The Shadow of the North Part 27

"No, no!" exclaimed Master Benjamin. "The task is yours, Edward, my lad. You can put more savor and unction into it than I can."

"Then let it be understood that I'm the guide and expounder," laughed Charteris.

"He has a great pride in his city, and it won't suffer from his telling," said Master Benjamin.

They were now in Na.s.sau Street near the improvised theater, and many other link boys, holding aloft their torches, were preceding their masters and mistresses. Heavy coaches were rolling up, and men and women in gorgeous costumes were emerging from them. The display of wealth was amazing for a town in the New World, but Mr. Hardy and his company quickly went inside and obtained their seats, from which they watched the fashion of New York enter. Charteris knew them all, and to many of them he was related.

The number of De Lanceys was surprising and there was also a profusion of Livingstons, the two families between them seeming to dominate the city, although they lived in bitter rivalry, as Charteris whispered to Robert. There were also Wattses and Morrises and Crugers and Waltons and Van Rensselaers, Van Cortlandts and Kennedys and Barclays and Nicolls and Alexanders, and numerous others that endured for generations in New York. The diverse origin of these names, English, Scotch, Dutch and Huguenot French, showed even at such an early date the cosmopolitan nature of New York that it was destined to maintain.

Robert was intensely interested. Charteris' fund of information was wonderful, and he flavored it with a salt of his own. He not only knew the people, but he knew all about them, their personal idiosyncrasies, their rivalries and jealousies. Robert soon gathered that New York was not only a seething city commercially, but socially as well. Family was of extreme importance, and the great landed proprietors who had received extensive grants along the Hudson in the earlier days from the Dutch Government, still had and exercised feudal rights, and were as full of pride and haughtiness as ducal families in Europe. Cla.s.s distinctions were preserved to the utmost possible extent, and, while the original basis of the town had been Dutch, the fashion was now distinctly English. London set the style for everything.

When they were all seated, the display of fine dress and jewels was extraordinary, just as the wealth and splendor shown in some of the New York houses had already attracted the astonished attention of many of the British officers, to whom the finest places in their own country were familiar.

And while Robert was looking so eagerly, the party to which he belonged did not pa.s.s unnoticed by any means. Master Benjamin Hardy was well known. He was bold and successful and he was a man of great substance. He had qualities that commanded respect in colonial New York, and people were not averse to being seen receiving his friendly nod. And those who surrounded him and who were evidently his guests were worthy of notice too. There was Edward Charteris, as well born as any in the hall, and a pattern in manners and dress for the young men of New York, and there was the tall youth with the tanned face, and the wonderful, vivid eyes, who must surely, by his appearance, be the representative of some n.o.ble family, there was the young Indian chief, uncommon in height and with the dignity and majesty of the forest, an Indian whose like had never been seen in New York before, and there was the gigantic Willet, whose ma.s.sive head and calm face were so redolent of strength. Beyond all question it was a most unusual and striking company that Master Benjamin Hardy had brought with him, and old and young whispered together as they looked at them, especially at Robert and Tayoga.

Mr. Hardy was conscious of the stir he had made, and he liked it, not for himself alone, but also for another. He glanced at Robert and saw how finely and clearly his features were cut, how clear was the blue of his eyes and the great width between them, and he drew a long breath of satisfaction.

"'Tis a good youth. Nature, lineage and Willet have done well," he said to himself.

More of the fashion of New York came in and then a group of British officers, several of whom nodded to Grosvenor.

"The tall man with the gray hair at the temples is my colonel, Brandon," he said. "Very strict, but just to his men, and we like him. He spent some years in the service of the East India Company, in one of the hottest parts of the peninsula. That's why he's so brown, and it made his blood thin, too. He can't endure cold. The officer with him is one of our majors, Apthorpe. He has had less experience than the colonel, but thinks he knows more. His opinion of the French is very poor. Believes we ought to brush 'em aside with ease."

"I hope you don't think that way, Grosvenor," said Robert. "We in this country know that the French is one of the most valiant races the world has produced."

"And so do most thinking Englishmen. The only victories we boast much about are those we have won over the French, which shows that we consider them foes worthy of anybody's steel. But the play is going to begin, I believe. The hall is well filled now, and I'm not trying to make an appeal to your local pride, Lennox, when I tell you 'tis an audience that will compare well with one at Drury Lane or Covent Garden for splendor, and for variety 'twill excel it."

