the sudden call, like the rest. In five minutes, the Indians were all off, principally in pairs, leaving the interpreter and myself still standing together, in front of the deserted house.

It was, by this time, past one o'clock, and I thought it probable my enemies would soon appear, if they came that night. Accompanied by the interpreter, I took the way toward the Nest House, it occurring to me that arms might be wanted, in the course of the morning. On quitting my room, the rifle and pistol provided by John had been left there, and I thought of stealing into the house again, obtaining those weapons, extinguish my light, and rejoin my present companion, without giving alarm to any of the sleepers.

This plan was successfully executed, so far as ascending to my room and descending to the door were concerned, but there it met with an interruption. While in the very act of closing the little postern, as we used to call it, by way of pleasantry, I felt a small soft hand laid on the one of my own which was drawing-to the door after me. In an instant I had turned, and was at the side of Mary Warren. I expressed my surprise at finding her still up, and concern lest she might suffer in health, in consequence of so much unusual watchfulness.

"I could not sleep after what has passed to-night," she answered, "without knowing the meaning of all these movements. I have been looking from my window, and saw you assist Opportunity to get on her horse, and afterward walk toward the old farm-house, where the Indians are lodged. Tell me, frankly, Mr. Littlepage, is there any danger to be apprehended?"

"I shall be frank with you, Mary"--how easy and pleasant it was to me to use this gentle familiarity, which might now be assumed without appearing to be presumptuous, under all the circumstances of our intercourse; "I shall be frank with you, Mary; for I know that your prudence and self-command will prevent any unnecessary alarm, while your watchfulness may be of use. There is some reason to fear the brand."

"The brand!"

"So Opportunity has given me reason to suppose; and I do not think she would have ridden the distance she did at such an hour, unless her business were serious. The brand is the proper instrument of the anti-renter, and renders his disguise convenient. I have got all the red-men on the lookout, however; and I do not think that mischief can be done to-night, without its being detected. To-morrow, we can appeal to the authorities for protection."

"I will not sleep this night!" exclaimed Mary, drawing the light shawl she wore, as a protection against the air of that summer-night, more closely around her person, as a sterner being might be supposed to gird on his armor in a moment of peril. "I care not for rest. They ought not, they shall not, Mr. Littlepage, do you this wrong. Have you apprehensions for this house?"

"One never knows. This house is not easily set fire to from without, and I scarcely think there can be any enemy within. The domestics are old and tried, and I do not believe that either of them could be bought. I feel little apprehension, therefore, from any within, while I confess to a good deal from those without. Fire is such a dreadful foe, and one is usually so helpless against its ravages in the country! I will not ask you to retire, for I know you will not--nay, cannot sleep; but, by passing from window to window, for the next hour, or until I rejoin you, your mind will be occupied, and possibly some injury might be prevented. An unseen observer from a window might detect an attempt that would escape those on the watch without."

"I will do so," said Mary, eagerly; "and should I discover anything, I will open a leaf of the shutter of my own room. You can then see the light of the candle within, and by coming at once to this door, you will find me here, ready to let you know my discovery."

With this understanding they parted, but not until I had shaken hands affectionately with this gentle-looking, but really resolute and clear-headed girl. I rejoined Manytongues, who stood in the shadows of the piazza, where there was no possibility of his being seen, except by one quite near his person. After a brief explanation, we parted, one taking the north side of the buildings, and the other the south, in order to make certain no incendiary was at work on either of the wings.

The Nest House was much less exposed to attempts like those we apprehended, than most American dwellings. The structure being of stone, left but little inflammable material accessible; and the doors, on the exterior, were only two--those already mentioned. There was a great gate, it is true; one large enough to admit a cart into the inner court, on the southern face of the wing, beneath the arch of which an incendiary might, indeed, make his attempt, though a practised rogue would at once see the difficulties. Little wood was even there, beyond that of the massive gate itself, which, once burnt, would leave no further fuel for flames. I examined the place, notwithstanding; and finding all safe on my side of the building, I went to rejoin the interpreter, who was to meet me at the foot of a fine beech, which spread its broad arms over the lawn, at the distance of about a hundred yards from the house, and so nearly in its front, as to afford us, in all respects, the most eligible position for sentinels on duty like ours, far or near.

At the foot of that beech I found Manytongues, and the deep obscurity in which his form was embedded, was, of itself, a high recommendation of the position. I did not see him until almost near enough to touch him. He was seated on a bench, and seemed entirely at his ease, like one accustomed to ambushes, vigilance, and midnight assaults. We exchanged reports, ascertained all was well, and then I took my seat at the interpreter's side, willing to beguile the time by such discourse as occurred to my mind.

"That was a most interesting scene, last evening," I remarked; "the interview between Old Trackless and your red companions! I own a lively curiosity to know what particular claim our aged friend has on those distant tribes, that chiefs of note have come so far to see him?"

"They have not come all the way from the prer-ies, to this spot, on any such ar'n'd, though I do not question their readiness to do so. In the first place, old age, when accompanied by wisdom, and sobriety, and a good character, goes a great way with savages, in gin'ral. But there is something partic'lar about the acts of Susquesus that I do not know, which raises him higher than common in redskin eyes. I intend to l'arn what it is before we quit this country."

A pause succeeded; then I spoke of the "prer-ies," as almost all western men pronounce the word. I drew such an outline of the life as I supposed my companion passed there, thinking it might be agreeable to hear his own habits and enjoyments extolled.

"I'll tell you how it is, colonel," returned the interpreter, with a little show of feeling; much more than he had previously manifested on any occasion during our short acquaintance; "yes, I'll jist tell you how it is. Prer-ie life is delightsome to them that loves freedom and justice."

"Freedom I can understand," said I, interrupting him, in my surprise--"but as for justice, I should think that laws are absolutely necessary."

"Ay, that's a settlement idee, I know, but it's not as true as some supposes. There is no court and jury like this, colonel," slapping the breech of his rifle with energy, "and eastern powder conspired with Galena lead makes the best of attorneys. I've tried both, and speak on sartainty. Law druv' me out on the prer-ies, and love for them keeps me there. Down this-a-way, you're neither one thing nor tuther--law nor rifle; for, if you had law, as law ought to be, you and I wouldn't be sitting here, at this time of night, to prevent your mock Injins from setting fire to your houses and barns."

There was only too much truth in this last position of the straightforward interpreter to be gainsaid. After making some proper allowances for the difficulties of the case, and the unexpected circumstances, no impartial man could deny that the laws had been trifled with, or things never would have reached the pass they had: as Manytongues affirmed, we had neither the protection of the law, nor the use of the rifle. It ought to be written in letters of brass in all the highways and places of resort in the country, that A STATE OF SOCIETY WHICH PRETENDS TO THE PROTECTION THAT BELONGS TO CIVILIZATION, AND FAILS TO GIVE IT, ONLY MAKES THE CONDITION OF THE HONEST PORTION OF THE COMMUNITY SO MUCH THE WORSE, BY DEPRIVING IT OF THE PROTECTION CONFERRED BY NATURE, WITHOUT SUPPLYING THE SUBSTITUTE. I dare say the interpreter and I sat an hour under that tree, conversing in low voices, on such matters and things as came uppermost in our minds. There was a good deal of true prer-ie philosophy in the opinions of my companion, which is much as if one should say his notions were a mixture of clear natural justice and strong local prejudices. The last sentiment he uttered was so very characteristic as to merit particular notice.

"I'll tell you how it is, colonel," he said, "right is right, and nonsense is nonsense. If so be, we should happen to catch one of these mocking rascals firing your house or barn, it would be a smart chance at justice to settle things on the spot. If I had my way, I should just tie the fellow, hands and feet, and toss him into the flames to help him along with his own work. A rascal makes the best of kindling wood!"

Just at that instant I saw an upper leaf of the inside shutter of Mary Warren's room open, for my eye was resting on the window at that very moment. The light had been brought so near the opening as plainly to show the change, leaving no doubt that my fair sentinel within had made some important discovery. At such a summons I could not hesitate; but, telling Manytongues to continue his watchfulness, I went across the lawn with the steps of youth and haste. In two minutes my hand was on the latch of the little door; and in two seconds more it was open, and I found myself standing in front of Mary Warren. A gesture from her hand induced me to be cautious, and closing the door silently, I asked an explanation.

"Speak not too loud," whispered the anxious girl, preserving a wonderful self-command, nevertheless, for the extraordinary circumstances in which she was placed. "I have discovered them; they are here!"

"Here!--not in the house, surely?"

"In the house itself!--in the kitchen, where they are kindling a fire on the floor at this instant. Come quickly--there is not a moment to lose."

It may be well to explain here the arrangement of the kitchen and offices, in order to render what is to follow the more intelligible. The gateway mentioned cut the southern wing of the house into two equal parts, the chambers, however, extending the whole length, and of course passing over it. On the western side of this gateway were certain offices connected with the eating-rooms, and those eating-rooms themselves. On the eastern side were the kitchen, servants' hall, scullery, etc., and a flight of narrow stairs that led to the chambers occupied by the domestics. The outside door to this latter portion of the building was beneath the arch of the gateway, one corresponding to it opening on its opposite side, and by means of which the service was ordinarily made. There was a court, environed on three of its sides by the main edifice, and by two long, low wings that have been so often mentioned, while it was open on the fourth to the cliff. This cliff was low land, while it was nearly perpendicular, it was possible for an active man to ascend, or even to descend it, by clinging to the rocks, which were sufficiently ragged to admit of such an adventure. When a boy I had done both fifty times, and it was a somewhat common experiment among the male domestics and hirelings of the household. It occurred to me at once that the incendiaries had most probably entered the house by ascending the cliff, the kitchen of itself furnishing all the materials to light a conflagration.

The reader will be assured that, after receiving the startling communication of Mary Warren, I did not stop to discuss all these matters with her. My first impulse was to desire her to run to the beech, and bid Manytongues join me, but she refused to quit my side.

"No--no--no. You must not go to the kitchen alone," she said, hurriedly. "There are two of them, and desperate looking wretches are they, with their faces blackened, and they have muskets. No--no--no. Come, I will accompany you."

I hesitated no longer, but moved forward, Mary keeping close at my side. Fortunately, I had brought the rifle with me, and the revolving pistol was in my pocket. We went by the eating-rooms and offices, the course taken by Mary herself on her watch; and who, in looking through a small window of one of the last, that opened beneath the gateway, had discovered what was going on, by means of a similar window in the kitchen. As we went, the noble girl told me that she had kept moving through the lower rooms of the whole house during the time I had been on watch out of doors, and attracted by the light that gleamed through these windows, she had distinctly seen two men, with blackened faces, kindling a fire in a corner of the kitchen, where the flames must soon communicate with the stairs, by means of which they would speedily reach the attics and the wood-work of the roof. Fortunately, the floors of all that part of the house were made of bricks; that of the servants' hall excepted, which was a room beyond the narrow passage that contained the stairs. As soon as apprised of the danger, Mary Warren had flown to the window of her own room to make the signal to me, and then to the door to meet me. But three or four minutes had elapsed between the time when she became apprised of the danger and that when we were walking hurriedly to the window beneath the gateway.

A bright light, which shone through the opposite window, announced the progress made by the incendiaries. Requesting Mary to remain where she was, I passed through the door, and descended to the pavement of the gateway. The little window beneath the arch was too high for my purposes, when on that level, but there was a row of low windows that opened on the court. To one of these I moved swiftly, and got a clear view of all that was passing within.

"There they are!" exclaimed Mary, who, neglectful of my request, still kept close at my side. "Two men with blackened faces, and the wood of which they have made their fire is blazing brightly."

The fire, now I saw it, did not confirm the dread I felt when I had it before me only in imagination. The stairway had an open place beneath it, and on the brick floor below had the incendiaries built their pile. It was constructed at the bottom of some of the common wood that was found there, in readiness for the wants of the cook in the morning, lighted by coals taken from the fireplace. A considerable pile had been made with the wood, which was now burning pretty freely, and the two rascals were busy piling on the chairs when I first saw them. They had made a good beginning, and in ten or fifteen minutes longer there is no doubt that all that portion of the house would have been in flames.

"You said they had muskets," I whispered to Mary. "Do you see them now?"

"No: when I saw them, each held his musket in one hand, and worked with the other."

I could have shot the villains without difficulty or risk to myself, but felt deeply averse to taking human life. Still, there was the prospect of a serious struggle before me, and I saw the necessity of obtaining assistance.

"Will you go to my uncle's room, Mary, and tell him to rise immediately. Then to the front door of the house, and call out 'Manytongues, come here as fast as possible.' It will take but two minutes to do both, and I will watch these rascals in the meantime."

"I dread leaving you here alone with the wretches, Mr. Littlepage," whispered Mary, gently.

An earnest entreaty on my part, however, induced her to comply; and, no sooner did the dear girl set about the accomplishment of the task, then she flew rather than ran. It did not seem to me a minute ere I heard her call to the interpreter. The night was so still, that, sweet as were those tones, and busy as were the incendiaries, they heard them too; or fancied they heard something which alarmed them. They spoke to each other, looked intently at their infernal work for a single instant, sought their arms, which were standing in the corner of the kitchen, and were evidently preparing to depart.

The crisis was near. There was not time to receive assistance before the two fellows would be out, and I must either meet them in conflict, or suffer them to escape. My first impression was to shoot down the leading man, and grapple with the other ere he had time to prepare his arms. But a timely thought prevented this hazardous step. The incendiaries were retiring, and I had a doubt of the legality of killing a retreating felon. I believed that my chances before a jury would be far less than those of an ordinary pickpocket, or highway robber, and had heard and read enough to be certain there were thousands around me who would fancy it a sufficient moral provocation for all which had passed, that I held the fee of farms that other men desired to possess.

A majority of my countrymen will scout this idea as forced and improbable. But, majorities are far from being infallible in their judgments. Let any discreet and observant man take a near view of that which is daily going on around him. If he do not find in men this disposition to distort principles, to pervert justice, and to attain their ends regardless of the means, then will I admit I do not understand human nature, as human nature exhibits its deformity in this blessed republic of ours.

There was no time to lose, however; and the course I actually decided to take will be soonest told by relating things as they occurred. I heard the door open, and was ready for action. Whether the incendiaries intended to retreat by the cliff, or to open the gate, which was barred within, I could not tell; but I was ready for either alternative.

No sooner did I hear a step on the pavement of the gateway than I discharged my rifle in the air. This was done as an alarm-signal. Clubbing the piece, I sprang forward, and felled the foremost of the two with a sharp blow on his hat. The fellow came down on the pavement like an ox under the axe of the slaughter-house. Dropping the rifle, I bounded over his body, and grappled with his companion. All this was done so rapidly as to take the rascals completely by surprise. So sudden, indeed, was my assault on the fellow who stood erect, that he was under the necessity of dropping his rifle, and at it we went, clinched like bears in the death-hug. I was young and active, but my antagonist was the stronger man of the two. He had also the advantage of being practised in wrestling, and I soon went down, my enemy falling on top of me. Luckily, I fell on the body of the other incendiary, who was just beginning to discover signs of consciousness after the crushing blow he had received. My chance would now have been small but for assistance. The incendiary had caught my neck-handkerchief, and was twisting it to choke me, when I felt a sudden relief. The light of the fire shone through the kitchen doors, rendering everything distinct beneath the arch. Mary came flying back just in time to rescue me. With a resolution that did her honor, she caught up the rifle I had dropped, and passed its small end between the bent arms of my antagonist and his own back, raising it at the same time like a lever. In the brief interval of breathing this ready expedient gave me, I rallied my force, caught my enemy by the throat, made a desperate effort, threw him off, and over on his side, and was on my feet in an instant. Drawing the pistol, I ordered the rascal to yield, or to take the consequences. The sight of this weapon secured the victory, the black-faced villain shrinking back into a corner, begging piteously not to be shot. At the next moment, the interpreter appeared under the arch, followed by a stream of redskins, which had been turned in this direction by the alarm given by my rifle.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave:
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave:
That 'mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter's shout:
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out."

--Mrs. Sigourney.

Directing Manytongues to secure the two incendiaries, I sprang into the kitchen to extinguish the flames. It was high time, though Mary Warren had already anticipated me here, too. She had actually thrown several dippers of water upon the fire, which was beginning to crackle through the pile of chairs, and had already succeeded in lessening the flames, I knew that a hydrant stood in the kitchen itself, which gave a full stream of water. Filling a pail, I threw the contents on the flames; and repeating the application, in half a minute the room was filled with vapor, and to the bright light succeeded a darkness that was so deep as to suggest the necessity of finding lamps and candles.

The tumult produced by the scene just described soon brought all in the house to the spot. The domestics, male and female, came tumbling down the stairs, under which the fire had been lighted, and presently candles were seen glancing about the house, in all directions.

"I declare, Mr. Hugh," cried John, the moment he had taken a survey of the state of the kitchen, "this is worse than Hireland, sir! The Hamericans affect to laugh at the poor Hirish, and calls their country savage, and hunfit to be in'abited, but nothing worse passes in it than is beginning to pass 'ere. Them stairs would have been all in flames in a few minutes, and them stairs once on fire, not one of hus, up in the hattics, could 'ave escaped death! Don't talk of Hireland, after this!"

Poor John! his prejudices are those of an Englishman of his class, and that is saying as much in favor of their strength as can be well said of any prejudices. But how much truth was there in his remark! The quiet manner in which we assume superiority, in morals, order, justice, and virtue, over all other nations, really contains an instructive lesson, if one will only regard things as they really are. I have no wish to exaggerate the faults of my own country, but certainly I shall not remorselessly conceal them, when the most dangerous consequences are connected with such a mistake. As a whole, the disorders, disturbances, and convulsions of America have certainly been much fewer than those of most, perhaps of all other Christian nations, comparing numbers, and including the time since the great experiment commenced. But such ought to have been the result of our facts, quite independently of national character. The institutions leave nothing for the masses to struggle for, and famine is unknown among us. But what does the other side of the picture exhibit? Can any man point to a country in Europe in which a great political movement has commenced on a principle as barefacedly knavish as that of transferring property from one class of men to another. That such a project does exist here, is beyond all just contradiction; and it is equally certain that it has carried its devices into legislation, and is fast corrupting the government in its most efficient agents. John was right in saying we ought not to turn up our noses at the ebullitions of abused and trodden-on "Hireland," while our own skirts are to be cleared of such sins against the plainest dictates of right.

The fire was extinguished, and the house was safe. The kitchen was soon cleared of the steam and smoke, and in their places appeared a cloud of redskins. Prairiefire, Eaglesflight, and Flintyheart, were all there, examining the effects of the fire, with stern and interesting countenances. I looked round for Mary Warren; but that gentle and singularly feminine girl, after manifesting a presence of mind and decision that would have done honor to a young man of her own age, had shrunk back with sensitive consciousness, and now concealed herself among the others of her sex. Her duty, so eminently useful and protective, had been performed, and she was only anxious to have it all forgotten. This I discovered only next day, however.

Manytongues had secured the incendiaries, and they were now in the kitchen, also, with their hands tied together, and arms bound behind their backs, at the elbows.

As their faces remained black, it was out of my power to recognize either. The rascal who had been felled by the blow of the rifle was yet confused in manner, and I ordered the domestics to wash him, in the double expectation of bringing him more completely to his senses, and of ascertaining who he might be.

The work was soon done, and both objects were attained. The cook used a dishcloth with so much dexterity, that the blackamoor came out a white man, at the first application, and he was soon as clean as a child that is about to be sent to school, fresh from the hands of its nurse. The removal of the disguise brought out the abashed and frightened physiognomy of Joshua Brigham, Miller's hired man--or my hired man, in effect, as I paid him his wages.

Yes! such was one of the effects of the pernicious opinions that had been so widely circulated in the land, during the profound moral mania that was working its ravages among us, with a fatality and danger that greatly exceed those which accompanied the cholera. A fellow, who was almost an inmate of my family, had not only conspired with others to rob me of my property, on a large scale, but he had actually carried his plot so far as to resort to the brand and the rifle, as two of the agents to be employed in carrying out his virtuous objects. Nor was this the result of the vulgar disposition to steal; it was purely a consequence of a widely-extended system, that is fast becoming incorporated with the politics of the land, and which men, relying on the efficacy of majorities, are bold enough to stand up, in legislative halls, to defend.[28]

I confess that the discovery of the person of Joshua Brigham rendered me a little curious to ascertain that of his companion. Hester, the cook, was directed to take the other child in hand, as soon as she had well wiped the countenance of the one first unmasked. Nothing loath, the good housewife set about her task, and the first dab of water she applied revealed the astounding fact that I had again captured Seneca Newcome! It will be remembered, that the last time I saw these two men together, I left them fighting in the highway.

I admit that this discovery shocked me. There never had been a being of the Newcome tribe, from the grandfather, who was its root at Ravensnest, down to Opportunity, who had ever been esteemed or respected among us. Trick--trick--trick--low cunning, and overreaching management, had been the family trait, from the day Jason, of that name, had rented the mill lot, down to the present hour. This I had heard from my grandfather, my grandmother, my own father, my uncle, my aunts and all, older than myself, who belonged to me. Still, there they had been, and habit had created a sort of feeling for them. There had, also, been a species of pretension about the family, which brought them more before us, than most of the families of the tenantry. The grandfather had received a sort of an education, and this practice had been continued, after a manner, down to the unfortunate wretch who now stood a prisoner taken flagrante delictu, and for a capital crime. Seneca could never have made a gentleman, as the term is understood among gentlemen; but he belonged to a profession which ought to raise a man materially above the level of the vulgar. Opportunity, too, had received her quasi education, a far more pretending one than that of my own Patt, but nothing had been well taught to her; not even reading, inasmuch as she had a decided provincial pronunciation, which sometimes grated on my nerves. But, Opportunity had feelings, and could not have anticipated her own brother's intentions, when she communicated the important information she had. Opportunity, moreover, had more refinement than Seneca, in consequence of having a more limited association, and she might fall into despair, at this unexpected result of her own acts!

I was still reflecting on these things, when summoned to my grandmother. She was in her own dressing-room, surrounded by the four girls; just so many pictures of alarm, interest, and female loveliness. Mary Warren alone, was in regular toilette; but the others, with instinctive coquetry, had contrived to wrap themselves up, in a way to render them handsomer than ever. As for my dear grandmother herself, she had been told that the house was safe, but felt that vague desire to see me, that was perhaps natural to the circumstances.

"The state of the country is frightful," she said, when I had answered a few of her questions, and had told her who the prisoners really were; "and we can hardly remain here, in safety. Think of one of the Newcomes--and of Seneca, in particular, with his profession and education, being engaged in such a crime!"

"Nay, grandmother," put in Patt, a little archly, "I never yet heard you speak well of the Newcomes; you barely tolerated Opportunity, in the hope of improving her."

"It is true that the race is a bad one, and the circumstances show what injury a set of false notions, transmitted from father to son, for generations, may do in a family. We cannot think of keeping these dear girls here, one hour after to-morrow, Hugh. To-morrow, or to-day, for it is now past two o'clock, I see;--to-day is Sunday, and we can go to church; to-night we will be watchful, and Monday morning your uncle shall start for Satanstoe, with all three of the girls."

"I shall not leave my dear grandmother," rejoined Patt--"nor do I think it would be very kind to leave Mary Warren behind us, in a place like this."

"I cannot quit my father," said Mary herself, quietly, but very firmly. "It is his duty to remain with his parishioners, and more so, now that so many of them are misguided, than at any other time; and it is always my duty and my pleasure to remain with him."

Was that acting? Was that Pharisaical! Or was it genuine nature; pure filial affection and filial piety? Beyond all question, it was the last; and, had not the simple tone, the earnest manner, and the almost alarmed eagerness, with which the dear girl spoke, proclaimed as much, no one could have looked in at that serene and guileless eye and doubted. My grandmother smiled on the lovely earnest speaker, in her kindest manner, took her hand, and charmingly observed--

"Mary and I will remain together. Her father is in no danger, for even anti-renters will respect a minister of the gospel, and can be made to understand it is his duty to rebuke even their sins. As for the other girls, I think it is our duty to insist that your uncle's wards, at least, should no longer be exposed to dangers like those we have gone through to-night."

The two young ladies, however, protested in the prettiest manner possible, their determination not to quit "grandmamma," as they affectionately termed their guardian's mother; and while they were thus employed, my uncle Ro entered the room, having just paid a visit to the kitchen.

"Here's a charming affair!" exclaimed the old bachelor, as soon as in our midst. "Arson, anti-rentism, attempts at murder, and all sorts of enormities, going hand in hand, in the very heart of the wisest and best community that earth ever knew; and the laws as profoundly asleep the whole time, as if such gentle acts were considered meritorious. This outdoes repudiation twenty-fold, Hugh."

"Ay, my dear sir, but it will not make a tithe of the talk. Look at the newspapers that will be put into your hands to-morrow morning, fresh from Wall and Pine and Ann Streets. They will be in convulsions, if some unfortunate wight of a senator speak of adding an extra corporal to a regiment of foot, as an alarming war-demonstration, or quote the fall of a fancy stock that has not one cent of intrinsic value, as if it betokened the downfall of a nation; while they doze over this volcano, which is raging and gathering strength beneath the whole community, menacing destruction to the nation itself, which is the father of stocks."

"The intense selfishness that is uppermost is a bad symptom, certainly; and no one can say to what it will lead. One thing is sure; it causes men to limit all their calculations to the present moment; and, to abate a nuisance that presses on our existing interests, they will jeopard everything that belongs to the future. But what are we to do with Seneca Newcome, and his co-rascal, the other incendiary?"

"I had thought of referring that to your discretion, sir. They have been guilty of arson, I suppose, and must take their chances, like every-day criminals."

"Their chances will be very good ones, Hugh. Had you been caught in Seneca Newcome's kitchen, setting fire to his house, condign and merciless punishment would have been your lot, beyond all controversy; but their cases will be very different. I'll bet you a hundred that they'll not be convicted; and a thousand that they are pardoned, if convicted."

"Acquitted, sir, will be out of the question--Miss Warren and I saw them both, in the very act of building their fire; and there is plenty of testimony, as to their identity."

This indiscreet speech drew every eye on my late companion; all the ladies, old and young, repeating the name of "Mary!" in the pretty manner in which the sex express surprise. As for Mary, herself, the poor blushing girl shrunk back abashed, ashamed of she knew not what, unless it might be in connection with some secret consciousness, at finding herself so strangely associated with me.

"Miss Warren is, indeed, in her evening dress," said my grandmother, a little gravely, "and cannot have been in bed this night. How has this happened, my dear?".

Thus called on, Mary Warren was of too guileless and pure a mind, to hesitate in telling her tale. Every incident, with which she had been connected, was simply and clearly related, though she suppressed the name of our midnight visitor, out of tenderness to Opportunity. All present were too discreet to ask the name, and, I may add, all present heard the narrative with a marked and approving interest. When Mary had done, my grandmother kissed her, and Patt, the generous creature, encircled her waist, with the tenderness and affection of a sister, who felt for all the trials the other had endured.

"It seems, then, we owe our safety to Mary, after all!" exclaimed my good grandmother; "without her care and watchfulness, Hugh might, most probably would, have remained on the lawn, until it was too late to save the house, or us."

"That is not all," added uncle Ro. "Any one could have cried 'fire,' or given a senseless alarm, but it is evident from Miss Warren's account, unpremeditated and artless as it is, that, but for the cool and discreet manner in which she played her part, not one-half of that which has been done, would have been effected, and that the house might have been lost. Nay, had these fellows surprised Hugh, instead of Hugh's surprising them, we might have been called on to deplore his loss."

I saw a common shudder in Patt and Mary, as they stood encircling each other with their arms; but the last was evidently so pained, that I interfered for her relief.

"I do not see any possibility of escape for these incendiaries,"

I said, turning to my uncle, "under the testimony that can be offered, and am surprised to hear you suggest a doubt of the result of the trial."

"You feel and reason like a very young man, Hugh; one who fancies things are much nearer what they ought to be than facts will sustain. Justice is blind, nowadays, not as a proof of impartiality, but as a proof that she too often sees only one side of a question. How will they escape? Perhaps the jury may fancy setting fire to a pile of wood and certain chairs, is not setting fire to a house, let the animus be as plain as the noses on their faces. Mark me, Hugh Littlepage; one month will not go by, before the events of this very night will be tortured into an argument in favor of anti-rentism."

A common exclamation, in which even my grandmother joined, expressed the general dissent from this opinion.

"It is all very well, ladies," answered my uncle Ro, coolly--"all well enough, Master Hugh; but let the issue tell its own story. I have heard already other abuses of the anti-renters urged as a reason why the laws should be changed, in order that men may not be tempted beyond their strength; and why not use the same reasoning in favor of this crime when it has been used already, in cases of murder? 'The leasehold tenures make men commit murder,' it is said, 'and they ought to be destroyed themselves.' 'The leasehold tenures make men commit arson,' it will now be said, 'and who desires to retain laws that induce men to commit arson?'"

"On the same principle it might be pretended there should be no such thing as personals, as they tempt men, beyond what they can bear, to commit petty larceny."

"No doubt it could, and no doubt it would, if political supremacy were to be the reward. There is nothing--no fallacy, no moral sophism, that would not be used to attain such an end. But it is late, and we ought to bethink us of disposing of the prisoners for the night--what means this light? The house is not on fire, after all?"

Sure enough, notwithstanding the close shutters, and drawn curtains of my grandmother's dressing-room, an unusual light had penetrated to the place, filling us with sudden and intense alarm. I opened the door and found the passages illuminated, though all within appeared tranquil and safe. There was a clamor in the court, however, and presently the fearful warwhoop of the savages rose on the night air. The cries came from without, as I fancied, and rushing to the little door, I was on the lawn in a moment, when the mystery was solved. An extensive hay-barn, one well filled with the remainder of the last year's crops, was on fire, sending its forged and waving tongues of flame at least a hundred feet into the air. It was merely a new argument against the leasehold tenures, and in favor of the "spirit of the institutions," a little vividly pressed on the human senses. Next year, it may figure in the message of a governor, or the philanthropical efforts of some Albany orator, if the same "spirit" prevail in the "institutions," as would seem to prevail this! Is a contract to be tolerated which induces freemen to set barns on fire?

