“My warriors are in the neighborhood, waiting with their horses—I have gold in my dress—I am strong, proud—it seems as if all our warriors were fighting for you, and I leading them on, this moment!”
She fell into his arms, trembling for very joy.
He held her to his heart—it was not all base when that noble creature lay against it. He kissed her warmly. There was a world of selfishness in that kiss, but Tahmeroo guessed nothing of that.
“Now go, my lark, go—search out the house they intend for my prison. To-morrow I shall find you there.”
Tahmeroo arose; she was in haste to be at work; the idea of saving her husband made her forget that he was eager to send her away. No one but the jailer saw her when she departed; but he wondered at the splendor of her beauty, which seemed to have heightened tenfold since she entered the building.
A middle-aged gentleman and lady sat in one of those quaint parlors, which occupied the gable-front of an old Dutch house, such as may be seen in Albany, as relics of a past age, even to this day. The room was neat, almost to chilliness; blue tiles ornamented the chimney-piece; blue tiles ran in a border round the oaken floor; the gentleman’s coat was of blue; his stockings were seamed with blue and his dame’s linen dress was striped with the same color. Thus they sat in this coldly-tinted apartment, after dinner, conversing together about the strange guest they had consented to receive into their house, at the urgent request of General Schuyler, who believed that close confinement had really endangered Butler’s life, and wished to be humane; while he was not willing to set a man so dangerous at perfect liberty.
While the good Dutchman and his wife were talking over the difficulties of this arrangement, which became more important from the fact that their only maid-servant had left her place, on hearing of the new claim likely to be made on her labors, a staid old man, who had been detailed to guard the prisoner when he came, entered the room and announced a country girl from across the river who wished to hire herself out.
This was a piece of good fortune which neither of the occupants of the parlor had expected—for servants were not to be had for the asking, when so much wild land lay ready for tillage, and labor was mostly applied in building up homes for the working classes.
While they were quietly congratulating themselves, the applicant came into the room. She was a plain, and rather shabbily dressed girl—singularly handsome, notwithstanding the poverty of her raiment—who entered the parlor with the free grace of a fawn, and spoke in accents which would have appeared far too pure for her humble appearance with any one to whom the English language was a native tongue.
The Dutchman, fortunately, understood very little English, and the country girl was profoundly ignorant of Dutch; so as the conversation was necessarily carried on between the soldier and the girl, the matter of reference was easily settled. In half an hour after her entrance, the maid was busy at her work in the kitchen.