The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis, Joseph A. Altsheler [good novels to read TXT] 📗

"It is small. You have grown much in the last year or two. Your frame is filling out and you are bigger every way. Still, it is a fine coat, and the knee breeches, stockings and buckled shoes are very splendid. If Dagaeoga does not look like a chief it is only because he is not old enough, and he at least looks like the son of a chief."

Robert contemplated himself in a small mirror with much satisfaction.

"I'm frightfully tanned," he said. "Perhaps they wouldn't take me for a model of fashion in Paris or London, but here nearly everybody else is tanned also, and, after all, it's healthy."

The Onondaga regarded him with an amused smile.

"If Dagaeoga had the time and money he would spend much of both on dress," he said. "He loves to make a fine appearance."

"You say nothing but the truth," said Robert frankly. "I hope some day to have the very best clothes that are made. A man who respects his clothes respects himself. I know no sin in trying to please the eyes of others and incidentally myself. I note, Tayoga, that on occasion you array yourself with great splendor, and that, at all times, you're very particular about your attire."

"It is so, Dagaeoga. I spoke in terms of approval, not of criticism. Are you satisfied with yourself?"

"As much as possible under the circumstances. If I could achieve the change merely by making a wish I'd have the coat and breeches of a somewhat richer hue, and the buckles on the shoes considerably larger, but they'll do. Shall we sit here and rest until Caterina calls us for supper?"

"I think so, Dagaeoga."

But it was not long until the summons came, and they[Pg 38] went into the great dining-room, where the elder company was already gathered. Besides Mr. Huysman, Benjamin Hardy, Jonathan Pillsbury, and Alexander McLean, there were Nicholas Ten Broeck and Oliver Suydam, two of Albany's most solid burghers, and Alan Hervey, another visitor from New York, a thin man of middle years and shrewd looks, whom Robert took to be a figure in finance and trade. All the elders seemed to know one another well, and to be on the best of terms.

Robert and Tayoga were presented duly, and made their modest acknowledgments, sitting together near the end of the table.

"These lads, young as they are," said Master Jacobus Huysman, "have had much experience of the present war. One of them was a prisoner of the French at Ticonderoga and saw the whole battle, while the other fought in it. Before that they were in innumerable encounters and other perils, usually with the great hunter, David Willet, of whom you all know, and who, I regret, is not here."

"It is no more than thousands of others have done," said Robert, blushing under his tan.

Hervey regarded him and Tayoga with interest. The Onondaga was in full Indian dress, but Albany was used to the Iroquois, and that fact was not at all exceptional.

"War is a terrible thing," he said, "and whether a nation is or is not to endure depends very much upon its youth."

"We always think that present youth is inferior to what our own youth was," said Mr. Hardy. "That, I believe, is a common human failing. But Master McLean ought to know. Forty years of youth, year after year have passed through his hands. What say you, Alexander?"

"Youth is youth," replied the schoolmaster, weighing[Pg 39] his sentences, "and by those words I mean exactly what I say. I think it changes but little through all the ages, and it is probably the same to-day that it was in old Babylon. I find in my schoolroom that the youth of this year is just like the youth of ten years ago, just as the youth of ten years ago was exactly like the youth of twenty, thirty and forty years ago."

"And what are the cardinal points of this formative age, Alexander?" asked Master Jacobus.

"Speaking mildly, I would call it concentration upon self. The horizon of youth is bounded by its own eye. It looks no farther. As it sees and feels it, the world exists for youth. We elders, parents, uncles, guardians and such, live for its benefit. We are merely accessories to the great and main fact, which is youth."

"Do you believe that to be true, Robert?" asked Master Benjamin Hardy, a twinkle in his eye.

"I hope it's not, sir," replied Robert, reddening again under his tan.

"But it's true and it will remain true," continued the schoolmaster judicially. "It was equally true of all of us who passed our youth long ago. I do not quarrel with it. I merely state a fact of life. Perhaps if I could I would not strip youth of this unconscious absorption in self, because in doing so we might deprive it of the simplicity and directness, the artless beliefs that make youth so attractive."

"I hold," said Mr. Hervey, "that age is really a state of mind. We believe certain things at twenty, others at thirty, others at forty, and so on. The beliefs of twenty are true at twenty, we must not try them by the tests of thirty, nor must we try those of thirty by the tests of forty or fifty. So how are we to say which age is the wiser, when every age accepts as true what it believes,[Pg 40] and, so makes it true? I agree, too, with Mr. McLean, that I would not change the character of youth if I could. Looking back upon my own youth I find much in it to laugh at, but I did not laugh at it at the time. It was very real to me then, and so must its feelings be to the youth of to-day."

"We wade into deep waters," said Mynheer Jacobus, "and we may go over our heads. Ah, here are the oysters! I hope that all of you will find them to your liking."

A dozen were served for every guest—it was the day of plenty, the fields and woods and waters of America furnishing more food than its people could consume—and they approached them with the keen appetites of strong and healthy men.

"Perhaps we do not have the sea food here that you have in New York, Alan," said Master Jacobus with mock humility, "but we give you of our best."