The barn that had been set on fire stood on the flats, below the cliff, and fully half a mile away from the Nest. The conflagration made a most brilliant blaze, and, as a matter of course, produced an intense light. The loss to myself did not exceed a few hundred dollars; and, while this particular argument in favor of anti-rentism was not entirely agreeable, it was not so grave as it might have been, had it been urged on other buildings, and in the same mode. In other words, I was not so much distressed with my loss as not to be able to see the beauty of the scene; particularly as my uncle Ro whispered that Dunning had caused an insurance to be effected in the Saratoga Mutual Assurance, which would probably place a considerable portion of the tenants in the unlooked-for category of those who were to pay for their own frolic.

As it was too late to think of saving the barn and ricks, and Miller, with his people, had already descended to the spot to look after the fences, and any other object that might be endangered by the flying embers, there was nothing for us to do but to remain passive spectators. Truly, the scene was one worthy of being viewed, and is not altogether unfit for description.

The light of that burning barn extended for a great distance, shining like what it was, an "evil deed in a naughty world;" for, notwithstanding the high authority of Shakespeare, it is your "evil deeds," after all, that produce the brightest blazes, and which throw their beams the farthest, in this state of probation in which we live.

The most remarkable objects in that remarkable scene were the true and the false redskins--the "Indians" and the "Injins"--both of whom were in motion on the meadows, and both of whom were distinctly visible to us where we stood, on the cliffs (the ladies being at their chamber windows), though I dare say they were not quite so obvious to each other.

The Indians had formed themselves into a very open order, and were advancing toward the other party in a stealthy manner, by creeping on all-fours, or crouching like catamounts to the earth, and availing themselves of everything like a cover that offered. The burning barn was between the two parties, and was a principal reason that the "Injins" were not sooner aware of the risk they ran. The last were a whooping, shouting, dancing, leaping band, of some forty or fifty of the "disguised and armed," who were quite near enough to the conflagration to enjoy it, without being so near as to be necessarily connected with it. We understood their presence and antics to be intended as so many intimations of the secret agency they had had in the depredations of the night, and as so many warnings how I withstood the "spirit of the institutions."

Manytongues, who had certain vague notions of the necessity of his keeping on the windy side of the law, did not accompany his red brethren, but came through the gateway and joined my uncle and myself, as we stood beneath the cover of a noble chestnut, on the verge of the cliff, watching the course of things on the meadow. I expressed my surprise at seeing him there, and inquired if his presence might not be needed by Flintyheart or Prairiefire.

"Not at all, not at all, colonel," he answered with perfect coolness. "The savages have no great need of an intarpreter in the business they are on; and if harm comes of the meetin', it's perhaps best that the two parties should not understand each other, in which case it might all be looked on as an accident. I hope they'll not be particular about scalps--for I told Flintyheart, as he was leaving us, the people of this part of the world did not like to be scalped."

This was the only encouragement we received from the interpreter, who appeared to think that matters were now in the right train, and that every difficulty would soon be disposed of, secundum artem. The Injins, however, viewed the affair differently, having no wish for a serious brush with any one; much less with enemies of the known character of redskins. How they ascertained the presence of their foe I cannot say, though it is probable some one saw them stealing along the meadows, in spite of all their care, and gave the alarm. Alarm it was, sure enough; the party of the previous day scarce retreating through the woods with greater haste than the "disguised and armed" now vanished.

Such has been the fact, as respects these men, in every instance in which they have been brought in contact with armed bodies, though much inferior to their own in numbers. Fierce enough, and even brutal, on a variety of occasions in which individuals have become subject to their power, in all cases in which armed parties, however small, have been sent against them, they have betrayed timidity and a dread of making that very appeal to force, which, by their own previous acts, they had insolently invited. Is it then true, that these soi-disant "Injins" have not the ordinary courage of their race, and that they are less than Americans with arms in their hands, and below the level of all around them in spirit? Such is not the case. The consciousness of guilt has made them cowards; they have found "that the king's name is a tower of strength," and have shrunk from conflicts, in which the secret warnings that come from on high have told them that they were embodied in a wicked cause, and contending for the attainment of wrong ends by unjustifiable means. Their conduct proves how easy it would have been to suppress their depredations at the earliest day, by a judicious application of the power of the State, and how much they have to answer for who have neglected their duty in this particular.

As soon as Flintyheart and his followers ascertained that the "disguised and armed" were actually off again, and that they were not to pass the morning in a skirmish, as no doubt each man among them had hoped would be the case, they set up such whoops and cries as had not been heard on those meadows during the last eighty years. The period went beyond the memory of man since Indian warfare had existed at Ravensnest, a few false alarms in the Revolution excepted. The effect of these yells was to hasten the retreat, as was quite apparent to us on the cliffs; but the sagacious warriors of the prairies knew too much to expose their persons by approaching nearer to the blazing barn than might be prudent. On the contrary, seemingly satisfied that nothing was to be done, and disdaining a parade of service where no service was to be effected, they slowly retired from the meadows, regaining the cliffs by means known to themselves.

This military demonstration, on the part of our red brethren, was not without its useful consequences. It gave the "Injins" an intimation of watchfulness, and of a readiness to meet them that prevented any new alarm that night, and satisfied everybody at the Nest that our immediate danger had come to an end. Not only was this the feeling of my uncle and myself, but it was also the feeling of the females, as we found on returning to the house, who had witnessed all that passed from the upper windows. After a short interview with my grandmother, she consented to retire, and preparations were made for setting a lookout, and dismissing everybody to their beds again. Manytongues took charge of the watch, though he laughed at the probability of there being any further disturbance that night.

"As for the redskins," he said, "they would as soon sleep out under the trees, at this season of the year, as sleep under a roof; and as for waking--cats a'nt their equals. No--no--colonel; leave it all to me, and I'll carry you through the night as quietly as if we were on the prer-ies and living under good wholesome prer-ie law."

"As quietly, as if we were on the prairies!" We had then reached that pass in New York, that after one burning, a citizen might really hope to pass the remainder of his night as quietly as if he were on the prairies! And there was that frothy, lumbering, useless machine, called a government, at Albany, within fifty miles of us, as placid, as self-satisfied, as much convinced that this was the greatest people on earth, and itself their illustrious representatives, as if the disturbed counties were so many gardens of Eden, before sin and transgression had become known to it! If it was doing anything in the premises, it was probably calculating the minimum the tenant should pay for the landlord's land, when the latter might be sufficiently worried to part with his estate. Perhaps it was illustrating its notions of liberty, by naming the precise sum that one citizen ought to accept, in order that the covetous longings of another should be satisfied!

I was about to retire to my bed, for the first time that night, when my uncle Ro remarked it might be well to see one of our prisoners at least. Orders had been given to unbind the wretched men, and to keep them in an empty store-room which had no available outlet but the door. Thither we then repaired, and of course were admitted by the sentinels, without a question. Seneca Newcome was startled at my appearance, and I confess I was myself embarrassed how to address him, from a wish to say nothing that might appear like exultation on one side, or concession on the other. My uncle, however, had no such scruples, probably from better knowing his man; accordingly, he came to the point at once.

"The evil spirit must have got great ascendency in the country, Seneca Newcome, when men of your knowledge dip so deeply into his designs," said Mr. Littlepage, sternly. "What has my nephew ever done to incite you to come into his house, as an incendiary, like a thief in the night?"

"Ask me no questions, Mr. Littlepage," surlily replied the attorney, "for I shall answer none."

"And this miserable misguided creature who has been your companion. The last we saw of these two men, Hugh, they were quarrelling in the highway, like cat and dog, and there are signs about their faces that the interview became still more hostile than it had been, after we left them."

"And here we find them together, companions in an enterprise of life and death!"

"It is ever thus with rogues. They will push their quarrels to extremities, and make them up in an hour, when the demon of rapine points to an object for common plunder. You see the same spirit in politics, ay, and even in religion. Men that have lived in hostility for half their lives, contending for selfish objects, will suddenly combine their powers to attain a common end, and work together like the most true-hearted friends, so long as they see a chance of effecting their wishes. If honesty were only one-half as active as roguery, it would fare better than it does. But the honest man has his scruples; his self-respect; his consistency, and, most of all, his principles, to mark out his course, and he cannot turn aside at each new impulse, like your pure knave, to convert enemies into friends, and friends into enemies. And you," turning to Josh Brigham, who was looking surlily on--"who have actually been eating Hugh Littlepage's bread, what has he done, that you should come at midnight, to burn him up like a caterpillar in the spring?"

"He has had his farm long enough"--muttered the fellow--"It's time that poor folks had some chance."

My uncle shrugged his shoulders; then, as if he suddenly recollected himself, he lifted his hat, bowed like a thoroughbred gentleman as he was, when he chose to be, wished Seneca good-night, and walked away. As we retired, he expressed his conviction of the uselessness of remonstrance, in this case, and of the necessity of suffering the law to take its own course. It might be unpleasant to see a Newcome actually hanged, but nothing short of that operation, he felt persuaded, would ever fetch up the breed in its evil courses. Wearied with all that had passed, I now went to bed, and slept soundly for the succeeding seven hours. As the house was kept quiet by orders, everybody repaired the lost time, the Nest being as quiet as in those days in which the law ruled in the republic.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Well may we sing her beauties
This pleasant land of ours,
Her sunny smiles, her golden fruits,
And all her world of flowers.
And well would they persuade us now,
In moments all too dear,
That, sinful though our hearts may be,
We have our Eden here."

--Simms.

The following day was Sunday. I did not rise until nine, and when I withdrew the curtains and opened the shutters of my window, and looked out upon the lawn, and the fields beyond it, and the blue void that canopied all, I thought a lovelier day, or one more in harmony with the tranquil character of the whole scene, never shone from the heavens. I threw up the sash, and breathed the morning air which filled my dressing-room, pregnant with the balms and odors of the hundred sweet-smelling flowers and plants that embellished the shrubberies. The repose of the Sabbath seemed to rest on man and beast; the bees and humming-birds that buzzed about the flowers, even at their usual pursuits, seemed as if conscious of the sanctity of the day. I think no one can be insensible to the difference there is between a Sabbath in the country and any other day of the week. Most of this, doubtless, is the simple consequence of abstaining from labor; but, connected with the history of the festival, its usual observances, and the holy calm that appears to reign around, it is so very obvious and impressive, that a Sunday in a mild day in June is to me ever a delicious resting-place, as a mere poetical pause in the bustling and turmoil of this world's time. Such a day was that which succeeded the night through which we had just passed, and it came most opportunely to soothe the spirits, tranquillize the apprehensions, and afford a moment for sober reflection.

There lay the smouldering ruins of the barn, it is true; a blackened monument of a wicked deed; but the mood which had produced this waste and wrong appeared to have passed away; and in all other respects, far and near, the farms of Ravensnest had never spread themselves before the eye in colors more in consonance with the general benevolence of a bountiful nature. For a moment, as I gazed on the broad view, I felt all my earlier interests in it revive, and am not ashamed to own that a profound feeling of gratitude to God came over me, when I recollected it was by his Providence I was born the heir to such a scene, instead of having my lot cast among the serfs and dependents of other regions.

After standing at the window a minute, in contemplation of that pleasing view, I drew back, suddenly and painfully conscious of the character and extent of the combination that existed to rob me of my rights in it. America no longer seemed America to my eyes; but in place of its ancient submission to the law, its quick distinction between right and wrong, its sober and discriminating liberty, which equally avoided submission to the injustice of power, and the excesses of popular delusions, there had been substituted the rapacity of the plunderer, rendered formidable by the insidious manner in which it was interwoven with political machinery, and the truckling of the wretches intrusted with authority; men who were playing into the hands of demagogues, solely in order to secure majorities to perpetuate their own influence. Was, then, the State really so corrupt as to lend itself to projects as base as those openly maintained by the anti-renters? Far from it: four men out of five, if not a larger proportion, must be, and indeed are, sensible of the ills that their success would entail on the community, and would lift up heart and hand to-morrow to put them down totally and without pity; but they have made themselves slaves of the lamp; have enlisted in the ranks of party, and dare not oppose their leaders, who wield them as Napoleon wielded his masses, to further private views, apostrophizing and affecting an homage to liberty all the while! Such is the history of man!

When the family met in the breakfast-room, a singular tranquillity prevailed among us. As for my grandmother, I knew her spirit and early experience, and was not so much surprised to find her calm and reasonable; but these qualities seemed imparted to her four young companions also. Patt could laugh, and yield to her buoyant spirits, just the same as if nothing had occurred, while my uncle's other wards maintained a lady-like quiet, that denoted anything but apprehension. Mary Warren, however, surprised me by her air and deportment. There she sat, in her place at the table, looking, if possible, the most feminine, gentle, and timid of the four. I could scarcely believe that the blushing, retiring, modest, pretty daughter of the rector could be the prompt, decided, and clear-headed young girl who had been of so much service to me the past night, and to whose coolness and discretion, indeed, we were all indebted for the roof that was over our heads, and some of us, most probably, for our lives.

Notwithstanding this air of tranquillity, the breakfast was a silent and thoughtful meal. Most of the conversation was between my uncle and grandmother, and a portion of it related to the disposal of the prisoners. There was no magistrate within several miles of the Nest, but those who were tainted with anti-rentism; and to carry Seneca and his companion before a justice of the peace of this character, would be, in effect, to let them go at large. Nominal bail would be taken, and it is more than probable the constable employed would have suffered a rescue, did they even deem it necessary to go through this parade of performing their duties. My uncle, consequently, adopted the following plan. He had caused the two incendiaries to be transferred to the old farm-house, which happened to contain a perfectly dry and empty cellar, and which had much of the security of a dungeon, without the usual defects of obscurity and dampness. The red-men had assumed the office of sentinels, one having his station at the door, while another watched near a window which admitted the light, while it was scarcely large enough to permit the human body to squeeze through it. The interpreter had received instructions from the agent to respect the Christian Sabbath; and no movement being contemplated for the day, this little duty just suited their lounging, idle habits, when in a state of rest. Food and water, of course, had not been forgotten; and there my uncle Ro had left that portion of the business, intending to have the delinquents carried to a distant magistrate, one of the judges of the county, early on Monday morning. As for the disturbers of the past night, no signs of them were any longer visible; and there being little extensive cover near the Nest, no apprehension was felt of any surprise.

We were still at breakfast, when the tone of St. Andrew's bell came floating, plaintively, through the air, as a summons to prepare ourselves for the services of the day. It was little more than a mile to the church, and the younger ladies expressed a desire to walk. My grandmother, attended by her son, therefore, alone used the carriage, while we young people went off in a body, on foot, half an hour before the ringing of the second bell. Considering the state of the country, and the history of the past night, I was astonished at my own indifference on this occasion, no less than at that of my charming companions; nor was it long before I gave utterance to the feeling.

"This America of ours is a queer place, it must be admitted," I cried, as we crossed the lawn to take a foot-path that would lead us, by pleasant pastures, quite to the church-door, without entering the highway, except to cross it once; "here we have the whole neighborhood as tranquil as if crime never disturbed it, though it is not yet a dozen hours since riot, arson, and perhaps murder, were in the contemplation of hundreds of those who live on every side of us. The change is wonderful!"

"But, you will remember it is Sunday, Hugh," put in Patt. "All summer, when Sunday has come, we have had a respite from disturbances and fears. In this part of the country, the people are too religious to think of desecrating the Sabbath by violence and armed bands. The anti-renters would lose more than they would gain by pursuing a different course."

I had little or no difficulty in believing this, it being no unusual thing, among us, to find observances of this nature clinging to the habits of thousands, long after the devout feeling which had first instilled it into the race has become extinct. Something very like it prevails in other countries, and among even higher and more intellectual classes, where it is no unusual thing to find the most profound outward respect manifested toward the altar and its rites, by men who live in the hourly neglect of the first and plainest commands of the decalogue. We are not alone, therefore, in this pharisaical spirit, which exists, in some mode or other, wherever man himself is to be found.

But this equivocal piety was certainly manifested to a striking degree, that day, at Ravensnest. The very men who were almost desperate in their covetous longings appeared at church, and went through the service with as much seeming devotion as if conscious of no evil; and a general truce appeared to prevail in the country, notwithstanding there must have been much bitterness of feeling among the discomfited. Nevertheless, I could detect in the countenances of many of the old tenants of the family, an altered expression, and a coldness of the eye, which bespoke anything but the ancient friendly feeling which had so long existed between us. The solution was very simple; demagogues had stirred up the spirit--not of the institutions, but--of covetousness, in their breasts; and so long as that evil tendency predominated, there was little room for better feelings.

"Now I shall have another look at the canopied pew," I cried, as we entered the last field, on our way to the church. "That offensive, but unoffending object, had almost gone out of my mind's eye, until my uncle recollected it, by intimating that Jack Dunning, as he calls his friend and council, had written him it must come down."

"I agree with Mr. Dunning altogether," answered Martha, quickly. "I wish with all my heart, Hugh, you would order that hideous-looking thing to be taken away this very week."

"Why this earnestness, my dear Patt? There has the hideous thing been ever since the church was built, which is now these threescore years, and no harm has come of it, as I know."

"It is harm to be so ugly. It disfigures the church; and then I do not think distinctions of that sort are proper for the house of God. I know this ever has been my grandmother's opinion; but finding her father-in-law and husband desirous of such an ornament, she consented in silence, during their lives."

"What do you say to all this, Miss Warren," I asked, turning to my companion, for by some secret influence I was walking at her side. "Are you 'up canopy' or 'down canopy'?"

"'Down canopy,'" answered Mary, firmly. "I am of Mrs. Littlepage's opinion, that churches ought to contain as little as possible to mark worldly distinctions. Such distinctions are inseparable from life, I know; but it is to prepare for death that we enter such buildings."

"And your father, Miss Warren--have you ever heard him speak of my unfortunate pew?"

Mary hesitated an instant, changed color, then looked up into my face with a countenance so ingenuous and lovely, that I would have forgiven her even a severe comment on some act of folly of my own.

"My father is an advocate for doing away with pews altogether," she answered, "and, of course, can have no particular wish to preserve yours. He tells me, that in the churches of the Romanists, the congregation sit, stand, or kneel, promiscuously before the altar, or crowd around the pulpit, without any distinction of rank or persons. Surely, that is better than bringing into the very temple the most pitiful of all worldly classifications, that of mere money."

"It is better, Miss Warren; and I wish, with all my heart, the custom could be adopted here. But the church that might best dispense with the support obtained from pews, and which by its size and architecture, is best fitted to set the example of a new mode, has gone on in the old way, I understand, and has its pews as well as another."

"Do we get our custom from England, Hugh!" demanded Martha.

"Assuredly; as we do most others, good, bad and indifferent. The property-notion would be very likely to prevail in a country like England; and then it is not absolutely true that everybody sits in common, even in the churches of the continent of the old world. The seigneur, under the old regime, in France, had his pew, usually; and high dignitaries of the State in no country are found mingling with the mass of worshippers, unless it be in good company. It is true, a duchesse will kneel in the crowd, in most Romish churches, in the towns, for there are too many such persons to accommodate all with privileged seats, and such honors are reserved for the very great; but in the country, there are commonly pews, in by-places, for the great personages of the neighborhood. We are not quite so bad as we fancy ourselves, in this particular, though we might be better."

"But you will allow that a canopied pew is unsuited to this country, brother?"

"Not more to this than to any other. I agree that it is unsuited to all places of worship, where the petty differences between men, which are created by their own usages, should sink into insignificance, in the direct presence, as it might be, of the power of God. But, in this country, I find a spirit rising, which some persons would call the 'spirit of the institutions,' that is forever denying men rewards, and honors, and credit exactly in the degree in which they deserve them. The moment a citizen's head is seen above the crowd of faces around him, it becomes the mark of rotten eggs, as if he were raised in the pillory, and his fellow-creatures would not tolerate any difference in moral stature."

"How do you reconcile that with the great number of Catos, and Brutuses, not to say of the Gracchi, that are to be found among us?" asked Mary Warren, slyly.

"Oh! these are the mere creatures of party--great men for the nonce. They are used to serve the purposes of factions, and are be-greated for the occasion. Thus it is, that nine-tenths of the Catos you mention are forgotten, even by name, every political lustrum. But let a man rise, independently of the people, by his own merit, and see how the people will tolerate him. Thus it is with my pew--it is a great pew, and become great without any agency of the 'folks;' and the 'folks' don't like it."

The girls laughed at this sally, as light-hearted, happy girls will laugh at anything of the sort; and Patt put in her retort, in her own direct, spirited manner.

"It is a great ugly thing, if that concession will flatter your vanity," she said, "and I do entreat it may come down greatly, this present week. Really, you can have no notion, Hugh, how much talk it has made of late."

"I do not doubt it, my dear. The talk is all aimed at the leases; everything that can be thought of, being dragged into the account against us poor landlords, in order to render our cause unpopular, and thus increase the chances of robbing us with impunity. The good people of this State little imagine that the very evils that the enemies of the institutions have long predicted, and which their friends have as warmly repudiated, are now actively at work among us, and that the great experiment is in imminent danger of failing, at the very moment the people are loudly exulting in its success. Let this attempt on property succeed, ever so indirectly, AND IT WILL BE FOLLOWED UP BY OTHERS, WHICH WILL AS INEVITABLY DRIVE US INTO DESPOTISM, AS A REFUGE AGAINST ANARCHY, AS EFFECT SUCCEEDS TO CAUSE. The danger exists, now, in its very worst form--that of political demagogueism--and must be met, face to face, and put down manfully, and on true principles, or, in my poor judgment, we are gone. Cant is a prevailing vice of the nation, more especially political and religious cant, and cant can never be appeased by concessions. My canopy shall stand, so long as anti-rentism exists at Ravensnest, or be torn down by violence; when men return to their senses, and begin to see the just distinctions between meum and tuum, the cook may have it for oven-wood, any day in the week."

As we were now about to cross the stile that communicated with the highway, directly in front of the church, the conversation ceased, as unsuited to the place and the occasion. The congregation of St. Andrew's was small, as is usually the case with country congregations of its sect, which are commonly regarded with distrust by the descendants of the Puritans in particular, and not unfrequently with strong aversion. The rowdy religion--half-cant, half-blasphemy--that Cromwell and his associates entailed on so many Englishmen, but which was not without a degree of ferocious, narrow-minded sincerity about it, after all, has probably been transmitted to this country, with more of its original peculiarities than exist, at the present day, in any other part of the world. Much of the narrow-mindedness remains; but, unhappily, when liberality does begin to show itself in these sects, it is apt to take the character of latitudinarianism. In a word, the exaggerations and false principles that were so common among the religious fanatics of the American colonies in the seventeenth century, which burnt witches, hanged Quakers, and denounced all but the elect few, are now running their natural race, with the goal of infidelity in open view before them. Thus will it be, also, with the abuses of political liberty, which must as certainly terminate in despotism, unless checked in season; such being not the "spirit of the institutions," but the tendency of human nature, as connected with everything in which the right is abandoned to sustain the wrong.

Mr. Warren, I found, was a popular preacher, notwithstanding the disfavor with which his sect was generally regarded. A prejudiced and provincial people were naturally disposed to look at everything that differed from their own opinions and habits with dislike; and the simple circumstance that he belonged to a church that possessed bishops, was of itself tortured into a proof that his sect favored aristocracy and privileged classes. It is true that nearly every other sect in the country had orders in the church, under the names of ministers, elders, and deacons, and was just as liable to the same criticism; but then they did not possess bishops, and having that which we do not happen to have ourselves, usually constitutes the gist of an offence, in cases of this sort. Notwithstanding these obstacles to popularity, Mr. Warren commanded the respect of all around him; and, strange as it may seem, none the less because, of all the clergy in that vicinity, he alone had dared to rebuke the spirit of covetousness that was abroad, and which it suits the morals of some among us to style the "spirit of the institutions;" a duty he had discharged on more than one occasion, and with great distinctness and force, though temperately and under the full influence of a profound feeling of Christian charity. This conscientious course had given rise to menaces and anonymous letters, the usual recourse of the mean and cowardly; but it had also increased the weight of his character, and extorted the secret deference of many who would gladly have entertained a different feeling toward him, had it been in their power.

My grandmother and uncle were already seated in the canopied pew when we pedestrians entered the church. Mary Warren turned into another aisle, and proceeded to the pew reserved for the rector, accompanied by my sister, while the other two ladies passed up to the chancel, and took their customary places. I followed, and for the first time in my life was seated beneath the offensive canopy, vested with all the rights of ownership. By the term "canopy," however, the reader is not to imagine anything like festooned drapery--crimson colors and gilded laces; our ambition had never soared so high. The amount of the distinction between this pew and any other in the church was simply this: it was larger and more convenient than those around it, an advantage which any other might have equally enjoyed who saw fit to pay for it, as had been the case with us, and it was canopied with a heavy, clumsy, ill-shaped sort of a roof, that was a perfect caricature of the celebrated baldachino of St. Peter's in Rome. The first of these advantages probably excited no particular envy, for it came within the common rule of the country, of "play and pay;" but as for the canopy, that was aristocratic, and was not to be tolerated. Like the leasehold tenure, it was opposed to the "spirit of the institutions." It is true, it did no real harm, as an existing thing; it is true, it had a certain use, as a memorial of past opinions and customs; it is true, it was property, and could not be touched without interfering with its privileges; it is true, that every person who saw it secretly felt there was nothing, after all, so very inappropriate in such a pew's belonging to a Littlepage; and, most of all, it was true that they who sat in it never fancied for a moment that it made them any better or any worse than the rest of their fellow-creatures. There it was, however; and, next to the feudal character of a lease, it was the most offensive object then existing in Ravensnest. It may be questioned if the cross, which occupied the place that, according to provincial orthodoxy, a weathercock should have adorned, or Mr. Warren's surplice, was one-half as offensive.

When I raised my head, after the private devotions which are customary with us semi-papishes, on entering a place of worship, and looking around me, I found that the building was crowded nearly to overflowing. A second glance told me that nearly every eye was fastened on myself. At first, the canopy having been uppermost so lately in my mind, I fancied that the looks were directed at that; but I soon became satisfied that I, in my own unworthy person, was their object. I shall not stop to relate most of the idle and silly reports that had got abroad, in connection with the manner and reason of my disguised appearance in the hamlet the preceding day, or in connection with anything else, though one of those reports was so very characteristic, and so entirely peculiar to the subject in hand, that I cannot omit it. That report was simply a rumor that I had caused one of my own barns to be set on fire, the second night of my arrival, in order to throw the odium of the act on those "virtuous and hard-working husbandmen," who only maintained an illegal and armed body on foot, just to bully and worry me out of my property. Yes, there I sat; altogether unconscious of the honor done me; regarded by quite half that congregation as the respected and just-minded youth who had devised and carried out precisely such a rascally scheme. Now no one who has not had the opportunity to compare, can form any idea how much more potent and formidable is the American "folks say," than the vulgar reports of any other state of society. The French on dit is a poor, pitiful report, placed by the side of this vast lever, which, like that of Archimedes, only wants a stand for its fulcrum, to move the world. The American "folks say" has a certain omnipotence, so long as it lasts, which arises from, not the spirit, but the character of the institutions themselves. In a country in which the people rule, "folks" are resolved that their "say" shall not pass for nothing. So few doubt the justice of the popular decision, that holy writ itself has not, in practical effect, one-half the power that really belongs to one of these reports, so long as it suits the common mind to entertain it. Few dare resist it; fewer still call in question its accuracy; though, in sober truth, it is hardly ever right. It makes and unmakes reputation, for the time being bien entendu; it even makes and unmakes patriots themselves. In short, though never quite truth, and not often very much like the truth, paradoxical as it may appear, it is truth, and nothing but the truth, pro hac vice. Everybody knows, nevertheless, that there is no permanency to what "folks say" about anything; and that "folks" frequently, nay, almost invariably, "unsay" what has been said six months before; yet, all submit to the authority of its dicta, so long as "folks" choose to "say." The only exception to this rule, and it merely proves it, is in the case of political parties, when there are always two "folks say" which flatly contradict each other; and sometimes there are half-a-dozen, no two of which are ever precisely alike!

There I sat, as I afterward learned, "the observed of all observers," merely because it suited the purposes of those who wished to get away my estate to raise various reports to my prejudice--not one of which, I am happy to have it in my power to say, was in any manner true. The first good look that I took at the congregation satisfied me that very much the larger part of it consisted of those who did not belong to St. Andrew's Church. Curiosity, or some worse feeling, had trebled the number of Mr. Warren's hearers that day--or, it might be more correct to say, of my observers.

