Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (62 page)

“The winde is great upon the highest hilles;
The quiet life is in the dale below;
Who tread on ice shall slide against their willes;
They want not cares, that curious arts should know;
Who lives at ease and can content him so,
Is perfect wise, and sets us all to schoole:
Who hates this lore may well be called a foole.”

Churchyard

 

THE MEETING BETWEEN DEERSLAYER and his friends in the ark was grave and anxious. The two Indians, in particular, read in his manner that he was not a successful fugitive, and a few sententious words suf ficed to let them comprehend the nature of what their friend had termed his “furlough.” Chingachgook immediately became thoughtful; while Hist, as usual, had no better mode of expressing her sympathy than by those little attentions which mark the affectionate manner of woman.

In a few minutes, however, something like a general plan for the proceedings of the night was adopted, and, to the eye of an uninstructed observer, things would be thought to move in their ordinary train. It was now getting to be dark, and it was decided to sweep the ark up to the castle, and secure it in its ordinary berth. The decision was come to, in some measure, on account of the fact that all the canoes were again in the possession of their proper owners, but principally from the security that was created by the representations of Deerslayer. He had examined the state of things among the Hurons, and felt satisfied that they meditated no further hostilities during the night, the loss they had met having indisposed them to further exertions for the moment. Then he had a proposition to make—the object of his visit; and, if this were accepted, the war would at once terminate between the parties; and it was improbable that the Hurons would anticipate the failure of a project on which their chiefs had apparently set their hearts by having recourse to violence previously to the return of their messenger.

As soon as the ark was properly secured, the different members of the party occupied themselves in their several peculiar manners; haste in council, or in decision, no more characterizing the proceedings of the border whites, than it did those of their red neighbors. The women busied themselves in preparations for the evening meal, sad and silent, but ever attentive to the first wants of nature.

Hurry set about repairing his moccasins, by the light of a blazing knot; Chingachgook seated himself in gloomy thought; while Deerslayer proceeded, in a manner equally free from affectation and concern, to examine “Killdeer,” the rifle of Hutter, that has been already mentioned, and which subsequently became so celebrated in the hands of the individual who was now making a survey of its merits. The piece was a little longer than usual, and had evidently been turned out from the workshop of some manufacturer of a superior order. It had a few silver ornaments; though, on the whole, it would have been deemed a plain piece by most frontier men; its great merit consisting in the accuracy of its bore, the perfection of the details, and the excellence of the metal. Again and again did the hunter apply the breech to his shoulder, and glance his eye along the sights, and as often did he poise his body, and raise the weapon slowly, as if about to catch an aim at a deer, in order to try the weight, and to ascertain its fitness for quick and accurate firing. All this was done by the aid of Hurry’s torch, simply, but with an earnestness and abstraction that would have been found touching by any spectator who happened to know the real situation of the man.

“ ’Tis a glorious we’pon, Hurry!” Deerslayer at length exclaimed, “and it may be thought a pity that it has fallen into the hands of women. The hunters have told me of its expl‘ites, and by all I have heard, I should set it down as sartain death in exper’enced hands. Hearken to the tick of this lock—a wolftrap hasn’t a livelier spring; pan and cock speak together, like two singing masters undertaking a psalm in meetin’. I never did see so true a bore, Hurry, that’s sartain.”

“Ay, old Tom used to give the piece a character, though he wasn’t the man to particularize the ra‘al natur’ of any sort of firearms, in practice,” returned March, passing the deer’s thongs through the moccasin with the coolness of a cobbler. “He was no marksman, that we must all allow; but he had his good p’ints as well as his bad ones. I have had hopes that Judith might consait the idee of giving Killdeer to me.”

“There’s no saying what young women may do, that’s a truth, Hurry; and I suppose you’re as likely to own the rifle as another. Still, when things are so very near perfection, it’s a pity not to reach it entirely”

“What do you mean by that? Would not that piece look as well on my shoulder as on any man’s?”

“As for looks, I say nothing. You are both good-looking, and might make what is called a good-looking couple. But the true p‘int is as to conduct. More deer would fall in one day, by that piece, in some men’s hands, than would fall in a week in your’n, Hurry! I’ve seen you try; you remember the buck, t’other day?”

