 | CHAPTER XVI. The deerslayer: or, The first war-path |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay,
Tempts and then flies:
What is this world's delight?—
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.”
Shelley.
The picture next presented by the point of land that the
unfortunate Hurons had selected for their last place of encampment,
need scarcely be laid before the eyes of the reader.
Happily for the more tender-minded and the more timid,
the trunks of the trees, the leaves, and the smoke had concealed
much of that which passed, and night shortly after
drew its veil over the lake, and the whole of that seemingly
interminable wilderness, which may be said to have then
stretched, with far and immaterial interruptions, from the
banks of the Hudson to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Our business carries us into the following day, when light
returned upon the earth, as sunny and as smiling, as if nothing
extraordinary had occurred.
When the sun rose on the following morning, every sign
of hostility and alarm had vanished from the basin of the
Glimmerglass. The frightful event of the preceding evening
had left no impression on the placid sheet, and the untiring
by the powerful hand that set them in motion. The
birds were again skimming the water, or were seen poised
on the wing high above the tops of the tallest pines of the
mountains, ready to make their swoops, in obedience to the
irresistible laws of their nature. In a word, nothing was
changed but the air of movement and life that prevailed in
and around the castle. Here, indeed, was an alteration that
must have struck the least observant eye. A sentinel, who
wore the light-infantry uniform of a royal regiment, paced
the platform with measured tread, and some twenty men of
the same corps lounged about the place, or were seated in the
ark. Their arms were stacked under the eye of their comrade
on post. Two officers stood examining the shore, with
the ship's glass so often mentioned. Their looks were directed
to that fatal point, where scarlet coats were still to be
seen gliding among the trees, and where the magnifying
power of the instrument also showed spades at work, and
the sad duty of interment going on. Several of the common
men bore proofs on their persons that their enemies had
not been overcome entirely without resistance; and the
youngest of the two officers on the platform, wore an
arm in a sling. His companion, who commanded the party,
had been more fortunate. He it was that used the glass, in
making the reconnoissances in which the two were engaged.
A sergeant approached to make a report. He addressed
the senior of these officers as Captain Warley, while the
other was alluded to as Mr.—, which was equivalent to
ensign—Thornton. The former, it will at once be seen,
was the officer who had been named with so much feeling,
in the parting dialogue between Judith and Hurry.
He was, in truth, the very individual with whom the scandal
of the garrisons had most freely connected the name of
this beautiful but indiscreet girl. He was a hard-featured,
red-faced man, of about five-and-thirty, but of a military
carriage, and with an air of fashion that might easily impose
on the imagination of one as ignorant of the world as
Judith.
“Craig is covering us with benedictions,” observed this
person to his young ensign, with an air of indifference, as
he shut the glass, and handed it to his servant; “to say the
to be here in attendance on Miss Judith Hutter, than to
be burying Indians on a point of the lake, however romantic
the position, or brilliant the victory. By the way, Wright,
is Davis still living?”
“He died about ten minutes since, your honour,” returned
the sergeant to whom this question was addressed. “I
knew how it would be, as soon as I found the bullet had
touched the stomach. I never knew a man who could hold
out long, if he had a hole in his stomach.”
“No; it is rather inconvenient for carrying away any
thing very nourishing,” observed Warley, gaping. “This
being up two nights de suite, Arthur, plays the devil
with a man's faculties! I'm as stupid as one of those
Dutch parsons on the Mohawk—I hope your arm is not
painful, my dear boy?”
“It draws a few grimaces from me, sir, as I suppose you
see,” answered the youth, laughing at the very moment his
countenance was a little awry with pain. “But it may be
borne. I suppose Graham can spare a few minutes, soon,
to look at my hurt.”
