University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
A civilized Savage.

Hans Pipe, as he was called by the country
people around, was an Indian of the Algonquin
nation, which had been almost exterminated by the
Mohawks in a war that happened many years before
the period at which we are now arrived. A large
portion of their warriors was cut off, and the remnant
of the nation obliged to emigrate into Canada,
where they were received and protected by the
governor-general. Hans, whose Indian name was
Minikoue, or I drink, justified this appellation, for
he even exceeded his fellows in the Indian devotion
to fire-water. He had been taken prisoner by the
Mohawks, and rescued from torture by the influence
of Colonel Vancour, who endeavoured to teach him
the habits and manners of civilized life, and to attach
him to his family by kindness and protection.
But the usual melancholy consequences resulted
from these kind and benevolent intentions. The
Indian, in proportion as he lost the habits of the
savage, acquired the vices of the civilized man,
sharpened to a keener edge by the wild vigour of
barbarism and the early absence of the habit of
self-restraint. His natural cunning was quickened
by the acquirement of some of the practices of the
white man; and his natural passions, such as cruelty,
revenge, and the love of drinking, strengthened,

—the first two by an infinite series of mortifications,
insults, perhaps injuries, received from the white
people among whom he sojourned, the latter by
facility in the means of gratification.

There are certain plants, and fruits, and flowers
that grow wild in the forest, which improve by being
transplanted to the garden and cultivated with care;
there are others that shoot forth in the rank and
worthless luxuriance of weeds; and there are others
that perish under the fostering hand of the most skilful
gardener. There are birds and quadrupeds that may
be tamed, and others which retain rank traces of their
native wildness to the last. So does it seem to be
with the race of man. As the Indian orator once
said to President Monroe, “The white man is born
for the sunshine, the red man for the shade.” The
white man, the black man, and the man of every
colour but the red, may be tamed, and improve by
taming. He alone seems, indeed, born for the
woods; it is there the virtues he possesses can alone
be exercised to the benefit of himself and his tribe.
Place him in the sunshine, in the haunts of social
and civilized life,—and sad is the experience, and
woful the truth—he becomes, ninety-nine times in a
hundred, the worst, the most mischievous of mongrels;
a compound of the ferocity of the savage,
and the cunning, deceit, and sensuality of the civilized
scoundrel.

So it happened with Hans Pipe. He became a
drunkard and a vagabond; and was finally turned
away from Colonel Vancour's house, for having drawn
his knife upon one of the black children, who refused
to bring him another mug of cider. He was too lazy
to work except at trifling jobs, for which he asked
nothing but liquor, and to which nothing but liquor

could incite him. His days were spent in drunkenness
and beastly exhibitions of savage indecencies,
and his nights consumed in prowling about thieving,
or in barns or outhouses, sleeping away the effects
of his daily debauch. Sometimes, but very rarely,
he would come to the mansion-house, where he was
sober, and beg for food or clothing, which was never
refused him. Perhaps a more worthless, dangerous
and revengeful being never crawled upon the earth,
than this wretched outcast of the savage and civilized
world. His appearance was horrible and appalling.
His long, lank, raven hair hung about his
shoulders, and almost covered his low forehead;
his high cheek-bones, flattened nose, wide nostrils,
and still wider mouth, together with his miserable
garments and dirty habits, made the heart shudder
to look upon him. But it was his eye—his bitter,
malignant, bloodshot eye, circled with the flaming
ring of habitual intemperance, within which rolled
the ball of fire, that gave the most unequivocal indications
of the fiend which kept the citadel of his heart.
It discoursed of murder, open or secret, at midnight
or midday; of a vengeance which a moment might
light up, and years would not extinguish; of secret
plots and open daring.

It happened that there was no man about the
house, or within call, when Hans Pipe came into the
kitchen brutally intoxicated, and, as usual in that
situation, insolent and ungovernable. Colonel Vancour
had rode out after dinner on a visit of business;
the labourers had not yet returned from the fields,
and Ariel had sallied forth to expatiate on the delights
of the roasted pig to his neighbour Mynheer
Frelinghuysen. Sybrandt found the miserable, degraded
being brandishing his club, and vociferating

for more liquor with all his might. He was enraged
into that sort of half-wilful madness which drunkenness
often produces, and which is not so much the
absence of reason, as of a disposition to obey its
dictates. The little black boys were cowering in
corners, afraid to run away, and even the redoubtable
Aunt Nauntje shrunk from asserting her authority
in her own peculiar dominion.