There was no other interruption to the services than that which was produced by the awkwardness of so many who were strangers to the ritual. The habitual respect paid to religious rites kept every one in order; and, in the midst of a feeling that was as malignant and selfish as well could exist under circumstances of so little provocation, I was safe from violence, and even from insult. As for myself, little was or could be known of my character and propensities at Ravensnest. School, college, and travelling, with winter residences in town, had made me a sort of stranger in my own domain, and I was regarded through the covenants of my leases, rather than through any known facts. The same was true, though in a less degree, with my uncle, who had lived so much abroad as to be considered a sort of half foreigner, and one who preferred other countries to his own. This is an offence that is rarely forgiven by the masses in America, though it is probably the most venial sin that one who has had the opportunities of comparing can commit. Old nations offer so many more inducements than young nations to tempt men of leisure and cultivation to reside in them, that it is not surprising the travelled American should prefer Europe to his own quarter of the world; but the jealousy of a provincial people is not apt to forgive this preference. For myself, I have heard it said, and I believe it to be true, to a certain extent, that countries on the decline, supposing them to have been once at the summit of civilization, make pleasanter abodes for the idler than nations on the advance. This is one of the reasons why Italy attracts so many more visitors than England, though climate must pass for something in such a comparison. But these long absences, and supposed preferences for foreign life, had made my uncle Ro, in one sense, unpopular with the mass, which has been taught to believe, by means of interested and fulsome eulogies on their own state of society, that it implies something more than a want of taste, almost a want of principle, to prefer any other. This want of popularity, however, was a good deal relieved by a wide and deep conviction of my uncle's probity, as well as of his liberality, his purse having no more string to it than General Harrison's door was thought to have a latch. But the case was very different with my grandmother. The early part of her life had been spent at the Nest, and it was impossible so excellent a woman could be anything but respected. She had, in truth, been a sore impediment with the anti-renters; more especially in carrying out that part of their schemes which is connected with traduction, and its legitimate offspring, prejudice. It would hardly do to traduce this noble-minded, charitable, spirited, and just woman; yet, hazardous as the experiment must and did seem, it was attempted, and not altogether without success. She was accused of an aristocratic preference of her own family to the families of other people. Patt and I, it was urged, were only her grandchildren, and had ample provision made for us in other estates besides this--and a woman of Mrs. Littlepage's time of life, it was said, who had one foot in the grave, ought to have too much general philanthropy to give a preference to the interests of mere grandchildren, over the interests of the children of men who had paid her husband and sons rent, now, for quite sixty years. This attack had come from the pulpit, too, or the top of a molasses hogshead, which was made a substitute for a pulpit, by an itinerant preacher, who had taken a bit of job-work, in which the promulgation of the tenets of the gospel and those of anti-rentism was the great end in view.

As I have said, my good grandmother suffered somewhat in public estimation, in consequence of this assault. It is true, had any one openly charged the circulators of this silly calumny with their offence, they would have stoutly denied it; but it was none the less certain that this charge, among a hundred others, varying from it only in degree, and not at all in character, was industriously circulated in order to render the Littlepages unpopular; unpopularity being among us the sin that is apt to entail all the evil consequences of every other offence.

The reader who is not acquainted with the interior of our social habits, must not suppose that I am coloring for effect. So far from this, I am quite conscious of having kept the tone of the picture down, it being an undeniable truth that nothing of much interest, nowadays, is left to the simple decision of principles and laws, in this part of the country at least. The supremacy of numbers is so great, that scarce a private suit of magnitude is committed to a jury, without attempts, more or less direct, to influence the common mind in favor of one side or the other, in the hope that the jurors will be induced to think as the majority thinks. In Europe, it is known that judges were, nay, are, visited and solicited by the parties; but here, it is the public that must be treated in the same way. I am far from wishing to blazon the defects of my own country, and I know from observation, that corresponding evils, differing in their exterior aspects, and in their mode of acting, exist elsewhere; but these are the forms in which some of our defects present themselves, and he is neither a friend to his country, nor an honest man, who wishes them to be bundled up and cloaked, instead of being exposed, understood, and corrected. This notion of "nil nisi bene" has done an infinite degree of harm to the country; and, through the country, to freedom.

I do not think the worship of the temple amounted to any great matter that day in St. Andrew's Church, Ravensnest. Quite half the congregation was blundering through the liturgy, and every man who lost his place in the prayer-book, or who could not find it at all, seemed to fancy it was quite sufficient for the ritual of us semi-papists if he kept his eye on me and my canopied pew. How many pharisees were present, who actually believed that I had caused my own barn to be burned, in order to throw opprobrium on the "virtuous," "honest," and "hard-working" tenants, and who gave credit to the stories affecting my title, and all the rest of the stuff that calculating cupidity had set afloat in the country, I have no way of knowing; but subsequent circumstances have given me reason to suppose they were not a few. A great many men left the house of God that morning, I make no doubt, whose whole souls were wrapped up in effecting an act of the grossest injustice, professing to themselves to thank God that they were not as wicked as the being whom they desired to injure.

I stopped to say a word to Mr. Warren, in the vestry-room, after the people were dismissed, for he had not passed the night with us at the Nest, though his daughter had. After we had said a word about the occurrence of the morning, the good rector having heard a rumor of the arrest of certain incendiaries, without knowing who they were, I made a more general remark or two previously to quitting the place.

"Your congregation was unusually large this morning, sir," I said, smiling, "though not altogether as attentive as it might have been."

"I owe it to your return, Mr. Littlepage, aided by the events of the past day or two. At one moment I was afraid that some secret project was on foot, and that the day and place might be desecrated by some scene of disgraceful violence. All has gone off well in that respect, however, and I trust that no harm will come of this crowd. We Americans have a respect for sacred things, which will ordinarily protect the temple."

"Did you, then, think St. Andrew's ran any risk to-day, sir?"

Mr. Warren colored a little, and he hesitated an instant before he answered.

"You doubtless know, young sir," he said, "the nature of the feeling that is now abroad in the country. With a view to obtain its ends, anti-rentism drags every auxiliary it can find into its ranks, and, among other things, it has assailed your canopied pew. I own, that, at first, I apprehended some assault might be contemplated on that."

"Let it come, sir; the pew shall be altered on a general and right principle, but not until it is let alone by envy, malice, and covetousness. It would be worse to make a concession to these than to let the pew stand another half century."

With these words in my mouth, I took my leave, hastening on to overtake the girls in the fields.

CHAPTER XXV.

"There is a pure republic--wild, yet strong--
A 'fierce democracie,' where all are true
To what themselves have voted--right or wrong--
And to their laws denominated blue;
(If red, they might to Draco's code belong.)"

--Halleck.

Such was my haste in quitting the church, that I did not turn to the right or the left. I saw the light, but well-rounded form of Mary Warren loitering along with the rest of the party, seemingly in waiting for me to join them; and crossing the road, I sprang upon the stile, and thence to the ground, coming up with the girls at the next instant.

"What is the meaning of the crowd, Hugh?" asked my sister, pointing down the road with the stick of her parasol, as she put the question.

"Crowd! I have seen no crowd. Everybody had left the church before I quitted it, and all has gone off peaceably. Ha! sure enough, that does look like a crowd yonder in the highway. It seems an organized meeting, by George! Yes, there is the chairman, seated on the upper rail of the fence, and the fellow with a bit of paper in his hand is doubtless the secretary. Very American, and regular, all that! Some vile project is hatching, I'll answer for it, under the aspect of an expression of public opinion. See, there is a chap speaking, and gesticulating manfully!"

We all stopped, for a moment, and stood looking at the crowd, which really had all the signs of a public meeting about it. There it had been, the girls told me, ever since they had quitted the church, and seemingly engaged much as it was at that moment. The spectacle was curious, and the day being fine, while time did not press, we lingered in the fields, occasionally stopping to look behind us, and note what was passing on in the highway.

In this manner, we might have walked half the distance to the Nest, when, on turning to take another look, we perceived that the crowd had dispersed; some driving off in the ever-recurring one-horse wagon, some on horseback and others on foot. Three men, however, were walking fast in our direction, as if desirous of overtaking us. They had already crossed the stile, and were on the path in the field, a route rarely or never taken by any but those who desired to come to the house. Under the circumstances, I determined at once to stop and wait for them. First feeling in my pocket, and making sure of the "revolver," which is getting to be an important weapon, now that private battles are fought not only "yard-arm and yard-arm," but by regular "broadsides," starboard and larboard, I intimated my intention to the girls.

"As these men are evidently coming in quest of me," I remarked, "it may be as well, ladies, for you to continue your walk toward home, while I wait for them on this stile."

"Very true," answered Patt. "They can have little to say that we shall wish to hear, and you will soon overtake us. Remember, we dine at two on Sundays, Hugh; the evening service commencing at four, in this month."

"No, no," said Mary Warren, hurriedly, "we ought not, cannot, quit Mr. Littlepage. These men may do him some harm."

I was delighted with this simple, natural manifestation of interest, as well as with the air of decision with which it was made. Mary herself colored at her own interest, but did not the less maintain the ground she had taken.

"Why, of what use can we be to Hugh, dear, even admitting what you say to be true?" answered Patt; "it were better for us to hurry on to the house, and send those here who can assist him in such a case, than stand by idle and useless."

As if profiting by this hint, Miss Coldbrooke and Miss Marston, who were already some little distance in advance, went off almost on a run, doubtless intending to put my sister's project into execution. But Mary Warren stood firm, and Patt would not desert her friend, whatever might have been her disposition to treat me with less consideration.

"It is true, we may not be able to assist Mr. Littlepage, should violence be attempted," the first remarked; "but violence is, perhaps, what is least to be apprehended. These wretched people so little regard truth, and they will be three to one, if your brother be left alone; that it is better we stay and hear what is said, in order that we may assert what the facts really were, should these persons see fit to pervert them, as too often happens."

Both Patt and myself were struck with the prudence and sagacity of this suggestion; and the former now came quite near to the stile, on which I was still standing, with an air as steady and resolute as that of Mary Warren herself. Just then the three men approached. Two of them I knew by name, though scarcely in person, while the third was a total stranger. The two of whom I had some knowledge, were named Bunce and Mowatt, and were both tenants of my own; and, as I have since learned, warm anti-renters. The stranger was a travelling demagogue, who had been at the bottom of the whole affair connected with the late meeting, and who had made his two companions his tools. The three came up to the stile, with an air of great importance, nor could the dignity of their demeanor have been greater had they been ambassadors extraordinary from the Emperor of China.

"Mr. Littlepage," commenced Mr. Bunce, with a particularly important physiognomy, "there has been a meeting of the public, this morning, at which these resolutions was passed. We have been appointed a committee to deliver a copy of them to you, and our duty is now performed by handing you this paper."

"Not unless I see fit to accept it, I presume, sir," was my answer.

"I should think no man, in a free country, would refuse to receive a set of resolutions that has been passed by a meeting of his fellow-citizens."

"That might depend on circumstances; the character of the resolutions, in particular. The freedom of the country it is, precisely, which gives one man the same right to say he cares nothing about your resolutions, as it does you to pass them."

"But you have not looked at the resolutions, sir, and until you do, you cannot know how you may like them."

"That is very true; but I have looked at their bearers, have seen their manner, and do not quite like the assumption of power which says any body of men can send me resolutions, whether I like to receive them or not."

This declaration seemed to strike the committee aghast! The idea that one man should hesitate to submit himself to a yoke imposed by a hundred, was so new and inconceivable to those who deem majorities all in all, that they hardly knew how to take it.[29] At first there was an obvious disposition to resent the insult; then came reflection, which probably told them that such a course might not prove so well, the whole terminating in the more philosophical determination of getting along easily.

"Am I to understand, Mr. Littlepage, that you refuse to accept the resolutions of a public meeting?"

"Yes; of half a dozen public meetings put together, if those resolutions are offensive, or are offered offensively."

"As to the resolutions, you can know nothing, having never seen them. Of the right of any number of the people to pass such resolutions as they may think proper, I presume there can be no question."

"Of that right, sir, there is a very great question, as has been settled within the last few years, in our own courts. But, even if the right existed, and in as broad a way as you seem to think, it would not form a right to force these resolutions on me."

"I am, then, to tell the people you refuse even to read their resolutions, 'Squire Littlepage?"

"You can tell them what you please, sir. I know of no people, except in a legal sense, and under the limited powers that they exercise by law. As for this new power, which is rising up in the country, and has the impudence to call itself the people, though composed of little knots of men got together by management, and practised on by falsehood, it has neither my respect nor dread; and as I hold it in contempt, I shall treat it with contempt whenever it comes in my way."

"I am, then, to tell the people of Ravensnest you hold them in contempt, sir?"

"I authorize you tell the people of Ravensnest nothing, as coming from me, for I do not know that the people of Ravensnest have employed you. If you will ask me, respectfully, as if you were soliciting a favor instead of demanding a right, to read the contents of the paper you hold in your hand, I may be willing to comply. What I object to is a handful of men getting together, setting themselves up as the people, pretending to authority in that capacity, and claiming a right to force their notions on other folks."

The three committee-men now drew back a few paces, and consulted together apart for two or three minutes. While they were thus employed, I heard the sweet gentle voice of Mary Warren say at my elbow--"Take their resolutions, Mr. Littlepage, and get rid of them. I dare say they are very silly, but you will get rid of them all the sooner by receiving the paper." This was woman's advice, which is a little apt to err on the side of concession, when her apprehensions are aroused; but I was spared the pain of not complying with it, by the altered tone of the trio, who now came up to the stile again, having apparently come to a final decision in the premises.

"Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior," said Bunce, in a solemn voice, and in a manner as precise as if he were making some legal tender that was of the last importance, and which required set phrases, "I now ask you, in a most respectful manner, if you will consent to receive this paper. It contains certain resolutions, passed with great unanimity by the people of Ravensnest, and which may be found to affect you. I am directed respectfully to ask you, if you will accept this copy of the said resolutions."

I cut the rest of the speech short by receiving the proffered paper, and I thought all three of the worthy ambassadors looked disappointed at my having done so. This gave a new turn to my ideas, and had they now demanded their resolutions back again, they should not have had them, so long as the revolvers could do their duty. For a moment, I do believe Bunce was for trying the experiment. He and his companions would have been delighted to have it in their power to run up and down the country crying out that the aristocrat-landlord, young Littlepage, held the people in contempt, and had refused even to accept the resolutions they had deigned, in their majesty, to pass. As it was, however, I had sufficiently rebuked the presumption of these pretenders to liberty, avoided all the consequences of their clamor in that behalf, and had an opportunity to gratify a curiosity to know what the leaders of the meeting had been about, and to read their resolutions. I say, the leaders of the meeting, for it is very certain the meetings themselves, on all such occasions, have no more to do with the forming or entertaining the opinions that are thus expressed, than if they had been in Kamtschatka the whole time. Folding the paper, therefore, and putting it in my pocket, I bowed to the committee, saying, as I descended the stile on the other side of the fence--

"It is well, gentlemen; if the resolutions require any notice, they'll be sure to receive it. Public meetings held of a Sunday are so unusual in this part of the world, that this may have interest with that small portion of the State which does not dwell at Ravensnest."

I thought the committee was a little abashed; but the stranger, or the travelling demagogue, caught at my words, and answered as I walked away, in company with Patt and Mary Warren--

"The better day, the better deed. The matter related to the Sabbath, and no time so suitable as the Sabbath to act on it."

I will own I was dying of curiosity to read the resolutions, but dignity prevented any such thing until we had reached a spot where the path led through a copse, that concealed us from observation. Once under that cover, however, I eagerly drew out the paper, the two girls drawing near to listen, with as lively an interest as that I felt myself in the result.

"Here you may see at a glance," I cried, shaking open the folds of the paper, "the manner in which the people so often pass their resolutions! All this writing has a very school-master air, and has been done with care and a deliberation, whereas there was certainly no opportunity to make a copy as fair as this of anything out in the highway where the meeting was actually held. This proves that matters had been cut and dried for the sovereign people, who, like other monarchs, are saved a great deal of trouble by their confidential servants."

"I dare say," said Patt, "two or three men down at the village prepared everything, and then brought their work up to the meeting to be read and approved, and to go forth as public sentiment."

"If it were only honesty approved by even those who heard it read, it would be another matter; but two-thirds of every meeting are nothing but dough-faces, that are moulded to look whichever way the skilful manager may choose. But let us see what these notable resolutions are; we may like them, possibly, after having read them."

"It is so extraordinary to have a public meeting of a Sunday in this part of the world!"

I now set about reading the contents of the paper, which, at a glance, I saw had been very carefully prepared for publication, and no doubt would soon figure in some of the journals. Fortunately, this business has been so much overdone, and so many meetings are held that flatly contradict each other, though all represent public sentiment, fire is made so effectually to fight fire, that the whole procedure is falling into contempt, and the public is actually losing the great advantage which, under a more temperate use of its power, it might possess, by making known from time to time, as serious occasions offered, its true opinions and wishes. As things actually are, every man of intelligence is fully aware that simulated public opinions are much the most noisy and active in the country, and he regards nothing of the sort of which he hears or reads, unless he happen to know something of the authority. It is the same with the newspaper press generally; into such deep discredit has it fallen, that not only is its power to do evil much curtailed, but it has nearly lost all power to do good; for, by indulging in licentiousness, and running into the habit of crying "wolf," nobody is disposed to believe, were the beast actually committing its ravages in the flocks of the nation. There are but two ways for a man to regain a position from which he has departed; the one is by manfully retracing his steps, and the other is by making a circuit so complete that all who choose to watch him may see and understand all sides of him, and estimate him accordingly. The last is likely to be the career of demagogueism and the press; both of which have already gone so far as to render retreat next to impossible, and who can only regain any portion of public confidence by being satisfied with completing their circuit, and falling in the rear of the nation, content to follow those whom it has been their craving ambition to lead.

"At a meeting of the citizens of Ravensnest," I began to read aloud, "spontaneously convened, June 22d, 1845, in the public highway, after attending divine service in the Episcopal meeting-house, according to the forms of the established denomination of England, on the church and state system, Onesiphoras Hayden, Esquire, was called to the chair, and Pulaski Todd, Esquire, was appointed secretary. After a luminous and eloquent exposition of the objects of the meeting, and some most pungent strictures on aristocracy and the rights of man, from Demosthenes Hewlett and John Smith, Esquires, the following expression of public sentiment was sustained by an undivided unanimity:--Resolved, That a temperate expression of public opinion is useful to the rights of freemen, and is one of the most precious privileges of freedom, as the last has been transmitted to us in a free country by our ancestors, who fought and bled for free and equal institutions on free and equal grounds.

"Resolved, That we prize this privilege, and shall ever watch over its exercise with vigilance, the price of liberty.

"Resolved, That, as all men are equal in the eyes of the law, so are they much more so in the eyes of God.

"Resolved, That meeting-houses are places constructed for the convenience of the people, and that nothing ought to be admitted into them that is opposed to public sentiment, or which can possibly offend it.

"Resolved, That, in our judgment, the seat that is good enough for one man is good enough for another; that we know no differences in families and races, and that pews ought to be constructed on the principles of equality, as well as laws.

"Resolved, That canopies are royal distinctions, and quite unsuited to republicans; and most of all, to republican meeting-houses.

"Resolved, That religion should be adapted to the institutions of a country, and that a republican form of government is entitled to a republican form of religion; and that we do not see the principles of freedom in privileged seats in the house of God."

"That resolution has been got up as a commentary on what has been circulated so much, of late, in the newspapers," cried Mary Warren, quickly; "in which it has been advanced, as a recommendation of certain sects, that their dogmas and church-government are more in harmony with republicanism than certain others, our own Church included."

"One would think," I answered, "if this conformity be a recommendation, that it would be the duty of men to make their institutions conform to the Church, instead of the Church's conforming to the institutions."

"Yes; but it is not the fashion to reason in this way, nowadays. Prejudice is just as much appealed to in matters connected with religion, as with anything else."

"Resolved," I continued to read, "That in placing a canopy over his pew, in St. Andrew's meeting-house, Ravensnest, General Cornelius Littlepage conformed to the spirit of a past age, rather than to the spirit of the present time, and that we regard its continuance there as an aristocratical assumption of a superiority that is opposed to the character of the government, offensive to liberty, and dangerous as an example."

"Really that is too bad!" exclaimed Patt, vexed at heart, even while she laughed at the outrageous silliness of the resolutions, and all connected with them. "Dear, liberal-minded grandpapa, who fought and bled for that very liberty about which these people cant so much, and who was actively concerned in framing the very institutions that they do not understand, and are constantly violating, is accused to being false to what were notoriously his own principles!"

"Never mind that, my dear; there only remain three more resolutions: let us hear them. Resolved, That we see an obvious connection between crowned heads, patents of nobility, canopied pews, personal distinctions, leasehold tenures, land-Lords, days' works, fat fowls, quarter-sales, three-lives leases, and Rent.

"Resolved, That we are of opinion that, when the owners of barns wish them destroyed, for any purpose whatever, there is a mode less alarming to a neighborhood than by setting them on fire, and thus giving rise to a thousand reports and accusations that are wanting in the great merit of truth.

"Resolved, That a fair draft be made of these resolutions, and a copy of them delivered to one Hugh Roger Littlepage, a citizen of Ravensnest, in the county of Washington; and that Peter Bunce, Esq., John Mowatt, Esq., and Hezekiah Trott, Esq., be a commitee to see that this act be performed.

"Whereupon the meeting adjourned, sine die. Onesiphoras Hayden, chairman; Pulaski Todd, secretary."

"Whe-e-e-w!" I whistled, "here's gunpowder enough for another Waterloo!"

"What means that last resolution, Mr. Littlepage?" asked Mary Warren, anxiously. "That about the barn."

"Sure enough; there is a latent meaning there which has its sting. Can the scoundrels intend to insinuate that I caused that barn to be set on fire!"

"If they should, it is scarcely more than they have attempted to do with every landlord they have endeavored to rob," said Patt, with spirit. "Calumny seems a natural weapon of those who get their power by appealing to numbers."

"That is natural enough, my dear sister; since prejudice and passion are quite as active agents as reasons and facts, in the common mind. But this is a slander that shall be looked to. If I find that these men really wish to circulate a report that I caused my own barn to be set on fire--pshaw! nonsense, after all; have we not Newcome, and that other rascal in confinement, at this moment, for attempting to set fire to my house?"

"Be not too confident, Mr. Littlepage," said Mary, with an anxiety so pointed that I could not but feel its flattery--"my dear father tells me he has lost most of his confidence in innocence, except as One above all weaknesses shall be the judge: this very story may be got up expressly to throw distrust on your accusations against the two incendiaries you have taken in the act. Remember how much of the facts will depend on your own testimony."

"I shall have you to sustain me, Miss Warren, and the juror is not living, who would hesitate to believe that to which you will testify. But here we are approaching the house; we will talk no more on the subject, lest it distress my grandmother."

We found all quiet at the Nest, no report of any sort having come from the red-men. Sunday was like any other day to them, with the exception that they so far deferred to our habits as to respect it, to a certain extent, while in our presence. Some writers have imagined that the aborigines of America are of the lost tribes of Israel; but it seems to me that such a people could never have existed apart, uninfluenced by foreign association, and preserved no tradition, no memorial of the Jewish Sabbath. Let this be as it may, John, who met us at the door, which we reached just after my uncle and grandmother, reported all quiet, so far as he knew anything of the state of the farm-buildings.

"They got enough last night, I'se thinking, Mr. Hugh, and has found out by this time, that it's better to light a fire in one of their own cook-stoves, than come to light it on the floor of a gentleman's kitchen. I never heard it said, sir, that the Hamericans was as much Hirish as they be Henglish, but to me they seems to grow every day more like the wild Hirishers, of whom we used to hear so much in Lun'un. Your honored father, sir, would never have believed that his own dwelling would be entered, at night, by men who are his very neighbors, and who act like burglariouses, as if they were so many Newgate birds--no. Why, Mr. Hugh, this 'Squire Newcome, as they call him, is an hattorney, and has often dined here at the Nest. I have 'anded him his soup, and fish, and wine, fifty times, just as if he was a gentleman, and to his sister, Miss Hopportunity, too; and they to come to set fire to the house, at midnight!"

"You do Miss Opportunity injustice, John; for she has not had the least connection with the matter."

"Well, sir, nobody knows anything nowaday--I declare, my eyes be getting weak, or there is the young lady, at this very instant!"

"Young lady! where?--you do not mean Opportunity Newcome, surely?"

"I does though, sir, and it's she, sure enough. If that isn't Miss Hopportunity, the prisoner that the savages has got up in the cellar of the old farm-house, isn't her brother."

John was quite right; there was Opportunity standing in the very path, and at the very spot where I had last seen her disappear from my sight, the past night. That spot was just where the path plunged into the wooded ravine, and so far was her person concealed by the descent, that we could only perceive the head, and the upper part of the body. The girl had shown herself just that much, in order to attract my attention, in which she had no sooner succeeded, than, by moving downward a few paces, she was entirely hid from sight. Cautioning John to say nothing of what had passed, I sprang down the steps, and walked in the direction of the ravine, perfectly satisfied I was expected, and far from certain that this visit did not portend further evil.

The distance was so short that I was soon at the verge of the ravine, but when I reached it Opportunity had disappeared. Owing to the thicket, her concealment was easily obtained, while she might be within a few yards from me, and I plunged downward, bent only on ascertaining her object. One gleam of distrust shot across my mind, I will own, as I strided down the declivity; but it was soon lost in the expectation and curiosity that were awakened by the appearance of the girl.

I believe it has already been explained, that in this part of the lawn a deep, narrow ravine had been left in wood, and that the bridle-path that leads to the hamlet had been carried directly through it, for effect. This patch of wood may be three or four acres in extent, following the course of the ravine until it reaches the meadows, and it contains three or four rustic seats, intended to be used in the warmer months. As Opportunity was accustomed to all the windings and turnings of the place, she had posted herself near one of these seats, which stood in a dense thicket, but so near the main path as to enable her to let me know where she was to be found, by a low utterance of my name, as my tread announced my approach. Springing up the by-path, I was at her side in an instant. I do believe that, now she had so far succeeded, the girl sunk upon the seat from inability to stand.

"Oh! Mr. Hugh!" she exclaimed, looking at me with a degree of nature and concern in her countenance that it was not usual to see there--"Sen--my poor brother Sen--what have I done?--what have I done?"

"Will you answer me one or two questions, Miss Opportunity, with frankness, under the pledge that the replies never shall be used to injure you or yours? This is a very serious affair, and should be treated with perfect frankness."

"I will answer anything to you--any question you can put me, though I might blush to do so--but," laying her hand familiarly, not to say tenderly, on my arm--"why should we be Mr. Hugh and Miss Opportunity to each other, when we were so long Hugh and Op? Call me Op again, and I shall feel that the credit of my family and the happiness of my poor Sen are, after all, in the keeping of a true friend."

"No one can be more willing to do this than myself, my dear Op, and I am willing to be Hugh again. But, you know all that has passed."

"I do--yes, the dreadful news has reached us, and mother wouldn't leave me a moment's peace till I stole out again to see you."

"Again? Was your mother, then, acquainted with the visit of last night?"

"Yes, yes--she knew it all, and advised it all."

"Your mother is a most thoughtful and prudent parent," I answered, biting my lip, "and I shall know hereafter how much I am indebted to her. To you, Opportunity, I owe the preservation of my house, and possibly the lives of all who are most dear to me."

"Well, that's something, any how. There's no grief that hasn't its relief. But, you must know, Hugh, that I never could or did suppose that Sen himself would be so weak as to come in his own person on such an errand! I didn't want telling to understand that, in anti-rent times, fire and sword are the law--but, take him in general, Sen is altogether prudent and cautious. I'd a bit my tongue off before I'd got my own brother into so cruel a scrape. No, no--don't think so ill of me as to suppose I came to tell of Sen."

"It is enough for me that I know how much trouble you took to warn me of danger. It is unnecessary for me to think of you in any other light than that of a friend."

"Ah, Hugh! how happy and merry we all of us used to be a few years since! That was before your Miss Coldbrookes, and Miss Marstons, and Mary Warrens ever saw the country. Then we did enjoy ourselves, and I hope such times will return. If Miss Martha would only stick to old friends, instead of running after new ones, Ravensnest would be Ravensnest again."

"You are not to censure my sister for loving her own closest associates best. She is several years our junior, you will remember, and was scarcely of an age to be our companion six years ago."

Opportunity had the grace to color a little, for she had only used Patt as a cloak to make her assaults on me, and she knew as well as I did that my sister was good seven years younger than herself. This feeling, however, was but momentary, and she next turned to the real object of this visit.

"What am I to tell mother, Hugh? You will let Sen off, I know?"

I reflected, for the first time, on the hardships of the case; but felt a strong reluctance to allow incendiaries to escape.

"The facts must be known, soon, all over the town," I remarked.

"No fear of that; they are pretty much known already. News does fly fast at Ravensnest, all must admit."

"Ay, if it would only fly true. But your brother can hardly remain here, after such an occurrence."

"Lord! How you talk! If the law will only let him alone, who'd trouble him for this? You haven't been home long enough to learn that folks don't think half as much of setting fire to a house, in anti-rent times, as they'd think of a trespass under the old-fashioned law. Anti-rent alters the whole spirit."

How true was this! And we have lads among us, who have passed from their tenth to their eighteenth and twentieth years, in a condition of society that is almost hopelessly abandoned to the most corrupting influence of all the temptations that beset human beings. It is not surprising that men begin to regard arson as a venial offence, when the moral feeling of the community is thus unhinged, and boys are suffered to grow into manhood in the midst of notions so fatal to everything that is just and safe.

"But the law itself will not be quite as complaisant as the 'folks.' It will scarcely allow incendiaries to escape; and your brother would be compelled to flee the land."

"What of that? How many go off, and stay off for a time; and that's better than going up north to work at the new prison. I'm not a bit afraid of Sen's being hanged, for these an't hanging times, in this country; but it is some disgrace to a family to have a member in the State's prison. As for any punishment that is lasting, you can see how it is, as well as I. There've been men murdered about anti-rentism, but, Lord! the Senators and Assemblymen will raise such a rumpus, if you go to punish them, that it won't be long, if things go on as they have, before it will be thought more honorable to be put in jail for shooting a peace-officer, than to stay out of it for not having done it. Talk's all; and if folks have a mind to make anything honorable, they've only to say so often enough to make it out."

Such were the notions of Miss Opportunity Newcome, on the subject of modern morals, and how far was she from the truth? I could not but smile at the manner in which she treated things, though there was a homely and practical common sense in her way of thinking that was probably of more efficiency than would have been the case with a more refined and nicer code. She looked at things as they are, and that is always something toward success.

