University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

It was a mild and soft morning, when Marmaduke
and Richard mounted their horses, to proceed
on the expedition that had so long been uppermost
in the thoughts of the latter; and Elizabeth
and Louisa appeared at the same instant in
the hall, attired for an excursion on foot.

The head of Miss Grant was covered by a neat
little hat of green silk, and her modest eyes peered
from under its shade, with the soft languor that
characterized her whole appearance; but Miss
Temple trod her father's wide apartments with
the step of their mistress, holding in her hand,
dangling by one of its ribands, the gipsy that was
to conceal the glossy locks that curled around
her polished forehead, in rich profusion.

“What, are you for a walk, Bess!” cried the
Judge, suspending his movements for a moment,
to smile, with a father's fondness, at the display
of womanly grace and beauty that his child presented.
“Remember the heats of July, my
daughter; nor venture further than thou canst retrace
before the meridian. Where is thy parasol,

girl? thou wilt lose the polish of thy brow, under
this sun and southern breeze, unless thou guard it
with unusual care.”

“I shall then do more honour to my connexions.”
returned the smiling daughter. “Cousin
Richard has a bloom that any lady might envy.
At present, the resemblance between us is so trifling,
that no stranger would know us to be `sisters'
children.”'

“Grand-children, you mean, cousin Bess,” said
the Sheriff. “But on, Judge Temple; time and
tide wait for no man; and if you take my counsel,
sir, in twelve months from this day, you may
make an umbrella for your daughter of her camel's-hair
shawl, and have its frame of solid silver.
I ask nothing for myself, 'duke; you have
been a good friend to me already; besides, all
that I have will go to Bess, there, one of these
melancholy days, so it's as long as it's short, whether
I or you leave it. But we have a day's ride
before us, sir; so move forward, or dismount, and
say you won't go, at once.”

“Patience, patience, Dickon,” returned the
Judge, checking his horse, and turning again to
his daughter. “If thou art for the mountains,
love, stray not too deep into the forest, I entreat
thee; for, though it is done often with impunity,
there is sometimes danger.”

“Not at this season, I believe, sir,” said Elizabeth;
“for, I will confess, it is the intention of
Louisa and myself to stroll among the hills.”

“Less at this season than in the winter, dear;
but still there may be danger in venturing too far.
But though thou art resolute, Elizabeth, thou art
too much like thy mother not to be prudent.”

The eyes of the parent turned reluctantly from
the brilliant beauty of his child, and the Judge
and Sheriff rode slowly through the gateway,

and disappeared among the buildings of the village.

During this short dialogue, young Edwards
had stood, an attentive listener, holding in his
hand a fishing-rod, the day and the season having
tempted him also to desert the house, for the
pleasure of exercise in the air. As the equestrians
turned through the gate, he approached the young
maidens, who were already moving on to the gravelled
walk that led to the street, and was about
to address them, as Louisa paused, and said
quickly—

“Here is Mr. Edwards, would speak to us,
Elizabeth.”

The other stopped also, and turned to the
youth, politely, but with a slight coldness in her
air, that sensibly checked the freedom with which
the gentleman had approached them.

“Your father is not pleased that you should
walk unattended in the hills, Miss Temple. If I
might offer myself as a protector”—

“Does my father select Mr. Oliver Edwards
as the organ of his displeasure?” interrupted the
lady.

“Good Heaven! you misunderstood my meaning,”
cried the youth; “I should have said uneasy,
for not pleased. I am his servant, madam,
and in consequence yours. I repeat that, with
your consent, I will change my rod for a fowling-piece,
and keep nigh you on the mountain.”

“I thank you, Mr. Edwards,” returned Elizabeth;
suffering one of her fascinating smiles to
chase the trifling frown from her features; “but
where there is no danger, no protection is required.
We are not yet, sir, reduced to wandering among
these free hills accompanied by a body-guard. If
such an one is necessary, there he is, however.—
Here, Brave,—Brave—my noble Brave!”

The huge mastiff that has been already mentioned,
appeared from his kennel, gaping and stretching
himself, with a pampered laziness; but as his
mistress again called—“Come, dear Brave; once
have you served your master well; let us see how
you can do your duty by his daughter”—the dog
wagged his tail, as if he understood her language,
walked with a stately gait to her side, where he
seated himself, and looked up at her face, with an
intelligence but little inferior to that which beamed
in her own lovely countenance.