“She is a lovely creature, this Judith Hutter, after all,
Thornton; and it shall not be my fault, if she is not seen
and admired in the parks!” resumed Warley, who thought
little of his companion's wound.—“Your arm, eh! Quite
true.—Go into the ark, sergeant, and tell Dr. Graham I desire
he would look at Mr. Thornton's injury, as soon as he
has done with the poor fellow with the broken leg. A lovely
creature! and she looked like a queen in that brocade dress
in which we met her. I find all changed here; father
and mother both gone, the sister dying, if not dead, and
none of the family left, but the beauty! This has been a
lucky expedition all round, and promises to terminate better
than Indian skirmishes in general.”
“Am I to suppose, sir, that you are about to desert your
colours, in the great corps of bachelors, and close the campaign
with matrimony?”
“I, Tom Warley, turn Benedict! Faith, my dear boy,
you little know the corps you speak of, if you fancy any
such thing. I do suppose there are women in the colonies,
that a captain of light-infantry need not disdain; but they
down on the Dutch river where we are posted. It is true,
my uncle, the general, once did me the favour to choose a
wife for me, in Yorkshire; but she had no beauty—and I
would not marry a princess, unless she were handsome.”
“If handsome, you would marry a beggar?”
“Ay, these are the notions of an ensign! Love in a cottage—doors—and
windows—the old story, for the hundredth
time. The twenty—th don't marry. We are not
a marrying corps, my dear boy. There's the colonel, old
Sir Edwin —, now; though a full general, he has
never thought of a wife; and when a man gets as high as
a lieutenant-general, without matrimony, he is pretty safe.
Then the lieutenant-colonel is confirmed, as I tell my cousin,
the bishop. The major is a widower, having tried matrimony,
for twelve months, in his youth; and we look upon
him, now, as one of our most certain men. Out of ten
captains, but one is in the dilemma; and he, poor devil, is
always kept at regimental head-quarters, as a sort of memento
mori to the young men, as they join. As for the
subalterns, not one has ever yet had the audacity to speak
of introducing a wife into the regiment. But your arm is
troublesome, and we'll go ourselves, and see what has become
of Graham.”
The surgeon who had accompanied the party was employed
very differently from what the captain supposed.
When the assault was over, and the dead and wounded
were collected, poor Hetty had been found among the latter.
A rifle-bullet had passed through her body, inflicting an injury
that was known at a glance to be mortal. How this
wound was received, no one knew; it was probably one of
those casualties that ever accompany scenes like that related
in the previous chapter. The Sumach, all the elderly women,
and several of the Huron girls, had fallen by the bayonet;
either in the confusion of the mêlée, or from the difficulty
of distinguishing the sexes, where the dress was so
simple. Much the greater portion of the warriors suffered
on the spot. A few had escaped, however, and two or three
had been taken unharmed. As for the wounded, the bayonet
saved the surgeon much trouble. Rivenoak had escaped
with life and limb; but was injured and a prisoner. As
passed him, seated, in dignified silence, in one end of the
scow, his head and leg bound, but betraying no visible signs
of despondency or despair. That he mourned the loss of
his tribe, is certain; still, he did it in the manner that best
became a warrior and a chief.
The two soldiers found their surgeon, in the principal
room of the ark. He was just quitting the pallet of Hetty,
with an expression of sorrowful regret, on his hard, pock-marked,
Scottish features, that it was not usual to see there.
All his assiduity had been useless, and he was compelled
reluctantly to abandon the expectation of seeing the girl
survive many hours. Dr. Graham was accustomed to
death-bed scenes, and ordinarily they produced but little
impression on him. In all that relates to religion, his was
one of those minds which, in consequence of reasoning much
on material things, logically and consecutively, and overlooking
the total want of premises which such a theory must
ever possess, through its want of a primary agent, had become
sceptical; leaving a vague opinion, concerning the
origin of things, that with high pretensions to philosophy,
failed in the first of all philosophical principles, a cause. To
him religious dependence appeared a weakness; but when he
found one gentle and young like Hetty, with a mind beneath
the level of her race, sustained at such a moment by these
pious sentiments, and that too, in a way that many a sturdy
warrior, and reputed hero, might have looked upon with
envy, he found himself affected by the sight, to a degree
that he would have been ashamed to confess. Edinburgh
and Aberdeen, then as now, supplied no small portion of the
medical men of the British service; and Dr. Graham, as indeed
his name and countenance equally indicated, was, by
birth, a North Briton.
