CHAPTER V.
The hour of breakfast had arrived, when Walter Prevost returned withhis river spoil; but the party at the house had not yet sat down totable. The guest who had arrived on the preceding night was standingat the door, talking with Edith, while Mr. Prevost himself was within,in conference with some of the slaves. Shaded by the little rusticporch, Edith was leaning against the doorpost in an attitude ofexquisite grace; and the stranger, with his arms crossed upon hisbroad, manly chest, now raising his eyes to her face, now droppingthem to the ground, seemed to watch with interest the effect his wordsproduced, as it was written on that beautiful countenance. I have saidwith interest, rather than with admiration; for although it is hardlypossible to suppose that the latter had no share in his sensations,yet it seemed, as far as outward manner could indicate inward thought,that he was reading a lesson from her looks, instead of gazing upon abeautiful picture. The glance, too, was so calm, and so soonwithdrawn, that there could be nothing offensive in it--nothing thatcould even say to herself, "I am studying you," although a looker-onmight so divine.
His words were gay and light indeed, and his whole manner verydifferent from the day before. A cloud seemed to have passed away--acloud rather of reflection than of care; and Walter, as he came up,and heard his cheerful tones, wondered at the change; for he knew nothow speedily men accustomed to action and decision cast from them theburden of weighty thought, when the necessity for thought is past.
"I know not," said the stranger, speaking as the young manapproached--"I know not how I should endure it myself for any lengthof time. The mere abstract beauty of nature would soon pall upon mytaste, I fear, without occupation."
"But you would make occupation," answered Edith, earnestly; "you wouldfind it. Occupation for the body is never wanting, where you have toimprove, and cultivate, and ornament; and occupation for the mindflows in from a thousand gushing sources in God's universe--even wereone deprived of books and music."
"Ay, but companionship, and social converse, and the interchange ofthought with thought," said the stranger,--"where could one findthose?" And he raised his eyes to her face.
"Have I not my brother and my father?" she asked.
"True," said the other; "but I should have no such resource."
He had seen a slight hesitation in her last reply. He thought that hehad touched the point where the yoke of solitude galled the spirit. Hewas not one to plant or to nourish discontent in any one; and heturned at once to her brother, saying, "What, at the stream so early,my young friend? Have you had sport?"
"Not very great," answered Walter; "my fish are few, but they arelarge. Look here."
"I call such sport excellent," observed the stranger, looking into thebasket. "I must have you take me with you some fair morning, for I ama great lover of the angle."
The lad hesitated, and turned somewhat redder in the cheek than he hadbeen the moment before; but his sister saved him from reply, saying ina musing tone,--
"I cannot imagine what delight men find in what they call the sportsof the field. To inflict death may be a necessity, but surely shouldnot be an amusement."
"Man is born a hunter, Miss Prevost," replied the stranger, with asmile: "he must chase something. It was at first a necessity, and itis still a pleasure when it is no longer a need. But the enjoyment isnot truly in the infliction of death, but in the accessories. Theeagerness of pursuit; the active exercise of the faculties, mental andcorporeal; the excitement of expectation, and of success,--nay, evenof delay; the putting forth of skill and dexterity, all form part ofthe enjoyment. But there are, especially in angling, a thousandaccidental pleasures. It leads one through lovely scenes; we meditateupon many things as we wander on; we gaze upon the dancing brook, orthe still pool, and catch light from the light amidst the waters; allthat we see is suggestive of thought,--I might almost say of poetry.Ah, my dear young lady! few can tell the enjoyment, in the midst ofbusy, active, troublous life, of one calm day's angling by the side ofa fair stream, with quiet beauty all around us, and no adversary butthe speckled trout."
"And why should they be your foes?" asked Edith. "Why should you dragthem from their cool, clear element, to pant and die in the dry upperair?"
