The black grinned with the consciousness of the
bribe that was thus offered him for his silence on
the subject of the deer, while Richard, without, in
the least, waiting for the termination of his cousin's
speech, at once began his reply—

“Learn to drive, sayest thou, cousin duke? Is
there a man in the county who knows more of
horse-flesh than myself? Who broke in the filly,
that no one else dare mount? though your coachman
did pretend that he had tamed her before I
took her in hand, but any body could see that he
lied—he was a great liar, that John—what's that,
a buck?”—Richard abandoned the horses, and
ran to the spot where Marmaduke had thrown
the deer: “It is a buck indeed! I am amazed!
Yes, here are two holes in him; he has fired both
barrels, and hit him each time. Ecod! how Marmaduke
will brag! he is a prodigious bragger
about any small matter like this now; well, well,
to think that 'duke has killed a buck before christmas!
There will be no such thing as living with
him—they are both bad shots though, mere chance—
mere chance;—now, I never fired twice at a
cloven hoof in my life;—it is hit or miss with me—
dead or runaway:—had it been a bear, or a
wild-cat, a man might have wanted both barrels.
Here! you Aggy! how far off was the Judge when
this buck was shot?”

“Eh! Massa Richard, may be a ten rod,” cried
the black, bending under one of the horses, with
the pretence of fastening a buckle, but in reality to
conceal the broad grin that opened a mouth from
ear to ear.

“Ten rod!” echoed the other; “why, Aggy,
the deer I killed last winter was at twenty—yes!
if any thing it was nearer thirty than twenty. I
wouldn't shoot at a deer at ten rod: besides, you
may remember, Aggy, I only fired once.”

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

“Yes, Massa Richard, I'member 'em! Natty
Bumppo fire t'oder gun. You know, sir, the folk
say, Natty kill 'em.”

“The folks lie, you black devil!” exclaimed
Richard in great heat. “I have not shot even a
gray squirrel these four years, to which that old
rascal has not laid claim, or some one for him.
This is a damn'd envious world that we live in—
people are always for dividing the credit of a thing,
in order to bring down merit to their own level.
Now they have a story about the Patent, that
Hiram Doolittle helped to plan the steeple to St.
Paul's; when Hiram knows that it is entirely mine;
a little taken from a print of its namesake in London,
I own; but all the rest is mine.”

“I don't know where he come from,” said the
black, losing every mark of humour in au expression
of deep admiration, “but eb'ry body say, he
wonnerful hansome.”

“And well they may say so, Aggy,” cried Richard,
leaving the buck, and walking up to the negro
with the air of a man who has new interest
awakened within him. “I think I may say, without
bragging, that it is the handsomest and the
most scientific country church in America. I
know that the Connecticut settlers talk about
their Weathersfield meeting-house; but I never
believe more than half of what they say, they are
such unconscionable braggers. Just as you have
got a thing done, if they see it likely to be successful,
they are always for interfering; and then its
ten to one but they lay claim to half, or even all
of the credit. You may remember, Aggy, when
I painted the sign of the bold dragoon for Capt.
Hollister, there was that fellow, who was about
town laying brick dust on the houses, came one
day and offered to mix what I call the streaky
black, for the tail and mane, and then, because it

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

looks just like horse hair, he tells every body that
the sign was painted by himself and Squire Jones.
If Marmaduke don't send that fellow off the Patent,
he may ornament his village with his own
hands, for me.” Here Richard paused a moment,
and cleared his throat by a loud hem, while the
negro, who was all this time busily engaged in
preparing their sleigh, proceeded with his work
in respectful silence. Owing to the religious
scruples of the Judge, Aggy was the servant of
Richard, who had his services for a time, and who,
of course, commanded a legal claim to the respect
of the young negro. But when any dispute between
his lawful master and his real benefactor occurred,
the black felt too much deference for both
to express any opinion. In the mean while, Richard
continued watching the negro as he fastened
buckle after buckle, until, stealing a look of consciousness
toward the other, he continued, “Now,
if that young man, who was in your sleigh, is a
real Connecticut settler, he will be telling every
body how he saved my horses, when, if he had
just let them alone for one half a minute longer,
I would have brought them in much better, without
upsetting, with the whip and rein—it spoils
a horse to give him his head. I should not wonder
if I had to sell the whole team, just for that
one jerk that he gave them.” Richard again
paused, and again hemmed; for his conscience
smote him a little, for censuring a man who had
just saved his life—“Who is the lad, Aggy—I
don't remember to have seen him before?”

The black recollected the hint about Santaclaus;
and while he briefly explained how they
had taken him on the top of the mountain, he
forbore to add any thing concerning the accident
of the wound, only saying, that he believed the

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

youth was a stranger. It was so usual for men of
the first rank to take into their sleighs any one
whom they found toiling through the snow, that
Richard was perfectly satisfied with this explanation.
He heard Aggy, with great attention, and
then remarked, “Well, if the lad has not been
spoiled by the people in Templeton, he may be a
modest young man, and as he certainly meant
well, I shall take some notice of him—perhaps he
is land-hunting—I say, Aggy—may be he is out
hunting?”

“Eh! yes, massa Richard,” said the black, a
little confused; for as Richard did all the flogging,
he stood in great terror of his master, in the
main—“yes, sir, I b'lieve he be.”

“Had he a pack and an ax?”

“No, sir, only he rifle.”

“Rifle!” exclaimed Richard, observing the
confusion of the negro, which now amounted to
terror. “By Jove! he killed the deer. I knew
that Marmaduke couldn't kill a buck on the jump—
How was it, Aggy? tell me all about it, and I'll
roast 'duke quicker than he can roast his saddle—
How was it, Aggy? the lad shot the buck, and
the Judge bought it, ha! and is taking him down
to get the pay?”

The pleasure of this discovery had put Richard
in such a good humour, that the negro's fears in
some measure vanished, and he remembered the
stocking. After a gulp or two, he made out to reply—

“You forgit a two shot, sir?”

“Don't lie, you black rascal!” cried Richard,
stepping on the snow-bank to measure the distance
from his long lash to the negro's back; “speak
the truth, or I'll trounce you.” While speaking,
the stock was slowly rising in Richard's right

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

hand, and the lash drawing through his left, in the
scientific manner with which drummers apply the
cat, and Agamemnon, after turning each side of
himself towards his master, and finding all equally
unwilling to remain there, forgetful of his great
name, fairly gave in. In a very few words he
made his master acquainted with the truth, at the
same time earnestly conjuring Richard to protect
him from the displeasure of the Judge.

“I'll do it, boy, I'll do it,” cried the other, rubbing
his hands with delight; “say nothing, but
leave me to manage 'duke—I have a damn'd great
mind to leave the deer on the hill, and to make
the fellow send for his own carcass: but no, I will
let Marmaduke tell a few bouncers about it before
I come out upon him. Come, hurry in, Aggy, I
must help to dress the lad's wound; this Yankee
doctor knows nothing of surgery—I had to hold
old Milligan's leg for him, while he cut it off.”—
Richard was now seated on the stool again, and
the black taking the hind seat, the steeds were put
in motion towards home. As they dashed down
the hill, on a fast trot, the driver occasionally turned
his face to Aggy, and continued speaking; for,
notwithstanding their recent rupture, the most perfect
cordiality was again existing between them.
“This goes to prove that I turned the horses with
the reins, for no man who is shot in the right shoulder,
can have strength enough to bring round such
obstinate devils. I knew I did it from the first;
but I did not want to multiply words with Marmaduke
about it—Will you bite, you villain?—hip,
boys, hip! Old Natty too, that is the best of it—
Well, well—'duke will say no more about my deer—
and the Judge fired both barrels, and hit nothing
but a poor lad, who was behind a pine tree. I
must help that quack to take out the buck shot
for the poor fellow.” In this manner Richard

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

descended the mountain; the bells ringing and his
tongue going, until they entered the village, when
the whole attention of the driver was devoted to a
display of his horsemanship, to the admiration of
all the gaping women and children, who thronged
the windows, to witness the arrival of their landlord
and his daughter.

CHAPTER V.

Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel's pumps were all unfinish'd I' th' heel:
There was no link to colour Peter's hat.
And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing:
There were none fine, but Adam, Ralph and Gregory.
Shakespeare.

