The leather stocking tales

Front matter

a' I E> HA HY OF THE

U N I VERS ITY Of ILLINOIS

REMOTE S I m y fir // xA

Preface

i sense this man of the forest i? purely a creation. The idea of deli neat : . . chartil at possessed little of civiliza* on but its highest principles as the\ are ■ . i bited in uneducated, and all of savage life that is not incompatible with these great" rules of duct, is perhaps natural to the situation in which Natty was placed. He is too proud his origin to sink into the condition of the wild Indian, and too much a man of the woods not to imbibe as much as was at all desirable, from his friends and companions. In a moral point of view it was the intention to illustrate the effect of seed scattered by the way-side. To use his own language, his “gifts” were “white gifts,” and he was not disposed to bring on them discredit. On the other hand, removed from nearly all the temptations of civilized life, placed in the best associations of that which is deemed savage, and favorably disposed by nature to improve such advantages, it appeared to the writer that his hero was a fit subject to represent the better qualities of both conditions, without pushing either to extremes.

There was no violent stretch of the imagination, perhaps, in supposing one of civilized associations in childhood, retaining many of his earliest lessons amid the scenes of the forest. Had these early impressions, however, not been sustained by continued though casual connection with men of his own color, if not of his own caste, all our information goes to show he would soon have lost every trace of his origin. It is believed thar sufficient attention was paid to the particular circumstances in which this individual was placed, to justify the picture of his qualities that has been drawn. The Delawares early attracted the attention of the missionaries, and were a tribe unusually influenced by their precepts and example. In many instances they became Christians, and cases occurred in which their subsequent lives gave proof of the efficacy of the great moral changes that had taken place within them.

A leading character in a work of fiction has a fair right to the aid which can he obtained from a poetical view of the subject. It is in this vie1”, rather than in one more strictly circumstantial, that Leather-Stocking has been drawn. The imagination has no great task in portraying to itself a being removed from the every-day inducements to err, which abound in civilized life, while he retains the best and simplest of his early impressions: who sees God in the forest; hears him in the winds; hows to him in the firmament that o’ercanopies all; submits to his sway in an humble belief of his justice and mercy; in a word, a being who finds the impress of the Deity in all the works of Nature, without any of the blots produced by die expedients, and passion, and mistakes of man. This is the most that has been attempted in the character of Leather Stocking. Had this been done without any of the drawbacks of humanity, the picture would have been, in all probability, more pleasing than just. In order to preserve the rrai semblablc , therefore, traits derived from the prejudices, tastes, and even the weaknesses of his youth, have been mixed up with these higher qualities and longings, in a way, it is hoped, to represent a reasonable picture of human nature, without offering to the spectator a “ monster ” of goodness.

It has been objected to these hooks that they give a more favorable picture of the red man than he deserves. The writer apprehends that much of this objection arises from the habits cf those who have made it. One of his critics, on the appearance of the first work in which Indian character vTas portrayed, objected that its “ characters were Indians of the school of Ilecke welder, rather than of the school of Nature.” These words quite probably contain the substance of the true answer to the objection. Ileckewelder was an ardent, benevolent missionary, bent on the good of the red man, and seeing in him one who had the soul, reason, and characteristics of a fellow-being. The critic is understood to have been a very distinguished agent of the government, one very familiar with Indians, as they are seen at the councils to treat for the sale of theii lands, -where little or none of their domestic qualities corns in play, and where, indeed, their evil passions are known to have the fullest scope. As just would it *be to draw conclusions of the general state of American society from the scenes of the capital, as to suppose that the negotiating of one of these treaties is a fair picture of Indian life.

It is the privilege of all writers of fiction, more particularly when their works aspire to the elevation of romances, to present the beau ideal of their characters to the reader. This it is which constitutes poetry, and to suppose that the red man is to be represented only in the squalid misery or in the degraded moral state that certainly more or less belorigs to his condition, is, we apprehend, taking a very narrow view, of an author’s privi. leges. Such criticism would have deprived the world of even Homer.

PREFACE.

