His conference with the commander-in-chief ended, he declined an invitation to supper, and went out on his search for the small inn where he had been told he would find the man whose act, however justifiable, had brought so much wretchedness upon Mr. Prevost's family.
The city of Albany, in those days, as we have reason to know from very good authority, though not numbering by many thousands as great a population as it contains at present, occupied a space nearly as large as the present city. One long street ran by the river, to the very verge of which beautiful and well cultivated gardens extended; and from the top of the hill down to this lower street ran another, very nearly, if not exactly, of the same position and extent as the present State street. On the top of the hill was the fort; and built in the center of the large, descending street which swept round them on either side, were two or three churches, a handsome market place, and a guard-house. A few other streets ran down the hill in a parallel line with this principal one; and other small streets, lanes, and alleys connected them all together. Nevertheless, the population, as I have said, was comparatively very small, for between house and house, and street and street, throughout the whole town, were large and beautiful gardens filling up spaces now occupied by buildings and thronged with human beings. A great part of the population was at that time Dutch, and all the neatness and cleanliness of true Dutch houses and Dutch streets was to be seen in Albany in those days--would we could say as much at present. No pigs then ran in the streets, to the horror of the eye and the annoyance of the passenger; no cabbage leaves or stalks disgraced the gutter; and the only place in which anything like filth or uncleanliness was to be seen was at the extremity of the littoral street, where, naturally, the houses of the boatmen and others connected with the shipping were placed for the sake of approximating to the water. There, certainly, some degree of dirt existed, and the air was perfumed with the high savor of tar and tobacco.
It was toward this part of the town that Lord H---- directed his steps, inquiring for the inn called "The Three Boatmen." Several times, however, was he frustrated in his attempt to obtain information by the ignorance of a great portion of the inhabitants of the English language; 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, while four trees stood in line before the door, with benches underneath them for the convenience of those who chose to sit and poison the sweet air of the summer evening 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 was 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 nickname 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 around. What the odor was it is impossible to say, for it was as complicated as the antidote of Mithridates; but the predominant smells were certainly those of beer, rum, and Holland 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 to place two chairs, back to back; and in this small den not less than five or six and twenty people 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, none of them showing themselves in a very favorable 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, however, fell upon a man sitting at the table in the corner of the room next to the window. He was quite alone, with his back turned to the rest of the people 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.
"Very kind of you to come and see me, my lord," he said, in a dull, sad tone. "What do you want with me? Have you got anything for me to do?"