As for myself, I was well enough disposed to consider Opportunity, in this unfortunate affair of the fire, for it Would have been a cruel thing to suffer the girl to imagine she had been an instrument in destroying her brother. It is true, there is no great danger of a rogue's being hanged, nowadays, and Seneca was not sufficiently a gentleman, though very tenacious of the title, to endanger his neck. Had he been a landlord, and caught lighting a fire on the kitchen-floor of one of the tenants, the State would not grow hemp enough for his execution; but it was a very different thing to catch a tenant at that work. I could not but ask myself, how many of the "honorable gentlemen" at Albany would interfere in my behalf, had matters been reversed? for this is the true mode of arriving at the "spirit of the institutions;" or, rather, I have just as good a right to affirm such is their "spirit," as any one has to assert that the leasehold tenure is opposed to them; the laws and institutions themselves being equally antagonist to both.

The results of the interview I had with Opportunity were: firstly, I kept my heart just where it was at its commencement, though I am not certain that it was in my own custody; secondly, the young lady left me much encouraged on the subject of the credit of the Newcomes, though I took very good care not to put myself in her power by promising to compromise felony; thirdly, I invited the sister to come openly to the Nest, that evening, as one of the means to be employed in attaining her ends--as respects Seneca, be it remembered, not as respects me; and lastly, we parted just as good friends as we ever had been, and entertaining exactly the same views as regards each other. What those views were it may not be modest in me to record.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"If men desire the rights of property, they must take their consequences; distinction in social classes. Without the rights of property civilization can hardly exist, while the highest class of improvements is probably the result of the very social distinctions that so many decry. The great political problem to be solved is to ascertain if the social distinctions that are inseparable from civilization can really exist with perfect equality in political rights. We are of opinion they can; and as much condemn him who vainly contends for a visionary and impracticable social equality, as we do him who would deny to men equal opportunities for advancement."--Political Essay.

My interview with Opportunity Newcome remained a secret between those who first knew of it. The evening service in St. Andrew's was attended only by the usual congregation, all the curiosity of the multitude seeming to have been allayed by the visit in the morning. The remainder of the day passed as usual, and after enjoying a pleasant eventide, and the earlier hours of the night in the company of the girls, I retired early to bed, and slept profoundly until morning. My Uncle Ro partook of my own philosophical temper, and we encouraged each other in it by a short conversation that occurred in his room before we respectively retired to rest.

"I agree with you, Hugh," said my uncle, in reply to a remark of my own; "there is little use in making ourselves unhappy about evils that we cannot help. If we are to be burnt up and stripped of our property, we shall be burnt up and stripped of our property. I have a competency secured in Europe, and we can all live on that, with economy, should the worst come to the worst."

"It is a strange thing to hear an American talk of seeking a refuge of any sort in the Old World!"

"If matters proceed in the lively manner they have for the last ten years, you'll hear of it often. Hitherto, the rich of Europe have been in the habit of laying by a penny in America against an evil day, but the time will soon come, unless there is a great change, when the rich of America will return the compliment in kind. We are worse off than if we were in a state of nature, in many respects; having our hands tied by the responsibility that belongs to our position and means, while those who choose to assail us are under a mere nominal restraint. They make the magistrates, who are altogether in their interests; and they elect the sheriffs who are to see the laws executed. The theory is, that the people are sufficiently virtuous to perform all these duties well; but no provision has been made for the case in which the people themselves happen to go astray, en masse."

"We have our governors and masters at Albany, sir."

"Yes, we have our governors and servants at Albany, and there they are! There has not been the time, probably, since this infernal spirit first had its rise among us, that a clear, manly, energetic and well-principled proclamation alone, issued by the governor of this State, would not have aroused all the better feelings of the community and put this thing down; but, small as would have been that tribute to the right, it has never been paid, and, until we drop double-distilled patriots, and have recourse again to the old-fashioned, high-principled gentlemen for offices of mark, it never will be done. Heaven preserve me from extra-virtuous, patriotic, and enlightened citizens; no good ever comes of them."

"I believe the wisest way, sir, is to make up our minds that we have reached the point of reaction in the institutions, and be ready to submit to the worst. I keep the 'revolver' well primed, and hope to escape being burnt up at least."

After a little more such discourse, we parted and sought our pillows, and I can say that I never slept more soundly in my life. If I did lose my estate, it was what other men had suffered and survived, and why might not I as well as another? It is true, those other men were, in the main, the victims of what are called tyrants; but others, again, had certainly been wronged by the masses. Thousands have been impoverished in France, for instance, by the political confiscations of the multitude, and thousands enriched by ill-gotten gains, profiting by the calamities of those around them; and what has happened there might happen here. Big words ought to pass for nothing. No man was ever a whit more free because he was the whole time boasting of his liberty, and I was not now to learn that when numbers did inflict a wrong, it was always of the most intolerable character. Ordinarily, they were not much disposed to this species of crime; but men in masses were no more infallible than individuals. In this philosophic mood I slept.

I was awoke next morning by John's appearing at my bedside, after having opened the shutter of my window.

"I declare to you, Mr. Hugh," began this well-meaning, but sometimes officious servant, "I don't know what will come next at Ravensnest, now the evil spirit has got uppermost among the inhabitants!"

"Tut, tut, John--what you call the evil spirit is only the 'spirit of the institutions;' and is to be honored, instead of disliked."

"Well, sir, I don't know what they calls it, for they talks so much about the hinstitutions in this country, I never can find out what they would be at. There was a hinstitution near where I lived in my last place, at the West End, in Lun'on, and there they taught young masters to speak and write Latin and Greek. But hinstitutions in Hamerica must mean something, for them as doesn't know any more Latin than I do seems to be quite hintimate with these Hamerican hinstitutions. But, Mr. Hugh, would you, could you, believe the people committed parricide last night?"

"I am not at all surprised at it, for to me they have seemed to be bent on matricide for some time, calling the country their mother."

"It's hawful, sir--it's truly hawful, when a whole people commits such a crime as parricide! I know'd you would be shocked to hear it, Mr. Hugh, and so I just came in to let you know it."

"I am infinitely obliged to you for this attention, my good fellow, and shall be still more so when you tell me all about it."

"Yes, sir, most willingly; and most unwillingly, too. But there's no use in 'iding the fact; it's gone, Mr. Hugh!"

"What is gone, John? Speak out, my good fellow; I can bear it."

"The pew, sir--or, rather that beautiful canopy that covered it and made it look so much like the lord mayor's seat in Guildhall. I 'ave hadmired and honored that canopy, sir, as the most helegant hobject in this country, sir."

"So they have destroyed it at last, have they? Encouraged and sustained by an expression of public sentiment, as proclaimed in a meeting that had a chairman and secretary, they have actually cut it down, I suppose?"

"They have, sir; and a pretty job they've made of it. There it stands, up at Miller's, hover his pig-pen!"

This was not a very heroic termination of the career of the obnoxious canopy; but it was one that made me laugh heartily. John was a little offended at this levity, and he soon left me to finish my toilet myself. I dare say, many of the honest folk of Ravensnest would have been as much surprised as John himself, at the indifference I manifested at the fate of this dignified pew. But, certainly, so far as my own social elevation, or social depression, was concerned, I cared nothing about it. It left me just where I was--neither greater nor otherwise; and as for any monuments to let the world know who my predecessors had been, or who I was at that moment, the country itself, or the part of it in which we dwelt, was sufficient. Its history must be forgotten, or changed, before our position could be mistaken; though I dare say the time will come when some extremely sublimated friend of equality will wish to extinguish all the lights of the past, in order that there may not exist that very offensive distinction of one man's name being illustrated, while another man's name is not. The pride of family is justly deemed the most offensive of all pride, since a man may value himself on a possession to which he has not the smallest claim in the way of personal merit, while those of the highest personal claims are altogether deprived of an advantage, to the enjoyment of which ancestors alone have created the right. Now, the institutions, both in their letter and their spirit, do favor justice in this particular, as far as they can; though even they are obliged to sustain one of the most potent agents to such distinctions, by declaring, through the laws, that the child shall succeed to the estate of the father. When we shall get everything straight, and as it ought to be, in this progressive country, heaven only knows; for I find my tenants laying stress on the fact that their fathers have leased my lands for generations, while they are quite willing to forget that my fathers were the lessors all the while.

I found all four of the girls on the piazza, breathing the air of as balmy a summer morning as a bountiful nature ever bestowed. They had heard of the fate of the canopy, which affected them differently, and somewhat according to temperament. Henrietta Coldbrooke laughed at it violently, and in a way I did not like; your laughing young lady rarely having much beyond merriment in her. I make all allowance for youthful spirits, and a natural disposition to turn things into fun; but it was too much to laugh at this exploit of the anti-renters for quite half an hour together. I liked Anne Marston's manner of regarding it better. She smiled a good deal, and laughed just enough to show that she was not insensible to the effect of an absurdity; and then she looked as if she felt that a wrong had been done. As for Patt, she was quite indignant at the insult; nor was she very backward in letting her opinions be known. But Mary Warren's manner of viewing the affair pleased me best, as indeed was fast getting to be the fact with most of her notions and conceits. She manifested neither levity nor resentment. Once or twice, when a droll remark escaped Henrietta, she laughed a little; a very little, and involuntarily, as it might be--just enough to prove that there was fun in her--when she would make some sensible observation, to the effect that the evil temper that was up in the country was the true part of the transaction that deserved attention; and that she felt this as well as saw it. Nobody seemed to care for the canopy--not even my excellent grandmother, in whose youth the church had been built, when distinctions of this sort were more in accordance with the temper and habits of the times than they are to-day. I had been on the piazza just long enough to note this difference in the manner of the girls, when my grandmother joined us.

"Oh! grandmother, have you heard what those wretches of 'Injins,' as they are rightly named, have been doing with the canopy of the pew?" cried Patt, who had been at the bedside of our venerable parent and kissed her an hour before; "they have torn it down, and placed it over the pen of the pigs!"

A common laugh, in which Patt herself now joined, interrupted the answer for a moment, old Mrs. Littlepage herself manifesting a slight disposition to make one of the amused.

"I have heard it all, my dear," returned my grandmother, "and, on the whole, think the thing is well enough gotten rid of. I do not believe it would have done for Hugh to have had it taken down under a menace, while it is perhaps better that it should no longer stand."

"Were such things common in your youth, Mrs. Littlepage?" asked Mary Warren.

"Far from uncommon; though less so in country than in town churches. You will remember that we were but recently separated from England when St. Andrew's was built, and that most of the old colonial ideas prevailed among us. People in that day had very different notions of social station from those which now exist; and New York was, in a certain sense, one of the most, perhaps the most, aristocratic colony in the country. It was somewhat so under the Dutch, republicans as they were, with its patroons; but when the colony was transferred to the English, it became a royal colony at once, and English notions were introduced as a matter of course. In no other colony were there as many manors, perhaps; the slavery of the South introducing quite a different system there, while the policy of Penn and New England generally was more democratic. I apprehend, Roger, that we owe this anti-rent struggle, and particularly the feebleness with which it is resisted, to the difference of opinion that prevails among the people of New England, who have sent so many immigrants among us, and our own purely New York notions."

"You are quite right, my dear mother," answered my uncle, "though New Yorkers, by descent, are not wanting among the tenants to sustain the innovation. The last act either from direct cupidity, or to gain popularity with a set, whereas, as I view the matter, the first are influenced by the notions of the state of society from which either they themselves, or their parents, were directly derived. A very large proportion of the present population of New York is of New England origin. Perhaps one-third have this extraction, either as born there, or as the sons or grandsons of those who were. Now, in New England generally, great equality of condition exists, more especially when you rise above the lower classes; there being very few, out of the large trading towns, who would be deemed rich in New York, and scarcely such a thing as a large landholder at all. The relation of landlord and tenant, as connected with what we should term estates, is virtually unknown to New England; though Maine may afford some exceptions. This circumstance is owing to the peculiar origin of the people, and to the fact that emigration has so long carried off the surplus population; the bulk of those who remain being able to possess freeholds. There is a natural antipathy in men who have been educated in such a state of society to anything that seems to place others in positions they do not and cannot occupy themselves. Now, while the population of New York may be one-third, perhaps, of New England descent, and consequently more or less of New England notions, a much larger proportion of the lawyers, editors of newspapers, physicians, and active politicians, are of that class. We think little, and talk little of these circumstances; for no nation inquires into its moral influences, and what I may call its political statistics, less than the Americans; but they produce large consequences."

"Am I to understand you, sir, to say that anti-rentism is of New England origin?"

"Perhaps not. Its origin was probably more directly derived from the devil, who has tempted the tenants as he is known once to have tempted the Saviour. The outbreak was originally among the descendants of the Dutch, for they happened to be the tenants, and, as for the theories that have been broached, they savor more of the reaction of European abuses than of anything American at all; and least of all of anything from New England, where there is generally a great respect for the rights of property, and unusual reverence for the law. Still, I think we owe our greatest danger to the opinions and habits of those of New England descent among us."

"This seems a little paradoxical, uncle Ro, and I confess I should like to hear it explained."

"I will endeavor so to do, and in as few words as possible. The real danger is among those who influence legislation. Now, you will find hundreds of men among us who feel the vast importance of respecting contracts, who perceive much of the danger of anti-rentism, and who wish to see it defeated in its violent and most offensive forms, but who lean against the great landlords, on account of those secret jealousies which cause most men to dislike advantages in which they do not share, and who would gladly enough see all leases abolished, if it could be done without a too violent conflict with justice. When you talk with these men, they will make you the commonplace but unmeaning profession of wishing to see every husbandman the owner in fee of his farm, instead of a tenant, and that it is a hardship to pay rent, and quantities of such twaddle. Henry the Fourth, in a much better spirit, is said to have wished that each of his subjects had "une poule dans son pot," but that wish did not put it there. So it is with this idle profession of wishing to see every American husbandman a freeholder. We all know such a state of society never did exist, and probably never will; and it is merely placing a vapid pretension to philanthropy in the foreground of a picture that should rigidly represent things as they are. For my part, I am one of those who do not believe that this or any other country would be any the better for dispensing with landlords and tenants."

"Mr. Littlepage!" exclaimed Mary Warren, "you surely do not mean that competency widely diffused is not better than wealth in a few hands and poverty in a great many!"

"No, I shall not go as far as that; but I do say, that what this country most wants just now is precisely the class that is connected with the independence of character and station, the leisure, with its attendant cultivation and refinement, and the principles as well as taste that are connected with all."

"Principles! Mr. Littlepage!" added my uncle's sweet interlocutor; "my father would hardly uphold that, though he agrees with you in so much of what you say."

"I do not know that. I repeat the word principles; for when you have a class of men who are removed from a large range of temptations, without being placed above public opinion, you get precisely those who are most likely to uphold that sort of secondary, but highly useful morals which are not directly derived from purely religious duties. Against the last I shall not say one word, as it comes from the grace, which is of the power of God, and is happily as accessible to the poor as to the rich, and more too; but, of men as they are, not one in a hundred regulates his life by a standard created under such impulses; and even when they do, the standard itself is, in some degree, qualified by the ordinary notions I apprehend. The Christian morality of an East Indian is not identical with that of a Puritan, or that of a man of highly cultivated mind with that of one who has enjoyed fewer advantages. There is one class of principles, embracing all those that are adverse to the littlenesses of daily practice, which is much the more extended among the liberal-minded and educated, and it is to that set of principles I refer. Now we want a due proportion of that class of men, as our society is getting to be organized; of those who are superior to meannesses."

"All this would be deemed atrociously aristocratic, were it told in Gath!" exclaimed Patt, laughing.

"It is atrociously common sense, notwithstanding," answered my uncle, who was not to be laughed out of anything he felt to be true; "and the facts will show it. New England early established a system of common schools, and no part of the world, perhaps, has a population that is better grounded in intelligence. This has been the case so long as to put the people of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for instance, as a whole, materially in advance of the people of any other State, New York included; although, by taking the system from our eastern brethren, we are now doing pretty well. Notwithstanding, who will say that New England is as far advanced, in many material things, as the Middle States. To begin with the kitchen--her best cookery is much below that of even the humbler classes of the true Middle States' families; take her language for another test, it is provincial and vulgar; and there is no exaggeration in saying that the laboring classes of the Middle States, if not of New England origin, use better English than thousands of educated men in New England itself. Both of these peculiarities, as I conceive, come from the fact that in one part of the country there has been a class to give a tone that does not exist in the other. The gentlemen of the larger towns in the East have an influence where they live, no doubt; but in the interior, as no one leads, all these matters are left to the common mind to get along with as well as it can."

"Aristocratic, sir--rank aristocracy!"

"If it be, has aristocracy, as you call it, which in this instance must only mean decided social position, no advantages? Is not even a wealthy idler of some use in a nation? He contributes his full share to the higher civilization that is connected with the tastes and refinements, and, in fact, he forms it. In Europe they will tell you that a court is necessary to such civilization; but facts contradict the theory. Social classes, no doubt, are; but they can exist independently of courts, as they can, have, do, and ever will in the face of democracy. Now, connect this class with the landed interest, and see how much your chances for material improvement are increased. Coke, of Norfolk, probably conferred more benefit on the husbandry of England than all the mere operatives that existed in his time. It is from such men, indeed, from their enterprise and their means, that nearly all the greater benefits come. The fine wool of America is mainly owing to Livingston's connection with land; and if you drive such men out of existence, you must drive the benefits they confer with them. A body of intelligent, well-educated, liberalized landlords, scattered through New York, would have more effect in advancing the highest interests of the community than all the 'small potato' lawyers and governors you can name in a twelvemonth. What is more, this is just the state of society in which to reap all the benefits of such a class, without the evils of a real aristocracy. They are and would be without any particular political power, and there is no danger of corn-laws and exclusive legislation for their benefit. Rich and poor we must have; and let any fair-minded man say whether he wish a state of things in which the first shall have no inducement to take an extended interest in real estate, and the last no chance to become agriculturists, except as hired laborers?"

"You do not mince matters, uncle Ro," put in Patt, "and will never go to Congress."

"That may be, my dear, but I shall retain my own self-respect by fair dealing. What I say I mean, while many who take the other side do not. I say, that in a country like this, in which land is so abundant as to render the evils of a general monopoly impossible, a landed gentry is precisely what is most needed for the higher order of civilization, including manners, tastes, and the minor principles, and is the very class which, if reasonably maintained and properly regarded, would do the most good at the least risk of any social caste known. They have always existed in New York, though with a lessening influence, and are the reason, in my judgment, why we are so much before New England in particular things, while certainly behind that quarter of the country in many others that are dependent on ordinary schooling."

"I like to hear a person maintain his opinion frankly and manfully," said my grandmother; "and this have you done, Roger, from boyhood. My own family, on my father's side, was from New England, and I subscribe to a great deal that you say; and particularly to the part that relates to the apathy of the public to this great wrong. It is now time, however, to go to the breakfast-table, as John has been bowing in the door yonder for the last minute or two."

To breakfast we went; and, notwithstanding incendiaries, anti-rentism, and canopies of pig-pens, a merry time we had of it. Henrietta Coldbrooke and Anne Marston never came out with more spirit, though in their several ways, than each did that morning. I believe I looked a little surprised, for I observed that my uncle stole occasional glances at me, that seemed to say, "There, my fine fellow, what do you think of that, now?" whenever either of his wards uttered anything that he fancied cleverer than common.

"Have you heard, ma'am," asked my uncle Ro of my grandmother, "that we are to have old Sus and Jaaf here at the Nest, shortly, and both in grand costume? It seems the red men are about to depart, and there is to be smoking of pipes and a great council, which the Trackless fancies will be more dignified if held in front of the house of his pale-face friends than if held at his own hut."

"How did you ascertain that, Roger?"

"I have been at the wigwam this morning, and have the fact directly from the Onondago, as well as from the interpreter, whom I met there. By the way, Hugh, we must shortly decide what is to be done with the prisoners, or we shall have writs of habeas corpus served on us, to know why we detain them."

"Is it possible, uncle Ro," for so his wards called him habitually--"to rescue a gentleman from the gallows by marrying him?" asked Henrietta Coldbrooke, demurely.

"That is so strange a question, that as a guardian I feel curious to hear its meaning."

"Tell--tell at once, Henrietta," said the other ward, urging her companion to speak. "I will save your blushes, and act as your interpreter. Miss Coldbrooke was honored by Mr. Seneca Newcome with this letter, within the last twenty-four hours; and, it being a family matter, I think it ought to be referred to a family council."

"Nay, Anne," said the blushing Henrietta, "this is hardly fair--nor am I sure that it would be quite lady-like in me to suffer that letter to be generally known--particularly known to you it certainly is already."

"Perhaps your reluctance to have it read does not extend to me, Henrietta?" said my uncle.

"Certainly not, sir; nor to my dear Mrs. Littlepage, nor to Martha--though I confess that I cannot see what interest Mr. Hugh can have in the subject. Here it is; take it and read it when you please."

My uncle was pleased to read it on the spot. As he proceeded a frown collected on his brow, and he bit his lip like one provoked as well as vexed. Then he laughed, and threw the letter on the table, where no one presumed to molest it. As Henrietta Coldbrooke was blushing all this time, though she laughed and seemed provoked, our curiosity was so great and manifest that my grandmother felt an inclination to interfere.

"May not that letter be read aloud, for the benefit of all?" she asked.

"There can be no particular reason for concealing it," answered uncle Ro, spitefully. "The more it is known, the more the fellow will be laughed at, as he deserves to be."

"Will that be right, uncle Ro?" exclaimed Miss Coldbrooke, hastily. "Will it be treating a gentleman as he----"

"Pshaw!--it will not be treating a gentleman at all. The fellow is, at this moment, a prisoner for attempting to set an inhabited house on fire, in the middle of the night."

Henrietta said no more; and my grandmother took the letter, and read it for the common benefit. I shall not copy the effusion of Seneca, which was more cunning than philosophical; but it contained a strong profession of love, urged in a somewhat business manner, and a generous offer of his hand to the heiress of eight thousand a year. And this proposal was made only a day or two before the fellow was "taken in the act," and at the very time he was the most deeply engaged in his schemes of anti-rentism.

"There is a class of men among us," said my uncle, after everybody had laughed at this magnificent offer, "who do not seem to entertain a single idea of the proprieties. How is it possible, or where could the chap have been bred, to fancy for an instant that a young woman of fortune and station would marry him, and that, too, almost without an acquaintance. I dare say Henrietta never spoke to him ten times in her life."

"Not five, sir, and scarcely anything was said at either of those five."

"And you answered the letter, my dear?" asked my grandmother. "An answer ought not to have been forgotten, though it might have properly come, in this case, from your guardian."

"I answered it myself, ma'm, not wishing to be laughed at for my part of the affair. I declined the honor of Mr. Seneca Newcome's hand."

"Well, if the truth must be said," put in Patt, dryly, "I did the same thing, only three weeks since."

"And I so lately as last week," added Anne Marston, demurely.

I do not know that I ever saw my uncle Ro so strangely affected. While everybody around him was laughing heartily, he looked grave, not to say fierce. Then he turned suddenly to me, and said:

"We must let him be hanged, Hugh. Were he to live a thousand years he would never learn the fitness of things."

"You'll think better of this, sir, and become more merciful. The man has only nobly dared. But I confess a strong desire to ascertain if Miss Warren alone has escaped his assaults."

Mary--pretty Mary--she blushed scarlet, but shook her head, and refused to give any answer. We all saw that her feelings were not enlisted in the affair in any way; but there was evidently something of a more serious nature connected with Seneca's addresses to her than in connection with his addresses to either of the others. As I have since ascertained, he really had a sort of affection for Mary; and I have been ready to pardon him the unprincipled and impudent manner in which he cast his flies toward the other fish, in consideration of his taste in this particular. But Mary herself would tell us nothing.

"You are not to think so much of this, Mr. Littlepage," she cried, so soon as a little recovered from her confusion, "since it is only acting on the great anti-rent principle, after all. In the one case, it is only a wish to get good farms cheap--and in the other, good wives."

"In the one case, other men's farms--and in the other, other men's wives."

"Other men's wives, certainly, if wives at all," said Patt, pointedly. "There is no Mr. Seneky Newcome there."

"We must let the law have its way, and the fellow be hanged!" rejoined my uncle. "I could overlook the attempt to burn the Nest House, but I cannot overlook this. Fellows of this class get everything dessus dessous, and I do not wonder there is anti-rentism in the land. Such a matrimonial experiment could never have been attempted, as between such parties, in any region but one tainted with anti-rentism, or deluded by the devil."

"An Irishman would have included my grandmother in his cast of the net; that's the only difference, sir."

"Sure enough, why have you escaped, my dearest mother? You, who have a fair widow's portion, too."

"Because the suitor was not an Irishman, as Hugh intimated--I know no other reason, Hodge. But a person so devoted to the ladies must not suffer in the cruel way you speak of. The wretch must be permitted to get off."

All the girls now joined with my grandmother in prefering this, to them, very natural petition; and, for a few minutes, we heard of nothing but regrets and solicitations that Seneca might not be given up to the law. "Tender mercies of the law" might not be an unapt way to express the idea, as it is now almost certain that the bigger the rogue, the greater is the chance of escape.

"All this is very well, ladies; mighty humane and feminine and quite in character," answered my uncle; "but, in the first place, there is such a thing as compounding felony, and its consequences are not altogether agreeable; then, one is bound to consider the effect on society in general. Here is a fellow who first endeavors to raise a flame in the hearts of no less than four young ladies: failing of which, he takes refuge in lighting a fire in Hugh's kitchen. Do you know, I am almost as much disposed to punish him for the first of these offences as for the last?"

"There's a grand movement as is making among all the redskins, ma'am," said John, standing in the door of the breakfast parlor, "and I didn't know but the ladies, and Mr. Littlepage, and Mr. Hugh, would like to see it. Old Sus is on his way here, followed by Yop, who comes grumbling along after him, as if he didn't like the amusement any way at all."

"Have any arrangements been made for the proper reception of our guests this morning, Roger?"

"Yes, ma'am. At least, I gave orders to have benches brought and placed under the trees, and plenty of tobacco provided. Smoking is a great part of a council, I believe, and we shall be ready to commence at that as soon as they meet."

"Yes, sir, all is ready for 'em," resumed John. "Miller has sent an 'orse cart to bring the benches, and we've provided as much 'baccy as they can use. The servants 'opes, ma'am, they can have permission to witness the ceremony. It isn't often that civilized people can get a sight at real savages."

My grandmother gave an assent, and there was a general movement, preparatory to going on the lawn to witness the parting interview between the Trackless and his visitors.

"You have been very considerate, Miss Warren," I whispered Mary, as I helped her to put on her shawl, "in not betraying what I fancy is the most important of all Seneca's love secrets."

"I confess these letters have surprised me," the dear girl said thoughtfully, and with a look that seemed perplexed. "No one would be apt to think very favorably of Mr. Newcome; yet it was by no means necessary to complete his character, that one should think as ill as this."

I said no more--but these few words, which appeared to escape Mary unconsciously and involuntarily, satisfied me that Seneca had been seriously endeavoring to obtain an interest in her heart notwithstanding her poverty.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"And underneath that face like summer's dreams,
Its lips as moveless, and its cheek as clear,
Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions,
Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow--all save fear."

--Halleck.

The only singularity connected with the great age of the Indian and the negro, was the fact that they should have been associates for near a century, and so long intimately united in adventures and friendship. I say friendship, for the term was not at all unsuited to the feeling that connected these old men together, though they had so little in common in the way of character. While the Indian possessed all the manly and high qualities of a warrior of the woods, of a chief, and of one who had never acknowledged a superior, the other was necessarily distinguished by many of the wickednesses of a state of servitude; the bitter consequences of a degraded caste. Fortunately both were temperate, by no means an every-day virtue among the red-men who dwelt with the whites, though much more so with the blacks. But Susquesus was born at Onondago, a tribe remarkable for its sobriety, and at no period of his long life would he taste any intoxicating drink, while Jaaf was essentially a sober man, though he had a thorough "nigger" relish for hard cider. There can be little doubt that these two aged memorials of past ages, and almost forgotten generations, owed their health and strength to their temperance, fortifying natural predispositions to tenacity of life.

It was always thought that Jaaf was a little the senior of the Indian, though the difference in their ages could not be great. It is certain that the red-man retained much the most of his bodily powers, though, for fifty years, he had taxed them the least. Susquesus never worked; never would work in the ordinary meaning of the term. He deemed it to be beneath his dignity as a warrior, and, I have heard it said, that nothing but necessity could have induced him to plant, or hoe, even when in his prime. So long as the boundless forest furnished the deer, the moose, the beaver, the bear, and the other animals that it is usual for the red-man to convert into food, he had cared little for the fruits of the earth, beyond those that were found growing in their native state. His hunts were the last regular occupation that the old man abandoned. He carried the rifle, and threaded the woods with considerable vigor after he had seen a hundred winters; but the game deserted him, under the never-dying process of clearing acre after acre, until little of the native forest was left, with the exception of the reservation of my own, already named, and the pieces of woodland that are almost invariably attached to every American farm, lending to the landscape a relief and beauty that are usually wanting to the views of older countries. It is this peculiarity which gives to so many of the views of the republic, nay, it may be said to all of them, so much of the character of park-scenery when seen at a distance, that excludes the blemishes of a want of finish, and the coarser appliances of husbandry.

With Jaaf, though he had imbibed a strong relish for the forest, and for forest-life, it was different in many respects. Accustomed to labor from childhood, he could not be kept from work, even by his extreme old age. He had the hoe, or the axe, or the spade in his hand daily, many years after he could wield either to any material advantage. The little he did in this way, now, was not done to kill thought, for he never had any to kill; it was purely the effect of habit, and of a craving desire to be Jaaf still, and to act his life over again.

