"Oh, yes, my father," added the lad, "and you often said, when we were in England, that the red Indian had much more of the real gentleman in him than many a peer."
"Dreams, dreams!" ejaculated their father, with a melancholy smile; and then, turning to the stranger, he added, "you see, sir, how keenly our weaknesses are read even by children. But come, Edith, our friend must be hungry with his long ride; see and hasten the supper. Our habits are primeval here, sir, like our woods. We follow the sun to bed, and wake him in the morning."
"They are good habits," observed the stranger, "and such as I am accustomed to follow myself. But do not, I pray you, hasten your supper for me. I am anything but a slave of times and seasons. I can fast long and fare scantily, without inconvenience."
"And yet you are an Englishman," remarked the master of the house, gravely; "a soldier, or I mistake; a man of rank and station, I am sure; though all three would generally imply, as the world goes at this present time, a fondness for luxurious ease and an indulgence of all the appetites."
A slight flush came into his companion's cheek, and the other hastened to add,--
"Believe me, I meant nothing discourteous. I spoke of the Englishman, the soldier, and the man of rank and station, generally--not of yourself. I see it is far otherwise with you."
"You hit hard, my good friend," rejoined the stranger, "and there is some truth in what you say. But, perhaps, I have seen as many lands as you; and I boldly venture to pronounce that the fault is in the age, not in the nation, the profession, or the class. We will try to amend it. That is the best course; and, though individual effort can do but little, each separate man may improve several others; and thus onward to better things and better days."
As he spoke, he rose, walked thoughtfully to the window, and gazed out for a moment or two in silence; and then, turning round, he said, addressing his host's son--"How beautifully the setting sun shines down yonder glade in the forest, pouring, as it were, in a golden mist through the needle foliage of the pines! Runs there a road down there?"
The boy answered in the affirmative; and, drawing close to the stranger's side, pointed out to him by the undulations of the ground, and the gaps in the tree-tops, the wavy line that the road followed, down the side of the gentle hill on which the house stood, and up the opposite ascent. His description was peculiarly clear and accurate. He seemed to have marked every tree and stone and brook along the path; and where a by-way diverged, or where the road divided into two, he noted the marking object, saying--
"By a white oak and a great hemlock tree, there is a footpath to the left: at a clump of large cedars on the edge of the swamp the road forks out to the right and left, one branch leading eastward towards the river, and one out westward to the hunting-grounds."