University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Some little commotion was produced by the
appearance of the new guests, during which the
lawyer disappeared 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 night-cap, took his seat very
quietly, on one end of the settee, which was relinquished
by its former occupants. 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 towards 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 from
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
amongst 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 so 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 is a hoomble one, and a
devout.—Here, John, is a mug of cider lac'd with
whisky. An Indian will drink cider, though he
niver be athirst.”

“I must say,” observed Hiram, with due deliberation,
“that it was a tonguey 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.”

“Ay! there's the rub, Joodge,” cried the landlady;
“how can a man stand up and be praching
his word, when all that he is saying is written
down, and he is as much tied to it as iver a thaving
dragoon was to the pickets?”

“Well, well,” cried Marmaduke, waving his
hand for silence, “there is enough said; as Mr.
Grant told us, there are different sentiments on

such subjects, and in my opinion he spoke most
sensibly.—So Jotham, I am told you have sold
your betterments to a new settler, and have moved
into the village and opened a school. Was it cash
or dicker?”

The man who was thus addressed, occupied a
seat immediately behind Marmaduke; and one
who was ignorant of the extent of the Judge's observation,
might have thought he would have escaped
notice. He was of a thin, shapeless figure,
with a discontented expression of countenance,
and with something extremely shiftless in his
whole air. Thus spoken to, after turning and
twisting a little, by way of preparation, he made
a reply.

“Why, part cash, and part dicker. I sold out
to a Pumfret-man, who was so'thin forehanded.
He was to give me ten dollars an acre for the
clearin, and one dollar an acre over the first cost,
on the wood-land; and we agreed to leave the
buildins to men. So I tuck Asa Mountagu, and
he tuck Absalom Bement, and they two tuck old
Squire Naphtali Green. And so they had a meetin,
and made out a vardict of eighty dollars for
the buildins. There was twelve acres of clearin,
at ten dollars, and eighty-eight at one, and the
whull came to jist two hundred and eighty-six
dollars and a half, after paying the men.”

“Hum,” said Marmaduke: “what did you
give for the place?”

“Why, besides what's comin to the Judge, I
gi'n my brother Tim, a hundred dollars for his
bargain; but then there's a new house on't, that
cost me sixty more, and I paid Moses a hundred
dollars, for choppin, and loggin, and sowin; so
that the whull stood me in about two hundred
and sixty dollars. But then I had a great crop
off on't, and as I got jist twenty-six dollars and a

half more than it cost, I conclude I made a pretty
good trade on't.”

“Yes, but you forget that the crop was yours
without the trade, and you have turned yourself
out of doors for twenty-six dollars.”

“Oh! the Judge is clean out,” said the man,
with a look of sagacious calculation; “he turned
out a span of horses, that is wuth a hundred and
fifty dollars of any man's money, with a bran new
wagon; fifty dollars in cash; a good note for
eighty more; and a side-saddle, that was valood
at seven and a half—so there was jist twelve shillings
betwixt us. I wanted him to turn out a set
of harness, and take the cow and the sap-troughs.
He wouldn't—but I saw through it; he thought I
should have to buy the tacklin afore I could use
the wagon and horses; but I know'd a thing or
two myself: I should like to know of what use is
the tacklin to him! I offered him to trade back
ag'in, for one hundred and fifty-five. But my
woman said she wanted a churn, so I tuck a churn
for the change.”

“And what do you mean to do with your time
this winter? you must remember that time is money.”

“Why, as the master is gone down country, to
see his mother, who, they say, is going to make
a die on't, I agreed to take the school in hand,
till he comes back. If times doosn't get wuss in
the spring, I've some notion of going into trade,
or maybe I may move off to the Genessee; they
say they are carryin on a great stroke of business
that-a-way. If the wust comes to the wust, I can
but work at my trade, for I was brought up in a
shoe manufactory.”

It would seem, that Marmaduke did not think
his society of sufficient value, to attempt inducing
him to remain where he was; for he addressed no

further discourse to the man, but turned his attention
to other subjects.—After a short pause, Hiram
ventured a question:—

“What news does the Judge bring us from the
legislater? it's not likely that congress has done
much this session; or maybe the French haven't
fit any more battles lately?”

