“You have not answered my question, in the mean time, concerning Sir Harry Bulstrode.”
“I beg Sir Harry’s and your pardon. What argument could be required to convince my father?—Why, you have never been at home, Littlepage, and cannot easily understand, therefore, what the feeling is precisely in relation to the colonies—much depends on that, you know.”
“I trust the mother loves her children, as I am certain the children love their mother.”
“Yes, you are all loyal;—I will say that for you, though Albany is not exactly Bath, or New York, Westminster. I suppose you know, Littlepage, that the church upon the hill, yonder, which is called St. Peter’s, though a very good church, and a very respectable church, with a very reputable congregation, is not exactly Westminster Abbey, or even St. James’s?”
“I believe I understand you, sir; and so Sir Harry proved obstinate?”
“As the devil!—It took no less than three letters, the last of which was pretty bold, to get him round, which I did at last, and his consent, in due form, has been handed in to Herman Mordaunt. I contended, with some advantages in the affair, or I never should have prevailed. But, you will see how it was. Sir Harry is gouty and asthmatic both, and no great things of a life, at the best, and every acre he has on earth is entailed; just making the whole thing a question of time.”
“All of which you communicated, of course, to Anneke and Herman Mordaunt?”
“If I did I’ll be hanged! No, no; Master Corny, I am not so green as that would imply. You provincials are as thin-skinned as raisons de Fontainbleau, and are not to be touched so rudely. I do not believe Anneke would marry the Duke of Norfolk himself, if the family raised the least scruple about receiving her.”
“And would not Anneke be right, in acting under so respectable a feeling?”
“Why, you know she would only marry the duke, and not his mother, and aunts, and uncles. I cannot see the necessity of a young woman’s making herself uncomfortable on that account. But, we have not come to that yet for I would wish you to understand, Littlepage, that I am not accepted, No, no! justice to Anneke demands that I should say this much. She knows of Sir Harry’s consent, however, and that is a good deal in my favour, you must allow. I suppose her great objection will be to quitting her father, who has no other child, and on him it will bear a little hard; and, then, it is likely she will say something about a change of country, for you Americans are all great sticklers for living in your own region.”
“I do not see how you can justly accuse us of that, since it is universally admitted among us that everything is better at home than it is in the colonies.”
“I really think, Corny,” rejoined Bulstrode, smiling good-naturedly, “were you to pay the old island a visit, now, you yourself would confess that some things are.”
“I to visit!—I am at a loss to imagine why I am named as one disposed to deny it. Had it been Guert Ten Eyck, now, or ever Dirck Follock, one might imagine such a thing,-but I, who come from English blood, and who have an English-born grandfather, at this moment, alive and well at Satanstoe, am not to be included among the disaffected to England.”
Bulstrode pressed my arm, and his conversation took a more confidential air, as it proceeded. “I believe you are right, Corny,” he said; “the colony is loyal enough, Heaven knows; yet I find these Dutch look on us red-coats more coldly than the people of English blood, below. Should it be ascribed to the phlegm of their manners, or to some ancient grudge connected with the conquest of their colony?”
“Hardly the last, I should think, since the colony was traded away, under the final arrangement, in exchange for a possession the Dutch now hold in South America. There is nothing strange, however; in the descendants of the people of Holland preferring the Dutch to the English.”
“I assure you, Littlepage, the coldness with which we are regarded by the Albanians has been spoken of among us; though most of the leading families treat us well, and aid us all they can. They should remember that we are here to fight, their battles, and to prevent the French from overrunning them.”
“To that they would probably answer that the French would not molest them, but for their quarrel with England. Here we must part, Mr. Bulstrode, as I have business to attend to. I will add one word, however, before we separate, and that is, that King George II. has not more loyal subjects in his dominions, than those who dwell in his American provinces.”
Bulstrode smiled, nodded in assent, waved his hand, and we parted.
I had plenty of occupation for the remainder of that day. Yaap arrived with his ‘brigade of sleighs’ about noon, and I went in search of Guert, in whose company I repaired once more to the office of the contractor. Horses, harness, sleighs, provisions and all were taken at high prices, and I was paid for the whole in Spanish gold; joes and half-joes being quite as much in use among us in that day as the coin of the realm. Spanish silver has always formed our smaller currency, such a thing as an English shilling, or a sixpence, being quite a stranger among us. Pieces of eight, or dollars, are our commonest coin, it is true, but we make good use of the half-joe in all heavy transactions. I have seen two or three Bank of England notes in my day, but they are of very rare occurrence in the colonies. There have been colony bills among us, but they are not favourites, most of our transactions being carried on by means of the Spanish gold and Spanish silver, that find their way up from the islands and the Spanish main. The war of which I am now writing, however, brought a great many guineas among us, most of the troops being paid in that species of coin; but the contractors, in general, found it easier to command the half-joe than the guinea. Of the former, when all our sales were made, Dirck and myself had, between us, no less than one hundred and eleven, or eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars in value.
I found Guert just as ready and just as friendly on this occasion, as he had been on the previous day. Not only were all our effects disposed of, but all our negroes were hired to the army for the campaign, Yaap excepted. The boys went off with their teams towards the north that same afternoon, in high spirits, as ready for a frolic as any white youths in the colony. I permitted Yaap to go on with his sleigh, to be absent for a few days, but he was to return and join us before we proceeded in quest of the ‘Patent,’ after the breaking up of the winter.
It was late in the afternoon before everything was settled, when Guert invited me to take a turn with him on the river in his own sleigh. By this time I had ascertained that my new friend was a young man of very handsome property, without father or mother, and that he lived in as good style as was common for the simple habits of those around him. Our principal families in New York were somewhat remarkable for the abundance of their plate, table-linen, and other household effects of the latter character, while here and there one was to be found that possessed some good pictures. The latter, I have reason to think, however, were rare, though occasionally the work of a master did find its way to America, particularly from Holland and Flanders. Guert kept bachelor’s hall, in a respectable house, that had its gable to the street, as usual, and which was of no great size; but everything about it proved that his old black housekeeper had been trained under a regime of thorough neatness; for that matter, everything around Albany wore the appearance of being periodically scoured. The streets themselves could not undergo that process with snow on the ground; but once beneath a roof, and everything that had the character of dirt was banished. In this particular Guert’s bachelor residence was as faultless as if it had a mistress at its head, and that mistress were Mary Wallace.
“If she ever consent to have me,” said Guert, actually sighing as he spoke, and glancing his eyes round the very pretty little parlour I had