“That buck was out of season; and who wishes to kill venison out of season? I was merely trying to frighten the creatur’, and I think you will own that he was pretty well skeared at any rate.”

“Well, well, have it as you say. But this is a lordly piece, and would make a steady hand and quick eye the King of the Woods.”

“Then keep it, Deerslayer, and become King of the Woods,” said Judith, earnestly, who had heard the conversation, and whose eye was never long averted from the honest countenance of the hunter. “It can never be in better hands than it is at this moment; there I hope it will remain these fifty years.”

“Judith, you can’t be in ‘arnest!” exclaimed Deerslayer, taken so much by surprise as to betray more emotion than it was usual for him to manifest on ordinary occasions. “Such a gift would be fit for a ra’al king to make; yes, and for a ra’al king to receive.”

“I never was more in earnest in my life, Deerslayer, and I am as much in earnest in the wish as in the gift.”

“Well, gal, well; we’ll find time to talk of this ag’in. You mustn’t be downhearted, Hurry, for Judith is a sprightly young woman, and she has a quick reason; she knows that the credit of her father’s rifle is safer in my hands than it can possibly be in your’n; and, therefore, you mustn’t be downhearted. In other matters, more to your liking, too, you’ll find she’ll give you the preference.”

Hurry growled out his dissatisfaction; but he was too intent on quitting the lake, and in making his preparations, to waste his breath on a subject of this nature. Shortly after, the supper was ready; it was eaten in silence, as is so much the habit of those who consider the table as merely a place of animal refreshment. On this occasion, however, sadness and thought contributed their share to the general desire not to converse; for Deerslayer was so far an exception to the usages of men of his cast, as not only to wish to hold discourse on such occasions, but as often to create a similar desire in his companions.

The meal ended, and the humble preparations removed, the whole party assembled on the platform to hear the expected intelligence from Deerslayer on the subject of his visit. It had been evident he was in no haste to make his communications; but the feelings of Judith would no longer admit of delay. Stools were brought from the ark and the hut, and the whole six placed themselves in a circle near the door, watching each other’s countenances, as best they could, by the scanty means that were furnished by a lovely starlight night. Along the shore, beneath the mountains, lay the usual body of gloom; but in the broad lake no shadow was cast, and a thousand mimic stars were dancing in the limpid element, that was just stirred enough by the evening air to set them all in motion.

“Now, Deerslayer,” commenced Judith, whose impatience resisted further restraint; “now, Deerslayer, tell us all the Hurons have to say, and the reason why they have sent you on parole, to make us some offer.”

“Furlough, Judith; furlough is the word; and it carries the same meaning with a captyve at large as it does with a soldier who has leave to quit his colors. In both cases the word is passed to come back; and now I remember to have heard that’s the ra‘al signification, ‘furlough,’ meaning a ‘word’ passed for the doing of anything, or the like. Parole, I rather think, is Dutch, and has something to do with the tattoos of the garrisons. But this makes no great difference, since the vartue of a pledge lies in the idee, and not in the word. Well, then, if the message must be given, it must; and perhaps there is no use in putting it off. Hurry will soon be wanting to set out on his journey to the river, and the stars rise and set, just as if they cared for neither Injin nor message. Ah’s me! ‘tisn’t a pleasant, and I know it’s a useless arr’nd; but it must be told.”

“Harkee, Deerslayer,” put in Hurry, a little authoritatively; “you’re a sensible man in a hunt, and as good a fellow on a march as a sixty-miler-a-day could wish to meet with; but you’re oncommon slow about messages, especially them that you think won’t be likely to be well received. When a thing is to be told, why, tell it, and don’t hang back like a Yankee lawyer pretending he can’t understand a Dutchman’s English, just to get a double fee out of him.”

