The Leatherstocking Tales II

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “To think more favorably of you than I now do, Deerslayer, would not be easy; but I might continue to think as favorably—at least it seems so—I hope I could, for, a world would n’t tempt me to let you do any thing that might change my real opinion of you.”

  “Then do n’t try to entice me to overlook my furlough, gal!—A furlough is a sacred thing among warriors and men that carry their lives in their hands, as we of the forests do, and what a grievous disapp’intment would it be to old Tamenund, and to Uncas, the father of the Sarpent, and to my other fri’nds in the tribe, if I was so to disgrace myself, on my very first war-path? This you will pairceive, moreover, Judith, is without laying any stress on nat’ral gifts, and a white man’s duties, to say nothing of conscience. The last is king with me, and I try never to dispute his orders.”

  “I believe you are right, Deerslayer,” returned the girl, after a little reflection and in a saddened voice: “a man like you, ought not to act, as the selfish and dishonest would be apt to act; you must, indeed, go back. We will talk no more of this, then. Should I persuade you to any thing for which you would be sorry hereafter, my own regret would not be less than yours. You shall not have it to say, Judith—I scarce know by what name to call myself, now!”

  “And why not?—Why not, gal? Children take the names of their parents, nat’rally, and by a sort of gift, like, and why should n’t you and Hetty do, as others have done afore ye? Hutter was the old man’s name, and Hutter should be the name of his darters;—at least until you are given away in lawful and holy wedlock.”

  “I am Judith, and Judith only,” returned the girl positively—“until the law gives me a right to another name. Never will I use that of Thomas Hutter again; nor, with my consent, shall Hetty! Hutter was not even his own name, I find, but had he a thousand rights to it, it would give none to me. He was not my father, thank heaven; though I may have no reason to be proud of him that was!”

  “This is strange!” said Deerslayer, looking steadily at the excited girl, anxious to know more, but unwilling to inquire into matters that did not properly concern him; “yes, this is very strange and oncommon! Thomas Hutter was n’t Thomas Hutter, and his darters were n’t his darters! Who, then, could Thomas Hutter be, and who are his darters?”

  “Did you never hear any thing whispered against the former life of this person, Deerslayer?” demanded Judith—“Passing, as I did, for his child, such reports reached even me.

  “I’ll not deny it, Judith; no, I’ll not deny it. Sartain things have been said, as I’ve told you, but I’m not very credible as to reports. Young as I am, I’ve lived long enough to l’arn there’s two sorts of characters in the world—them that is ’arned by deeds, and them that is ’arned by tongues, and so I prefar to see and judge for myself, instead of letting every jaw that chooses to wag become my judgment. Hurry Harry spoke pretty plainly of the whole family, as we journeyed this-a-way, and he did hint something consarning Thomas Hutter’s having been a free-liver on the water, in his younger days. By free-liver, I mean that he made free to live on other men’s goods.”

  “He told you he was a pirate—there is no need of mincing matters between friends. Read that, Deerslayer, and you will see that he told you no more than the truth. This Thomas Hovey was the Thomas Hutter you knew, as is seen by these letters.”

  As Judith spoke, with a flushed cheek and eyes dazzling with the brilliancy of excitement, she held the newspaper towards her companion, pointing to the proclamation of a Colonial Governor, already mentioned.

  “Bless you, Judith!” answered the other laughing, “you might as well ask me to print that—or, for that matter to write it. My edication has been altogether in the woods; the only book I read, or care about reading, is the one which God has opened afore all his creatur’s in the noble forests, broad lakes, rolling rivers, blue skies, and the winds and tempests, and sunshine, and other glorious marvels of the land! This book I can read, and I find it full of wisdom and knowledge.”

  “I crave your pardon, Deerslayer,” said Judith, earnestly, more abashed than was her wont, in finding that she had inadvertently made an appeal that might wound her companion’s pride. “I had forgotten your manner of life, and least of all did I wish to hurt your feelings.”

