The Redskins: or, Indian and Injin. Volume 1

"Bray vhat might be der age of das laty dat you callet olt young missus?" asked my uncle.

"Gosh! she nutten but gal – born sometime just a'ter ole 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 four-score years!

"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 good master. Niggers gettin' scarce, dey tells me, now-a-days, 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 believes dat ist true enough. I can't bear soch Injin! – might not be soch Injin in 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, grey 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 pedlars 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; "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 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 do you do, 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:

"T'ank 'ee, Miss Dus, wid all my heart," he answered. "Pretty well to-day; but ole 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 seen 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, three-score years ago."

"You nuttin' but gal, nudder," growled the negro. "Ole Sus be raal ole fellow; but Miss Dus and Masser Mordaunt, dey get married only tudder day. Why dat was a'ter de 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 call dat so 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. Dat good land, I tell you! One acre down dere wort' more dan twenty acre up here."

"My grandson would not be pleased to hear you say that, Jaaf."

"Who your grandson, Miss Dus. Remember you hab 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, and his boy 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 have forgotten her."

Jaaf laboured 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 afterwards ascertained, he was better preserved in all respects than the black; his great temperance in youth, freedom from labour, exercise in the open air, united to the comforts and abundance of semi-civilized habits, that had now lasted for near a century, contributing to preserve both mind and body. As I now looked at him, I remembered what I had heard in 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 the sobriquet of the Chainbearer. My grandmother had told me that "uncle Chainbearer," as we all called the old relative, did know all 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 four-score 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 to 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 wast 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 afterwards 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 towards us pedlars 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 colourless 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 tremour was barely perceptible, was near overcoming him.

"Dese be pedlar, 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 favourite opera. I saw the colour 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 mean time, 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 fervour. 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. She had 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 towards the door of the hut, whither my uncle moved, in order to do the honours of the place. This left me quite alone with the Indian.

"Why no kiss face of 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 towards 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; his fader, 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.

CHAPTER IX

"He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,A cottage of gentility;And the devil did grin, for his darling sinIs the pride that apes humility."Devil's Thoughts.

It was now necessary to determine what course we ought next to pursue. It might appear presuming in men of our pursuits to go to the Nest before the appointed time; and did we proceed on to the village, we should have the distance between the two places to walk over twice, carrying our instruments and jewel-box. After a short consultation, it was decided to visit the nearest dwellings, and to remain as near my own house as was practicable, making an arrangement to sleep somewhere in its immediate vicinity. Could we trust any one with our secret, our fare would probably be all the better; but my uncle thought it most prudent to maintain a strict incognito until he had ascertained the true state of things in the town.

We took leave of the Indian and the negro, therefore, promising to visit them again in the course of that or the succeeding day, and followed the path that led to the farm-house. It was our opinion that we might, at least, expect to meet with friends in the occupants of the home farm. The same family had been retained in possession there for three generations, and being hired to manage the husbandry and to take care of the dairy, there was not the same reason for the disaffection, that was said so generally to exist among the tenantry, prevailing among them. The name of this family was Miller, and it consisted of the two heads and some six or seven children, most of the latter being still quite young.

"Tom Miller was a trusty lad, when I knew much of him," said my uncle, as we drew near to the barn, in which we saw the party mentioned, at work; "and he is said to have behaved well in one or two alarms they have had at the Nest, this summer; still, it may be wiser not to let even him into our secret as yet."

"I am quite of your mind, sir," I answered; "for who knows that he has not just as strong a desire as any of them to own the farm on which he lives? He is the grandson of the man who cleared it from the forest, and has much the same title as the rest of them."

"Very true; and why should not that give him just as good a right to claim an interest in the farm, beyond that he has got under his contract to work it, as if he held a lease? He who holds a lease gets no right beyond his bargain; nor does this man. The one is paid for his labour by the excess of his receipts over the amount of his annual rent, while the other is paid partly in what he raises, and partly in wages. In principle there is no difference whatever, not a particle; yet I question if the veriest demagogue in the State would venture to say that the man, or the family, which works a farm for hire, even for a hundred years, gets the smallest right to say he shall not quit it, if its owner please, as soon as his term of service is up!"