“Here is an extraordinary exhibition for a forest, and one
but half-gifted with reason,” he observed, with a decided
Scotch accent, as Warley and the ensign entered; “I just
hope, gentlemen, that when we three shall be called on to quit
the twenty—th, we may be found as resigned to go on the
half-pay of another existence, as this poor demented chiel!”
“Is there no hope that she can survive the hurt?” demanded
Warley, turning his eyes towards the pallid Judith,
as soon as he came into the cabin.
“No more than there is for Charlie Stuart! Approach
and judge for yourselves, gentlemen; ye'll see faith exemplified
in an exceeding and wonderful manner. There is a
sort of arbitrium between life and death, in actual conflict
in the poor girl's mind, that renders her an interesting study
to a philosopher. Mr. Thornton, I'm at your service, now;
we can just look at the arm, in the next room, while we
speculate as much as we please, on the operations and sinuosities
of the human mind.”
The surgeon and ensign retired, and Warley had an opportunity
of looking about him, more at leisure, and with a
better understanding of the nature and feelings of the group
collected in the cabin. Poor Hetty had been placed on her
own simple bed, and was reclining in a half-seated attitude,
with the approaches of death on her countenance, though
they were singularly dimmed by the lustre of an expression,
in which all the intelligence of her entire being appeared to
be concentrated. Judith and Hist were near her; the former
seated in deep grief; the latter standing, in readiness to offer
any of the gentle attentions of feminine care. Deerslayer
stood at the end of the pallet, leaning on Killdeer, unharmed
in person; all the fine martial ardour that had so lately
glowed in his countenance, having given place to the usual
look of honesty and benevolence; qualities of which the expression
was now softened by manly regret and pity. The
Serpent was in the back-ground of the picture, erect and
motionless as a statue; but so observant, that not a look of
the eye escaped his own keen glance. Hurry completed
the group; being seated on a stool near the door, like one
who felt himself out of place in such a scene; but who was
ashamed to quit it, unbidden.
“Who is that in scarlet?” asked Hetty, as soon as the
captain's uniform caught her eye. “Tell me, Judith, is it
the friend of Hurry?”
“ 'T is the officer who commands the troops, that have
rescued us all from the hands of the Hurons,” was the low
answer of the sister.
“Am I rescued, too?—I thought they said I was shot,
and about to die. Mother is dead, and so is father; but
Hurry would be killed, when I heard him shouting among
the soldiers.”
“Never mind—never mind, dear Hetty”—interrupted
Judith, sensitively alive to the preservation of her sister's
secret, more, perhaps at such a moment, than at another.
“Hurry is well, and Deerslayer is well, and the Delaware
is well, too.”
“How came they to shoot a poor girl like me, and let so
many men go unharmed? I didn't know that the Hurons
were so wicked, Judith!”
“ 'T was an accident, poor Hetty; a sad accident it has
been! No one would willingly have injured you.”
“I'm glad of that!—I thought it strange; I am feeble-minded,
and the red men have never harmed me before. I
should be sorry to think that they had changed their minds.
I am glad, too, Judith, that they haven't hurt Hurry. Deerslayer,
I don't think God will suffer any one to harm. It
was very fortunate the soldiers came as they did though,
for fire will burn!”
“It was, indeed, fortunate, my sister; God's holy name
be for ever blessed for the mercy!”
“I dare say, Judith, you know some of the officers; you
used to know so many!”
Judith made no reply; she hid her face in her hands and
groaned. Hetty gazed at her in wonder; but naturally supposing
her own situation was the cause of this grief, she
kindly offered to console her sister.