I am sorry to say that neither of these men had any essential knowledge, or any visible feeling for the truths of Christianity. A hundred years ago, little spiritual care was extended to the black, and the difficulty of making an impression in this way on the Indian has become matter of history. Perhaps success best attends such efforts when the pious missionary can penetrate to the retired village, and disseminate his doctrines far from the miserable illustration of their effects, that is to be hourly traced, by the most casual observer, amid the haunts of civilized men. That Christianity does produce a deep and benign influence on our social condition cannot be doubted; but he who is only superficially acquainted with Christian nations, as they are called, and sets about tracing the effects of this influence, meets with so many proofs of a contrary nature, as to feel a strong disposition to doubt the truth of dogmas that seem so impotent. It is quite likely such was the case with Susquesus, who had passed all the earlier years of his exclusive association with the pale-faces, on the flanks of armies, or among hunters, surveyors, runners, and scouts; situations that were not very likely to produce any high notions of moral culture. Nevertheless, many earnest and long-continued efforts had been made to awaken in this aged Indian some notions of the future state of a pale-face, and to persuade him to be baptized. My grandmother, in particular, had kept this end in view for quite half a century, but with no success. The different clergy, of all denominations, had paid more or less attention to this Indian, with the same object, though no visible results had followed their efforts. Among others, Mr. Warren had not overlooked this part of his duty, but he had met with no more success than those who had been before him. Singular as it seemed to some, though I saw nothing strange in it, Mary Warren had joined in this benevolent project with a gentle zeal, and affectionate and tender interest, that promised to achieve more than had been even hoped for these many years by her predecessors in the same kind office. Her visits to the hut had been frequent, and I learned that morning from Patt, that, "though Mary herself never spoke on the subject, enough has been seen by others to leave no doubt that her gentle offices and prayers had, at last, touched, in some slight degree, the marble-like heart of the Trackless."

As for Jaaf, it is possible that it was his misfortune to be a slave in a family that belonged to the Episcopal Church, a sect that is so tempered and chastened in its religious rites, and so far removed from exaggeration, as often to seem cold to those who seek excitement, and fancy quiet and self-control incompatible with a lively faith. "Your priests are unsuited to make converts among the people," said an enthusiastic clergyman of another denomination to me, quite lately. "They cannot go among the brambles and thorns without tearing their gowns and surplices." There may be a certain degree of truth in this, though the obstacle exists rather with the convert than with the missionary. The vulgar love coarse excitement, and fancy that a profound spiritual sensibility must needs awaken a powerful physical sympathy. To such, groans, and sighs, and lamentations must be not only audible to exist at all, but audible in a dramatic and striking form with men, in order to be groans, and sighs, and lamentations acceptable with God. It is certain, at any rate, that the practices which reason, education, a good taste, and a sound comprehension of Christian obligations condemn, are, if not most effective, still effective with the ignorant and coarse-minded. Thus may it have been with Jaaf, who had not fallen into the hands of the exaggerated during that period of life when he was most likely to be aroused by their practices, and who now really seemed to have lived beyond everything but the recollections connected with the persons and things he loved in youth.

As men, in the higher meaning of the term, the reader will remember that Susquesus was ever vastly the superior of the black. Jaaf's intellect had suffered under the blight which seems to have so generally caused the African mind to wither, as we know that mind among ourselves; while that of his associate had ever possessed much of the loftiness of a grand nature, left to its native workings by the impetus of an unrestrained, though savage liberty.

Such were the characters of the two extraordinary men whom we now went forth to meet. By the time we reached the lawn, they were walking slowly toward the piazza, having got within the range of the shrubbery that immediately surrounds, and sheds its perfume on the house. The Indian led, as seemed to become his character and rank. But Jaaf had never presumed on his years and indulgences so far as to forget his condition. A slave he had been born, a slave had he lived, and a slave he would die. This, too, in spite of the law of emancipation, which had, in fact, liberated him long ere he had reached his hundredth year. I have been told that when my father announced to Jaaf the fact that he and all his progeny, the latter of which was very numerous, were free and at liberty to go and do as they pleased, the old black was greatly dissatisfied. "What good dat all do, Masser Malbone," he growled. "Why 'ey won't let well alone? Nigger be nigger, and white gentle'em be white gentle'em. I 'speck, now, nuttin' but disgrace and poverty come on my breed! We always hab been gentle'em's nigger, and why can't 'ey let us be gentle'em's nigger as long as we like? Ole Sus hab liberty all he life, and what good he get? Nuttin' but poor red sabbage, for all dat, and never be anyt'ing more. If he could be gentle'em's sabbage, I tell him, dat war' somet'ing; but, no, he too proud for dat! Gosh! so he only he own sabbage!"

The Onondago was in high costume; much higher even than when he first received the visit of the prairie Indians. The paint he used gave new fire to eyes that age had certainly dimmed, though they had not extinguished their light; and fierce and savage as was the conceit, it unquestionably relieved the furrows of time. That red should be as much the favorite color of the redskin is, perhaps, as natural as that our ladies should use cosmetics to imitate the lilies and roses that are wanting. A grim fierceness, however, was the aim of the Onondago; it being his ambition, at that moment, to stand before his guests in the colors of a warrior. Of the medals and wampum, and feathers, and blankets, and moccasons, gay with the quills of the porcupine, tinged half a dozen hues, and the tomahawk polished to the brightness of silver, it is not necessary to say anything. So much has been said, and written, and seen, of late, on such subjects, that almost every one now knows how the North American warrior appears when he comes forth in his robes.

Nor had Jaaf neglected to do honor to a festival that was so peculiarly in honor of his friend. Grumble he would and did, throughout the whole of that day; but he was not the less mindful of the credit and honor of Susquesus. It is the fashion of the times to lament the disappearance of the red-men from among us; but, for my part, I feel much more disposed to mourn over the disappearance of the "nigger." I use the Doric, in place of the more modern and mincing term of "colored man;" for the Doric alone will convey to the American the meaning in which I wish to be understood. I regret the "nigger;" the old-fashioned, careless, light-hearted, laborious, idle, roguish, honest, faithful, fraudulent, grumbling, dogmatical slave; who was at times good for nothing, and, again, the stay and support of many a family. But him I regret in particular is the domestic slave, who identified himself with the interests, and most of all with the credit of those he served, and who always played the part of an humble privy counsellor, and sometimes that of a prime minister. It is true, I had never seen Jaaf acting in the latter capacity, among us; nor is it probable he ever did exactly discharge such functions with any of his old masters; but he was a much indulged servant always, and had become so completely associated with us, by not only long services, but by playing his part well and manfully in divers of the wild adventures that are apt to characterize the settlement of a new country, that we all of us thought of him rather as an humble and distant relative, than as a slave. Slave, indeed, he had not been for more than fourscore years, his manumission-papers having been signed and regularly recorded as far back as that, though they remained a perfect dead letter, so far as the negro himself was concerned.

The costume of Yop Littlepage, as this black was familiarly called by all who knew anything of his existence, and his great age, as well as that of Susquesus, had gotten into more than one newspaper, was of what might be termed the old school of the "nigger!" The coat was scarlet, with buttons of mother-of-pearl, each as large as a half-dollar; his breeches were sky blue; the vest was green; the stockings striped blue and white, and the legs had no other peculiarities about them than the facts that all that remained of the calves was on the shins, and that they were stepped nearer than is quite common to the centre of the foot; the heel-part of the latter being about half as long as the part connected with the toes. The shoes, indeed, were somewhat conspicuous portions of the dress, having a length, and breadth, and proportions that might almost justify a naturalist in supposing that they were never intended for a human being. But the head and hat, according to Jaaf's own notion, contained the real glories of his toilet and person. As for the last, it was actually laced, having formed a part of my grandfather General Cornelius Littlepage's uniform in the field, and the wool beneath it was as white as the snow of the hills. This style of dress has long disappeared from among the black race, as well as from among the whites; but vestiges of it were to be traced, my uncle tells me, in his boyhood; particularly at the pinkster holidays, that peculiar festival of the negro. Notwithstanding the incongruities of his attire, Yop Littlepage made a very respectable figure on this occasion, the great age of both him and the Onondago being the circumstances that accorded least with their magnificence.

Notwithstanding the habitual grumbling of the negro, the Indian always led when they made a movement. He had led in the forest, on the early hunts and on the war-paths; he had led in their later excursions on the neighboring hills; he always led when it was their wont to stroll to the hamlet together, to witness the militia musters and other similar striking events; he even was foremost when they paid their daily visits to the Nest; and, now, he came a little in advance, slow in movement, quiet, with lips compressed, eye roving and watchful, and far from dim, and his whole features wonderfully composed and noble, considering the great number of years he had seen. Jaaf followed at the same gait, but a very different man in demeanor and aspect. His face scarce seemed human, even the color of his skin, once so glistening and black, having changed to a dirty gray, all its gloss having disappeared, while his lips were, perhaps, the most prominent feature. These, too, were in incessant motion, the old man working his jaws, in a sort of second childhood; or as the infant bites its gums to feel its nearly developed teeth, even when he was not keeping up the almost unceasing accompaniment of his grumbles.

As the old man walked toward us, and the men of the prairies had not yet shown themselves, we all advanced to meet the former. Every one of our party, the girls included, shook hands with Susquesus, and wished him a good morning. He knew my grandmother, and betrayed some strong feeling, when he shook her hand. He knew Patt, and nodded kindly in answer to her good wishes. He knew Mary Warren, too, and held her hand a little time in his own, gazing at her wistfully the while. My uncle Ro and I were also recognized, his look at me being earnest and long. The two other girls were courteously received, but his feelings were little interested in them. A chair was placed for Susquesus on the lawn, and he took his seat. As for Jaaf, he walked slowly up to the party, took off his fine cocked hat, but respectfully refused the seat he too was offered. Happening thus to be the last saluted, he was the first with whom my grandmother opened the discourse.

"It is a pleasant sight, Jaaf, to see you, and our old friend Susquesus, once more on the lawn of the old house."

"Not so berry ole house, Miss Duss, a'ter all," answered the negro, in his grumbling way. "Remem'er him well 'nough; only built tudder day."

"It has been built threescore years, if you call that the other day. I was then young myself; a bride--happy and blessed far beyond my deserts. Alas! how changed have things become since that time!"

"Yes, you won'erful changed--must say dat for you, Miss Duss. I sometime surprise myself so young a lady get change so berry soon."

"Ah! Jaaf, though it may seem a short time to you, who are so much my senior, fourscore years are a heavy load to carry. I enjoy excellent health and spirits for my years: but age will assert its power."

"Remem'er you, Miss Duss, like dat young lady dere," pointing at Patt--"now you do seem won'erful change. Ole Sus, too, berry much alter of late--can't hole out much longer, I do t'ink. But Injin nebber hab much raal grit in 'em."

"And you, my friend," continued my grandmother, turning to Susquesus, who had sat motionless while she was speaking to Jaaf--"do you also see this great change in me? I have known you much longer than I have known Jaaf; and your recollection of me must go back nearly to childhood--to the time when I first lived in the woods, as a companion of my dear, excellent old uncle, Chainbearer."

"Why should Susquesus forget little wren? Hear song now in his ear. No change at all in little wren, in Susquesus's eye."

"This is at least gallant, and worthy of an Onondago chief. But, my worthy friend, age will make its mark even on the trees; and we cannot hope to escape it forever!"

"No; bark smooth on young tree--rough on ole tree. Nebber forget Chainbearer. He's same age as Susquesus--little ole'er, too. Brave warrior--good man. Know him when young hunter--he dere when dat happen."

"When what happened, Susquesus? I have long wished to know what drove you from your people; and why you, a red man in your heart and habits, to the last, should have so long lived among us pale-faces, away from your own tribe. I can understand why you like us, and wish to pass the remainder of your days with this family; for I know all that we have gone through together, and your early connection with my father-in-law, and his father-in-law, too; but the reason why you left your own people so young, and have now lived near a hundred years away from them, is what I could wish to hear, before the angel of death summons one of us away."

While my grandmother was thus coming to the point, for the first time in her life, on this subject, as she afterward told me, the Onondago's eye was never off her own. I thought he seemed surprised; then his look changed to sadness; and bowing his head a little, he sat a long time, apparently musing on the past. The subject had evidently aroused the strongest of the remaining feelings of the old man, and the allusion to it had brought back images of things long gone by, that were probably reviewed not altogether without pain. I think his head must have been bowed, and his face riveted on the ground, for quite a minute.

"Chainbearer nebber say why?" the old man suddenly asked, raising his face again to look at my grandmother. "Ole chief, too--he know; nebber talk of it, eh?"

"Never. I have heard both my uncle and my father-in-law say that they knew the reason why you left your people, so many long, long, years ago, and that it did you credit; but neither ever said more. It is reported here, that these red-men, who have come so far to see you, also know it, and that it is one reason of their coming so much out of their way to pay you a visit."

Susquesus listened attentively, though no portion of his person manifested emotion but his eyes. All the rest of the man seemed to be made of some material that was totally without sensibility; but those restless, keen, still penetrating eyes, opened a communication with the being within, and proved that the spirit was far younger than the tenement in which it dwelt. Still, he made no revelation; and our curiosity, which was getting to be intense, was completely baffled. It was even some little time before the Indian said anything more at all. When he did speak, it was merely to say--

"Good. Chainbearer wise chief--Gin'ral wise, too. Good in camp--good at council-fire. Know when to talk--know what to talk."

How much further my dear grandmother might have been disposed to push the subject, I cannot say, for just then we saw the redskins coming out of their quarters, evidently about to cross from the old farm to the lawn, this being their last visit to the Trackless, preparatory to departing on their long journey to the prairies. Aware of all this, she fell back, and my uncle led Susquesus to the tree where the benches were placed for the guests, I carrying the chair in the rear. Everybody followed, even to all the domestics who could be spared from the ordinary occupations of the household.

The Indian and the negro were both seated; and chairs having been brought out for the members of the family, we took our places near by, though so much in the back ground as not to appear obtrusive.

The Indians of the prairies arrived in their customary marching order, or in single files. Manytongues led, followed by Prairiefire; Flintyheart and Eaglesflight came next, and the rest succeeded in a nameless but perfect order. To our surprise, however, they brought the two prisoners with them, secured with savage ingenuity, and in a way to render escape nearly impossible.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the deportment of these strangers, as they took their allotted places on the benches, it being essentially the same as that described in their first visit. The same interest, however, was betrayed in their manner, nor did their curiosity or veneration appear to be in the least appeased by having passed a day or two in the immediate vicinity of their subject. That this curiosity and veneration proceeded, in some measure, from the great age and the extended experience of the Trackless was probable enough, but I could not divest myself of the idea that there lay something unusual behind all, which tradition had made familiar to these sons of the soil, but which had become lost to us.

The American savage enjoys one great advantage over the civilized man of the same quarter of the world. His traditions ordinarily are true, whereas, the multipled means of imparting intelligence among ourselves has induced so many pretenders to throw themselves into the ranks of the wise and learned, that blessed, thrice blessed is he, whose mind escapes the contamination of falsehood and prejudice. Well would it be for men if they oftener remembered that the very facilities that exist to circulate the truth, are just so many facilities for circulating falsehood; and that he who believes even one-half of that which meets his eyes, in his daily inquiries into passing events, is most apt to throw away quite a moiety of even that much credulity, on facts that either never had an existence at all, or, which have been so mutilated in the relation, that their eye-witnesses would be the last to recognize them.

The customary silence succeeded the arrival of the visitors; then Eaglesflight struck fire with a flint, touched the tobacco with the flame, and puffed at a very curiously carved pipe, made of some soft stone of the interior, until he had lighted it beyond any risk of its soon becoming extinguished. This done, he rose, advanced with profound reverence in his air, and presented it to Susquesus, who took it and smoked for a few seconds, after which he returned it to him from whom it had been received. This was a signal for other pipes to be lighted, and one was offered to my uncle and myself, each of us making a puff or two; and even John and the other male domestics were not neglected. Prairiefire himself paid the compliment to Jaaf. The negro had noted what was passing, and was much disgusted with the niggardliness which required the pipe to be so soon returned. This he did not care to conceal, as was obvious by the crusty observation he made when the pipe was offered to him. Cider and tobacco had from time immemorial been the two great blessings of this black's existence, and he felt at seeing one standing to receive his pipe, after a puff or two, much as he might have felt had one pulled the mug from his mouth, after the second or third swallow.

"No need wait here"--grumbled old Jaaf--"when I done, gib you de pipe, ag'in; nebber fear. Masser Corny, or Masser Malborne, or Masser Hugh--dear me, I nebber knows which be libbin' and which be dead, I get so ole, nowaday! But nebber mind if he be ole; can smoke yet, and don't lub Injin fashion of gibbin' t'ings; and dat is gib him and den take away ag'in. Nigger is nigger, and Injin is Injin; and nigger best. Lord! how many years I do see--I do see--most get tire of libbin' so long. Don't wait, Injin; when I done, you get pipe again, I say. Best not make ole Jaaf too mad, or he dreadful!"

Although it is probable that Prairiefire did not understand one-half of the negro's words, he comprehended his wish to finish the tobacco, before he relinquished the pipe. This was against all rule, and a species of slight on Indian usages, but the red-man overlooked all, with a courtesy of one trained in high society, and walked away as composedly as if everything were right. In these particulars the high-breeding of an Indian is always made apparent. No one ever sees in his deportment, a shrug or a half-concealed smile, or a look of intelligence; a wink or a nod, or any other of that class of signs, or communications, which it is usually deemed underbred to resort to in company. In all things, he is dignified and quiet, whether it be the effect of coldness, or the result of character.

The smoking now became general, but only as a ceremony; no one but Jaaf setting to with regularity to finish his pipe. As for the black, his opinion of the superiority of his own race over that of the red-man, was as fixed as his consciousness of his inferiority to the white, and he would have thought the circumstance that the present mode of using tobacco was an Indian custom, a sufficient reason why he himself should not adopt it. The smoking did not last long, but was succeeded by a silent pause. Then Prairiefire arose and spoke.

"Father," he commenced, "we are about to quit you. Our squaws and pappooses, on the prairies, wish to see us; it is time for us to go. They are looking toward the great salt lake for us; we are looking toward the great fresh-water lakes for them. There the sun sets--here it rises; the distance is great, and many strange tribes of pale-faces live along the path. Our journey has been one of peace. We have not hunted; we have taken no scalps; but we have seen our great father, uncle Sam, and we have seen our great father Susquesus; we shall travel toward the setting sun satisfied. Father, our traditions are true; they never lie. A lying tradition is worse than a lying Indian. What a lying Indian says, deceives his friends, his wife, his children; what a lying tradition says, deceives a tribe. Our traditions are true; they speak of the Upright Onondago. All the tribes on the prairies have heard this tradition, and are very glad. It is good to hear of justice; it is bad to hear of injustice. Without justice an Indian is no better than a wolf. No; there is not a tongue spoken on the prairies which does not tell of that pleasant tradition. We could not pass the wigwam of our father without turning aside to look at him. Our squaws and pappooses wish to see us, but they would have told us to come back, and turn aside to look upon our father, had we forgotten to do so. Why has my father seen so many winters? It is the will of the Manitou. The Great Spirit wants to keep him here a little longer. He is like stones piled together to tell the hunters where the pleasant path is to be found. All the red-men who see him think of what is right. No; the Great Spirit cannot yet spare my father from the earth, lest red-men forget what is right. He is stones piled together."

Here Prairiefire ceased, sitting down amid a low murmur of applause. He had expressed the common feeling, and met with the success usual to such efforts. Susquesus had heard and understood all that was said, and I could perceive that he felt it, though he betrayed less emotion on this occasion than he had done on the occasion of the previous interview. Then, the novelty of the scene, no doubt, contributed to influence his feelings. A pause followed this opening speech, and we were anxiously waiting for the renowned orator Eaglesflight, to rise, when a singular and somewhat ludicrous interruption of the solemn dignity of the scene occurred. In the place of Eaglesflight whom Manytongues had given us reason to expect would now come forth with energy and power, a much younger warrior arose and spoke, commanding the attention of his listeners in a way to show that he possessed their respect. We were told that the young warrior's name, rendered into English, was Deersfoot, an appellation obtained on account of his speed, and which we were assured he well merited. Much to our surprise, however, he addressed himself to Jaaf, Indian courtesy requiring that something should be said to the constant friend and tried associate of the Trackless. The reader may be certain we were all much amused at this bit of homage, though every one of us felt some little concern on the subject of the answer it might elicit. Deersfoot delivered himself, substantially, as follows:--

"The Great Spirit sees all things; he makes all things. In his eyes, color is nothing. Although he made children that he loved of a red color, he made children that he loved with pale faces, too. He did not stop there. No; he said, 'I wish to see warriors and men with faces darker than the skin of the bear. I will have warriors who shall frighten their enemies by their countenances.' He made black men. My father is black; his skin is neither red, like the skin of Susquesus, nor white, like the skin of the young chief of Ravensnest. It is now gray, with having had the sun shine on it so many summers; but it was once the color of the crow. Then it must have been pleasant to look at. My black father is very old. They tell me he is even older than the Upright Onondago. The Manitou must be well pleased with him, not to have called him away sooner. He has left him in his wigwam, that all the black men may see whom their Great Spirit loves. This is the tradition told to us by our fathers. The pale men come from the rising sun, and were born before the heat burned their skins. The black men came from under the sun at noon-day, and their faces were darkened by looking up above their heads to admire the warmth that ripened their fruits. The red men were born under the setting sun, and their faces were colored by the hues of the evening skies. The red man was born here; the pale man was born across the salt lake; the black man came from a country of his own, where the sun is always above his head. What of that? We are brothers. The Thicklips (this was the name by which the strangers designated Jaaf, as we afterward learned) is the friend of Susquesus. They have lived in the same wigwam, now, so many winters, that their venison and bear's-meat have the same taste. They love one another. Whomsoever Susquesus loves and honors, all just Indians love and honor. I have no more to say."

It is very certain that Jaaf would not have understood a syllable that was uttered in this address, had not Manytongues first given him to understand that Deersfoot was talking to him in particular, and then translated the speaker's language, word for word, and with great deliberation, as each sentence was finished. Even this care might not have sufficed to make the negro sensible of what was going on, had not Patt gone to him, and told him, in a manner and voice to which he was accustomed, to attend to what was said, and to endeavor, as soon as Deersfoot sat down, to say something in reply. Jaaf was so accustomed to my sister, and was so deeply impressed with the necessity of obeying her, as one of his many "y'ung missuses"--which he scarcely knew himself--that she succeeded in perfectly arousing him; and he astonished us all with the intelligence of his very characteristic answer, which he did not fail to deliver exactly as he had been directed to do. Previously to beginning to speak, the negro champed his toothless gums together, like a vexed swine; but "y'ung missus" had told him he must answer, and answer he did. It is probable, also, that the old fellow had some sort of recollection of such scenes, having been present, in his younger days, at various councils held by the different tribes of New York; among whom my grandfather, General Mordaunt Littlepage, had more than once been a commissioner.

"Well," Jaaf began, in a short, snappish manner, "s'pose nigger must say somet'in'. No berry great talker, 'cause I no Injin. Nigger had too much work to do, to talk all 'e time. What you say 'bout where nigger come from, isn't true. He come from Africa, as I hear 'em say, 'long time ago. Ahs, me! how ole I do get! Sometimes I t'ink poor ole black man be nebber to lie down and rest himself. It do seem dat ebberybody take his rest but old Sus and me. I berry strong, yet; and git stronger and stronger, dough won'erful tired; but Sus, he git weaker and weaker ebbery day. Can't last long, now, poor Sus! Ebbery body must die some time. Ole, ole, ole masser and missus, fust dey die. Den Masser Corny go; putty well adwanced, too. Den come Masser Mordaunt's turn, and Masser Malbone, and now dere anudder Masser Hugh. Well, dey putty much all de same to me. I lubs 'em all and all on 'em lubs me. Den Miss Duss count for somet'in', but she be libbin', yet. Most time she die, too, but don't seem to go. Ahs, me! how ole I do git! Ha! dere come dem debbils of Injins, ag'in, and dis time we must clean 'em out! Get your rifle, Sus; get your rifle, boy, and mind dat ole Jaaf be at your elbow."

Sure enough, there the Injins did come; but I must reserve an account of what followed for the commencement of the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"Hope--that thy wrongs will be by the Great Spirit
Remembered and revenged when thou art gone;
Sorrow--that none are left thee to inherit
Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne."

--Red Jacket.

It was a little remarkable that one as old and blear-eyed as the negro, should be the first among us to discover the approach of a large body of the Injins, who could not be less than two hundred in number. The circumstance was probably owing to the fact that, while every other eye was riveted on the speaker, his eyes were fastened on nothing. There the Injins did come, however, in force; and this time apparently without fear. The white American meets the red-man with much confidence, when he is prepared for the struggle; and the result has shown that, when thrown upon his resources in the wilderness, and after he has been allowed time to gain a little experience, he is usually the most formidable enemy. But a dozen Indians, of the stamp of those who had here come to visit us, armed and painted, and placed in the centre of one of our largest peopled counties, would be sufficient to throw that county into a paroxysm of fear. Until time were given for thought, and the opinions of the judicious superseded the effects of rumor, nothing but panic would prevail. Mothers would clasp their children to their bosoms, fathers would hold back their sons from the slaughter, and even the heroes of the militia would momentarily forget their ardor in the suggestions of prudence and forethought.

Such, in fact, had been the state of things in and about Ravensnest, when Flintyheart so unexpectedly led his companions into the forest, and dispersed the virtuous and oppressed tenants of my estate on their return from a meeting held with but one virtuous object; viz., that of transferring the fee of the farms they occupied from me to themselves. No one doubted, at the moment, that in addition to the other enormities committed by me and mine, I had obtained a body of savages from the far west to meet the forces already levied by the tenants, on a principle that it would not do to examine very clearly. If I had done so, I am far from certain that I should not have been perfectly justified in morals; for an evil of that nature, that might at any time be put down in a month, and which is suffered to exist for years, through the selfish indifference of the community, restores to every man his natural rights of self-defence; though I make no doubt had I resorted to such means, I should have been hanged, without benefit of philanthropists; the "clergy" in this country not being included in the class, so far as suspension by the neck is concerned.

But the panic had disappeared, as soon as the truth became known concerning the true object of the visit of the redskins. The courage of the "virtuous and honest" revived, and one of the first exhibitions of this renewed spirit was the attempt to set fire to my house and barns. So serious a demonstration, it was thought, would convince me of the real power of the people, and satisfy us all that their wishes are not to be resisted with impunity. As no one likes to have his house and barns burned, it must be a singular being who could withstand the influence of such a manifestation of the "spirit of the institutions;" for it is just as reasonable to suppose that the attempts of the incendiaries came within their political category, as it is to suppose that the attempt of the tenants to get a title beyond what was bestowed in their leases, was owing to this cause.

That habit of deferring to externals, which is so general in a certain class of our citizens, and which endures in matters of religion long after the vital principle is forgotten, prevented any serious outbreak on the next day, which was the Sunday mentioned; though the occasion was improved to coerce by intimidation, the meeting and resolutions having been regularly digested in secret conclave among the local leaders of anti-rentism, and carried out, as has been described. Then followed the destruction of the canopy, another demonstration of the "spirit of the institutions," and as good an argument as any that has yet been offered, in favor of the dogmas of the new political faith. Public opinion is entitled to some relief, surely, when it betrays so much excitement as to desecrate churches and to destroy private property. This circumstance of the canopy had been much dwelt on, as a favorable anti-rent argument, and it might now be considered that the subject was carried out to demonstration.

By the time all this was effected, so completely had the "Injins" got over their dread of the Indians, that it was with difficulty the leaders of the former could prevent the most heroic portion of their corps from following their blow at the canopy by a coup de main against the old farm-house and its occupants. Had not the discretion of the leaders been greater than that of their subordinates, it is very probable blood would have been shed between these quasi belligerents. But the warriors of the prairies were the guests of Uncle Sam, and the old gentleman, after all, has a long arm, and can extend it from Washington to Ravensnest without much effort. He was not to be offended heedlessly, therefore; for his power was especially to be dreaded in this matter of the covenants, without which Injins and agitation would be altogether unnecessary to attaining the great object, the Albany politicians being so well disposed to do all they can for the "virtuous and honest." Uncle Sam's Indians, consequently, were held a good deal more in respect than the laws of the State, and they consequently escaped being murdered in their sleep.

When Jaaf first drew our attention to the Injins, they were advancing in a long line, by the highway, and at a moderate pace; leaving us time to shift our own position, did we deem it necessary. My uncle was of opinion it would never do to remain out on the lawn, exposed to so great a superiority of force, and he took his measures accordingly. In the first place, the females, mistresses and maids--and there were eight or ten of the last--were requested to retire, at once, to the house. The latter, with John at their head, were directed to close all the lower outside shutters of the building, and secure them within. This done, and the gate and two outer doors fastened, it would not be altogether without hazard to make an assault on our fortress. As no one required a second request to move, this part of the precaution was soon effected, and the house placed in a species of temporary security.

While the foregoing was in the course of execution, Susquesus and Jaaf were induced to change their positions, by transferring themselves to the piazza. That change was made, and the two old fellows were comfortably seated in their chairs again before a single man of the redskins moved a foot. There they all remained, motionless as so many statues, with the exception that Flintyheart seemed to be reconnoitring with his eyes the thicket that fringed the neighboring ravine, and which formed a bit of dense cover, as already described, of some considerable extent.

"Do you wish the redskins in the house, colonel?" asked the interpreter, coolly, when matters had reached to this pass; "if you do, it's time to speak, or they'll soon be off, like a flock of pigeons, into that cover. There'll be a fight as sartain as they move, for there's no more joke and making of faces about them critturs than there is about a mile-stone. So it's best to speak in time."

No delay occurred after this hint was given. The request of my uncle Ro that the chiefs would follow the Upright Onondago was just in time to prevent a flight; in the sense of Manytongues, I mean, for it was not very likely these warriors would literally run away. It is probable that they would have preferred the cover of the woods as more natural and familiar to them--but I remarked, as the whole party came on the piazza, that Flintyheart, in particular, cast a quick, scrutinizing glance at the house, which said in pretty plain language that he was examining its capabilities as a work of defence. The movement, however, was made with perfect steadiness; and, what most surprised us all, was the fact that not one of the chiefs appeared to pay the slightest attention to their advancing foes; or men whom it was reasonable for them to suppose so considered themselves to be. We imputed this extraordinary reserve to force of character, and a desire to maintain a calm and dignified deportment in the presence of Susquesus. If it were really the latter motive that so completely restrained every exhibition of impatience, apprehension, or disquietude, they had every reason to congratulate themselves on the entire success of their characteristic restraint on their feelings.

