University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
THE COSMOPOLITAN MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE.

In the act of retiring, the cosmopolitan was met by a
passenger, who, with the bluff abord of the West, thus
addressed him, though a stranger.

“Queer 'coon, your friend. Had a little skrimmage
with him myself. Rather entertaining old 'coon, if he
wasn't so deuced analytical. Reminded me somehow of
what I've heard about Colonel John Moredock, of Illinois,
only your friend ain't quite so good a fellow at
bottom, I should think.”

It was in the semicircular porch of a cabin, opening
a recess from the deck, lit by a zoned lamp swung overhead,
and sending its light vertically down, like the sun
at noon. Beneath the lamp stood the speaker, affording
to any one disposed to it no unfavorable chance for
scrutiny; but the glance now resting on him betrayed
no such rudeness.

A man neither tall nor stout, neither short nor gaunt;
but with a body fitted, as by measure, to the service of
his mind. For the rest, one less favored perhaps in his
features than his clothes; and of these the beauty may
have been less in the fit than the cut; to say nothing of

the fineness of the nap, seeming out of keeping with
something the reverse of fine in the skin; and the unsuitableness
of a violet vest, sending up sunset hues to
a countenance betokening a kind of bilious habit.

But, upon the whole, it could not be fairly said that
his appearance was unprepossessing; indeed, to the congenial,
it would have been doubtless not uncongenial;
while to others, it could not fail to be at least curiously
interesting, from the warm air of florid cordiality, contrasting
itself with one knows not what kind of aguish
sallowness of saving discretion lurking behind it. Ungracious
critics might have thought that the manner
flushed the man, something in the same fictitious way
that the vest flushed the cheek. And though his teeth
were singularly good, those same ungracious ones might
have hinted that they were too good to be true; or rather,
were not so good as they might be; since the best
false teeth are those made with at least two or three
blemishes, the more to look like life. But fortunately
for better constructions, no such critics had the stranger
now in eye; only the cosmopolitan, who, after, in the
first place, acknowledging his advances with a mute salute—in
which acknowledgment, if there seemed less of
spirit than in his way of accosting the Missourian, it was
probably because of the saddening sequel of that late interview—thus
now replied: “Colonel John Moredock,”
repeating the words abstractedly; “that surname recalls
reminiscences. Pray,” with enlivened air, “was he
anyway connected with the Moredocks of Moredock
Hall, Northamptonshire, England?”

“I know no more of the Moredocks of Moredock Hall
than of the Burdocks of Burdock Hut,” returned the
other, with the air somehow of one whose fortunes had
been of his own making; “all I know is, that the late
Colonel John Moredock was a famous one in his time;
eye like Lochiel's; finger like a trigger; nerve like a catamount's;
and with but two little oddities—seldom stirred
without his rifle, and hated Indians like snakes.”

“Your Moredock, then, would seem a Moredock of
Misanthrope Hall—the Woods. No very sleek creature,
the colonel, I fancy.”

“Sleek or not, he was no uncombed one, but silky
bearded and curly headed, and to all but Indians juicy
as a peach. But Indians—how the late Colonel John
Moredock, Indian-hater of Illinois, did hate Indians, to
be sure!”

“Never heard of such a thing. Hate Indians? Why
should he or anybody else hate Indians? I admire
Indians. Indians I have always heard to be one of the
finest of the primitive races, possessed of many heroic
virtues. Some noble women, too. When I think of
Pocahontas, I am ready to love Indians. Then there's
Massasoit, and Philip of Mount Hope, and Tecumseh,
and Red-Jacket, and Logan—all heroes; and there's the
Five Nations, and Araucanians—federations and communities
of heroes. God bless me; hate Indians? Surely
the late Colonel John Moredock must have wandered in
his mind.”

“Wandered in the woods considerably, but never
wandered elsewhere, that I ever heard.”

“Are you in earnest? Was there ever one who so
made it his particular mission to hate Indians that, to
designate him, a special word has been coined—Indian-hater?”

“Even so.”

“Dear me, you take it very calmly.—But really, I
would like to know something about this Indian-hating.
I can hardly believe such a thing to be. Could you
favor me with a little history of the extraordinary man
you mentioned?”

