CHAPTER VIII.
"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 dear I see thee still."--SPRAGUE.
It was just ten in the morning of the succeeding day when my uncle Roand myself came in sight of the old house at the Nest. I call it _old_,for a dwelling that has stood more than half a century acquires a touchof the venerable, in a country like America. To me it was truly old, thebuilding having stood there, where I then saw it, for a period more thantwice as long as that of my own existence, and was associated with allmy early ideas. From childhood I had regarded that place as my futurehome, as it had been the home of my parents and grandparents, and, inone sense, of those who had gone before them for two generations more.The whole of the land in sight--the rich bottoms, then waving withgrass--the side-hills, the woods, the distant mountains--the orchards,dwellings, barns, and all the other accessories of rural life thatappertained to the soil, were mine, and had thus become without a singleact of injustice to any human being, so far as I knew and believed. Eventhe red man had been fairly bought by Herman Mordaunt, the patentee, andso Susquesus, the Redskin of Ravensnest, as our old Onondago was oftencalled, had ever admitted the fact to be. It was natural that I shouldlove an estate thus inherited and thus situated. NO CIVILIZED MAN, NOMAN, INDEED, SAVAGE OR NOT, HAD EVER BEEN THE OWNER OF THOSE BROADACRES, BUT THOSE WHO WERE OF MY OWN BLOOD. This is what few besidesAmericans _can_ say; and when it can be said truly, in parts of thecountry where the arts of life have spread, and amid the blessings ofcivilization, it becomes the foundation of a sentiment so profound, thatI do not wonder those adventurers-errant who are flying about the faceof the country, thrusting their hands into every man's mess, have notbeen able to find it among their other superficial discoveries. Nothingcan be less like the ordinary cravings of avarice than the feeling thatis thus engendered; and I am certain that the general tendency of suchan influence is to elevate the feelings of him who experiences it.
And there were men among us, high in political station--high as such menever can get, for the consequence of having such men in power is to drawdown station itself nearer to their own natural level--but men in powerhad actually laid down propositions in political economy which, ifcarried 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 asthat 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 inby the covenants of their leases, but it had been directly applied toStephen and William Van Rensselaer, and, by implication, to others; andmy turn might come next. What business had the Rensselaers, or theLivingstons, or the Hunters, or the Littlepages, or the Morgans, or theVerplancks, or the Wadsworths, or five hundred others similarly placed,to entertain "sentiments" that interfered with "business," or thatinterfered with the wishes of any straggling Yankee who had found hisway out of New England, and wanted a particular farm on his own terms?It is aristocratic to put sentiment in opposition to trade; and TRADEITSELF IS NOT TO BE TRADE ANY LONGER THAN ALL THE PROFIT IS TO BE FOUNDON THE SIDE OF NUMBERS. Even the principles of holy trade are to begoverned by majorities!
Even my uncle Ro, who never owned a foot of the property, could not lookat it without emotion. He too had been born there--had passed hischildhood there--and loved the spot without a particle of the grovellingfeeling of avarice. He took pleasure in remembering that our race hadbeen the only owners of the soil on which he stood, and had that veryjustifiable pride which belongs to enduring respectability and socialstation.
"Well, Hugh," he cried, after both of us had stood gazing at the graywalls of the good and substantial, but certainly not very beautifuldwelling, "here we are, and we now may determine on what is next to bedone. Shall we march down to the village, which is four miles distant,you will remember, and get our breakfasts there? shall we try one ofyour tenants? or shall we plunge at once _in medias res_, and askhospitality of my mother and your sister?"
"The last might excite suspicion, I fear, sir. Tar and feathers would beour 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 ofhim and Yop the history of the state of things. I heard them speaking ofthe Onondago at our tavern last night, and while they said he wasgenerally thought to be much more than a hundred, that he was still likea man of eighty. That Indian is full of observation, and may let us intosome of the secrets of his brethren."
"They can at least give us the news from the family; and though it mightseem in the course of things for pedlers to visit the Nest house, itwill be just as much so for them to halt at the wigwam."