“The French, since they have beheaded their
king, have done nothing but fight,” returned the
Judge. “The character of the nation seems
changed. I knew many French gentlemen, during
our war, and they all appeared to me to be men
of great humanity and goodness of heart; but
these Jacobins are as blood-thirsty as bull-dogs.”

“There was one Roshambow wid us, down at
Yorrek-town,” cried the landlady; “a mighty
pratty man he was, too; and their horse was the
very same. It was there that the Sargeant got
the hurt in the leg, from the English batteries,
bad luck to 'em.”

“Ah! mon pauvre Roi!” murmured Monsieur
Le Quoi.

“The legislature have been passing laws,” continued
Marmaduke, “that the country much required.
Among others, there is an act, prohibiting
the drawing of seines, at any other than proper
seasons, in certain of our streams and small
lakes; and another, to prohibit the killing of
deer in the teeming months. These are laws that
were loudly called for, by judicious men; nor do
I despair of getting an act, to make the unlawful
felling of timber a criminal offence.”

The hunter listened to this detail with breathless
attention, and when the Judge had ended, he
laughed in open derision for a moment, before he
made this reply:—

“You may make your laws, Judge, but who
will you find to watch the mountains through the

long summer days, or the lakes at night? Game
is game, and he who finds may kill; that has been
the law in these mountains for forty years, to my
sartain knowledge; and I think one old law is
worth two new ones. None but a green-one
would wish to kill a doe with a fa'n by its side,
unless his moccasins was gettin old, or his leggins
ragged, for the flesh is lean and coarse. But
a rifle rings amongst them rocks along the lake
shore, sometimes, as if fifty pieces was fired at
once:—it would be hard to tell where the man
stood who pulled the trigger.”

“Armed with the dignity of the law, Mr.
Bumppo,” returned the Judge, gravely, “a vigilant
magistrate can prevent much of the evil that
has hitherto prevailed, and which is already rendering
the game scarce. I hope to live to see the
day, when a man's rights in his game shall be as
much respected as his title to his farm.”

“Your titles and your farms are all new together,”
cried Natty; “but laws should be equal,
and not more for one than another. I shot a deer,
last Wednesday was a fortnight, and it floundered
through the snow-banks till it got over a brush
fence; I catch'd the lock of my rifle in the twigs,
in following, and was kept back, until finally the
creater got off. Now I want to know who is to
pay me for that deer; and a fine buck it was. If
there hadn't been a fence, I should have gotten
another shot into it; and I never draw'd upon
any thing that hadn't wings, three times running,
in my born days.—No, no, Judge, it's the farmers
that makes the game scearce, and not the hunters.”

“Ter teer is not so plenty as in ter olt war,
Pumppo,” said the Major, who had been an attentive
listener, amidst clouds of smoke; “put
ter lant is not mate, as for ter teer to live on, put
for Christians.”

“Why, Major, I believe you're a friend to justice
and the right, though you go so often to the
grand house; but it's a hard case to a man, to
have his honest calling for a livelihood stopt by
sitch laws, and that too when, if right was done,
he mought hunt or fish on any day in the week,
or on the best flat in the Patent, if he was so
minded.”

“I unterstant you, Letter-stockint,” returned
the Major, fixing his black eyes, with a look of
peculiar meaning, on the hunter; “put you tidn't
use to pe so prutent, as to look ahet mit so much
care.”

“Maybe there wasn't so much 'casion,” said
the hunter, a little sulkily; when he sunk into a
profound silence, from which he was not roused
for some time.

“The Judge was saying so'thin about the
French,” Hiram observed, when the pause in the
conversation had continued a decent time.

“Yes, sir,” returned Marmaduke, “the Jacobins
of France seem rushing from one act of licentiousness
to another. They continue those
murders, which are dignified by the name of executions.
You have heard, that they have added
the death of their Queen to the long list of their
crimes.”

“Les Bêtes!” again murmured Monsieur Le
Quoi, turning himself suddenly in his chair, with
a convulsive start.