  “Hurt my feelin’s?—Why should it hurt my feelin’s to ask me to read, when I can’t read. I’m a hunter—and I may now begin to say a warrior, and no missionary, and therefore books and papers are of no account with such as I—No, no—Judith,” and here the young man laughed cordially, “not even for wads, seeing that your true deerkiller always uses the hide of a fa’a’n, if he’s got one, or some other bit of leather suitably prepared. There’s some that do say, all that stands in print is true, in which case I’ll own an unl’arned man must be somewhat of a loser; nevertheless, it can’t be truer than that which God has printed with his own hand, in the sky, and the woods, and the rivers, and the springs.”

  “Well, then, Hutter, or Hovey, was a pirate, and being no father of mine, I cannot wish to call him one. His name shall no longer be my name.”

  “If you dislike the name of that man, there’s the name of your mother, Judith. Hern may sarve you just as good a turn.”

  “I do not know it. I’ve look’d through those papers, Deerslayer, in the hope of finding some hint, by which I might discover who my mother was, but there is no more trace of the past, in that respect, than the bird leaves in the air.”

  “That’s both oncommon, and onreasonable. Parents are bound to give their offspring a name, even though they give ’em nothing else. Now I come of a humble stock, though we have white gifts and a white natur’, but we are not so poorly off, as to have no name. Bumppo we are called, and I’ve heard it said—” a touch of human vanity glowing on his cheek, “that the time has been when the Bumppos had more standing and note among mankind, than they have just now.”

  “They never deserved them more, Deerslayer, and the name is a good one; either Hetty, or myself, would a thousand times rather be called Hetty Bumppo, or Judith Bumppo, than to be called Hetty or Judith Hutter.”

  “That’s a moral impossible,” returned the hunter, good-humouredly, “onless one of you should so far demean herself as to marry me.”

  Judith could not refrain from smiling, when she found how simply and naturally the conversation had come round to the very point at which she had aimed to bring it. Although far from unfeminine or forward, either in her feelings, or her habits, the girl was goaded by a sense of wrongs not altogether merited, incited by the hopelessness of a future that seemed to contain no resting place, and still more influenced by feelings that were as novel to her, as they proved to be active and engrossing. The opening was too good, therefore, to be neglected, though she came to the subject with much of the indirectness and perhaps, justifiable, address of a woman.

  “I do not think Hetty will ever marry, Deerslayer,” she said, “and if your name is to be borne by either of us, it must be borne by me.”

  “There’s been handsome women too, they tell me, among the Bumppos, Judith, afore now, and should you take up with the name, oncommon as you be, in this particular, them that knows the family won’t be altogether surprised.”

  “This is not talking as becomes either of us, Deerslayer, for whatever is said on such a subject, between man and woman, should be said seriously, and in sincerity of heart. Forgetting the shame that ought to keep girls silent, until spoken to, in most cases, I will deal with you as frankly as I know one of your generous nature will most like to be dealt by. Can you—do you think, Deerslayer, that you could be happy with such a wife as a woman like myself would make?”

  “A woman like you, Judith! But where’s the sense in trifling about such a thing?—A woman like you, that is handsome enough to be a captain’s lady, and fine enough, and so far as I know edicated enough, would be little apt to think of becoming my wife. I suppose young gals that feel themselves to be smart, and know themselves to be handsome, find a sartain satisfacti
on in passing their jokes ag’in them that’s neither, like a poor Delaware hunter.”

  This was said good naturedly, but not without a betrayal of feeling which showed that some thing like mortified sensibility was blended with the reply. Nothing could have occurred more likely to awaken all Judith’s generous regrets, or to aid her in her purpose, by adding the stimulant of a disinterested desire to atone, to her other impulses, and cloaking all under a guise so winning and natural, as greatly to lessen the unpleasant feature of a forwardness unbecoming the sex.

  “You do me injustice if you suppose I have any such thought, or wish,” she answered, earnestly. “Never was I more serious in my life, or more willing to abide by any agreement, that we may make to-night. I have had many suitors, Deerslayer—nay, scarce an unmarried trapper or hunter has been in at the Lake these four years, who has not offered to take me away with him, and I fear some that were married, too—”

  “Ay, I’ll warrant that!” interrupted the other—“I’ll warrant all that! Take ’em as a body, Judith, ’arth don’t hold a set of men more given to theirselves, and less given to God and the law.”