She resumed her walk, but again paused, after
a few steps, and added, in tones of conciliation—

“You can be serving us equally, and, I presume,
more agreeably to yourself, Mr. Edwards,
by bringing us a string of your favourite perch,
for the dinner-table.”

When they again begun to walk, Miss Temple
did not look back, to see how the youth bore this
repulse; but the head of Louisa was turned several
times, before they reached the gate, on that
considerate errand.

“I am afraid, Elizabeth,” she said, “that we
have mortified Oliver. He is still standing where
we left him, leaning on his rod. Perhaps he
thinks us proud.”

“He thinks justly,” exclaimed Miss Temple, as
if awaking from a deep musing; “he thinks justly,
then. We are too proud to admit of such particular
attentions from a young man in an equivocal
situation. What! make him the companion
of our most private walks! It is pride, Louisa,
but it is the pride of a woman.”

It was several minutes before Oliver aroused
himself from the abstracted position in which he
was standing when Louisa last saw him; but when
he did, he muttered something, rapidly and incoherently,
and throwing his rod over his shoulder,

he strode down the walk, through the gate, and
along one of the streets of the village, until he
reached the lake-shore, with the air of an emperor.
At this spot boats were kept, for the use of
Judge Temple and his family. The young man
threw himself into a light skiff, and seizing the
oars, he sent it across the lake, towards the hut of
Leather-stocking, with a pair of vigorous arms.
By the time he had rowed a quarter of a mile,
his reflections were less bitter; and when he saw
the bushes that lined the shore in front of Natty's
habitation gliding by him, as if they possessed the
motion which proceeded from his own efforts, he
was quite cooled in mind, though somewhat heated
in body. It is quite possible, that the very
same reason which guided the conduct of Miss
Temple, suggested itself to a man of the breeding
and education of the youth; and it is very certain,
that if such were the case, Elizabeth rose instead
of falling in the estimation of Mr. Edwards.

The oars were now raised from the water, and
the boat shot close into the land, where it lay
gently agitated by waves of its own creating,
while the young man, first casting a cautious and
searching glance around him in every direction,
put a small whistle to his mouth, and blew a long,
shrill note, that rung far among the echoing rocks
behind the hut. At this alarm, the hounds of
Natty rushed out of their bark kennel, and commenced
their long, piteous howls, leaping about as
if half frantic, though restrained by the leashes of
buck-skin, by which they were fastened.

“Quiet, Hector, quiet,” said Oliver, again applying
his whistle to his mouth, and drawing out
notes still more shrill than before. No reply was
made, the dogs having returned to their kennel at
the sounds of his voice.

Edwards pulled the bows of the boat on to the

shore, and landing, ascended the beach and approached
the door of the cabin. The fastenings
were soon undone, and he entered, closing the
door after him, when all was as silent, in that retired
spot, as if the foot of man had never trod
the wilderness. The sounds of the hammers, that
were in incessant motion in the village, were faintly
heard across the water; but the dogs had
crouched into their lairs, well satisfied that none
but the privileged had approached the forbidden
ground.

A quarter of an hour elapsed before the youth
re-appeared, when he fastened the door again and
spoke kindly to the hounds. The dogs came out
at the well-known tones, and the slut jumped upon
his person, whining and barking, as if entreating
Oliver to release her from her prison. But
Old Hector raised his nose to the light current
of air, and opened a long howl, that might have
been heard for a mile.

“Ha! what do you scent, my old veteran of
the woods?” cried Edwards. “If a beast, it is a
bold one; and if a man, an impudent.”

He sprung through the top of a pine, that had
fallen near the side of the hut, and ascended a
small hillock, that sheltered the cabin to the south,
where he caught a glimpse of the formal figure of
Hiram Doolittle, as it vanished with an unusual
rapidity for the architect, amid the trees and
bushes.

“What can that fellow be wanting here?” muttered
Oliver. “He has no business in this quarter,
unless it be his curiosity, which is an endemic
in these woods. But against that I will effectually
guard, though the dogs should take a liking to
his ugly visage, and let him pass.” The youth
returned to the door, while giving vent to this soliloquy,
and completed the fastenings, by placing

a small chain through a staple, and securing it
there by a padlock. “He is a pettifogger, and
surely must know that there is such a thing as
feloniously breaking into a man's house.”

