Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (57 page)

Notwithstanding the seeming desertion of the castle, Judith approached it with extreme caution. The ark was now quite a mile to the northward, but sweeping up towards the building; and this, too, with a regularity of motion that satisfied Judith a white man was at the oars. When within a hundred yards of the building, the girls began to encircle it, in order to make sure that it was empty No canoe was nigh, and this emboldened them to draw nearer and nearer, until they had gone round the piles and reached the platform.

“Do you go into the house, Hetty,” said Judith, “and see that the savages are gone. They will not harm you; and if any of them are still here, you can give me the alarm. I do not think they will fire on a poor, defenseless girl, and I at least may escape, until I shall be ready to go among them of my own accord.”

Hetty did as desired, Judith retiring a few yards from the platform the instant her sister landed, in readiness for flight. But the last was unnecessary, not a minute elapsing before Hetty returned to communicate that all was safe.

“I’ve been in all the rooms, Judith,” said the latter, earnestly, “and they are empty, except father’s; he is in his own chamber, sleeping, though not as quietly as we could wish.”

“Has anything happened to father?” demanded Judith, as her foot touched the platform, speaking quick, for her nerves were in a state to be easily alarmed.

Hetty seemed concerned, and she looked furtively about her, as if unwilling any one but a child should hear what she had to communicate, and even that she should learn it abruptly.

“You know how it is with father, sometimes, Judith,” she said. “When overtaken with liquor he doesn’t always know what he says or does; and he seems to be overtaken with liquor, now.”

“That is strange! Would the savages have drunk with him, and then leave him behind? But ’tis a grievous sight to a child, Hetty, to witness such a failing in a parent, and we will not go near him till he wakes.”

A groan from the inner room, however, changed this resolution, and the girls ventured near a parent, whom it was no unusual thing for them to find in a condition that lowers a man to the level of brutes. He was seated, reclining in a corner of a narrow room, with his shoulders supported by the angle, and his head fallen heavily on his chest. Judith moved forward with a sudden impulse, and removed a canvas cap that was forced so low on his head as to conceal his face, and, indeed, all but his shoulders. The instant this obstacle was taken away, the quivering and raw flesh, the bared veins and muscles, and all the other disgusting signs of mortality, as they are revealed by tearing away the skin, showed he had been scalped, though still living.

���Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,—
But nothing he’ll reck, if they’ll let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.”

Wolfe

 

THE READER MUST IMAGINE the horror that daughters would experience at unexpectedly beholding the shocking spectacle that was placed before the eyes of Judith and Esther, as related in the close of the last chapter. We shall pass over the first emotions, the first acts of filial piety, and proceed with the narrative, by imagining rather than relating most of the revolting features of the scene. The mutilated and ragged head was bound up, the unseemly blood was wiped from the face of the sufferer, the other appliances required by appearances and care were resorted to, and there was time to inquire into the more serious circumstances of the case. The facts were never known until years later, in all their details, simple as they were; but they may as well be related here, as it can be done in a few words. In the struggle with the Hurons, Hutter had been stabbed by the knife of the old warrior, who had used the discretion to remove the arms of every one but himself. Being hard pushed by his sturdy foe his knife settled the matter. This occurred just as the door was opened and Hurry burst out upon the platform, as has been previously related. This was the secret of neither party’s having appeared in the subsequent struggle; Hutter having been literally disabled, and his conqueror being ashamed to be seen with the traces of blood about him, after having used so many injunctions to convince his young warriors of the necessity of taking their prisoners alive. When the three Hurons returned from the chase, and it was determined to abandon the castle and join the party on the land, Hutter was simply scalped, to secure the usual trophy, and was left to die by inches, as has been done in a thousand similar instances by the ruthless warriors of this part of the American continent. Had the injury to Hutter been confined to his head, he might have recovered, however; for it was the blow of the knife that proved mortal.
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There are moments of vivid consciousness, when the stern justice of God stands forth in colors so prominent as to defy any attempts to veil them from the sight, however unpleasant they may appear, or however anxious we may be to avoid recognizing it. Such was now the fact with Judith and Hetty, who both perceived the decrees of a retributive Providence, in the manner of their father’s suf fering, as a punishment for his own recent attempts on the Iroquois. This was seen and felt by Judith, with the keenness of perception and sensibility that were suited to her character; while the impression made on the simpler mind of her sister was perhaps less lively, though it might well have proved more lasting.

“O! Judith,” exclaimed the weak-minded girl, as soon as their first care had been bestowed on the sufferer. “Father went for scalps, himself, and now where is his own? The Bible might have foretold this dreadful punishment!”

“Hush! Hetty—hush! poor sister; he opens his eyes; he may hear and understand you. ‘Tis as you say and think; but ’tis too dreadful to speak of!”

“Water!” ejaculated Hutter, as it might be by a desperate effort, that rendered his voice frightfully deep and strong, for one as near death as he evidently was; “water! foolish girls—will you let me die of thirst?”

Water was brought and administered to the sufferer; the first he had tasted in hours of physical anguish. It had the double effect of clearing his throat, and of momentarily reviving his sinking system. His eyes opened with that anxious, distended gaze, which is apt to accompany the passage of a soul surprised by death, and he seemed disposed to speak.

“Father,” said Judith, inexpressibly pained by his deplorable situation, and this so much the more from her ignorance of what remedies ought to be applied, “father, can we do anything for you? Can Hetty and I relieve your pain?”