"'The love of money is the root of all evil;' and when that feeling is uppermost, one can never tell what a man will do. The bribe of a good farm, obtained for nothing, or for an insignificant price, is sufficient to upset the morality of even Tom Miller."

"You are right, Hugh; and here is one of the points in which our political men betray the cloven foot. They write, and proclaim, and make speeches, as if the anti-rent troubles grew out of the durable lease system solely, whereas we all know that it is extended to all descriptions of obligations given for the occupancy of land – life leases, leases for a term of years, articles for deeds, and bonds and mortgages. It is a wide-spread, though not yet universal attempt of those who have the least claim to the possession of real estate, to obtain the entire right, and that by agencies that neither the law nor good morals will justify. It is no new expedient for partizans to place en evidence no more of their principles and intentions than suits their purposes. But, here we are within ear-shot, and must resort to the High Dutch. Guten tag, guten tag," continued uncle Ro, dropping easily into the broken English of our masquerade, as we walked into the barn, where Miller, two of his older boys, and a couple of hired men were at work, grinding scythes and preparing for the approaching hay-harvest. "It might be warm day, dis fine mornin'."

"Good day, good day," cried Miller, hastily, and glancing his eye a little curiously at our equipments. "What have you got in your box – essences?"

"Nein; vatches and drinkets;" setting down the box and opening it at once, for the inspection of all present. "Von't you burchase a goot vatch, dis bleasant mornin'?"

"Be they ra-al gold?" asked Miller, a little doubtingly. "And all them chains and rings, be they gold too?"

"Not true golt; nein, nein, I might not say dat. But goot enough golt for blain folks, like you and me."

"Them things would never do for the grand quality over at the big house!" cried one of the labourers who was unknown to me, but whose name I soon ascertained was Joshua Brigham, and who spoke with a sort of malicious sneer that at once betrayed he was no friend. "You mean 'em for poor folks, I s'pose?"

"I means dem for any bodies dat will pay deir money for 'em," answered my uncle. "Vould you like a vatch?"

"That would I; and a farm, too, if I could get 'em cheap," answered Brigham, with a sneer he did not attempt to conceal. "How do you sell farms to-day?"

"I haf got no farms; I sells drinkets and vatches, but I doesn't sell farms. Vhat I haf got I vill sell, but I cannot sells vhat I haf not got."

"Oh! you'll get all you want if you'll stay long enough in this country! This is a free land, and just the place for a poor man; or it will be, as soon as we get all the lords and aristocrats out of it."

This was the first time I had ever heard this political blarney with my own ears, though I had understood it was often used by those who wish to give to their own particular envy and covetousness a grand and sounding air.

"Vell, I haf heards dat in America dere might not be any noples ant aristocrats," put in my uncle, with an appearance of beautiful simplicity; "and dat dere ist not ein graaf in der whole coontry."

"Oh! there's all sorts of folks here, just as they are to be found elsewhere," cried Miller, seating himself coolly on the end of the grindstone-frame, to open and look into the mysteries of one of the watches. "Now, Josh Brigham, here, calls all that's above him in the world aristocrats, but he doesn't call all that's below him his equals."

I liked that speech; and I liked the cool, decided way in which it was uttered. It denoted, in its spirit, a man who saw things as they are, and who was not afraid to say what he thought about them. My uncle Ro was surprised, and that agreeably, too, and he turned to Miller to pursue the discourse.

"Den dere might not be any nopility in America, after all?" he asked, inquiringly.

"Yes, there's plenty of such lords as Josh here, who want to be uppermost so plaguily that they don't stop to touch all the rounds of the ladder. I tell him, friend, he wants to get on too fast, and that he mustn't set up for a gentleman before he knows how to behave himself."