"'Cause we want to eat 'em," uttered a voice from the door behind her:"_they_ eats everything. Why shouldn't _we_ eat _them?_ Darn thisworld! it is but a place for eating, and being eaten. The bivers thatI trap eat fish; and many a cunning trick the crafty critters use tocatch 'em: the minkes eat birds, and birds' eggs. Men talk aboutbeasts of prey. Why, everything is a beast of prey, bating the oxenand the sheep, and such-like; and sometimes I've thought it hard tokill them who never do harm to no one, and a great deal of goodsometimes. But, as I was saying, everything's a beast of prey. It'snot lions, and tigers, and painters, and such; but from the fox to theemmet, from the beetle to the bear, they're all alike, and man at thetop o' them. Darn them all! I kill 'em when I can catch 'em, ma'am,and always will. But come, Master Walter, don't ye keep them fish inthe sun. Give 'em to black Rosie, the cook, and let us have some on'em for breakfast afore they're all wilted up."
The types of American character are very few--much fewer than theAmerican people imagine. There are three or four original types verydifficult to distinguish from their varieties; and all the rest aremere modifications--variations on the same air. It is thus somewhatdifficult to portray any character purely American, without the riskof displaying characteristics which have been sketched by more skilfulhands. The outside of the man, however, affords greater scope than theinside; for Americans are by no means always long, thin, sinewyfellows, as they are too frequently represented; and the man who nowspoke was a specimen of a very different kind. He might be five feetfive or six in height, and was anything but corpulent; yet he was, inchest and shoulders, as broad as a bull; and though the lower limbswere more lightly formed than the upper, yet the legs, as well as thearms, displayed the strong, rounded muscles swelling forth at everymovement. His hair was as black as jet, without the slightest mixtureof grey, though he could not be less than fifty-four or fifty-fiveyears of age; and his face, which was handsome, with features somewhateagle-like, was browned, by exposure, to a colour nearly resemblingthat of mahogany. With his shaggy bear-skin cap, well worn, and afrock of deer-skin, with the hair on, descending to the knees, helooked more like a bison or bonassus than anything human; and,expecting to hear him roar, one was surprised to trace tones soft andgentle, though rather nasal, to such a rude and rugged form.
While Walter carried his basket of fish to the kitchen, and Mr.Prevost's guest was gazing at the stranger, in whom Edith seemed torecognize an acquaintance, the master of the house himself appearedfrom behind the latter, saying, as he came,--
"Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Brooks; MajorKielmansegge--Captain Jack Brooks."
"Pooh, pooh, Prevost," exclaimed the other. "Call me by my right name.I war Captain Brooks long agone. I'm new christened, and calledWoodchuck now--that's because I burrow, major. Them Ingians arewonderful circumdiferous; but they have found that, when they trytricks with me, I can burrow under them; and so they call meWoodchuck, 'cause it's a burrowing sort of a beast."
"I do not exactly understand you," replied the gentleman who had beencalled Major Kielmansegge; "what is the exact meaning of_circumdiferous?_"
"It means just circumventing like," answered the Woodchuck. "First andforemost, there's many of the Ingians--the Aloquin, for a sample--thatnever tell a word of truth. No, no, not they. One of them told me soplainly, one day: 'Woodchuck,' says he, 'Ingian seldom tell truth; heknow better than that. Truth too good a thing to be used every day:keep that for time of need.' I believe, at that precious moment, hespoke the truth, the first time for forty years."
The announcement that breakfast was ready interrupted the explanationof Captain Brooks, but appeared to afford him great satisfaction; and,at the meal, he certainly ate more than all the rest of the party puttogether, consuming everything set before him with a voracity t
rulymarvellous. He seemed, indeed, to think some apology necessary for hisfurious appetite.
"You see, major," he said, as soon as he could bring himself to apause sufficiently long to utter a whole sentence, "I eat well when I_do_ eat; for sometimes I get nothing for three or four days together.When I get to a lodge like this, I take in stores for my next voyage,as I can't tell what port I shall touch at again."
"Pray do you anticipate a long cruise just now?" asked the stranger.
"No, no," answered the other, laughing; "but I always prepare againstthe worst. I am just going up the Mohawk, for a step or two, to make atrade with some of my friends of the Five Nations--the Iroquois, asthe French folks call them. But I shall trot up afterwards to SandyHill and Fort Lyman, to see what is to be done there in the way ofbusiness. Fort Lyman I call it still, though it should be Fort Edwardnow; for, after the brush with Dieskau, it has changed its name. Ay,that was a sharp affair, major. You'd ha' like to bin there, I guess."
