The hunter was a little surprised; but making no objections, both were soon in the scow, and in the room that contained the light. Here two stools were placed at the side of the chest, with the lamp on another, and a table near by to receive the different articles, as they might be brought to view. This arrangement had its rise in the feverish impatience of the girl, which could brook no delay that it was in her power to obviate. Even all the padlocks were removed, and it only remained to raise the heavy lid, and to expose the treasures of this long-secreted hoard.
“I see, in part, what all this means,” observed Deerslayer, “yes, I see through it, in part. But why is not Hetty present? Now Thomas Hutter is gone, she is one of the owners of these cur’osities, and ought to see them opened and handled.”
“Hetty sleeps,” answered Judith, hastily. “Happily for her, fine clothes and riches have no charms. Besides, she has this night given her share of all that the chest may hold to me, that I may do with it as I please.”
“Is poor Hetty composs enough for that, Judith?” demanded the just-minded young man. “It’s a good rule, and a righteous one, never to take when those that give don’t know the valie of their gifts; and such as God has visited heavily in their wits, ought to be dealt with as carefully as children that haven’t yet come to their understandings.”
Judith was hurt at this rebuke, coming from the person it did; but she would have felt it far more keenly had not her conscience fully acquitted her of any unjust intentions towards her feebleminded but confiding sister. It was not a moment, however, to betray any of her usual mountings of the spirit, and she smothered the passing sensation in the desire to come to the great object she had in view.
“Hetty will not be wronged,” she mildly answered; “she even knows not only what I am about to do, Deerslayer, but why I do it. So take your seat, raise the lid of the chest, and this time we will go to the bottom. I shall be disappointed if something is not found to tell us more of the history of Thomas Hutter and my mother.”
“Why Thomas Hutter, Judith, and not your father? The dead ought to meet with as much reverence as the living!”
“I have long suspected that Thomas Hutter was not my father, though I did think he might have been Hetty’s; but now we know he was father of neither. He acknowledged that much in his dying moments. I am old enough to remember better things than we have seen on this lake, though they are so faintly impressed on my memory that the earlier part of my life seems like a dream.”
“Dreams are but miserable guides when one has to detarmine about realities, Judith,” returned the other admonishingly. “Fancy nothing and hope nothing on their account; though I’ve known chiefs that thought ’em useful.”
“I expect nothing for the future from them, my good friend, but cannot help remembering what has been. This is idle, however, when half an hour of examination may tell us all, or even more than I want to know.”
Deerslayer, who comprehended the girl’s impatience, now took his seat, and proceeded once more to bring to light the different articles that the chest contained. As a matter of course, all that had been previously examined were found where they had been last deposited; and they excited much less interest or comment than when formerly exposed to view. Even Judith laid aside the rich brocade with an air of indifference, for she had a far higher aim before her than the indulgence of vanity, and was impatient to come at the still hidden, or rather unknown, treasures.
“All these we have seen before,” she said, “and will not stop to open. The bundle under your hand, Deerslayer, is a fresh one; that we will look into. God send it may contain something to tell poor Hetty and myself who we really are.”
“Ay, if some bundles could speak they might tell wonderful secrets,” returned the young man, deliberately undoing the folds of another piece of coarse canvas, in order to come at the contents of the roll that lay on his knees; “though this doesn’t seem to be one of that family, seeing ‘tis neither more nor less than a sort of flag; though of what nation, it passes my l’arnin’ to say.”
“That flag must have some meaning to it,” Judith hurriedly interposed. “Open it wider, Deerslayer, that we may see the colors.”
“Well, I pity the ensign that has to shoulder this cloth, and to parade it about in the field. Why ‘tis large enough, Judith, to make a dozen of them colors the King’s officers set so much store by. These can be no ensign’s colors, but a gin’ral’s!”
“A ship might carry it, Deerslayer; and ships I know do use such things. Have you never heard any fearful stories about Thomas Hutter’s having once been concerned with the people they call buccaneers?”
“Buck-and-near! Not I—not I—I never heard him mentioned as good at a buck far off, or near by. Hurry Harry did tell me something about its being supposed that he had formerly, in some way or other, dealings with sartain sea robbers; but, Lord, Judith, it can’t surely give any satisfaction to make out that ag’in your mother’s own husband, though he isn’t your father?”
“Anything will give me satisfaction that tells me who I am, and helps to explain the dreams of childhood. My mother’s husband! Yes, he must have been that, though why a woman like her should have chosen a man like him, is more than mortal reason can explain. You never saw mother, Deerslayer, and can’t feel the vast, vast difference there was between them!”
“Such things do happen, howsever—yes, they do happen; though why Providence lets them come to pass, is more than I understand. I’ve knew the f’ercest warriors with the gentlest wives of any in the tribe, and awful scolds fall to the lot of Injins fit to be missionaries.”
“That was not it, Deerslayer; that was not it. Oh, if it should prove that—no; I cannot wish she should not have been his wife at all. That no daughter can wish for her own mother! Go on, now, and let us see what the square-looking bundle holds.”