This consideration decided the matter, and away we went toward theravine or glen, on the side of which stood the primitive-looking hutthat went by the name of the "wigwam." The house was a small cabin oflogs, neat and warm, or cool, as the season demanded. As it was kept up,and was whitewashed, and occasionally furnished anew by thelandlord--the odious creature! he who paid for so many similar things inthe neighborhood--it was never unfit to be seen, though never of a veryalluring, cottage-like character. There was a garden, and it had beenproperly made that very season, the negro picking and pecking about it,during the summer, in a way to coax the vegetables and fruits on alittle, though I well knew that the regular weedings came from anassistant at the Nest, who was ordered to give it an eye and anoccasional half-day. On one side of the hut there was a hog-pen and asmall 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. Thissomewhat poetical arrangement was actually the consequence of acompromise between the tenants of the cabin, the negro insisting on theaccessories of his rude civilization, while the Indian required theshades of the woods to reconcile him to his position. Here had these twosingularly associated beings--the one deriving his descent from thedebased races of Africa, and the other from the fierce but lofty-mindedaboriginal inhabitant of this continent--dwelt for nearly the wholeperiod of an ordinary human life. The cabin itself began to look reallyancient, while those who dwelt in it had little altered within thememory of man! Such instances of longevity, whatever theorists may sayon 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 southernsections of the republic. It is common to say that the great age sooften attributed to the people of these two races is owing to ignoranceof the periods of their births, and that they do not live longer thanthe whites. This may be true, in the main, for a white man is known tohave died at no great distance from Ravensnest, within the lastfive-and-twenty years, who numbered more than his six-score of years;but aged negroes and aged Indians are nevertheless so common, when thesmallness of their whole numbers is remembered, as to render the factapparent 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 wasgenerally called, though wigwam, in the strict meaning of the word, itwas not. As the little building stood in the grounds of the Nest house,which contain two hundred acres, a bit of virgin forest included, andexclusively of the fields that belonged to the adjacent farm, it wasapproached only by foot-paths, of which several led to and from it, andby one narrow, winding carriage-road, which, in passing for milesthrough the grounds, had been led near the hut, in order to enable mygrandmother and sister, and, I dare say, my dear departed mother, whileshe lived, to make their calls in their frequent airings. By thissweeping 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 wedrew near en
ough to the hut to distinguish objects. "Hugh, I never seethese men without a feeling of awe, as well as of affection. They werethe friends, and one was the slave of my grandfather; and as long as Ican remember, have they been aged men! They seem to be set up here asmonuments of the past, to connect the generations that are gone withthose that are to come."
"If so, sir, they will soon be all there is of their sort. It reallyseems to me that, if things continue much longer in their presentdirection, men will begin to grow jealous and envious of history itself,because its actors have left descendants to participate in any littlecredit they may have gained."
"Beyond all contradiction, boy, there is a strange perversion of the oldand natural sentiments on this head among us. But you must bear in mindthe fact, that of the two millions and a half the State contains, nothalf a million, probably, possess any of the true York blood, and canconsequently feel any of the sentiments connected with the birthplaceand the older traditions of the very society in which they live. A greatdeal must be attributed to the facts of our condition; though I admitthose facts need not, and ought not to unsettle principles. But look atthose two old fellows! There they are, true to the feelings and habitsof their races, even after passing so long a time together in this hut.There squats Susquesus on a stone, idle and disdaining work, with hisrifle leaning against the apple-tree; while Jaaf--or Yop, as I believeit is better to call him--is pecking about in the garden, still a slaveat 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 never _would_ work, however, and I have heard my fathersay, great was his happiness when he found he was to pass the remainderof his day in _otium cum dignitate_, and without the necessity of makingbaskets."
"Yop is looking at us; had we not better go up at once and speak tothem?"
"Yop may stare the most openly, but my life on it the Indian _sees_twice as much. His faculties are the best, to begin with; and he is aman of extraordinary and characteristic observation. In his best daysnothing ever escaped him. As you say, we will approach."
My uncle and myself then consulted on the expediency of using brokenEnglish with these two old men, of which, at first, we saw no necessity;but when we remembered that others might join us, and that ourcommunication with the two might be frequent for the next few days, wechanged our minds, and determined rigidly to observe our incognitos.