"We've the finest oysters in the world, unless those of Baltimore be excepted," said Hervey, "but yours are, in truth, most excellent. Perhaps you can't expect to equal us in a specialty of ours. You'll recall old Tom Cotton's inn, out by the East River, and how unapproachably he serves oyster, crab, lobster and every kind of fish."

"I recall it full well, Alan. I rode out the Bowery road when I was last in New York, but I did not get a chance to go to old Tom's. You and I and Benjamin have seen some lively times there, when we were a bit younger, eh, Alan?"

"Aye, Jacobus, you speak truly. We were just as much concentrated upon self as the youth of to-day. And in our elderly hearts we're proud of the little frivolities and dissipations that were committed then. Else we[Pg 41] would never talk of 'em and chuckle over 'em to one another."

"And what is more, we're not too old yet for a little taste of pleasure, now and then, eh, Alexander?"

The schoolmaster, appealed to so directly, pursed his thin lips, lowered his lids to hide the faint twinkle in his eyes, and replied in measured tones:

"I cannot speak for you, Jacobus. I've known you a long time and your example is corrupting, but I trust that I shall prove firm against temptation."

The oysters were finished. No man left a single one untouched on his plate, and then a thick chicken soup was served by two very black women in gay cotton prints with red bandanna handkerchiefs tied like turbans around their heads. Robert could see no diminution in the appetite of the guests, nor did he feel any decrease in his own. Mr. Hervey turned to him.

"I hear you saw the Marquis de Montcalm himself," he said.

"Yes, sir," replied Robert. "I saw him several times, at Ticonderoga, and before that in the Oswego campaign. I've been twice a prisoner of the French."

"How does he look?"

"Of middle age, sir, short, dark and very polite in speech."

"And evidently a good soldier. He has proved that and to our misfortune. Yet, I cannot but think that we will produce his master. Now, I wonder who it is going to be. Under the English system the best general does not always come forward first, and perhaps we've not yet so much as heard the name of the man who is going to beat Montcalm. That he will be beaten I've no doubt. We'll conquer Canada and settle North Amer[Pg 42]ican affairs for all time. Perhaps it will be the last great war."

Robert was listening with the closest attention, and it seemed to him that the New Yorker was right. With Canada conquered and the French power expelled it would be the last great war so far as North America was concerned? How fallible men are! How prone they are to think when they have settled things for themselves they have settled them also for all future generations!

"And then," continued Mr. Hervey, "New York will become a yet greater port than it now is. It may even hope to rival Philadelphia in size and wealth. It will be London's greatest feeder."

The soup, not neglected in the least, gave way to fish, and then to many kinds of meat, in which game, bear, deer and wild fowl were conspicuous. Robert took a little of everything, but he was absorbed in the talk. He felt that these men were in touch with great affairs, and, however much they diverged from such subjects they had them most at heart. It was a thrilling thought that the future of North America, in some degree at least, might be determined around that very table at which he was sitting as a guest. He had knowledge and imagination enough to understand that it was not the armies that determined the fate of nations, but the men directing them who stood behind them farther back, in the dark perhaps, obscure, maybe never to become fully known, but clairvoyant and powerful just the same. He was resolved not to lose a word. So he leaned forward just a little in his seat, and his blue eyes sparkled.

"Dagaeoga is glad to be here," said Tayoga in an undertone.

"So I am, Tayoga. They talk of things of which I wish to hear."[Pg 43]

"As I told you, these be sachems with whom we sit. They be not chiefs who lead in battle, but, like the sachems, they plan, and, like the medicine men, they make charms and incantations that influence the souls of the warriors and also the souls of those who lead them to battle."

"The same thought was in my own mind."

Wine smuggled from France or Spain was served to the men, though young Lennox and the Onondaga touched none. In truth, it was not offered to them, Master Jacobus saying, with a glance at Robert:

"I have never allowed you and Tayoga to have anything stronger than coffee in my house, and although you are no longer under my charge I intend to keep to the rule."

"We wish nothing more, sir," said Robert.

"As for me," said the Onondaga, "I shall never touch any kind of liquor. I know that it goes ill with my race."

"Yours, I understand, is the Onondaga nation," said Mr. Hervey, looking at him attentively.

"The Onondaga, and I belong to the clan of the Bear," replied Tayoga proudly. "The Hodenosaunee have held the balance in this war."

"That I know full well. I gladly give the great League ample credit. It has been a wise policy of the English to deal honestly and fairly with your people. In general the French surpass us in winning and holding the affections of the native races, but some good angel has directed us in our dealings with the Six Nations. Without their Indians the French could have done little against us. I hear of one of their leaders who has endeared himself to them in the most remarkable manner. There has been much talk in New York of the Chevalier de St. Luc,[Pg 44] and being nearer the seat of action you've perhaps heard some of it here in Albany, Jacobus!"

Robert leaned a little farther forward and concentrated every faculty on the talk, but he said nothing.

"Yes, we've heard much of him, Alan," replied Master Jacobus. "I think he's the most dangerous foe that we have among Montcalm's lieutenants. He passes like a flame along the border, and yet report speaks well of him, too. All our men who have come in contact with him say he is a gallant and chivalrous foe."

Robert glanced