University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
The Woodman's Home.

On the evening of the second day they arrived at
the residence of the stranger, a few miles from the
banks of the Mohawk river. It was a little embryo
settlement just struggling forth in the midst of the
vast empire of nature, and composed of log cabins,
the first remove from the bark huts of the Indians.
“This is the capital of my kingdom,” said the
stranger; “it is a wide empire, not very populous;
but never mind, the time will come.” He welcomed
Sybrandt to his house—a large square edifice of hewn
pines, the interstices filled with mortar,—with that
frank, careless hospitality characteristic of every
thing he said and did, and presented him to his wife
and children; the former an Indian woman, the latter
an evident mixture of wild and tame, the perfect
images of nature in her finest proportions.

Sybrandt remained at the house of the stranger
some weeks ere he entirely recovered from the effects
of his wound; and after his recovery, in truth, he
was in no haste to go away. It was evident, too, that
the stranger did not wish to part with him. “It is
long,” said he, “since I have had a companion who
could talk with me on subjects connected with my
early habits and associations.”

Our hero could not refrain from expressing his
surprise at seeing a person of his education and accomplishments
thus voluntarily become an exile from

civilized society to mix with beings so different from
himself.

“Why, I don't know,” replied he, smiling; “I was
tired of the labour of doing nothing. In my own
country I was a gentleman, but a gentleman without
fortune; and such a one, you know, cannot stoop to
be active and useful except in certain professions.
I was physically incapacitated for any sedentary
profession, for there is about me an impatience of
being still, a sort of instinctive longing for exercise,
fresh air, and freedom of action, that make me a
fitter companion for wild beasts and wild men than
for lords and ladies. They might have made a soldier
of me; but my family was Jacobite, and neither
would we ask, nor the government grant me a commission.
I might have gone into a foreign service;
but the truth is, I had some qualms about one day or
other perhaps being obliged either to fight against my
own country, or desert the standard under which I had
voluntarily enlisted. It happened that an intimate
friend of mine was appointed governor of this province,
and the thought struck me that I should have
plenty of elbow-room in the new world, and plenty
of exercise for my ungovernable propensity to activity
in hunting deer, wrestling with bears, skirmishing
with the Indians, and other rural amusements.
I proposed to accompany him, and he accepted me
as a companion, under the character of his private
secretary. On our arrival in New-York he desired
me to sit down and write an account of our voyage
and safe arrival to the colonial secretary. Before I
had half finished there was an alarm in the house
that a bear had made his appearance in one of the
markets, or perhaps, as I believe was the fact, in the
only market in the city, which I suppose has grown

very much since. I threw down my pen, sallied
forth in the crowd, and after a smart skirmish with
Sir Bruin, actually killed him with my own hand.

“I was excessively proud of this exploit. `I suppose
you expect to be brevetted,' said his excellency,
smiling. Then shaking his head, he added, `I see
you won't do, my good friend. You are cut out for
a mighty hunter before the Lord, like honest Nimrod,
and not for a secretary. Have you an inclination
to go as resident minister among the Mohawks,
and become the bear-leader, or, in more classic
phrase, the Lycurgus of these wild Spartan warriors?'

“He then explained to me, that the government
had directed him to establish, if possible, an agency
somewhere on the banks of the Mohawk, for the
purpose of acquiring an influence over these warlike
tribes, for whose good graces the governors of Canada
and New-York had been for a long while contending.

“`What say you, my friend?' said he; `I think
you are the very man. You are about half Indian
already; and if you can only make them half white
men, you cannot but agree admirably!'

“The idea caught my fancy wonderfully; and I
accepted the offer without hesitation. You, who
have lived so near the confines of the dominion of
Nature, and mixed with her sons, need not be told
the particulars of my coming here, the privations and
dangers I encountered, and the obstacles I met and
overcame. We shall talk over these some other
day. I have already sat still here longer, I believe,
than I have done at one time these ten years. So
come, Westbrook, 'tis a fine day for a hunt; and
you are well enough to join in it.”