Apparently well satisfied with this arrangement,
the youth again spoke to the hounds; and, descending
to the shore, he launched his boat, and
taking up his oars, pulled off into the lake.

There were several places in the Otsego that
were celebrated as fishing-ground for the perch.
One was nearly opposite to the cabin, and another,
still more famous, was near a point, at the
distance of a mile and a half above it, under the
brow of the mountain, and on the same side of the
lake with the hut. Oliver Edwards pulled his little
skiff over the first, and sat, for a minute, undecided
whether to continue there, with his eyes
on the door of the cabin, or to change his ground,
with a view to get superior game. While gazing
about him, he saw the light-coloured bark canoe
of his old companions, riding on the water, at the
point we have mentioned, and containing two
figures, that he at once knew to be Mohegan and
the Leather-stocking. This decided the matter,
and the youth pulled his little boat, in a very few
minutes, to the place where his friends were fishing,
and fastened it to the light vessel of the
Indian.

The old men received Oliver with welcoming
nods of their heads, but neither drew his line from
the water, nor, in the least, varied his occupation.
When Edwards had secured his own boat, he
baited his hook and threw it into the lake, without
speaking.

“Did you stop at the wigwam, lad, as you rowed
by?” asked Natty.

“Yes, and I found all safe; but that carpenter
and justice of the peace, Mr. or, as they call
him, Squire Doolittle, was prowling through the

woods, nigh by. But I made sure of the door,
before I left the hut, and I think he is too great a
coward to approach the hounds.”

“There's little to be said in favour of that
man,” said Natty, while he drew in a perch and
baited his hook. “He craves dreadfully to come
into the cabin, and has as good as asked me as
much to my face; but I put him off with unsartain
answers, so that he is no wiser than Solomon.
This comes of having so many laws that such a
man may be called on to intarpret them.”

“I fear he is more knave than fool,” cried Edwards;
“I see that he makes a tool of that simple
man, the Sheriff, and I dread that his impertinent
curiosity may yet give us much trouble.”

“If he harbours too much about the cabin, lad,
I'll shoot the creater,” said the Leather-stocking,
quite coolly.

“No, no, Natty, you must remember the law,”
said Edwards, “or we shall have you in trouble;
and that, old man, would be an evil day, and sore
tidings to us all.”

“Would it, boy!” exclaimed the hunter, raising
his eyes with a look of friendly interest towards
the youth. “You have the true blood in your
veins, Mr. Oliver, and I'll support it, to the face
of Judge Temple, or in any court in the country.
How is it, John? do I speak the true word? is
the lad staunch, and of the right blood?”

“He is a Delaware,” said Mohegan, “and my
brother. The Young Eagle is brave, and he will
be a chief. No harm can come.”

“Well, well,” cried the youth, impatiently;
“say no more about it, my good friends; if I am
not all that your partiality would make me, I am
yours through life—in prosperity as in poverty.
But now we will talk of other matters.”

The old hunters yielded to his wish, which
seemed to be their law. For a short time a profound
silence prevailed, during which each man
was very busy with his hook and line; but Edwards,
probably feeling that it remained with him
to renew the discourse, soon observed, with the
air of one who knew not what he said—

“How beautifully tranquil and glassy the lake
is. Saw you it ever more calm and even than at
this moment, Natty?”

“I have known the Otsego water for five-and-forty
year,” said Leather-stocking, “and I will
say that for it, which is, that a cleaner spring or
a better fishing is not to be found in the land.
Yes, yes—I had the place to myself once; and a
cheerful time I had of it. The game was as plenty
as heart could wish, and there was none to
meddle with the ground, unless there might have
been a hunting party of the Delawares crossing
the hills, or, maybe, a rifling scout of them thieves,
the Iroquois. There was one or two Frenchmen
that squatted in the flats, further west, and
married squaws; and some of the Scotch-Irishers,
from the Cherry Valley, would come on to the
lake, and borrow my canoe, to take a mess of
parch, or drop a line for a salmon-trout; but, in
the main, it was a cheerful place, and I had but
little to disturb me in it. John would come, and
John knows.”

