Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (61 page)

“It means both, dear sister; everything that is yet to come, whether in this world or another. It is a solemn word, Hetty, and most so, I fear, to them that think the least about it. Mother’s future is eternity; ours may yet mean what will happen while we live in this world—is not that a canoe just passing behind the castle?—here, more in the direction of the point, I mean; it is hid, now; but, certainly, I saw a canoe stealing behind the logs.”

“I’ve seen it some time,” Hetty quietly answered, for the Indians had few terrors for her, “but I did not think it right to talk about such things over mother’s grave. The canoe came from the camp, Judith, and was paddled by a single man; he seemed to be Deerslayer, and no Iroquois.”

“Deerslayer!” returned the other, with much of her native impetuosity. “That can’t be! Deerslayer is a prisoner, and I have been thinking of the means of setting him free. Why did you fancy it Deerslayer, child?”

“You can look for yourself, sister; there comes the canoe in sight again, on this side of the hut.”

Sure enough, the light boat had passed the building, and was now steadily advancing towards the ark; the persons on board of which were already collecting in the head of the scow to receive their visitor. A single glance sufficed to assure Judith that her sister was right, and that Deerslayer was alone in the canoe. His approach was so calm and leisurely, however, as to fill her with wonder, since a man who had effected his escape from enemies, by either artifice or violence, would not be apt to move with the steadiness and deliberation with which his paddle swept the water. By this time the day was fairly departing, and objects were already seen dimly under the shores. In the broad lake, however, the light still lingered, and around the immediate scene of the present incidents, which was less shaded than most of the sheet, being in its broadest part, it cast a glare that bore some faint resemblance to the warm tints of an Italian or Grecian sunset. The logs of the hut and ark had a sort of a purple hue, blended with the growing obscurity, and the bark of the hunter’s boat was losing its distinctness, in colors richer, but more mellowed, than those it showed under a bright sun. As the two canoes approached each other—for Judith and her sister had plied their paddles so as to intercept the unexpected visitor ere he reached the ark—even Deerslayer’s sunburnt countenance wore a brighter aspect than common, under the pleasing tints that seemed to dance in the atmosphere. Judith fancied that delight at meeting her had some share in this unusual and agreeable expression. She was not aware that her own beauty appeared to more advantage than common, from the same natural cause; nor did she understand, what it would have given her much pleasure to know, that the young man actually thought her, as she drew near, the loveliest creature of her sex his eyes had ever dwelt on.

“Welcome—welcome, Deerslayer!” exclaimed the girl as the canoes floated at each other’s sides; “we have had a melancholy—a frightful day; but your return is, at least, one misfortune the less. Have the Hurons become more humane and let you go, or have you escaped from the wretches by your own courage and skill?”

“Neither, Judith, neither one nor t‘other. The Mingos are Mingos still, and will live and die Mingos; it is not likely their natur’s will ever undergo much improvement. Well, they’ve their gifts, and we’ve our’n, Judith, and it doesn’t much become either to speak ill of what the Lord has created; though, if the truth must be said, I find it a sore trial to think kindly or to talk kindly of them vagabonds. As for outwitting them, that might have been done and it was done, too, atween the Sarpent, yonder, and me, when we were on the trail of Hist”—here the hunter stopped to laugh in his own silent fashion—“but it’s no easy matter to sarcumvent the sarcumvented. Even the fa‘ans get to know the tricks of the hunters afore a single season is over; and an Indian, whose eyes have once been opened by a sarcumvention, never shuts them ag’in in precisely the same spot. I’ve known whites to do that, but never a redskin. What they l‘arn comes by practice, and not by books; and of all schoolmasters, exper’ence gives lessons that are the longest remembered.”

“All this is true, Deerslayer; but if you have not escaped from the savages, how came you here?”

“That’s a nat’ral question, and charmingly put. You are wonderful handsome this evening, Judith, or Wild Rose, as the Sarpent calls you, and I may as well say it, since I honestly think it. You may well call them Mingos savages, too, for savage enough do they feel, and savage enough will they act, if you once give them an opportunity. They feel their loss here, in the late skrimmage, to their hearts’ cores, and are ready to revenge it on any creatur’ of English blood that may fall in their way. Nor, for that matter, do I much think they would stand at taking their satisfaction out of a Dutchman.”