“With all my heart,” and immediately stepping from
the porch, gestured the cosmopolitan to a settee near
by, on deck. “There, sir, sit you there, and I will sit
here beside you—you desire to hear of Colonel John
Moredock. Well, a day in my boyhood is marked with
a white stone—the day I saw the colonel's rifle, powder-horn
attached, hanging in a cabin on the West bank
of the Wabash river. I was going westward a long journey
through the wilderness with my father. It was
nigh noon, and we had stopped at the cabin to unsaddle
and bait. The man at the cabin pointed out the rifle, and
told whose it was, adding that the colonel was that
moment sleeping on wolf-skins in the corn-loft above,
so we must not talk very loud, for the colonel had been
out all night hunting (Indians, mind), and it would be
cruel to disturb his sleep. Curious to see one so famous,
we waited two hours over, in hopes he would come
forth; but he did not. So, it being necessary to get to
the next cabin before nightfall, we had at last to ride off
without the wished-for satisfaction. Though, to tell the

truth, I, for one, did not go away entirely ungratified,
for, while my father was watering the horses, I slipped
back into the cabin, and stepping a round or two up the
ladder, pushed my head through the trap, and peered
about. Not much light in the loft; but off, in the further
corner, I saw what I took to be the wolf-skins, and
on them a bundle of something, like a drift of leaves;
and at one end, what seemed a moss-ball; and over it,
deer-antlers branched; and close by, a small squirrel
sprang out from a maple-bowl of nuts, brushed the moss-ball
with his tail, through a hole, and vanished, squeaking.
That bit of woodland scene was all I saw. No
Colonel Moredock there, unless that moss-ball was his
curly head, seen in the back view. I would have gone
clear up, but the man below had warned me, that
though, from his camping habits, the colonel could sleep
through thunder, he was for the same cause amazing
quick to waken at the sound of footsteps, however soft,
and especially if human.”

“Excuse me,” said the other, softly laying his hand
on the narrator's wrist, “but I fear the colonel was of
a distrustful nature—little or no confidence. He was a
little suspicious-minded, wasn't he?”

“Not a bit. Knew too much. Suspected nobody,
but was not ignorant of Indians. Well: though, as
you may gather, I never fully saw the man, yet, have I,
one way and another, heard about as much of him as
any other; in particular, have I heard his history again
and again from my father's friend, James Hall, the judge,
you know. In every company being called upon to

give this history, which none could better do, the judge
at last fell into a style so methodic, you would have
thought he spoke less to mere auditors than to an invisible
amanuensis; seemed talking for the press; very impressive
way with him indeed. And I, having an equally
impressible memory, think that, upon a pinch, I can
render you the judge upon the colonel almost word for
word.”

“Do so, by all means,” said the cosmopolitan, well
pleased.

“Shall I give you the judge's philosophy, and all?”

“As to that,” rejoined the other gravely, pausing over
the pipe-bowl he was filling, “the desirableness, to a
man of a certain mind, of having another man's philosophy
given, depends considerably upon what school of
philosophy that other man belongs to. Of what school
or system was the judge, pray?”

“Why, though he knew how to read and write, the
judge never had much schooling. But, I should say he
belonged, if anything, to the free-school system. Yes, a
true patriot, the judge went in strong for free-schools.”

“In philosophy? The man of a certain mind, then,
while respecting the judge's patriotism, and not blind
to the judge's capacity for narrative, such as he may
prove to have, might, perhaps, with prudence, waive an
opinion of the judge's probable philosophy. But I am
no rigorist; proceed, I beg; his philosophy or not, as
you please.”

“Well, I would mostly skip that part, only, to begin,
some reconnoitering of the ground in a philosophical

way the judge always deemed indispensable with strangers.
For you must know that Indian-hating was no
monopoly of Colonel Moredock's; but a passion, in one
form or other, and to a degree, greater or less, largely
shared among the class to which he belonged. And
Indian-hating still exists; and, no doubt, will continue
to exist, so long as Indians do. Indian-hating, then,
shall be my first theme, and Colonel Moredock, the Indian-hater,
my next and last.”

With which the stranger, settling himself in his seat,
commenced—the hearer paying marked regard, slowly
smoking, his glance, meanwhile, steadfastly abstracted
towards the deck, but his right ear so disposed towards
the speaker that each word came through as little atmospheric
intervention as possible. To intensify the
sense of hearing, he seemed to sink the sense of sight.
No complaisance of mere speech could have been so
flattering, or expressed such striking politeness as this
mute eloquence of thoroughly digesting attention.