The Injins were just appearing on the lawn as our arrangements were completed. John had come to report every shutter secure, and the gate and little door barred. He also informed us that all the men and boys who could be mustered, including gardeners, laborers, and stable people, to the number of five or six, were in the little passage, armed; where rifles were ready also for ourselves. In short, the preparations that had been made by my grandmother, immediately after her arrival, were now of use, and enabled us to make much more formidable resistance, sustained as we were by the party from the prairies, than I could have ever hoped for on so sudden an emergency.

Our arrangement was very simple. The ladies were seated near the great door, in order that they might be placed under cover the first, in the event of necessity; Susquesus and Jaaf had their chairs a little on one side, but quite near this group, and the men from the far west occupied the opposite end of the piazza, whither the benches had been removed, for their accommodation. Manytongues stood between the two divisions of our company, ready to interpret for either; while my uncle, myself, John, and two or three of the other servants took position behind our aged friends. Seneca and his fellow-incendiary were in the midst of the chiefs.

It was just as the Injins had got fairly on the lawn that we heard the clattering of hoofs, and every eye was turned in the direction whence the sound proceeded. This was on the side of the ravine, and to me it seemed from the first that some one was approaching us through that dell. So it proved, truly; for soon Opportunity came galloping up the path, and appeared in sight. She did not check her horse until under the tree, where she alighted, by a single bound, and hitching the animal to a hook in the tree, she moved swiftly toward the house. My sister Patt advanced to the steps of the piazza to receive this unexpected guest, and I was just behind her to make my bow. But the salutations of Opportunity were hasty and far from being very composed. She glanced around her, ascertained the precise condition of her brother--and, taking my arm, she led me into the library with very little, or, indeed, with no ceremony; for, to give this young woman her due, she was a person of great energy when there was anything serious to be done. The only sign of deviating, in the slightest degree, from the object in view, was pausing, one instant, in passing, to make her compliments to my grandmother.

"What, in the name of wonder, do you mean to do with Sen?" demanded this active young lady, looking at me intently, with an expression half-hostile, half-tender. "You are standing over an earthquake, Mr. Hugh, if you did but know it."

Opportunity had confounded the effect with the cause, but that was of little moment on an occasion so interesting. She was much in earnest, and I had learned by experience that her hints and advice might be of great service to us at the Nest.

"To what particular danger do you allude, my dear Opportunity?"

"Ah, Hugh! if things was only as they used to be, how happy might we all be together here at Ravensnest! But, there is no time to talk of such things; for, as Sarah Soothings says, 'the heart is most monopolized when grief is the profoundest, and it is only when our sentiments rise freely to the surface of the imagination, that the mind escapes the shackles of thraldom.' But I haven't a minute for Sarah Soothings, even, just now. Don't you see the Injins?"

"Quite plainly, and they probably see my 'Indians.'"

"Oh! they don't regard them now the least in the world. At first, when they thought you might have hired a set of desperate wretches to scalp the folks, there was some misgivings; but the whole story is now known, and nobody cares a straw about them. If anybody's scalp is taken, 'twill be their own. Why, the whole country is up, and the report has gone forth, far and near, that you have brought in with you a set of blood-thirsty savages from the prairies to cut the throats of women and children, and drive off the tenants, that you may get all the farms into your own hands before the lives fall in. Some folks say, these savages have had a list of all the lives named in your leases given to them, and that they are to make way with all such people first, that you may have the law as much as possible on your side. You stand on an earthquake, Mr. Hugh; you do, indeed!"

"My dear Opportunity," I answered, laughing, "I am infinitely obliged to you for all this attention to my interests, and freely own that on Saturday night you were of great service to me; but I must now think that you magnify the danger--that you color the picture too high."

"Not in the least, I do protest, you stand on an earthquake; and as your friend, I have ridden over here to tell you as much, while there is yet time."

"To get off it, I suppose you mean. But how can all these evil and blood-thirsty reports be abroad, when the characters of the Western Indians are, as you own yourself, understood, and the dread of them that did exist in the town has entirely vanished? There is a contradiction in this."

"Why, you know how it is, in anti-rent times. When an excitement is needed, folks don't stick at facts very closely, but repeat things, and make things, just as it happens to be convenient."

"True; I can understand this, and have no difficulty in believing you now. But have you come here this morning simply to let me know the danger which besets me from this quarter?"

"I believe I'm always only too ready to gallop over to the Nest! But everybody has some weakness or other, and I suppose I am to be no exception to the rule," returned Opportunity, who doubtless fancied the moment propitious to throw in a volley toward achieving her great conquest, and who reinforced that volley of words with such a glance of the eye, as none but a most practised picaroon on the sea of flirtation could have thrown. "But, Hugh--I call you Hugh, Mr. Littlepage, for you seem more like Hugh to me, than like the proud, evil-minded aristocrat, and hard-hearted landlord, that folks want to make you out to be--but I never could have told you what I did last night, had I supposed it would bring Sen into this difficulty."

"I can very well understand how unpleasantly you are situated as respects your brother, Opportunity, and your friendly services will not be forgotten in the management of his affairs."

"If you are of this mind, why won't you suffer these Injins to get him out of the hands of your real savages," returned Opportunity, coaxingly. "I'll promise for him that Sen will go off, and stay off for some months, if you insist on't; when all is forgotten, he can come back again."

"Is the release of your brother, then, the object of this visit from the Injins?"

"Partly so--they're bent on having him. He's in all the secrets of the anti-renters, and they're afraid for their very lives, so long as he's in your hands. Should he get a little scared, and give up only one-quarter of what he knows, there'd be no peace in the county for a twelvemonth."

At this instant, and before there was time to make an answer, I was summoned to the piazza, the Injins approaching so near as to induce my uncle to step to the door and call my name in a loud voice. I was compelled to quit Opportunity, who did not deem it prudent to show herself among us, though her presence in the house, as an intercessor for her brother, could excite neither surprise nor resentment.

When I reached the piazza, the Injins had advanced as far as the tree where we had first been posted, and there they had halted, seemingly for a conference. In their rear, Mr. Warren was walking hurriedly toward us, keeping the direct line, regardless of those whom we well knew to be inimical to him, and intent only on reaching the house before it could be gained by the "disguised and armed." This little circumstance gave rise to an incident of touching interest, and which I cannot refrain from relating, though it may interrupt the narration of matters that others may possibly think of more moment.

Mr. Warren did not pass directly through the crowd of rioters--for such those people were, in effect, unless the epithet should be changed to the still more serious one of rebels--but he made a little detour, in order to prevent a collision that was unnecessary. When about half-way between the tree and the piazza, however, the Injins gave a discordant yell, and many of them sprang forward, as if in haste to overtake, and probably to arrest him. Just as we all involuntarily arose, under a common feeling of interest in the fate of the good rector, Mary darted from the piazza, was at her father's side and in his arms so quickly, as to seem to have flown there. Clinging to his side, she appeared to urge him toward us. But Mr. Warren adopted a course much wiser than that of flight would have been. Conscious of having said or done no more than his duty, he stopped and faced his pursuers. The act of Mary Warren had produced a check to the intended proceedings of these lawless men, and the calm, dignified aspect of the divine completed his conquest. The leaders of the Injins paused, conferred together, when all who had issued from the main body returned to their companions beneath the tree, leaving Mr. Warren and his charming daughter at liberty to join us unmolested, and with decorum.

The instant Mary Warren left the piazza on her pious errand, I sprang forward to follow her with an impulse I could not control. Although my own power over this impulsive movement was so small, that of my uncle and grandmother was greater. The former seized the skirt of my frock, and held me back by main strength, while the light touch of the latter had even greater power. Both remonstrated, and with so much obvious justice, that I saw the folly of what I was about in an instant, and abandoned my design. Had I fallen into the hands of the anti-renters, their momentary triumph, at least, would have been complete.

Mr. Warren ascended the steps of the piazza with a mien as unaltered, and an air as undisturbed, as if about to enter his own church. The good old gentleman had so schooled his feelings, and was so much accustomed to view himself as especially protected, or as so ready to suffer, when in the discharge of any serious duty, that I have had occasions to ascertain fear was unknown to him. As for Mary, never had she appeared so truly lovely, as she ascended the steps, still clinging fondly and confidingly to his arm. The excitement of such a scene had brought more than the usual quantity of blood into her face, and the brilliancy of her eyes was augmented by that circumstance, perhaps; but I fancied that a more charming picture of feminine softness, blended with the self-devotion of the child, could not have been imagined by the mind of man.

Patt, dear, generous girl, sprang forward to embrace her friend, which she did with warmth and honest fervor, and my venerable grandmother kissed her on both cheeks, while the other two girls were not backward in giving the customary signs of the sympathy of their sex. My uncle Ro even went so far as gallantly to kiss her hand, causing the poor girl's face to be suffused with blushes, while poor Hugh was obliged to keep in the background, and content himself with looking his admiration. I got one glance, however, from the sweet creature, that was replete with consolation, since it assured me that my forbearance was understood, and attributed to its right motive.

In that singular scene, the men of the prairies alone appeared to be unmoved. Even the domestics and workmen had betrayed a powerful interest in this generous act of Mary Warren's, the females all screaming in chorus, very much as a matter of course. But, not an Indian moved. Scarce one turned his eyes from the countenance of Susquesus, though all must have been conscious that something of interest was going on so near them, by the concern we betrayed; and all certainly knew that their enemies were hard by. As respects the last, I have supposed the unconcern, or seeming unconcern of these western warriors, ought to be ascribed to the circumstance of the presence of the ladies, and an impression that there could be no very imminent risk of hostilities while the company then present remained together. The apathy of the chiefs seemed to be extended to the interpreter, who was coolly lighting his pipe at the very moment when the whole affair of the Warren episode occurred; an occupation that was not interrupted by the clamor and confusion among ourselves.

As there was a delay in the nearer approach of the Injins, there was leisure to confer together for a moment. Mr. Warren told us, therefore, that he had seen the "disguised and armed" pass the rectory, and had followed in order to act as a mediator between us and any contemplated harm.

"The destruction of the canopy of Hugh's pew must have given you a serious intimation that things were coming to a head," observed my grandmother.

Mr. Warren had not heard of the affair of the canopy, at all. Although living quite within sound of a hammer used in the church, everything had been conducted with so much management, that the canopy had been taken down, and removed bodily, without any one in the rectory's knowing the fact. The latter had become known at the Nest, solely by the circumstance that the object which had so lately canopied aristocracy in St. Andrew's, Ravensrest, was now canopying pigs up at the farm house. The good divine expressed his surprise a little strongly, and, as I thought, his regrets a little indifferently. He was not one to countenance illegality and violence, and least of all that peculiarly American vice, envy; but, on the other hand, he was not one to look with favor on the empty distinctions, as set up between men equally sinners and in need of grace to redeem them from a common condemnation, in the house of God. As the grave is known to be the great leveller of the human race, so ought the church to be used as a preparatory step in descending to the plain all must occupy, in spirit at least, before they can hope to be elevated to any, even of the meanest places, among the many mansions of our Father's bosom!

There was but a short breathing time given us, however, before the Injins again advanced. It was soon evident they did not mean to remain mere idle spectators of the scene that was in the course of enactment on the piazza, but that it was their intention to become actors, in some mode or other. Forming themselves into a line, that savored a great deal more of the militia of this great republic than of the warriors of the West, they came on tramping, with the design of striking terror into our souls. Our arrangements were made, however, and on our part everything was conducted just as one could have wished. The ladies, influenced by my grandmother, retained their seats, near the door; the men of the household were standing, but continued stationary, while not an Indian stirred. As for Susquesus, he had lived far beyond surprises and all emotions of the lower class, and the men of the prairies appeared to take their cues from him. So long as he continued immovable, they seemed disposed to remain immovable also.

The distance between the tree and the piazza, did not much exceed a hundred yards, and little time was necessary to march across it. I remarked, however, that, contrary to the laws of attraction, the nearer the Injins' line got to its goal, the slower and more unsteady its movement became. It also lost its formation, bending into curves, though its tramps became louder and louder, as if those who were in it, wished to keep alive their own courage by noise. When within fifty feet of the steps, they ceased to advance at all merely, stamping with their feet, as if hoping to frighten us into flight. I thought this a favorable moment to do that which it had been decided between my uncle and myself ought to be done by me, as owner of the property these lawless men had thus invaded. Stepping to the front of the piazza, I made a sign for attention. The tramping ceased all at once, and I had a profound silence for my speech.

"You know me, all of you," I said, quietly I know, and I trust firmly; "and you know, therefore, that I am the owner of this house and these lands. As such owner, I order every man among you to quit the place, and to go into the highway, or upon the property of some other person. Whoever remains, after this notice, will be a trespasser, and the evil done by a trespasser is doubly serious in the eyes of the law."

I uttered these words loud enough to be heard by everybody present, but I cannot pretend that they were attended by much success. The calico bundles turned toward each other, and there was an appearance of a sort of commotion, but the leaders composed the people, the omnipotent people in this instance, as they do in most others. The sovereignty of the mass is a capital thing as a principle, and once in a long while it evinces a great good in practice; in a certain sense, it is always working good, by holding a particular class of most odious and intolerable abuses in check; but as for the practice of every-day political management, their imperial majesties, the sovereigns of America, of whom I happen to be one, have quite as little connection with the measures they are made to seem to demand, and to sustain, as the Nawab of Oude; if the English, who are so disinterested as to feel a generous concern for the rights of mankind, whenever the great republic adds a few acres to the small paternal homestead, have left any such potentate in existence.

So it was with the decision of the "disguised and armed," on the occasion I am describing. They decided that no other notice should be taken of my summons to quit, than a contemptuous yell, though they had to ascertain from their leaders what they had decided before they knew themselves. The shout was pretty general, notwithstanding, and it had one good effect; that of satisfying the Injins themselves, that they had made a clear demonstration of their contempt of my authority, which they fancied victory sufficient for the moment; nevertheless, the demonstration did not end exactly here. Certain cries, and a brief dialogue, succeeded, which it may be well to record.

"King Littlepage," called out one, from among the "disguised and armed," "what has become of your throne? St. Andrew's meeting-'us' has lost its monarch's throne!"

"His pigs have set up for great aristocrats of late; presently they'll want to be patroons."

"Hugh Littlepage, be a man; come down to a level with your fellow-citizens, and don't think yourself any better than other folks. You're but flesh and blood, a'ter all."

"Why don't you invite me to come and dine with you as well as priest Warren? I can eat, as well as any man in the country, and as much."

"Yes, and he'll drink, too, Hugh Littlepage; so provide your best liquor the day he's to be invited."

All this passed for wit among the Injins, and among that portion of the "virtuous and honest and hard-working," who not only kept them on foot, but on this occasion kept them company also; it having since been ascertained that about one-half of that band was actually composed of the tenants of the Ravensnest farms. I endeavored to keep myself cool, and succeeded pretty well, considering the inducements there were to be angry. Argument with such men was out of the question--and knowing their numbers and physical superiority, they held my legal rights in contempt.

What was probably worse than all, they knew that the law itself was administered by the people, and that they had little to apprehend, and did apprehend virtually nothing from any of the pains and penalties it might undertake to inflict, should recourse be had to it at any future day. Ten or a dozen wily agents sent through the country to circulate lies, and to visit the county town previously to, and during a trial, in order to raise a party that will act more or less directly on the minds of the jurors, with a newspaper or two to scatter untruths and prejudices, would at least be as effective, at the critical moment, as the law, the evidence, and the right. As for the judges, and their charges, they have lost most of their influence, under the operation of this nefarious system, and count but for very little in the administration of justice either at Nisi Prius or at Oyer Terminer. These are melancholy truths, that any man who quits his theories and descends into the arena of practice will soon ascertain to be such, to his wonder and alarm, if he be a novice and an honest man. A portion of this unhappy state of things is a consequence of the legislative tinkering that has destroyed one of the most healthful provisions of the common law, in prohibiting the judges to punish for contempt, unless for outrages committed in open court. The press, in particular, now profits by this impunity, and influences the decision of nearly every case that can at all enlist public feeling. All these things men feel, and few who are wrong care for the law; for those who are right, it is true, there is still some danger. My uncle Ro says America is no more like what America was in this respect twenty years since, than Kamtschatka is like Italy. For myself, I wish to state the truth; exaggerating nothing, nor yet taking refuge in a dastardly concealment.

Unwilling to be browbeaten on the threshold of my own door, I determined to say something ere I returned to my place. Men like these before me can never understand that silence proceeds from contempt; and I fancied it best to make some sort of a reply to the speeches I have recorded, and to twenty more of the same moral calibre. Motioning for silence, I again obtained it.

"I have ordered you to quit my lawn, in the character of its owner," I said, "and, by remaining, you make yourselves trespassers. As for what you have done to my pew, I should thank you for it, had it not been done in violation of the right; for it was fully my intention to have that canopy removed as soon as the feeling about it had subsided. I am as much opposed to distinctions of any sort in the house of God as any of you can be, and desire them not for myself, or any belonging to me. I ask for nothing but equal rights with all my fellow-citizens; that my property should be as much protected as theirs, but not more so. But I do not conceive that you or any man has a right to ask to share in my world's goods any more than I have a right to ask to share in his; that you can more justly claim a portion of my lands than I can claim a share in your cattle and crops. It is a poor rule that does not work both ways."

"You're an aristocrat," cried one from among the Injins, "or you'd be willing to let other men have as much land as you've got yourself. You're a patroon; and all patroons are aristocrats and hateful."

"An aristocrat," I answered, "is one of a few who wield political power. The highest birth, the largest fortune, the most exclusive association would not make an aristocrat, without the addition of a narrow political power. In this country there are no aristocrats, because there is no narrow political power. There is, however, a spurious aristocracy which you do not recognize, merely because it does not happen to be in the hands of gentlemen. Demagogues and editors are your privileged classes, and consequently your aristocrats, and none others. As for your landlord aristocrats, listen to a true tale, which will satisfy you how far they deserve to be called an aristocracy. Mark! what I now tell you is religious truth, and it deserves to be known far and near, wherever your cry of aristocracy reaches. There is a landlord in this State, a man of large means, who became liable for the debts of another to a considerable amount. At the very moment when his rents could not be collected, owing to your interference and the remissness of those in authority to enforce the laws, the sheriff entered his house and sold its contents, in order to satisfy an execution against him! There is American aristocracy for you, and, I am sorry to add, American justice, as justice has got to be administered among us."

I was not disappointed in the effect of this narration of what is a sober truth. Wherever I have told it, it has confounded even the most brawling demagogue, and momentarily revived in his breast some of those principles of right which God originally planted there. American aristocracy, in sooth! Fortunate is the gentleman that can obtain even a reluctant and meagre justice.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"How far that little candle throws his beams,
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

--Shakespeare.

I have said that my narrative of the manner in which justice is sometimes meted out among us was not without its effect on even that rude band of selfish and envious rioters: rude, because setting at naught reason and the law; and selfish, because induced so to do by covetousness, and the desire to substitute the tenants for those whom they fancied to be better off in the world than they were themselves. A profound stillness succeeded; and after the bundles of calico had whispered one with another for a moment or two, they remained quiet, seemingly indisposed, just then at least, to molest us any farther. I thought the moment favorable, and fell back to my old station, determined to let things take their own course. This change, and the profound stillness that succeeded, brought matters back to the visit of the Indians, and its object.

During the whole time occupied by the advance of the "Injins," the men of the prairies and Susquesus had continued nearly as motionless as so many statues. It is true that the eyes of Flintyheart were on the invaders, but he managed to take good heed of them without betraying any undue uneasiness or care. Beyond this, I do affirm that I scarce noted a single sign of even vigilance among these extraordinary beings; though Manytongues afterward gave me to understand that they knew very well what they were about; and then I could not be watching the red-men the whole time. Now that there was a pause, however, everybody and thing seemed to revert to the original visit, as naturally as if no interruption had occurred. Manytongues, by the way of securing attention, called on the Injins, in an authoritative voice, to offer no interruption to the proceedings of the chiefs, which had a species of religious sanctity, and were not to be too much interfered with, with impunity.

"So long as you keep quiet, my warriors will not molest you," he added; "but if any man amongst you has ever been on the prer-ies, he must understand enough of the nature of a redskin to know that when he's in 'airnest he is in 'airnest. Men who are on a journey three thousand miles in length, don't turn aside for trifles, which is a sign that serious business has brought these chiefs here."

Whether it was that this admonition produced an effect, or that curiosity influenced the "disguised and armed," or that they did not choose to proceed to extremities, or that all three considerations had their weight, is more than I can say; but it is certain the whole band remained stationary, quiet and interested observers of what now occurred, until an interruption took place, which will be related in proper time. Manytongues, who had posted himself near the centre of the piazza, to interpret, now signified to the chiefs that they might pursue their own purposes in tranquillity. After a decent pause, the same young warrior who had "called up" Jaaf, in the first instance, now rose again, and with a refinement in politeness that would be looked for in vain in most of the deliberative bodies of civilized men, adverted to the circumstance that the negro had not finished his address, and might have matter on his mind of which he wished to be delivered. This was said simply, but distinctly; and it was explained to the negro by Manytongues, who assured him not one among all the chiefs would say a word until the last person "on his legs" had an opportunity of finishing his address. This reserve marks the deportment of those whom we call savages; men that have their own fierce, and even ruthless customs, beyond all controversy, but who possess certain other excellent qualities that do not appear to flourish in the civilized state.

It was with a good deal of difficulty that we got old Jaaf up again; for, though a famous grumbler, he was not much of an orator. As it was understood that no chief would speak, however, until the black had exhausted his right, my dear Patt had to go, and laying one of her ivory-looking hands on the shoulder of the grim old negro, persuade him to rise and finish his speech. He knew her, and she succeeded; it being worthy of remark, that while this aged black scarce remembered for an hour what occurred, confounding dates fearfully, often speaking of my grandmother as Miss Dus, and as if she were still a girl, he knew every one of the family then living, and honored and loved us accordingly, at the very moments he would fancy we had been present at scenes that occurred when our great-grandparents were young people. But to the speech--

"What all them fellow want, bundle up in calico, like so many squaw?" growled out Jaaf, as soon as on his legs, and looking intently at the Injins, ranged as they were in a line four deep, quite near the piazza. "Why you let 'em come, Masser Hugh, Masser Hodge, Masser Malbone, Masser Mordaunt--which you be here, now, I don't know, dere so many, and it so hard to 'member ebberyt'ing? Oh! I so ole!--I do won'er when my time come! Dere Sus, too, he good for nuttin' at all. Once he great walker--great warrior--great hunter--pretty good fellow for redskin; but he quite wore out. Don't see much use why he lib any longer. Injin good for nuttin' when he can't hunt. Sometime he make basket and broom; but they uses better broom now, and Injin lose dat business. What dem calico debbil want here, eh, Miss Patty? Dere redskin, too--two, t'ree, four--all come to see Sus. Won'er nigger don't come to see me! Ole black good as ole red-man. Where dem fellow get all dat calico, and put over deir faces? Masser Hodge, what all dat mean?"

"These are anti-renters, Jaaf," my uncle coldly answered. "Men that wish to own your Master Hugh's farms, and relieve him from the trouble of receiving any more rent. They cover their faces, I presume, to conceal their blushes, the modesty of their nature sinking under the sense of their own generosity."

Although it is not very probable that Jaaf understood the whole of the speech, he comprehended a part; for, so thoroughly had his feelings been aroused on this subject, a year or two earlier, when his mind was not quite so much dimmed as at present, that the impression made was indelible. The effect of what my uncle said, nevertheless, was most apparent among the Injins, who barely escaped an outbreak. My uncle has been blamed for imprudence, in having resorted to irony on such an occasion; but, after all, I am far from sure good did not come of it. Of one thing I am certain; nothing is ever gained by temporizing on the subject of principles; that which is right, had better always be freely said, since it is from the sacrifices that are made of the truth, as concession to expediency, that error obtains one half its power. Policy, or fear, or some other motive, kept the rising ire of the Injins under, however, and no interruption occurred, in consequence of this speech.

"What you want here, fellow?" demanded Jaaf, roughly, and speaking as a scold would break out on some intrusive boy. "Home wid ye!--get out! Oh! I do grow so ole!--I wish I was as I was when young for your sake, you varmint! What you want wid Masser Hugh's land?--why dat you t'ink to get gentle'em's property, eh? 'Member 'e time when your fadder come creepin' and beggin' to Masser Morder, to ask just little farm to lib on, and be he tenant, and try to do a little for he family, like; and now come, in calico bundle, to tell my Masser Hugh dat he shan't be masser of he own land. Who you, I want to knew, to come and talk to gentle'em in dis poor fashion? Go home--get out--off wid you, or you hear what you don't like."

Now, while there was a good deal of "nigger" in this argument, it was quite as good as that which was sometimes advanced in support of the "spirit of the institutions," more especially that part of the latter which is connected with "aristocracy" and "poodle usages." The negro had an idea that all his "massers," old and young, were better than the rest of the human race; while the advocates of the modern improvement seem to think that every right is concentrated in the lower half of the great "republican family." Every gentleman is no gentleman; and every blackguard, a gentleman, for one postulate of their great social proposition; and, what is more, every man in the least elevated above the mass, unless so elevated by the mass, who consequently retain the power to pull him down again, has no rights at all, when put in opposition to the cravings of numbers. So that, after all, the negro was not much more out of the way, in his fashion of viewing things, than the philosophers of industrious honesty! Happily, neither the reasoning of one of these parties, nor that of the other, has much influence on the actual state of things. Facts are facts, and the flounderings of envy and covetousness can no more shut men's eyes to their existence, and prove that black is white, than Jaaf's long-enduring and besetting notion that the Littlepages are the great of the earth, can make us more than what we certainly are. I have recorded the negro's speech, simply to show some, who listen only to the misstatements and opinions of those who wish to become owners of other men's farms, that there are two sides to the question; and, in the way of argument, I do not see but one is quite as good as the other.

One could hardly refrain from smiling, notwithstanding the seriousness of the circumstances in which we were placed, at the gravity of the Indians during the continuance of this queer episode. Not one of them all rose, turned round, or manifested the least impatience, or even curiosity. The presence of two hundred armed men, bagged in calico, did not induce them to look about them, though their previous experience with this gallant corps may possibly have led them to hold it somewhat cheap.

The time had now come for the Indians to carry out the main design of their visit to Ravensnest, and Prairiefire slowly arose to speak. The reader will understand that Manytongues translated, sentence by sentence, all that passed, he being expert in the different dialects of the tribes, some of which had carried that of the Onondagoes to the prairies. In this particular, the interpreter was a somewhat remarkable man, not only rendering what was said readily and without hesitation, but energetically and with considerable power. It may be well to add, however, that in writing out the language I may have used English expressions that are a little more choice, in some instances, than those given by this uneducated person.

"Father," commenced Prairefire, solemnly, and with a dignity that it is not usual to find connected with modern oratory; the gestures he used being few, but of singular force and significance--"Father, the minds of your children are heavy. They have travelled over a long and thorny path, with moccasons worn out, and feet that were getting sore; but their minds were light. They hoped to look at the face of the Upright Onondago, when they got to the end of the path. They have come to the end of that path, and they see him. He looks as they expected he would look. He is like an oak that lightning may burn, and the snows cover with moss, but which a thousand storms and a hundred winters cannot strip of its leaves. He looks like the oldest oak in the forest. He is very grand. It is pleasant to look on him. When we see him, we see a chief who knew our fathers' fathers, and their fathers' fathers. That is a long time ago. He is a tradition, and knows all things. There is only one thing about him, that ought not to be. He was born a red-man, but has lived so long with the pale-faces, that when he does go away to the happy hunting-grounds, we are afraid the good spirits will mistake him for a pale-face, and point out the wrong path. Should this happen, the red-men would lose the Upright of the Onondagoes, forever. It should not be. My father does not wish it to be. He will think better. He will come back among his children, and leave his wisdom and advice among the people of his own color. I ask him to do this.

"It is a long path, now, to the wigwams of red-men. It was not so once, but the path has been stretched. It is a very long path. Our young men travel it often, to visit the graves of their fathers, and they know how long it is. My tongue is not crooked, but it is straight; it will not sing a false song--it tells my father the truth. The path is very long. But the pale-faces are wonderful! What have they not done? What will they not do? They have made canoes and sledges that fly swift as the birds. The deer could not catch them. They have wings of fire, and never weary. They go when men sleep. The path is long, but it is soon travelled with such wings. My father can make the journey, and not think of weariness. Let him try it. His children will take good care of him. Uncle Sam will give him venison, and he will want nothing. Then, when he starts for the happy hunting-grounds, he will not mistake the path, and will live with red-men forever."

A long, solemn pause succeeded this speech, which was delivered with great dignity and emphasis. I could see that Susquesus was touched with this request, and at the homage paid his character, by having tribes from the prairies--tribes of which he had never even heard through traditions in his younger days--come so far to do justice to his character; to request him to go and die in their midst. It is true, he must have known that the fragments of the old New York tribes had mostly found their way to those distant regions; nevertheless, it could not but be soothing to learn that even they had succeeded in making so strong an impression in his favor, by means of their representations. Most men of his great age would have been insensible to feelings of this sort. Such, in a great degree, was the fact with Jaaf; but such was not the case with the Onondago. As he said in his former speech to his visitors, his mind dwelt more on the scenes of his youth, and native emotions came fresher to his spirit, now, than they had done even in middle age. All that remained of his youthful fire seemed to be awakened, and he did not appear that morning, except when compelled to walk and in his outward person, to be a man who had seen much more than his threescore years and ten.

