“Ask me not what the maiden feels,
Left in that dreadful hour alone:
Perchance, her reason stoops, or reel!
Perchance, a courage not her own
Braces her mind to desperate tone.”
--Scott.
While the chase was occurring on the lake, Miss Temple and her companion
pursued their walk on the mountain. Male attendants on such excursions
were thought to be altogether unnecessary, for none were even known to
offer insult to a female who respected herself. After the embarrassment
created by the parting discourse with Edwards had dissipated, the
girls maintained a conversation that was as innocent and cheerful as
themselves.
The path they took led them but a short distance above the hut of
Leather-Stocking, and there was a point in the road which commanded a
bird's-eye view of the sequestered spot.
From a feeling that might have been, natural, and must have been
powerful, neither of the friends, in their frequent and confidential
dialogues, had ever trusted herself to utter one syllable concerning
the equivocal situation in which the young man who was now so intimately
associated with them had been found. If judge Temple had deemed it
prudent to make any inquiries on the subject, he had also thought it
proper to keep the answers to him self; though it was so common an
occurrence to find the well-educated youth of the Eastern States in
every stage of their career to wealth, that the simple circumstance of
his intelligence, connected with his poverty, would not, at that day
and in that country, have excited any very powerful curiosity. With his
breeding, it might have been different; but the youth himself had so
effectually guarded against surprise on this subject, by his cold and
even, in some cases, rude deportment, that when his manners seemed to
soften by time, the Judge, if he thought about it at all, would have
been most likely to imagine that the improvement was the result of his
late association. But women are always more alive to such subjects
than men; and what the abstraction of the father had overlooked, the
observation of the daughter had easily detected. In the thousand little
courtesies of polished life she had early discovered that Edwards was
not wanting, though his gentleness was so often crossed by marks of what
she conceived to be fierce and uncontrollable passions. It may, perhaps,
be unnecessary to tell the reader that Louisa Grant never reasoned so
much after the fashions of the world. The gentle girl, however, had
her own thoughts on the subject, and, like others, she drew her own
conclusions.
“I would give all my other secrets, Louisa,” exclaimed Miss Temple,
laughing, and shaking back her dark locks, with a look of childish
simplicity that her intelligent face seldom expressed, “to be mistress
of all that those rude logs have heard and witnessed.”
They were both looking at the secluded hut at the instant, and Miss
Grant raised her mild eyes as she answered:
“I am sure they would tell nothing to the disadvantage of Mr. Edwards.”
“Perhaps not; but they might, at least, tell who he is.”
“Why, dear Miss Temple, we know all that already. I have heard it all
very rationally explained by your cousin--”
“The executive chief! he can explain anything. His ingenuity will one
day discover the philosopher's stone. But what did he say?”
“Say!” echoed Louisa, with a look of surprise; “why, everything that
seemed to me to be satisfactory, and I now believed it to be true. He
said that Natty Bumppo had lived most of his life in the woods and among
the Indians, by which means he had formed an acquaintance with old John,
the Delaware chief.”
“Indeed! that was quite a matter-of-fact tale for Cousin Dickon. What
came next?”
“I believe he accounted for their close intimacy by some story about the
Leather-Stocking saving the life of John in a battle.”
“Nothing more likely,” said Elizabeth, a little impatiently; “but what
is all this to the purpose?”
“Nay, Elizabeth, you must bear with my ignorance, and I will repeat all
that I remember to have overheard for the dialogue was between my father
and the sheriff, so lately as the last time they met, He then added
that the kings of England used to keep gentlemen as agents among the
different tribes of Indians, and sometimes officers in the army, who
frequently passed half their lives on the edge of the wilderness.”
“Told with wonderful historical accuracy! And did he end there?”
“Oh! no--then he said that these agents seldom married; and--and--they
must have been wicked men, Elizabeth! but I assure you he said so.”
“Never mind,” said Miss Temple, blushing and smiling, though so slightly
that both were unheeded by her companion; “skip all that.”