Mohegan turned his dark face, at this appeal,
and, moving his hand forward with a graceful
motion of assent, he spoke, using the Delaware
language—

“The land was owned by my people: we gave
it to my brother, in council—to the Fire-Eater;
and what the Delawares give, lasts as long as the
waters run. Hawk-eye smoked at that council,
for we loved him.”

“No, no, John,” said Natty, “I was no chief,
seeing that I know'd nothing of scholarship,
and had a white skin. But it was a comfortable
hunting-ground then, lad, and would
have been so to this day, but for the money of
Marmaduke Temple, and, maybe, the twisty ways
of the law.”

“It must have been a sight of melancholy
pleasure, indeed,” said Edwards, while his eye
roved along the shores and over the hills, where
the clearings, groaning with the golden corn,
were cheering the forests with the signs of life,
“to have roamed over these mountains, and along
this sheet of beautiful water, without a living soul
to speak to, or to thwart your humour.”

“Haven't I said it was cheerful!” said Leather-stocking.
“Yes, yes—when the trees begun
to be kivered with the leaves, and the ice was out
of the lake, it was a second paradise. I have
travelled the woods for fifty-three year, and have
made them my home for more than forty, and I
can say that I have met but one place that was
more to my liking; and that was only to eyesight,
and not for hunting or fishing.”

“And where was that?” asked Edwards.

“Where! why up on the Cattskills. I used often
to go up into the mountains after wolves'
skins, and bears; once they bought me to get
them a stuffed painter; and so I often went.
There's a place in them hills that I used to climb
to when I wanted to see the carryings on of the
world, that would well pay any man for a barked
shin or a torn moccasin. You know the Cattskills,
lad, for you must have seen them on your
left, as you followed the river up from York, looking
as blue as a piece of clear sky, and holding
the clouds on their tops, as the smoke curls over

the head of an Indian chief at a council fire.
Well, there's the High-peak and the Round-top,
which lay back, like a father and mother among
their children, seeing they are far above all the
other hills. But the place I mean is next to the
river, where one of the ridges juts out a little from
the rest, and where the rocks fall for the best part
of a thousand feet, so much up and down, that a
man standing on their edges is fool enough to
think he can jump from top to bottom.”

“What see you when you get there?” asked
Edwards.

“Creation!” said Natty, dropping the end of
his rod into the water, and sweeping one hand
around him in a circle—“all creation, lad. I
was on that hill when Vaughan burnt 'Sopus,
in the last war, and I seen the vessels come out of
the highlands as plain as I can see that lime-scow
rowing into the Susquehanna, though one was
twenty times further from me than the other.
The river was in sight for seventy miles, under my
feet, looking like a curled shaving, though it was
eight long miles to its banks. I saw the hills in
the Hampshire grants, the high lands of the river,
and all that God had done or man could do, as
far as eye could reach—you know that the Indians
named me for my sight, lad—and from the
flat on the top of that mountain, I have often found
the place where Albany stands; and as for 'Sopus!
the day the royal troops burnt the town, the
smoke seemed so nigh, that I thought I could hear
the screeches of the women.”

“It must have been worth the toil, to meet
with such a glorious view!”

“If being the best part of a mile in the air, and
having men's farms and housen at your feet, with
rivers looking like ribands, and mountains bigger
than the `Vision,' seeming to be haystacks of green

grass under you, gives any satisfaction to a man,
I can recommend the spot. When I first come
into the woods to live, I used to have weak spells,
and I felt lonesome; and then I would go into the
Cattskills and spend a few days on that hill, to
look at the ways of man; but it's now many a
year since I felt any such longings, and I'm getting
too old for them rugged rocks. But there's
a place, a short two miles back of that very hill,
that in late times I relished better than the mountain;
for it was more kivered with the trees, and
more nateral.”

“And where was that?” inquired Edwards,
whose curiosity was strongly excited by the simple
description of the hunter.