As has been stated in the preface to the series of the Leather-Stocking Tales, ‘ The Deerslayer ” is properly the first in the order of reading, though the last in that of publication. In this book the hero is represented as just arriving at manhood, with the freshness of feeling that belongs to that interesting period of life* and with the power to please that properly characterizes youth. As a consequence, he is loved; and, what denotes the real waywardness of humanity, more than it corresponds with theories and moral propositions, perhaps, he is loved by one full of art, vanity, and weakness, and loved principally for his sincerity, his modesty, and his unerring truth and probity. The preference he gives to the high qualities named, over beauty, delirious passion, and sin, it is hoped, will offer a lesson that can injure none. This portion of the book is intentionally kept down, though it is thought to be sufficiently distinct to convey its moral.

The intention has been to put the sisters in strong contrast ; one admirable in person, clever, filled with the pride of beauty, erring, and fallen ; the other, barely provided with sufficient capacity to know good from evil, instinct, notwithstanding, with the virtues of woman, reverencing and loving God, and yielding only to the weakness of her sex, in admiring personal attractions in one too coarse and unobservant to distinguish or to understand her quiet, gentle feeling in his favor.

As for the scene of this tale, it is intended for, and believed to be a close description of, the Otsego, prior to the year 1760, when the first rude settlement was commenced on its banks, at that time only an insignificant clearing near the outlet, with a small hut of squared logs, for the temporary dwelling of the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs. The recollections of the writer carry him back distinctly to a time when nine-tenths of the shores of this lake were in the virgin forest, a peculiarity that was owing to the circumstance of the roads running through the first range of valleys removed from the water-side. The woods and the mountains have ever formed a principal source of beauty with this charming sheet of water, enough of the former remaining to this day to relieve the open grounds from monotony and tameness.

In most respects the descriptions of scenery in the tale are reasonably accurate. The rock appointed for the rendezvous between the Deerslayer and his friend the Delaware still remains, bearing the name of the Otsego Rock. The shoal on which flutter is represented as having built his “ castle” is a little misplaced, lying, in fact, nearer to

PREFACE.

the northern end of the lake, as well as to the eastern shore, than is stated in this hook. Such a shoal, however, exists, surrounded on all sides by deep water. In the driest seasons a few rocks are seen above the surface of the lake, and rushes, at most periods of the year, mark its locality. In a word, in all but precise position, even this feature of the book is accurate. The same is true of the several points introduced, of the bay, of the river, of the mountains, and all the other accessories of the place.

The legend is purely fiction, no authority existing for any of its facts, characters, or other peculiarities, beyond that which was thought necessary to secure the semblance of reality. Truth compels us to admit that the book has attracted very little notice, and that if its merits are to be computed' by its popularity, the care that has been bestowed on this edition might as well be spared. Such, at least, has been its fate in America ; whether it has met with better success in any other country we have no means of knowing.

Chapter I

* There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

Therms society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar ;

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal,

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Childe Hakold.

On the human imagination, events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much, is apt to fancy that he has lived long ; and the history that most abounds in important incidents, soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to reach the mists of time ; and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits of the republic. Although New York alone possesses a population materially exceeding that of either of the four smallest kingdoms of Europe, or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss Confederation, it is little more than two centuries since the Dutch commenced their settlement, rescuing the region from the savage state. Thus, what seems venerable by an accumulation of changes, is reduced to familiarity when we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time.

This glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader to look at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise than ha might otherwise feel ; and a few additional explanations may carry him back in imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire to delineate. It is matter of history that the settlements on the eastern shores of the Hudson, such as Claveraclc, Kinderhook, and even Poughkeepsie, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century since ; and there is still standing on the banks of the same river, and within musket-shot of the wharves of Albany, a residence of a younger branch* of the Yan Rensselaers, that has loop-holes constructed for defence against the same crafty enemy, although it dates from a period scarcely so distant. Other similar memorials of the infancy of the country are to be found, scattered through what is now deemed the very centre of American civilization, affording the plainest proofs that all we possess of security from invasion and hostile violence is the growth of but little more than the time that is frequently filled by a single human life.

The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745, when the settled portions of the colony of New York were confined tc the four Atlantic counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the Hudson, extending from its mouth to the falls near its head, and to a few advanced “neighborhoods” on the Mohawk and the Schoharie. Broad belts of the virgin wilderness not only reached the shores of the first river, but they even crossed it, stretching away into New England, and affording forest covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior^ as he trod the secret and bloody war-path. A bird’seye view of the whole region east of the Mississippi must then have offered one vast expanse of

* It is no more than justice to say that the Grecnbush Yan Eensselaers claim to be the oldest branch of tnat ancient and respectable family.