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

After winding along the side of the mountain,
the road, on reaching the gentle declivity which
lay at the base of the hill, turned at a right angle
to its former course, and shot down an inclined
plain, directly into the village of Templeton.
The rapid little stream that we have already mentioned,
was crossed by a bridge of hewn timber,
which manifested, by its rude construction, and
the unnecessary size of its frame-work, both the
value of labour, and the abundance of materials.
This little torrent, whose dark waters gushed in
mimic turbulence over the limestones that lined
its bottom, was nothing less than one of the many
sources of the Susquehanna; a river, to which the
Atlantic herself, has extended her right arm, to
welcome into her bosom. It was at this point,
that the powerful team of Mr. Jones brought him
up to the more sober steeds of our travellers. A
small hill was risen, and the astonished Elizabeth
found herself, at once, amid the incongruous
dwellings of the village. The street was laid out
of the width of an ordinary avenue to a city, notwithstanding
that the eye might embrace in one

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

view, thousands, and tens of thousands of acres,
that were yet tenanted only by the beasts of the
forest. But such had been the will of her father,
and such had also met the wishes of his followers.
To them, the road, that made the most rapid approaches
to the condition of the old, or, as they expressed
it, the down countries, was the most pleasant;
and surely nothing could look more like civilization,
than a city, even if it lay in a wilderness!
The width of the street, for so it was called,
might have been one hundred feet; but the track
for the sleighs was much more limited. On either
side of the highway, were piled before the houses,
huge heaps of logs that were daily increasing than
diminishing in size, notwithstanding the enormous
fires that might be seen, lighting every window
through the dusk of the evening.

The last object at which Elizabeth had gazed
when they renewed their journey, after the rencontre
with Richard, was the sun, as it expanded in the
refraction of the horizon, and over whose disk, the
dark umbrage of a pine was stealing, while it slowly
sunk behind the western hills. But his setting
rays darted along the openings of the mountain
she was on, and lighted the shining covering of
the birches, until their smooth and glossy coats,
nearly rivalled the mountain-sides in colour. The
out-line of each dark pine was delineated far in the
depths of the forest; and the rocks, too smooth
and too perpendicular to retain the snow that had
fallen, brightened, as if smiling in scorn, at the
changes in the season. But at each step, as they
descended, Elizabeth observed that they were
leaving the day behind them. Even the heartless,
but bright rays of a December sun, were missed,
as they glided into the cold gloom of the valley.
Along the summits of the mountains in the eastern
range, it is true, that the light still lingered,

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

receding step by step from the earth into the few clouds
that were gathering, with the evening mist, about
the limited horizon; but the frozen lake lay without
a shadow on its chill bosom; the dwellings
were becoming already gloomy and indistinct;
and the wood-cutters were shouldering their axes,
and preparing to enjoy, throughout the long
evening before them, the comforts of those exhilarating
fires that their labour had been supplying
with fuel. They paused only to gaze at the passing
sleighs, to lift their caps to Marmaduke, to exchange
familiar nods with Richard, and each disappeared
in his dwelling. The paper curtains
dropped behind our travellers in every window,
shutting from the air even the fire-light of their
cheerful apartments; and when the horses of her
father turned, with a rapid whirl, into the open
gate of the mansion-house, and nothing stood before
her but the cold, dreary stone-walls of the
building, as she approached them through an
avenue of young and leafless poplars, Elizabeth
felt as if all the loveliness of the mountain-view
had vanished like the fancies of a dream. Marmaduke
retained so much of his early habits as to
reject the use of bells, but the equipage of Mr.
Jones came dashing through the gate after them,
sending its jingling sounds through every cranny
in the building, and in a moment the dwelling was
in an uproar.

On a stone platform, of rather small proportions,
considering the size of the building, Richard
and Hiram had, conjointly, reared four little columns
of wood, which in their turn supported the
shingled roofs of the portico—this was the name
that Mr. Jones had thought proper to give to a
very plain, covered, entrance to the mansion.—
The ascent to the platform was by five or six
stone steps, somewhat hastily laid together, and

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

which the frost had already begun to move from
their symmetrical positions. But the evils of a
cold climate, and a superficial construction, did
not end here. As the steps lowered, the platform
necessarily fell also, and the foundations actually
left the superstructure suspended in the air, leaving
an open space of a foot from the base of the
pillars to the bases on which they had originally
been placed. It was lucky for the whole fabric,
that the carpenter, who did the manual part of the
labour, had fastened the canopy of this classic entrance
so firmly to the side of the house, that, when
the base deserted the superstructure in the manner
we have described, and the pillars, for the
want of a foundation, were no longer of service to
support the roof, the roof was able to uphold the
pillars. Here was indeed an unfortunate gap
left in the ornamental part of Richard's column;
but, like the window in Aladdin's palace, it seemed
only left in order to prove the fertility of its
master's resources. The composite order again
offered its advantages, and a second edition of the
base was given, as the booksellers say, with additions
and improvements. It was necessarily larger,
and it was properly ornamented with mouldings:
still the steps continued to yield, and, at the
moment when Elizabeth returned to her father's
door, a few rough wedges were driven under the
pillars to keep them steady, and to prevent their
weight from separating them from the pediment
which they ought to have supported.

From the great door, which opened into the
porch, emerged two or three female domestics,
and one male. The latter was bare-headed, but
evidently more dressed than usual, and in the
whole, was of so singular a formation and attire,
as to deserve a more minute description. He was
about five feet in height, of a square and athletic

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

frame, with a pair of shoulders that would have fitted
a grenadier. His low stature was rendered
the more striking by a bend forward that he was
in the habit of assuming, for no apparent reason,
unless it might be in order to give a greater freedom
to his arms, in a particularly sweeping swing,
that they constantly practised when their master
was in motion. His face was long, of a fair complexion,
burnt to a fiery red; with a snub nose,
cocked into an inveterate pug; a mouth of enormous
dimensions, filled with fine teeth; and a
pair of blue eyes, that seemed to look about them,
on surrounding objects, with vast contempt. His
head composed full one-fourth of his whole length,
and the queue that depended from its rear occupied
another. He wore a coat of very light drab
cloth, with buttons as large as dollars, bearing the
impression of a “foul anchor.” The skirts were
extremely long, reaching quite to the calf, and
were broad in proportion. Beneath, there were a
vest and breeches of red plush, somewhat worn and
soiled. He had shoes with large buckles, and
stockings of blue and white stripes.

This odd-looking figure reported himself to be
a native of the county of Cornwall, in the island
of Great Britain. His boyhood had passed in the
neighbourhood of the tin mines, and his youth as
the cabin-boy of a smuggler, between Falmouth
and Guernsey. From this trade he was impressed
into the service of his king, and, for the want of a
better, had been taken into the cabin, first as a
servant, and finally as steward to the captain.
Here he acquired the art of making chowder, lobskous,
and one or two other sea-dishes, and, as he
was fond of saying, had an opportunity of seeing
the world. With the exception of one or two outports
in France, and an occasional visit to

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Deal, he had in reality seen
no more of mankind, however, than if he had been
riding a donkey in one of his native mines. But,
being discharged from the navy at the peace of '83,
he declared, that, as he had seen all the civilized
parts of the world, he was inclined to a trip to the
wilds of America. We will not trace him in his
brief wanderings, under the influence of that spirit
of emigration, that sometimes induces a dapper
Cockney to quit his home, and lands him, before
the sound of Bow bells is fairly out of his ears,
within the roar of the cataract of Niagara, but
shall only add, that, at a very early day, even before
Elizabeth had been sent to school, he had
found his way into the family of Marmaduke
Temple. where, owing to a combination of qualities,
he held. under Mr. Jones, the office of majordomo.
The name of this worthy was Benjamin
Penguillan, according to his own pronunciation;
but, owing to a marvellous tale that he was in the
habit of relating, concerning the length of time he
had to labour to keep his ship from sinking after
Rodney's victory, he had universally acquired the
nickname of Ben Pump.

By the side of Benjamin, and pressing forward
as if a little jealous of her station, stood a middle-aged
woman, dressed in calico, rather violently
contrasted in colour, with a tall, meager, shapeless
figure, sharp features, and a somewhat acute expression
in her physiognomy. Her teeth were
mostly gone, and what did remain were of a light
yellow. The skin of her nose was drawn tightly
over the member, and then suffered to hang in
large wrinkles in her cheeks and about her mouth.
She took snuff in such large quantities, as to create
the impression, that she owed the saffron of
her lips and the adjacent parts, to this circumstance;
but it was the unvarying colour of her

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

whole face. She presided over the female part of
the domestic arrangements, in the capacity of
housekeeper; was a spinster, and bore the name of
Remarkable Pettibone. To Elizabeth she was
an entire stranger, having been introduced into
the family since the death of her mother.

In addition to these, were three or four subordinate
menials, mostly black, some appearing at
the principal door, and some running from the
end of the building, where stood the entrance to
the cellar-kitchen.

Besides these, there was a general rush from
Richard's kennel, accompanied with every canine
tone, from the howl of the wolf-dog to the petulant
bark of the terrier. The master received
their boisterous salutations with a variety of imitations
from his own throat, when the dogs, probably
from shame at being outdone, ceased their
outcry. One stately, powerful mastiff, who wore
around his neck a brass collar, with “M. T.” engraved
in large letters on the rim; alone was silent.
He walked majestically, amid the confusion,
to the side of the Judge, where, receiving a kind
pat or two, he turned to Elizabeth, who even
stooped to kiss him, as she called him kindly by
the name of “Old Brave.” The animal seemed
to know her, as she ascended the steps, supported
by Monsieur Le Quoi and her father, in order to
protect her from falling on the ice, with which
they were covered. He looked wistfully after her
figure, and when the door closed on the whole
party, he laid himself in a kennel that was placed
nigh by, as if conscious that the house contained
something of additional value to guard.