"Were you there, captain?" asked Mr. Prevost. "I did not know you hadseen so much service."
"Sure I was," answered Woodchuck, with a laugh; "though, as toservice, I did more than I was paid for, seeing I had no commission.I'll tell you how it war, Prevost: just in the beginning ofSeptember--it was the seventh or eighth, I think, in the year aforelast, that is seventeen fifty-five--I was going up to the head of thelake to see if I could not get some peltry, for I had been unluckydown westward, and had made a bargain in Albany I did not like tobreak. Just on the top o' the hill, near where the King's road comesdown to the ford, who should I stumble upon amongst the trees, but oldHendrik, as they called him--_why_, I can't tell--the Sachem of theTortoise totem of the Mohawks. He was there with three young men athis feet; but we were always good friends, he and I, and, over andabove, I carried the calumet, so there was no danger. Well, we satdown and had a talk, and he told me that the general--that is, SirWilliam, as he is now--had dug up the tomahawk, and was encamped nearFort Lyman to give battle to You-non-de-yoh--that is to say, in theirjargon, the French governor. He told me, too, that he was on his wayto join the general, but that he did not intend to fight, but only towitness the brave deeds of the Corlear's men--that is to say, theEnglish. He was a cunning old fox, old Hendrik, and I fancied fromthat, he thought we should be defeated. But when I asked him, he saidno, that it was all on account of a dream he had had, forbidding himto fight, on the penalty of his scalp. So I told him I was minded togo with him and see the fun. Well, we mustered, before the sun wasquite down, well nigh upon three hundred Mohawks, all beautifulpainted and feathered; but they told me that they had not sung theirwar song, nor danced their war dance, before they left their lodges,so I could see well enough they had no intention to fight, and thetarnation devil wouldn't make 'em. How could we get to the camp wherethey were all busy throwing breastworks, and we heard that Dieskau wascoming down from Hunter's in force? The next morning early, we weretold that he had turned back again from Fort Lyman, and Johnson sentout Williams with seven or eight hundred men to get hold of hishaunches. I tried hard to get old Hendrik to go along, for I stuckfast by my Ingians, knowing the brutes can be serviceable when youtrust them. But the Sachem only grunted and did not stir. In an hourand a half we heard a mighty large rattle of muskets, and the Ingianscould not stand the sound quietly, but began looking at theirrifle-flints and fingering their tomahawks. Howsever, they did notstir, and old Hendrik sat as grave and as brown as an old hemlockstump. Then we saw another party go out of camp to help the first; butin a very few minutes they came running back with Dieskau at theirheels. In they tumbled, over the breastworks, head over heels any how;and a pretty little considerable quantity of fright they brought withthem. If Dieskau had charged straight on that minute, we should haveall been smashed to everlasting flinders; and I don't doubt, no morethan that a _bee_ar's a crittar, that Hendrik and his painted devilswould have had as many English scalps as French ones.
"But Dieskau, like a stupid coon, pulled up short two hundred yardsoff, and Johnson did not give him much time to look about him, for hepoured all the cannon-shot that he had got into him as hard as hecould pelt. Well, the French Ingians--and there was a mighty sight ofthem--did not like that game of ball, and they squattered off to theright and left--some into the trees, some into the swamps; and Icouldn't stand it no longer, but up with my rifle, and give them all Ihad to give, and old Hendrik, seeing how things was like to go, tookto the right end too, but a little too fast; for the old devil cameinto him, and he must needs have scalps. So out he went with the rest;and just as he had got his forefinger in the hair of a youngFrenchman, whiz came a bullet into his dirty red skin, and down hewent like an old moose. Some twenty of his Ingians got shot too; but,in the end, Dieskau had to run.
"Johnson was wounded too; and then folks have since said that he hadno right to the honour of the battle, but that it was Lyman's, whotook the command when he could fight no longer. But that's all trash.Dieskau had missed his chance, and all his irregulars were sentskimming by the first fire long afore Johnson was hit. Lyman hadnothing to do but hold what Johnson left him, and pursue the enemy.The first he did well enough; but the second he forgot to do--thoughhe was a brave man and a good soldier, for all that."