“Father!” slowly repeated the old man. “No, Judith—no, Hetty—I’m no father. She was your mother but I’m no father. Look in the chest—’tis all there—give me more water.”
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The girls complied; and Judith, whose early recollections extended farther back than her sister’s, and who, on every account, had more distinct impressions of the past, felt an uncontrollable impulse of joy as she heard these words. There had never been much sympathy between her reputed father and herself, and suspicions of this very truth had often glanced across her mind, in consequence of dialogues she had overheard between Hutter and her mother. It might be going too far to say she had never loved him; but it is not so to add, that she rejoiced it was no longer a duty With Hetty the feeling was different. Incapable of making all the distinctions of her sister, her very nature was full of affection, and she had loved her reputed parent, though far less tenderly than the real parent; and it grieved her, now, to hear him declare he was not naturally entitled to that love. She felt a double grief, as if his death and his words together were twice depriving her of parents. Yielding to her feelings, the poor girl went aside and wept.

The very opposite emotions of the two girls kept both silent for a long time. Judith gave water to the sufferer frequently, and she forbore to urge him with questions, in some measure out of consideration for his condition; but, if truth must be said, quite as much lest something he should add, in the way of explanation, might disturb her pleasing belief that she was not Thomas Hutter’s child. At length Hetty dried her tears, and came and seated herself on a stool by the side of the dying man, who had been placed at his length on the floor, with his head supported by some worn vestments that had been left in the house.

“Father,” she said, “you will let me call you father, though you say you are not one—father, shall I read the Bible to you—mother always said the Bible was good for people in trouble. She was often in trouble herself, and then she made me read the Bible to her—for Judith wasn’t as fond of the Bible as I am—and it always did her good. Many is the time I’ve known mother begin to listen with the tears streaming from her eyes, and end with smiles and gladness. O! father, you don’t know how much good the Bible can do, for you’ve never tried it; now, I’ll read a chapter, and it will soften your heart, as it softened the hearts of the Hurons.”

While poor Hetty had so much reverence for, and faith in, the virtue of the Bible, her intellect was too shallow to enable her fully to appreciate its beauties, or to fathom its profound and sometimes mysterious wisdom. That instinctive sense of right, which appeared to shield her from the commission of wrong, and even cast a mantle of moral loveliness and truth around her character, could not penetrate abstrusities, or trace the nice affinities between cause and effect, beyond their more obvious and indisputable connection, though she seldom failed to see the latter, and to defer to all their just consequences. In a word, she was one of those who feel and act correctly, without being able to give a logical reason for it, even admitting revelation as her authority. Her selections from the Bible, therefore, were commonly distinguished by the simplicity of her own mind, and were oftener marked for containing images of known and palpable things, than for any of the higher cast of moral truths with which the pages of that wonderful book abound—wonderful and unequaled, even without referring to its divine origin, as a work replete with the profoundest philosophy, expressed in the noblest language. Her mother, with a connection that will probably strike the reader, had been fond of the book of Job, and Hetty had, in a great measure, learned to read by the frequent lessons she had received from the dif ferent chapters of this venerable and sublime poem, now believed to be the oldest book in the world. On this occasion, the poor girl was submissive to her training, and she turned to that well-known part of the sacred volume, with the readiness with which the practiced counsel would cite his authorities from the stores of legal wisdom. In selecting the particular chapter, she was influenced by the caption, and she chose that which stands in our English version as, “Job excuseth his desire of death.” This she read steadily, from beginning to end, in a sweet, low, and plaintive voice; hoping devoutly that the allegorical and abstruse sentences might convey to the heart of the sufferer the consolation he needed. It is another peculiarity of the comprehensive wisdom of the Bible, that scarce a chapter, unless it be strictly narrative, can be turned to, that does not contain some searching truth that is applicable to the condition of every human heart, as well as to the temporal state of the owner, either through the workings of that heart, or even in a still more direct form. In this instance, the very opening sentence—“Is there not an appointed time to man on earth?”—was startling; and as Hetty proceeded, Hutter applied, or fancied he could apply, many aphorisms and figures to his own worldly and mental condition. As life is ebbing fast, the mind clings eagerly to hope, when it is not absolutely crushed by despair. The solemn words, “I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, 0 thou preserver of men? Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?” struck Hutter more perceptibly than the others; and, though too obscure for one of his blunted feelings and obtuse mind either to feel or to comprehend in their fullest extent, they had a directness of application to his own state that caused him to wince under them.

“Don’t you feel better now, father?” asked Hetty, closing the volume. “Mother was always better when she had read the Bible.”

“Water,” returned Hutter; “give me water, Judith. I wonder if my tongue will always be so hot! Hetty, isn’t there something in the Bible about cooling the tongue of a man who was burning in hellfire?”

Judith turned away, shocked; but Hetty eagerly sought the passage, which she read aloud to the conscience-stricken victim of his own avaricious longings.

“That’s it, poor Hetty; yes, that’s it. My tongue wants cooling, now; what will it be hereafter?”

This appeal silenced even the confiding Hetty, for she had no answer ready for a confession so fraught with despair. Water, so long as it could relieve the sufferer, it was in the power of the sisters to give; and, from time to time, it was offered to the lips of the sufferer as he asked for it. Even Judith prayed. As for Hetty, as soon as she found that her efforts to make her father listen to her texts were no longer rewarded with success, she knelt at his side, and devoutly repeated the words which the Savior has left behind Him as a model for human petitions. This she continued to do, at intervals, as long as it seemed to her that the act could benefit the dying man. Hutter, however, lingered longer than the girls had believed possible, when they first found him. At times he spoke intelligibly, though his lips oftener moved in utterance of sounds that carried no distinct impressions to the mind. Judith listened intently, and she heard the words “husband,” “death,” “pirate,” “law,” “scalps,” and several others of a similar import, though there was no sentence to tell the precise connection in which they were used. Still, they were sufficiently expressive to be understood by one whose ears had not escaped all the rumors that had been circulated to her reputed father’s discredit, and whose comprehension was as quick as her faculties were attentive.