“‘Corny Littlepage, here,’ is only half English, and that half is colony-born and colony-bred,” answered the laughing girl, “and he has loved a sleigh from the time when he first slid down hill—”
“Ah! Miss Anneke—let me entreat—”
“Oh! no allusion is intended to the Dutch church and its neighbourhood;—but, the sports of childhood are always dear to us, as are sometimes the discomforts. Habit and prejudice are sister hand-maidens; and I never see one of these gentlemen from home, taking extraordinary interest in any of our peculiarly colony usages, but I distrusted an extra amount of complaisance, or a sort of enjoyment in which we do not strictly share.”
“Is this altogether liberal to Bulstrode, Miss Anneke,” I ventured to put in; “he seems to like us, and I am sure he has good reason so to do. That he likes some of us, is too apparent to be concealed or denied.”
“Mr. Bulstrode is a skilful actor, as all who saw his Cato must be aware,” retorted the charming girl, compressing her pouting lips in a way that seemed to me to be inexpressibly pleasing; “and those who saw his Scrub must be equally convinced of the versatility of his talents. No, no; Major Bulstrode is better where he is, or will be to-day, at four o’clock—at the head of the mess of the ——th, instead of dining in a snug Dutch parlour, with my cousin, worthy Mrs. van der Heyden, at a dinner got up with colony hospitality, and colony good-will, and colony plainness. The entertainment we shall receive to-day, sweetened, as it will be, by the welcome which will come from the heart, can have no competitor in countries where a messenger must be sent two days before the visit, to ask permission to come, in order to escape cold looks and artificial surprise. I would prefer surprising my friends from the heart, instead of from the head.”
Guert expressed his astonishment that any one should not always be glad and willing to receive his friends; and insisted on it, that no such inhospitable customs could exist. I knew, however, that society could not exist on the same terms, in old and in new countries—among a people that was pressed upon by numbers, and a people that had not yet felt the evils of a superabundant population. Americans are like dwellers in the country, who are always glad to see their friends; and I ventured to say something of the causes of these differences in habits.
Nothing occurred worthy of being dwelt on, in our ride to Kinderhook. Mrs. Van der Heyden resided at a short distance from the river, and the blacks and the bays had some little difficulty in dragging us through the mud to her door. Once there, however, our welcome fully verified the theory of the colony habits, which had been talked over in our drive down. Anneke’s worthy connection was not only glad to see her, as anybody might have been, but she would have been glad to receive as many as her house would hold. Few excuses were necessary, for we were all welcome. The visit would retard her dinner an hour, as was frankly admitted—but that was nothing; and cakes and wine were set before us in the interval, did we feel hungry in consequence of a two hours’ ride. Guert was desired to make free, and go to the stables to give his own orders. In a word, our reception was just that which every colonist has experienced, when he has gone unexpectedly to visit a friend, or a friend’s friend. Our dinner was excellent, though not accompanied by much form. The wine was good; Mrs. van der Heyden’s deceased husband having been a judge of what was desirable in that respect. Everybody was in good-humour; and our hostess insisted on giving us coffee before we took our departure.
“There will be a moon, cousin Herman,” she said, “and the night will be both light and pleasant. Guert knows the road, which cannot well be missed, as it is the river; and if you quit me at eight, you will reach home in good season to go to rest. It is so seldom I see you, that I have a right to claim every minute you can spare. There remains much to be told concerning our old friends and mutual relatives.”
When such words are accompanied by looks and acts that prove their sincerity, it is not easy to tear ourselves away from a pleasant house. We chatted on, laughed, listened to stories and colony anecdotes that carried us back to the last war, and heard a great many eulogiums on beaux and belles, that we young people had, all our lives, considered as respectable, elderly, commonplace sort of persons.
At length the hour arrived when even Mrs. Bogart herself admitted we ought to part. Anneke and Mary were kissed, enveloped in their furs, and kissed again, and then we took our leave. As we left the house, I remarked that a clock in the passage struck eight. In a few minutes every one was placed, and the runners were striking fire from the flints of the bare ground. We had less difficulty in descending than in ascending the bank of the river, though there was no snow. It did not absolutely freeze, nor had it actually frozen since the commencement of the thaw, but the earth had stiffened since the disappearance of the sun. I was much rejoiced when the blacks sprang upon the ice, and whirled us away, on our return road at a rate even exceeding the speed with which they had come down it in the morning. I thought it high time we should be in motion on our return; and in motion we were, if flying at the rate of eleven miles in the hour could thus be termed.
The light of the moon was not clear and bright, for there was a haze in the atmosphere, as is apt to occur in the mild weather of March; but there was enough to enable Guert to dash ahead with as great a velocity as was at all desirable. We were all in high spirits; us two young men so much the more, because each of us fancied he had seen that day evidence of a tender interest existing in the heart of his mistress towards himself. Mary Wallace had managed, with a woman’s tact, to make her suitor appear even respectable in female society, and had brought out in him many sentiments that denoted a generous disposition and a manly heart, if not a cultivated intellect; and Guert was getting confidence, and with it the means of giving his capacity fairer play. As for Anneke, she now knew my aim, and I had some right to construe several little symptoms of feeling, that escaped her in the course of the day, favourably. I fancied that, gentle as it always was, her voice grew softer, and her smile sweeter and more winning, as she addressed herself to, or smiled on me; and she did just enough of both not to appear distant, and just little enough to appear conscious; at least such were the conjectures of one who I do not think could be properly accused of too much confidence, and whose natural diffidence was much increased by the self-distrust of the purest love.
Away we went, Guert’s complicated chimes of bells jingling their merry notes in a manner to be heard half a mile, the horses bearing hard on the bits, for they knew that their own stables lay at the end of their journey, and Herman Mordaunt’s bays keeping so near us that, notwithstanding the noise we made with our own bells, the sounds of his were constantly in our ears. An hour went swiftly by, and we had already passed Coejeman’s, and had a hamlet that stretched along the strand, and which lay quite beneath the high bank of the river, in dim distant view. This place has since been known by the name of Monkey Town, and is a little remarkable as being the first cluster of houses on the shores of the Hudson after quitting Albany. I dare say it has another name in law, but Guert gave it the appellation I have mentioned.
I have said that the night had a sombre, misty, light, the moon wading across the heavens through a deep but thin ocean of vapour. We saw the shores plainly enough, and we saw the houses and trees, but it was difficult to distinguish smaller objects at any distance. In the course of the day twenty sleighs had been met or passed, but at that hour everybody but ourselves appeared to have deserted the river. It was getting late for the simple habits of those who dwelt on its shores. When about half-way between the islands opposite to Coejeman’s and the hamlet just named, Guert, who stood erect to drive, told us that some one who was out late, like themselves, was coming down. The horses of the strangers were in a very fast trot, and the sleigh was evidently inclining towards the west shore, as if those it held intended to land at no great distance. As it passed, quite swiftly, a man’s voice called out something on a high key, but our bells made so much noise that it was not easy to understand him. He spoke in Dutch, too, and none of our ears, those of Guert excepted, were sufficiently expert in that language to be particularly quick in comprehending what he said. The call passed unheeded, then, such things being quite frequent among the Dutch, who seldom passed each other on the highway without a greeting of some sort or other. I was thinking of this practice, and of the points that distinguished our own habits