Chingachgook, which means
‘Big Sarpent’ in English, old John Mohegan, who lives up at the hut with me, was a great warrior then, and was out with us; he can tell all about it, too; though he was overhand for the tomahawk, never firing more than once or twice, before he was running in for the scalps.
Ah! times is dreadfully altered since then.
Why, doctor, there was nothing but a foot path, or at the most a track for pack-horses, along the Mohawk, from the Jarman Flats up to the forts.
Now, they say, they talk of running one of them wide roads with gates on it along the river; first making a road, and then fencing it up!
I hunted one season back of the Kaatskills, nigh-hand to the settlements, and the dogs often lost the scent, when they came to them highways, there was so much travel on them; though I can’t say that the brutes was of a very good breed.
Old Hector will wind a deer, in the fall of the year, across the broadest place in the Otsego, and that is a mile and a half, for I paced it my self on the ice, when the tract was first surveyed, under the Indian grant.”
“It sames to me, Natty, but a sorry compliment to call your comrad after the evil one,” said the landlady; “and it’s no much like a snake that old John is looking now, Nimrod would be a more becoming name for the lad, and a more Christian, too, seeing that it conies from the Bible.
The sargeant read me the chapter about him, the night before my christening, and a mighty asement it was to listen to anything from the book.”
“Old John and Chingachgook were very different men to look on,” returned the hunter, shaking his head at his melancholy recollections.
“In the ‘fifty-eighth war’ he was in the middle of manhood, and taller than now by three inches.
If you had seen him, as I did, the morning we beat Dieskau, from behind our log walls, you would have called him as comely a redskin as ye ever set eyes on.
He was naked all to his breech-cloth and leggins; and you never seed a creatur’ so handsomely painted.
One side of his face was red and the other black.
His head was shaved clean, all to a few hairs on the crown, where he wore a tuft of eagle’s feathers, as bright as if they had come from a peacock’s tail.
He had colored his sides so that they looked like anatomy, ribs and all, for Chingachgook had a great taste in such things, so that, what with his bold, fiery countenance, his knife, and his tomahawk, I have never seen a fiercer warrior on the ground.
He played his part, too, like a man, for I saw him next day with thirteen scalps on his pole. And I will say this for the ‘Big Snake,’ that he always dealt fair, and never scalped any that he didn’t kill with his own hands.”
“Well, well!” cried the landlady, “fighting is fighting anyway, and there is different fashions in the thing; though I can’t say that I relish mangling a body after the breath is out of it; neither do I think it can be uphild by doctrine.
I hope, sargeant, ye niver was helping in sich evil worrek.”
“It was my duty to keep my ranks, and to stand or fall by the baggonet or lead,” returned the veteran.
“I was then in the fort, and seldom leaving my place, saw but little of the savages, who kept on the flanks or in front, skrimmaging.
I remember, howsomever, to have heard mention made of the ‘Great Snake,’ as he was called, for he was a chief of renown; but little did I ever expect to see him enlisted in the cause of Christianity, and civilized like old John.”
“Oh! he was Christianized by the Moravians, who were always over-intimate with the Delawares,” said Leather-Stocking.
“It’s my opinion that, had they been left to themselves, there would be no such doings now about the head-waters of the two rivers, and that these hills mought have been kept as good hunting-ground by their right owner, who is not too old to carry a rifle, and whose sight is as true as a fish-hawk hovering—”
He was interrupted by more stamping at the door, and presently the party from the mansion-house entered, followed by the Indian himself.
CHAPTER XIV.
“There’s quart-pot, pint-pot.
Mit-pint, Gill-pot, half-gill, nipperkin.
And the brown bowl—
Here’s a health to the barley mow,
My brave boys,
Here’s a health to the barley mow.”
—Drinking Song.
Some little commotion was produced by the appearance of the new guests, during which the lawyer slunk from the room.
Most of the men approached Marmaduke, and shook his offered hand, hoping “that the Judge was well;” while Major Hartmann having laid aside his hat and wig, and substituted for the latter a warm, peaked woollen nightcap, took his seat very quietly on one end of the settee, which was relinquished by its former occupant.
His tobacco-box was next produced, and a clean pipe was handed him by the landlord.
When he had succeeded in raising a smoke, the Major gave a long whiff, and, turning his head toward the bar, he said:
“Petty, pring in ter toddy.”
In the mean time the Judge had exchanged his salutations with most of the company, and taken a place by the side of the Major, and Richard had bustled himself into the most comfortable seat in the room.
Mr. Le Quoi was the last seated, nor did he venture to place his chair finally, until by frequent removals he had ascertained that he could not possibly intercept a ray of heat front any individual present.
Mohegan found a place on an end of one of the benches, and somewhat approximated to the bar.
When these movements had subsided, the Judge remarked pleasantly:
“Well, Betty, I find you retain your popularity through all weathers, against all rivals, and among all religions.
How liked you the sermon?”
“Is it the sarmon?” exclaimed the landlady.
“I can’t say but it was rasonable; but the prayers is mighty unasy.
It’s no small a matter for a body in their fifty-nint’ year to be moving so much in church.
Mr. Grant sames a godly man, any way, and his garrel a hommble on; and a devout. Here, John, is a mug of cider, laced with whiskey.
An Indian will drink cider, though he niver be athirst.”
“I must say,” observed Hiram, with due deliberation, “that it was a tongney thing; and I rather guess that it gave considerable satisfaction, There was one part, though, which might have been left out, or something else put in; but then I s’pose that, as it was a written discourse, it is not so easily altered as where a minister preaches without notes.”