The Leatherstocking Tales II

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “You are sad to-night, child,” said the father, whose manner and language usually assumed some of the gentleness and elevation of the civilized life he had led in youth, when he thus communed with this particular child. “We have just escaped from enemies, and ought rather to rejoice.”

  “You can never do it, father!” said Hetty, in a low remonstrating manner, taking his hard knotty hand into both her own—“You have talked long with Harry March, but neither of you have the heart to do it!”

  “This is going beyond your means, foolish child; you must have been naughty enough to have listened, or you could know nothing of our talk.”

  “Why should you and Hurry kill people—especially women and children?”

  “Peace, girl, peace. We are at war, and must do to our enemies as our enemies would do to us.”

  “That’s not it, father!—I heard Deerslayer say how it was. You must do to your enemies, as you wish your enemies would do to you. No one wishes his enemies to kill him.”

  “We kill our enemies in war, girl, lest they should kill us. One side or the other must begin, and them that begin first are most apt to get the victory. You know nothing about these things, poor Hetty, and had best say nothing.”

  “Judith says it is wrong, father; and Judith has sense, though I have none.”

  “Jude understands better than to talk to me of these matters, for she has sense, as you say, and knows I’ll not bear it. Which would you prefer, Hetty; to have your own scalp taken and sold to the French, or that we should kill our enemies, and keep them from harming us?”

  “That’s not it, father! Do’n’t kill them, nor let them kill us. Sell your skins, and get more if you can, but do’n’t sell human blood.”

  “Come, come, child; let us talk of matters you understand. Are you glad to see our old friend March back, again?—You like Hurry, and must know that one day he may be your brother—if not something nearer.”

  “That ca’n’t be, father—” returned the girl, after a considerable pause. “Hurry has had one father and one mother, and people never have two.”

  “So much for your weak mind, Hetty. When Jude marries, her husband’s father will be her father, and her husband’s sister, her sister. If she should marry Hurry, then he will be your brother.”

  “Judith will never have Hurry,” returned the girl mildly; but positively. “Judith do’n’t like Hurry.”

  “That’s more than you can know, Hetty. Harry March is the handsomest, and the strongest, and the boldest young man that ever visits the lake, and as Jude is the greatest beauty, I do’n’t see why they should’n’t come together. He has as much as promised that he will enter into this job with me, on condition that I’ll consent.”

  Hetty began to move her body back and forth, and other wise to express mental agitation, but she made no answer for more than a minute. Her father, accustomed to her manner, and suspecting no immediate cause of concern, continued to smoke with the apparent phlegm which would seem to belong to that particular species of enjoyment.

  “Hurry is handsome, father—” said Hetty with a simple emphasis that she might have hesitated about using had her mind been more alive to the inferences of others.

  “I told you so, child,” muttered old Hutter, without removing the pipe from between his teeth. “He’s the likeliest youth in these parts, and Jude is the likeliest young woman I’ve met with since her poor mother was in her best days.”

  “Is it wicked to be ugly, father?”

  “One might be guilty of worse things—but you’re by no means ugly, though not as comely as Jude.”

  “Is Judith any happier for being so handsome?”

  “She may be, child; and she may not be. But talk of other matters now, for you hardly understand these, poor Hetty. How do you like our new acquaintance, Deerslayer?”

  “He is’n’t handsome, father. Hurry is far handsomer than Deerslayer.”

  “That’s true, but they say he is a noted hunter. His fame had reached me before I ever saw him, and I did hope he would prove to be as stout a warrior, as he is dexterous with the deer. All men are not alike, howsever, child, and it takes time, as I know by experience, to give a man a true wilderness heart.”

  “Have I got a wilderness heart, father?—and, Hurry, is his heart true wilderness?”

  “You sometimes ask queer questions, Hetty! Your heart is good, child, and fitter for the settlements than for the woods, while your reason is fitter for the woods than for the settlements.”

  “Why has Judith more reason than I, father?”