“Well, then, he said that they often took great pride in the education
of their children, whom they frequently sent to England, and even to the
colleges; and this is the way that he accounts for the liberal manner
in which Mr. Edwards has been taught; for he acknowledges that he knows
almost as much as your father--or mine--or even himself.”
“Quite a climax in learning'. And so he made Mohegan the granduncle or
grandfather of Oliver Edwards.”
“You have heard him yourself, then?” said Louisa.
“Often; but not on this subject. Mr. Richard Jones, you know, dear, has
a theory for everything; but has he one which will explain the reason
why that hut is the only habitation within fifty miles of us whose door
is not open to every person who may choose to lift its latch?”
“I have never heard him say anything on this subject,” returned the
clergyman's daughter; “but I suppose that, as they are poor, they very
naturally are anxious to keep the little that they honestly own. It is
sometimes dangerous to be rich, Miss Temple; but you cannot know how
hard it is to be very, very poor.”
“Nor you, I trust, Louisa; at least I should hope that, in this land
of abundance, no minister of the church could be left in absolute
suffering.”
“There cannot be actual misery,” returned the other, in a low and humble
tone, “where there is a dependence on our Maker; but there may be such
suffering as will cause the heart to ache.”
“But not you--not you,” said the impetuous Elizabeth--“not you, dear
girl, you have never known the misery that is connected with poverty.”
“Ah! Miss Temple, you little understand the troubles of this life,
I believe. My father has spent many years as a missionary in the new
countries, where his people were poor, and frequently we have been
without bread; unable to buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not
disgrace his sacred calling. But how often have I seen him leave his
home, where the sick and the hungry felt, when he left them, that they
had lost their only earthly friend, to ride on a duty which could not
be neglected for domes tic evils! Oh! how hard it must be to preach
consolation to others when your own heart is bursting with anguish!”
“But it is all over now! your father's income must now be equal to his
wants--it must be--it shall be--”
“It is,” replied Louisa, dropping her head on her bosom to conceal the
tears which flowed in spite of her gentle Christianity--“for there are
none left to be supplied but me.”
The turn the conversation had taken drove from the minds of the young
maidens all other thoughts but those of holy charity; and Elizabeth
folded her friend in her arms, when the latter gave vent to her
momentary grief in audible sobs. When this burst of emotion had
subsided, Louisa raised her mild countenance, and they continued their
walk in silence.
By this time they had gained the summit of the mountain, where they left
the highway, and pursued their course under the shade of the stately
trees that crowned the eminence. The day was becoming warm, and
the girls plunged more deeply into the forest, as they found its
invigorating coolness agreeably contrasted to the excessive heat
they had experienced in the ascent. The conversation, as if by mutual
consent, was entirely changed to the little incidents and scenes of
their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub or flower, called forth
some simple expression of admiration.
In this manner they proceeded along the margin of the precipice,
catching occasional glimpses of the placid Otsego, or pausing to listen
to the rattling of wheels and the sounds of hammers that rose from
the valley, to mingle the signs of men with the scenes of nature, when
Elizabeth suddenly started, and exclaimed:
“Listen! there are the cries of a child on this mountain! Is there a
clearing near us, or can some little one have strayed from its parents?”
“Such things frequently happen,” returned Louisa. “Let us follow the
sounds; it may be a wanderer starving on the hill.”
Urged by this consideration, the females pursued the low, mournful
sounds, that proceeded from the forest, with quick and impatient steps.
More than once, the ardent Elizabeth was on the point of announcing that
she saw the sufferer, when Louisa caught her by the arm, and pointing
behind them, cried:
“Look at the dog!”
Brave had been their companion, from the time the voice of his young
mistress lured him from his kennel, to the present moment. His
advanced age had long before deprived him of his activity; and when his
companions stopped to view the scenery, or to add to their bouquets,
the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the ground and await their
movements, with his eyes closed, and a listlessness in his air that ill
accorded with the character of a protector. But when, aroused by this
cry from Louisa, Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog with his eyes
keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near the ground, and
his hair actually rising on his body, through fright or anger. It
was most probably the latter, for he was growling in a low key, and
occasionally showing his teeth, in a manner that would have terrified
his mistress, had she not so well known his good qualities.