As a matter of course, now that the chiefs from the prairies had so distinctly made known the great object of their visit, and so vividly portrayed their desire to receive back, into the bosom of their communities, one of their color and race, it remained for the Onondago to let the manner in which he viewed this proposition be known. The profound stillness that reigned around him must have assured the old Indian how anxiously his reply was expected. It extended even to the "disguised and armed," who, by this time, seemed to be as much absorbed in the interest of this curious scene as any of us who occupied the piazza. I do believe that anti-rentism was momentarily forgotten by all parties--tenants as well as landlords, Landlords as well as tenants. I dare say, Prairiefire had taken his seat three minutes ere Susquesus arose; during all which time, the deep stillness, of which I have spoken, prevailed.

"My children," answered the Onondago, whose voice possessed just enough of the hollow tremulousness of age to render it profoundly impressive, but who spoke so distinctly as to be heard by all present--"My children, we do not know what will happen when we are young--all is young, too, that we see. It is when we grow old, that all grows old with us. Youth is full of hope; but age is full of eyes, it sees things as they are. I have lived in my wigwam alone, since the Great Spirit called out the name of my mother, and she hurried away to the happy hunting-grounds to cook venison for my father, who was called first. My father was a great warrior. You did not know him. He was killed by the Delawares, more than a hundred winters ago.

"I have told you the truth. When my mother went to cook venison for her husband, I was left alone in my wigwam."

Here a long pause succeeded, during which Susquesus appeared to be struggling with his own feelings, though he continued erect, like a tree firmly rooted. As for the chiefs, most of them inclined their bodies forward to listen, so intense was their interest; here and there one of their number explaining in soft guttural tones, certain passages in the speech to some other Indians, who did not fully comprehend the dialect in which they were uttered. After a time, Susquesus proceeded: "Yes, I lived alone. A young squaw was to have entered my wigwam and staid there. She never came. She wished to enter it, but she did not. Another warrior had her promise, and it was right that she should keep her word. Her mind was heavy at first, but she lived to feel that it is good to be just. No squaw has ever lived in any wigwam of mine. I do not think ever to be a father: but see how different it has turned out! I am now the father of all red-men! Every Indian warrior is my son. You are my children! I will own you when we meet on the pleasant paths beyond the hunts you make to-day. You will call me father, and I will call you sons.

"That will be enough. You ask me to go on the long path with you, and leave my bones on the prairies. I have heard of those hunting-grounds. Our ancient traditions told us of them. 'Toward the rising sun,' they said, 'is a great salt lake, and toward the setting sun, great lakes of sweet water. Across the great salt lake is a distant country, filled with pale-faces, who live in large villages, and in the midst of cleared fields. Toward the setting sun were large cleared fields, too, but no pale-faces, and few villages.' Some of our wise men thought these fields were the fields of red-men following the pale-faces round after the sun; some thought they were fields in which the pale-faces were following them. I think this was the truth. The red-man cannot hide himself in any corner where the pale-faces will not find him. The Great Spirit will have it so. It is his will; the red-man must submit.

"My sons, the journey you ask me to make is too long for old age. I have lived with the pale-faces, until one-half of my heart is white; though the other half is red. One-half is filled with the traditions of my fathers, the other half is filled with the wisdom of the stranger. I cannot cut my heart in two pieces. I must all go with you, or all stay here. The body must stay with the heart, and both must remain where they have now dwelt so long. I thank you, my children, but what you wish can never come to pass.

"You see a very old man, but you see a very unsettled mind. There are red traditions and pale-face traditions. Both speak of the Great Spirit, but only one speak of his Son. A soft voice has been whispering in my ear, lately, much of the Son of God. Do they speak to you in that way on the prairies? I know not what to think. I wish to think what is right; but it is not easy to understand."

Here Susquesus paused; then he took his seat, with the air of one who is at a loss how to explain his own feelings. Prairiefire waited a respectful time for him to continue his address, but perceiving that he rose not, he stood up himself, to request a further explanation.

"My father has spoken wisdom," he said, "and his children have listened. They have not heard enough; they wish to hear more. If my father is tired of standing, he can sit; his children do not ask him to stand. They ask to know where that soft voice came from, and what it said?"

Susquesus did not rise, now, but he prepared for a reply. Mr. Warren was standing quite near him, and Mary was leaning on his arm. He signed for the father to advance a step or two, in complying with which, the parent brought forth the unconscious child also.

"See, my children," resumed Susquesus. "This is a great medicine of the pale-faces. He talks always of the Great Spirit, and of his goodness to men. It is his business to talk of the happy hunting-ground, and of good and bad pale-faces. I cannot tell you whether he does any good or not. Many such talk of these things constantly among the whites, but I can see little change, and I have lived among them, now, more than eighty winters and summers--yes, near ninety. The land is changed so much that I hardly know it; but the people do not alter. See, there; here are men--pale-faces in calico bags. Why do they run about, and dishonor the red-man by calling themselves Injins? I will tell you."

There was now a decided movement among the "virtuous and industrious," though a strong desire to hear the old man out, prevented any violent interruption at that time. I question if ever men listened more intently, than we all lent our faculties now, to ascertain what the Upright of the Onondagoes thought of anti-rentism. I received the opinions he expressed with the greater alacrity, because I knew he was a living witness of most of what he related, and because I was clearly of opinion that he knew quite as much of the subject as many who rose in the legislative halls to discuss the subject.

"These men are not warriors," continued Susquesus. "They hide their faces and they carry rifles, but they frighten none but the squaws and pappooses. When they take a scalp, it is because they are a hundred, and their enemies one. They are not braves. Why do they come at all? What do they want? They want the land of this young chief. My children, all the land, far and near, was ours. The pale-faces came with their papers, and made laws, and said 'It is well! We want this land. There is plenty farther west for you red-men. Go there, and hunt, and fish, and plant your corn, and leave us this land.' Our red brethren did as they were asked to do. The pale-faces had it as they wished. They made laws, and sold the land, as the red-men sell the skins of beavers. When the money was paid, each pale-face got a deed, and thought he owned all that he had paid for. But the wicked spirit that drove out the red-man is now about to drive off the pale-face chiefs. It is the same devil, and it is no other. He wanted land then, and he wants land now. There is one difference, and it is this. When the pale-face drove off the red-man there was no treaty between them. They had not smoked together, and given wampum, and signed a paper. If they had, it was to agree that the red-man should go away, and the pale-face stay. When the pale-face drives off the pale-face, there is a treaty; they have smoked together, and given wampum, and signed a paper. This is the difference. Indian will keep his word with Indian; pale-face will not keep his word with pale-face."

Susquesus stopped speaking, and the eye of every chief was immediately, and for the first time that morning, turned on the "disguised and armed"--the "virtuous and hard-working." A slight movement occurred in the band, but no outbreak took place; and, in the midst of the sensation that existed, Eaglesflight slowly arose. The native dignity and ease of his manner more than compensated for his personal appearance, and he now seemed to us all one of those by no means unusual instances of the power of the mind to overshadow, and even to obliterate, the imperfections of the body. Before the effect of what Susquesus had just said was lost, this eloquent and much-practised orator began his address. His utterance was highly impressive, being so deliberate, with pauses so well adjusted, as to permit Manytongues to give full effect to each syllable he translated.

"My brethren," said Eaglesflight, addressing the Injins and the other auditors, rather than any one else, "you have heard the words of age. They are the words of wisdom. They are the words of truth. The Upright of the Onondagoes cannot lie. He never could. The Great Spirit made him a just Indian; and, as the Great Spirit makes an Indian, so he is. My brethren, I will tell you his story; it will be good for you to hear it. We have heard your story; first from the interpreter, now from Susquesus. It is a bad story. We were made sorrowful when we heard it. What is right, should be done; what is wrong, should not be done. There are bad red-men, and good red-men; there are bad pale-faces, and good pale-faces. The good red-men and good pale-faces do what is right; the bad, what is wrong. It is the same with both. The Great Spirit of the Indian and the Great Spirit of the white man are alike; so are the wicked spirits. There is no difference in this.

"My brethren, a red-man knows in his heart when he does what is right, and when he does what is wrong. He does not want to be told. He tells himself. His face is red, and he cannot change color. The paint is too thick. When he tells himself how much wrong he has done, he goes into the bushes, and is sorry. When he comes out he is a better man.

"My brethren, it is different with a pale-face. He is white, and uses no stones for paint. When he tells himself that he has done wrong, his face can paint itself. Everybody can see that he is ashamed. He does not go into the bushes; it would do no good. He paints himself so quickly that there is no time. He hides his face in a calico bag. This is not good, but it is better than to be pointed at with the finger.

"My brethren, the Upright of the Onondagoes has never run into the bushes because he was ashamed. There has been no need of it. He has not told himself he was wicked. He has not put his face in a calico bag; he cannot paint himself, like a pale-face.

"My brethren, listen; I will tell you a story. A long time ago everything was very different here. The clearings were small, and the woods large. Then the red-men were many, and the pale-faces few. Now it is different. You know how it is, to-day.

"My brethren, I am talking of what was a hundred winters since. We were not born, then. Susquesus was then young, and strong, and active. He could run with the deer, and battle with the bear. He was a chief, because his fathers were chiefs before him. The Onondagoes knew him and loved him. Not a war-path was opened that he was not the first to go on it. No other warrior could count so many scalps. No young chief had so many listeners at the council-fire. The Onondagoes were proud that they had so great a chief, and one so young. They thought he would live a long time, and they should see him, and be proud of him for fifty winters more.

"My brethren, Susquesus has lived twice fifty winters longer; but he has not lived them with his own people. No; he has been a stranger among the Onondagoes all that time. The warriors he knew are dead. The wigwams that he went into have fallen to the earth with time; the graves have crumbled, and the sons' sons of his companions walk heavily with old age. Susquesus is there; you see him; he sees you. He can walk; he speaks; he sees: he is a living tradition! Why is this so? The Great Spirit has not called him away. He is a just Indian, and it is good that he be kept here, that all red-men may know how much he is loved. So long as he stays no red-men need want a calico bag.

"My brethren, the younger days of Susquesus, the Trackless, were happy. When he had seen twenty winters, he was talked of in all the neighboring tribes. The scalp notches were a great many. When he had seen thirty winters, no chief of the Onondagoes had more honor, or more power. He was first among the Onondagoes. There was but one fault in him. He did not take a squaw into his wigwam. Death comes when he is not looked for; so does marriage. At length my father became like other men, and wished for a squaw. It happened in this way.

"My brethren, red-men have laws, as well as the pale-faces. If there is a difference, it is in keeping those laws. A law of the red-men gives every warrior his prisoners. If he bring off a warrior, he is his; if a squaw, she is his. This is right. He can take the scalp of the warrior; he can take the squaw into his wigwam, if it be empty. A warrior named Waterfowl, brought in a captive girl of the Delawares. She was called Ouithwith, and was handsomer than the humming-bird. The Waterfowl had his ears open, and heard how beautiful she was. He watched long to take her, and he did take her. She was his, and he thought to take her into his wigwam when it was empty. Three moons passed, before that could be. In the meantime, Susquesus saw Ouithwith, and Ouithwith saw Susquesus. Their eyes were never off each other. He was the noblest moose of the woods, in her eyes; she was the spotted fawn, in his. He wished to ask her to his wigwam; she wished to go.

"My brethren, Susquesus was a great chief; the Waterfowl was only a warrior. One had power and authority, the other had neither. But there is authority among red-men beyond that of the chief. It is the red-man's law. Ouithwith belonged to the Waterfowl, and she did not belong to Susquesus. A great council was held, and men differed. Some said that so useful a chief, so renowned a warrior as Susquesus, ought to be the husband of Ouithwith, some said her husband ought to be the Waterfowl, for he had brought her out from among the Delawares. A great difficulty arose on this question, and the whole six nations took part in it. Many warriors were for the law, but most were for Susquesus. They loved him, and thought he would make the best husband for the Delaware girl. For six moons the quarrel thickened, and a dark cloud gathered over the path that led among the tribes. Warriors who had taken scalps in company, looked at each other, as the panther looks at the deer. Some were ready to dig up the hatchet for the law; some for the pride of the Onondagoes, and the humming-bird of the Delawares. The squaws took sides with Susquesus. Far and near, they met to talk together, and they even threatened to light a council-fire, and smoke around it, like warriors and chiefs.

"Brethren, things could not stand so another moon. Ouithwith must go into the wigwam of the Waterfowl, or into the wigwam of Susquesus. The squaws said she should go into the wigwam of Susquesus; and they met together, and led her to his door. As she went along that path, Ouithwith looked at her feet with her eyes, but her heart leaped like the bounding fawn, when playing in the sun. She did not go in at the door. The Waterfowl was there, and forbade it. He had come alone; his friends were but few, while the heads and arms of the friends of Susquesus were as plenty as the berries on the bush.

"My brethren, that command of the Waterfowl's was like a wall of rock before the door of the Trackless's wigwam. Ouithwith could not go in. The eyes of Susquesus said 'no,' while his heart said 'yes.' He offered the Waterfowl his rifle, his powder, all his skins, his wigwam; but Waterfowl would rather have his prisoner, and answered, 'no.' 'Take my scalp,' he said; 'you are strong and can do it; but do not take my prisoner.'

"My brethren, Susquesus then stood up, in the midst of the tribe, and opened his mind. 'The Waterfowl is right,' he said. 'She is his, by our laws; and what the laws of the red-man say, the red-man must do. When the warrior is about to be tormented, and he asks for time to go home and see his friends, does he not come back at the day and hour agreed on? Shall I, Susquesus, the first chief of the Onondagoes, be stronger than the law? No--my face would be forever hid in the bushes, did that come to pass. It should not be--it shall not be. Take her, Waterfowl; she is yours. Deal kindly by her, for she is as tender as the wren when it first quits the nest. I must go into the woods for awhile. When my mind is at peace, Susquesus will return.'

"Brethren, the stillness in that tribe, while Susquesus was getting his rifle, and his horn, and his best moccasons, and his tomahawk, was like that which comes in the darkness. Men saw him go, but none dare follow. He left no trail, and he was called the Trackless. His mind was never at peace, for he never came back. Summer and winter came and went often before the Onondagoes heard of him among the pale-faces. All that time the Waterfowl lived with Ouithwith in his wigwam, and she bore him children. The chief was gone, but the law remained. Go you, men of the pale-faces, who hide your shame in calico bags, and do the same. Follow the example of an Indian--be honest, like the Upright of the Onondagoes!"

While this simple narrative was drawing to a close, I could detect the signs of great uneasiness among the leaders of the "calico bags." The biting comparison between themselves and their own course, and an Indian and his justice, was intolerable to them, for nothing has more conduced to the abuses connected with anti-rentism than the wide-spread delusion that prevails in the land concerning the omnipotency of the masses. The error is deeply rooted which persuades men that fallible parts can make an infallible whole. It was offensive to their self-conceit, and menacing to their success. A murmur ran through the assembly, and a shout followed. The Injins rattled their rifles, most relying on intimidation to effect their purpose; but a few seemed influenced by a worse intention, and I have never doubted that blood would have been shed in the next minute, the Indians now standing to their arms, had not the sheriff of the county suddenly appeared on the piazza, with Jack Dunning at his elbow. This unexpected apparition produced a pause, during which the "disguised and armed" fell back some twenty yards, and the ladies rushed into the house. As for my uncle and myself, we were as much astonished as any there at this interruption.

CHAPTER XXX.

"Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,
A hate of tyrant and of knave,

A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward and of slave."

--Halleck's Wild Rose of Alloway.

Although experience has shown that the appearance of a sheriff is by no means a pledge of the appearance of a friend of the law in this anti-rent movement, in our instance the fact happened to be so. It was known to the "disguised and armed" that this functionary was disposed to do his duty.[30] One of the rank absurdities into which democracy has fallen, and democracy is no more infallible than individual democrats, has been to make the officers of the militia and the sheriffs of counties elective. The consequences are, that the militia is converted into a farce, and the execution of the laws in a particular county is very much dependent on the pleasure of that county to have them executed or not. The last is a capital arrangement for the resident debtor, for instance, though absent creditors are somewhat disposed to find fault. But all this is of no great moment, since the theories for laws and governments in vogue just now are of such a character as would render laws and governments quite unnecessary at all, were they founded in truth. Restraints of all kinds can only be injurious when they are imposed on perfection!

The instant the commotion commenced, and the ladies fled, I took Seneca and his fellow-prisoner by the arm, and led them into the library. This I did, conceiving it to be unfair to keep prisoners in a situation of danger. This I did, too, without reflecting in the least on anything but the character of the act. Returning to the piazza immediately, I was not missed, and was a witness of all that passed.

As has been intimated, this particular sheriff was known to be unfavorable to the anti-rent movement, and, no one supposing he would appear in the midst unsupported, in such a scene, the Injins fell back, thus arresting the danger of an immediate collision. It has since been privately intimated to me, that some among them, after hearing the narrative of Eaglesflight, really felt ashamed that a redskin should have a more lively sense of justice than a white man. Whatever may be said of the hardships of the tenants, and of "poodle-usages," and of "aristocracy," and "fat hens," by the leaders in this matter, it by no means follows that those leaders believe in their own theories and arguments. On the contrary, it is generally the case with such men, that they keep themselves quite free from the excitement that it is their business to awaken in others, resembling the celebrated John Wilkes, who gravely said to George III., in describing the character of a former co-operator in agitation, "He was a Wilkesite, sir; I never was."

The unexpected appearance of Dunning, the offending agent, too, was not without its effect--for they who were behind the curtains found it difficult to believe that he would dare to show himself at Ravensnest without sufficient support. Those who thought thus, however, did not know Jack Dunning. He had a natural and judicious aversion to being tarred and feathered, it is true; but, when it was necessary to expose himself, no man did it more freely. The explanation of his unlooked-for arrival is simply this.

Uneasy at our manner of visiting Ravensnest, this trustworthy friend, after the delay of a day or two, determined to follow us. On reaching the county he heard of the firing of the barn, and of the attempt on the house, and went in quest of the sheriff without a moment's delay. As the object of Dunning was to get the ladies out of the lion's den, he did not wait for the summoning of the posse comitatus; but, hiring a dozen resolute fellows, they were armed, and all set out in a body for the Nest. When within a mile or two of the house, the rumor reached the party that we were besieged; and it became expedient to have recourse to some manoeuvring, in order to throw succor into the garrison. Dunning was familiar with all the windings and turnings of the place, having passed many a month at the Nest with my uncle and father, both as man and boy, and he knew the exact situation of the cliff, court, and of the various peculiar features of the place. Among other arrangements that had been made of late years, a door had been opened at the end of the long gallery which led through one of the wings, and a flight of steps been built against the rocks, by means of which certain paths and walks that meandered through the meadows and followed the windings of the stream might be reached. Dunning determined to attempt an ascent from this quarter, trusting to make himself heard by some one within, should he find the door fastened. Everything succeeded to his wishes--the cook alone, of all the household, being at her post in the other wing, and seeing him the instant he presented himself on the upper part of the steps. Jack Dunning's face was so well known at the Nest, that the good woman did not hesitate a moment about admitting him, and he thus penetrated into the building, followed by all his party. The last he kept concealed by sending them into the chambers, while he and the sheriff drew near the door, and heard most of the speech of Eaglesflight, the attention of everybody being given to the narrative. The reader knows the rest.

I might as well say at once, however, that Opportunity, who, by her position, had seen the entrance of Dunning and his party, no sooner found herself alone with the prisoners, than she unbound them, and showed them the means of flight, by the same passage, door and steps. At least, such has been my supposition, for the sister has never been questioned on the subject. Seneca and his co-rascal vanished, and have not since been seen in our part of the country. In consequence of the flight, no one has ever complained of either for arson. The murder of Steele, the deputy-sheriff of Delaware, has given a check to the "Injin" system, and awakened a feeling in the country that was not to be resisted, in that form at least, by men engaged in a scheme so utterly opposed to the first principles of honesty as anti-rentism.

When I regained the piazza, after thrusting Seneca into the library, the Injins had fallen back to the distance of twenty or thirty yards from the piazza in evident confusion; while the Indians, cool and collected, stood to their arms, watchful as crouching panthers, but held in hand by the calmness with which their leaders watched the progress of events. The sheriff now required the first to disperse, as violators of the law; with the penalties of which he menaced them in a voice sufficiently clear and distinct to make itself audible. There was a moment during which the Injins seemed undecided. They had come with the full intent to inflict on my uncle and myself the punishment of the tar-bucket, with the hope of frightening us into some sort of a compromise; the cowardly expedient of a hundred men attacking and annoying one being particularly in favor with a certain class of those ultra-friends of liberty, who fancy that they alone possess all the public virtue of the nation, which public virtue justifies any of their acts. All of a sudden, the entire body of these virtuous citizens, who found it necessary to hide their blushes beneath calico, fell rapidly back; observing a little order at first, which soon degenerated, however, into confusion, and shortly after into a downright scampering flight. The fact was, that Dunning's men began to show themselves at the windows of the chambers, thrusting muskets and rifles out before them, and the "disguised and armed," as has invariably been the case in the anti-rent disturbances, exhibited a surprising facility at the retreat. If he is "thrice-armed who hath his quarrel just," ten times is he a coward who hath his quarrel unjust. This is the simple solution of the cowardice that has been so generally shown by those who have been engaged in this "Injin" warfare; causing twenty to chase one, secret attempts on the lives of sentinels, and all the other violations of manly feeling that have disgraced the proceedings of the heroes.

As soon as released from all immediate apprehension on the score of the Injins, we had time to attend to the Indians. The warriors gazed after those who were caricaturing their habits, and most of all their spirit, with silent contempt; and Prairiefire, who spoke a little English, said to me with emphasis, "Poor Injin--poor tribe--run away from own whoop!" This was positively every syllable the men of the prairies deigned to bestow on these disturbers of the public peace, the agents of covetousness, who prowl about at night, like wolves, ready to seize the stray lamb, but are quick to sneak off at the growl of the mastiff. One cannot express himself in terms too harsh of such wretches, who in no instance have manifested a solitary spark of the true spirit of freemen; having invariably quailed before authority when that authority has assumed in the least the aspect of its power, and as invariably trampled it underfoot, whenever numbers put danger out of the question.

Old Susquesus had been a quiet observer of all that passed. He knew the nature of the disturbance, and understood everything material that was connected with the outbreaks. As soon as order was restored on the piazza, he rose once more to address his guests.

"My children," he said, solemnly, "you hear my voice for the last time. Even the wren cannot sing forever. The very eagle's wing gets tired in time. I shall soon cease to speak. When I reach the happy hunting-grounds of the Onondagoes, I will tell the warriors I meet there of your visit. Your fathers shall know that their sons still love justice. Let the pale-faces sign papers, and laugh at them afterward. The promise of a red-man is his law. If he is made a prisoner, and his conquerors wish to torment him, they are too generous to do so without letting him go to his tribe to take leave of his friends. When the time is reached, he comes back. If he promises skins, he brings them, though no law can follow into the woods to force him to do so. His promise goes with him; his promise is stronger than chains--it brings him back.

"My children, never forget this. You are not pale-faces, to say one thing and do another. What you say, you do. When you make a law, you keep it. That is right. No red-man wants another's wigwam. If he wants a wigwam, he builds one himself. It is not so with the pale-faces. The man who has no wigwam tries to get away his neighbor's. While he does this, he reads in his Bible and goes to his church. I have sometimes thought, the more he reads and prays, the more he tries to get into his neighbor's wigwam. So it seems to an Indian, but it may not be so.

"My children, the red-man is his own master. He goes and comes as he pleases. If the young men strike the war-path, he can strike it too. He can go on the war-path, or the hunt, or he can stay in his wigwam. All he has to do is to keep his promise, not steal, and not to go into another red-man's wigwam unasked. He is his own master. He does not say so; he is so. How is it with the pale-faces? They say they are free when the sun rises; they say they are free when the sun is over their heads; they say they are free when the sun goes down behind the hills. They never stop talking of their being their own masters. They talk of that more than they read their Bibles. I have lived near a hundred winters among them, and know what they are. They do that; then they take away another's wigwam. They talk of liberty; then they say you shall have this farm, and you shan't have that. They talk of liberty, and call to one another to put on calico bags, that fifty men may tar and feather one. They talk of liberty, and want everything their own way.

"My children, these pale-faces might go back with you to the prairies, and learn to do what is right. I do not wonder they hide their faces in bags. They feel ashamed; they ought to feel ashamed.

"My children, this is the last time you will hear my voice. The tongue of an old man cannot move forever. This is my counsel: do what is right. The Great Spirit will tell you what that is. Let it be done. What my son said of me is true. It was hard to do; the feelings yearned to do otherwise, but it was not done. In a little time peace came on my spirit, and I was glad. I could not go back to live among my people, for I was afraid of doing what was wrong. I stayed among the pale-faces, and made friends here. My children, farewell; do what is right, and you will be happier than the richest pale-face who does what is wrong."

Susquesus took his seat, and at the same time each of the redskins advanced and shook his hand. The Indians make few professions, but let their acts speak for them. Not a syllable was uttered by one of those rude warriors as he took his leave of Susquesus. Each man had willingly paid this tribute to one whose justice and self-denial were celebrated in their traditions, and having paid it, he went his way satisfied, if not altogether happy. Each man shook hands, too, with all on the piazza, and to us they expressed their thanks for their kind treatment. My uncle Ro had distributed the remains of his trinkets among them, and they left us with the most amicable feelings. Still there was nothing dramatic in their departure. It was simple as their arrival. They had come to see the Upright of the Onondagoes, had fulfilled their mission, and were ready to depart. Depart they did, and as I saw their line winding along the highway, the episode of such a visit appeared to us all more like a dream than reality.

No interruption occurred to the return of these men, and half an hour after they had left the piazza we saw them winding their way up the hill, descending which we had first seen them.

"Well, Hugh," said Jack Dunning, two or three hours later, "what is your decision; will you remain here, or will you go to your own place in Westchester?"

"I will remain here until it is our pleasure to depart; then we will endeavor to be as free as Indians, and go where we please, provided always we do not go into our neighbor's wigwam against his will."

Jack Dunning smiled, and he paced the library once or twice before he resumed.

"They told me, as soon as I got into the county, that you, and all belonging to you, were preparing to retreat the morning after the attempt to fire your house."

"One of those amiable perversions of the truth that so much embellish the morality of the whole affair. What men wish, they fancy, and what they fancy, they say. The girls, even, protest they would not quit the house while it has a roof to cover their heads. But, Jack, whence comes this spirit?"

"I should think that was the last question a reasonably informed man need ask," answered Dunning laughing. "It is very plain where it comes from. It comes from the devil and has every one of the characteristics of his handiwork. In the first place, love of money, or covetousness, is at its root. Then lies are its agents. Its first and most pretending lie is that of liberty, every principle of which it tramples underfoot. Then come in the fifty auxiliaries in the way of smaller inventions, denying the facts of the original settlement of the country, fabricating statements concerning its progress, and asserting directly in the teeth of truth, such statements as it is supposed will serve a turn.[31] There can be no mistaking the origin of such contrivance, or all that has been taught us of good and evil is a fiction. Really, Hodge, I am astonished that so sensible a man should have asked the question."

"Perhaps you are right, Jack; but to what will it lead?"

"Aye, that is not so easily answered. The recent events in Delaware have aroused the better feelings of the country, and there is no telling what it may do. One thing, however, I hold to be certain; the spirit connected with this affair must be put down, thoroughly, effectually, completely, or we are lost. Let it once be understood, in the country, that men can control their own indebtedness, and fashion contracts to suit their own purposes, by combinations and numbers, and pandemonium would soon be a paradise compared to New York. There is not a single just ground of complaint in the nature of any of these leases, whatever hardships may exist in particular cases; but, admitting that there were false principles of social life, embodied in the relation of landlord and tenant, as it exists among us, it would be a far greater evil to attempt a reform under such a combination, than to endure the original wrong."

"I suppose these gentry fancy themselves strong enough to thrust their interests into politics, and hope to succeed by that process. But anti-masonry, and various other schemes of that sort have failed, hitherto, and this may fail along with it. That is a redeeming feature of the institutions, Jack; you may humbug for a time, but the humbuggery is not apt to last forever. It is only to be regretted that the really upright portion of the community are so long in making themselves felt; would they only be one-half as active as the miscreants, we should get along well enough."

"The result is unknown. The thing may be put down, totally, effectually, and in a way to kill the snake, not scotch it; or it may be met with only half-way measures; in which case it will remain like a disease in the human system, always existing, always menacing relapses, quite possibly to be the agent of the final destruction of the body."

My uncle, nevertheless, was as good as his word, and did remain in the country, where he is yet. Our establishment has received another reinforcement, however, and a change occurred, shortly after our visit from the Injins, in the policy of the anti-renters, the two giving us a feeling of security that might otherwise have been wanting. The reinforcement came from certain young men, who have found their way across from the springs, and become guests at the Nest. They are all old acquaintances of mine, most of them school-fellows, and also admirers of the young ladies. Each of my uncle's wards, the Coldbrooke and the Marston, has an accepted lover, as we now discovered, circumstances that have left me unobstructed in pursuing my suit with Mary Warren. I have found Patt a capital ally, for she loves the dear girl almost as I do myself, and has been of great service in the affair. I am conditionally accepted, though Mr. Warren's consent has not been asked. Indeed, I much question if the good rector has the least suspicion of what is in the wind. As for my uncle Ro, he knew all about it, though I have never breathed a syllable to him on the subject. Fortunately, he is well satisfied with the choice made by his two wards, and this has somewhat mitigated the disappointment.

My uncle Ro is not in the least mercenary; and the circumstance that Mary Warren has not a cent gives him no concern. He is, indeed, so rich himself that he knows it is in his power to make any reasonable addition to my means, and, if necessary, to place me above the dangers of anti-rentism. The following is a specimen of his humor, and of his manner of doing things when the humor takes him. We were in the library one morning, about a week after the Injins were shamed out of the field by the Indians, for that was the secret of their final disappearance from our part of the country; but, one morning, about a week after their last visit, my grandmother, my uncle, Patt, and I were seated in the library, chatting over matters and things, when my uncle suddenly exclaimed--

"By the way, Hugh, I have a piece of important news to communicate to you; news affecting your interests to the tune of fifty thousand dollars."

