Leaving Edith to pursue her way toward the Oneida territory, and Mr.
Prevost, after parting with Lord H---- at the distance of some three
miles from his own house, to ride on to Johnson Castle, let us follow
the young nobleman to Albany, where he arrived somewhat after
nightfall. His first duty, as he conceived it, led him to the quarters
of the commander-in-chief, where he made a brief but clear report of
all that had occurred in his transactions with the Indians.
"I found," he said, "from information communicated by Sir William
Johnson, that there was no need of any concealment; but that, on the
contrary, it would be rather advantageous to appear at the meeting
with the Five Nations in my proper character. The results were what I
have told you. There is one other point, however, which I think it
necessary to mention, and which, if imprudently treated, might lead to
serious results."
He then went on to state generally the facts in regard to the death of
the Indian by the hands of Woodchuck, and the supposed capture of
Walter Prevost by a party of the Oneidas. It would be uninteresting to
the reader to hear the particulars of the conversation which followed.
Suffice it to say, that the government of the colony in all its
departments was very well disposed to inactivity at that time, and not
at all inclined to exert itself for the protection of individuals, or
even of greater interests, unless strongly pressed to do so. This Lord
H---- was not at all inclined to do, as he was well aware from all he
had heard that no action on the part of the government short of the
sudden march of a large body of troops would effect the liberation of
Walter Prevost, and that to expect such a movement, which itself might
be unsuccessful, was quite out of the question with the officers who
were in command at the time.
His conference with the commander-in-chief ended, he declined an
invitation to supper, and went out on his search for the small inn
where he had been told he would find the man whose act, however
justifiable, had brought so much wretchedness upon Mr. Prevost's
family.
The city of Albany, in those days, as we have reason to know from very
good authority, though not numbering by many thousands as great a
population as it contains at present, occupied a space nearly as large
as the present city. One long street ran by the river, to the very
verge of which beautiful and well cultivated gardens extended; and
from the top of the hill down to this lower street ran another, very
nearly, if not exactly, of the same position and extent as the present
State street. On the top of the hill was the fort; and built in the
center of the large, descending street which swept round them on
either side, were two or three churches, a handsome market place, and
a guard-house. A few other streets ran down the hill in a parallel
line with this principal one; and other small streets, lanes, and
alleys connected them all together. Nevertheless, the population, as I
have said, was comparatively very small, for between house and house,
and street and street, throughout the whole town, were large and
beautiful gardens filling up spaces now occupied by buildings and
thronged with human beings. A great part of the population was at that
time Dutch, and all the neatness and cleanliness of true Dutch houses
and Dutch streets was to be seen in Albany in those days--would we
could say as much at present. No pigs then ran in the streets, to the
horror of the eye and the annoyance of the passenger; no cabbage
leaves or stalks disgraced the gutter; and the only place in which
anything like filth or uncleanliness was to be seen was at the
extremity of the littoral street, where, naturally, the houses of the
boatmen and others connected with the shipping were placed for the
sake of approximating to the water. There, certainly, some degree of
dirt existed, and the air was perfumed with the high savor of tar and
tobacco.
It was toward this part of the town that Lord H---- directed his
steps, inquiring for the inn called "The Three Boatmen." Several
times, however, was he frustrated in his attempt to obtain information
by the ignorance of a great portion of the inhabitants of the English
language; and the pipe was removed from the mouth only to reply in
Dutch, "I do not understand."
At length, however, he was directed aright, and found a small and
somewhat mean-looking house, in which an adventurous Englishman from
the purlieus of Clare Market had established a tavern for the benefit
of boatmen. It had in former times belonged to a Dutch settler, and
still retained many of the characteristic features of its origin,
while four trees stood in line before the door, with benches
underneath them for the convenience of those who chose to sit and
poison the sweet air of the summer evening with the fumes of tobacco.
Entering through a swing door into the narrow, sandy passage, which
descended one step from the street, Lord H---- encountered a negro
tapster with a white apron, of whom he inquired if Captain Brooks was
still there.
"Oh, yes, Massa Officer," said the man, with a grin. "You mean Massa
Woodchuck," he continued, showing that the good man's Indian nickname
was very extensively known. "You find him in dere, in de coffee room,"
and he pointed to a door, once white, now yellow and brown with smoke,
age, and dirty fingers.
Lord H---- opened the door and went in amongst as strange and
unprepossessing an assemblage of human beings as it had ever been his
chance to light upon. The air was rendered obscure by smoke, so that
the candles looked dim and red; and it was literally difficult to
distinguish the objects around. What the odor was it is impossible to
say, for it was as complicated as the antidote of Mithridates; but the
predominant smells were certainly those of beer, rum, and Holland gin.
