The water in the washing-bowl reflected the sunlight, and the white ceiling above me wavered with golden-netted ripples. A gentle wind moved the curtains to and fro, a brisk breeze, yet saturated with the disquieting taint of unknown odours, odours of a town whose streets are thronged with strange people. Those bred within the strip which runs along the borders of a wilderness find the air of towns confusing, as a keen hound, running perdu, enters a vast runway where a thousand pungent trails recross.
Reconnoitring the room from my sunny couch, I poked my sun-warmed muzzle out of the sheets, sniffing and inspecting the unfamiliar surroundings. Then I cautiously stretched my limbs, and finding myself supple and sound, leaped lightly onto the rag-carpet in my bare feet and stood looking out of the window.
This lodging whither Mount and Renard had piloted me when our convoy passed the ramparts of Fortress Pitt, was an inn called the "Virginia Arms," a most clean and respectable hostelry, though sometimes suspected as a trysting-place for rebels. James Rolfe, a Boston man, was our host, a thin-edged, mottled, shrewd-eyed fellow, whose nasal voice sounded continually through the house from tap-room to garret, in sarcastic comment on his servants. I heard him now as I stood at the window:
"Oh, Hiram, yew dinged sack o' shucks, the gentleman in 27 is knocking on the floor! Jonas! A pot o' small-beer for the gentleman in 17! Land o' Goshen, yew run like a frost-nipped spider! The gentleman in 6 is waiting for his wig! What's that? Waal, yew go right 'round tew the hairdresser's and tell him tew bring that wig! Hey? Yes, the wig dressed a-lar-Francy! Don't set there rubbing yewr chin like a dumned chipimunk, Simon, while Mister Patrick Henry is waiting for them queue ribbons from Corwin's. Eh? You fetched 'em? Well, why in the name o' Virginy can't you say so? Clean them buckles for the gentleman in 20, yew darned clam!"
His penetrating, half-fretful, half-humorous voice died away towards the stables in the rear, and I parted the dainty curtains and peeped out into the streets of Pittsburg. Our inn stood on the corner of the town square, opposite the village green. Across the square rose some well-made barracks, painted white; I could see red-coated sentinels posted at the gates and walking their beats along the west stockade. A few handsome mansions faced the square, two churches and a public house completed the north side of the quadrangle. East and west shops and smaller houses lined the streets; the green bush hung in the sunshine, the barber's basin swung and glittered among a forest of gayly painted sign-boards.
But the people! Lord, how they trooped by, passing, repassing, threading the alleys, streaming across the green, soldiers in scarlet and buff, militia in brown and green, sober townsmen dressed as we dress in Johnstown, old gentlemen in snuffy smalls and big coats with broad cuffs and silver buttons, the butcher, bared of arm and head, with the wind fluttering his apron, the baker, white and sallow as his own muffins, ostlers, shop-keepers, chapmen, men in fustian shouldering pick or shovels, drovers in blue smocks carrying looped snake-whips. Now comes one in musty wig and steel spectacles, bulging umbrella under one arm, inquisitive nose buried in a Maryland newspaper—a schoolmaster!—or do I not know the breed. Anon, I see some tall, awkward riflemen, loitering idly before signs or gawking up at the county court-house, where a gilt fish swims in the sky.
Sometimes a horseman, in the uniform of Lord Dunmore's guards, trots by gracefully, with a smile and low salute for his friends and a stare at the fresh-cheeked maids who steal demurely along, basket on arm, to rifle the market for an early squash or a bunch o' green pease.
Many citizens I notice are reading the newspapers as they walk; many men meet and stop and converse eagerly, looking behind them at times as though an eavesdropper might be near. With bell and clapper the vender of ginger and cocoa-nut pushes his cart before him; peddlers, bending under Delaware baskets or leather trays, stand in the street, calling their wares: "Colours for the races!" "Tablets!" "Pencils!" "Chains!" "Cock-gaffs—steel or brass!" "Gentlemen's fancy!" "Dog-bells!" "Ferret-bits!"
A barefoot child in rags offers bills for the bull-baiting and for the Theatre Royal, crying in a thin, monotonous voice: "Race-week bills, my lords and gentlemen! Race-week bills for the Theatre Royal, my lady! Plays to be played—'The Beau's Stratagem,' 'Beggar's Opera,' 'The Devil to Pay,' 'The Fair Penitent,' 'The Virgin Unmasked!' and a variety of farces and merry pantomimes—and the bills are only a penny, my lady! The tickets to be had at Jamison's Coffee-House at four shillings—the bill to be had of me, Rosalie, child of Tanner Bridewell—only a penny!"
The pitiful voice in the sunshine touched me; I opened the window and tossed a shilling to the child, then hid behind the curtains while she kissed her palm at my window.