“Don't mind me, dear Judith,” said the affectionate and
pure-hearted creature—“I don't suffer, if I do die; why
father and mother are both dead, and what happens to them,
may well happen to me. You know I am of less account
than any of the family; therefore few will think of me after
I'm in the lake.”
“No, no, no—poor, dear, dear Hetty!” exclaimed Judith,
in an uncontrollable burst of sorrow—“I, at least, will ever
think of you; and gladly, oh! how gladly would I exchange
places with you, to be the pure, excellent, sinless creature
you are!”
Until now, Captain Warley had stood leaning against the
door of the cabin; when this outbreak of feeling, and perchance
slowly and thoughtfully away; even passing the ensign,
then suffering under the surgeon's care, without noticing
him.
“I have got my Bible here, Judith!” returned her sister,
in a voice of triumph. “It's true, I can't read any longer;
there's something the matter with my eyes—you look dim
and distant—and so does Hurry, now I look at him;—well,
I never could have believed that Henry March would have
so dull a look! What can be the reason, Judith, that I see
so badly, to-day? I, whom mother always said had the
best eyes of the whole family. Yes, that was it; my mind
was feeble—what people call half-witted—but my eyes were
so good!”
Again Judith groaned; this time no feeling of self, no
retrospect of the past, caused the pain. It was the pure,
heart-felt sorrow of sisterly love, heightened by a sense of
the meek humility and perfect truth of the being before her.
At that moment, she would gladly have given up her own
life to save that of Hetty. As the last, however, was
beyond the reach of human power, she felt there was nothing
left her but sorrow. At this moment Warley returned
to the cabin, drawn by a secret impulse he could not withstand,
though he felt, just then, as if he would gladly abandon
the American continent for ever, were it practicable.
Instead of pausing at the door, he now advanced so near the
pallet of the sufferer as to come more plainly within her
gaze. Hetty could still distinguish large objects, and her look
soon fastened on him.
“Are you the officer that came with Hurry?” she asked.
“If you are, we ought all to thank you; for, though I am
hurt, the rest have saved their lives. Did Harry March tell
you where to find us, and how much need there was for
your services?”
“The news of the party reached us by means of a friendly
runner,” returned the captain, glad to relieve his feelings by
this appearance of a friendly communication; “and I was
immediately sent out to cut it off. It was fortunate, certainly,
that we met Hurry Harry, as you call him, for he
acted as a guide; and it was not less fortunate that we heard
a firing, which I now understand was merely a shooting at
us to the right side of the lake. The Delaware saw us on
the shore, with the glass, it would seem; and he and Hist,
as I find his squaw is named, did us excellent service. It
was, really, altogether a fortunate concurrence of circumstances,
Judith.”
“Talk not to me of any thing fortunate, sir,” returned
the girl, huskily, again concealing her face. “To me, the
world is full of misery. I wish never to hear of marks, or
rifles, or soldiers, or men, again!”
“Do you know my sister?” asked Hetty, ere the rebuked
soldier had time to rally for an answer. “How came you
to know that her name is Judith? You are right, for that
is her name; and I am Hetty, Thomas Hutter's daughters.”
“For heaven's sake, dearest sister; for my sake, beloved
Hetty,” interposed Judith, imploringly, “say no more of
this.”
Hetty looked surprised; but, accustomed to comply, she
ceased her awkward and painful interrogatories of Warley,
bending her eyes towards the Bible, which she still held between
her hands, as one would cling to a casket of precious
stones, in a shipwreck, or a conflagration. Her mind now
reverted to the future, losing sight, in a great measure, of
the scenes of the past.
“We shall not long be parted, Judith,” she said; “when
you die, you must be brought and buried in the lake, by the
side of mother, too.”
“Would to God, Hetty, that I lay there at this moment!”