Elizabeth followed her father, who paused a
moment to whisper a message to one of his domestics,
into a large hall, that was dimly lighted by
two candles, placed in high, old-fashioned, brass

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

candlesticks. The door closed, and the party
were at once removed from an atmosphere that
was nearly at zero, to one of sixty degrees above.
In the centre of the hall stood an enormous stove,
the sides of which appeared to be quivering with
the heat it emitted; from which a large, straight
pipe, leading through the ceiling above, carried
off the smoke. An iron basin, containing water,
was placed on this furnace, for such only it could
be called, in order to preserve a proper humidity
in the apartment. The room was carpeted, and
furnished with convenient, substantial furniture, of
a great variety in its appearance and materials;
some of which was brought from the city, and the
remainder manufactured by the mechanics of Templeton.
There was a sideboard of mahogany, inlaid
with ivory, and bearing enormous handles of
glittering brass, and groaning under piles of silver
plate. Near it stood a set of prodigious tables,
made of the wild cherry, to imitate the imported
wood of the sideboard, but plain, and without ornament
of any kind. Opposite to these stood a
smaller table, formed from a lighter coloured wood,
through the grains of which the wavy lines of the
curled-maple of the mountains were undulating in
precise regularity. Near to this, in a corner,
stood a heavy, old-fashioned, brass-faced clock,
encased in a high box, with the dark hue of the
black-walnut from the seashore. An enormous
settee, or sofa, covered with light chintz, stretched
along the walls for near twenty feet on one side of
the hall, and chairs of wood, painted a light yellow,
with black lines that were drawn by no very
steady hand, were ranged opposite, and in the intervals
between the other pieces of furniture. A
Fahrenheit's thermometer, in a mahogany case,
and with a barometer annexed, was hung against
the wall, at some little distance from the stove,

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

which Benjamin consulted, every half-hour, with
prodigious veneration. Two small glass chandeliers
were suspended at equal distances between the
stove and the outer doors, one of which opened at
either end of the hall, and gilt lustres were affixed
to the frame-work of the numerous side doors that
led from the apartment. Some little display in architecture
had been made in constructing these
frames and casings, which were surmounted with
pediments, that bore each a little pedestal in its
centre. On these pedestals were small busts in
blacked plaster of Paris. The style of the pedestals,
as well as the selection of the busts, had been
executed under the auspices of Mr. Jones. On
one stood Homer, a most striking likeness, Richard
affirmed, “as any one might see, for it was
blind.” Another bore the image of a smooth
visaged gentleman, with a pointed beard, whom
he called Shakspeare. A third ornament was an
urn, which, from its shape, Richard was accustomed
to say, intended to represent itself as holding
the ashes of Dido. A fourth was certainly old
Franklin, in his cap and spectacles. A fifth as
surely bore the dignified composure of the face of
Washington. A sixth was a non-descript, representing
“a man with a shirt-collar open,” to use
the language of Richard, “with a laurel on his
head;—it was Julius Cæsar or Dr. Faustus; there
were good reasons for believing either.”

The walls were hung with a dark, lead-coloured
English paper, that represented Britannia weeping
over the tomb of Wolfe. The hero himself stood
at a little distance from the mourning goddess, at
the edge of the paper. Each width contained the
figure, with the slight exception of one arm of the
General running over on to the next piece, so that
when Richard essayed, with his own hands, to put
together this delicate outline, some difficulties

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

occurred, that prevented a nice conjunction, and
Britannia had reason to lament, in addition to the
loss of her favourite's life, numberless cruel amputations
of his right arm.

The luckless cause of these unnatural divisions
announced his presence in the hall by a loud crack
of his whip, that startled the party, and his voice
was first heard, exclaiming—

“Why, Benjamin! you Ben Pump! is this the
manner in which you receive the heiress? Excuse
him, cousin Elizabeth. The arrangements were
too delicate and nice to be trusted to every one;
but now I am here, things will go on better.—
Come, light up, Mr. Penguillan, light up, light
up, and let us see one another's faces. Well,
'duke, I have brought home your deer; what is to
be done with it, ha?”

“By the lord, Squire,” commenced Benjamin
in reply, first giving his mouth a wipe with the
back of his hand, “if this here thing had been ordered
sum'at earlier in the day, it might have been
got up, d'ye see, to your liking. I had mustered
all hands, and was exercising candles, when you
hove in sight; but when the women heard your
bells, they started an end, as if they were riding
the boatswain's colt; and, if-so-be there is that
man in the house, who can bring up a parcel of
women when they have got headway on them, until
they've run out the end of their rope, his name
is not Benjamin Pump. But Miss Betsy here,
must have altered more than a privateer in disguise,
since she has got on her woman's duds, if
she will go to take offence with an old fellow, for
the small matter of lighting a few candles.”

Elizabeth and her father continued silent, for
both experienced the same sensations on entering
the hall. The former had resided one year in
the building before she left home for the school,

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

and the figure of its late lamented mistress was
missed by both the husband and the child.

But candles had been placed in the chandeliers
and lustres, and the attendants were so far recovered
from their surprise as to recollect their
use: the oversight was immediately remedied,
and in a minute the apartment was in a blaze
of light.

The slight melancholy of our heroine and her
father was banished by this brilliant interruption;
and the whole party began to lay aside the numberless
garments that they had worn in the air.

During this operation, Richard kept up a desultory
dialogue with the different domestics, occasionally
throwing out a remark to the Judge concerning
the deer; but as his conversation at such
moments was much like an accompaniment on a
piano, a thing that is heard without being attended
to, we will not undertake the task of recording
his wonderfully diffuse discourse.

The instant that Remarkable Pettibone had
executed her portion of the labour in illuminating,
she returned to a position near Elizabeth, with the
apparent motive of receiving the clothes that the
other threw aside, but in reality to examine, with
an air of mingled curiosity and jealousy, the appearance
of the lady who was to supplant her in
the administration of their domestic economy. The
housekeeper felt a little appalled, when, after
cloak, coats, shawls, and socks had been taken off
in succession, the large black hood was removed,
and the dark ringlets, shining like the raven's
wing, fell from her head, and left the sweet but
commanding features of the young lady exposed
to view. Nothing could be fairer and more spotless
than the forehead of Elizabeth, and preserve
the appearance of life and health. Her nose
would have been called Grecian, but for a softly

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

rounded swell, that gave in character to the feature
what it lost in beauty. Her mouth, at first
sight, seemed only made for love; but the instant
that its muscles moved, every expression that womanly
dignity could utter, played around it, with
the flexibility of female grace. It spoke not only
to the ear, but to the eye. So much, added to
a form of exquisite proportions, rather full and
rounded for her years, and of the tallest medium
height, she inherited from her mother. Even the
colour of her eye, the arched brows, and the long
silken lashes, came from the same source; but its
expression was her father's. Inert and composed,
it was soft, benevolent, and attractive; but it
could be roused, and that without much difficulty.
At such moments it was still beautiful, though it
was beauty in its grandeur. As the last shawl fell
aside, and she stood, dressed in a rich blue riding-habit,
that fitted her form with the nicest exactness;
her cheeks burning with roses, that bloomed the
richer for the heat of the hall, and her eyes slightly
suffused with moisture, that rendered their ordinary
beauty more dazzling, and with every feature
of her speaking countenance illuminated by
the lights that flared around her, Remarkable felt
that her own power had ended.

The business of unrobing had been simultaneous.
Marmaduke appeared in a suit of plain
neat black; Monsieur Le Quoi, in a coat of
snuff-colour, covering a vest of embroidery, with
breeches, and silk stockings, and buckles—that
were commonly thought to be of paste. Major
Hartmann wore a coat of sky-blue, with large
brass buttons, a club wig, and boots; and Mr.
Richard Jones had set off his dapper little form in
a frock of bottle-green, with bullet buttons; by
one of which the sides were united over his well-rounded
waist, opening above, so as to show a

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

jacket of red cloth, with an under vest of flannel,
faced with green velvet, and below, so as to exhibit
a pair of buckskin breeches, with long, soiled,
white-top boots, and spurs; one of the latter
a little bent, from its recent attacks on the unfortunate
stool.

When the young lady had extricated herself
from the duresse of her garments, she was at liberty
to gaze about her, and to examine not only the
household over which she was to preside, but also
the air and manner in which their domestic arrangements
were conducted. Although there was
much incongruity in the furniture and appearance
of the hall, there was nothing mean. The floor
was carpeted, even in its remotest corners. The
brass candlesticks, the gilt lustres, and the glass
chandeliers, whatever might be their keeping as to
propriety and taste, were admirably kept as to all
the purposes of use and comfort. They were all
clean, and each glittering, in the strong light of
the apartment, with its peculiar lustre. Compared
with the chill aspect of the December night
without, the warmth and brilliancy of the apartment
produced an effect that was not unlike enchantment.
Her eye had not time to detect in detail
the little errors, which, in truth, existed, but
was glancing around her in delight, when an object
arrested her view, that was strongly contrasted
to the smiling faces and neatly attired personages
who had thus assembled to do honour to the
heiress of Templeton.