As we came up to the door of the hut, Jaaf slowly left his little gardenand joined the Indian, who remained immovable and unmoved on the stonewhich served him for a seat. We could see but little change in eitherduring the five years of our absence, each being a perfect picture, inhis way, of extreme but not decrepit old age in the men of his race. Ofthe two, the black--if black he could now be called, his color being amuddy gray--was the most altered, though that seemed scarcely possiblewhen I saw him last. As for the Trackless, or Susquesus, as he wascommonly called, his temperance throughout a long life did him goodservice, and his half-naked limbs and skeleton-like body, for he worethe summer-dress of his people, appeared to be made of a leather longsteeped in a tannin of the purest quality. His sinews, too, though muchstiffened, seemed yet to be of whipcord, and his whole frame a speciesof indurated mummy that retained its vitality. The color of the skin wasless red than formerly, and more closely approached to that of thenegro, as the latter now was, though perceptibly different.
"Sago--sago," cried my uncle, as we came quite near, seeing no risk inusing that familiar semi-Indian salutation.[22] "Sago, sago, discharmin' mornin'; in my tongue, dat might be _guten tag_."
[Footnote 22: The editor has often had occasion to explain the meaningof terms of this nature. The colonists caught a great many words fromthe Indians they first knew, and used them to all other Indians, thoughnot belonging to their language; and these other tribes using them asEnglish, a sort of limited _lingua franca_ has grown up in the countrythat everybody understands. It is believed that "moccason," "squaw,""pappoose," "sago," "tomahawk," "wigwam," etc., etc., all belong to thisclass of words. There can be little doubt that the _sobriquet_ of"Yankees" is derived from "Yengees," the manner in which the tribesnearest to New England pronounced the word "English." It is to this houra provincialism of that part of the country to pronounce this word"_Eng_-lish" instead of "_Ing_-lish," its conventional sound. The changefrom "_Eng_-lish" to "_Yen_gees" is very trifling.--EDITOR.]
"Sago," returned the Trackless, in his deep, guttural voice, while oldYop brought two lips together that resembled thick pieces of overdonebeefsteak, fastened his red-encircled gummy eyes on each of us in turn,pouted once more, working his jaws as if proud of the excellent teeththey still held, and said nothing. As the slave of a Littlepage, he heldpedlers as inferior beings; for the ancient negroes of New York everidentified themselves, more or less, with the families to which theybelonged, and in which they so often were born. "Sago," repeated theIndian slowly, courteously, and with emphasis, after he had looked amoment longer at my uncle, as if he saw something about him to commandrespect.
"Dis ist charmin' day, frients," said uncle Ro, placing himself coollyon a log of wood that had been hauled for the stove, and wiping hisbrow. "Vat might you calls dis coontry?"
"Dis here?" answered Yop, not without a little contempt. "Dis is Yorkcolony; where you come from to ask sich a question?"
"Charmany. Dat ist far off, but a goot country; ant dis ist gootcountry, 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 togethersomewhat in the manner the boar works his jaws when it is prudent to getout of his way. "I'm York-nigger born, and nebber seen no Africa; andnebber want to see him, nudder."
It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaaf belonged to a school by whichthe term of "colored gentleman" was never used. The men of his time andstamp called themselves "niggers;" and ladies and gentlemen of that agetook them at their word, and called them "niggers," too; a word that noone 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 thathad not appeared to commence under very flattering auspices.
"Who might lif in dat big stone house?" asked uncle Ro, as soon as hethought the negro had had time to cool a little.
"Anybody can see you no Yorker, by dat werry speech," answered Yop, notat all mollified by such a question. "Who _should_ lib dere but Gin'ralLittlepage!"
"Vell, I dought he wast dead, long ago."
"What if he be? It is his house, and he lib in it; and ole _young_missus lib dere too."