THE DEERSLAYER.

woods, relieved by a comparatively narrow fringe of cultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces of lakes, and intersected by the waving lines of rivers. In such a vast picture of solemn solitude, the district of country we design to paint sinks into insignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction that} with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving an accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily convey a tolerably correct notion of the whole.

Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the seasons is unbroken. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return in their stated order, with a sublime precision, affording to man one of the noblest of all the occasions he enjoys of proving the high powers of his far-reaching mind, in compassing the laws that control their exact uniformity, and in calculating their never-ending revolutions. Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and pines, sending their heats even to the tenacious roots, when voices,, were heard calling to each other, in the depths of a forest, of which the leafy surface lay bathed in the brilliant light of a cloudless day in June, while the trunks of the trees rose in gloomy grandeur in the shades beneath. The calls were in different tones, evidently proceeding from two men who had lost their way, and were searching in different directions for their path. At length a shout proclaimed success, and presently a man of gigantic mould broke out of the tangled labyrinth of a small swamp, emerging into an opening that appeared to have been formed partly by the ravages of the wind, and partly by those of fire. This little area, which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was pretty well filled with dead trees, lay on the side of one of the high hills, or l®w mountains, into which nearly the whole surface of the adjacent country was broken.

“ Here is room to breathe in ! ” exclaimed the liberated forester, as soon as he found himself under a clear sky, shaking his huge frame like a mastiff that has just escaped from a snow-bank. “ Hurrah ! Deerslayer ; here is daylight, at last, and yonder is the lake.”

These words were scarcely uttered when the second forester dashed aside the bushes of the 8wampy and appeared in the area. After making a hurried adjustment of his arms and disordered dress, he joined his companion, who had already begun his dispositions for a halt.

“ Do you know this spot ? ” demanded the one called Deerslayer, “ or do you shout at the sight of the sun ? ”

“ Both, lad, both ; I know the spot, and am not sorry to see so useful a friend as the sun. Now we have got the p’ints of the compass in our minds once more, and ’twill be our own faults if we let any thing turn them topsy-turvy ag’in, as has just happened. Hy name is not Hurry Harry, if this be not the very spot where the land-hunters ’camped the last summer, and passed a week. See, yonder are the dead bushes of their bowei4 and here is the spring. Much as I like the sun boy, I’ve no occasion for it to tell me it is noon this stomach of mine is as good a time-piece as is to be found in the colony, and it already p’ints to half-past twelve. So open the wallet, and let us wind up for another six hours’ run.”

At this suggestion, both set themselves about making the preparations necessary for their usual frugal but hearty meal. We will profit by this pause in the discourse to give the reader some idea of the appearance of the men, eacfcof whom is destined to enact no insignificant part in our legend. It would not have been easy to find a more noble specimen of vigorous manhood, than was offered in the person of him who called himself Hurry Harry. His real name was Henry March ; but the frontier-men having caught the practice of giving sobriquets from the Indians, the appellation of Hurry was far often er applied to him than his proper designation, and not unfrequently he was termed Hurry Skurry, a nickname he had obtained from a dashing, reckless, off-hand manner, and a physical restlessness that kept him so constantly on the move, as to cause him to be known along the whole line of scattered habitations that lay between the province and the Canadas. The stature of Hurry Harry exceeded six feet four, and being unusually well proportioned, his strength fully realized the idea created by his gigantic frame. The face did no discredit to the rest of the man, for it was both good-humored and handsome. His air was free, and, though his manner necessarily partook of the rudeness of a border-life, the grandeur that pervaded so noble a physique prevented it from becoming altogether vulgar.

Deerslayer, as Hurry called his companion, was a very different person in appearance, as well as in character. In stature, he stood about six feet in his moccasins, but his frame was comparatively light and slender, showing muscles, however, that promised unusual agility, if not um usual strength. His face would have had little to recommend it except youth, were it not for an expression that seldom failed to win upon those who had leisure to examine it, and to yield to the feeling of confidence it created. This expression

HURRY nARRY AND IIIS COMPANION.

was simply that of guileless truth, sustained by an earnestness of purpose, and a sincerity of feeling, that rendered it remarkable. At times this air of integrity seemed to be so simple as to awaken the suspicion of a want of the usual means to discriminate between artifice and truth ; but few came in serious contact with the man, without losing this distrust in respect for his opinions and motives.