In a corner of the hall, near to the grand entrance,
stood the young hunter, unnoticed, and
for the moment apparently forgotten. But even
the forgetfulness of the Judge, which, under the
influence of strong emotion, had banished the recollection
of the wound of this stranger, seemed
surpassed by the absence of mind in the youth

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

himself. On entering the apartment he had mechanically
lifted his cap, and exposed a head, covered
with hair that rivalled in colour and gloss
the locks of Elizabeth. Nothing could have
wrought a greater transformation, than the single
act of removing the rough fox-skin cap. If
there was much that was prepossessing in the
countenance of the young hunter, there was something
noble in the rounded outlines of his head
and brow. The very air and manner with which
the member haughtily maintained itself over the
coarse, and even wild attire, in which the rest of
his frame was clad, bespoke not only familiarity
with a splendour that in those new settlements was
thought to be unequalled, but something very like
contempt also.

The hand that held the cap, rested lightly on the
little ivory-mounted piano of Elizabeth, with neither
rustic restraint, nor obtrusive vulgarity. A
single finger touched the instrument, as if accustomed
to dwell on such places. His other arm was extended
to its utmost length, and the hand grasped
the barrel of his long rifle, with something like
convulsive energy. The act and the attitude
were both involuntary, and evidently proceeded
from a feeling much deeper than that of vulgar
surprise. His appearance, connected as it was
with the rough exterior of his dress, rendered him
entirely distinct from the busy group that were
moving across the other end of the long hall, occupied
in receiving the travellers, and exchanging
their welcomes; and Elizabeth, herself as much an
object to be looked at by others, continued to gaze
at him in a kind of stupid wonder. The contraction
of the stranger's brows increased, as his
eyes moved slowly from one object to another. For
moments the expression of his countenance was

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

fierce, and then again it seemed to pass away in
some painful emotion. The arm, that was extended.
bent, and brought the hand nigh to his face,
when his head dropped upon it, and concealed
the wonderfully speaking lineaments of his features.

“We forget, dear sir, the strange gentleman,”
(for her life Elizabeth could not call him otherwise,)
“whom we have brought here for assistance,
and to whom we owe every attention.”

All eyes were instantly turned in the direction
of those of the speaker, and the youth, rather
proudly, elevated his head again, while he answered—

“My wound is trifling, and I believe that Judge
Temple sent for a physician the moment we arrived.”

“Certainly,” said Marmaduke; “I have not
forgotten the object of thy visit, young man, nor
the nature of my debt to thee.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Richard, with something of
a waggish leer, “thou owest the lad for the venison,
I suppose, that thou killed, cousin 'duke!
Marmaduke! Marmaduke! That was a marvellous
tale of thine about the buck! Here, young
man, are two dollars for the deer, and Judge
Temple can do no less than pay the doctor. I shall
charge you nothing for my services, but you shall
not fare the worse for that. Come, come, 'duke,
don't be down-hearted about it; if you missed the
buck, you contrived to shoot this poor fellow
through a pine tree. Now I own that you have beat
me; I never did such a thing in all my life.”

“And I hope never will,” returned the Judge,
“if you are to experience the uneasiness that I
have suffered. But be of good cheer, my young
friend, the injury must be but small, as thou movest
thy arm with apparent freedom.”

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

“Don't make the matter worse, 'duke, by pretending
to talk about surgery,” interrupted Mr.
Jones, with a contemptuous wave of the hand;
“it is a science that can only be learnt by practice.
You know that my grandfather was a doctor,
but you haven't got a drop of medical blood
in your veins; these kind of things run in families.
All my family by the father's side had a
knack at physic. There was my uncle that was
killed at Brandywine, he died twice as easy as any
other man in the regiment, only from knowing
how to do the thing as it ought to be done.”

“I doubt not, Dickon,” returned the Judge
playfully, after meeting the bright smile, which,
in spite of himself, stole over the stranger's features,
“that thy family understood the art of letting
a life slip through their fingers with great facility.”

Richard heard him quite coolly, and, putting a
hand in either pocket of his surtout, so as to press
forward the skirts with an air of vast disdain, began
to whistle a tune; but the desire to reply overcame
his philosophy, and with great heat he exclaimed—

“You may affect to smile, Judge Temple, at
hereditary virtues, if you please; but there is not
a man on your Patent who don't know better.—
Here, even this young man, who has never seen
any thing but bears, and deers, and wood-chucks,
knows better, than not to believe in virtues being
transmitted down in families. Don't you, friend?”

“I believe that vice is not,” said the stranger
abruptly, his eye glancing keenly from the father
to the daughter.

“The Squire is right, Judge,” observed Benjamin,
with a knowing nod of his head towards
Richard, that bespoke the cordiality between
them. “Now, in the old country, the King's

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

Majesty touches for the evil, and that is a disorder that
the greatest doctor in the fleet, or, for the matter
of that, admiral either, can't cure; only the King's
Majesty, or a man that's been hung. Oh! yes,
the Squire is right, for if-so-be that he wasn't, how
is it that the seventh son always is a doctor, whether
he ships for the cock-pit or not? Now, when
we fell in with the mounsheers, under De Grass,
d'ye see, we had aboard of us a doctor—”

“Very well, Benjamin,” interrupted Elizabeth,
glancing her eyes from the hunter to Monsieur Le
Quoi, who was most politely attending to what fell
from each individual in succession, “you shall
tell me of that, and all your entertaining adventures
together; just now, a room must be prepared,
in which the arm of this gentleman can be
dressed.”

“I will attend to that myself, cousin Elizabeth,”
observed Richard, somewhat haughtily.—
“The young man shall not suffer, because Marmaduke
chooses to be a little obstinate. Follow
me, my friend, and I will examine the hurt myself.”

“It will be well to wait for the physician,” said
the hunter coldly; “he cannot be distant; I will
save you the trouble.”

Richard paused, and looked earnestly at the
speaker, a little astonished at the language, and
a good deal appalled at the refusal. He instantly
construed the latter into an act of hostility, and,
placing his hands in the pockets again, he walked
up to Mr. Grant, and putting his face close to the
countenance of the divine, he said in an under
tone—

“Now mark my words: there will be a story
among the settlers, that all our necks would have
been broken, but for that fellow there—as if I did
not know how to drive. Why, you might have

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

turned the horses yourself, sir; nothing was easier;
it was only pulling hard on the nigh rein, and
touching the off flank of the leader. I hope, my
dear sir, you are not at all hurt by the upset the
lad gave us?”

The reply was interrupted by the entrance of
the village physician.

CHAPTER VI.

—And about his shelves,
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.
Shakspeare.

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

Doctor Elnathan Todd, for such was the
unworthy name of the man of physic, was commonly
thought to be, among the settlers, a gentleman
of great mental endowments; and he was
assuredly of rare personal proportions. In height
he measured, without his shoes, exactly six feet
and four inches. His hands, feet, and knees, corresponded
in every respect with this formidable
stature; but every other part of his frame appeared
to have been intended for a man several
sizes smaller, if we except the length of the limbs.
His shoulders were square, in one sense at least,
being in a right line from one side to the other;
but they were so narrow, that the long, dangling
arms that they supported, seemed to issue
out of his back. His neck possessed, in an eminent
degree, the property of length to which we
have alluded, and it was topped by a small bullet-head,
that exhibited, on one side, a bush of bristling
brown hair, and on the other, a short, twinkling
visage, that appeared to maintain a constant
struggle with itself in order to look wise. He was
the youngest son of a farmer in the western part of
Massachusetts, who, being in somewhat easy circumstances,
had allowed this boy to shoot up to
the height we have mentioned, without the

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

ordinary interruptions of field-labour, wood-chopping,
and such other toils as were imposed on his brothers.
Elnathan was indebted for this exemption
from labour, in some measure, to his extraordinary
growth, which, leaving him pale, inanimate,
and listless, induced his tender mother to pronounce
him “a sickly boy, and one that was not
equal to work, but who might arn a living, comfortably
enough, by taking to pleading law, or
turning minister, or doctoring, or some sitch-like
easy calling.” Still there was a great uncertainty
which of these vocations the youth was best endowed
to fill with credit and profit; but, having
no other employment, the strippling was constantly
lounging about the “homestead,” munching green
apples, and hunting for sorrel; when the same
sagacious eye, that had brought to light his latent
talents, seized upon this circumstance, as a clue
to direct his future path through the turmoils of
the world. “Elnathan was cut out for a doctor,”
she knew, “for he was for ever digging for yarbs,
and tasting all kinds of things that grow'd about the
lots. Then again he had a nateral love for doctor-stuff,
for when she had left the bilious pills
out for her man, all nicely covered with maple
sugar, just ready to take, Nathan had come in, and
swallowed them, for all the world as if they were
nothing, while Ichabod (her husband) could never
get one down without making sitch desperate faces,
that it was awful to look on.”