Now, there had been three generations of generals among the Littlepages,counting from father to son. First, there had been Brigadier-GeneralEvans Littlepage, who held that rank in the militia, and died in serviceduring the revolution. The next was Brigadier-General CorneliusLittlepage, who got his rank by brevet, at the close of the same war, inwhich he had actually figured as a colonel of the New York line. Third,and last, was my own grandfather, Major-General Mordaunt Littlepage: hehad been a captain in his father's regiment at the close of the samestruggle, got the brevet of major at its termination, and rose to be amajor-general of the militia, the station he held for many years beforehe died. As soon as the privates had the power to elect their ownofficers, the position of a major-general in the militia ceased to berespectable, and few gentlemen could be induced to serve. As might havebeen foreseen, the militia itself fell into general contempt, where itnow is, and where it will ever remain until a different class ofofficers shall be chosen. The people can do a great deal, no doubt, butthey cannot make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear." As soon as officersfrom the old classes shall be appointed, the
militia will come up; forin 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 themilitary service. A great many fine speeches may be made, and muchpatriotic eulogy expended on the intrinsic virtue and intelligence ofthe people, and divers projects entertained to make "citizen-soldiers,"as they are called; but citizens never can be, and never will be turnedinto soldiers at all, good or bad, until proper officers are placed overthem. To return to Yop--
"Bray vhat might be de age of das laty dat you callet _olt_ youngmissus?" 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 masserMordaunt 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 ladynow."
And this of my venerable grandmother, who had fairly seen her fourscoreyears!
"Who might be der master of das big house now?"
"Gin'ral Littlepage, doesn't I tell ye! Masser Mordaunt's name, _my_young master. Sus, dere, only Injin; he nebber so lucky as hab a goodmaster. 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 hefastened on my uncle, were both fine and startling. As yet he had saidnothing 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; poorInjin--poor warrior!"
"Yees, I believe dat ist true enough. I can't bear soch Injin--might notbe soch Injin in the world. Vhat you call 'em, eh?"
Susquesus shook his head slowly, and with dignity. Then he gazedintently at my uncle; after which he fastened his eyes in a similarmanner on me. In this manner his looks turned from one to the other forsome little time, when he again dropped them to the earth, calmly and insilence. I took out the hurdy-gurdy, and began to play a lively air--onethat was very popular among the American blacks, and which, I am sorryto say, is getting to be not less so among the whites. No visible effectwas produced on Susquesus, unless a slight shade of contempt was visibleon his dark features. With Jaaf, however, it was very different. Old ashe was, I could see a certain nervous twitching of the lower limbs,which indicated that the old fellow actually felt some disposition todance. It soon passed away, though his grim, hard, wrinkled, dusky-graycountenance continued to gleam with a sort of dull pleasure for sometime. There was nothing surprising in this, the indifference of theIndian to melody being almost as marked as the negro's sensitiveness toits power.
It was not to be expected that men so aged would be disposed to talkmuch. The Onondago had ever been a silent man: dignity and gravity ofcharacter uniting with prudence to render him so. But Jaaf wasconstitutionally garrulous, though length of days had necessarily muchdiminished the propensity. At that moment a fit of thoughtful andmelancholy silence came over my uncle, too, and all four of us continuedbrooding on our own reflections for two or three minutes after I hadceased to play. Presently the even, smooth approach of carriage-wheelswas heard, and a light summer vehicle that was an old acquaintance, camewhirling round the stable, and drew up within ten feet of the spot wherewe were all seated.
My heart was in my mouth at this unexpected interruption, and I couldperceive that my uncle was scarcely less affected. Amid the flowing andpretty drapery of summer shawls, and the other ornaments of the femaletoilet, were four youthful and sunny faces, and one venerable withyears. In a word, my grandmother, my sister, and my uncle's two otherwards, and Mary Warren were in the carriage; yes, the pretty, gentle,timid, yet spirited and intelligent daughter of the rector was of theparty, and seemingly quite at home and at her ease, as one amongfriends. She was the first to speak even, though it was in a low, quietvoice, addressed to my sister, and in words that appeared extorted bysurprise.
"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 whois so far away."
"The music we can and will have, my child," cried my grandmother,cheerfully; "though _that_ is 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 gracefulforward gesture with one arm, though he did not rise. "Weaddergood--Great Spirit good, dat reason. How squaws do?"
