"Wait three days, and I will," replied the other. "I am first going up the Mohawk, as I told you, close by Sir William's castle and hall, as he calls the places. You'd see little there; but if you will promise to do just as I tell you, and take advice, I'll take you up to Sandy Hill and the creek, where you'll see enough of them. That will be arter I come back on Friday about noon."
Mr. Prevost looked at the young officer, and he at his entertainer, and then the former asked: "When will you bring him back, Captain? He must be here again by next Tuesday night."
"That he shall be, with or without his scalp," answered Woodchuck, with a laugh. "You get him ready to go; for you know, Prevost, the forest is not the parade ground."
"I will lend him my Gakaah and Giseha and Gostoweh," cried Walter. "We will make him quite an Indian."
"No! no!" answered Woodchuck. "That won't do, Walter. The man who tries to please an Ingian by acting like an Ingian, makes nought of it. They know it's a cheat, and they don't like it. We have our ways, they have theirs; and let each keep his own, like honest men. So I think, and so the Ingians think. Putting on a lion's skin will never make a man a lion. Get him some good, tough leggings, and a coat that won't tear, a rifle, and an axe, and a wood-knife--a bottle of brandy is no bad thing. But don't forget a calumet and a bunch of tobacco, for both may be needful. So now good-bye t'ye all. I must trot."
Thus saying, he rose from the table, and without more ceremonious adieu, left the room.
CHAPTER IV
When Brooks had left them, half an hour was spent in one of those pleasant after-breakfast dreams, when the mind seems to take a moment's hesitating pause before grappling with the active business of the day. But little was said; each gazed forth from window or from door; each thought perhaps of the other, and each drank in sweet sensations from the scene before the eyes.
Each thought of the other, I have said; and when such is the case, how infinite are the varieties into which thought moulds itself. Walter paused and pondered upon the stranger's state and objects--asked himself who he was, what could be his errand--how--why he came thither? Major Kielmansegge he knew him not to be. A chance word had shown him not only his rank and station, but shown also that there was a secret to be kept--a secret to which perhaps his imagination lent more importance than it deserved. He was an English peer, the young man knew, one of a rank with which in former years he had been accustomed to mingle, and for which, notwithstanding all that had passed, and lapse of time and varied circumstances, he retained an habitual veneration. But what could have led a British peer to that secluded spot? What could be the circumstances which, having led him thither, had suddenly changed his purpose of proceeding onward, and induced him to remain a guest in his father's cottage in a state of half-concealment? Could it be Lord Loudon, he asked himself, the commander-in-chief of the royal forces, whose conduct had been so severely censured in his own ears by the man just gone?
It was not by accident that Lord H---- and Edith Prevost met there. It was for the working out of their mutual destiny under the hand of God; for if there be a God, there is a special providence.