  “Heaven help thee, child!—This is more than I can answer. God gives sense, and appearance, and all these things, and he grants them as he seeth fit. Dost thou wish for more sense?”

  “Not I. The little I have troubles me, for when I think the hardest, then I feel the unhappiest. I do’n’t believe thinking is good for me, though I do wish I was as handsome as Judith!”

  “Why so, poor child?—Thy sister’s beauty may cause her trouble, as it caused her mother before her. It’s no advantage, Hetty, to be so marked for any thing, as to become an object of envy, or to be sought after more than others.”

  “Mother was good, if she was handsome,” returned the girl, the tears starting to her eyes, as usually happened when she adverted to her deceased parent.

  Old Hutter, if not equally affected, was moody and silent at this allusion to his wife. He continued smoking, without appearing disposed to make any answer, until his simple-minded daughter repeated her remark in a way to show that she felt uneasiness, lest he might be inclined to deny her assertion. Then he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and laying his hand in a sort of rough kindness on the girl’s head, he made her a reply.

  “Thy mother was too good for this world,” he said, “though others might not think so. Her good looks did not befriend her, and you have no occasion to mourn that you are not as much like her as your sister. Think less of beauty, child, and more of your duty, and you’ll be as happy on this lake, as you could be in the King’s palace.”

  “I know it, father; but Hurry says beauty is every thing in a young woman.”

  Hutter made an ejaculation expressive of dissatisfaction, and went forward, passing through the house in order to do so. Hetty’s simple betrayal of her weakness in behalf of March gave him uneasiness on a subject concerning which he had never felt before, and he determined to come to an explanation at once with his visiter, for directness of speech, and decision in conduct, were two of the best qualities of this rude being, in whom the seeds of a better education seemed to be constantly struggling upward, to be choked by the fruits of a life, in which his hard struggles for subsistence and security, had steeled his feelings and indurated his nature. When he reached the forward end of the scow, he manifested an intention to relieve Deerslayer at the oar, directing the latter to take his own place aft. By these changes, the old man and Hurry were again left alone, while the young hunter was transferred to the other end of the Ark.

  Hetty had disappeared when Deerslayer reached his new post, and for some little time he directed the course of the slow-moving craft by himself. It was not long, however, before Judith came out of the cabins, as if disposed to do the honors of the place to a stranger engaged in the service of her family. The star-light was sufficient to permit objects to be plainly distinguished, when near at hand, and the bright eyes of the girl had an expression of kindness in them, when they met those of the youth, that the latter was easily enabled to discern. Her rich hair shaded her spirited and yet soft countenance, even at that hour rendering it the more beautiful, as the rose is loveliest when reposing amid the shadows and contrasts of its native foliage. Little ceremony is used in the intercourse, of the woods, and Judith had acquired a readiness of address, by the admiration, that she so generally excited, which, if it did not amount to forwardness, certainly in no degree lent to her charms the aid of that retiring modesty on which poets love to dwell.

  “I thought I should have ki
lled myself with laughing, Deerslayer,” the beauty abruptly, but coquettishly commenced, “when I saw that Indian dive into the river! He was a good-looking savage, too—” the girl always dwelt on personal beauty as a sort of merit—“And yet one coul’n’t stop to consider whether his paint would stand water!”

  “And I thought they would have killed you with their we’pons, Judith,” returned Deerslayer, “for it was an awful risk for a female to run, in the face of a dozen Mingos!”

  “Did that make you come out of the cabin, in spite of their rifles too?” asked the girl, with more real interest than she would have cared to betray, though with an indifference of manner that was the result of a good deal of practice, united to native readiness.

  “Men are’n’t apt to see females in danger, and not come to their assistance. Even a Mingo knows that.”