Both these frontier-men were still young, Hurry having reached the age of six or eight and twenty, while Deerslayer was several years his junior. Their attire needs no particular description, though it may be well to add that it was composed, in no small degree, of dressed deer-skins, and had the usual signs of belonging to those who pass their time between the skirts of civilized society and the boundless forests. There was, notwithstanding, some attention to smartness and the picturesque in the arrangements of Deerslayer’s dress, more particularly with the part connected with his arms and accoutrements. His rifle was in perfect condition, the handle of his hunting-knife was neatly carved, his powder-horn was ornamented with suitable devices lightly cut into the material, and his shot-pouch was decorated with wampum. On the other hand, Hurry Harry, either from constitutional recklessness, or from a secret consciousness how little his appearance required artificial aids, wore every thing in a careless, slovenly manner, as if he felt a noble scorn for the trifling accessories of dress and ornaments. Perhaps the peculiar effect of his fine form and great stature was increased, rather than lessened, by this unstudied and disdainful air of indifference.

“ Come, Deerslayer, fall to, and prove that you have a Delaware stomach, as you say you have had a Delaware edication,” cried Hurry, setting the example by opening his mouth to receive a slice of cold venison-steak that would have made an entire meal for a European peasant ; “ fall to, lad, and prove your manhood on this poor devil of a doe, with your teeth, as you’ve already done with your rifle.”

“Nay, nay, Hurry, there’s little manhood in killing a doe, and that too out of season ; though there might be some in bringing down a painter or a catamount,” returned the other, disposing himself to comply. “ The Delawares have given me my name, not so much on account of a bold heart, as on account of a quick eye and an actyve foot. There may not be any cowardyce in overcoming a deer, but, sartin it is, there’s no great valor.”

“ The Delawares, themselves, are no Zeroes,”

muttered Hurry through his teeth, the mouth being too full to permit it to be fairly opened, “ or they never would have allowed them loping vagabonds, the Mingoes, to make them women.”

“ That matter is not rightly understood — has never been rightly explained,” said Deerslayer, earnestly, for he was as zealous a friend as his companion was dangerous as an enemy ; “ thr Mengwe fill the woods with their lies, and misconstruct words and treaties. I have now lived ten years with the Delawares, and know them to be as manful as any other nation, when the proper time to strike comes.”

“ Harkee, Master Deerslayer, since we are on the subject, we may as well open our minds to each other in a man-to-man way ; answer me one question : you have had so much luck among the game as to have gotten a title, it would seem, but did you ever hit any thing human or intelligible ? did you ever pull trigger on an inimy that was capable of pulling one upon you ? ”

This question produced a singular collision between mortification and correct feeling, in the bosom of the youth, that was easily to be traced in the workings of his ingenuous countenance. The struggle was short, however ; uprightness^of heart soon getting the better of false pride amd frontier boastfulness.

“ To own the truth, I never did,” answered Deerslayer ; “ seeing that a fitting occasion never offered. The Delawares have been peaceable since my sojourn with ’em, and I hold it to be onlawful to take the life of man, except in open and generous warfare.”

“ What ! did you never find a fellow thieving among your traps and skins, and do the law on him with your own hands, by way of saving the magistrates trouble, in the settlements, and the rogue himself the cost of the suit ? ”

“ I am no trapper, Hurry,” returned the young man, proudly ; “ I live by the rifle, a we’pon at which I will not turn my back on any man of my years, atwreen the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. I never offer a skin that has not a hole in its head besides them which Natur’ made to see with, or to breathe through.”

“Ay, ay, this is all very well, in the animal way, though it makes but a poor figure alongside of scalps and and-bushes. Shooting an Indian from an and-bush is acting up to his own principles, and, now we have what you call a lawful war on our hands, the sooner you wipe that disgrace off your character, the sounder will be your sleep, if it only come from knowing there is one inimy the less prowling in the woods. I shall not frequent your society long, friend Natty, unless iO you look higher than four-footed beasts to practise your rifle on.”