“The province of La Vendée is laid waste by
the troops of the republic, and hundreds of its inhabitants,
who are royalists in their sentiments,
are shot at a time.—La Vendée is a district in the
south-west of France, that continues yet much
attached to the family of the Bourbons: doubtless
Monsieur Le Quoi is acquainted with it, and can
describe it more faithfully.”

“Non, non, non, mon cher ami,” returned the
Frenchman, in a suppressed voice, but speaking
rapidly, and gesticulating with his right hand, as
if for mercy, while with his left he concealed his
eyes.

“There have been many battles fought lately,”
continued Marmaduke, “and the infuriated republicans
are too often victorious. I cannot say,
however, that I am sorry they have captured Toulon
from the English, for it is a place to which
they seem to have a just right.”

“Ah—ha!” exclaimed Monsieur Le Quoi,
springing on his feet, and flourishing both arms
with great animation; “ces Anglais! dey be vipt!
De French be one gallant peop', if dere vas gen'ra!.
Ah—ha! Toulon take! c'est bon! I do vish
dat dey take Londre—pardonnez moi; mais, it
ees bon!”

The Frenchman continued to move about the
room with great alacrity for a few minutes, repeating
his exclamations to himself; when, overcome
by the contradictory nature of his emotions,
he suddenly burst out of the house, and was seen
wading through the snow towards his little shop,
waving his arms on high, as if to pluck down honour
from the moon. His departure excited but
little surprise, for the villagers were used to his
manner; but Major Hartmann laughed outright,
for the first time during his visit, as he lifted the
mug, and observed—

“Ter Frenchman is mat—put he is goot as for
notting to trink; he is trunk mit joy.”

“The French are good soldiers,” said Captain
Hollister; “they stood us in hand a good turn,
down at York-town; nor do I think, although I
am an ignorant man about the great movements
of the army, that his Excellency would have been

able to march against Cornwallis, without their
reinforcements,”

“Ye spake the trut', Sargeant,” interrupted his
wife, “and I would iver have ye be doing the
same. It's varry pratty men is the French; and
jist when I stopt the cart, the time when ye was
pushing on in front it was, to kape the rig'lers
in, a rigiment of the jontlemen marched by, and
so I dealt them out to their liking. Was it pay I
got? sure did I, and in good, solid crowns: the
divil a bit of continental could they muster among
them all, for love nor money. Och! the Lord
forgive me for swearing and spakeing of sich vanities:
but this I will say for the French, that they
paid in good silver; and one glass would go a
great way wid 'em, for they gin'rally handed it
back wid a drop in the cup; and that's a brisk
trade, Joodge, where the pay is good, and the
men not over partic'lar.”

“A thriving trade, Mrs. Hollister,” said Marmaduke.
“But what has become of Richard?
he jumped up as soon as seated, and has been absent
so long that I am fearful he has frozen.”

“No fear of that, cousin 'duke,” cried the gentleman
himself; “business will sometimes keep a
man warm, the coldest night that every snapt in
the mountains. Betty, your husband told me, as
we came out of church, that your hogs were getting
mangy, so I have been out to take a look at
them, and found it true. I stepped across, Doctor,
and got your boy to weigh me out a pound of salts,
and have been mixing it with their swill. I'll bet
a saddle of venison against a gray squirrel, that
they are better in a week. And now, Mrs. Hollister,
I'm ready for a hissing mug of flip.”

“Sure, I know'd yee'd be wanting that same,”
said the landlady; “it's mixt and ready to the
boiling. Sargeant dear, jist be handing up the

iron, will ye?—no, the one in the far fire, it's
black, ye will see.—Ah! you've the thing now;
look if it's not as red as a cherry.”

The beverage was heated, and Richard took
that kind of draught which men are apt to indulge
in, who think that they have just executed a clever
thing, especially when they like the liquor.

“Oh! you have a hand, Betty, that was formed
to mix flip,” cried Richard, when he paused
for breath. “The very iron has a flavour in it.
Here, John; drink, man, drink. I and you and
Dr. Todd, have done a good thing with the shoulder
of that lad, this very night. 'Duke, I made a
song while you were gone; one day when I had
nothing to do; so I'll sing you a verse or two,
though I haven't really determined on the tune
yet.

