to our care. And a relief it was to be so well rid of a responsibility that was as new as it was heavy to each of us.
The reader will get some idea of the pressure of affairs, and how necessary it was felt to be on the alert in the month of March—a time of the year when twenty-four hours might bring about a change in the season—by the circumstance that the contractor sent his new purchase to be loaded up from the door of his office, with orders to proceed on north, with supplies for a depot that he was making as near to Lake George as was deemed prudent; the French being in force at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, two posts at the head of Champlain; a distance considerably less than a hundred miles from Albany. Whatever was forwarded as far as Lake George while the snow lasted, could then be sent on with the army, in the contemplated operations of the approaching summer, by means of the two lakes, and their northern outlets.
“Well, Mr. Littlepage,” cried Guert, heartily; “that affair is well disposed of. You got goot prices, and I hope the King has got goot horses. They are a little venerable, perhaps; but what of that? The army would knock up the best and youngest beast in the colony, in one campaign in the woots; and it can do no more with the oldest and worst. Shall we walk rount into the main street, gentlemen? This is about the hour when the young ladies are apt to start for their afternoon sleighing.”
“I suppose the ladies of Albany are remarkable for their beauty, Mr. Ten Eyck,” I rejoined, wishing to say something agreeable to a man who seemed so desirous of serving me. “The specimens I saw in crossing the river this morning, would induce a stranger to think so.”
“Sir,” replied Guert, walking towards the great avenue of the town, “we are content with our ladies, in general, for they are charming, warm-hearted and amiable; but there has been an arrival among us this winter, from your part of the colony, that has almost melted the ice on the Hudson!”
My heart beat quicker, for I could only think of one being of her sex, as likely to produce such a sensation. Still, I could not abstain from making a direct inquiry on the subject.
“From our part of the colony, Mr. Ten Eyck!—You mean from New York, probably?”
“Yes, sir, as a matter of course. There are several beautiful English women who have come up with the army; but no colonel, major, or captain, has brought such paragons with him, as Herman Mordaunt, a gentleman who may be known to you by name?”
“Personally too, sir. Herman Mordaunt is even a kinsman of Dirck Follock, my friend here.”
“Then is Mr. Follock to be envied, since he can call cousin with so charming a young lady as Anneke Mordaunt.”
“True sir, most true!” I interrupted, eagerly; “Anne Mordaunt passes for the sweetest girl in York!”
“I do not know that I should go quite as far as that, Mr. Littlepage,” returned Guert, moderating his warmth, in a manner that a little surprised me, though his handsome face still glowed with honest, natural admiration; “since there is a Miss Mary Wallace in her company, that is quite as much thought of, here in Albany, as her friend, Miss Mordaunt.”
Mary Wallace! The idea of comparing the silent, thoughtful, excellent though she were, Mary Wallace, with Anneke could never have crossed my mind. Still, Mary Wallace certainly was a very charming girl. She was even handsome; had a placid, saint-like character of countenance that had often struck me, singular beauty and development of form, and, in any other company than that of Anneke’s, might well have attracted the first attention of the most fastidious beholder.
And Guert Ten Eyck admired,—perhaps loved, Mary Wallace! Here, then, was fresh evidence how much we are all inclined to love our opposites; to form close friendships with those who resemble us least, principles excepted, for virtue can never cling to vice, and how much more interest novelty possesses in the human breast, than the repetition of things to which we are accustomed. No two beings could be less alike than Mary Wallace and Guert Ten Eyck; yet the last admired the first.
“Miss Wallace is a very charming young lady, Mr. Ten Eyck,” I rejoined, as soon as wonder would allow me to answer, “and I am not surprised you speak of her in terms of so much admiration.”
Guert stopped short in the street, looked me full in the face with an expression of truth that could not well be feigned, squeezed my hand fervently, and rejoined with a strange frankness, that I could not have imitated, to be master of all I saw—
“Admiration, Mr. Littlepage, is not a word strong enough for what I feel for Mary! I would marry her in the next hour, and love and cherish her for all the rest of my life. I worship her, and love the earth she treads on.”
“And you have told her this, Mr. Ten Eyck?”
“Fifty times, sir. She has now been two months in Albany, and my love was secured within the first week. I offered myself too soon, I fear; for Mary is a prutent, sensible young woman, and girls of that character are apt to distrust the youth who is too quick in his advances. They like to be served, sir, for seven years and seven years, as Joseph served for Potiphar.”
“You mean, most likely, Mr. Ten Eyck, as Jacob served for Rachel.”
“Well, sir, it may be as you say, dough I t’ink that in our Dutch Bibles, it stands as Joseph served for Potiphar—but you know what I mean, Mr. Littlepage. If you wish to see the ladies, and will come with me, I will go to a place where Herman Mordaunt’s sleigh invariably passes at this hour, for the ladies almost live in the air. I never miss the occasion of seeing them.”
I had now a clue to Guert’s being so much in the street. He was as good as his word, however, for he took a stand near the Dutch church, where I soon had the happiness of seeing Anneke and her friend driving past, on their evening’s excursion. How blooming and lovely the former looked! Mary Wallace’s eye turned, I fancied understandingly, to the corner where Guert had placed himself, and her colour deepened as she returned his bow. But, the start of surprise, the smile, and the lightening eye of Anneke, as she unexpectedly saw me, filled my soul with delight, almost too great to be borne.
Chapter XII
“Then the wine it gets into their heads,
And turns the wit out of its station;
Nonsense gets in, in its stead,
And their puns are now all botheration.”
—The Punning Society
Guert Ten Eyck looked at me expressively, as the sleigh whirled round an angle of the building and disappeared. He then proposed that we should proceed. On ascending the main street, I was not a little surprised at discovering the sort of amusement that was going on, and in which it seemed to me all the youths of the place were engaged. By youths, I do not mean lads of twelve and fourteen, but young men of eighteen and twenty, the amusement being that of sliding down hill, or “coasting,” as I am told it is called in Boston. The acclivity was quite sharp, and of sufficient length to give an impetus to the sled, that was set in motion at a short distance above the English church; an impetus that would carry it past the Dutch church—a distance that was somewhat more than a quarter of a mile. The hand-sleds employed, were of a size and construction suited to the dimensions of those that used them; and, as a matter of course, there was no New Yorker that had not learned how to govern the motion of one of these vehicles, even when gliding down the steepest