He then whistled his dogs, who came wagging
their tails, as much delighted as their master—furnished
Sybrandt with a gun, and his eldest son, a
boy about ten years old, with another, and after
making all necessary preparations, called his wife,
an agreeable-looking Indian woman, with a voice as
soft as a flute, and an eye like an antelope.

“Sakia! —She is an Algonquin,” said he to Sybrandt,
“and her name translated into English is
`love.'—Sakia, we shall return before night. See
that you have something good ready for us.” Sakia
went her way smiling and good-humoured as a
child.

“She is my wife—my good and lawful wife—and
the mother of all my children. I never had any
other, and I never wish to have. You look as if
you wanted to express your wonder that I have not
brought a civilized European lady to share my solitude.
But, in truth, what would such a one have
done here but fret away her soul into vapours, and
pine herself to death, and hang a dead weight upon
me and my purposes. Not one in a million of the
fine ladies I formerly associated with would have
consented to accompany me in the wilderness; and
if she had, 'tis a million to one she would have made
herself as wretched as she would have made me.
She could not hunt like me; and her lonely hours
would have been imbittered by perpetual ennui or
perpetual fears. Still less would an ignorant, vulgar
white woman have suited me as a companion.
The ignorance of the Indian is neither troublesome
nor offensive, like that of civilized life; nor is it accompanied
by that grossness of manner and clumsy
carriage, characteristic of hard labour. An Indian
woman is always graceful; and the sweetness of her

voice makes amends for all that is wanting in sentiment
and expression—or rather it is both sentiment
and expression combined. No, no, young man—if
you ever come to live in the woods, marry a wood-nymph.
You might as well bring a dancing-master
here as a fine lady. But come; we are wasting
time. Take care you don't mistake me for a wild
animal, when we get into the woods, and shoot me.
—Here, Will, do you go ahead, my boy; and if old
Snacks don't behave herself, take a whip to her.—
I give my boys the lead,” said he, addressing Sybrandt,
“whenever it can be done with safety. It
makes them brave and manly.”

Our party soon buried themselves in the pathless
woods, and continued onward till they struck the
banks of a little lake, whose waters were of crystal,
and in whose bosom the surrounding verdant banks
were reflected with a thousand new and nameless
beauties, just as the imagination heightens and adorns
the realities of nature.

“Let us sit down here awhile,” said the stranger.
“You seem tired. Or, if you like, you can stay
here and fish, while Will and I skirt round the lake
with our guns. I have brought fishing-tackle with
me.”

Sybrandt chose this alternative, being somewhat
tired; and the stranger and his boy departed with
the dogs, to make the tour of the lake, which seemed
some half a dozen miles in circumference. “Lay
your gun where you can reach it, in case a deer or
a bear comes by,” hallooed he from a distance, just
as they vanished in the woods.

Influenced by the scene before him, which threw
a charming quiet and repose over his whole soul,
Sybrandt, instead of engaging in the sport of fishing,

continued to contemplate the unadorned, unsullied
beauties of nature in this her wild, secluded paradise.
The crystal waters lay sleeping within the
green-fringed curtains of their waving banks, and
not a sound, an echo, or a motion disturbed the
deathlike quiet of the landscape. The world, as it
presented itself at that moment to his eye, was
composed of the sky above, the little lake and its
green border beneath; all beyond was shut out from
the view. The axe had never opened a vein in the
bodies or limbs of the primeval forest, that giant
progeny which exhibited the product of the first
energies of mother earth; nor had her bosom ever,
in this lonely region, been seared by the hand of
man. Life itself seemed extinct, except in the
beating of Sybrandt's pulses, and the myriads of
little fish that sported in the transparent waters,
and turned their silvery sides ever and anon to the
bright beams of the god of day. Sybrandt little
thought, at that moment, that a few years, a single
generation would scarcely pass away, before this
region of the dead, or rather of those who never
had an existence, would spring, as if by magic, into
life and animation; that its silence would pass
away before the babbling tongues of all ages, and
almost all countries; that languages and men would
congregate within these now melancholy woods, that
never met before in any spot of all the earth; and
that the Promethean touch of courage, enterprise,
activity, energy, and perseverance would here perform,
in almost less than no time, the far-famed ancient
miracle of animating the lifeless clod into
motion and intelligence.