“Brave!” she said, “be quiet, Brave! What do you see, fellow?”
At the sounds of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being at
all diminished, was very sensibly increased. He stalked in front of the
ladies, and seated himself at the feet of his mistress, growling louder
than before, and occasionally giving vent to his ire by a short, surly
barking.
“What does he see?” said Elizabeth; “there must be some animal in
sight.”
Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temple turned her head and
beheld Louisa, standing with her face whitened to the color of death,
and her finger pointing upward with a sort of flickering, convulsed
motion. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated by
her friend, where she saw the fierce front and glaring eyes of a female
panther, fixed on them in horrid malignity, and threatening to leap.
“Let us fly,” exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louisa, whose
form yielded like melting snow.
There was not a single feeling in the temperament of Elizabeth Temple
that could prompt her to desert a companion in such an extremity. She
fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louisa, tearing from
the person of her friend, with instinctive readiness, such parts of
her dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging their only
safeguard, the dog, at the same time, by the sounds of her voice.
“Courage, Brave!” she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble,
“courage, courage, good Brave!”
A quarter-grown cub, that had hitherto been unseen, now appeared,
dropping from the branches of a sapling that grew under the shade of the
beech which held its dam. This ignorant but vicious creature approached
the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its parent, but exhibiting
a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with the ferocity of
its race. Standing on its hind-legs, it would rend the bark of a tree
with its fore-paws, and play the antics of a cat; and then, by lashing
itself with its tail, growling, and scratching the earth, it would at
tempt the manifestations of anger that rendered its parent so terrific.
All this time Brave stood firm and undaunted, his short tail erect,
his body drawn backward on its haunches, and his eyes following the
movements of both dam and cub. At every gambol played by the latter, it
approached nigher to the dog, the growling of the three becoming
more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, over-leaping its
intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment of
fearful cries and struggles, but they ended almost as soon as commenced,
by the cub appearing in the air, hurled from the jaws of Brave, with
a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to render it
completely senseless. Elizabeth witnessed the short struggle, and her
blood was warming with the triumph of the dog, when she saw the form of
the old panther in the air, springing twenty feet from the branch of the
beech to the back of the mastiff. No words of ours can describe the fury
of the conflict that followed. It was a confused struggle on the dry
leaves, accompanied by loud and terrific cries. Miss Temple continued
on her knees, bending over the form of Louisa, her eyes fixed on the
animals with an interest so horrid, and yet so intense, that she almost
forgot her own stake in the result. So rapid and vigorous were the
bounds of the inhabitant of the forest, that its active frame seemed
constantly in the air, while the dog nobly faced his foe at each
successive leap. When the panther lighted on the shoulders of the
mastiff, which was its constant aim, old Brave, though torn with her
talons, and stained with his own blood, that already flowed from a dozen
wounds, would shake off his furious foe like a feather, and, rearing
on his hind-legs, rush to the fray again, with jaws distended, and a
dauntless eye. But age, and his pampered life, greatly disqualified the
noble mastiff for such a struggle. In everything but courage, he was
only the vestige of what he had once been. A higher bound than ever
raised the wary and furious beast far beyond the reach of the dog,
who was making a desperate but fruitless dash at her, from which she
alighted in a favorable position, on the back of her aged foe. For a
single moment only could the panther remain there, the great strength of
the dog returning with a convulsive effort. But Elizabeth saw, as Brave
fastened his teeth in the side of his enemy, that the collar of brass
around his neck, which had been glittering throughout the fray, was
of the color of blood, and directly that his frame was sinking to the
earth, where it soon lay prostrate and helpless. Several mighty efforts
of the wild-cat to extricate herself from the jaws of the dog followed,
but they were fruitless, until the mastiff turned on his back, his
lips collapsed, and his teeth loosened, when the short convulsions and
stillness that succeeded announced the death of poor Brave.