This discovery decided the matter. Elnathan,
then about fifteen, was, much like a wild colt,
caught and trimmed, by clipping his bushy locks;
dressed in a suit of homespun, died in the butternut
bark; furnished with a “New Testament,”
and a “Webster's Spelling-Book,” and sent to
school. As the boy was by nature quite shrewd
enough, and had previously, at odd times, laid the

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

foundations of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he
was soon conspicuous in the school for his learning.
The delighted mother had the gratification
of hearing, from the lips of the master, that her
son was a “prodigious boy, and far above all his
class.” He also thought that “the youth had a
natural love for doctoring, as he had known him
frequently advise the smaller children against eating
too much; and once or twice, when the ignorant
little things had persevered in opposition to
Elnathan's advice, he had known her son to empty
the school-baskets with his own mouth, to prevent
the consequences.”

Soon after this comfortable declaration from his
schoolmaster, the lad was removed to the house of
the village doctor, a gentleman whose early career
had not been unlike that of our hero, where he was
to be seen, sometimes watering a horse, at others
watering medicines, blue, yellow, and red; then
again he might be noticed, lolling under an apple
tree, with Ruddiman's Latin Grammar in his hand,
and a corner of Denman's Midwifery sticking out
of the pocket of his coat;—for his instructer held
it absurd to teach his pupil how to despatch a patient
regularly from this world, before he knew
how to bring him into it.

This kind of life continued for a twelvemonth,
when he suddenly appeared at meeting in a long
coat (and well did it deserve the name!) of black
homespun, with little bootees, bound with uncoloured
calf-skin, for the want of red morocco.

Soon after, he was seen shaving with a dull razor;
and but three or four months elapsed before
several elderly ladies were observed hastening towards
the house of a poor woman in the village,
while others were running to and fro in great apparent
distress. One or two boys were mounted,
bareback, on horses, and sent off at speed in

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

various directions. Several indirect questions were
put concerning where the physician was last observed;
but all would not do; and at length Elnathan
was seen issuing from his door, with a very
grave air, preceded by a little white-headed boy,
who, out of breath, was trotting before him. The
following day the youth appeared in the street,
as the highway was called, and the neighbourhood
was astonished in observing how much he had
grown lately. The same week he bought a new
razor; and the succeeding Sunday he entered the
meeting-house with a red silk handkerchief in his
hand, and with an extremely demure countenance.
In the evening he called upon a young woman of
his own class in life, for there were no others to be
found, and, when he was left alone with the fair,
he was called, for the first time in his life, Doctor
Todd, by her prudent mother. The ice once broken
in this manner, Elnathan was greeted from
every mouth with his official appellation.

Another year was passed under the superintendence
of the same master, during which the young
physician had the credit of “riding with the old
doctor,” although they were generally observed
to travel different roads. At the end of that period,
Dr. Todd attained his legal majority. He
then took a jaunt to Boston, to purchase medicines,
and, as some intimated, to walk the hospital; we
know not how the latter might have been, but
if true, he soon walked through it, for he returned
within a fortnight, bringing with him a suspiciously
looking box, that smelt powerfully of
brimstone.

The next Sunday he was married; and the following
morning he entered a one-horse sleigh
with his bride, having before him the box we have
mentioned, with another filled with home-made
household linen, a paper-covered trunk, with a

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

red umbrella lashed to it, a pair of quite new saddle-bags,
and a bandbox. The next intelligence
that his friends received of the bride and
bride-groom was, that the latter was “settled in the new
countries, and well to do as a doctor, in Templetown,
in York state.”

If a templar would smile at the qualifications of
Marmaduke to fill the judicial seat that he occupied,
we are certain that a graduate of Leyden or
Edinburgh would be extremely amused with this
true narration of the servitude of Elnathan in the
temple of Æsculapius. But the same consolation
was afforded to both the jurist and the leech; for
Dr. Todd was quite as much on a level with his
compeers in the profession in that country, as
was Marmaduke with his brethren on the bench.

Time and practice did wonders for the physician.
He was naturally humane, but possessed no
small share of moral courage; or, in other words,
he was chary of the lives of his patients, and never
tried uncertain experiments on such members
of society as were considered useful; but once or
twice, when a luckless vagrant had come under his
care, he was a little addicted to trying the effects
of every vial in his saddle-bags on the stranger's
constitution. Happily their number was small,
and in most cases their natures innocent. By
these means Elnathan had acquired a certain degree
of knowledge in fevers and agues, and could
talk with much judgment concerning intermittents,
remittents, tertians, quotidians, &c. In certain
cutaneous disorders, very prevalent in new settlements,
he was considered to be infallible; and there
was no woman on the Patent, but would as soon
think of becoming a mother without a husband,
as without the assistance of Dr. Todd. In short,
he was rearing, on this foundation of sand, a superstructure,
cemented by practice, though

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

composed of somewhat brittle materials. He, however,
occasionally renewed his elementary studies,
and, with the observation of a shrewd mind, was
applying his practice to his theory.

In surgery, having the least experience, and it
being a business that spoke directly to the senses,
he was most apt to distrust his own powers; but
he had applied oils to several burns, cut round the
roots of sundry defective teeth, and sewed up
the wounds of numberless wood-choppers, with
considerable eclat, when an unfortunate jobber
suffered a fracture of his leg, by the tree that he
had been felling. It was on this occasion that our
hero encountered the greatest trial that his nerves
and moral feeling had ever sustained. In the hour
of need he was, however, not found wanting.—
Most of the amputations in the new settlements,
and they were quite frequent, were performed by
some one practitioner, who, possessing originally
a reputation, was enabled by this circumstance to
acquire an experience that rendered him deserving
of it; and Elnathan had been present at one or
two of these operations. But on the present occasion
the man of practice was not to be obtained,
and the duty fell, as a matter of course, to the
share of Mr. Todd. He went to work with a kind
of blind desperation, observing, at the same time,
all the externals of decent gravity and great skill.
The sufferer's name was Milligan, and it was to
this event that Richard alluded, when he spoke of
assisting the Doctor, at an amputation—by holding
the leg! The limb was certainly cut off, and the
patient survived the operation. It was, however,
two years before poor Milligan ceased to complain
that they had buried the leg in so narrow a box,
that it was straitened for room; he knew this to
be true, for he could feel the pain shooting up from

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

the inhumed fragment into his living members.
Marmaduke suggested that the fault might lie in
the living arteries and nerves, but Richard, considering
the amputation as part of his own
handy-work, strongly repelled the insinuation, at the
same time declaring, that he had often heard of
men who could tell when it was about to rain, by
the toes of amputated limbs. After two or three
years, notwithstanding that Milligan's complaints
gradually diminished, the leg was dug up, and a
larger box furnished. and from that hour no one
had heard the sufferer utter another complaint on
the subject. This gave the public great confidence
in Doctor Todd, whose reputation was hourly increasing,
and luckily for his patients, his information
also.

Notwithstanding Mr. Todd's six years' practice,
and his success with the leg, he was not a
little appalled, on entering the hall of the
mansion-house. It was glaring with the light of day; it
looked so splendid and imposing, compared with
the hastily built and scantily furnished apartments
which he frequented in his ordinary practice, and
contained so many well-dressed persons, and anxiously
looking faces, that his usually firm nerves
were a good deal discomposed. He had heard
from the messenger who summoned him, that
it was a gun-shot wound, and had come from his
own home, wading through the snow, with his
saddle-bags thrown over his arm, while separated
arteries, penetrated lungs, and injured vitals, were
whirling through his brain, as if he were stalking
over a field of battle, instead of Judge Temple's
peaceable enclosure.

The first object that met his eye, as he moved
into the room, was Elizabeth, in her riding-habit,
richly laced with gold cord, her fine form bending
towards him, with her face expressing deep

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

anxiety in every one of its beautiful features. The
enormous bony knees of the physician struck each
other with a noise that was audible; for in the absent
state of his mind, he mistook her for a general
officer, perforated with bullets, hastening from
the field of battle to implore his assistance. The
delusion, however, was but momentary, and his
eye glanced rapidly from the daughter to the earnest
dignity of the father's countenance; thence to
the busy strut of Richard, who was cooling his
impatience at the hunter's indifference to his offered
assistance, by pacing the hall and cracking his
whip; from him to the Frenchman, who had
stood for several minutes unheeded with a chair
for the lady; thence to Major Hartmann, who
was very coolly lighting a pipe three feet long by
a candle in one of the chandeliers; thence to Mr.
Grant, who was turning over a manuscript with
much earnestness at one of the lustres; thence to
Remarkable, who stood, with her arms demurely
folded before her, surveying with a look of admiration
and envy the dress and beauty of the young
lady; and from her to Benjamin, who, with his
feet standing wide apart, and his arms a-kimho,
was balancing his square little body, with the indifference
of one who was accustomed to wounds
and bloodshed. All of these seemed to be unhurt,
and the operator began to breathe more freely;
but before he had time to take a second look, the
Judge, advancing, shook him kindly by the hand,
and spoke.