“No; that cannot be, Judith; people must die before they
have any right to be buried. 'Twould be wicked to bury
you, or for you to bury yourself, while living. Once I
thought of burying myself;—God kept me from that sin.”
“You!—you, Hetty Hutter, think of such an act!” exclaimed
Judith, looking up in uncontrollable surprise, for
she well knew nothing passed the lips of her conscientious
sister, that was not religiously true.
“Yes, I did, Judith; but God has forgotten—no he forgets
nothing—but he has forgiven it,” returned the dying
girl, with the subdued manner of a repentant child. “ 'Twas
mother's death; I felt I had lost the best friend I had
on earth, if not the only friend. 'Tis true, you and father
knew I should only give you trouble; and then you were
so often ashamed of such a sister and daughter; and 'tis
hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below
them. I thought then, if I could bury myself by the side
of mother, I should be happier in the lake, than in the hut.”
Forgive me—pardon me, dearest Hetty; on my bended
knees, I beg you to pardon me, sweet sister, if any word
or act of mine drove you to so maddening and cruel a
thought!”
“Get up, Judith; kneel to God—don't kneel to me. Just
so I felt, when mother was dying. I remembered every thing
I had said and done to vex her, and could have kissed her
feet for forgiveness. I think it must be so with all dying
people; though, now I think of it, I don't remember to have
had such feelings on account of father.”
Judith arose, hid her face in her apron, and wept. A
long pause—one of more than two hours—succeeded, during
which, Warley entered and left the cabin several times; apparently
uneasy when absent, and yet unable to remain.
He issued various orders, which his men proceeded to execute;
and there was an air of movement in the party, more
especially as Mr. Craig, the lieutenant, had got through with
the unpleasant duty of burying the dead, and had sent for
instructions from the shore, desiring to know what he was
to do with his detachment. During this interval, Hetty
slept a little, and Deerslayer and Chingachgook left the ark
to confer together. But, at the end of the time mentioned,
the surgeon passed upon the platform; and with a degree
of feeling his comrades had never before observed in one of
his habits, he announced that the patient was rapidly drawing
near her end. On receiving this intelligence, the group
collected again; curiosity to witness such a death—or a
better feeling—drawing to the spot, men who had so lately
been actors in a scene seemingly of so much greater interest
and moment. By this time, Judith had got to be inactive,
through grief; and Hist alone was performing the
little offices of feminine attention that are so appropriate to
the sick bed. Hetty herself had undergone no other apparent
change, than the general failing that indicated the
near approach of dissolution. All that she possessed of
perhaps, was more than usually active.
“Don't grieve for me so much, Judith,” said the gentle
sufferer, after a pause in her remarks; “I shall soon see
mother: I think I see her now; her face is just as sweet
and smiling as it used to be! Perhaps when I'm dead, God
will give me all my mind, and I shall become a more fitting
companion for mother than I ever was before.”
“You will be an angel in heaven, Hetty,” sobbed the sister;
“no spirit there will be more worthy of its holy residence!”
“I don't understand it quite; still I know it must be all
true; I've read it in the Bible. How dark it's becoming!
Can it be night so soon? I can hardly see you at all;
where is Hist?”
“I here, poor girl; why you no see me?”
“I do see you; but I couldn't tell whether 't was you or
Judith. I believe I sha'n't see you much longer, Hist.”
“Sorry for that, poor Hetty. Never mind; pale-face got
a heaven for girl, as well as for warrior.”
“Where's the Serpent? Let me speak to him; give me
his hand; so; I feel it. Delaware, you will love and cherish
this young Indian woman; I know how fond she is of
you; and you must be fond of her. Don't treat her as
some of your people treat their wives; be a real husband to
her. Now, bring Deerslayer near me; give me his hand.”
This request was complied with, and the hunter stood by
the side of the pallet, submitting to the wishes of the girl
with the docility of a child.
“I feel, Deerslayer,” she resumed, “though I couldn't
tell why—but I feel that you and I are not going to part
for ever. 'T is a strange feeling! I never had it before; I
wonder what it comes from!”