This little narrative seemed to give matter for thought both to Mr.Prevost and his English guest; and, after a moment or two of somewhatgloomy consideration, the latter asked the narrator whether thefriendly Indians had, on that occasion, received any special offenceto account for their unwillingness to give active assistance to theirallies, or whether their indifference proceeded merely from a fickleor treacherous disposition.
"A little of both," replied Captain Brooks. And after leaning hisgreat broad forehead on his hand for a moment or two, in deep thought,he proceeded to give his view of the relations of the colonies withthe Iroquois, in a manner and tone totally different from any he hadused before. They were grave and almost stern; and his language hadfew, if any, of the coarse provincialisms with which he ordinarilyseasoned his conversation.
"They are a queer people, the Indians," he said, "and not so muchsavages as we are inclined to believe them. Sometimes I am ready tothink that in one or two points they are more civilized thanourselves. They have not got our arts and sciences; and, as theypossess no books, one set of them cannot store up the knowledge theygain in their own time to be added to by every generation of them thatcome after; and we all know that things which are sent down from mouthto mouth are soon lost or corrupted. But they are always thinking, andthey have a calmness and a coolness in their thoughts that we whitemen very often want. They are quick enough in action when once theyhave determined upon a thing, and for perseverance they beat all theworld; but they take a long time to consider before they act, and itis really wonderful how quietly they do consider, and how steadilythey stick in consideration to all their own old notions.
"We have not treated them well, sir; and we never did. They haveborne a great deal, and they will bear more still; yet they feel andknow it, and some day they may make us feel it too. They have not thewit to take advantage at present of our divisions, and, by joiningtogether themselves, make us feel all their power; for they hate eachother worse than they hate us. But, if the same spirit were to takethe whole red men, that got hold of the Five Nations many a long yearago, and they were to band together against the whites, as those FiveNations did against the other tribes, they'd give us a great deal oftrouble; and though we might thrash them at first, we might teach themto thrash us in the end.
"As it is, however, you see there are two sets of Indians and two setsof white men in this country, each as different from the other asanything can be. The Indians don't say, as they ought, 'The country isours, and we will fight against all the whites till we drive themout;' but they say, 'The whites are wiser and stronger than we are,and we will help those of them who are wisest and strongest.'
"I don't mean to say that they have not got their likings anddislikings, or that they are not moved by kindness, o
r by being talkedto; for they are great haters, and great likers. Still what I havesaid is at the bottom of all their friendships with white men. TheDutchmen helped the Five Nations--Iroquois, as the French callthem--gave them rifles and gunpowder against their enemies, and taughtthem to believe they were a very strong people. So the Five Nationsliked the Dutch, and made alliance with them. Then came the English,and proved stronger than the Dutch, and the Five Nations attachedthemselves to the English.
"They have stuck fast to us for a long time, and would not go from uswithout cause. If they could help to keep us great and powerful theywould, and I don't think a little adversity would make them turn. Butto see us whipped and scalped would make them think a good deal, andthey won't stay long by a people they don't respect.
"They have got their own notions, too, about faith and want of faith.If you are quite friendly with them--altogether--out and out--they'llhold fast enough to their word with you; but a very little turning, orshaking, or doubting, will make them think themselves free from allengagements; and then take care of your scalp-lock. If I am quitesure, when I meet an Indian, that, as the good Book says, '_my_ heartis right with _his_ heart;' that I have never cheated him, or thoughtof cheating him; that I have not doubted him, nor do doubt him--I canlie down and sleep in his lodge as safe as if I was in the heart ofAlbany. But I should not sleep a wink if I knew there was the leastlittle bit of insincerity in my own heart; for they are as 'cute asserpents, and they are not people to wait for explanations. Put yourwit against theirs at the back of the forest, and you'll get the worseof it."
"But have we cheated, or attempted to cheat, these poor people?" askedthe stranger.
"Why, the less we say about that the better, major," repliedWoodchuck, shaking his head. "They have had to bear a good deal; andnow when the time comes that we look as if we were going to the wall,perhaps they may remember it."
"But I hope and trust we are not exactly going to the wall," pursuedthe other, with his colour somewhat heightened; "there has been agreat deal said in England about mismanagement of our affairs on thiscontinent; but I have always thought, being no very violent politicianmyself, that party spirit dictated criticisms which were probablyunjust."