Sybrandt at first tried to soothe Captain Pipe, as
he called himself, into something like good-humour,
in hopes he would go away peaceably. But the
captain had lost all control of himself, or did not
choose to exert it, and answered our hero with brutal
threats against the whole household unless his
wishes were complied with. As the discussion went
on he became so indecently abusive, that Madam
Vancour and Catalina, whose apprehensions had
called them to the spot, were glad to retire out of
hearing. Sybrandt became angry, and at length,
finding the captain proceeding to force open a cupboard
where he expected to find liquor, he seized
him by the shoulders and jerked him back with such
force as to send him reeling to the other extremity
of the kitchen. The fury of the madman redoubled.
He seemed all at once to become steady, and advancing
quickly towards Sybrandt, who had no weapon
in his hand, he dealt him a blow with his heavy
walking-stick, which, had it taken full effect, would
have disabled him effectually. Fortunately, Sybrandt,
though taken by surprise, preserved his head
by a quick motion on one side; but it fell on his left
shoulder with a force that made him reel. The
little black boys cried out with all their force; old
Nauntje sallied forth as fast as her limbs could carry
her, to call for help, and Catalina, uttering a piercing

shriek, flew into the house for the colonel's sword,
with which she returned in a minute.

But the contest was over before she arrived. Captain
Pipe, perceiving his antagonist partly disabled
by the blow he had given, and having become infuriated
with rage, was now a perfect savage, reckless
of every thing but vengeance, and panting for blood.
He drew the long knife which he always wore about
him since he was cast off by the colonel, and flourishing
it in the air with a shrill demoniac shout, he
made a mortal lunge at the heart of our hero, whose
only defence was his eye and his right arm, the
former of which he kept keenly and steadily fixed
on the motions of the captain. The blow was well
aimed, but the activity and coolness of Sybrandt
enabled him to avert it by darting on one side. The
knife passed through his clothes just under the left
arm, and at the instant the young man closed with
the savage, holding him so tightly that he could not
readily extricate his weapon. A momentary yet
desperate struggle ensued, which ended in Sybrandt's
tripping up the heels of his adversary, and at the
same moment throwing him backwards with such
force that he fell upon one of the great andirons in
the chimney, and lay senseless. The knife remained
clenched in his hand; but his eyes were
closed, and the blood flowed in torrents from the
back of his head.

At this moment Catalina returned with the sword,
which she conjured Sybrandt to accept. “The
wretch is not dead,” said she; “I see the motion of
his breathing. He is only practising one of his
savage arts upon you. Dear Sybrandt, take the
sword; and—and—do not kill him, but stand on
your defence.” The youth long remembered the

“dear Sybrandt,” and so did the Indian, who, as
Catalina had shrewdly suspected, was only playing
the opossum, as the phrase is in rare old Virginia;
that is, only making believe he was insensible. He
intended to watch his opportunity, the moment he
recovered a little, to jump up and accomplish the
destruction of his victim. But the gift of the sword
and the caution of Catalina defeated his intention,
and engendered in his malignant heart a feeling of
intense and bitter vengeance, that afterward more
than once put the life of that young lady in imminent
peril.

The adventure ended in the arrival of some of the
neighbours, whom the cries of Aunt Nauntje had
brought to her aid, and the depositing of Captain
Pipe in prison, where he expiated his violence by a
confinement of several months. Here he had full
leisure to brood over his revenge, and lay his plans
for its gratification. When the period of his imprisonment
expired, he adopted an entire new mode
of life. He became perfectly temperate, docile,
and industrious. By degrees he gained the pity
and good-will of the neighbourhood, got plenty of
work, and saved every penny of his wages. Colonel
Vancour and his family pitied, forgave, and encouraged
him, not only by employment, but by
various little presents of money and clothes. Among
the rest Catalina, although she always shuddered
at his approach, presented him with a Bible, which
he was constantly found poring over in his hours of
leisure; for he had been taught to read while under
the patronage of Colonel Vancour. He constantly
attended church, and became a communicant, to the
great delight of many pious, well-meaning people,
who viewed him as a brand rescued from the fire.

But old Tjerck, who had once been a prisoner in
his youth among the Indians, shook his wise gray
head, and often said, “He no good Christian—not
he. I see de debbil Indian in he eye yet. When
Indian most good, den he going to be most worst.
I know him; he like de panter—he most quiet
when he jist going to jump.” But a white prophet
has little honour in his own country, much less a
black one.