Robert was pleased secretly. Although more identified with Albany than New York, he considered himself nevertheless one of the people who belonged to the city at the mouth of the Hudson, and he felt already its coming greatness.

"We call ourselves Englishmen," he said modestly, "and we hope to achieve as much as the older Englishmen, our brethren across the seas."

"Have you seen many plays, Lennox?"

"But few, and none by great actors like Mr. Hallam and Mrs. Douglas. I suppose, Grosvenor, you've seen so many that they're no novelty to you."

"I can scarcely lay claim to being such a man about town as that. I have seen plays, of course, and some by the great Master Will, and I do confess that the mock life I behold beyond the footlights often thrills me more than the real life I see this side of them. Once, I witnessed this play 'Richard III,' which we are now about to see, and it stirred me so I could scarce contain myself, though some do say that our Shakespeare has made the hunchback king blacker than he really was."

Presently a little bell rang, the curtain rolled up, and Robert pa.s.sed into an enchanted land. To vivid and imaginative youth the great style and action of Shakespeare make an irresistible appeal. Robert had never seen one of the mighty bard's plays before, and now he was in another world of romance and tragedy, suffused with poetry and he was held completely by the spell. Shakespeare may have blackened the character of the hunchback, but Robert believed him absolutely. To him Richard was exactly what the play made him.

Although the stage was but a temporary one, built in the hall of Rip Van Dam, it was large, the seating capacity was great and Hallam and his wife were among the best actors of their day, destined to a long career as stars in the colonies, and also afterward, when they ceased to be colonies. They and an able support soon took the whole audience captive, and all, fashionable and unfashionable alike, hung with breathless attention upon the play. Robert forgot absolutely everything around him, Willet was carried back to days of his youth, and Master Benjamin Hardy, who at heart was a lover of adventure and romance, responded to the great speeches the author has written for his characters. Tayoga did not stir, his face of bronze was unmoved, but now and then his dark eyes gleamed.

In reality the influence of the tragedy upon Tayoga was as great as it was upon Robert. The Onondaga had an unusual mind and being sent at an early age to school at Albany he had learned that the difference between white man and red was due chiefly to environment. Their hopes and fears, their rivalries and ambitions were, in truth, about the same. He had seen in some chief a soul much like that of humpbacked Richard, but, as he looked and listened, he also had a certain feeling of superiority. As he saw it, the great League, the Hodenosaunee, was governed better than England when York and Lancaster were tearing it to pieces. The fifty old sachems in the vale of Onondaga would decide more wisely and more justly than the English n.o.bles. Tayoga, in that moment, was prouder than ever that he was born a member of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, and doubtless his patron saint, Tododaho, in his home on the great, shining star, agreed with him.

The first act closed amid great applause, several recalls of smiling and bowing actors followed, and then, during the wait, came a great buzz of talk. Robert shook himself and returned to the world.

"What do you like best about it, Lennox?" asked Grosvenor.

"The poetry. The things the people say. Things I've thought often myself, but which I haven't been able to put in a way that makes them strike upon you like a lightning flash."

"I think that describes Master Will. In truth, you've given me a description for my own feelings. Once more I repeat to you, Lennox, that 'tis a fine audience. I see here much British and Dutch wealth, and people whose lives have been a continuous drama."

"Truly it's so," said Robert, and, as his examining eye swept the crowd, he almost rose in his seat with astonishment, with difficulty suppressing a cry. Then he charged himself with being a fool. It could not be so! The thing was incredible! The man might look like him, but surely he would not be so reckless as to come to such a place.

Then he looked again, and he could no longer doubt. The stranger sat near the door and his dress was much like that of a prosperous seafaring man of the Dutch race. But Robert knew the blue eyes, lofty and questing like those of the eagle, and he was sure that the reddish beard had grown on a face other than the one it now adorned. It was St. Luc, whom he knew to be romantic, adventurous, and ready for any risk.

Robert moved his body forward a little, in order that it might be directly between Tayoga and the Frenchman, it being his first impulse to shelter St. Luc from the next person who was likely to recognize him. But the Onondaga was not looking in that direction. The young English officer, moved by his intense interest, had engaged him in conversation continually, surprised that Tayoga should know so much about the white race and history.

Robert looked so long at St. Luc, and with such a fixed and powerful gaze, that at last the chevalier turned and their eyes met. Robert's said:

"Why are you here? Your life is in danger every moment. If caught you will be executed as a spy."