  “Not one of them would I—could I listen to; happily for myself perhaps, has it been that such was the case. There have been well looking youths among them too, as you may have seen in your acquaintance, Henry March.”

  “Yes, Harry is sightly to the eye, though, to my idees, less so to the judgment. I thought, at first, you meant to have him, Judith, I did; but afore he went, it was easy enough to verify that the same lodge would n’t be big enough for you both.”

  “You have done me justice in that at least, Deerslayer. Hurry is a man I could never marry, though he were ten times more comely to the eye, and a hundred times more stout of heart, than he really is.”

  “Why not, Judith, why not? I own I’m cur’ous to know why a youth like Hurry should n’t find favor with a maiden like you?”

  “Then you shall know, Deerslayer,” returned the girl, gladly availing herself of the opportunity of indirectly extolling the qualities which had so strongly interested her in her listener; hoping by these means covertly to approach the subject nearest her heart. “In the first place, looks in a man are of no importance with a woman, provided he is manly, and not disfigured, or deformed.”

  “There I can’t altogether agree with you,” returned the other thoughtfully, for he had a very humble opinion of his own personal appearance; “I have noticed that the comeliest warriors commonly get the best-looking maidens of the tribe, for wives, and the Sarpent, yonder, who is sometimes wonderful in his paint, is a gineral favorite with all the Delaware young women, though he takes to Hist, himself, as if she was the only beauty on ’arth!”

  “It may be so with Indians; but it is different with white girls. So long as a young man has a straight and manly frame, that promises to make him able to protect a woman, and to keep want from the door, it is all they ask of the figure. Giants like Hurry may do for grenadiers, but are of little account as lovers. Then as to the face, an honest look, one that answers for the heart within, is of more value than any shape or colour, or eyes, or teeth, or trifles like them. The last may do for girls, but who thinks of them at all, in a hunter, or a warrior, or a husband?—If there are women so silly, Judith is not among them.”

  “Well, this is wonderful! I always thought that handsome liked handsome, as riches love riches!”

  “It may be so with you men, Deerslayer, but it is not always so with us women. We like stout-hearted men, but we wish to see them modest; sure on a hunt, or the war-path, ready to die for the right, and unwilling to yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he is to the mind.”

  Judith spoke bitterly, and with her usual force, but her listener was too much struck with the novelty of the sensations he experienced to advert to her manner. There was something so soothing to the humility of a man of his temperament, to hear qualities that he could not but know he possessed himself, thus highly extolled by the loveliest female he had ever beheld, that, for the moment, his faculties seemed suspended in a natural and excusable pride. Then it was that the idea of the possibility of such a creature as Judith becoming his companion for life, first crossed his mind. The image was so pleasant, and so novel, that he continued completely absorbed by it, for more than a minute, totally regardless of the beautiful reality that was seated before him, watching the expression of his upright and truth-telling countenance with a keenness that gave her a very fair, if not an absolutely accurate clue to his thoughts. Never before had so pleasing a vision floated before the mind’s eye of the young hunter, but, accustomed most to practical things, and little addicted to submitting to the power of his imagination, even while possessed of so much true poetical feeling in connection with natural objects in particular, he soon recovered his reason, and smiled at his own weakness, as the fancied picture faded from his mental sight, and left him the simple, untaught, but highly moral being he was, seated in the Ark of Thomas Hutter, at midnight, with the lovely countenance of its late owner’s reputed daughter, beaming on him with anxious scrutiny, by the light of the solitary lamp.

  “You’re wonderful handsome, and enticing, and pleasing to look on, Judith!” he exclaimed, in his simplicity, as fact resumed its ascendency over fancy. “Wonderful! I do n’t remember ever to have seen so beautiful a gal, even among the Delawares; and I’m not astonished that Hurry Harry went away soured as well as disapp’inted!”