“Why, there's a fall in the hills, where the water
of two little ponds that lie near each other
breaks out of their bounds, and runs over the rocks
into the valley. The stream is, maybe, such a
one as would turn a mill, if so useless a thing was
wanted in the wilderness. But the hand that
made that `Leap' never made a mill! There the
water comes crooking and winding among the
rocks, first so slow that a trout could swim in it,
and then starting and running just like any creater
that wanted to make a far spring, till it gets to
where the mountain divides, like the cleft hoof of
a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to
tumble into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred
feet, and the water looks like flakes of driven
snow, afore it touches the bottom; and there
the stream gathers itself together again for a new
start, and maybe flutters over fifty feet of flat-rock,
before it falls for another hundred, when
it jumps about from shelf to shelf, first turning
this-away and then turning that-away, striving
to get out of the hollow, till it finally comes to the
plain.”

“I have never heard of this spot before!” exclaimed
Edwards; “it is not mentioned in the
books.”

“I never read a book in my life,” said Leather-stocking;
“and how should a man who has lived
in towns and schools know any thing about the
wonders of the woods! No, no, lad; there has
that little stream of water been playing among
them hills, since He made the world, and not a
dozen white men have ever laid eyes on it. The
rock sweeps like mason-work, in a half-round,
on both sides of the fall, and shelves over the bottom
for fifty feet; so that when I've been sitting
at the foot of the first pitch, and my hounds have
run into the caverns behind the sheet of water,
they've looked no bigger than so many rabbits.
To my judgment, lad, it's the best piece of work
that I've met with in the woods; and none know
how often the hand of God is seen in a wilderness,
but them that rove it for a man's life.”

“What becomes of the water? in which direction
does it run? Is it a tributary of the Delaware?”

“Anan!” said Natty.

“Does the water run into the Delaware?”

“No, no, it's a drop for the old Hudson; and
a merry time it has till it gets down off the mountain.
I've sat on the shelving rock many a long
hour, boy, and watched the bubbles as they shot
by me, and thought how long it would be before
that very water, which seemed made for the wilderness,
would be under the bottom of a vessel,
and tossing in the salt sea. It is a spot to make a
man solemnize. You can see right down into the
valley that lies to the east of the High-Peak,
where, in the fall of the year, thousands of acres
of woods are before your eyes, in the deep hollow,
and along the side of the mountain, painted like ten

thousand rainbows, by no hand of man, though
without the ordering of God's providence.”

“Why, you are eloquent, Leather-stocking!”
exclaimed the youth.

“Anan!” repeated Natty.

“The recollection of the sight has warmed your
blood, old man. How many years is it since you
saw the place?”

The hunter made no reply; but, bending his
ear near to the water, he sat for a minute, holding
his breath, and listening attentively, as if to some
distant sound. At length he raised his head, and
said—

“If I hadn't fastened the hounds with my own
hands, with a fresh leash of green buck-skin, I'd
take a Bible oath that I heard old Hector ringing
his cry on the mountain.”

“It is impossible,” said Edwards, “It is not
an hour since I saw him in his kennel.”

By this time the attention of Mohegan was attracted
to the sounds; but, notwithstanding the
youth was both silent and attentive, he could
hear nothing but the lowing of some cattle from
the western hills. He looked at the old men, Natty
sitting with his hand to his ear, like a trumpet,
and Mohegan bending forward, with his arm
raised to a level with his face, holding the fore
finger elevated as a signal for attention, and
laughed aloud at what he deemed to be their imaginary
sounds.

“Laugh if you will, boy,” said Leather-stocking,
“the hounds be out, and are hunting a
deer. No man can deceive me in such a matter.
I wouldn't have had the thing happen for a beaver's
skin. Not that I care for the law! but the
venison is lean now, and the dumb things run
the flesh off their bones for no good. Now do you
hear the hounds?”

Edwards started, as a full cry broke on his ear,
changing from the distant sounds that were caused
by some intervening hill, to the confused echoes
that rung among the rocks that the dogs were
passing, and then directly to a deep and hollow
baying that pealed under the forest on the lake
shore. These variations in the tones of the hounds
passed with amazing rapidity, and while his eyes
were glancing along the margin of the water, a
tearing of the branches of the alder and dog-wood
caught his attention, at a spot near them, and, at
the next moment a noble buck sprung on the
shore, and buried himself in the lake. A full-mouthed
cry, directly from the lungs of the hounds,
followed, when Hector and the slut shot through
the opening in the bushes, and darted into the
lake also, bearing their breasts most gallantly to
the water.