It was towards this part of the town that Lord H---- directed his course, inquiring for the inn called "The Three Boatmen." Several times, however, was he frustrated, in his attempt to obtain information, by the ignorance of the English language shown by a great portion of the inhabitants; and the pipe was removed from the mouth only to reply, in Dutch, "I do not understand."
At length, however, he was directed aright, and found a small and somewhat mean-looking house, in which an adventurous Englishman, from the purlieus of Clare-market, had established a tavern for the benefit of boatmen. It had, in former times, belonged to a Dutch settler, and still retained many of the characteristic features of its origin. Four trees stood in line before the doors, with benches underneath them, for the convenience of those who liked to sit and poison the sweet air of the summer evenings with the fumes of tobacco.
Entering through a swing-door into the narrow, sandy passage, which descended one step from the street, Lord H---- encountered a negro tapster with a white apron, of whom he inquired if Captain Brooks were still there.
"Oh yes, massa officer," said the man, with a grin. "You mean Massa Woodchuck," he continued, showing that the good man's Indian nick-name was very extensively known. "You find him in dere, in de coffee-room." And he pointed to a door, once white, now yellow and brown with smoke, age, and dirty fingers.
Lord H---- opened the door, and went in amongst as strange and unprepossessing an assemblage of human beings as it had ever been his chance to light upon. The air was rendered obscure by smoke, so that the candles looked dim and red, and it was literally difficult to distinguish the objects round. What the odour was, it is impossible to say, for it was as complicated as the antidote of Mithridates; but the predominant smells were certainly those of tobacco, beer, rum, and Hollands gin. Some ten or twelve little tables of exceedingly highly-polished mahogany, but stained here and there by the contaminating marks of wet glasses, divided the room amongst them, leaving just space between each two to place a couple of chairs back to back.
In this small den, not less than five or six and twenty persons were congregated, almost all drinking, almost all smoking, some talking very loud, some sitting in profound silence, as the quantity of liquor imbibed, or the national characteristics of the individual, might prompt.
Gazing through the haze upon this scene, which, besides the sturdy and coarse, but active, Englishman, and the heavy, phlegmatic Dutchman, contained one or two voluble Frenchmen, deserters from the Canadas, and none of them showing themselves in a very favourable light, Lord H---- could not help comparing the people before him with the free wild Indians he had lately left, and asking himself "Which are the savages?"
At length, his eye fell upon a man sitting at a table in the corner of the room next to the window. He was quite alone, with his back turned to the rest of the men in the place, his head leaning on his hand, and a short pipe laid down upon the table beside him. He had no light before him as most of the others had, and he might have seemed asleep, so still was his whole figure, had it not been that the fingers of his right hand, which rested on the table, beat time to an imaginary tune.
Approaching close to him, Lord H---- drew a seat to the table, and laid a hand upon his arm. Woodchuck looked round, and a momentary expression of pleasure, slight and passing away rapidly, crossed his rugged features.
The next moment, his face was all cold and stern again.