"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.
"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 reservationin pettothat 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 characteren 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, asmighthappen 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 ittoto cœlo, 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 ofhisschool, 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 andtheirrights passing for nothing."
"That is one beautiful feature of the morality—an eye, or a cheek, if you will—but here is thenose, 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 toallleases, or nearly all, and certainly to allsortsof 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 grievancesyoulabor 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.Oneman 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 notionsdessus 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 ofus, or any one connected with an old landed family, we should be the certain victims. No governor would dare pardonus. 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 farmsnow, 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 verybeau idealof 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 Americansarethe 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, touse; 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 wordnecessarycovers 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,willput 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, orwiththe 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 determinewhena 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 theposse comitatusor 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.Thereis 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 findthere, 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.
"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 dearI see thee still."—Sprague.
"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 dearI 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 itold, 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 Americanscansay; 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; andTRADE 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 oncein 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 neverwouldwork, however, and I have heard my father say, great was his happiness when he found he was to pass the remainder of his day inotium 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 Indianseestwice 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 beguten 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. "Whoshouldlib 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 oleyoungmissus 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 calletoltyoung 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,myyoung 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; "thoughthatis 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 doyoudo, 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. Whydatwas 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 calldatso 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.Datgood 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, andhisboy 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 thesobriquetof the Chainbearer. My grandmother had told me that "uncle Chainbearer," as we all called the old relative,didknow 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.Shehad 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 kissfaceof 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;hisfader, 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.