"We are all well, I thank you, Trackless. Good-morrow, Jaaf; how do_you_ do, this fine morning?"
Yop, or Jaap, or Jaaf, rose tottering, made a low obeisance, and thenanswered 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 wellto-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 thepropensity to see the mote in the eye of his friend, while he forgot thebeam in his own, was a long-established and well-known weakness of Jaaf,and its present exhibition caused everybody to smile. I was delightedwith the beaming, laughing eyes of Mary Warren in particular, though shesaid 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 seemhim look better this many a day than he is looking this morning. We arenone 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 olefellow; but Miss Dus and Masser Mordaunt, dey get married only tudderday. Why _dat_ was a'ter the revylooshen!"
"It was, indeed," replied the venerable woman, with a touch ofmelancholy in her tones; "but the revolution took place many, many along year since!"
"Well, now, I be surprise, Miss Dus! How you call _dat_ so long, when heonly be tudder day?" retorted the pertinacious negro, who began to growcrusty, and to speak in a short, spiteful way, as if displeased byhearing 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 meone 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 intotowns, and, among other places, the Neck; but I believe it will never beanything more than a capital farm."
"So besser. _Dat_ good land, I tell you! One acre down der wort' morethan 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 gonebefore us to a better world, and _his_ boy is now your young master.This young lady, that is seated opposite to me, is the sister of thatyoung master, and she would be grieved to think you had forgotten her."
Jaaf labored under the difficulty so common to old age, he was forgetfulof things of more recent date, while he remembered those which hadoccurred a century ago! The memory is a tablet that partakes of thepeculiarity of all our opinions and habits. In youth it is easilyimpressed, and the images then engraved on it are distinct, deep, andlasting, while those that succeed become crowded, and take less root,from the circumstance of finding the ground already occupied. In thepresent instance, the age was so great that the change was reallystartling
, the old negro's recollections occasionally coming on the mindlike a voice from the grave. As for the Indian, as I afterwardascertained, he was better preserved in all respects than the black; hisgreat temperance in youth, freedom from labor, exercise in the open air,united to the comforts and abundance of semi-civilized habits, that hadnow lasted for nearly a century, contributed to preserve both mind andbody. As I now looked at him, I remembered what I had heard in myboyhood of his history.
There had ever been a mystery about the life of the Onondago. If any oneof our set had ever been acquainted with the facts, it was AndriesCoejemans, a half-uncle of my dear grandmother, a person who has beenknown among us by the _sobriquet_ of the Chainbearer. My grandmother hadtold me that "uncle Chainbearer," as we all called the old relative,_did_ know about Susquesus, in his time--the reason why he had left histribe, and become a hunter, and warrior, and runner among thepale-faces--and that he had always said the particulars did his redfriend great credit, but that he would reveal it no further. So great,however, was uncle Chainbearer's reputation for integrity, that such anopinion was sufficient to procure for the Onondago the fullestconfidence of the whole connection, and the experience of fourscoreyears and ten had proved that this confidence was well placed. Someimputed the sort of exile in which the old man had so long lived tolove, others to war, and others, again, to the consequences of thosefierce personal feuds that are known to occur among men in the savagestate. But all was just as much a mystery and matter of conjecture, nowwe were drawing near the middle of the nineteenth century, as it hadbeen when our forefathers were receding from the middle of theeighteenth! To return to the negro.
Although Jaaf had momentarily forgotten me, and quite forgotten myparents, he remembered my sister, who was in the habit of seeing him sooften. In what manner he connected her with the family, it is not easyto say; but he knew her not only by sight, but by name, and, as onemight say, by blood.
"Yes, yes," cried the old fellow, a little eagerly, "_champing_" histhick lips together, somewhat as an alligator snaps his jaws, "yes, Iknows Miss Patty, of course. Miss Patty is werry han'some, and growshan'somer and han'somer ebbery time I sees her--yah, yah, yah!" Thelaugh of that old negro sounded startling and unnatural, yet there wassomething 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 MissDus. I s'pose, now, Miss Patty was born about 'e time dat Gin'ralWashington die."