  This sentiment was uttered with as much simplicity of manner as of feeling, and Judith rewarded it, with a smile so sweet that even Deerslayer, who had imbibed a prejudice against the girl, in consequence of Hurry’s suspicions of her levity, felt its charm, notwithstanding half its winning influence was lost in the feeble light. It at once created a sort of confidence between them, and the discourse was continued on the part of the hunter without the lively consciousness of the character of this coquette of the wilderness, with which it had certainly commenced.

  “You are a man of deeds and not of words, I see plainly, Deerslayer,” continued the beauty, taking her seat near the spot where the other stood, “and I foresee we shall be very good friends. Hurry-Harry has a tongue, and giant as he is, he talks more than he performs.”

  “March is your fri’nd, Judith; and fri’nds should be tender of each other, when apart.”

  “We all know what Hurry’s friendship comes to. Let him have his own way in every thing, and he’s the best fellow in the colony; but, ‘head him off’, as you say of the deer, and he is master of every thing near him, but himself. Hurry is no favorite of mine, Deerslayer, and I dare say, if the truth was known, and his conversation about me repeated, it would be found that he thinks no better of me, than I own I do of him.”

  The latter part of this speech was uttered not without uneasiness. Had the girl’s companion been more sophisticated, he might have observed the averted face, the manner in which the pretty little foot was agitated, and other signs that, for some reason unexplained, the opinions of March were not quite as much matter of indifference to her as she thought fit to pretend. Whether this was no more than the ordinary working of female vanity, feeling keenly even where it affected not to feel at all, or whether it proceeded from that deeply seated consciousness of right and wrong, which God himself has implanted in our breasts that we may know good from evil, will be made more apparent to the reader, as we proceed in the tale. Deerslayer felt embarrassed. He well remembered the cruel imputations left by March’s distrust, and, while he did not wish to injure his associate’s suit by exciting resentment against him, his tongue was one that literally knew no guile. To answer without saying more or less than he wished, was consequently a delicate duty.

  “March has his say of all things in natur’, whether of fri’nd, or foe,” slowly and cautiously rejoined the hunter. “He’s one of them that speak as they feel, while the tongue’s a-going, and that’s sometimes different from what they’d speak if they took time to consider. Give me a Delaware, Judith, for one that reflects and rumernates on his idees. Inmity has made ’em thoughtful, and a loose tongue is no riccommend at their Council Fires.”

  “I dare say March’s tongue goes free enough when it gets on the subject of Judith Hutter and her sister,” said the girl, rousing herself as if in careless disdain. “Young women’s good names are a pleasant matter of discourse with some that would’n’t dare to be so open mouthed, if there was a brother in the way. Master March may find it pleasant to traduce us, but, sooner or later, he’ll repent!”

  “Nay, Judith, this is taking the matter up too much in ’arnest. Hurry has never whispered a syllable ag’in the good-name of Hetty, to begin with—”

  “I see how it is—I see how it is—” impetuously interrupted Judith. “I am the one he sees fit to scorch with his withering tongue!—Hetty, indeed!—Poor Hetty—” she continued, her voice sinking into low husky tones, that seemed nearly to stifle her in the utterance—“She is beyond and above his slanderous malice! Poor Hetty! If God has created her feeble-minded, the weakness lies altogether on the side of errors which she seems to know nothing about. The earth never held a purer being than Hetty Hutter, Deerslayer!”

  “I can believe it—yes I can believe that, Judith, and I hope ’arnestly that the same can be said of her handsome sister.”

  There was a soothing sincerity in the voice of Deerslayer, which touched the girl’s feelings, nor did the allusion to her beauty lessen the effect with one who only knew too well the power of her personal charms. Nevertheless, the still, small voice of conscience was not hushed, and it prompted the answer which she made, after giving herself time to reflect.

  “I dare say Hurry had some of his vile hints about the people of the garrisons—” she added. “He knows they are gentlemen, and can never forgive any one for being what he feels he can never become himself.”