There, 'duke, what do you think of that? There
is another verse of it, all but the last line. I
haven't got a rhyme for the last line yet.—Well,
old John, what do you think of the music? as
good as one of your war-songs, ha!”

“Good,” said Mohegan, who had been sharing
too deeply in the potations of the landlady, besides
paying a proper respect to the passing mugs
of the Major and Marmaduke.

“Pravo! pravo! Richart,” cried the Major,
whose black eyes were beginning to swim in moisture;
pravissimo! it is a goot song; but Natty
Pumppo hast a petter. Letter-stockint, vilt sing?

say, olt poy, vilt sing ter song, as apout the
woots?”

“No, no, Major,” returned the hunter, with a
melancholy shake of the head; “I have lived to
see what I thought eyes could never behold in
these hills, and I have no heart left for singing. If
he, that has a right to be master and ruler here,
is forced to squinch his thirst, when a-dry, with
snow-water, it ill becomes them that have lived
by his bounty to be making merry, as if there
was nothing in the world but sunshine and summer.”

When he had spoken, Leather-stocking again
dropped his head on his kness, and concealed his
hard and wrinkled features with his hands. The
change from the excessive cold without to the heat
of the bar-room, coupled with the depth and frequency
of Richard's draughts, had already levelled
whatever inequality there might have existed
between him and the other guests, on the score of
spirits; and he now held out a pair of swimming
mugs of foaming flip towards the hunter, as he
cried—

“Merry! ay! merry Christmas to you, old
boy! Sunshine and summer! no! you are blind,
Leather-stocking, 'tis moonshine and winter;—
take these spectacles, and open your eyes—

“Hear how old John turns his quavers. What
damned dull music an Indian song is, after all,
Major. I wonder if they ever sing by note?”

While Richard was singing and talking, Mohegan
was uttering dull, monotonous tones, keeping
time by a gentle motion of his head and body.
He made use of but few words, and such as he did

utter were in his native language, and consequently,
only understood by himself and Natty.
Without heeding Richard, he continued to sing a
kind of wild, melancholy air, that rose, at times, in
sudden and quite elevated notes, and then fell
again into the low, quavering sounds, that seemed
to compose the character of his music.

The attention of the company was now much
divided, the men in the rear having formed themselves
into little groups, where they were discussing
various matters; among the principal of which
were, the treatment of mangy hogs, and Parson
Grant's preaching; while Dr. Todd was endeavouring
to explain to Marmaduke the nature of
the hurt received by the young hunter. Mohegan
continued to sing, while his countenance was becoming
vacant, though, coupled with his thick
bushy hair, it was assuming an expression very
much like brutal ferocity. His notes were gradually
growing louder, and soon rose to a height that
caused a general cessation in the discourse. The
hunter now raised his head again, and addressed
the old warrior, warmly, in the Delaware language,
which, for the benefit of our readers, we
shall render freely into English.

“Why do you sing of your battles, Chingachgook,
and of the warriors you have slain, when
the worst enemy of all is near you, and keeps the
Young Eagle from his rights? I have fought in
as many battles as any warrior in your tribe, but
cannot boast of my deeds at such a time as this.”

“Hawk-eye,” said the Indian, tottering with a
doubtful step from his place, “I am the Great
Snake of the Delawares; I can track the Mingoes,
like an adder that is stealing on the whippoor-will's
eggs, and strike them, like the rattlesnake,
dead at a blow. The white man made the
tomahawk of Chingachgook bright as the waters

of Otsego, when the last sun is shining; but it is
red with the blood of the Maquas.”

“And why have you slain the Mingo warriors?
was it not to keep these hunting grounds and
lakes to your father's children? and were they
not given in solemn council to the Fire-cater? and
does not the blood of a warrior run in the veins of
a young chief, who should speak aloud, where his
voice is now too low to be heard?”