"No more anti-rent dangers, I hope, Roger?" said my grandmother anxiously.

"Hugh has little to apprehend from that source, just now. The Supreme Court of the United States is his buckler, and it is broad enough to cover his whole body. As for his future leases, if he will take my advice, he will not grant one for a term longer than five years, and then his tenants will become clamorous petitioners to the Legislature to allow them to make their own bargains. Shame will probably bring your free-trade men round, and the time will come when your double-distilled friends of liberty will begin to see it is a very indifferent sort of freedom which will not permit a wealthy landlord to part with his farms for a long period, or a poor husbandman to make the best bargain in his power. No, no; Hugh has nothing serious to apprehend, just now at least, from that source, whatever may come of it hereafter. The loss to which I allude is much more certain, and to the tune of fifty thousand dollars, I repeat."

"That is a good deal of money for me to lose, sir," I answered, but little disturbed by the intelligence; "and it might embarrass me to raise so large a sum in a hurry. Nevertheless, I confess to no very great concern on the subject, notwithstanding your announcement. I have no debts, and the title to all I possess is indisputable, unless it shall be decided that a royal grant is not to be tolerated by republicans."

"All very fine, Master Hugh, but you forget that you are the natural heir of my estate. Patt knows that she is to have a slice of it when she marries, and I am now about to make a settlement of just as much more on another young lady, by way of marriage portion."

"Roger!" exclaimed my grandmother, "surely you do not mean what you say! Of as much more!"

"Of precisely that money, my dear mother. I have taken a fancy to a young lady, and as I cannot marry her myself, I am determined to make her a good match, so far as money is concerned, for some one else."

"But why not marry her yourself?" I asked. "Older men than yourself marry every day."

"Ay, widowers, I grant you; they will marry until they are a thousand; but it is not so with us bachelors. Let a man once get fairly past forty, and it is no easy matter to bring him to the sacrifice. No, Jack Dunning's being here is the most fortunate thing in the world, and so I have set him at work to draw up a settlement on the young lady to whom I refer, without any rights to her future husband, let him turn out to be whom he may."

"It is Mary Warren!" exclaimed my sister, in a tone of delight.

My uncle smiled, and he tried to look demure; but I cannot say that he succeeded particularly well.

"It is--it is--it is Mary Warren, and uncle Ro means to give her a fortune!" added Patt, bounding across the floor like a young deer, throwing herself into her guardian's lap, hugging and kissing him as if she were nothing but a child, though a fine young woman of nineteen. "Yes, it is Mary Warren, and uncle Hodge is a delightful old gentleman--no, a delightful young gentleman, and were he only thirty years younger he should have his own heiress for a wife himself. Good, dear, generous, sensible uncle Ro. This is so like him, after all his disappointment; for I know, Hugh, his heart was set on your marrying Henrietta."

"And what has my marrying, or not marrying Henrietta, to do with this settlement of fifty thousand dollars on Miss Warren? The young ladies are not even connected, I believe."

"Oh! you know how all such things are managed," said Patt, blushing and laughing at the passing allusion to matrimony, even in another: "Mary Warren will not be Mary Warren always."

"Who will she be, then?" demanded uncle Ro, quickly.

But Patt was too true to the rights and privileges of her sex to say anything directly that might seem to commit her friend. She patted her uncle's cheek, therefore, like a saucy minx as she was, colored still higher, looked archly at me, then averted her eyes consciously, as if betraying a secret, and returned to her seat as demurely as if the subject had been one of the gravest character.

"But are you serious in what you have told us, Roger?" asked my grandmother, with more interest than I supposed the dear old lady would be apt to feel on such a subject. "Is not this settlement a matter of fancy?"

"True as the gospel, my dear mother."

"And is Martha right? Is Mary Warren really the favored young lady?"

"For a novelty, Patt is right."

"Does Mary Warren know of your intention, or has her father been consulted in the matter?"

"Both know of it; we had it all over together, last evening, and Mr. Warren consents."

"To what?" I cried, springing to my feet, the emphasis on the last word being too significant to be overlooked.

"To receive Hugh Roger Littlepage, which is my own name, recollect, for a son-in-law; and what is more, the young lady 'is agreeable.'"

"We all know that she is more than agreeable," put in Patt; "she is delightful, excellent; agreeable is no word to apply to Mary Warren."

"Pshaw, girl! If you had travelled, now, you would know that this expression is cockney English for agreeing to a thing. Mary Warren agrees to become the wife of Hugh Roger Littlepage, and I settle fifty thousand dollars on her in consideration of matrimony."

"This Hugh Roger Littlepage," cried Patt, throwing an arm around my neck; "not that Hugh Roger Littlepage. Do but add that, dearest uncle, and I will kiss you for an hour."

"Excuse me, my child; a fourth of that time would be as much as I could reasonably expect. I believe you are right, however, as I do not remember that this Hugh Roger had any connection with the affair, unless it were to give his money. I shall deny none of your imputations."

Just as this was said, the door of the library was slowly opened, and Mary Warren appeared. The moment she saw who composed our party, she would have drawn back, but my grandmother kindly bade her "come in."

"I was afraid of disturbing a family party, ma'am," Mary timidly answered.

Patt darted forward, threw her arm around Mary's waist, and drew her into the room, closing and locking the door. All this was done in a way to attract attention, and as if the young lady wished to attract attention. We all smiled but Mary, who seemed half pleased, half frightened.

"It is a family party," cried Patt, kissing her affianced sister, "and no one else shall be admitted to it, unless good Mr. Warren come to claim his place. Uncle Ro has told us all about it, and we know all."

Mary hid her face in Patt's bosom, but it was soon drawn out by my dear grandmother to kiss it; then my uncle had his turn, and Patt hers. After this, the whole party, except Mary and I, slid out of the room, and--yes, and then it was my turn.

We are not yet married, but the day is named. The same is true with respect to the wards, and even Patt blushes, and my grandmother smiles, occasionally, when gentlemen who are travelling in Egypt just now, are named. The last letters from young Beekman, they tell me, say that he was then there. The three marriages are to take place in St. Andrew's church, Mr. Warren being engaged to officiate.

The reader will be surprised to hear two things. My engagement with the daughter of a poor clergyman has produced great scandal among the anti-renters, they who so loudly decry aristocracy! The objection is that the match is not equal! That equality which is the consequence of social position, connections, education and similarity of habits, thoughts, and, if you will, prejudices, is all thrown away on these persons. They have no notion of its existence; but they can very well understand that the owner of an unencumbered and handsome estate is richer than the heiress of a poor divine, who can just make the year meet on $500 per annum. I let them grumble, as I know they must and will find fault with something connected with myself, until they have got away my land, or are satisfied it is not to be had. As for Opportunity, I have been assured that she threatens to sue me for a "breach of promise;" nor should I be at all surprised were she actually to make the attempt. It is by no means unusual, when a person sets his or her whole soul on a particular object, to imagine circumstances favorable to his or her views, which never had an existence; and Opportunity may fancy that what I have heard has been "the buzzing in her own ear." Then the quackery of Legislatures has set the ladies at work in earnest, and he will soon be a fortunate youth who can pass through his days of celibacy without some desperate assault, legal or moral, from the other sex. Besides, nothing can be out of the way, when it is found that the more popular and most numerous branch of the Legislature of New York really believes it can evade that solemn provision of the Constitution of the United States, which says "no State shall pass any law impairing the obligations of contracts," by enacting, as they can regulate the statute of descent, that whenever a landlord dies, the tenant, by applying to the chancellor, can have his leasehold tenure converted into a mortgage, on discharging which the land will be his, unencumbered! We have heard of a "thimble-rig administration" in England, and really that industrious nation seems to have exported the breed to this country. How many of those who voted for such a law will like to see the ayes and noes on the journals of the Assembly ten years hence? If there should be one such man left in the State, he will be an object of humane commiseration. We have had many efforts at legislative chicanery, and some that have been tolerably clever, but this is a palpable experiment in the same way, made for a reason that everybody understands, that has not even the negative merit of ingenuity. Our own courts will probably disregard it, should the Senate even concur; and as for those of the United States, they will, out of all doubt, treat it as it ought to be treated, and brand it with ignominy. The next step will be to pass a law regulating descents, as it is called, under the provisions of which the debtors of the deceased can meet his obligations with a coin technically called "puppies."

Jaaf drivels away. The black occasionally mumbles out his sentiments concerning past events and the state of the country. An anti-renter he regards as he would a thief, and makes no bones of saying so. Sometimes he blunders on a very good remark in connection with the subject, and one he made no later than yesterday is worthy of notice.

"What dem feller want, Masser Hugh?" he demanded. "Dey's got one half of deir farms, and now dey wants tudder half. S'pose I own a cow, or a sheep, in par'nership, what right I got to say I will have him all? Gosh! dere no sich law in ole time. Den, who ebber see sich poor Injins! Redskins mis'rubble enough, make 'e bess of him, but dis Injin so mis'rubble dat I doesn't won'er you can't bear him. Oh! how ole I do git--I do t'ink ole Sus can't last much longer, too!"

Old Susquesus still survives, but an object of great hatred to all the anti-renters, far and near. The "Injin" system has been broken up, temporarily at least, but the spirit which brought it into existence survives under the hypocritical aspect of "human rights." The Upright of the Onondagoes is insensible of the bad feeling which is so active against him, nor is it probable that most of those who entertain this enmity are conscious of the reason; which is simply the fact that he is a man who respected laws to the making of which he was a party, and preferred to suffer rather than be guilty of an act of injustice.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

Here the manuscript of Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, jun., terminates. That gentleman's feelings have probably forbidden his relating events so recent as those which have since occurred. It remains, therefore, for us to add a few words.

Jaaf died about ten days since, railing at the redskins to the last, and talking about his young massers and missuses as long as he had breath. As for his own descendants, he had not been heard to name them, for the last forty years.

Susquesus still survives, but the "Injins" are all defunct. Public opinion has, at last, struck that tribe out of existence, and it is hoped that their calico bags have been transmitted to certain politicians among us, who, as certain as the sun rises and sets, will find them useful to conceal their own countenances, when contrition and shame come, as contrition and shame will be sure to succeed such conduct as theirs.

It may be well to add a word on the subject of the tone of this book. It is the language of a man who feels that he has been grievously injured, and who writes with the ardor of youth increased by a sense of wrong. As editors, we have nothing more to do with that than to see, while calling things by their right names, that language too strong for the public taste should not be introduced into our pages. As to the moral and political principles connected with this matter, we are wholly of the side of the Messrs. Littlepage, though we do not think it necessary to adopt all their phrases--phrases that may be natural to men of their situations, but which would be out of place, perhaps, in the mouths of those who act solely in the capacity of essayists and historians.

To conclude,--Mr. Littlepage and Mary Warren were married, in St. Andrew's Church, a very few days since. We met the young gentleman, on his wedding tour, no later than yesterday, and he assured us that, provided with such a companion, he was ready to change his domicile to any other part of the Union, and that he had selected Washington, for the express purpose of being favorably situated for trying the validity of the laws of the United States, as opposed to the "thimble-rigging" of the New York Legislature. It is his intention to have every question connected with the covenants of his leases clearly settled, that of taxing the landlord for property on which the tenant has covenanted to pay all taxes; that of distress for rent, when distress must precede the re-entry stipulated for by the leases; and that of any other trick or device which the brains of your "small-potato" Legislature may invent in order to wrong him out of his property. As for ourselves, we can only say, God give him success! for we are most deeply impressed that the more valuable parts of the institutions of this country can be preserved only by crushing into the dust this nefarious spirit of cupidity, which threatens the destruction of all moral feeling and every sense of right that remains among us.

In our view, Oregon, Mexico and Europe, united against us, do not threaten this nation with one-half as much real danger as that which menaces at this moment, from an enemy that is now in possession of many of its strongholds, and which is incessantly working its evil under the cry of liberty, while laying deeper the foundation of a most atrocious tyranny.

I forgot to add, Mr. Littlepage significantly remarked at parting, that should Washington fail him, he has the refuge of Florence open, where he can reside among the other victims of oppression, with the advantage of being admired as a refugee from republican tyranny.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[1] It may not be amiss to remark, in passing, that Horace Walpole, in one of his recently published letters, speaks of a Horatio Gates as his godson. Walpole was born in 1718, and Gates in 1728.

[2] The reader will recollect that Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage must have written his account of himself and his times about the close of the last, or the beginning of this century. Since that time, education has certainly advanced among us; sophomores, pursuing branches of learning to-day that were sealed from seniors a few years since. Learning, however, advances in this country on the great American principle of imparting a little to a great many, instead of teaching a good deal to a few.--Editor.

[3] This man is indiscriminately called Yaf, or Yop--York Dutch being far from severe.

[4] [This short dialogue is given in the text, because it is found in Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage's manuscript, and not because the state of feeling in this country to-day has any connection with the opinions expressed. The American nation, as a whole, is now as completely emancipated from English political influence, as if the latter never had an existence. The emancipation is too complete, indeed, the effect having brought with it a reaction that is, on many points, running into error in a contrary direction; the third of our manuscripts having something to do with these excesses of opinion. But Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage appears to have some near glimmerings of the principles which lay at the root of the American revolution, though the principle itself does not appear to have been openly recognized anywhere at the time. The king of England was originally king of America, as he was king of Ireland, and king of Scotland. It is true, there was no American flag, the system excluding the colonies from any power on the ocean; then each colony existed as independent of the others, except through their common allegiance. The revolution of 1688 slowly brought parliament into the ascendant; and by the time George III. ascended the throne, that ascendancy had got to be almost undisputed. Now, America had no proper connection with parliament, which, in that day, represented England and Wales only; and this was a state of things which made one country dependent on the other, a subserviency of interests that clearly could last only so long as the party governed was too weak to take care of itself.]

[5] Such were the notions of Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage, at the commencement of this century, and such his feeling shortly after the peace of 1783. Nothing of the sort more completely illustrates the general change that has come over the land, in habits and material things, than the difference between the movements of that day and those of our own. Then, the departure of a sloop, or the embarkation of a passenger along the shore, brought parties to the wharves, and wavings of handkerchiefs, as if those who were left behind felt a lingering wish to see the last of their friends. Now, literally thousands come and go daily, passing about as many hours on the Hudson as their grandfathers passed days; and the shaking of hands and leave-takings are usually done at home. It would be a bold woman who would think now of waving a handkerchief to a Hudson River steamboat!--Editor.

[6] More than two millions at the present day.

[7] This must pass for one of the hits the republic is exposed to, partly because it deserves them, and partly because it is a republic. One hears a great deal of this ingratitude of republics, but few take the trouble of examining into the truth of the charge, or its reason, if true. I suppose the charge to be true in part, and for the obvious reason that a government founded on the popular will, is necessarily impulsive in such matters, and feels no necessity to be just, in order to be secure. Then, a democracy is always subject to the influence of the cant of economy, which is next thing to the evil of being exposed to the waste and cupidity of those who take because they have the power. As respects the soldiers of the revolution, however, America, under the impulsive feeling, rather than in obedience to a calm, deliberate desire to be just, has, since the time of Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage, made such a liberal provision for pensioning them, as to include a good many of her enemies, as well as all her friends.--Editor.

[8] This allusion is evidently to a German officer, who introduced the Prussian drill into the American army, Baron Steuben--or Stuyben, as I think he must have been called in Germany--Steuben, as he is universally termed in this country.--Editor.

[9] Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage would seem to have got hold of the only plausible palliative for a custom that originated in those times when abuses could only be corrected by the strong arm; and which, in our own days, is degenerating into the merest system of chicanery and trick. The duellist who, in his "practice," gets to be "certain death to a shingle" and then misses his man, instead of illustrating his chivalry, merely lets the world into the secret that his nerves are not equal to his drill! There was something as respectable as anything can be in connection with a custom so silly, in the conduct of the Englishman who called out to his adversary, a near-sighted man, "that if he wished to shoot at him, he must turn his pistol in another direction."--Editor.

[10] The Manor of Rensselaerwick virtually extends forty-eight miles east and west, and twenty-four north and south. It is situated in the very heart of New York, with three incorporated cities within its limits, built, in part, on small, older grants. Albany is a town of near, if not of quite, 40,000 souls; and Troy must now contain near 28,000. Yet the late patroon, in the last conversation he ever held with the writer, only a few months before he died, stated that his grandfather was the first proprietor who ever reaped any material advantage from the estate, and his father the first who received any income of considerable amount. The home property, farms and mills, furnished the income of the family for more than a century.--Editor.

[11] The fact here stated by Mr. Littlepage should never be forgotten; inasmuch as it colors the entire nature of the pretension now set up as to the exactions of leases. No man in New York need ever have leased a farm for the want of an opportunity of purchasing, there never having been a time when land for farms in fee has not been openly on sale within the bounds of the State; and land every way as eligible as that leased. In few cases have two adjoining estates been leased; and where such has been the fact, the husbandman might always have found a farm in fee, at the cost of half a day's travelling. The benefits to the landlord have usually been so remote on the estate leased, that by far the greater proportion of the proprietors have preferred selling at once, to waiting for the tardy operations of time.--Editor.

[12] If Mr. Littlepage wrote thus, thirty or forty years since, how would he have written to-day, when we have had loud protestations flourishing around us in the public journals, that this or that sectarian polity was most in unison with a republican form of government? What renders this assumption as absurd as it is presuming, is the well-known fact that it comes from those who have ever been loudest in their declamations of a union between church and state!

[13] At the time of which Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage is here speaking, it was far less the fashion to extol the institutions than it is to-day. Men then openly wrote and spoke against them, while few dare, at the present time, point out faults that every person of intelligence knows and feels to be defects. A few years since, when Jackson was placed in the White House, it was the fashion of Europe to predict that we had elevated a soldier to power, and that the government of the bayonet was at hand. This every intelligent American knew to be rank nonsense. The approach of the government of the bayonet among us, if it is ever to come, may be foreseen by the magnitude of popular abuses, against which force is the only remedy. Every well-wisher of the freedom this country has hitherto enjoyed, should now look upon the popular tendencies with distrust, as, whenever it is taken away, it will go as their direct consequence; it being an inherent principle in the corrupt nature of man to misuse all his privileges; even those connected with religion itself. If history proves anything, it proves this.--Editor.

[14] The commoner dialect of New England is as distinct from the language of the rest of the republic, cases of New England descent excepted, as those of many of the English counties are from that of London. One of the peculiarities of the former, is to pronounce the final of a word like y; calling America, Ameriky; Utica, Utiky; Ithaca, Ithaky. Thus, Lavinia would be very apt to be pronounced Lavinny, Lavyny, or Lowiny. As there is a marked ambition for fine names, the effect of these corruptions on a practised ear is somewhat ludicrous. The rest of the nation is quite free from the peculiarity. Foreigners often mistake New Englandisms for Americanisms; the energy, importance, and prominency of the people of the former portion of the country, giving them an influence that is disproportioned to their numbers.

[15] Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage writes here with prophetic accuracy. Small depredations of this nature have got to be so very common that few now think of resorting to the law for redress. Instead of furnishing the prompt and useful punishment that was administered by our fathers, the law is as much adorned with its cavillings and delays in the minor as in the more important cases; and it often takes years to bring a small depredator even to trial, if he can find money to fee a sagacious lawyer.--Editor.

[16] In order to understand Mr. Littlepage in what he says of "esquires," a word of explanation may be necessary. The term "esquire" is, as every well-informed person knows, a title of honor, standing next in degree below that of knight. On the continent of Europe the "ecuyer" properly infers nobility, I believe, as nobility is there considered, which is little if any more than the condition of the old English gentry, or of the families having coat-armor. By the English law, certain persons are born esquires, and others have the rank ex officio. Among the last is a justice of the peace, who is legally an "esquire" during his official term. Now this rule prevailed in the colonies, and American magistrates were, perhaps legally, esquires, as well as the English. But titles of honor were abolished at the revolution, and it is a singular contradiction, in substance, to hold that the principle is destroyed while the incident remains. The rank of esquire can no more legally exist in America, than that of knight. In one sense, neither is noble, it is true: but in that broad signification by which all constitutions are, or ought to be interpreted both would come within the proscribed category, as set forth in art. 7th, sect. 9th, and art. 1st, sect. 10th, Const. U. S. Nevertheless, so much stronger is custom than positive law, that not only every magistrate, but every lawyer in the country fancies himself peculiarly an "esquire!" It is scarcely necessary to add that, by usage, the appellation is given by courtesy, wherever the English language is spoken, to all who are supposed to belong to the class of gentlemen. This, after all, is the only true American use of the word.--Editor.

[17] Lest the reader should suppose Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage is here recording uselessly the silly sayings of a selfish, ignorant, and vulgar robber, it may be well to add, that doctrines of a calibre, considered in respect of morals and logic, similar to this, though varying according to circumstances and the points it is desired to establish, are constantly published in journals devoted to anti-rentism in the State of New York, and men have acted on these principles even to the shedding of blood. We purpose, when we come to our third manuscript, which relates to movements of our immediate time, to distinctly lay before the reader some of these strange doctrines; entertaining little doubt that those who originally promulgated them will scarcely admire their own theories, when they see them introduced into a work that will contain the old-fashioned notions of honesty and right.--Editor.

[18] At the present day, the cooking-stove has nearly superseded the open fireplace.

[19] I am a little apprehensive that the profound political philosophers who have sprung up among us within a few years, including some in high places, and who virtually maintain that the American is so ineffably free, that it is opposed to the spirit of the institutions of the country to suffer him to be either landlord or tenant, however much he may desire it himself (and no one pretends that either law or facts compel him to be either, contrary to his own wishes), will feel mortified at discovering that they have not the merit of first proposing their own exquisite theory; Aaron Thousandacres having certainly preceded them by sixty years. There is no great secret on the subject of the principle which lies at the bottom of this favorite doctrine, the Deity himself having delivered to man, as far back as the days of Moses, the tenth commandment, with the obvious design of controlling it. An attempt to prove that the institutions of this country are unsuited to the relations of landlord and tenant, is an attempt to prove that they are unsuited to meet the various contingencies of human affairs, and is an abandonment of their defence, as that defence can only be made on broad, manly, and justifiable grounds. As a political principle, it is just as true that the relations of debtor and creditor are unsuited to the institutions, and ought to be abolished.--Editor.

[20] Thousandacres speaks here like a veritable prophet.--Editor.

[21] Mr. Hugh Littlepage writes a little sharply, but there is truth in all he says, at the bottom. His tone is probably produced by the fact that there is so serious an attempt to deprive him of his old paternal estate, an attempt which is receiving support in high quarters. In addition to this provocation, the Littlepages, as the manuscript shows farther on, are traduced, as one means of effecting the objects of the anti-renters; no man, in any community in which it is necessary to work on public sentiment in order to accomplish such a purpose, ever being wronged without being calumniated. As respects the inns, truth compels me, as an old traveller, to say that Mr. Littlepage has much reason for what he says. I have met with a better bed in the lowest French tavern I ever was compelled to use, and in one instance I slept in an inn frequented by carters, than in the best purely country inn in America. In the way of neatness, however, more is usually to be found in our New York village taverns than in the public hotels of Paris itself. As for the hit touching the intelligence of the people, it is merited; for I have myself heard subtle distinctions drawn to show that the "people" of a former generation were not as knowing as the "people" of this, and imputing the covenants of the older leases to that circumstance, instead of imputing them to their true cause, the opinions and practices of the times. Half a century's experience would induce me to say that the "people" were never particularly dull in making a bargain.--Editor.

[22] The editor has often had occasion to explain the meaning of terms of this nature. The colonists caught a great many words from the Indians they first knew, and used them to all other Indians, though not belonging to their language; and these other tribes using them as English, a sort of limited lingua franca has grown up in the country that everybody understands. It is believed that "moccason," "squaw," "pappoose," "sago," "tomahawk," "wigwam," etc., etc., all belong to this class of words. There can be little doubt that the sobriquet of "Yankees" is derived from "Yengees," the manner in which the tribes nearest to New England pronounced the word "English." It is to this hour a provincialism of that part of the country to pronounce this word "Eng-lish" instead of "Ing-lish," its conventional sound. The change from "Eng-lish" to "Yengees" is very trifling.--Editor.

[23] As the "honorable gentleman from Albany" does not seem to understand the precise signification of "provincial," I can tell him that one sign of such a character is to admire a bed at an American country inn.--Editor.

[24] That Mr. Hugh Littlepage does not feel or express himself too strongly on the state of things that has now existed among us for long, long years, the following case, but one that illustrates the melancholy truth among many, will show. At a time when the tenants of an extensive landlord, to whom tens of thousands were owing for rent, were openly resisting the law, and defeating every attempt to distrain, though two ordinary companies of even armed constables would have put them down, the sheriff entered the house of that very landlord, and levied on his furniture for debt. Had that gentleman, on the just and pervading principle that he owed no allegiance to an authority that did not protect him, resisted the sheriff's officer, he would have gone to the State's prison; and there he might have staid until his last hour of service was expended.--Editor.

[25] Absurd as this may seem, it is nevertheless true, and for a reason that is creditable, rather than the reverse--a wish to help along the unfortunate. It is a great mistake, however, as a rule, to admit of any other motive for selecting for public trusts, than qualification.--Editor.

[26] This is no invented statement, but strictly one that is true, the writer having himself a small interest in a property so situated; though he has not yet bethought him of applying to the legislature for relief.--Editor.

[27] In order that the reader may understand Mr. Hugh Littlepage is not inventing, I will add that propositions still more extravagant than these, have been openly circulated among the anti-renters, up and down the country.--Editor.

[28] In order that the reader who is not familiar with what is passing in New York may not suppose that exaggerated terms are here used, the writer will state a single expedient of the anti-renters in the Legislature to obtain their ends. It is generally known that the Constitution of the United States prevents the separate States from passing laws impairing the obligations of contracts. But for this provision of the Federal Constitution, it is probable, numbers would have succeeded, long ago, in obtaining the property of the few on their own terms, amid shouts in honor of liberty! This provision, however, has proved a stubborn obstacle, until the world, near the middle of the nineteenth century, has been favored with the following notable scheme to effect the ends of those who "want farms and must have them." The State can regulate, by statute, the laws of descents. It has, accordingly, been solemnly proposed in the Legislature of New York, that the statute of descents should be so far altered, that when a landlord, holding lands subject to certain leasehold tenures, dies, or a descent is cast, that it shall be lawful for the tenants, on application to the chancellor, to convert these leasehold tenures into mortgages, and to obtain the fee-simple of the estates in payment of the debt! In other words, A leases a farm to B forever, reserving a ground-rent, with covenants of re-entry, etc., etc. B wishes a deed, but will not pay A's price. The United States says the contract shall not be impaired, and the Legislature of New York is illustrated by the expedient we have named, to get over the provision of the Constitution!

Since writing the foregoing, this law has actually passed the Assembly, though it has not been adopted by the Senate. The provision included all leased property, when the leases were for more than twenty-one years, or were on lives.--Editor.

[29] The prevalence of the notion of the omnipotence of majorities, in America, is so wide-spread and deep, among the people in general, as to form a distinctive trait in the national character. It is doing an infinity of mischief, by being mistaken for the governing principle of the institutions, when in fact it is merely a necessary expedient to decide certain questions which must be decided by somebody, and in some mode or other. Kept in its proper sphere, the use of majorities is replete with justice, so far as justice can be exercised among men; abused, it opens the highway to the most intolerable tyranny. As a matter of course, the errors connected with this subject vary through all the gradations of intellect and selfishness. The following anecdote will give the reader some notion how the feeling impressed a stranger shortly after his arrival in this country.

A year or two since the writer had in his service an Irishman who had been only two years in the country. It was a part of this man's duty to look after the welfare of certain pigs, of which one occupied the position of a "runt." "Has your honor looked at the pigs lately?" said the honest fellow, one day. "No, not lately, Pat; is there any change?" "That there is, indeed, sir, and a great change. The little fellow is getting the majority of the rest, and will make the best hog of 'em all!"--Editor.

[30] The editor may as well say here, that, for obvious reasons, the names, counties, etc., used in these manuscripts are feigned, the real localities being close enough to those mentioned for the double purposes of truth and fiction. As one of the "honorable gentlemen" of the Legislature has quoted our references to "provincial" feelings and notions, with a magnificence that proves how thoroughly he is a man of the world himself, we will tell all the rest of the human race, who may happen to read this book, that we have made this explanation lest that comprehensive view of things, which has hitherto been so eager, because a street and a house are named in the pages of a fiction, to suppose that everybody is to believe they know the very individual who dwelt in it, should fancy that our allusions are to this or that particular functionary.--Editor.

[31] The frightful propensity to effect its purposes by lying has come to such a head in the country, as seriously to threaten the subversion of all justice. Without adverting to general facts, two circumstances directly connected with this anti-rent question force themselves on my attention. They refer to large estates that were inherited by an Englishman, who passed half of a long life in the country. In public legislative documents it has been pretended that the question of his title to his estates is still open, when the published reports of the highest court of the country show that a decision was made in his favor thirty years since; and, in reference to his heir, it has been officially stated that he has invariably refused to give any leases but such as run on lives. Now it is of little moment whether this be true or not, since the law allows every man to do as he may please in this respect. But the fact, as I understand from the agent who draws the leases, is precisely the reverse of that which has been openly stated in this legislative document; THE PRESENT POSSESSOR OF THE ESTATE IN QUESTION HAVING BEEN EARNESTLY SOLICITED BY THE TENANTS TO GRANT NEW LEASES ON LIVES AND ABSOLUTELY REFUSED TO COMPLY! In this instance the Legislature, doubtless, have been deceived by the interested representations of anti-renters.--Editor.

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