“ 'T is God encouraging you in extremity, Hetty; as such
it ought to be harboured and respected. Yes, we shall meet
ag'in, though it may be a long time first, and in a far distant
land.”
“Do you mean to be buried in the lake, too? If so, that
may account for the feeling.”
“ 'T is little likely, gal; 't is little likely: but there's a
region for Christian souls, where there's no lakes nor
last, is more than I can account for; seeing that pleasantness
and peace is the object in view. My grave will be
found in the forest, most likely, but I hope my spirit will
not be far from your'n.”
“So it must be, then. I am too weak-minded to understand
these things, but I feel that you and I will meet again.
Sister, where are you? I can't see, now, any thing but
darkness. It must be night, surely!”
“Oh! Hetty, I am here; at your side; these are my
arms that are round you,” sobbed Judith. “Speak, dearest;
is there any thing you wish to say, or have done, in
this awful moment?”
By this time Hetty's sight had entirely failed her. Nevertheless,
death approached with less than usual of its horrors,
as if in tenderness to one of her half-endowed faculties.
She was pale as a corpse, but her breathing was easy and
unbroken; while her voice, though lowered almost to a
whisper, remained clear and distinct. When her sister put
this question, however, a blush diffused itself over the features
of the dying girl; so faint, however, as to be nearly imperceptible;
resembling that hue of the rose which is thought to
portray the tint of modesty, rather than the dye of the
flower in its richer bloom. No one but Judith detected this
expression of feeling, one of the gentle expressions of womanly
sensibility, even in death. On her, however, it was
not lost, nor did she conceal from herself the cause.
“Hurry is here, dearest Hetty,” whispered the sister, with
her face so near the sufferer as to keep the words from other
ears. “Shall I tell him to come and receive your good
wishes?”
A gentle pressure of the hand answered in the affirmative,
and then Hurry was brought to the side of the pallet. It is
probable that this handsome but rude woodsman had never
before found himself so awkwardly placed, though the inclination
which Hetty felt for him (a sort of secret yielding
to the instincts of nature, rather than any unbecoming
impulse of an ill-regulated imagination) was too pure and
unobtrusive to have created the slightest suspicion of the circumstance
in his mind. He allowed Judith to put his hard
result in awkward silence.
“This is Hurry, dearest,” whispered Judith, bending over
her sister, ashamed to utter the words so as to be audible to
herself; “speak to him, and let him go.”
“What shall I say, Judith?”
“Nay, whatever your own pure spirit teaches, my love.
Trust to that, and you need fear nothing.”
“Good bye, Hurry”—murmured the girl, with a gentle
pressure of his hand—“I wish you would try and be more
like Deerslayer.”
These words were uttered with difficulty; a faint flush
succeeded them for a single instant, then the hand was relinquished,
and Hetty turned her face aside, as if done with
the world. The mysterious feeling that had bound her to
the young man, a sentiment so gentle as to be almost imperceptible
to herself, and which could never have existed
at all, had her reason possessed more command over her
senses, was for ever lost in thoughts of a more elevated,
though scarcely of a purer character.
“Of what are you thinking, my sweet sister?” whispered
Judith,—“tell me, that I may aid you at this moment.”
“Mother—I see mother, now, and bright beings around
her in the lake. Why isn't father there?—It's odd, that I
can see mother, when I can't see you!—Farewell, Judith.”
The last words were uttered after a pause, and her sister
had hung over her some time, in anxious watchfulness, before
she perceived that the gentle spirit had departed. Thus
died Hetty Hutter, one of those mysterious links between
the material and immaterial world, which, while they appear
to be deprived of so much that is esteemed and necessary
for this state of being, draw so near to, and offer so
beautiful an illustration of the truth, purity, and simplicity
of another.
| CHAPTER XVI. The deerslayer: or, The first war-path | |