Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (8 page)

“The Delawares themselves are no heroes,” muttered Hurry through his teeth, the mouth being too full to permit it to be fairly opened, “or they would never have allowed them loping vagabonds, the Mingos, to make them women.”

“That matter is not rightly understood—has never been rightly explained,” said Deerslayer earnestly, for he was as zealous a friend as his companion was dangerous as an enemy; “the Mengwe fill the woods with their lies, and misconstruct words and treaties. I have now lived ten years with the Delawares,
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and know them to be as manful as any other nation, when the proper time to strike comes.”

“Harkee, Master Deerslayer, since we are on the subject, we may as well open our minds to each other in a man-to-man way; answer me one question; you have had so much luck among the game as to have gotten a title, it would seem, but did you ever hit anything human or intelligible: did you ever pull trigger on an inimy that was capable of pulling one upon you?”

This question produced a singular collision between mortification and correct feeling, in the bosom of the youth, that was easily to be traced in the workings of his ingenuous countenance. The struggle was short, however; uprightness of heart soon getting the better of false pride and frontier boastfulness.

“To own the truth, I never did,” answered Deerslayer, “seeing that a fitting occasion never offered. The Delawares have been peaceable since my sojourn with ’em, and I hold it to be onlawful to take the life of man, except in open and generous warfare.”

“What! did you never find a fellow thieving among your traps and skins, and do the law on him with your own hands, by way of saving the magistrates trouble in the settlements, and the rogue himself the cost of the suit?”

“I am no trapper, Hurry,” returned the young man proudly; “I live by the rifle, a we’pon at which I will not turn my back on any man of my years, atween the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. I never offer a skin that has not a hole in its head besides them which natur’ made to see with or to breathe through.”

“Ay, ay, this is all very well, in the animal way, though it makes but a poor figure alongside of scalps and ambushes. Shooting an Indian from an ambush is acting up to his own principles, and now we have what you call a lawful war on our hands, the sooner you wipe that disgrace off your character, the sounder will be your sleep; if it only come from knowing there is one inimy the less prowling in the woods. I shall not frequent your society long, friend Natty, unless you look higher than four-footed beasts to practyse your rifle on.”

“Our journey is nearly ended, you say, Master March, and we can part tonight, if you see occasion. I have a fri’nd waiting for me, who will think it no disgrace to consort with a fellow creatur’ that has never yet slain his kind.”

“I wish I knew what has brought that skulking Delaware into this part of the country so early in the season,” muttered Hurry to himself, in a way to show equally distrust and a recklessness of its betrayal. “Where did you say the young chief was to give you the meeting?”

“At a small round rock, near the foot of the lake, where, they tell me, the tribes are given to resorting to make their treaties, and to bury their hatchets. This rock have I often heard the Delawares mention, though lake and rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed by both Mingos and Mohicans, and is a sort of common territory to fish and hunt through, in time of peace, though what it may become in wartime, the Lord only knows!”

“Common territory!” exclaimed Hurry, laughing aloud. “I should like to know what Floating Tom Hutter would say to that? He claims the lake as his own property, in vartue of fifteen years’ possession, and will not be likely to give it up to either Mingo or Delaware without a battle for it.”

“And what will the colony say to such a quarrel? All this country must have some owner, the gentry pushing their cravings into the wilderness, even where they never dare to ventur’, in their own persons, to look at the land they own.”

“That may do in other quarters of the colony, Deerslayer, but it will not do here. Not a human being, the Lord excepted, owns a foot of sile in this part of the country. Pen was never put to paper consarning either hill or valley hereaway, as I’ve heard old Tom say time and ag’in, and so he claims the best right to it of any man breathing; and what Tom claims, he’ll be very like to maintain.”

“By what I’ve heard you say, Hurry, this Floating Tom must be an oncommon mortal; neither Mingo, Delaware, nor paleface. His possession, too, has been long, by your tell, and altogether beyond frontier endurance. What’s the man’s history and natur’?”

