Annie replied that she cared nothing for Lambert, and that Fritz and August Volz had also not yet declared themselves. The mother took Annie's part, and the dispute threatened to become serious, when it happily occurred to them that they had not once asked Adam what sort of a person the new girl was.
They now learned from the keen rider, who had gone into the house and was rubbing his shins with brandy, that, in no case was Lambert to have her, but that he himself was to marry the girl as soon as the Indians had taken Lambert's scalp, and that he and Lambert had come to a complete agreement on that matter.
While Catherine's fate was thus discussed in the Bellinger family, Lambert pushed along on a fast trot to regain lost time. He had gathered from the questions of the women, and still more from the tone in which they were put, that the way in which he had dealt was not thought favorably of. He was yesterday persuaded of this, and to escape this neighborhood interference he had taken the road through the woods. He felt grieved and angry at his aunt, who alone could have spread abroad the knowledge of his return and his relation to Catherine. Still he said to himself that, since all must shortly know it, it was best they should know it as soon as possible. He saw how difficult his position in the community would be--as indeed it should be--so long as Catherine was not his wife; possibly even after that; that, at all events, it was his duty to make his relation to Catherine clear to all eyes. He determined yet to-day, should opportunity offer, to speak to the minister and to seek the advice and help of that excellent man.
He had now come out of what was properly the valley of the creek, near its mouth. Toward the right of him lay the broad German Flats, in the fork between the creek and the Mohawk. The land, long rescued from the primitive forest, was rich, and there were unbroken lines of successive settlements, with a small church and a parsonage in the midst on a hill. Before him, on the other side of the Mohawk, whose clear waters glanced between its bushy shores, there stood out also on a hill, what looked like a small fortification. This, the purposed end of his journey, was Nicolas Herkimer's stately house.