“Thou art welcome, my good sir, quite welcome,
indeed; here is a youth, whom I have unfortunately
wounded in shooting a deer this evening,
and who requires some of thy assistance.”

“Shooting at a deer, 'duke,” interrupted Richard,
abruptly—“Shooting at a deer. Who do
you think can prescribe, unless he knows the truth

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

of the case? It is always so, with some people;
they think a doctor can be deceived, with the same
impunity as another man.”

“Shooting at a deer truly,” returned the Judge,
with a smile, “although it is by no means certain
that I did not aid in destroying the buck; but the
youth is injured by my hand, be that as it may;
and it is thy skill, that must cure him, and my
pocket, that shall amply reward thee for it.”

“Two ver good tings to depend on,” observed
Monsieur Le Quoi, bowing politely, with a sweep
of his head, to the Judge and the practitioner.

“I thank you, Monsieur,” returned the Judge;
“but we keep the young man in pain. Remarkable,
thou wilt please to provide linen, for lint and
bandages.”

This remark caused a cessation of the compliments,
and induced the physician to turn an inquiring
eye in the direction of his patient. During
the dialogue, the young hunter had thrown aside
his over coat, and now stood clad in a plain suit of
the common, light-coloured, homespun of the country,
that was evidently but recently made. His
hand was on the lapels of his coat, in the attitude
of removing the garment, when he suddenly suspended
the movement, and looked towards the
commiserating Elizabeth, who was standing in an
unchanged posture, too much absorbed with her
anxious feelings to heed his actions. A slight colour
appeared, passing over the brow of the youth,
as he spoke.

“Possibly the sight of blood may alarm the lady;
I will retire to another room, while the wound
is dressing.”

“By no means,” said Doctor Todd, who,
having discovered that his patient was far from
being a man of importance, felt wonderfully emboldened
to perform his duty.—“The strong light

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

of these candles is favourable to the operation, and
it is seldom that we hard students enjoy good
eyesight.”

While speaking, Elnathan placed a pair of
large iron-rimmed spectacles on his face, where
they dropped, as it were by long practice, to the
extremity of his slim, pug nose; and if they were
of no service as assistants to his eyes, neither were
they any impediment to his vision; for his little,
gray organs were twinkling above them, like two
stars emerging from the cover of an envious cloud.
The action was unheeded by all but Remarkable,
who observed to Benjamin—

“Doctor Todd is a comely man to look on, and
a disp'ut pretty spoken one too. How well he
seems in spectacles. I declare, they give a grand
look to a body's face. I have quite a great mind
to try them myself.”

The speech of the stranger recalled the recollection
of Miss Temple, who started, as if from
deep abstraction, and, colouring excessively, she
motioned to a young woman, who served in the
capacity of a maid, and retired, with an air of
womanly reserve.

The field was now left to the physician and his
patient, while the different personages who remained,
gathered around the latter, with faces
expressing the various degrees of interest, that
each one felt in his condition. Major Hartmann
alone retained his seat, where he continued to
throw out vast quantities of smoke, now rolling
his eyes up to the ceiling, as if musing on the uncertainty
of life, and now bending them on the
wounded man, with an expression, that bespoke
some consciousness of his situation.

In the mean time, Elnathan, to whom the sight
of a gun-shot wound was a perfect novelty, commenced
his preparations, with a solemnity and

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

care that were worthy of the occasion. An old
shirt was procured by Benjamin, and placed in
the hands of the other, who tore divers bandages
from it, with an exactitude, that marked both his
own skill, and the importance of the operation.

The moment Richard heard the sound that
was produced by rending the linen, he stepped up
to the group, with the air of one who well understood
the business in hand. When this preparatory
measure was taken, Dr. Todd selected
a piece of the shirt with great care, and, handing
it to Mr. Jones, without moving a muscle,
said—

“Here, Squire Jones, you are well acquainted
with these things; will you please to scrape the
lint? It should be fine, and soft, you know, my
dear sir; and be cautious that no cotton gets in,
or it may p'ison the wownd. The shirt has been
made with cotton thread, but you can easily pick
it out.”

Richard assumed the office, with a nod at his
cousin, that said, quite plainly, “you see. this
fellow can't get along without me;” and began to
scrape the piece of linen on his knee, with great
diligence.

A table was now spread by the practitioner,
with vials, boxes of salve, and divers surgical instruments.
As the latter appeared, in succession,
from a case of red morocco, their owner held up
each implement, to the strong light of the chandelier
near to which he stood, and examined it,
with the nicest care and precision. A red silk
handkerchief was frequently applied to the glittering
steel, as if to remove from the polished surfaces,
the least impediment, which might exist, to
the most delicate operation. After the rather
scantily furnished pocket-case, which contained
these instruments, was exhausted, the physician

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

turned to his saddle-bags, and produced various
vials, filled with liquids, of the most radiant colours.
These were arranged, in due order, by
the side of the murderous saws, knives, and scissors,
when Elnathan stretched his long body to its
utmost elevation, placing his hand on the small of
his back, as if for support, and looked about him
to discover what effect this display of his professional
skill, was likely to produce on the spectators.

“Upon my wort, toctor,” observed Major Hartmann.
with a roguish roll of his little black eyes,
but with every other feature of his face in a state
of perfect rest, “put you have a very pretty pocket
pook of tools tere, and your toctor-stuff glitters,
as if it was petter for ter eyes as for ter
pelly.”

Elnathan gave a somewhat equivocal hem, before
he replied—one that might have been equally
taken, for that kind of noise, which cowards are
said to make, in order to awaken their dormant
courage, or for a natural effort, to clear the throat:
if for the latter, it was successful; for, turning
his face to the veteran German, he said—

“Very true, Major Hartmann, very true. sir;
a prudent man will always strive to make his remedies
agreeable to the eyes, though they may
not altogether suit the stomach. It is no small
part of our art, sir,” and he now spoke with the
confidence of a man who understood his subject,
“to reconcile the patient to what is for his own
good, though, at the same time, it may be unpalatable.”

“Sartain! Doctor Todd is right,” said Remarkable,
“and has scripter for what he says.
The Bible tells us, how things mought be sweet to
the mouth, and bitter to the inwards.”

“True, true,” interrupted the Judge, a little

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

impatiently; “but here is a youth who needs no
deception to lure him to his own benefit. I see,
by his eye, that he fears nothing more than delay.”

The stranger had, without assistance, bared his
own shoulder, when the slight perforation, produced
by the passage of the buck-shot, was plainly
visible. The intense cold of the evening had
stopped the bleeding, and Dr. Todd, casting a
furtive glance at the wound, thought it by no
means so formidable an affair as he had anticipated.
Thus encouraged, he approached his patient,
and made some indication of an intention
to trace the route that had been taken by the
lead.

Remarkable often found occasions, in after
days, to recount the minutiæ of that celebrated
operation; and when she arrived at this point,
she commonly proceeded as follows:—“And then
the Doctor tuck out of the pocket-book a long
thing, like a knitting-needle, with a button fastened
to the end on't; and then he pushed it into the
wownd; and then the young man looked awful;
and then I thought I should have swaned away—
I felt in sitch a disp'ut taking; and then the
Doctor had run it right through his shoulder, and
shoved the bullet out on t'other side; and so Doctor
Todd cured the young man—of a ball that the
Judge had shot into him, for all the world, as easy
as I could pick out a splinter, with my
darning-needle.”

Such were the impressions of Remarkable on
the subject; and such, doubtless, were the opinions
of most of those, who felt it necessary to
entertain a species of religious veneration for the
abilities and skill of Elnathan; but such was far
from the truth.

When the physician attempted to introduce the

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

instrument, described by Remarkable, he was repulsed
by the stranger, with a good deal of decision,
and some little contempt, in his manner.

“I believe, sir,” he said, “that a probe is not
necessary; the shot has missed the bone, and has
passed directly through the arm, to the opposite
side, where it remains, but skin-deep, and whence,
I should think, it might be easily extracted.”

“The gentleman knows best,” said Dr. Todd,
laying down the probe, with the air of a man who
had assumed it merely in compliance with forms;
and, turning to Richard, he fingered the lint,
with the appearance of great care and foresight.
“Admirably well scraped, squire Jones! it is
about the best lint I have ever seen. I want your
assistance, my good sir, to hold the patient's arm,
while I make an incision for the ball. Now, I
rather guess, there is not another gentleman present,
who could scrape the lint so well as squire
Jones.”

“Such things run in families,” observed Richard,
rising with alacrity, to render the desired
assistance. “My father, and my grandfather before
him, were both celebrated for their knowledge
of surgery; they were not, like Marmaduke here,
puffed up with an accidental thing, such as the
time when he drew in the hip-joint of the man
who was thrown from his horse: that was the fall
before you came into the settlement, Doctor; but
they were men who were taught the thing regularly,
spending half their lives in learning
those litle niceties; though, for the matter of that,
my grandfather was a college-bred physician, and
the best in the colony, too—that is, in his neighbourhood.”

