He is no woman, to cry out like a child.”
“Well, I’m mistrustful, John,” said Leather-Stocking, in whose air there had been, during the whole business, a strong expression of doubt and uncertainty.
“They say that there’s new laws in the land, and I’m sartin that there’s new ways in the mountains.
One hardly knows the lakes and streams, they’ve altered the country so much.
I must say I’m mistrustful of such smooth speakers; for I’ve known the whites talk fair when they wanted the Indian lands most.
This I will say, though I’m a white myself, and was born nigh York, and of honest parents, too.”
“I will submit,” said the youth;
“I will forget who I am.
Cease to remember, old Mohegan, that I am the descendant of a Delaware chief, who once was master of these noble hills, these beautiful vales, and of this water, over which we tread.
Yes, yes; I will become his bonds man—his slave, Is it not an honorable servitude, old man?”
“Old man!” repeated the Indian solemnly, and pausing in his walk, as usual, when much excited; “yes, John is old.
Son of my brother! if Mohegan was young, when would his rifle be still?
Where would the deer hide, and he not find him?
But John is old; his hand is the hand of a squaw; his tomahawk is a hatchet; brooms and baskets are his enemies—he strikes no other.
Hunger and old age come together.
See Hawk-eye! when young, he would go days and eat nothing; but should he not put the brush on the fire now, the blaze would go out.
Take the son of Miquon by the hand, and he will help you.”
“I’m not the man I was, I’ll own, Chingachgook,” returned the Leather-Stocking; “but I can go without a meal now, on occasion.
When we tracked the Iroquois through the ‘Beech-woods,’ they drove the game afore them, for I hadn’t a morsel to eat from Monday morning come Wednesday sundown, and then I shot as fat a buck, on the Pennsylvany line, as ever mortal laid eyes on.
It would have done your heart good to have seen the Delaware eat; for I was out scouting and skrimmaging with their tribe at the time.
Lord! The Indians, lad, lay still, and just waited till Providence should send them their game, but I foraged about, and put a deer up, and put him down too, afore he had made a dozen jumps.
I was too weak and too ravenous to stop for his flesh, so I took a good drink of his blood, and the Indians ate of his meat raw.
John was there, and John knows.
But then starvation would be apt to be too much for me now, I will own, though I’m no great eater at any time.”
“Enough is said, my friend,” cried the youth.
“I feel that everywhere the sacrifice is required at my hands, and it shall be made; but say no more, I entreat you; I can not bear this subject now.”
His companions were silent; and they soon reached the hut, which they entered, after removing certain complicated and ingenious fastenings, that were put there apparently to guard a property of but very little value.
Immense piles of snow lay against the log walls of this secluded habitation on one side; while fragments of small trees, and branches of oak and chestnut, that had been torn from their parent stems by the winds, were thrown into a pile on the other.
A small column of smoke rose through a chimney of sticks, cemented with clay, along the side of the rock, and had marked the snow above with its dark tinges, in a wavy line, from the point of emission to an other, where the hill receded from the brow of a precipice, and held a soil that nourished trees of a gigantic growth, that overhung the little bottom beneath.
The remainder of the day passed off as such days are commonly spent in a new country.
The settlers thronged to the academy again, to witness the second effort of Mr. Grant; and Mohegan was one of his hearers.
But, not withstanding the divine fixed his eyes intently on the Indian when he invited his congregation to advance to the table, the shame of last night’s abasement was yet too keen in the old chief to suffer him to move.
When the people were dispersing, the clouds that had been gathering all the morning were dense and dirty, and before half of the curious congregation had reached their different cabins, that were placed in every glen and hollow of the mountains, or perched on the summits of the hills themselves, the rain was falling in torrents.
The dark edges of the stumps began to exhibit themselves, as the snow settled rapidly; the fences of logs and brush, which before had been only traced by long lines of white mounds, that ran across the valley and up the mountains, peeped out from their covering, and the black stubs were momentarily becoming more distinct, as large masses of snow and ice fell from their sides, under the influence of the thaw.
Sheltered in the warm hall of her father’s comfortable mansion, Elizabeth, accompanied by Louisa Grant, looked abroad with admiration at the ever-varying face of things without.
Even the village, which had just before been glittering with the color of the frozen element, reluctantly dropped its mask, and the houses exposed their dark roofs and smoked chimneys.
The pines shook off the covering of snow, and everything seemed to be assuming its proper hues with a transition that bordered on the supernatural.
CHAPTER XIX.
“And yet, poor Edwin was no vulgar boy.”
—Beattie.
The close of Christmas Day, A.D. 1793, was tempestuous, but comparatively warm.
When darkness had again hid the objects in the village from the gaze of Elizabeth, she turned from the window, where she had remained while the least vestige of light lingered over the tops of the dark pines, with a curiosity that was rather excited than appeased by the passing glimpses of woodland scenery that she had caught during the day.
With her arm locked in that of Miss Grant, the young mistress of the mansion walked slowly up and down the hall, musing on scenes that were rapidly recurring to her memory, and possibly dwelling, at times, in the sanctuary of her thoughts, on the strange occurrences that had led to the introduction to her father’s family of one whose Manners so singularly contradicted the inferences to be drawn from his situation.
The expiring heat of the apartment—for its great size required a day to reduce its temperature—had given to her cheeks a bloom that exceeded their natural color, while the mild and melancholy features of Louisa were brightened with a faint tinge, that, like the hectic of disease, gave a painful interest to her beauty.
The eyes of the gentlemen, who were yet seated around the rich wines of Judge Temple, frequently wandered from the table, that was placed at one end of the hall, to the forms that were silently moving over its length.
Much mirth, and that, at times, of a boisterous kind, proceeded from the mouth of Richard; but Major Hartmann was not yet excited to his pitch of merriment, and Marmaduke respected the presence of his clerical guest too much to indulge in even the innocent humor that formed no small ingredient in his character.
Such were, and such continued to be, the pursuits of the party, for half an hour after the shutters were closed, and candles were placed in various parts of the hall, as substitutes for departing daylight.
The appearance of Benjamin, staggering under the burden of an armful of wood, was the first interruption to the scene.
“How now, Master Pump!” roared the newly appointed sheriff; “is there not warmth enough in
‘Duke’s best Madeira to keep up the animal heat through this thaw?