  “Not in the sense of a King’s officer, Judith, sartainly, for March has no turn that-a-way, but in the sense of reality, why may not a beaver-hunter be as respectable as a governor. Since you speak of it, yourself, I’ll not deny that he did complain of one as humble as you, being so much in the company of scarlet coats and silken sashes. But ’twas jealousy that brought it out of him, and I do think that he mourned over his own thoughts, as a mother would have mourned over her child.”

  Perhaps Deerslayer was not aware of the full meaning that his earnest language conveyed. It is certain he did not see the colour that crimsoned the whole of Judith’s fine face, nor detect the uncontrollable distress that, immediately after, changed its hue to a deadly paleness. A minute or two elapsed in profound stillness, the splash of the water seeming to occupy all the avenues of sound, and then Judith arose, and grasped the hand of the hunter, almost convulsively, with one of her own.

  “Deerslayer,” she said hurriedly—“I’m glad the ice is broke between us. They say that sudden friendships lead to long enmities, but I do not believe it will turn out so with us. I know not how it is—but, you are the first man I ever met, who did not seem to wish to flatter—to wish my ruin—to be an enemy in disguise—never mind; say nothing to Hurry, and another time we’ll talk together, again.”

  As the girl released her grasp, she vanished in the house leaving the astonished young man standing at the steering-oar, as motionless as one of the pines on the hills. So abstracted indeed had his thoughts become, that he was hailed by Hutter to keep the scow’s head in the right direction, before he remembered his actual situation.

  Chapter VI

  “So spake th’ apostate Angel, though in pain,

  Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair:”

  —Paradise Lost, I.125–26.

  * * *

  SHORTLY AFTER the disappearance of Judith, a light southerly air arose, and Hutter set a large square sail, that had once been the flying top-sail of an Albany sloop, but which, having become threadbare in catching the breezes of Tappan, had been condemned and sold. He had a light tough spar of tamarack that he could raise on occasion, and with a little contrivance, his duck was spread to the wind in a sufficiently professional manner. The effect on the Ark was such as to supersede the necessity of rowing, and, in about two hours, the Castle was seen, in the darkness, rising out of the black water, at the distance of a hundred yards. The sail was then lowered, and by slow degrees the scow drifted up to the building, and was secured.

  No one had visited the house, since Hurry and his companion left it. The place was found in the quiet of midnight, a sort of type of the solitude of a wilderness. As an enemy was known to be near, Hutter directed his daughters to abstain from the
use of lights, luxuries in which they seldom indulged during the warm months, lest they might prove beacons to direct their foes where they might be found.

  “In open day-light, I should’n’t fear a host of savages, behind these stout logs, and they without any cover to skulk into,” added Hutter, when he had explained to his guests the reason why he forbade the use of lights, “for I’ve three or four trusty weapons always loaded, and Killdeer, in particular, is a piece that never misses. But it’s a different thing at night. A canoe might get upon us unseen, in the dark, and the savages have so many cunning ways of attacking, that I look upon it as bad enough to deal with ’em, under a bright sun. I built this dwelling, in order to have ’em at arm’s length, in case we should ever get to blows, again. Some people think it’s too open and exposed, but I’m for anchoring out here, clear of underbrush and thickets, as the surest means of making a safe berth.”

  “You was once a sailor, they tell me, old Tom?” said Hurry, in his abrupt manner, struck by one or two expressions that the other had just used; “and some people believe you could give us strange accounts of inimies and ship wrecks, if you’d a mind to come out with all you know?”

  “There are people in this world, Hurry,” returned the other evasively, “who live on other men’s thoughts, and some such often find their way into the woods. What I’ve been, or what I’ve seen in youth, is of less matter now, than what the savages are. It’s of more account to find out what will happen in the next twenty four hours, than to talk over what happened twenty four years since.”

  “That’s judgment, Deerslayer; yes, that’s sound judgment. Here’s Judith and Hetty to take care on, to say nothing of our own top-knots; and for my part I can sleep as well in the dark, as I could under a noon day sun. To me it’s no great matter whether there is light, or not, to see to shut my eyes by.”