“So it goes with the world, Squire,” cried Benjamin;
“if-so-be that a man wants to walk the
quarter-deck with credit, d'ye see, and with

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

regular built swabs on his shoulders, he mus'nt think
to do it, by getting in at the cabin-windows.
There are two ways to get into a top, besides the
lubber-holes. The true way to walk aft, is to begin
forrard; tho'f it be only in an humble way,
like myself, d'ye see, which was, from being only
a hander of top-gallant-sails, and a stower of the
flying-jib, to keeping the key of the Captain's
locker.”

“Benjamin speaks quite to the purpose,” continued
Richard, with a benevolent smile, directed
to the Doctor. “I dare say, that he has often
seen shot extracted, in the different ships in which
he has served; suppose we get him to hold the basin;
he must be used to the sight of blood.”

“That he is, Squire, that he is,” interrupted
the ci-devant steward: “many's the good shot,
round, double-headed, and grape, that I've seen
the doctors at work on. For the matter of that,
I was in a boat, alongside the ship, when they cut
out the twelve-pound shot from the thigh of the
Captain of the Foody-rong, one of Mounsheer Ler
Quaw's countrymen, there!”

“A twelve-pound ball, from the thigh of a human
being!” exclaimed Mr. Grant, with great
simplicity, dropping the sermon he was again
reading, and raising his spectacles, from before
his eyes, to the top of his forehead.

“A twelve-pounder!” echoed Benjamin, staring
around him, with much confidence; “a twelve-pounder!
ay! a twenty-four pound shot can easily
be taken from a man's body, if- o-be a doctor
only knows how. There's Squire Jones, now,
ask him, sir; he reads all the books; ask him, if
he never fell in with a page, that keeps the reckoning
of such things.”

“Certainly, more important operations than
that have been performed,” observed Richard;

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

“the Encyclopædia mentions much more incredible
circumstances than that, as, I dare say, you
know, Doctor Todd.”

“Certainly, there are incredible tales told of
such matters,” returned Elnathan, “though I cannot
say, that I have ever seen, myself, any thing
larger than a musket bullet extracted.”

During this discourse, an incision had been
made through the skin of the young hunter's
shoulder, and the lead was laid bare. Elnathan
now took into his hand, with a solemn air, a pair
of glittering forceps, and was in the act of applying
them to the wound, when a sudden motion of
the patient, caused the shot to fall out of itself.
The long arm and broad hand of the operator
were now of singular service; for the latter expanded
itself, and caught the lead, while at the
same time, an extremely ambiguous motion was
made, by its brother, so as to leave it doubtful
to the spectator, how great was its agency in releasing
the shot. Richard, however, put the
matter at rest, by exclaiming—

“Very neatly done, Doctor! I have never
seen a shot more neatly extracted; and, I dare
say, Benjamin will say the same.”

“Why, considering,” returned Benjamin, “I
must say, that it was ship-shape, and Brister-fashion.—
Now all that the Doctor has to do, is
to clap a couple of plugs in the shot-holes, and
the lad will float in any gale, that blows in these
here hills.”

“I thank you, sir, for what you have done,”
said the youth, with a little distance: “But here
is a man, who will take me under his care, and
spare you all, gentlemen, any further trouble on
my account”

The whole group turned their heads, in surprise,
and beheld, standing at one of the distant
doors of the hall, the person of Indian John.

CHAPTER VII.

From Susquehanna's utmost springs,
Where savage tribes pursue their game,
His blanket tied with yellow strings,
The shepherd of the forest came.
Freneau.

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

Before the Europeans, or, to use a more significant
term, the Christians, dispossessed the original
owners of the soil, all that section of country,
which contains the New-England States, and
those of the Middle, which lie east of the mountains,
was occupied by two great nations of Indians,
from whom numberless tribes had descended.
But, as the original distinctions between
these nations, were marked by a difference in language,
as well as by repeated and bloody wars,
they never were known to amalgamate, until after
the power and inroads of the whites had reduced
some of the tribes to a state of dependence, that
rendered not only their political, but, considering
the wants and habits of a savage, their animal existence
also, extremely precarious.

These two great divisions consisted, on the one
side, of the Five, or, as they were afterwards called,
the Six Nations, and their allies; and, on the
other, of the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, with
the numerous and powerful tribes, that owned that
nation as their Grandfather. The former were

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

generally called, by the Anglo-Americans, Iroquois,
or the Six Nations, and sometimes Mingoes.
Their appellation, among their rivals,
seems generally to have been the Mengwe, or Maqua.
They consisted of the tribes, or, as their
allies were fond of asserting, in order to raise their
consequence, of the several nations, of the Mohawks,
the Oneidas, the Onondagas, Cayugas,
and Senecas; who ranked, in the consideration,
in the order with which they are named. The
Tuscaroras were admitted to this union, near a
century after its formation, and thus completed the
number to six.

Of the Lenni Lenape, or, as they were called by
the whites, from the circumstance of their holding
their great council-fire on the banks of that river,
the Delaware nation, the principal tribes, besides
that which bore the genetic name, were, the Mahicanni,
Mohicans or Mohegans, and the Nanticokes,
or Néntigoes. Of these, the latter held the
country along the waters of the Chesapeake, and
the seashore; while the Mohegans occupied the
district between the Hudson and the ocean, including
most of New-England. Of course, these
two tribes were the first who were dispossessed of
their lands by the Europeans.

The wars of a portion of the latter, are celebrated
among us, as the wars of King Philip; but
the peaceful policy of William Penn. or Miquon,
as he was termed by the natives, effected its object,
with less difficulty, though not with less certainty.
As the natives gradually disappeared
from the country of the Mohegans, some scattering
families sought a refuge around the councilfire
of the mother tribe, or the Delawares.

This people had been induced to suffer themselves
to be called women, by their old enemies,
the Mingoes, or Iroquois, after the latter, having

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

in vain tried the effects of hostility, had recourse
to artifice, in order to circumvent their rivals.—
According to this declaration, the Delawares
were to cultivate the arts of peace, and to intrust
their defence, entirely, to the men, or warlike
tribes of the Six nations.

This state of things continued until the war of
the revolution, when the Lenni Lenape formally
asserted their independence, and fearlessly declared,
that they were again men. But, in a government,
so peculiarly republican as the Indian polity,
it was not, at all times, an easy task, to restrain
their members within the rules of their nation.
Several fierce and renowned warriors, of
the Mohegans, finding the conflict with the whites
to be in vain, sought a refuge with their Grandfather,
and brought with them the feelings and
principles, that had so long distinguished them in
their own tribe. These chieftains kept alive, in
some measure, the martial spirit of the Delawares;
and would, at times, lead small parties against
their ancient enemies, or such other foes as incurred
their resentment.

Among these warriors, was one race, particularly
famous for their prowess, and for those qualities
that render an Indian hero celebrated. But
time, disease, and want, had conspired to thin
their number; and the sole representative of this
once renowned family, now stood in the hall of
Marmaduke Temple. He had, for a long time
been an associate of the white-men, particularly
in their wars; and, having been, at a season
when his services were of importance, much noticed
and flattered, he had turned Christian, and
was baptized by the name of John. He had suffered
severely in his family, during the recent
war, having had every soul to whom he was allied,
cut off by an inroad of the enemy; and when

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

the last, lingering remnant of his nation, extinguished
their fires, amongst the hills of the Delaware,
he alone had remained, with a determination
of laying his bones in that country, where
his fathers had so long lived and governed.

It was only, however, within a few months, that
he had appeared among the mountains that surrounded
Templeton. To the hut of the old hunter,
he seemed peculiarly welcome; and, as the habits
of the “Leather Stocking,” were so nearly assimilated
to those of the savages, the conjunction
of their interests excited no surprise. They resided
in the same cabin, ate of the same food, and
were chiefly occupied in the same pursuits.

We have already mentioned the baptismal name
of this ancient chief; but in his conversations with
Natty, held in the language of the Delawares, he
was heard uniformly to call himself Chingachgook,
which, interpreted, means the “Great Snake.”
This was a name that he had attained in his youth,
by his skill and prowess in the art of war; but
when his brows began to wrinkle with time, and
he stood alone, the last of his family, and his particular
tribe, the few Delawares, who yet continued
about the head-waters of their river, gave him
the expressive appellation of Mohegan. Perhaps
there was something of deep feeling, excited in the
bosom of this inhabitant of the forest, by the sound
of a name, that recalled the idea of his nation in
ruins, for he seldom used it himself—never, indeed,
excepting on the most solemn occasions;
but the settlers had united, according to the Christian
custom, his baptismal with his national name,
and to them, he was generally known as John
Mohegan, or, more familiarly as Indian John.