So thought not Sybrandt. He thought of the
past and of the future, as they concerned himself

and his own affairs. They became concentrated
in his recollections and anticipations, his hopes and
his fears, his sufferings and his enjoyments. That
selfish loneliness which formed so large a portion
of his habits and his character here came over
him with renewed force, curdling and stagnating his
feelings and sympathies, except as they referred to
himself alone, and to his own exclusive objects and
pursuits. With these Catalina was so intimately
associated, that he never thought of himself without
thinking of her. There was more than usual mortification
and sadness connected with his present
associations; for solitude is ever the nurse of melancholy
musings, imaginary woes, and foreboding
apprehensions. In connexion with Catalina, he recollected
little from which he could derive any gratification,
or on which memory could exercise its
powers of exaggeration to any other purpose than
to increase and give energy to his bitter impressions.
On the contrary, every smile of ridicule, every real
or fancied indication of her indifference, dislike, or
contempt, arose one after another before him, like
malignant spectres, pointing their skinny fingers,
and grinning in supernatural scorn. His face became
flushed, his heart beat, and the drops of agony
started from every pore, as one by one he recurred
to the long item of imaginary neglects or insults he
had endured, and again voluntarily inflicted upon
himself the real mortifications they occasioned.

As he sat thus, as it were, eating of his own soul,
and banqueting on the bitter bread of wounded
pride and sensibility, his fishing materials remained
unnoticed at his side, and he neither heard the loud
music of the hounds, nor the report of the stranger's
gun, from time to time echoing through the woods.

His reveries were at length interrupted by the voice
of the stranger, sounding cheerfully in his ear, and
awakening him to a perception of reality. He came
laden with a variety of game, and exclaimed, as he
advanced,—

“Come, let us away home. I have plenty of
game, and you, I dare say, plenty of fish. We shall
have a glorious dinner, and glorious appetites. Let
us see what you have caught.”

“Nothing,” said Sybrandt, colouring a little.

“Nothing! O, thou idle or unskilful piscator,
what hast thou been doing?”

“Thinking,” said the youth, with a sigh.

“Thinking! what has a man to do with thought
among the Indians and wild beasts? Action, boy,
action is the word here in my empire of shade.
Were I to spend my time in thinking, I and my
little ones would starve. I have half a mind to
give you no dinner to-day.”

“I have thought away my appetite already,” said
the other, somewhat sadly. The stranger eyed him
with a glance of keen inquiry.

“Young man,” said he, seriously, “you are a
scholar; I have found out that already. But your
education, I doubt, is not quite finished. I shall put
you through an entire new course, and make a man
of you, as well as a scholar. In a few weeks
there will be a meeting of the Mohawks at my
court. Until then you will have no opportunity to
dispose of your merchandise to advantage; and I
know well that an unsuccessful Indian trader can
never rise among the frontier men, because he is
supposed to want both courage, conduct, and perseverance.
You must therefore stay with me till
after my grand council, and I shall have time to turn

over a new leaf with you. You want action, and
you shall have it. What say you?”

“My friends will be uneasy at my long absence.”

“O, if that is all, I am to send a messenger to
Albany in a few days, and he will carry a letter for
you. So that objection is got over.”

Nobody cares about seeing me, thought Sybrandt.

“What say you; is it a bargain?” said the
stranger.

“It is,” said the other; and the matter was decided.
“And now for home. O how gloriously
hungry I am!” and they hied them towards home
with long and hasty strides.