Deerslayer complied, and he found that it contained a small trunk of pretty workmanship, but fastened. The next point was to find a key; but search proving ineffectual, it was determined to force the lock. This Deerslayer soon effected by the aid of an iron instrument, and it was found that the interior was nearly filled with papers. Many were letters; some fragments of manuscripts, memorandums, accounts, and other similar documents. The hawk does not pounce upon the chicken with a more sudden swoop, than Judith sprang forward to seize this mine of hitherto concealed knowledge. Her education, as the reader will have perceived, was far superior to her situation in life, and her eye glanced over page after page of the letters, with a readiness that her schooling supplied, and with an avidity that found its origin in her feelings. At first, it was evident that the girl was gratified, and, we may add, with reason; for the letters, written by females, in innocence and affection, were of a character to cause her to feel proud of those with whom she had every reason to think she was closely connected by the ties of blood. It does not come within the scope of our plan to give more of these epistles, however, than a general idea of their contents, and this will best be done by describing the effect they produced on the manner, appearance, and feeling of her who was so eagerly perusing them.
It has been said already that Judith was much gratified with the letters that first met her eye. They contained the correspondence of an affectionate and intelligent mother to an absent daughter, with such allusions to the answers as served, in a great measure, to fill up the vacuum left by the replies. They were not without admonitions and warnings, however, and Judith felt the blood mounting to her temples, and a cold shudder succeeding, as she read one in which the propriety of the daughter’s indulging in as much intimacy, as had evidently been described in one of the daughter’s own letters, with an officer “who came from Europe, and who could hardly be supposed to wish to form an honorable connection in America,” was rather coldly commented on by the mother. What rendered it singular, was the fact that the signatures had been carefully cut from every one of these letters, and wherever a name occurred in the body of the epistles, it had been erased
with so much diligence as to render it impossible to read it.1 They had all been enclosed in envelopes, according to the fashion of the age, and not an address either was to be found. Still, the letters themselves had been religiously preserved, and Judith thought she could discover traces of tears remaining on several. She now remembered to have seen the little trunk in her mother’s keeping, previously to her death, and she supposed it had first been deposited in the chest, along with the other forgotten or concealed objects, when the letters could no longer contribute to that parent’s grief or happiness.
Next came another bundle, and these were filled with the protestations of love, written with passion certainly, but also with that deceit which men so often think it justifiable to use to the other sex. Judith had shed tears abundantly over the first packet, but now she felt a sentiment of indignation and pride better sustaining her. Her hand shook, however, and cold shivers again passed through her frame, as she discovered a few points of strong resemblance between these letters and some it had been her own fate to receive. Once, indeed, she laid the packet down, bowed her head to her knees, and seemed nearly convulsed. All this time, Deerslayer sat a silent but attentive observer of everything that passed. As Judith read a letter she put it into his hands to hold, until she could peruse the next; but this seemed in no degree to enlighten her companion, as he was totally unable to read. Nevertheless, he was not entirely at fault in discovering the passions that were contending in the bosom of the fair creature by his side, and as occasional sentences escaped her in murmurs, he was nearer the truth, in his divinations or conjectures, than the girl would have been pleased at discovering.
Judith had commenced at the earliest letters, luckily for a ready comprehension of the tale they told; for they were carefully arranged in chronological order, and to any one who would take the trouble to peruse them, would have revealed a sad history of gratified passion, coldness, and finally, of aversion. As she obtained the clue to their import, her impatience could not admit of delay, and she soon got to glancing her eyes over a page, by way of coming at the truth in the briefest manner possible. By adopting this expedient, one to which all who are eager to arrive at results without encumbering themselves with details, are so apt to resort, Judith made a rapid progress in this melancholy revelation of her mother’s failings and punishment. She saw that the period of her own birth was distinctly referred to, and even learned that the homely name she bore was given her by the father, of whose person she retained so faint an impression as to resemble a dream. This name was not obliterated from the text of the letters, but stood as if nothing was to be gained by erasing it. Hetty’s birth was mentioned once, and in that instance the name was the mother’s; but ere this period was reached came the signs of coldness, shadowing forth the desertion that was so soon to follow. It was in this stage of the correspondence that her mother had recourse to the plan of copying her own epistles. They were but few, but were eloquent with the feelings of blighted affection and contrition. Judith sobbed over them until again and again she felt compelled to lay them aside, from sheer physical inability to see, her eyes being literally obscured with tears. Still she returned to the task with increasing interest, and finally succeeded in reaching the end of the latest communication that had probably ever passed between her parents.
All this occupied fully an hour; for near a hundred letters were glanced at, and some twenty had been closely read. The truth now shone clear upon the acute mind of Judith, so far as her own birth and that of Hetty were concerned. She sickened at the conviction, and, for the moment, the rest of the world seemed to be cut off from her and she had now additional reasons for wishing to pass the remainder of her life on the lake, where she had already seen so many bright and so many sorrowing days.
