CHAPTER XIV.
“There’s quart-pot, pint-pot. Mit-pint,
Gill-pot, half-gill. nipperkin.
And the brown bowl— Here’s a health to the barley mow,
My brave boys, Here’s a health to the barley mow.”—Drinking Song.
Some little commotion was produced by the appearance of the new
guests, during which the lawyer slunk 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 nightcap,
took his seat very quietly on one end of the settee, which was
relinquished by its former occupant. 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 toward 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 front 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 among 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 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 a hommble on; and
a devout. Here, John, is a mug of cider, laced with whiskey. An
Indian will drink cider, though he niver be athirst.
“I must say,” observed Hiram, with due deliberation, “that it was a
tongney 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.”
“Ày! there’s the rub, Joodge,” cried the landlady. “How can a man
stand up and be preaching 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 Pumfietman who was
so’thin’ forehanded. He was to give me ten dollar an acre for the
clearin’, and one dollar an acre over the first cost on the woodland,
and we agreed to leave the buildin’s to men. So I tuck Asa Montagu,
and he tuck Absalom Bement, and they two tuck old Squire Napthali
Green. And so they had a meetin’, and made out a vardict of eighty
dollars for the buildin’s. There was twelve acres of clearin’ at ten
dollars, and eighty-eight at one, and the whole came to 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 whole stood to me in
about two hundred and sixty dollars. But then I had a great crop oft
on’t, and as I got twenty-six dollars and a half more than it cost, I
conclude I made a pretty good trade on’t.”
“Yes, but you forgot 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, and a good note for eighty more; and a side-saddle
that was valued 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 knowed a thing or two myself; I should like to know of
what use is the tacklin’ to him! I offered him to trade back agin for
one hundred and fifty-five. But my woman said she wanted to 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 master has 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, It times doesn’t get worse in the spring, I’ve
some notion of going into trade, or maybe I may move off to the
Genesee; 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 Legislature? 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 Yorrektown,” 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.”
“Oh! mon pauvre roil” muttered 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.
“You may make your laws, Judge,” be cried, “but who will you find to
watch the mountains through the long summer days, or the lakes at
night? Game is game, and be 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 were
getting old, or his leggins ragged, for the flesh is lean and coarse.
But a rifle rings among the rocks along the lake shore, sometimes, as
if fifty pieces were 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 fort night, and it floundered through the
snow-banks till it got over a brush fence; I catched the lock of my
rifle in the twigs in following, and was kept back, until finally the
creature 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 drawed upon anything that
hadn’t wings three times running, in my born days. No, no, Judge,
it’s the farmers that makes the game scarce, and not the hunters.”
“Ter teer is not so plenty as in tee old war, Pumppo,” said the Major,
who had been an attentive listener, amid 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 stopped by 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
didn’t use to be so prutent as to look ahet mit so much care.”
“Maybe there wasn’t so much occasion,” said the hunter, a little
sulkily; when he sank into a silence from which be 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 an other, 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 monstres!” 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
southwest 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 that they have captured Toulon from the
English, for it is a place to which they have a just right.”
“Ah—ha!” exclaimed Monsieur Le Quoi, springing on his feet and
flourishing both arms with great animation; “ces Anglais!”
The Frenchman continued to move about the room with great alacrity for
a few minutes, repeating his exclamations to himself; when overcome by
the contrary nature of his emotions, he suddenly burst out of the
house, and was seen wading through the snow toward his little shop,
waving his arms on high, as if to pluck down honor 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 during
his visit, as he lifted the mug, and observed:
“Ter Frenchman is mat—put he is goot as for noting to trink: he is
trunk mit joy.”
“The French are good soldiers,” said Captain Hollis ter; “they stood
us in hand a good turn at Yorktown; 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 trot’, 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 riglers 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 such 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 really 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 ever
snapt in the mountains. Betty, your husband told me, as we came out
of church, that your hogs were getting mangy, and 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 ye’d be wanting that same,” said the landlady; “it’s
fixt and ready to the boiling. Sargeant, dear, be handing up the
iron, will ye?—no, the one on 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 flavor 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.
“What is life but a scene of care,
Where each one must toil in his way?
Then let us be jolly, and prove that we are
A set of good fellows, who seem very rare,
And can laugh and sing all the day.
Then let us be jolly
And cast away folly,
For grief turns a black head to gray.”
“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 deeply in the potations of
the landlady, besides paying a proper respect to the passing mugs of
the Major and Marmaduke.
“Bravo! pravo! Richart,” cried the Major, whose black eyes were
beginning to swim in moisture; “pravisimo his a goot song; put Natty
Pumppo has a petter. Letter-Stockint, vilt sing? say, olt poy, vilt
sing ter song as apout ter wools?”
“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
knees, 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 toward the hunter, as he
cried:
“Merry! ay! merry Christmas to you, old boy! Sun shine and summer! no!
you are blind, Leather-Stocking, ‘tis moonshine and winter—take these
spectacles. and open your eyes— So let us be jolly,
And cast away folly,
For grief turns a black head to gray.’
—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 endeavoring 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 whip-poor-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-eater? 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 toward the listeners and
gazed intently on the Judge. He shook his head, throwing his hair
back from his countenance, and exposed eyes that were glaring with an
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
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 sank backward on the bench and drank 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- day 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 sewed up. Give him a berth, captain, in the
barn, and I will pay for it. I am rich to night, ten times richer
than ‘Duke, with all his lands, amid military lots, and funded debts,
and bonds, and mortgages
' Come, let us be jolly,
And cast awsy folly,
For grief—-’
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, amid
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
observedst, it is probable 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 wound 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 humor. The landlord had succeeded in placing the. Indian on
some straw in one of his outbuildings, 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 ex- I pressed 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, anyway, 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 tomorrow
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:
“Come, let us be jolly,
And cast away folly,
For grief turns a black head to gray.”