The day was far spent when they arrived at the
door of the stranger, and found every thing prepared
for them as he had directed. His Indian wife received
him with a smile of gladness, and the children
flocked round to welcome him, and admire his game.
There was little appearance of sentiment, but much
good-humoured frankness in the meeting.

“Will you have a book to occupy the evening,”
said the stranger, when the night had set in. “I
have books, but in truth I seldom read them now.
They make one lazy and unfit for action. But I
have no objection to your reading.”

“I had rather hear you talk,” said Sybrandt.
Looking round and perceiving the Indian wife was
absent on her domestic duties, he added, “May I
inquire if you don't find your time hang heavy on
your hands sometimes, for want of the society you
have been accustomed to?”

“Why, no,” replied the other; “I cannot say I do.
I am never idle in body or mind. Both as a matter
of necessity as well as amusement, I hunt almost
every day, which gives me appetite, occupation, and

rest when I lie down at night. Besides this,” added
he, smiling, “I exercise dominion over men; I influence
at least, if not direct, the affairs of an invisible
people, as it were, hid in these woods; and this gives
sufficient occupation to my mind. There is no study
more interesting than man, and of all mankind the
savage affords to me a subject of the greatest novelty
and interest. It is curious to see how different, yet
how much alike are the civilized and savage races
of men. One is a bear-skin in its rough natural
state, the other the same skin decked on the edges
with red cloth and porcupine quills. The animal
it covered is still nothing but a bear.”

“You are no admirer of the animal, it seems, in
either of its forms,” replied Sybrandt.

“You are mistaken; I think him a decent sort
of animal enough, and have no quarrel with my fellow-creatures,
though I came hither to live in the
woods that I might enjoy perpetual exercise without
actual hard work, and perpetual excitement without
ruining myself at the gaming-table, or ruining others
for the purpose of keeping myself awake all day.”

“Yet I should suppose you would sometimes feel
lost for want of the ordinary intercourse of social
life—the interchange of thought—nay, the conflict
of opinions and interests, which keeps the world
going on its axis round and round for ever and ever.”

“I am not always alone; the Indians sometimes
visit me; but to be sure they are no great talkers,
except when they make a set speech, when, I assure
you, they cut a most respectable figure as orators.
But there is never any want of conflicting opinions
and interests when the Indian and the white man
come in contact. I fear they will never agree. I
sometimes almost despair of being able to consummate

the plan which has gradually opened itself to
my mind during my residence here, and is now become
the leading object of my life.”

“May I ask what it is?” said Sybrandt.

“To bring the Indians into the circle of civilized life.
I cannot but see that if they remain as they are, a distinct,
discordant ingredient in that great frame of
social life which is now spreading itself in every
direction, and will one day, I believe, comprehend the
whole of this vast continent, they must perish. Nothing
can save them but conforming to the laws, and
customs, and occupations of the whites. I have endeavoured
to prepare them gradually for this, and for that
purpose have endeavoured to gain their confidence,
and establish an influence over them. I have succeeded
to admiration, and beyond all other white men,
with the exception, perhaps, of some of the Catholic
missionaries. Yet the truth forces itself on me
every moment of my life, and I cannot shut my eyes
to it—this influence is founded not on my superiority
in the qualifications of a civilized man, but on my
capacity to excel even the Indians in war, in hunting,
in fatigue, privations, and endurance of every kind.
This is the secret of my power. In proportion as I
become a savage the savages respect me—no more.”

The stranger then proceeded to relate a variety
of anecdotes illustrative of Indian habits and modes
of thinking, all calculated to establish this opinion,
and indicating that instinctive insurmountable wildness
of character which rendered and yet renders
the labour of winning this race into the fold of civilization,
so dear to humanity, an almost hopeless task,
which even the ardour of faith and the zeal of philanthropy
is sometimes tempted to abandon.