There yet remained more letters to examine. Judith found these were a correspondence between her mother and Thomas Hovey The originals of both parties were carefully arranged, letter and answer, side by side; and they told the early history of the connection between the ill-assorted pair far more plainly than Judith wished to learn it. Her mother made the advances towards a marriage, to the surprise, not to say horror, of her daughter; and she actually found a relief when she discovered traces of what struck her as insanity, or a morbid disposition, bordering on that dire calamity, in the earlier letters of that ill-fated woman. The answers of Hovey were coarse and illiterate though they manifested a sufficient desire to obtain the hand of a woman of singular personal attractions, and whose great error he was willing to overlook, for the advantage of possessing one every way so much his superior, and who, it also appeared, was not altogether destitute of money. The remainder of this part of the correspondence was brief; and it was soon confined to a few communications on business, in which the miserable wife hastened the absent husband in his preparations to abandon a world which there was a sufficient reason to think was as dangerous to one of the parties as it was disagreeable to the other. But a single expression had escaped her mother, by which Judith could get a clue to the motives that had induced her to marry Hovey, or Hutter; and this she found was that feeling of resentment which so often tempts the injured to inflict wrongs on themselves, by way of heaping coals on the heads of those through whom they have suffered. Judith had enough of the spirit of that mother to comprehend this sentiment, and for a moment did she see the exceeding folly which permitted such revengeful feelings to get the ascendency.
There, what may be called the historical part of the papers ceased. Among the loose fragments, however, was an old newspaper that contained a proclamation offering a reward for the apprehension of certain freebooters by name, among which was that of Thomas Hovey. The attention of the girl was drawn to the proclamation, and to this particular name, by the circumstance that black lines had been drawn under both in ink. Nothing else was found among the papers that could lead to a discovery of either the name or the place of residence of the wife of Hutter. All the dates, signatures, and addresses had been cut from the letters, and wherever a word occurred in the body of the communications that might furnish a clue, it was scrupulously erased. Thus Judith found all her hopes of ascertaining who her parents were, defeated, and she was obliged to fall back on her own resources and habits for everything connected with the future. Her recollection of her mother’s manners, conversation, and sufferings, filled up many a gap in the historical facts she had now discovered ; and the truth in its outlines stood sufficiently distinct before her, to take away all desire, indeed, to possess any more details. Throwing herself back in her seat, she simply desired her companion to finish the examination of the other articles in the chest, as it might yet contain something of importance.
“I’ll do it, Judith; I’ll do it,” returned the patient Deerslayer; “but if there’s many more letters to read, we shall see the sun ag’in afore you’ve got through with the reading of them! Two good hours have you been looking at them bits of papers!”
“They tell me of my parents, Deerslayer, and have settled my plans for life. A girl may be excused, who reads about her own father and mother, and that too for the first time in her life! I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“Never mind me, gal; never mind me. It matters little whether I sleep or watch; but though you be pleasant to look at, and are so handsome, Judith, it is not altogether agreeable to sit so long to behold you shedding tears. I know that tears don’t kill, and that some people are better for shedding a few now and then, especially women; but I’d rather see you smile any time, Judith, than see you weep.”
This gallant speech was rewarded with a sweet, though a melancholy smile; and then the girl again desired her companion to finish the examination of the chest. The search necessarily continued some time, during which Judith collected her thoughts and regained her composure. She took no part in the search, leaving everything to the young man, looking listlessly herself at the different articles that came uppermost. Nothing further of much interest or value, however, was found. A sword or two, such as were
then worn by gentlemen, some buckles of silver, or so richly plated as to appear silver, and a few handsome articles of female dress, composed the principal discoveries. It struck both Judith and the Deerslayer, notwithstanding, that some of these things might be made useful in effecting a negotiation with the Iroquois, though the latter saw a difficulty in the way that was not so apparent to the former. The conversation was first renewed in connection with this point.
“And now, Deerslayer,” said Judith, “we may talk of yourself, and of the means of getting you out of the hands of the Hurons. Any part, or all of what you have seen in the chest, will be cheerfully given by me and Hetty to set you at liberty.”
“Well, that’s gin‘rous—yes, ’tis downright freehearted, and free-handed, and gin‘rous. This is the way with women; when they take up a fri’ndship, they do nothing by halves, but are as willing to part with their property as if it had no value in their eyes. Howsever, while I thank you both, just as much as if the bargain was made, and Rivenoak, or any of the other vagabonds was here to accept and close the treaty, there’s two principal reasons why it can never come to pass, which may be as well told at once, in order no onlikely expectations may be raised in you, or any onjustifiable hopes in me.”
“What reason can there be, if Hetty and I are willing to part with the trifles for your sake, and the savages are willing to receive them?”
“That’s it, Judith; you’ve got the idees, but they’re a little out of their places, as if a hound should take the back‘ard instead of the leading scent. That the Mingos will be willing to receive them things, or any more like ’em, you may have to offer, is probable enough; but whether they’ll pay valie for ’em is quite another matter. Ask yourself, Judith, if any one should send you a message to say that, for such or such a price, you and Hetty might have that chist and all it holds, whether you’d think it worth your while to waste many words on the bargain?”
Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 51