As this was a good deal more than doubling my sister's age, it produceda common laugh among the light-hearted girls in the carriage. A gleam ofintelligence that almost amounted to a smile also shot athwart thecountenance of the Onondago, while the muscles of his face worked, buthe said nothing. I had reason to know afterward that the tablet of hismemory 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; asalutation that my uncle Ro and myself rose hastily to acknowledge.
As for myself, I own honestly that I could have jumped into the vehicleand kissed my dear grandmother's still good-looking, but colorlesscheeks, 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 soundof his venerable parent's voice, in which the tremor was barelyperceptible, was near overcoming him.
"Dese be pedler, ma'am, I do s'pose," answered the black. "Dey's got boxwid 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 agentle sweet voice, raised a little louder than usual by eagerness,interrupted me.
"Oh! not that thing, not that; the flute, the flute!" exclaimed MaryWarren, blushing to the eyes at her own boldness, the instant she sawthat she was heard, and that I was about to comply.
It is hardly necessary to say that I bowed respectfully, laid down thehurdy-gurdy, drew the flute from my pocket, and, after a few flourishes,commenced playing one of the newest airs, or melodies, from a favoriteopera. I saw the color rush into Martha's cheeks the moment I had gotthrough a bar or two, and the start she gave satisfied me that the deargirl remembered her brother's flute. I had played on that veryinstrument ever since I was sixteen, but I had made an immense progressin the art during the five years just passed in Europe. Masters atNaples, Paris, Vienna, and London had done a great deal for me; and Itrust I shall not be thought vain if I add, that nature had donesomething 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, assoon 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, wemust 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 wasoffered, and, unable to command my feelings, raised the hand to my lips,respectfully but with fervor. Had Martha's face been near me, it wouldhave suffered also. I suppose there was nothing in this respectfulsalutation that struck the spectators as very much out of the way,foreigners having foreign customs, but I saw a flush in my venerablegrandmother's cheek, as the carriage moved off. _She_ had noted thewarmth of the manner. My uncle had turned away, I dare say to concealthe tears that started to his eyes, and Jaaf followed toward the door ofthe hut, whither my uncle moved, in order to do the honors of the place.This left me quite alone with the Indian.
"Why no kiss _face_ of grandmodder?" asked the Onondago, coolly andquietly.
Had a clap of thunder broken over my head, I could not have been moreastonished! The disguise that had deceived my nearest relations--thathad baffled Seneca Newcome, and had set at naught even his sisterOpportunity--had failed to conceal me from that Indian, whose facultiesmight be supposed to have been numbed with age!
"Is it possible that you know me, Susquesus!" I exclaimed, signingtoward the negro at the same time, by way of caution; "that you rememberme at all! I should have thought this wig, these clothes, would haveconcealed me."
"Sartain," answered the aged Indian, calmly. "Know young chiefsoon as see him; know fader--know mudder; know gran'fader,gran'mudder--great-gran'fader; _his_ fader, too; know all. Why forgetyoung chief?"
"Did you know me before I kissed my grandmother's hand, or only by thatact?"
"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 alwaysbeen 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 ofRavensnest. Too ole to dig him up now."
"There are good reasons why my uncle and myself should not be known fora few days. Perhaps you have heard something of the trouble that hasgrown 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 lipsmoved, 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 withrifles and dressed in calico?"
"What tribe, dem Injin," asked the Trackless, with a quickness and afire 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-renttribe; do you know such a nation?"
"Poor Injin dat, b'lieve. Why come so late?--why no come when 'e foot ofSusquesus light as feather of bird!--why stay away till pale-facesplentier dan leaf on tree, or sno
w in air? Hundred year ago, when datoak 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 weare?"
The Trackless simply nodded his head in assent. After this he seemed tome to sink back in a sort of brooding lethargy, as if indisposed topursue the subject. I left him to go to my uncle, in order to relatewhat had just passed. Mr. Roger Littlepage was as much astonished as Ihad been myself, at hearing that one so aged should have detected usthrough disguises that had deceived our nearest of kin. But the quietpenetration and close observation of the man had long been remarkable.As his good faith was of proof, however, neither felt any seriousapprehension of being betrayed, as soon as he had a moment forreflection.