"There has been mismanagement enough, major," replied Woodchuck;"hasn't there, Prevost?"
"I fear so, indeed," replied his host with a sigh; "but quite as muchon the part of the colonial authorities as on that of the governmentat home."
"And whose fault is that?" demanded Woodchuck, somewhat warmly; "why,that of the government at home too! Why do they appoint incompetentmen? Why do they appoint ignorant men? Why do they exclude from everyoffice of honour, trust, or emolument the good men of the provinces,who know the situation and the wants and the habits of the provinces,and put over us men who, if they were the best men in the world,would be inferior, from want of experience, to our own people, butwho are nothing more than a set of presuming, ignorant, graspingblood-suckers, who are chosen because they are related to a minister,or a minister's mistress, or perhaps his valet, and whose only objectis to make as much out of us as they can, and then get back again. Ido not say that they are all so, but a great many of them are; andthis is an insult and an injury to us."
He spoke evidently with a good deal of heat; but his feelings werethose of a vast multitude of the American colonists, and thosefeelings were preparing the way for a great revolution.
"Come, come, Woodchuck," exclaimed Walter Prevost with a laugh, "youare growing warm; and when you are angry, you bite. The major wants tohear your notions of the state of the English power here, and not yourcensure of the king's government."
"God bless King George!" cried Woodchuck warmly, "and send him allprosperity. There's not a more loyal man in the land than I am; but itvexes me all the more to see his ministers throwing away his people'shearts, and losing his possessions into the bargain. But I'll tell youhow it is, major--at least how I think it is--and then you'll see.
"I must first go back a bit. Here are we, the English, in the middleof North America, and we have got the French on both sides of us.Well, we have a right to the country all the way across thecontinent--and we _must_ have it, for it is our only safety. But theFrench don't want us to be safe, and so they are trying to get behindus, and push us into the sea. They have been trying it a long time,and we have taken no notice. They have pushed their posts from Canidy,right along by the Wabash and the Ohio, from Lake Erie to theMississippi; and they have built forts, won over the Ingians, drawinga string round us, which they will tighten every day, unless we cutit.
"And what have the ministers been doing all the time? Why, for a longtime they did nothing at all. First, the French were suffered boldlyto call the country their own, and to carry off our traders andtrappers, and send them into Canidy, and never a word said by ourpeople. Then they built fort after fort, till troops can march andgoods can go, with little or no trouble, from Quebec to New Orleans;and all that this produced was a speech from Governor Hamilton, and amessage from Governor Dinwiddie. The last, indeed, sent to England,and made representations; but all he got was an order to repel forceby force, if he could, but to be quite sure that he did so on the_undoubted_ territories of King George.
"Undoubted! Why, the French made the doubt, and then took advantage ofit. Dinwiddie, however, had some spirit, and, with what help he couldget, he began to build a fort himself, in the best-chosen spot of thewhole country, just by the meeting of the Ohio and the Monongahela.But he had only one man to the French ten, and not a regular companyamongst them. So the French marched with a thousand soldiers, andplenty of cannon and stores, turned his people out, took possession ofhis half-finished fort, and completed it themselves. That was notlikely to make the Ingians respect us.
"Well, then, Colonel Washington, the Virginian, and the best man inthe land, built Fort Necessity; but they left him without forces todefend it, and he was obliged to surrender to Villiers, and a forcebig enough to eat him up. That did not raise us with our redskins; anda French force never moved without a whole herd of Ingians, supposedto be in friendship with us, but ready to scalp us whenever we weredefeated.
"Then came Braddock's mad march upon Fort Duquesne, where he anda'most all who was with him were killed by a handful of Ingiansamongst the bushes--fifteen hundred men dispersed, killed, andscalped, by not four hundred savages--all the artillery taken, andbaggage beyond count--think of that! Then Shirley made a great paradeof marching against Fort Niagara; but he turned back almost as soon ashe set out; and, had it not been for some good luck, on the north sideof Massachusetts Bay, and the victory of Johnson over Dieskau, youwould not have had a tribe hold fast to us. They were all wavering asfast as they could--I could see that, as plain as possible, from oldHendrik's talk; and the French Jesuits were in amongst them day andnight to bring the Five Nations over. This was the year afore last.
