“Yes, his name’s Walter, and an awful smart feller he is, too—but the worst sort of a Tory. Do you know him? if I may be so bold.”
“Can you tell me how he escaped from confinement, and by what means he reached the valley?” inquired the stranger, without seeming to heed her question.
Aunt Polly broke into a crackling laugh, one of those sharp cachinnations which sometimes frightened her poultry from the roost.
“How did he escape? I only wondered how anybody managed to keep him. Why, he’s a fox, an eel, a weasel. Of all them Hudson and Mohawk Valley chaps that hive at Wintermoot’s Fort he’s the cutest. They says he’s made lots of money lately in making believe he married one of the handsomest little squaws that you ever sot eyes on; some say that he is married in rale downright ’arnest; but I don’t believe all I hear—it’s been a kind of Indian scrape—a jumping over the broomstick, I s’pose. He rode through the valley with her this afternoon as bold as a lion, followed by a lot of wild Injuns. The hull biling on ’em may be a-coming down on us, for all I know.”
“But the mother of this Indian girl—is she in the valley?”
“Catharine Montour? is that the person you want to ask about? ’cause if it is, I saw that identical woman once, and a rale, downright lady she is. I’ve got the gold guinea she gave me in my puss yet.”
“And you saw her?”
“Yes, with these two eyes, and that’s more than most folks can say. She came out on Gineral Washington and I—that’s my hoss, sir, not the commander-in-chief—jest as the angel stood before Balaam. At first I thought that I was struck dumb, and the gineral’d have to speak for me, whether or no.”
“But the lady—how did she look? changed, older—was she beautiful?” cried the man, while a quiver of agitation ran through his voice—up to this time so calm and measured.
“Harnsome? I suppose you mean by all that. Wal, yes, I should carculate that a’most any one would ’a’ called that lady harnsome enough for anything. She wasn’t so young, mebby, as she had been; but, marcy on us! no queen on her throne ever looked grander.”