"Yes, he good 'nough," answered the black, "but he don't know half as much as Masser Corny, or Masser Mordaunt. He say worl' isn't round; now, I t'ink he look round."
"What Chainbearer say?" asked the Indian, suddenly, as if he had determined that his own opinion should be governed by that of a man whom he so well loved. "Chainbearer nebber lie."
"Nor do Masser Corny, nor Masser Mordaunt?" exclaimed Jaap, a little indignantly. "You t'ink, Trackless, e'der of _my_ massers lie!"
That was an accusation that Susquesus never intended to make; though his greater intimacy with, and greater reliance on old Andries had, naturally enough, induced him to ask the question he had put.
"No say eeder lie," answered the Onondago; "but many forked tongue about, and maybe hear so, and t'ink so. Chainbearer stop ear; nebber listen to crooked tongue."
"Well, here come Chainbearer he self, Sus; so, jist for graterfercashun, you shall hear what 'e ole man say. It berry true, Chainbearer honest man, and I like to know he opinion myself, sin' it isn't easy, Trackless, to understan' how a mortal being _can_ stan' up, head down!"
"Why, it mean mortality, Injin--you, mortality--I, mortality--Masser Corny, mortality--Masser Mordaunt, mortality--Miss Anneke, mortality--ebberybody, mortality; but ebberybody not 'e same sort of mortality!--Understan' now, Sus?"
The Indian shook his head, and looked perplexed; but the Chainbearer coming up at that moment, that branch of the matter in discussion was pursued no farther. After exchanging a few remarks about the pigeons, Jaap did not scruple to redeem the pledge he had given his red friend, by plunging at once into the main subject with the Chainbearer.
"You know how it be wid Injin, Masser Chainbearer," said Jaap--"'Ey is always poor missedercated creatur's, and knows nuttin' but what come by chance--now here be Sureflint, he can no way t'ink dis worl' round; and dat it _turn_ round, too; and so he want me to ask what you got to say about _dat_ matter?"
Chainbearer was no scholar. Whatever may be said of Leyden, and of the many, very many learned Dutchmen it had sent forth into the world, few of them ever reached America. Our brethren of the eastern colonies, now states, had long been remarkable, as a whole, for that "dangerous thing," a "little learning;" but I cannot say that the Dutch of New York, also viewed as a whole, incurred any of those risks. To own the truth, it was not a very easy matter to be more profoundly ignorant, on all things connected with science, than were the mass of the uneducated Dutch of New York, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four. It made little difference as to condition in life, unless one rose as high as the old colonial aristocracy of that stock, and an occasional exception in favor of a family that intended to rear, or had reared in its bosom a minister of the gospel. Such was the strength of the prejudice among these people, that they distrusted the English schools, and few permitted their children to enter them; while those they possessed of their own were ordinarily of a very low character. These feelings were giving way before the influence of time, it is true; but it was very slowly; and it was pretty safe to infer that every man of low Dutch extraction in the colony was virtually uneducated, with the exception of here and there an individual of the higher social castes, or one that had been especially favored by association and circumstances. As for that flippant knowledge, of which our eastern neighbors possessed so large an amount, the New York Dutch appeared to view it with peculiar dislike, disdaining to know anything, if it were not of the very best quality. Still, there were a few to whom this quality was by no means a stranger. In these isolated cases, the unwearied application, painstaking industry, cautious appreciation of facts, and solid judgment of the parties, had produced a few men who only required a theatre for its exhibition, in order to cause their information to command the profound respect of the learned, let them live where they might. What they did acquire was thoroughly got, though seldom paraded for the purposes of mere show.