  “Would you have had me, Deerslayer, become the wife of such a man as Henry March?”

  “There’s that which is in his favor, and there’s that which is ag’in him. To my taste, Hurry would n’t make the best of husbands, but I fear that the tastes of most young women, hereaway, would n’t be so hard upon him.”

  “No—no—Judith without a name, would never consent to be called Judith March! Any thing would be better than that.”

  “Judith Bumppo would n’t sound as well, gal; and there’s many names that would fall short of March, in pleasing the ear.”

  “Ah! Deerslayer, the pleasantness of the sound, in such cases, does n’t come through the ear, but through the heart. Every thing is agreeable, when the heart is satisfied. Were Natty Bumppo, Henry March, and Henry March, Natty Bumppo, I might think the name of March better than it is; or were he, you, I should fancy the name of Bumppo, horrible!”

  “That’s just it—yes, that’s the reason of the matter. Now, I’m nat’rally avarse to sarpents, and I hate even the word, which, the missionaries tell me, comes from human natur’, on account of a sartain sarpent at the creation of the ’arth, that outwitted the first woman; yet, ever since Chingachgook has ’arned the title he bears, why the sound is as pleasant to my ears as the whistle of the whip-poor-will, of a calm evening, it is. The feelin’s make all the difference in the world, Judith, in the natur’ of sounds; ay, even in that of looks, too.”

  “This is so true, Deerslayer, that I am surprised you should think it remarkable a girl, who may have some comeliness herself, should not think it necessary that her husband should have the same advantage; or, what you fancy an advantage. To me, looks in a man are nothing, provided his countenance be as honest as his heart.”

  “Yes, honesty is a great advantage, in the long run; and they that are the most apt to forget it, in the beginning, are the most apt to l’arn it in the ind. Nevertheless, there’s more, Judith, that look to present profit, than to the benefit that is to come after a time. One they think a sartainty, and the other an onsartainty. I’m glad, howsever, that you look at the thing in its true light, and not in the way in which so many is apt to deceive themselves.”

  “I do thus look at it, Deerslayer,” returned the girl with emphasis, still shrinking, with a woman’s sensitiveness,
from a direct offer of her hand, “and can say, from the bottom of my heart, that I would rather trust my happiness to a man whose truth and feelings may be depended on, than to a false-tongued and false hearted wretch, that had chests of gold, and houses and lands—yes though he were even seated on a throne!”

  “These are brave words, Judith; yes, they’re downright brave words, but do you think that the feelin’s would keep ’em company, did the ch’ice actually lie afore you? If a gay gallant in a scarlet coat stood on one side, with his head smelling like a deer’s foot, his face smooth and blooming as your own, his hands as white and soft as if god had n’t bestowed ’em that man might live by the sweat of his brow, and his step as lofty as dancing teachers and a light heart could make it; and on the other side, stood one that has passed his days in the open air, ’till his forehead is as red as his cheek; had cut his way through swamps and bushes till his hand was as rugged as the oaks he slept under; had trodden on the scent of game ’till his step was as stealthy as the catamount’s, and had no other pleasant odour about him, than such as natur’ gives in the free air, and the forest—now, if both these men stood here, as suitors for your feelin’s, which do you think would win your favor?”

  Judith’s fine face flushed, for the picture that her companion had so simply drawn of a gay officer of the garrisons had once been particularly grateful to her imagination, though experience and disappointment had not only chilled all her affections, but given them a backward current, and the passing image had a momentary influence on her feelings; but the mounting colour was succeeded by a paleness so deadly, as to make her appear ghastly.

  “As God is my judge,” the girl solemnly answered, “did both these men stand before me, as I may say one of them does, my choice, if I know my own heart, would be the latter. I have no wish for a husband who is any way better than myself.”

  “This is pleasant to listen to, and might lead a young man in time, to forget his own onworthiness, Judith! Howsever, you hardly think all that you say. A man like me is too rude and ignorant for one that has had such a mother to teach her. Vanity is nat’ral, I do believe, but vanity like that, would surpass reason.”