Elizabeth now lay wholly at the mercy of the beast. There is said to be
something in the front of the image of the Maker that daunts the hearts
of the inferior beings of his creation; and it would seem that some such
power, in the present instance, suspended the threatened blow. The eyes
of the monster and the kneeling maiden met for an instant, when the
former stooped to examine her fallen foe; next, to scent her luckless
cub. From the latter examination it turned, however, with its eyes
apparently emitting flashes of fire, its tail lashing its sides
furiously, and its claws projecting inches from her broad feet.
Miss Temple did not or could not move. Her hands were clasped in the
attitude of prayer, but her eyes were still drawn to her terrible
enemy--her cheeks were blanched to the whiteness of marble, and her lips
were slightly separated with horror.
The moment seemed now to have arrived for the fatal termination, and the
beautiful figure of Elizabeth was bowing meekly to the stroke, when a
rustling of leaves behind seemed rather to mock the organs than to meet
her ears.
“Hist! hist!” said a low voice, “stoop lower, gal; your bonnet hides the
creatur's head.”
It was rather the yielding of nature than a compliance with this
unexpected order, that caused the head of our heroine to sink on her
bosom; when she heard the report of the rifle, the whizzing of the
bullet, and the enraged cries of the beast, who was rolling over on the
earth, biting its own flesh, and tearing the twigs and branches within
its reach. At the next instant the form of the Leather-Stocking rushed
by her, and he called aloud:
“Come in, Hector! come in, old fool; 'tis a hard-lived animal, and may
jump agin.”
Natty fearlessly maintained his position in front of the females,
notwithstanding the violent bounds and threatening aspect of the wounded
panther, which gave several indications of returning strength and
ferocity, until his rifle was again loaded, when he stepped up to the
enraged animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head, every spark
of life was extinguished by the discharge.
The death of her terrible enemy appeared to Elizabeth like a
resurrection from her own grave. There was an elasticity in the mind of
our heroine that rose to meet the pressure of instant danger, and the
more direct it had been, the more her nature had struggled to overcome
them. But still she was a woman. Had she been left to herself in her
late extremity, she would probably have used her faculties to the
utmost, and with discretion, in protecting her person; but, encumbered
with her inanimate friend, retreat was a thing not to be attempted.
Notwithstanding the fearful aspect of her foe, the eye of Elizabeth had
never shrunk from its gaze, and long after the event her thoughts would
recur to her passing sensations, and the sweetness of her midnight sleep
would be disturbed, as her active fancy conjured, in dreams, the most
trifling movements of savage fury that the beast had exhibited in its
moment of power.
We shall leave the reader to imagine the restoration of Louisa's senses,
and the expressions of gratitude which fell from the young women. The
former was effected by a little water, that was brought from one of the
thousand springs of those mountains, in the cap of the Leather-Stocking;
and the latter were uttered with the warmth that might be expected from
the character of Elizabeth. Natty received her vehement protestations of
gratitude with a simple expression of good-will, and with indulgence for
her present excitement, but with a carelessness that showed how little
he thought of the service he had rendered.
“Well, well,” he said, “be it so, gal; let it be so, if you wish
it--we'll talk the thing over another time. Come, come--let us get into
the road, for you've had terror enough to make you wish yourself in your
father's house agin.”
This was uttered as they were proceeding, at a pace that was adapted to
the weakness of Louisa, toward the highway; on reaching which the ladies
separated from their guide, declaring themselves equal to the remainder
of the walk without his assistance, and feeling encouraged by the sight
of the village which lay beneath their feet like a picture, with its
limpid lake in front, the winding stream along its margin, and its
hundred chimneys of whitened bricks.
The reader need not be told the nature of the emotions which two
youthful, ingenuous, and well-educated girls would experience at their
escape from a death so horrid as the one which had impended over them,
while they pursued their way in silence along the track on the side of
the mountain; nor how deep were their mental thanks to that Power which
had given them their existence, and which had not deserted them in
their extremity; neither how often they pressed each other's arms as
the assurance of their present safety came, like a healing balm, athwart
their troubled spirits, when their thoughts were recurring to the recent
moments of horror.