The appeal of the hunter seemed, in some measure,
to recall the confused faculties of the Indian,
who turned his face towards the listeners, and
gazed intently on the Judge. He shook his head,
throwing his hair back from his countenance, and
exposed his eyes, that were glaring with a fierce
expression of wild resentment. But the man was
not himself. His hand seemed to make a fruitless
effort to release his tomahawk, which was
confined by its handle to his belt, while his eyes
gradually became again vacant. Richard at that
instant thrusting a mug before him, his features
changed to the grin of idiocy, and seizing the
vessel with both hands, he sunk backward on the
bench, and drunk until satiated, when he made an
effort to lay aside the mug, with the helplessness
of total inebriety.

“Shed not blood!” exclaimed the hunter, as he
watched the countenance of the Indian in its moment
of ferocity—“but he is drunk, and can do
no harm. This is the way with all the savages;
give them liquor, and they make dogs of themselves.
Well, well—the time will come when
right will be done, and we must have patience.”

Natty still spoke in the Delaware language, and
of course was not understood. He had hardly
concluded, before Richard cried—

“Well, old John is soon sowed up. Give him
a birth, Captain, in the bara, and I will pay for it.

I am rich to-night, ten times richer than 'duke,
with all his lands, and military lots, and funded
debts, and bonds, and mortgages.
Drink, King Hiram—drink, Mr. Doo-nothing—
drink, sir, I say. This is a Christmas eve, which
comes, you know, but once a year.”

“He! he! he! the Squire is quite moosical
to-night,” said Hiram, whose visage began to give
marvellous signs of relaxation. “I rather guess
we shall make a church on't yet, Squire?”

“A church, Mr. Doolittle! we will make a cathedral
of it! bishops, priests, deacons, wardens,
vestry, and choir; organ, organist, and bellows!
By the lord Harry, as Benjamin says, we will
clap a steeple on the other end of it, and make
two churches of it. What say you, 'duke, will
you pay? ha! my cousin Judge, wilt pay?”

“Thou makest such a noise, Dickon,” returned
Marmaduke, “it is impossible that I can hear
what Dr. Todd is saying. I think thou observed,
it is probable that the wound will fester, so
as to occasion danger to the limb, in this cold
weather?”

“Out of nater, sir, quite out of nater;” said Elnathan,
attempting to expectorate, but succeeding
only in throwing a light, frothy substance, like a
flake of snow, into the fire—“quite out of nater,
that a wownd so well dressed, and with the ball
in my pocket, should fester. I s'pose, as the
Judge talks of taking the young man into his
house, it will be most convenient if I make but one
charge on't.”

“I should think one would do,” returned Marmaduke,
with that arch smile that so often beamed

on his face; leaving the beholder in doubt
whether he most enjoyed the character of his
companion, or his own covert humour.

The landlord had succeeded in placing the Indian
on some straw, in one of his out-buildings,
where, covered with his own blanket, John continued
for the remainder of the night.

In the mean time, Major Hartmann began to
grow noisy and jocular; glass succeeded glass, and
mug after mug was introduced, until the carousal
had run deep into the night, or rather morning;
when the veteran German expressed an inclination
to return to the Mansion-house. Most of the
party had already retired, but Marmaduke knew
the habits of his friend too well to suggest an earlier
adjournment. So soon, however, as the proposal
was made, the Judge eagerly availed himself
of it, and the trio prepared to depart. Mrs.
Hollister attended them to the door in person,
cautioning her guests as to the safest manner of
leaving her premises.

“Lane on Mister Jones, Major,” said she,
“he's young, and will be a support to ye. Well,
it's a charming sight to see ye, any way, at the
Bould Dragoon; and sure it's no harm to be kaping
a Christmas-eve wid a light heart, for it's no
telling when we may have sorrow come upon us.
So good night, Joodge, and a merry Christmas to
ye all, to-morrow morning.”

The gentlemen made their adieus as well as
they could, and taking the middle of the road,
which was a fine, wide, and well-beaten path, they
did tolerably well until they reached the gate
of the Mansion-house; but on entering the Judge's
domains, they encountered some slight difficulties.
We shall not stop to relate them, but
will just mention that, in the morning, sundry
diverging paths were to be seen in the snow;

and that once during their progress to the door,
Marmaduke, missing his companions, was enabled
to trace them by one of these paths to a
spot, where he discovered them with nothing visible
but their heads; Richard singing in a most vivacious
strain,