Chapter 11

THE JOURNEY IN THE WILDERNESS.

We made a prosperous voyage up that fine river of the Hudson, the
weather grateful, the hills singularly beautified with the colours
of the autumn. At Albany we had our residence at an inn, where I
was not so blind and my lord not so cunning but what I could see he
had some design to hold me prisoner. The work he found for me to
do was not so pressing that we should transact it apart from
necessary papers in the chamber of an inn; nor was it of such
importance that I should be set upon as many as four or five
scrolls of the same document. I submitted in appearance; but I
took private measures on my own side, and had the news of the town
communicated to me daily by the politeness of our host. In this
way I received at last a piece of intelligence for which, I may
say, I had been waiting. Captain Harris (I was told) with "Mr.
Mountain, the trader," had gone by up the river in a boat. I would
have feared the landlord's eye, so strong the sense of some
complicity upon my master's part oppressed me. But I made out to
say I had some knowledge of the Captain, although none of Mr.
Mountain, and to inquire who else was of the party. My informant
knew not; Mr. Mountain had come ashore upon some needful purchases;
had gone round the town buying, drinking, and prating; and it
seemed the party went upon some likely venture, for he had spoken
much of great things he would do when he returned. No more was
known, for none of the rest had come ashore, and it seemed they
were pressed for time to reach a certain spot before the snow
should fall.

And sure enough, the next day, there fell a sprinkle even in
Albany; but it passed as it came, and was but a reminder of what
lay before us. I thought of it lightly then, knowing so little as
I did of that inclement province: the retrospect is different; and
I wonder at times if some of the horror of there events which I
must now rehearse flowed not from the foul skies and savage winds
to which we were exposed, and the agony of cold that we must
suffer.

The boat having passed by, I thought at first we should have left
the town. But no such matter. My lord continued his stay in
Albany where he had no ostensible affairs, and kept me by him, far
from my due employment, and making a pretence of occupation. It is
upon this passage I expect, and perhaps deserve, censure. I was
not so dull but what I had my own thoughts. I could not see the
Master entrust himself into the hands of Harris, and not suspect
some underhand contrivance. Harris bore a villainous reputation,
and he had been tampered with in private by my lord; Mountain, the
trader, proved, upon inquiry, to be another of the same kidney; the
errand they