The two youths hid their smiles.
"Mynheer Jacobus was very good to us," said Robert. "Just as you are,
Master McLean."
"I am not good to you, if you mean by it weakness and softness of heart. Never spoil the young. Speak sternly to them all the time. Use the strap and the rod freely upon them and you may make men of them."
Again Robert and Tayoga hid their smiles, but each knew that he had a soft place in the heart of the crusty teacher, and they spent a pleasant hour with him. That night they slept in their old room at Mynheer Huysman's and two days later they and Willet went on board a sloop for New York, where they intended to see Governor de Lancey. Before they left many more alarming reports about the French and Indians had come to Albany. They had made new ravages in the north and west, and their power was spreading continually. France was already helping her colonists. When would England help hers?
But Robert forgot all alarm in the pleasure of the voyage. It was a good sloop, it had a stout Dutch captain, and with a favoring wind they sped fast southward. Pride in the splendid river swelled in Robert's soul and he and Tayoga, despite the cold, sat together on the deck, watching the lofty shores and the distant mountains.
But Willet, anxious of mind, paced back and forth. He had seen much at Albany that did not please him. The Indian Commissioners were doing little to cement the alliance with the Hodenosaunee. The Mohawks, alone of the great League, were giving aid against the French. The others remained in their villages, keeping a strict neutrality. That was well as far as it went, but the hunter had hoped that all the members of the Hodenosaunee would take the field for the English. He believed that Father Drouillard would soon be back among the Onondagas, seeking to sway his converts to France, and he dreaded, too, the activity and persistency of St. Luc.
But he kept his anxieties from Robert, knowing how eagerly the lad anticipated his arrival in New York, and not blaming him at all for it, since New York, although inferior in wealth, size and power to Philadelphia, and in leadership to Boston, was already, in the eye of the prophets, because of its situation, destined to become the first city of America. And Willet felt his own pulses beat a little faster at the thought of New York, a town that he knew well, and already a port famous throughout the world.
Tayoga, although he wore his Indian dress, attracted no particular attention from Captain Van Zouten and his crew. Indians could be seen daily at Albany, and along the river, and they had been for generations a part of American life. Captain Van Zouten, in truth, noticed the height and fine bearing of the Onondaga, but he was a close mouthed Dutchman, and if he felt like asking questions he put due Dutch restraint upon himself.
The wind held good all day long, and the sloop flew southward, leaving a long white trail in the blue water, but toward night it rose to a gale, with heavy clouds that promised snow. Captain Hendrick Van Zouten looked up with some anxiety at his sails, through which the wind was now whistling, and, after a consultation with his mate, decided to draw into a convenient cove and anchor for the night.
"I'm sorry," he said to Willet, "that our voyage to New York will be delayed, but there'll be nasty weather on the river, and I don't like to risk the sloop in it. But I didn't promise you that I'd get you to the city at any particular time."