“They have killed father; that ought to satisfy their wicked cravings for blood,” observed Hetty, reproachfully.

“I know it, gal—I know the whole story; partly from what I’ve seen from the shore, since they brought me up from the point, and partly from their threats ag‘in myself, and their other discourse. Well, life is unsartain at the best, and we all depend on the breath of our nostrils for it, from day to day. If you’ve lost a staunch fri’nd, as I make no doubt you have, Providence will raise up new ones in his stead; and since our acquaintance has begun in this oncommon manner, I shall take it as a hint that it will be part of my duty in futur’, should the occasion offer, to see you don’t suffer for want of food in the wigwam. I can’t bring the dead to life, but as to feeding the living, there’s few on all this frontier can outdo me, though I say it in the way of pity and consolation like, and, in no particular, in the way of boasting!”

“We understand you, Deerslayer,” returned Judith hastily, “and take all that falls from your lips, as it is meant, in kindness and friendship. Would to heaven all men had tongues as true, and hearts as honest!”

“In that respect men do differ, of a sartainty, Judith. I’ve known them that wasn’t to be trusted any farther than you can see them; and others ag’in whose messages, sent with a small piece of wampum, perhaps, might just as much be depended on, as if the whole business was finished afore your face. Yes, Judith, you never said truer words, than when you said some men might be depended on, and some others might not.”

“You are an unaccountable being, Deerslayer,” returned the girl, not a little puzzled with the childish simplicity of character that the hunter so often betrayed—a simplicity so striking, that it frequently appeared to place him nearly on a level with the fatuity of poor Hetty, though always relieved by the beautiful moral truth that shone through all that this unfortunate girl both said and did. “You are a most unaccountable man, and I often do not know how to understand you. But never mind, just now; you have forgotten to tell us by what means you are here.”

“I!—O! That’s not very onaccountable, if I am myself, Judith. I’m out on furlough.”
¹

“Furlough! That word has a meaning among the soldiers that I understand; I cannot tell what it signifies when used by a prisoner.”

“It means just the same. You’re right enough; the soldiers do use it, and just in the same way as I use it. A furlough is when a man has leave to quit a camp, or a garrison, for a sartain specified time; at the end of which he is to come back and shoulder his musket, or submit to his torments, just as he may happen to be a soldier, or a captyve. Being the last, I must take the chances of a prisoner.”

“Have the Hurons suffered you to quit them in this manner, without watch or guard?”

“Sartain—I couldn’t have come in any other manner, unless, indeed, it had been by a bold rising, or a sarcumvention.”

“What pledge have they that you will ever return?”

“My word,” answered the hunter, simply. “Yes, I own I gave ’em that, and big fools would they have been to let me come without it! Why, in that case, I shouldn’t have been obliged to go back and ondergo any deviltries their fury may invent, but might have shouldered my rifle, and made the best of my way to the Delaware villages. But, Lord! Judith, they know’d this, just as well as you and I do, and would no more let me come away, without a promise to go back, than they would let the wolves dig up the bones of their fathers!”

“Is it possible you mean to do this act of extraordinary self destruction and recklessness?”

“Anan! ”

“I ask if it can be possible that you expect to be able to put yourself again in the power of such ruthless enemies, by keeping your word?”

Deerslayer looked at his fair questioner for a moment with stern displeasure. Then the expression of his honest and guileless face suddenly changed, lighting as by a quick illumination of thought; after which he laughed in his ordinary manner.

“I didn’t understand you at first, Judith; no, I didn’t. You believe that Chingachgook and Hurry Harry won’t suffer it; but you don’t know mankind thoroughly yet, I see. The Delaware would be the last man on ‘arth to offer any objections to what he knows is a duty; and, as for March, he doesn’t care enough about any creatur’ but himself to spend many words on such a subject. If he did ’twould make no great difference, howsever; but not he—for he thinks more of his gains than of even his own word. As for my promises, or your‘n, Judith, or anybody else’s, they give him no consarn. Don’t be under any oneasiness, therefore, gal; I shall be allowed to go back according to the furlough; and if difficulties was made, I’ve not been brought up, and edicated, as one may say, in the woods, without knowing how to look ’em down.”