“Why, as to old Tom’s human natur‘, it is not much like other men’s human natur’, but more like a muskrat’s human natur‘, seeing that he takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways of any other fellow creatur’. Some think he was a free liver on the salt water, in his youth, and a companion of a sartain Kidd, who was hanged for piracy, long afore you and I were born or acquainted, and that he came up into these regions, thinking that the king’s cruisers could never cross the mountains, and that he might enjoy the plunder peaceably in the woods.”

“Then he was wrong, Hurry; very wrong. A man can enjoy plunder peaceably nowhere.”

“That’s much as his turn of mind may happen to be. I’ve known them that never could enjoy it at all, unless it was in the midst of a jollification, and them ag’in that enjoyed it best in a corner. Some men have no peace if they don’t find plunder, and some if they do. Human natur’ is crooked in these matters. Old Tom seems to belong to neither set, as he enjoys his, if plunder he has really got, with his darters, in a very quiet and comfortably way, and wishes for no more.

“Ay, he has darters, too; I’ve heard the Delawares who’ve hunted this a way, tell their histories of these young women. Is there no mother, Hurry?”

“There was once, as in reason; but she has now been dead and sunk these two good years.”

“Anan?” said Deerslayer, looking up at his companion in a little surprise.

“Dead and sunk, I say, and I hope that’s good English. The old fellow lowered his wife into the lake, by way of seeing the last of her, as I can testify, being an eyewitness of the ceremony; but whether Tom did it so save digging, which is no easy job among roots, or out of a consait that water washes away sin sooner than ’arth, is more than I can say”

“Was the poor woman oncommon wicked, that her husband should take so much pains with her body?”

“Not onreasonable; though she had her faults. I consider Judith Hutter to have been as graceful, and about as likely to make a good ind as any woman who had lived so long beyond the sound of church bells; and I conclude old Tom sunk her as much by way of saving pains, as by way of taking it. There was a little steel in her temper, it’s true, and, as old Hutter is pretty much flint, they struck out sparks once-and-a-while; but, on the whole, they might be said to live amicable like. When they did kindle, the listeners got some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees. But Judith I shall always esteem, as it’s recommend enough to one woman to be the mother of such a creatur’ as her darter, Judith Hutter!”

“Ay, Judith was the name the Delawares mentioned, though it was pronounced after a fashion of their own. From their discourse, I do not think the girl would much please my fancy.”

“Thy fancy!” exclaimed March, taking fire equally at the indif ference and at the presumption of his companion, “what the devil have you to do with a fancy, and that, too, consarning one like Judith? You are but a boy—a sapling, that has scarce got root. Judith has had men among her suitors, ever since she was fifteen; which is now near five years; and will not be apt even to cast a look upon a half-grown creatur’ like you!”

“It is June, and there is not a cloud atween us and the sun, Hurry, so all this heat is not wanted,” answered the other, altogether undisturbed; “anyone may have a fancy, and a squirrel has a right to make up his mind touching a catamount.”

“Ay, but it might not be wise, always, to let the catamount know it,” growled March. “But you’re young and thoughtless, and I’ll overlook your ignorance. Come, Deerslayer,” he added, with a good-natured laugh, after pausing a moment to reflect, “come, Deerslayer, we are sworn fri’nds, and will not quarrel about a light-minded, jilting jade, just because she happens to be handsome; more especially as you have never seen her. Judith is only for a man whose teeth show the full marks, and it’s foolish to be afeard of a boy. What did the Delawares say of the hussy? for an Indian, after all, has his notions of womankind, as well as a white man.”

“They said she was fair to look on, and pleasant of speech; but over-given to admirers, and light-minded.”

“They are devils incarnate! After all, what schoolmaster is a match for an Indian, in looking into natur’? Some people think they are only good on a trail or the warpath, but I say that they are philosophers, and understand a man as well as they understand a beaver, and a woman as well as they understand either. Now that’s Judith’s character to a ribbon! To own the truth to you, Deerslayer, I should have married the gal two years since, if it had not been for two particular things, one of which was this very light-mindedness.”

“And what may have been the other?” demanded the hunter, who continued to eat like one that took very little interest in the subject.

