“And are we to refresh ourselves alone?” demanded the young man, who ever and anon cast a sidelong and wistful glance at the closed and immovable shutters of la Cour des Fées.
“Thy mother hath spoilt thee, young Oloff; unless the coffee comes from a pretty female hand, it loses its savor. I take thy meaning, and think none the worse of thee; for the weakness is natural at thy years. Celibacy and independence! A man must get beyond forty, before he is ever sure of being his own master. Come hither, Master Francis. It is time my niece had shaken off this laziness, and shown her bright face to the sun. We wait for her fair services at the table.–I see nothing of that lazy hussy, Dinah, any more than of her mistress.”
“Assurément non, Monsieur,” returned the valet. “Mam’selle Dinah do not love trop d’activité. Mais, Monsieur Al’erman, elles sont jeunes, toutes les deux! Le sommeil est bien salutaire, pour la jeunesse.”
“The girl is no longer in her cradle, Francis, and it is time to rattle at the windows. As for the black minx, who should have been up and at her duty this hour, there will be a balance to settle between us. Come, Patroon:–the appetite will not await the laziness of a wilful girl; we will to the table.–Dost think the wind will stand at west this morning?”
Thus saying, the Alderman led the way into the little parlor, where a neat and comfortable service invited them to break their morning fast. He was followed by Oloff Van Staats, with a lingering step, for the young man really longed to see the windows of the pavilion open, and the fair face of Alida smiling amid the other beautiful objects of the scene. Francois proceeded to take such measures to arouse his mistress, as he believed to comport with his duty to her uncle, and his own ideas of bienséance. After some little delay, the Alderman and his guest took their seats at the table; the former loudly protesting against the necessity of waiting for the idle, and throwing in an occasional moral concerning the particular merit of punctuality in domestic economy, as well as in the affairs of commerce.
“The ancients divided time,” said the somewhat pertinacious commentator, “into years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and moments, as they divided numbers into units, tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands; and both with an object. If we commence at the bottom, and employ well the moments, Mr. Van Staats, we turn the minutes into tens, the hours into hundreds, and the weeks and months into thousands–ay! and when there is a happy state of trade, into tens of thousands! Missing an hour, therefore, is somewhat like dropping an important figure in a complex calculation, and the whole labor may be useless, for want of punctuality in one, as for want of accuracy in the other. Your father, the late Patroon, was what may be called a minute-man.–He was as certain to be seen in his pew, at church, at the stroke of the clock, as to pay a bill, when its items had been properly examined. Ah! it was a blessing to hold one of his notes, though they were far scarcer than broad pieces, or bullion. I have heard it said, Patroon, that the manor is backed by plenty of Johannes and Dutch ducats!”
“The descendant has no reason to reproach his ancestors with want of foresight.”
“Prudently answered;–not a word too much, nor too little–a principle on which all honest men settle their accounts. By proper management, such a foundation might be made to uphold an estate that should count thousands with the best of Holland or England. Growth and majority! Patroon; but we of the colonies must come to man’s estate in time, like our cousins on the dykes of the Low Countries, or our rulers among the smithies of England.–Erasmus, look at that cloud over the Raritan, and tell me if it rises.”
The negro reported that the vapor was stationary; and, at the same time, by way of episode, he told his master that the boat which had been seen approaching the land had reached the wharf, and that some of its crew were ascending the hill towards the Lust in Rust.
“Let them come of all hospitality,” returned the Alderman, heartily; “I warrant me, they are honest farmers from the interior, a-hungered with the toil of the night. Go tell the cook to feed them with the best, and bid them welcome. And harkee, boy;– if there be among them any comfortable yeoman, bid the man enter and sit at our table. This is not a country, Patroon, to be nice about the quality of the cloth a man has on his back, or whether he wears a wig or only his own hair.–What is the fellow gaping at?”
Erasmus rubbed his eyes, and then showing his teeth to the full extent of a double row, that glittered like pearls, he gave his master to understand, that the negro, introduced to the reader under the name of Euclid, and who was certainly his own brother of the half-blood, or by the mother’s side, was entering the villa. The intelligence caused a sudden cessation of the masticating process in the Alderman, who had not, however, time to express his wonder, ere two doors simultaneously opened, and François presented himself at the one, while the shining and doubting face of the slave from town darkened the other. The eyes of Myndert rolled first to this side, and then to that, a certain misgiving of the heart preventing him from speaking to either; for he saw, in the disturbed features of each, omens that bade him prepare himself for unwelcome tidings. The reader will perceive, by the description we shall give, that there was abundant reason for the sagacious burgher’s alarm.
The visage of the valet, at all times meagre and long, seemed extended to far more than its usual di- mensions, the under jaw appearing fallen and trebly attenuated. The light-blue protruding eyes were open to the utmost, and then expressed a certain confused wildness, that was none the less striking, for the painful expression of mental suffering, with which it was mingled. Both hands were raised, with the palms outward; while the shoulders of the poor fel- low were elevated so high, as entirely to destroy the little symmetry that Nature had bestowed on that particular part of his frame.
On the other hand, the look of the negro was guilty, dogged, and cunning. His eye leered askance, seeming to wish to play around the person of his master, as, it will be seen, his language endeavored to play around his understanding. The hands crushed the crown of a woolen hat between their fingers, and one of his feet described semicircles with its toe, by performing nervous evolutions on its heel.
“Well!” ejaculated Myndert, regarding each in turn. “What news from the Canadas?–Is the Queen dead, or has she restored the colony to the United Provinces?”
“Mam’selle Alide!” exclaimed, or rather groaned, François.
“The poor dumb beast!–” muttered Euclid.
The knives and the forks fell from the hands of Myndert and his guest, as it were by a simultaneous paralysis. The latter involuntarily arose; while the former planted his solid person still more firmly in its seat, like one who was preparing to meet some severe and expected shock, with all the physical resolution he could muster.
“–What of my niece?–What of my geldings?– You have called upon Dinah?”
“Sans doute, Monsieur!”
“–And you kept the keys of the stable?”
“I nebber let him go, at all!”
“–And you bade her call her mistress?”
“She no make answair, de tout.”
“–The animals were fed and watered, as I ordered?”
“’Em nebber take he food, better!”
“–You entered the chamber of my niece, yourself, to awake her?”
“Monsieur a raison.”
“What the devil has befallen the innocent?”
“He lose he stomach quite, and I t’ink it great time ’fore it ebber come back.”
“–Mister Francis, I desire to know the answer of Monsieur Barbérie’s daughter.”
“Mam’selle no répond, Monsieur; pas un syllabe!”
“–Drenchers and fleams! The beauty should have been drenched and blooded–”
“He’m too late for dat, Masser, on honor.”
“–The obstinate hussy! This comes of her Huguenot breed, a race that would quit house and lands rather than change its place of worship!”
“La famille de Barbérie est honorable, Monsieur, mais le Grand Monarque fut un peu trop exigeant. Vraiment, la dragonade était mal avisée, pour faire des chrétiens!”
“Apoplexies and hurry! you should have sent for the farrier to administer to the sufferer, thou black hound!”
“’Em go for a butcher, Masser, to save he skin; for he war’ too son dead.”
The word dead produced a sudden pause. The preceding dialogue had been so rapid, and question and answer, no less than the ideas of the principal speaker, had got so confused, that, for a moment, he was actually at a loss to understand, whether the last great debt of nature had been paid by la belle Barbérie, or one of the Flemish geldings. Until now, consternation, as well as the confusion of the interview, had constrained the Patroon to be silent, but he profited by the breathing-time to interpose.