“Is it probable, Mr. Littlepage,” said Mary Wallace, “that any person in Albany should not know Guert Ten Eyck, and a good deal of his past history? Poor Guert makes himself known wherever he is!”
“And, often much to his advantage,” I added—a remark that cost me nothing; but which caused Mary Wallace’s face to brighten, and even brought a faint smile to her lips. “All that is true; yet there was something wild and unnatural in the woman’s manner, as she told these things!”
“All of which you seem determined to keep to yourself?” observed Anneke, as one asks a question.
“It would hardly do to betray a friend’s secrets. Let Guert answer for himself; he is as frank as broad day, and will not hesitate about letting you know all.”
“I wish Corny Littlepage were only as frank as twilight!”
“I have nothing to conceal—and least of all from you, Anneke. The fortune-teller told me that the queen of my heart was the queen of too many hearts; that the river had done me no harm; and that I must particularly beware of what she called Knights-Barrownights.”
I watched Anneke closely, as I repeated this warning of Mother Doortje; but could not read the expression of her sweet and thoughtful countenance. She neither smiled nor frowned; but she certainly blushed. Of course, she did not look at me—for that would have been to challenge observation. Mary Wallace, however, did smile, and she did look at me.
“You believe all the wizzard told you, Corny?” said Anneke, after a short pause.
“I believed that the queen of my heart was the queen of many hearts; that the river had done me no harm—though I could not say, or see, that it had done me much good; and that I had much to fear from Knights-Barrownights. I believed all this, however, before I ever saw the fortune-teller.”
The next remark that was made came from Anneke, and it referred to the weather. The season was opening finely, and fast; and it could not be long before the great movements of the year must commence. Several regiments had arrived in the colonies, and various officers of note and rank had accompanied them. Among others who had thus crossed the Atlantic for the first time, was my Lord Howe, a young soldier of whom fame spoke favourably, and from whom much was expected in the course of the anticipated service of the year. While we were talking over these things, Herman Mordaunt re-entered the room, after a short absence, and he took me with him to examine his preparations for transporting the ladies to Ravensnest. As we went along, the discourse was maintained, and I learned many things from my older and intelligent companion, that were new to me.
“New lords, new laws, they say, Corny,” continued Herman Mordaunt; “and this Mr. Pitt, the great commoner, as some persons call him, is bent on making the British empire feel the truth of the axiom. Everything is alive in the colonies, and the sluggish period of Lord Loudon’s command is passed. Gen. Abercrombie, an officer from whom much is expected, is now at the head of the King’s troops, and there is every prospect of an active and most important campaign. The disgraces of the few last years must be wiped out, and the English name be made once more to be dreaded on this continent. The Lord Howe of whom Anneke spoke, is said to be a young man of merit, and to possess the blood of our Hanoverian monarchs; his mother being a half-sister, in the natural way, of his present Majesty.”
Herman Mordaunt then spoke more fully of his own plans for the summer—expressed his happiness at knowing that Dirck and myself were to be what he called his neighbours—though, on a more exact computation, it was ascertained, that the nearest boundaries of the two patents, that of Ravensnest, and that of Mooseridge, lay quite fourteen miles apart, with a dense and virgin forest between them. Nevertheless, this would be making us neighbours, in a certain sense; as gentlemen always call men of their own class neighbours, when they live within visiting distance, or near enough to be seen once or twice in a year. And such men are neighbours, in the sense that is most essential to the term—they know each other better; understand each other better; sympathize more freely; have more of the intercourse that makes us judges of motives, principles, and character, twenty-fold, than he who lives at the gate, and merely sees the owner of the grounds pass in and out, on his daily avocations. There is, and can be no greater absurdity, than to imagine that the sheer neighbourhood, or proximity of position, makes men acquainted. That was one of Jason Newcome’s Connecticut notions. Having been educated in a state of society in which all associated on a certain footing of intimacy, and in which half the difficulties that occurred were “told to the church,” he was for ever fancying he knew all the gentry of Westchester, because he had lived a year or two in the county; when, in fact, he had never spoken to one in a dozen of them. I never could drive this notion out of his head, however; for looking often at a man, or occasionally exchanging a bow with him on the highway, he would insist was knowing him, or what he called, being “well acquainted;” a very favourite expression of the Danbury man’s; though their sympathies, habits, opinions, and feelings, created so vast a void between the parties, they hardly understood each other’s terms, and ordinary language, when they did begin to converse, as sometimes happened. Notwithstanding all this, Jason insisted to the last that he knew every gentleman in the county, whom he had been accustomed to hear alluded to in discourse, and when he had seen them once or twice, though it were only at church. But Jason had a very flattering notion, generally, of his own acquisitions on all subjects.
Herman Mordaunt had made careful provision for the contemplated journey; having caused a covered vehicle to be constructed, that could transport not only himself and the ladies, but many articles of furniture that would be required during their residence in the forest. Another conveyance, strong, spacious, and covered, was also prepared for the blacks, and another portion of the effects. He pointed out all these arrangements to me with great satisfaction, dwelling on the affection and spirit of the girls with a pleasure he did not affect to conceal. For my own part, I have always been of opinion, that Anneke was solely influenced by pure, natural regard, in forming her indiscreet resolution; while her father was governed by the secret expectation that the movement would leave open the means of receiving visits and communications from Bulstrode, during most of the summer. I commended the arrangements, made one or two suggestions of my own in behalf of Anneke and Mary, and we returned to our several homes.
A day or two after this visit to the workshops, and the conversation related, the ——th took up its line of march for the north. The troops defiled through the narrow streets in the neighbourhood of the barracks, half an hour after the appearance of the sun, preceded and followed by a long train of baggage-wagons. They marched without tents, however, it being well understood that they were going into a region where the axe could at any time cover thousands of men, in about the time that a camp could be laid out, and the canvass spread. Hutting was the usual mode of placing an army under cover in the forest; and a dozen marches would take the battalion to the point where it was intended it should remain, as a support to two or three other corps still further in advance, and to keep open the communications.
Bulstrode, however, did not quit Albany in company with his regiment. I had been invited, with Guert and Dirck, to breakfast at Herman Mordaunt’s that morning; and, as we approached the door, I saw the Major’s groom walking his own and his master’s horse, in the street, near by. This was a sign we were to have the pleasure of Bulstrode’s company at breakfast. Accordingly, on entering the room, we found him present, in the uniform of an officer of his rank, about to commence a march in the forests of America. I thought him melancholy, as if sad at parting; but my most jealous observation could detect no sign of similar feeling on the part of Anneke. She was not quite as gay as usual, but she was far from being sad.
“I leave you, ladies, with the deepest regret,” said Bulstrode, while at table, “for you have made this country more than a home to me—you have rendered it dear.”
This was said with feeling; more than I had ever seen Bulstrode manifest before, and more than I had given him credit for possessing. Anneke coloured a little; but there was no tremor in the beautiful hand, that held a highly-wrought little tea-pot suspended over a cup, at that very moment.
“We shall