Leather-Stocking remained on the hill, gazing after their retiring
figures, until they were hidden by a bend in the road, when he whistled
in his dogs, and shouldering his rifle, he returned into the forest.
“Well, it was a skeary thing to the young creatur's,” said Natty, while
he retrod the path toward the plain. “It might frighten an older woman,
to see a she-painter so near her, with a dead cub by its side. I wonder
if I had aimed at the varmint's eye, if I shouldn't have touched the
life sooner than in the forehead; but they are hard-lived animals, and
it was a good shot, consid'ring that I could see nothing but the head
and the peak of its tail. Hah! who goes there?”
“How goes it, Natty?” said Mr. Doolittle, stepping out of the bushes,
with a motion that was a good deal accelerated by the sight of the
rifle, that was already lowered in his direction. “What! shooting this
warm day! Mind, old man, the law don't get hold on you.”
“The law, squire! I have shook hands with the law these forty year,”
returned Natty; “for what has a man who lives in the wilderness to do
with the ways of the law?”
“Not much, maybe,” said Hiram; “but you sometimes trade in venison. I
s'pose you know, Leather-Stocking, that there is an act passed to lay
a fine of five pounds currency, or twelve dollars and fifty cents, by
decimals, on every man who kills a deer betwixt January and August. The
Judge had a great hand in getting the law through.”
“I can believe it,” returned the old hunter; “I can believe that or
anything of a man who carries on as he does in the country.”
“Yes, the law is quite positive, and the Judge is bent on putting it
in force--five pounds penalty. I thought I heard your hounds out on the
scent of so'thing this morning; I didn't know but they might get you in
difficulty.”
“They know their manners too well,” said Natty carelessly. “And how much
goes to the State's evidence, squire?”
“How much?” repeated Hiram, quailing under the honest but sharp look
of the hunter; “the informer gets half, I--I believe--yes, I guess it's
half. But there's blood on your sleeve, man--you haven't been shooting
anything this morning?”
“I have, though,” said the hunter, nodding his head significantly to the
other, “and a good shot I made of it.”
“H-e-m!” ejaculated the magistrate; “and where is the game? I s'pose it's
of a good natur', for your dogs won't hunt anything that isn't choice.”
“They'll hunt anything I tell them to, squire,” cried Natty, favoring
the other with his laugh. “They'll hunt you, if I say so. He-e-e-re,
he-e-e-re, Hector--he-e-e-re, slut--come this a-way, pups--come this
a-way---come hither.”
“Oh! I have always heard a good character of the dogs,” returned Mr.
Doolittle, quickening his pace by raising each leg in rapid succession,
as the hounds scented around his person. “And where is the game,
Leather-Stocking?”
During this dialogue, the speakers had been walking at a very fast gait,
and Natty swung the end of his rifle round, pointing through the bushes,
and replied: “There lies one. How do you like such meat?”
“This!” exclaimed Hiram; “why, this is Judge Temple's dog Brave. Take
care, Leather-Stocking, and don't make an enemy of the Judge. I hope you
haven't harmed the animal?”
“Look for yourself, Mr. Doolittle,” said Natty, drawing his knife from
his girdle, and wiping it in a knowing manner, once or twice across his
garment of buckskin; “does his throat look as if I had cut it with this
knife?”
“It is dreadfully torn! it's an awful wound--no knife ever did this
deed. Who could have done it?”
“The painters behind you, squire.”
“Painters!” echoed Hiram, whirling on his heel with an agility that
would have done credit to a dancing' master.
“Be easy, man,” said Natty; “there's two of the venomous things; but the
dog finished one, and I have fastened the other's jaws for her; so don't
be frightened, squire; they won't hurt you.”
“And where's the deer?” cried Hiram, staring about him with a bewildered
air.
“Anan? deer!” repeated Natty. “Sartain; an't there venison here, or
didn't you kill a buck?”
“What! when the law forbids the thing, squire!” said the old hunter, “I
hope there's no law agin' killing the painters.”
“No! there's a bounty on the scalps--but--will your dogs hunt painters,
Natty?”
