CHAPTER XXI.

Leaving Edith to pursue her way towards the Oneida territory, and Mr. Prevost, after parting with Lord H---- at the distance of two miles from his own house, to ride on to Johnson Castle, let us follow the 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 wrote, "from information communicated by Sir William Johnson, that there was no need of any concealment; but, on the contrary, that 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, could 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 being 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 large a population as it now contains, occupied a space nearly as large as the present city. One long street ran by the bank of 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 summit of the hill was the fort; and, built in the centre 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 some 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 were 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. Here certainly some degree of filth existed; and the air was perfumed with a high savour of tar and tobacco.

It was towards this part of the town that Lord H---- directed his course, inquiring for the inn called "The Three Boatmen." Several times, however, was he frustrated, in his attempt to obtain information, by the ignorance of the English language shown by a great portion of the inhabitants; 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. Four trees stood in line before the doors, with benches underneath them, for the convenience of those who liked to sit and poison the sweet air of the summer evenings 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 were 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 nick-name 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 round. What the odour was, it is impossible to say, for it was as complicated as the antidote of Mithridates; but the predominant smells were certainly those of tobacco, beer, rum, and Hollands 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 two to place a couple of chairs back to back.

In this small den, not less than five or six and twenty persons 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, and none of them showing themselves in a very favourable 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 fell upon a man sitting at a table in the corner of the room next to the window. He was quite alone, with his back turned to the rest of the men 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 there; 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," muttered 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 the side of which he had just risen.

A roar of laughter burst from a number of the assembled guests; the little Frenchman spluttered his wrath, without daring to carry the expression of his indignation further; 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 pigsties of cities--suffocating in such dens as we have just left. I guess I shall drown myself some day, when I am druv 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 shan't do anything desperate so long as I am 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 stop 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 the pleasant lakes, with the picture of everything round painted so beautiful on 'em, when they are still, and the streams that go dancing and splashing along over the big black stones and the little white pebbles, seeming for all the world to sing as if for pleasure at their freedom, and the open friendly air of the hill-side, 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 a sufficient portion of love in his own heart 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 it?" 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.

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?" 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 critturs! Couldn't they have chosen some more worthless thing than that?"

Pressing his hand tightly 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 or 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 him, but it may be done when one knows his tracks well. I can't get my brain to hold steady to-night. This story's 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 shan'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 tell me now all you have done, if you have done anything. As for Prevost, I don't suppose he's had time to do much; for though he is 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 moment. 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_ is 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," interposed Woodchuck; "passably honest--the best of them."

"Well, we have commissioned him," resumed the 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----.

"Ay, didn't you know that?" interrogated 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'll 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 then, 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; to-morrow, at noon, if you will; and then I'll come and tell you what my opinion is."

As he spoke, he turned abruptly towards the house, without any ceremonious leave-taking, and only looked round to put one more question.

"At the post, I suppose?" he said.

Lord H---- assented; Brooks entered the house, and at once sought his own chamber.