"Well, what did they do last year? Nothing at all, but lose Oswego.Lord Loudun, and Abercrombie, and Webb, marched and countermarched,and consulted, and played the fool, while bloody Montcalm wasbesieging Mercer, taking Oswego, breaking the terms he had expresslygranted, and suffering his Ingians to scalp and torture his prisonersof war before his eyes. Well, this was just about the middle ofAugust; but it was judged too late to do anything more, and nothing_was_ done. There was merry work in Albany, and people danced andsang; but the Ingians got a strange notion that the English lion wasbetter at roaring than he was at biting.
"And now, major, what have we done this year to make up for all theblunders of the last five or six? Why, Lord Loudun stripped the wholeof this province of its men and guns, to go to Halifax and attackLouisburg. When he got to Halifax, he exercised his men for a month,heard a false report that Louisburg was too strong and too wellprepared to be taken, and sailed back to New York. In the meanwhile,Montcalm took Fort William Henry on Lake George, and, as usual, letthe garrison be butchered by his Ingians.
"So, now the redskins see that the English arms are contemptible onevery part o
f this continent, and the French complete masters of thelakes and the whole western country. The Five Nations see their longhouse open to our enemies on three sides, and not a step taken to givethem assistance or protection. We have abandoned _them_. Can youexpect them not to abandon _us?_"
The young officer, long before this painful question was asked, hadleaned his elbows on the table, and covered his eyes and part of hisface with his hand. Walter and Edith both gazed at him earnestly,while their father bent his eyes gloomily down on the table, all threeknowing and sympathizing with the feelings of a British officer whilelistening to such a detail. The expression of his countenance theycould not see; but the finely-cut ear, appearing from beneath thecurls of his hair, glowed like fire before the speaker finished.
He did not answer, however, for more than a minute; but then, raisinghis head, with a look of stern gravity, he replied,--
"I cannot expect it. I cannot even understand how they have remainedattached to us so long and so much."
"The influence of one man has done a great deal," replied Mr. Prevost."Sir William Johnson is what is called the Indian agent; and, whatevermay be thought of his military abilities, there can be no doubt thatthe Iroquois trust him, and love him more than they have ever trustedor loved a white man before. He is invariably just towards them,always keeps his word with them; he never yields to importunity orrefuses to listen to reason; and he places that implicit confidence inthem which enlists everything that is noble in the Indian character inhis favour. Thus, in his presence, and in their dealings with him,they are quite a different people from what they are with others--alltheir fine qualities are brought into action, and all their wildpassions are stilled."
"I should like to see them as they really are," exclaimed the youngofficer, eagerly. And then, turning to Woodchuck, he said--"You tellme you are going amongst them, my friend; can you not take me withyou?"
"Wait three days and I will," replied the other. "I am first going upthe Mohawk, as I told you, close by Sir William's castle and hall, ashe calls the places. You'd see little there; but, if you will promiseto do just as I tell you, and mind advice, I'll take you up to SandyHill and the creek, where you'll see enough of them. That will bearter I come back on Friday about noon."
Mr. Prevost looked at the young officer, and he at his entertainer;and then the former said--
"When will you bring him back, captain? He must be here again by nextTuesday night."
"That he shall be, with or without his scalp," answered Woodchuck,with a laugh. "You get him ready to go; for you know, Prevost, theforest is not the parade-ground."
"I will lend him my Gakaah and Gischa and Gostoweh," cried Walter. "Wewill make him quite an Indian."
"No, no!" answered Woodchuck, "that won't do, Walter. The man whotries to please an Ingian by acting like an Ingian makes naught of it.They know it's a cheat, and they don't like it. We have our ways, andthey have theirs; and let each keep their own, like honest men. So Ithink, and so the Ingians think. Putting on a lion's skin will nevermake a man a lion. Get the major some good tough leggins, and a coatthat won't tear; a rifle and an axe and a wood-knife--a bottle ofbrandy is no bad thing. But don't forget a calumet and a pouch oftobacco, for both may be needful. So now good-bye to ye all. I musttrot."
Thus saying, he rose from the table, and, without more ceremoniousadieu, left the room.