“ Our journey is nearly ended, you say, Master March, and we can part to-night, if you see occasion. I have a fri’nd waiting for me, who will think it no disgrace to consort with a fellow-creatur’ that has never yet slain his kind.”

“ I wish I knew what has brought that skulking Delaware into this part of the country so early in the season,” muttered Hurry to himself, in a way to show equally distrust and a recklessness of its betrayal. “Where did you say the young chief was to give you the meeting? ”

“ At a small, round rock, near the foot of the lake, where, they tell me, the tribes are given to resorting to make their treaties, and to bury their hatchets. This rock have I often heard the Delawares mention, though lake and rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed by both Min goes and Mohicans, and is a sort of common territory to fish and hunt through, in time of peace, though what it may become in war-time the Lord only knows ! ”

“ Common territory ! ” exclaimed Hurry, laughing aloud. “ I should like to know what Floating Tcm Hutter would say to that ? He claims the lale as his own property, in vartue of fifteen years’ possession, and will not be likely to give it up to either Mingo or Delaware without a battle for it.”

“And what will the colony say to such a quarrel ? All this country must have some owner, the gentry pushing their cravings into the wilderness, even where they never dare to ventur’, in their own persons, to look at the land they own.”

“ That may do in other quarters of the colony, Deerslayer, but it will not do here. Not a human being, the Lord excepted, owns a foot of s’ile in this part of the country. Pen was never put to paper, consarning either hill or valley, hereaway, as I’ve heard old Tom say, time and ag’in, and so he claims the best right to it of any man breathing; and what Tom claims, he’ll be very likely to maintain.”

“By what I’ve heard, Hurry, this Floating Tom must be an oncommon mortal ; neither Mingo, Delaware, nor pale-face. His possession, too, has been long, by your tell, and altogether beyond frontier endurance. What’s the man’s history and natur’ ? ”

“ Why, as to old Tom’s human natur’, it is not much like other men’s human natur’, but more like a musk-rat’s human natur’, seeing that he takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways of any other fellow-creatur’. Some think he was a free livei on the salt water, in his youth, and a companion of a sartin Kidd, who was hanged for piracy, long afore you and I were born or acquainted, and that he came up into these regions, thinking that the king’s cruisers could never cross the mountains, and that he might enjoy the plunder peaceably in the woods.”

“ Then he was wrong, Hurry — very wrong. A man can enjoy plunder peaceably nowhere.”

“ That’s much as his turn of mind may happen to be. I’ve known them that never could enjoy it at all, unless it was in the midst of a jollification, and them ag’in that enjoyed it best in a corner. Some men have no peace if they don’t find plunder, and some if they do. Human natur’ is crooked in these matters. Old Tom seems to belong to neither set, as he enjoys his, if plunder he has really got, with his darters, in a very quiet and comfortable way, and wishes for no more.”

“ Ay, be has darters, too ; I’ve heard the Delawares, who’ve hunted this-a-way, tell their histories of these young women. Is there no mother, Hurry ? ”

“ There was once , as in reason ; but she has now been dead and sunk these two good years.”

“ Anan? ” said Deerslayer, looking up at his companion in a little surprise.

“ Dead and sunk, I say, and I hope that’s good English. The old fellow lowered his wife into the lake, by way of seeing the last of her, as I can testify, being an eye-witness of the ceremony ; but whether Tom did it to save digging, which is no easy job among roots, or out of a consait that water washes away sin sooner than ’arth, is more than I can say.”

“ Was the poor woman oncommon wicked, that her husband should take so much pains with her body ? ”

“ Not onreasonable ; though she had her faults. I consider Judith Hutter to have been as graceful, and about as likely to make a good ind, as any woman who had lived so long beyond the sound of church-bells ; and I conclude old Tom sunk her as much by way of saving pains, as by way of talcing it. There was a little steel in her temper, it’s true, and, as old Hutter is pretty much flint, they struck out sparks once-and-a while ; but, on the whole, they might be said to live amicable-like. When they did kindle, the listeners got some such insights into their past lives as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds it3 way down to the roots of the trees. But Judith I shall always esteem, as it’s recommend enough