“He was an officer of the States in the war of the revolution, of my own name of course; my mother’s brother was called Duncan Uncas Heyward.”
“Still Uncas! still Uncas!” echoed the other, trembling with eagerness. “And his father?”
“Was called the same, without the appellation of the native chief.
It was to him, and to my grandmother, that the service of which I have just spoken was rendered.”
“I know’d it!
I know’d it!” shouted the old man, in his tremulous voice, his rigid features working powerfully, as if the names the other mentioned awakened some long dormant emotions, connected with the events of an anterior age. “I know’d it! son or grandson, it is all the same; it is the blood, and ‘tis the look!
Tell me, is he they call’d Duncan, without the Uncas—is he living?”
The young man shook his head sorrowfully, as he replied in the negative.
“He died full of days and of honours.
Beloved, happy, and bestowing happiness!”
“Full of days!” repeated the trapper, looking down at his own meagre, but still muscular hands. “Ah! he liv’d in the settlements, and was wise only after their fashions.
But you have often seen him; and you have heard him discourse of Uncas, and of the wilderness?”
“Often! he was then an officer of the king; but when the war took place between the crown and her colonies, my grandfather did not forget his birthplace, but threw off the empty allegiance of names, and was true to his proper country; he fought on the side of liberty.”
“There was reason in it; and what is better, there was natur’!
Come, sit ye down beside me, lad; sit ye down, and tell me of what your grand’ther used to speak, when his mind dwelt on the wonders of the wilderness.”
The youth smiled, no less at the importunity than at the interest manifested by the old man; but as he found there was no longer the least appearance of any violence being contemplated, he unhesitatingly complied.
“Give it all to the trapper by rule, and by figures of speech,” said Paul, very coolly taking his seat on the other side of the young soldier. “It is the fashion of old age to relish these ancient traditions, and, for that matter, I can say that I don’t dislike to listen to them myself.”
Middleton smiled again, and perhaps with a slight air of derision; but, good-naturedly turning to the trapper, he continued—
“It is a long, and might prove a painful story.
Bloodshed and all the horrors of Indian cruelty and of Indian warfare are fearfully mingled in the narrative.”
“Ay, give it all to us, stranger,” continued Paul; “we are used to these matters in Kentuck, and, I must say, I think a story none the worse for having a few scalps in it!”
“But he told you of Uncas, did he?” resumed the trapper, without regarding the slight interruptions of the bee-hunter, which amounted to no more than a sort of by-play. “And what thought he and said he of the lad, in his parlour, with the comforts and ease of the settlements at his elbow?”
“I doubt not he used a language similar to that he would have adopted in the woods, and had he stood face to face, with his friend—”
“Did he call the savage his friend; the poor, naked, painted warrior? he was not too proud then to call the Indian his friend?”
“He even boasted of the connection; and as you have already heard, bestowed a name on his first-born, which is likely to be handed down as an heir-loom among the rest of his descendants.”
“It was well done! like a man: ay! and like a Christian, too!
He used to say the Delaware was swift of foot—did he remember that?”
“As the antelope!
Indeed, he often spoke of him by the appellation of Le Cerf Agile, a name he had obtained by his activity.”
“And bold, and fearless, lad!” continued the trapper, looking up into the eyes of his companion, with a wistfulness that bespoke the delight he received in listening to the praises of one, whom it was so very evident, he had once tenderly loved.
“Brave as a blooded hound!
Without fear!
He always quoted Uncas and his father, who from his wisdom was called the Great Serpent, as models of heroism and constancy.”
“He did them justice! he did them justice!
Truer men were not to be found in tribe or nation, be their skins of what colour they might.
I see your grand’ther was just, and did his duty, too, by his offspring!
‘Twas a perilous time he had of it, among them hills, and nobly did he play his own part!
Tell me, lad, or officer, I should say,—since officer you be,—was this all?”
“Certainly not; it was, as I have said, a fearful tale, full of moving incidents, and the memories both of my grandfather and of my grandmother—”
“Ah!” exclaimed the trapper, tossing a hand into the air as his whole countenance lighted with the recollections the name revived. “They called her Alice! Elsie or Alice; ‘tis all the same.
A laughing, playful child she was, when happy; and tender and weeping in her misery!
Her hair was shining and yellow, as the coat of the young fawn, and her skin clearer than the purest water that drips from the rock.
Well do I remember her!
I remember her right well!”
The lip of the youth slightly curled, and he regarded the old man with an expression, which might easily have been construed into a declaration that such were not his own recollections of his venerable and revered ancestor, though it would seem he did not think it necessary to say as much in words. He was content to answer—
“They both retained impressions of the dangers they had passed, by far too vivid easily to lose the recollection of any of their fellow-actors.”
The trapper looked aside, and seemed to struggle with some deeply innate feeling; then, turning again towards his companion, though his honest eyes no longer dwelt with the same open interest, as before, on the countenance of the other, he continued—
“Did he tell you of them all?
Were they all red-skins, but himself and the daughters of Munro?”
“No.