“Anything; didn't I tell you they would hunt a man? He-e-re, he-e-re,
pups--”
“Yes, yes, I remember. Well, they are strange dogs, I must say--I am
quite in a wonderment.”
Natty had seated himself on the ground, and having laid the grim head
of his late ferocious enemy in his lap, was drawing his knife with a
practiced hand around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast
in such a manner as to preserve their connection, when he answered;
“What at, squire? did you never see a painter's scalp afore? Come, you
are a magistrate, I wish you'd make me out an order for the bounty.”
“The bounty!” repeated Hiram, holding the ears on the end of his finger
for a moment, as if uncertain how to proceed. “Well, let us go down to
your hut, where you can take the oath, and I will write out the order, I
suppose you have a Bible? All the law wants is the four evangelists and
the Lord's prayer.”
“I keep no books,” said Natty, a little coldly; “not such a Bible as the
law needs.”
“Oh! there's but one sort of Bible that's good in law,” returned
the magistrate, “and your'n will do as well as another's. Come, the
carcasses are worth nothing, man; let us go down and take the oath.”
“Softly, softly, squire,” said the hunter, lifting his trophies very
deliberately from the ground, and shouldering his rifle; “why do you
want an oath at all, for a thing that your own eyes has seen? Won't you
believe yourself, that another man must swear to a fact that you know
to be true? You have seen me scalp the creatur's, and if I must swear to
it, it shall be before Judge Temple, who needs an oath.”
“But we have no pen or paper here, Leather-Stocking; we must go to the
hut for them, or how can I write the order?”
Natty turned his simple features on the cunning magistrate with another
of his laughs, as he said:
“And what should I be doing with scholars' tools? I want no pens or
paper, not knowing the use of either; and I keep none. No, no, I'll
bring the scalps into the village, squire, and you can make out the
order on one of your law-books, and it will be all the better for it.
The deuce take this leather on the neck of the dog, it will strangle the
old fool. Can you lend me a knife, squire?”
Hiram, who seemed particularly anxious to be on good terms with his
companion, unhesitatingly complied. Natty cut the thong from the neck
of the hound, and, as he returned the knife to its owner, carelessly
remarked:
“'Tis a good bit of steel, and has cut such leather as this very same,
before now, I dare say.”
“Do you mean to charge me with letting your hounds loose?” exclaimed
Hiram, with a consciousness that disarmed his caution.
“Loose!” repeated the hunter--“I let them loose myself. I always let
them loose before I leave the hut.”
The ungovernable amazement with which Mr. Doolittle listened to this
falsehood would have betrayed his agency in the liberation of the
dogs, had Natty wanted any further confirmation; and the coolness and
management of the old man now disappeared in open indignation.
“Look you here, Mr. Doolittle,” he said, striking the breech of his
rifle violently on the ground; “what there is in the wigwam of a poor
man like me, that one like you can crave, I don't know; but this I tell
you to your face, that you never shall put foot under the roof of my
cabin with my consent, and that, if you harbor round the spot as you
have done lately, you may meet with treatment that you will little
relish.”
“And let me tell you, Mr. Bumppo,” said Hiram, retreating, however,
with a quick step, “that I know you've broke the law, and that I'm a
magistrate, and will make you feel it too, before you are a day older.”
“That for you and your law, too,” cried Natty, snap ping his fingers at
the justice of the peace; “away with you, you varmint, before the devil
tempts me to give you your desarts. Take care, if I ever catch your
prowling face in the woods agin, that I don't shoot it for an owl.”
There is something at all times commanding in honest indignation,
and Hiram did not stay to provoke the wrath of the old hunter to
extremities. When the intruder was out of sight, Natty proceeded to the
hut, where he found all quiet as the grave. He fastened his dogs, and
tapping at the door, which was opened by Edwards, asked;
“Is all safe, lad?”
“Everything,” returned the youth. “Some one attempted the lock, but it
was too strong for him.”
“I know the creatur',” said Natty, “but he'll not trust himself within
the reach of my rifle very soon----” What more was uttered by the
Leather-Stocking, in his vexation, was rendered inaudible by the closing
of the door of the cabin.