Some ten or twelve little tables of exceedingly highly polished
mahogany, but stained here and there by the contaminating marks of wet
glasses, divided the room amongst them, leaving just space between
each to place two chairs, back to back; and in this small den not less
than five or six and twenty people were congregated, almost all
drinking, almost all smoking, some talking very loud, some sitting in
profound silence, as the quantity of liquor imbibed or the national
characteristics of the individual might prompt. Gazing through the
haze upon this scene, which, besides the sturdy and coarse, but active
Englishman, and the heavy, phlegmatic Dutchman, contained one or two
voluble Frenchmen, deserters from the Canadas, none of them showing
themselves in a very favorable light, Lord H---- could not help
comparing the people before him with the free, wild Indians he had
lately left, and asking himself: "Which are the savages?"
At length his eye, however, fell upon a man sitting at the table in
the corner of the room next to the window. He was quite alone, with
his back turned to the rest of the people in the place, his head
leaning on his hand, and a short pipe laid down upon the table beside
him. He had no light before him, as most of the others had, and he
might have seemed asleep, so still was his whole figure, had it not
been that the fingers of his right hand, which rested on the table,
beat time to an imaginary tune. Approaching close to him, Lord
H---- drew a seat to the table and laid a hand upon his arm. Woodchuck
looked round, and a momentary expression of pleasure, slight, and
passing away rapidly, crossed his rugged features.
The next moment his face was all cold and stern again.
"Very kind of you to come and see me, my lord," he said, in a dull,
sad tone. "What do you want with me? Have you got anything for me to
do?"
"I am sorry to see you looking so melancholy, Captain," said Lord
H----, evading his question. "I hope nothing else has gone amiss."
"Haven't I cause enough to be melancholy," said the other, looking
round at the people in the room, "cooped up with a penful of swine?
Come out--come out to the door. It's cold enough out, but the coldest
wind that ever blew is better than the filthy air of these pigs."
As he spoke he rose, and a little, pert-looking Frenchman, who had
overheard him, exclaimed in a bantering tone: "Why you call us pigs
more nor yourself de great hog?"
"Get out of my way, for fear I break your back," said Woodchuck, in a
low, stern voice. "If your neck had been broken long ago, it would
have been better for your country and for mine;" and taking up the
little Frenchman by the nape of the neck with one arm, he set him upon
the table from which he had just arisen.
A roar of laughter burst from a number of the assembled throats; the
little Frenchman sputtered with wrath, without daring to carry the
expression of his indignation farther; and Woodchuck strode quietly
out of the room, followed by his military visitor.
"Here--let us sit down here," he said, placing himself on a bench
under a leafless tree, and leaving room for Lord H---- by his side. "I
am gloomy enough, my lord, and haven't I reason to be so? Here I am
for life. This is to be my condition with the swine that gather up in
these sties of cities, suffocating in such dens as these. I guess I
shall drown myself some day, when I am driven quite mad. I know a man
has no right to lay hands upon himself. I larnt my Bible when I was
young, and know what's God's will, so I sha'n't do anything desperate
so long as I be right here," and he laid his finger on his forehead.
"No! no! I'll just take as much care of my life," he continued, "as
though it were a baby I was nursing; but unless them Ingians catch
some other white man and kill him--which God forbid--I've got to stay
here for life; and even if they do, it's more nor a chance they'd kill
me, too, if they got me; and when I think of them beautiful woods and
pleasant lakes, with the pictures of everything round painted so
beautiful on them when they are still, and the streams that go dancing
and splashing along over the big black stones and the small white
pebbles, seeming for all the world to sing as if for pleasure at their
freedom, and the open, friendly air of the hillside, and the clouds
skimming along, and the birds glancing through the branches, and the
squirrels skipping and chattering as if they were mocking everything
not so nimble as themselves, I do often believe I shall go crazed to
think I shall never see those things again."
Lord H---- felt for him much, for he had in his own heart a sufficient
portion of love for the wilder things of nature to sympathize in some
degree with one who loved them so earnestly.
"I trust, Woodchuck," he said, "that we shall be able to find some
employment for you with the army--if not with my own corps with some
other, which may give you glimpses at least of the scenes you love so
well, and of the unconfined life you have lived so long; but I have
come to consult you upon a subject of much and immediate importance,
and we must talk of that the first thing."
"What is that?" asked Brooks, in an indifferent tone, fixing his eyes
upon the stones of the street, faintly lighted by the glare from
within the house.
Lord H---- began his account of what had happened between the Mohawk
and the Hudson with some circumlocution, for he did not feel at all
sure of the effect it would produce upon his companion's mind, and the
Woodchuck seemed to fall into one of those deep reveries in which one
may be said to hear without hearing. He took not the slightest notice
of what his noble visitor said regarding the burning of the wood, or
the danger of Mr. Prevost and Edith. It seemed to produce no more
distinct effect than would the wind whistling in his ears. He sat calm
and silent, without an observation, but he grew more attentive, though
only in a slight degree, when the narrator came to mention the anxiety
of the family at the protracted absence of Walter; and when at last
Lord H---- described the finding of the knife and the knapsack, and
told of the conclusions to which the whole family had come, he started
up, exclaiming: "What's that! What's that!" and then, after a moment's
pause, he sank down upon his seat again, saying, with a groan: "They
have got him--they have got him, and they will tomahawk him--the
bloody, barbarous critters! Couldn't they have chosen some more
worthless thing than that!"