"I'm not afraid," replied the eyes of St. Luc. "You alone have seen me as I am."

"But others will see you."

"I think not."

"How do you know that I will not proclaim at once who you are?"

"You will not because you do not wish to see me hanged or shot."

Then the eyes of St. Luc left Robert and wandered ever the audience, which was now deeply engrossed in talk, although the Livingstons and the De Lanceys kept zealously away from one another, and the families who were closely allied with them by blood, politics or business also, stayed near their chiefs. Robert began to fancy that he might have been mistaken, it was not really St. Luc, he had allowed an imaginary resemblance to impose upon him, but reflection told him that it was no error. He would have known the intense gaze of those burning blue eyes anywhere. He was still careful to keep his own body between Tayoga and the Frenchman.

The curtain rose and once more Robert fell under the great writer's spell. Vivid action and poetic speech claimed him anew, and for the moment he forgot St. Luc. When the second act was finished, and while the applause was still filling the hall, he cast a fearful glance toward the place where he had seen the chevalier. Then, in truth, he rubbed his eyes. No St. Luc was there. The chair in which he had sat was not empty, but was occupied by a stolid, stout Dutchman, who seemed not to have moved for hours.

It had been a vision, a figment of the fancy, after all! But it was merely an attempt of the will to persuade himself that it was so. He could not doubt that he had seen St. Luc, who, probably listening to some counsel of providence, had left the hall. Robert felt an immense relief, and now he was able to a.s.sume his best manner when Mr. Hardy began to present him and Tayoga to many of the notables. He met the governor, Mr. Watts, and more De Lanceys, Wilsons and Crugers than he could remember, and he received invitations to great houses, and made engagements which he intended to keep, if it were humanly possible. Willet and Hardy exchanged glances when they noticed how easily he adapted himself to the great world of his day. He responded here as he had responded in Quebec, although Quebec and New York, each a center in its own way, were totally unlike.

The play went on, and Robert was still absorbed in the majestic lines. At the next intermission there was much movement in the audience. People walked about, old acquaintances spoke and strangers were introduced to one another. Robert looked sharply for St. Luc, but there was no trace of him. Presently Mr. Hardy was introducing him to a heavy man, dressed very richly, and obviously full of pride.

"Mynheer Van Zoon," he said, "this is young Robert Lennox. He has been for years in the care of David Willet, whom you have met in other and different times. Robert, Mynheer Van Zoon is one of our greatest merchants, and one of my most active rivals."

Robert was about to extend his hand, but noticing that Mynheer Van Zoon did not offer his he withheld his own. The merchant's face, in truth, had turned to deeper red than usual, and his eyes lowered. He was a few years older than Hardy, somewhat stouter, and his heavy strong features showed a tinge of cruelty. The impression that he made upon Robert was distinctly unfavorable.

"Yes, I have met Mr. Willet before," said Van Zoon, "but so many years have pa.s.sed that I did not know whether he was still living. I can say the same about young Mr. Lennox."

"Oh, they live hazardous lives, but when one is skilled in meeting peril life is not snuffed out so easily," rejoined Mr. Hardy who seemed to be speaking from some hidden motive. "They've returned to civilization, and I think and trust, Adrian, that we'll hear more of them than for some years past. They're especial friends of mine, and I shall do the best I can for them, even though my mercantile rivalry with you absorbs, of necessity, so much of my energy."

Van Zoon smiled sourly, and then Robert liked him less than ever.

"The times are full of danger," he said, "and one must watch to keep his own."

He bowed, and turned to other acquaintances, evidently relieved at parting with them.

"He does not improve with age," said Willet thoughtfully.

Robert was about to ask questions concerning this Adrian Van Zoon, who seemed uneasy in their presence, but once more he restrained himself, his intuition telling him as before that neither Willet nor Master Hardy would answer them.

The play moved on towards its dramatic close and Robert was back in the world of pa.s.sion and tragedy, of fancy and poetry. Van Zoon was forgotten, St. Luc faded quite away, and he was not conscious of the presence of Tayoga, or of Grosvenor, or of any of his friends.

Shakespeare's _Richard_ was wholly the humpbacked villain to him, and when he met his fate on Bosworth Field he rejoiced greatly. As the curtain went down for the last time he saw that Tayoga, too, was moved.