“I understand you, Hurry, and well are you named tonight, seeing you’ve no time to lose. But let us come at once to the p‘int, seeing that’s the object of this council; for council it may be called, though women have seats among us. The simple fact is this. When the party came back from the castle, the Mingos held a council, and bitter thoughts were uppermost, as was plainly to be seen by their gloomy faces. No one likes to be beaten, and a redskin as little as a paleface. Well, when they had smoked upon it, and made their speeches, and their council fire had burnt low, the matter came out. It seems the elders among ’em consaited I was a man to be trusted on a furlough. They’re wonderful obsarvant, them Mingos; that their worst inimies must allow; but they consaited I was such a man; and it isn’t often”—added the hunter, with a pleasing consciousness that his previous life justified this implicit reliance on his good faith—“it isn’t often they consait anything so good of a paleface; but so they did with me, and therefore they didn’t hesitate to speak their minds, which is just this: You see the state of things. The lake and all on it, they fancy, lie at their mercy. Thomas Hutter is deceased, and as for Hurry, they’ve got the idee he has been near enough to death today not to wish to take another look at him this summer. Therefore, they account all your forces as reduced to Chingachgook and the two young women, and, while they know the Delaware to be of a high race, and a born warrior, they know he’s now on his first warpath. As for the gals, of course they set them down much as they do women in gin’ral.”

“You mean that they despise us!” interrupted Judith, with eyes that flashed so brightly as to be observed by all present.

“That will be seen in the ind. They hold that all on the lake lies at their mercy, and, therefore, they send by me this belt of wampum,” showing the article in question to the Delaware, as he spoke, “with these words: Tell the Sarpent, they say, that he has done well for a beginner; he may now strike across the mountains, for his own villages, and no one shall look for his trail. If he has found a scalp, let him take it with him; the Huron braves have hearts, and can feel for a young warrior who doesn’t wish to go home empty-handed. If he is nimble, he is welcome to lead out a party in pursuit. Hist, howsever, must go back to the Hurons; when she left them in the night, she carried away, by mistake, that which doesn’t belong to her.” “That can’t be true!” said Hetty, earnestly. “Hist is no such girl; but one that gives everybody his due—”

How much more she would have said, in remonstrance, cannot be known, inasmuch as Hist, partly laughing, and partly hiding her face in shame, put her own hand across the speaker’s mouth, in a way to check the words.

“You don’t understand Mingo messages, poor Hetty,” resumed Deerslayer, “which seldom mean what lies exactly uppermost. Hist has brought away with her the inclinations of a young Huron, and they want her back again, that the poor young man may find them where he last saw them! The Sarpent, they say, is too promising a young warrior not to find as many wives as he wants, but this one he cannot have. That’s their meaning, and nothing else, as I understand it.”

“They were very obliging and thoughtful, in supposing a young woman can forget all her own inclinations in order to let this unhappy youth find his!” said Judith ironically, though her manner became more bitter as she proceeded. “I suppose a woman is a woman, let her color be white or red; and your chiefs know little of a woman’s heart, Deerslayer, if they think it can ever forgive when wronged, or ever forget when it fairly loves.”

“I suppose that’s pretty much the truth, with some women, Judith, though I’ve known them that could do both. The next message is to you. They say the Muskrat, as they call your father, has dove to the bottom of the lake; that he will never come up again, and that his young will soon be in want of wigwams, if not of food. The Huron huts, they think, are better than the huts of York; they wish you to come and try them. Your color is white, they own, but they think young women who’ve lived so long in the woods, would lose their way in the clearin’s. A great warrior among them has lately lost his wife, and he would be glad to put the Wild Rose on her bench at his fireside. As for the Feeble-Mind, she will always be honored and taken care of by red warriors. Your father’s goods, they think, ought to go to enrich the tribe; but your own property, which is to include everything of a female natur‘, will go, like that of all wives, into the wigwam of the husband. Moreover, they’ve lost a young maiden by violence, lately, and ’twill take two palefaces to fill her seat.”

“And do you bring such a message to me?” exclaimed Judith, though the tone in which the words were uttered had more in it of sorrow than of anger. “Am I a girl to be an Indian’s slave?”

“If you wish my honest thoughts on this p’int, Judith, I shall answer that I don’t think you’ll willingly ever become any man’s slave, redskin or white. You’re not to think hard, howsever, of my bringing the message, as near as I could, in the very words in which it was given to me. Them was the conditions on which I got my furlough, and a bargain is a bargain, though it is made with a vagabond. I’ve told you what they’ve said, but I’ve not yet told you what I think you ought, one and all, to answer.”