When Myndert Van Beverout was alone, he shut the windows of the pavilion of his niece, and retired to his own part of the dwelling. Here the thrifty burgher first busied himself in making sundry calculations, with a zeal that proved how much his mind was engrossed by the occupation. After this preliminary step, he gave a short but secret conference to the mariner of the India-shawl, during which there was much clinking of gold pieces. But when the latter retired, the master of the villa first looked to the trifling securities which were then, as now, observed in the fastenings of an American country house; when he walked forth upon the lawn, like one who felt the necessity of breathing the open air He cast more than one inquiring glance at the windows of the room which was occupied by Oloff Van Staats, where all was happily silent; at the equally immovable brigantine in the Cove; and at the more distant and still motionless hull of the cruiser of the crown. All around him was in the quiet of midnight. Even the boats, which he knew to be plying between the land and the little vessel at anchor, were invisible; and he re-entered his habitation, with the security one would be apt to feel, under similar circumstances, in a region so little tenanted, and so little watched, as that in which he lived.
CHAPTER XII.
“Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand,
That you, yet, know not of,——”
Merchant of Venice.
Notwithstanding the active movements which had taken place in and around the buildings of the Lust in Rust, during the night which ended with our last chapter, none but the initiated were in the smallest degree aware of their existence. Oloff Van Staats was early afoot; and when he appeared on the lawn, to scent the morning air, there was nothing visible, to give rise to a suspicion that aught extraordinary had occurred during his slumbers. La Cour des Fées was still closed, but the person of the faithful François was seen, near the abode of his young mistress, busied in some of those pretty little offices, that can easily be imagined would be agreeable to a maiden of her years and station. Van Staats of Kinderhook had as little of romance in his composition, as could well be in a youth of five-and-twenty, who was commonly thought to be enamoured, and who was not altogether ignorant of the conventional sympathies of the passion. The man was mortal, and as the personal attractions of la belle Barbérie were sufficiently obvious, he had not entirely escaped the fate, which seems nearly inseparable from young fancy, when excited by beauty. He drew nigh to the pavilion, and, by a guarded but decisive manœuvre, he managed to come so close to the valet, as to render a verbal communication not only natural, but nearly unavoidable.
“A fair morning and a healthful air, Monsieur François;” commenced the young Patroon, acknowledging the low salute of the domestic, by gravely lifting his own beaver. “This is a comfortable abode for the warm months, and one it might be well to visit oftener.”
“When Monsieur le Patteron shall be de lor’ of ce manoir, aussi, he shall come when he shall have la volonté,” returned François, who knew that a pleasantry of his ought not to be construed into an engagement on the part of her he served, while it could not fail to be agreeable to him who heard it. “Monsieur de Van Staats, est grand propriétaire sur la rivière, and one day, peut-être, he shall be propriétaire sur la mèr!”
“I have thought of imitating the example of the Alderman, honest Francis, and of building a villa on the coast; but there will be time for that, when I shall find myself more established in life! Your young mistress is not yet moving, Francis?”
“Ma foi, non—Mam’selle Alide sleep!—’tis good symptôme, Monsieur Patteron, pour les jeunes personnes, to très bien sleep. Monsieur, et toute la famille de Barbérie sleep à merveille! Oui, c’est toujours une famille remarquable, pour le sommeil!”
“Yet one would wish to breathe this fresh and invigorating air, which comes from off the sea, like a balm, in the early hours of the day.”