“Sans doute, Monsieur. C’est un miracle, how Mam’selle love de air! Personne do not love air more, as Mam’selle Alide. Bah!—It was grand plaisir to see how Monsieur de Barbérie love de air!”
“Perhaps, Mr. Francis, your young lady is ignorant of the hour. It might be well to knock at the door, or perhaps at the window. I confess, I should much admire to see her bright face, smiling from that window, on this soft morning scene.”
It is not probable that the imagination of the Patroon of Kinderhook ever before took so high a flight; and there was reason to suspect, by the wavering and alarmed glance that he cast around him after so unequivocal an expression of weakness, that he already repented his temerity. François, who would not willingly disoblige a man that was known to possess a hundred thousand acres of land, with manorial rights, besides personals of no mean amount, felt embarrassed by the request; but was enabled to recollect in time, that the heiress was known to possess a decision of character that might choose to control her own pleasures.
“Well, I shall be too happy to knock; mais, Monsieur sais, dat sleep est si agréable, pour les jeunes personnes! On n’a jamais knock, dans la famille de Monsieur de Barbérie, and je suis sûr, que Mam’selle Alide, do not love to hear de knock—pourtant, si Monsieur le Patteron le veut, I shall consult ses—Voila! Monsieur Bevre, qui vient sans knock à la fenêtre. J’ai l’honneur de vous laisser avec Monsieur Al’erman.”
And so the complaisant but still considerate valet bowed himself out of a dilemma, that he found, as he muttered to himself, while retiring, ‘tant soit peu ennuyant.’
The air and manner of the Alderman, as he approached his guest, were, like the character of the man, hale, hearty and a little occupied with his own enjoyments and feelings. He hemmed thrice, ere he was near enough to speak; and each of the strong expirations seemed to invite the admiration of the Patroon, for the strength of his lungs, and for the purity of the atmosphere around a villa which acknowledged him for its owner.
“Zephyrs and Spas! but this is the abode of health, Patroon!” cried the burgher, as soon as these demonstrations of his own bodily condition had been sufficiently repeated. “One sometimes feels in this air equal to holding a discourse, across the Atlantic, with his friends at Scheveling, or the Helder. A broad and deep chest, air like this from the sea, with a clear conscience, and a lucky hit in the way of trade, cause the lungs of a man to play as easily and as imperceptibly as the wings of a humming-bird.—Let me see; there are few four-score men in thy stock. The last Patroon closed the books at sixty-six; and his father went but a little beyond seventy. I wonder, there has never been an intermarriage, among you, with the Van Courtlandts; that blood is as good as an insurance to four-score and ten, of itself.”
“I find the air of your villa, Mr. Van Beverout, a cordial that one could wish to take often,” returned the other, who had far less of the brusque manner of the trader, than his companion. “It is a pity that all who have the choice, do not profit by their opportunities to breathe it.”
“You allude to the lazy mariners in yon vessel! Her Majesty’s servants are seldom in a hurry; and as for this brigantine in the Cove, the fellow seems to have gotten in by magic! I warrant me, now, the rogue is there for no good, and that the Queen’s Exchequer will be none the richer for his visit. Harkee, you Brom,” calling to an aged black, who was working at no great distance from the dwelling, and who was deep in his master’s confidence, “hast seen any boats plying between yonder roguish-looking brigantine and the land?”
The negro shook his head, like the earthen image of a mandarin, and laughed loud and heartily.