Pressing his hand tight upon his forehead, as if he fancied the
turbulent thoughts within would burst it, he remained for a moment or
two in silence, till Lord H---- asked if he imagined they would
execute their bloody purposes speedily.
"No! no!" cried the man. "No fear of that; they'll take time enough;
that's the worst of the savages. It's no quick rage, no angry heat
with them--no word and a blow. It's cold, bitter, long-premeditated
hatred. They wouldn't have half the pleasure if they didn't draw out
their revenge by the week and the month--but what's to be done
now--gracious God! what's to be done now?"
"That is precisely what I came to consult you upon," said Lord
H----; "but let us talk over the matter calmly, my good friend. This
is a case where grief, anger, and indignation can do nothing, but
where deliberate thought, reason, and policy, even cunning, such as
their own--for, if we could arrive at it, we should be quite justified
in using it--may, perhaps, do something to save this poor boy!"
"How the devil would you have me calm!" exclaimed the man, vehemently;
but then, suddenly checking himself, he said: "You're right, you're
right. I am forgetting my old habits in these smoky holes; thought,
cunning, those are the only things to do with an Indian. It's
tarnation hard to outwit them, but it may be done when one knows his
tracks well. I can't get my brain to hold steady tonight; this story
has upset all my thoughts, and I've got no consideration in me. You
must give me a night and a day to think over the matter, and then I'll
see what's to be done. By the Lord, Walter sha'n't die! Poor fellow!
What should he die for? However, I guess it's no use talking in that
sort of manner. I must think of what's to be done; that's the business
in hand. I'll think as soon as I can, my lord; only you just now tell
me all you have done, if you've done anything. As for Prevost, I don't
suppose he's had time to do much, for though he's always right in the
end, and no man's opinion is worth more, yet if you touch his heart
and his feelings, as you call them, his wits get all in a work, just
like mine at this minute. More fool he, and I, too!"
"We have done something," said Lord H---- in reply. "Mr. Prevost set
out this morning to see Sir William Johnson----"
"He's no good!" growled Woodchuck, impatiently.
"I came hither to consult with you," continued Lord H----, "and we
have commissioned the boatman, whom they call Robert, a tall, stout
man----"
"I know him! I know him!" said Woodchuck. "Passably honest--the best
of them."
"Well, we have commissioned him," resumed the young nobleman, "to seek
for some Indian runner, or half-breed, to carry news of this event to
Otaitsa, whom Edith believes the tribe will keep in the dark in regard
to the capture of Walter."
"Likely, likely," said the Woodchuck. "Miss Prevost understands them.
They'll not tell the women anything, for fear they should meddle.
They've a poor opinion of squaws. But the girl may do a great deal of
good, too, if you can get the tidings to her. She's not as cunning as
the rest of them, but she has more heart and soul, and resolution,
too, than a whole tribe of Indian women--that comes of her mother
being a white woman."
"Her mother a white woman!" exclaimed Lord H----.
"Aye; didn't you know that?" said Woodchuck. "Just as white as Miss
Prevost, and quite a lady, too, she was, to look at, or to speak
to--though she was not fond of speaking with white men, and would draw
back into the lodge whenever she saw one. I did speak to her once,
though, when she was in a great fright about Black Eagle, who had gone
to battle against the French; and I, happening to come that way, gave
her some news of him. But we are getting astray from what's of more
matter than that. The girl will save him, take my word for it, if
there's strength enough in that little body to do it. But let me
see--you talk of Indian runners; where is one to be found who can be
trusted? They're generally a bad set, the scum of the tribes; no real
warrior would take up on such a trade. However, what's to be done? No
white person can go; for they'd scalp him to a certainty, and he would
give his life for Walter's, that's all. On my life, it would be as
well to give the dangerous errand to some felon, as I have heard say
they do in despotic countries--give criminals some dangerous task to
perform; and they, if they succeed and escape, so much the better for
them; if they die, so much the better for the community. But I'm
getting wandering again," he continued, rising. "Now, my lord, this is
no use. Give me a few hours to think--tomorrow, at noon, if you
will--and then I'll come and tell you what my opinion is."
As he spoke, he turned abruptly toward the house, without any
ceremonious leave-taking, and only looked round to put one more
question:
"At the fort, I suppose?" he said.
Lord H---- assented, and Brooks entered the house and at once sought
his own chamber.