Judith made no answer for some little time. All her feelings as a woman—and as a woman who, for the first time in her life, was beginning to submit to that sentiment which has so much influence on the happiness or misery of her sex—revolted at the cruel fate that she fancied Deerslayer was drawing down upon himself, while the sense of right, which God has implanted in every human breast, told her to admire an integrity as indomitable and unpretending as that which the other so unconsciously displayed. Argument, she felt, would be useless; nor was she, at that moment, disposed to lessen the dignity and high principle that were so striking in the intentions of the hunter, by any attempt to turn him from his purpose. That something might yet occur to supersede the necessity for this selfimmolation, she tried to hope; and then she proceeded to ascertain the facts, in order that her own conduct might be regulated by her knowledge of circumstances.

“When is your furlough out, Deerslayer?” she asked, after both canoes were heading towards the ark, and moving, with scarcely a perceptible effort of the paddles, through the water.

“Tomorrow noon; not a minute afore; and you may depend on it, Judith, I shan’t quit what I call Christian company, to go and give myself up to them vagabonds, an instant sooner than is downright necessary. They begin to fear a visit from the garrisons, and wouldn’t lengthen the time a moment; and it’s pretty well understood atween us, that, should I fail in my arr’nd, the torments are to take place when the sun begins to fall, that they may strike upon their home trail as soon as it is dark.”

This was said solemnly, as if the thought of what was believed to be in reserve duly weighed on the prisoner’s mind, and yet so simply, and without a parade of suffering, as rather to repel than to invite any open manifestations of sympathy.

“Are they bent on revenging their losses?” Judith asked, faintly, her own high spirit yielding to the influence of the other’s quiet but dignified integrity of purpose.

“Downright, if I can judge of Indian inclinations by the symptoms. They think, howsever, I don’t suspect their designs, I do believe ; but one that has lived so long among men of redskin gifts is no more likely to be misled in Injin feelin’s than a true hunter is like to lose his trail, or a staunch hound his scent. My own judgment is greatly ag’in my own escape, for I see the women are a good deal enraged on behalf of Hist, though I say it, perhaps, that shouldn’t say it—seein’ that I had a considerable hand myself in getting the gal off. Then there was a cruel murder in their camp last night, and that shot might just as well have been fired into my breast. Howsever, come what will, the Sarpent and his wife will be safe, and that is some happiness, in any case.”
²

“O! Deerslayer, they will think better of this, since they have given you until tomorrow noon to make up your mind!”

“I judge not, Judith; yes, I judge not. An Injin is an Injin, gal, and it’s pretty much hopeless to think of swarving him, when he’s got the scent and follows it with his nose in the air. The Delawares, now, are a half-Christianized tribe—not that I think such sort of Christians much better than your whole-blooded disbelievers—but, nevertheless, what good half-Christianizing can do to a man some among ‘em have got, and yet revenge clings to their hearts like the wild creepers here to the tree! Then I slew one of the best and boldest of their warriors, they say, and it is too much to expect that they should captivate the man who did this deed, in the very same scouting on which it was performed, and they take no account of the matter. Had a month or so gone by, their feelin’s would have been softened down, and we might have met in a more friendly way; but it is as it is. Judith, this is talking of nothing but myself and my own consarns, when you have had trouble enough, and may want to consult a fri’nd a little about your own matters. Is the old man laid in the water, where I should think his body would like to rest?”

“It is, Deerslayer,” answered Judith, almost inaudibly. “That duty has just been performed. You are right in thinking that I wish to consult a friend; and that friend is yourself. Hurry Harry is about to leave us; when he is gone, and we have got a little over the feelings of this solemn office, I hope you will give me an hour alone. Hetty and I are at a loss what to do.”

“That’s quite natural, coming as things have, suddenly and fearfully. But here’s the ark, and we’ll say more of this when there is a better opportunity.”