* * * * * It was many months before I saw our Sacharissa again--not until Major André had made many another verse for many another inamorata, and his soldier-actors had played more than one of his farces in besieged Boston to the loud orchestra of His Excellency's rebel cannon. CHAPTER III THE POT BOILS Sir William died on the 24th of June in the year 1774; which was the twentieth year of my life. On the day after he was buried in Saint John's Church in Johnstown, which he had built, I left the Hall for Fonda's Bush, which was a wilderness and which lay some nine miles distant in the Mohawk country, along the little river called Kennyetto. I speak of Fonda's Bush as a wilderness; but it was not entirely so, because already old Henry Stoner, the trapper who wore two gold rings in his ears, had built him a house near the Kennyetto and had taken up his abode there with his stalwart and handsome sons, Nicholas and John, and a little daughter, Barbara. Besides this family, who were the pioneers in that vast forest where the three patents[2] met, others now began settling upon the pretty little river in the wilderness, which made a thousand and most amazing windings through the Bush of Major Fonda. [Footnote 2: The Three Patents were Sacandaga, Kayaderosseras, and Stones.] There came, now, to the Kennyetto, the family of one De Silver; also the numerous families of John Homan, and Elias Cady; then the Salisburys, Putnams, Bowmans, and Helmers arrived. And Benjamin De Luysnes followed with Joseph Scott where the Frenchman, De Golyer, had built a house and a mill on the trout brook north of us. There was also a dour Scotchman come thither--a grim and decent man with long, thin shanks under his kilts, who roved the Bush like a weird and presently went away again. But before he took himself elsewhere he marked some gigantic trees with his axe and tied a rag of tartan to a branch. And, "Fonda's Bush is no name," quoth he. "Where a McIntyre sets his mark he returns to set his foot. And where he sets foot shall be called Broadalbin, or I am a great liar!" And he went away, God knows where. But what he said has become true; for when again he set his foot among the dead ashes of Fonda's Bush, it became Broadalbin. And the clans came with him, too; and they peppered the wilderness with their Scottish names,--Perth, Galway, Scotch Bush, Scotch Church, Broadalbin,--but my memory runs too fast, like a young hound giving tongue where the scent grows hotter!--for the quarry is not yet in sight, nor like to be for many a bloody day, alas!---- * * * * * There was a forest road to the Bush, passable for waggons, and used sometimes by Sir William when he went a-fishing in the Kennyetto. It was by this road I travelled thither, well-horsed, and had borrowed the farm oxen to carry all my worldly goods. I had clothing, a clock, some books, bedding of my own, and sufficient pewter.