“T‘other was an insartainty about her having me. The hussy is handsome, and she knows it. Boy, not a tree that is growing in these hills is straighter, or waves in the wind with an easier bend, nor did you ever see the doe that bounded with a more nat’ral motion. If that was all, every tongue would sound her praises; but she has such failings that I find it hard to overlook them, and sometimes I swear I’ll never visit the lake ag’in.”

“Which is the reason that you always come back? Nothing is ever made more sure by swearing about it.”

“Ah, Deerslayer, you are a novelty in these partic’lars; keeping as true to edication as if you had never left the settlements. With me the case is different, and I never want to clinch an idee, that I do not feel a wish to swear about it. If you know’d all that I know consarning Judith, you’d find a justification for a little cussing. Now, the officers sometimes stray over to the lake, from the forts on the Mohawk, to fish and hunt, and then the creatur’ seems beside herself! You can see in the manner which she wears her finery, and the airs she gives herself with the gallants.”

“That is unseemly in a poor man’s darter,” returned Deerslayer gravely, “the officers are all gentry, and can only look on such as Judith with evil intentions.”

“There’s the unsartainty, and the damper! I have my misgivings about a particular captain, and Jude has no one to blame but her own folly, if I’m right. On the whole, I wish to look upon her as modest and becoming, and yet the clouds that drive among these hills are not more unsartain. Not a dozen white men have ever laid eyes upon her since she was a child, and yet her airs, with two or three of these of ficers, are extinguishers!”

“I would think no more of such a woman, but turn my mind altogether to the forest; that will not deceive you, being ordered and ruled by a hand that never wavers.”

“If you know’d Judith, you would see how much easier it is to say this than it would be to do it. Could I bring my mind to be easy about the officers, I would carry the gal off to the Mohawk by force, make her marry me in spite of her whiffling, and leave old Tom to the care of Hetty, his other child, who, if she be not as handsome or as quick-witted as her sister, is much the most dutiful.”

“Is there another bird in the same nest?” asked Deerslayer, raising his eyes with a species of half-awakened curiosity—“the Delawares spoke to me only of one.”

“That’s nat‘ral enough, when Judith Hutter and Hetty Hutter are in question. Hetty is only comely, while her sister, I tell thee, boy, is such another as is not to be found atween this and the sea: Judith is as full of wit, and talk, and cunning, as an old Indian orator, while poor Hetty is at the best but ‘compass meant us.’ ”

“Anan?” inquired, again, the Deerslayer.

“Why, what the officers call ‘compass meant us,’ which I understand to signify that she means always to go in the right direction, but sometimes doesn’t know how. ‘Compass’ for the p’int, and ‘meant us’ for the intention. No, poor Hetty is what I call on the varge of ignorance, and sometimes she stumbles on one side of the line, and sometimes on t’other.”

“Them are beings that the Lord has in his ‘special care,” said Deerslayer, solemnly; “for he looks carefully to all who fall short of their proper share of reason. The redskins honor and respect them who are so gifted, knowing that the Evil Spirit delights more to dwell in an artful body, than in one that has no cunning to work upon.”

“I’ll answer for it, then, that he will not remain long with poor Hetty; for the child is just ‘compass meant us,’ as I have told you. Old Tom has a feeling for the gal, and so has Judith, quick-witted and glorious as she is herself; else would I not answer for her being altogether safe among the sort of men that sometimes meet on the lake shore.”

“I thought this water an onknown and little-frequented sheet,” observed the Deerslayer, evidently uneasy at the idea of being too near the world.

“It’s all that, lad, the eyes of twenty white men never having been laid on it; still, twenty true-bred frontiermen—hunters and trappers, and scouts, and the like—can do a deal of mischief if they try. ’T would be an awful thing to me, Deerslayer, did I find Judith married, after an absence of six months!”

“Have you the gal’s faith, to encourage you to hope otherwise?”

“Not at all. I know not how it is: I’m good-looking, boy—that much I can see in any spring on which the sun shines—and yet I could not get the hussy to a promise, or even a cordial willing smile, though she will laugh by the hour. If she has dared to marry in my absence, she’ll be like to know the pleasures of widowhood afore she is twenty!”