From his long association with the white men,
the habits of Mohegan, were a mixture of the

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

civilized and savage states, though there was certainly
a strong preponderance in favour of the
latter. In common with all his people, who dwelt
within the influence of the Anglo-Americans, he
had acquired new wants, and his dress was a mixture
of his native fashions with European manufactures.
Notwithstanding the intense cold of the
atmosphere without, his head was uncovered;
but a profusion of long, black, coarse hair, concealed
his forehead, his crown, and even hung
about his cheeks, so as to convey the idea, to one
who knew his present and former conditions, that
he encouraged its abundance, as a willing veil, to
hide the shame of a noble soul, mourning for a
glory that it had once known. His forehead, when
it could be seen, appeared lofty, broad, and noble.
His nose was high, and of the kind called Roman,
with nostrils, that expanded, in his seventieth year,
with the air of freedom that had distinguished them
when a youth. His mouth was large, but compressed,
and possessing a great share of expression
and character, and, when opened, discovered
a perfect set of short, strong, and regular teeth.
His chin was full, though not prominent; and his
face bore the infallible mark of his people, in its
square, high cheek bones. The eyes were not large,
but their black orbs glittered in the rays of the
candles, as he gazed intently down the hall, like
two balls of fire.

The instant that Mohegan observed himself to
be noticed by the group around the young stranger,
he dropped the blanket, which covered the
upper part of his frame, from his shoulders, suffering
it to fall over his leggins, of untanned deerskin,
where it was retained by a belt of bark, that
confined it to his waist, and moved forward.

As he walked slowly down the long hall, the
unusually dignified and deliberate tread of the

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

Indian, surprised the spectators. His shoulders,
and body to his waist, were entirely bare, with
the exception of a silver medallion of Washington,
that was suspended from his neck by a thong of
buck-skin, and rested on his high chest, amidst the
scars of many wounds. His shoulders were rather
broad and full; but the arms, though straight and
graceful, wanted the muscular appearance that labour
alone can give to a race of men. The medallion
was the only ornament he wore, although
enormous slits in the rim of either ear, which suffered
the cartilages to fall for two inches below the
members, were evidently used for the purposes of
decoration, in other days. In his hand he held a
small basket, of the ash-wood slips, coloured in divers
fantastical conceits, with red and black paints
mingled with the white of the wood.

As this child of the forest approached them, the
whole party stood aside, and allowed him to confront
the evident object of his visit. He did not
speak, however, but stood, fixing his glowing eyes
on the shoulder of the young hunter, and then
turning them intently on the countenance of the
Judge. The latter was a good deal astonished
at this unusual departure from the ordinarily subdued
and quiet manner of the Indian; but soon
recovering himself, he extended his hand, and
said—

“Thou art welcome, John. This youth entertains
a high opinion of thy skill, it seems, for he
prefers thee, to dress his wound, even to our good
friend Dr. Todd.”

Mohegan now spoke, in tolerable English, but
in a low, monotonous, guttural tone:—

“The children of Miquon do not love the
sight of blood; and yet, the young eagle has
been struck by the hand that should do no evil!”

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

“Mohegan! old John!” exclaimed the Judge,
in horror, and turning his fine, manly, open countenance
to the other; “thinkest thou, that my hand
has ever drawn human blood willingly? For
shame! for shame, old John! thy religion should
have taught thee better.”

“The evil spirit sometimes lives in the best
heart,” returned John, impressively, as he tried to
study the countenance of the Judge; “but, my
brother speaks the truth; his hand has never taken
life, when awake; no! not even when the children
of the great English Father, were making the waters
red with the blood of his people.”

“Surely, John,” said Mr. Grant, with much
earnestness, “you remember the divine command
of our Saviour, `judge not, lest ye be judged.'
What motive could Judge Temple have, for injuring
a youth like this; one to whom he is unknown,
and from whom he can receive neither injury nor
favour?”

John listened respectfully to the divine, and
when he had concluded, the Indian stretched out
his arm, and said with energy—

“He is innocent—my brother has not done this
wrong.”

Marmaduke received the offered hand of the
other, with a benevolent smile, that showed, however
he might be astonished at his suspicion, he
had ceased to resent it; while the wounded youth
stood, gazing from his red friend to his host, with
an expression of scornful pity, powerfully delineated
in his countenance. No sooner was this act
of pacification exchanged, than John proceeded to
discharge the duty, to perform which he had
come. Dr. Todd was far from manifesting any
displeasure at this invasion of his rights, but
made way for the new leech, with an air that expressed
a willingness to gratify the humours of

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

his patient, now that the all-important part of the
business was so successfully performed, and nothing
remained to be done, but what any child
might effect. Indeed, he whispered as much to
Monsieur Le Quoi, when he said—

“It was fortunate that the ball was extracted
before this Indian came in; but any old woman
can dress the wound now. The young man, I
hear, lives with John and Natty Bumppo, and it's
always best to humour a patient, when it can be
done discreetly—I say, discreetly, Mounsheer.”

“Certainement,” returned the Frenchman;
“you seem ver happy, Mister Toad, in your practeece.
I should tink de elderly lady might ver
well finish, vat you so skeelfully begin.”

But Richard had, at the bottom, a great deal of
veneration for the knowledge of Mohegan, especially
in external wounds; and retaining all his
desire for a participation in glory, he advanced
nigh to the Indian, and said—

“Sago, sago, Mohegan! sago, my good fellow!
I am right glad you have come; give me a regular
physician, like Doctor Todd, to cut into flesh,
and a native to heal the wound. Do you remember,
John, the time when I and you set the bone
of Natty Bumppo's little finger, after he broke it
by falling from the rock, when he was trying to
get the partridge down, that fell on the cliffs. I
never could tell yet, whether it was I or Natty,
who killed that bird: he fired first, and the bird
stooped, but then it was rising again, just as I
pulled trigger. I should have claimed it, for a
certainty, but Natty said the hole was too big for
shot, and he fired a single ball from his rifle; but
the piece I carried then, didn't scatter, and I have
known it to bore a hole through a board, when
I've been shooting at the mark, very much like

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

rifle-bullets. Shall I help you, John? “You know
that I have a knack at these things.”

Mohegan heard this disquisition quite patiently,
and when Richard concluded, he held out the
basket, which contained his specifics, indicating,
by a gesture, that he might hold it. Mr. Jones
was quite satisfied with this commission; and, ever
after, in speaking of the event, was used to say,
that “Doctor Todd and I cut out the bullet and
I and Indian John dressed the wound.”

The patient was much more deserving of that
epithet, while under the hands of Mohegan, than
while suffering under the practice of the true physician.
Indeed, the Indian gave him but little opportunity
for the exercise of a forbearing temper,
as he had come prepared for the occasion. His
dressings were soon applied, and consisted only
of some pounded bark, moistened with a fluid
that he had expressed from some of the simples of
the woods.

Among the native tribes of the forest, there
were always two kinds of leeches to be met with.
The one placed its whole dependence on the exercise
of a supernatural power, and was held in
greater veneration than their practice could at all
justify; but the other was really endowed with
great skill, in the ordinary complaints of the human
body, and were, more particularly, as Natty
had intimated, “curous in cuts and bruises.”

While John and Richard were placing the
dressings on the wound, Elnathan was acutely
eyeing the contents of Mohegan's basket, which
Mr. Jones, in his physical ardour, had transferred
to the Doctor, in order to hold, himself, one end
of the bandages. Here he was soon enabled to
detect sundry fragments of wood and bark, of
which he, quite coolly, took possession, very possibly
without any intention of speaking at all upon

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

the subject; but when he beheld the full, blue eye
of Marmaduke, watching his movements, he whispered
to the Judge—

“It is not to be denied, Judge Temple, but
what the savages are knowing, in small matters of
physic. They hand these things down in their
traditions. Now, in cancers, and hydrophoby,
they are quite ingenious. I will just take this
bark home, and analyze it; for, though it can't
be worth sixpence to the young man's shoulder, it
may be good for the toothach, or rheumatis, or
some of them complaints. A man should never
be above larning, even if it be from an Indian.”

It was fortunate for Dr. Todd, that his principles
were so liberal, as, coupled with his practice,
they were the means by which he acquired all his
knowledge, and by which he was gradually qualifying
himself for the duties of his profession.
The process to which he subjected the specific, differed,
however, greatly from the ordinary rules of
chemistry; for, instead of separating, he afterwards
united the component parts of Mohegan's remedy,
and thus was able to discover the tree whence the
Indian had taken it.

Some ten years after this event, when civilization
and its refinements had crept, or rather rushed, into
the settlements among these wild hills, an affair
of honour occurred, and Elnathan was seen to apply
a salve to the wound that was received by one
of the parties, which had the flavour that was peculiar
to the tree, or root, that Mohegan had used.
Ten years later still, when England and the United
States were again engaged in war, and the
hordes of the western parts of the state of NewYork,
were rushing to the field, Elnathan, presuming
on the reputation obtained by these two operations,
followed in the rear of a brigade of militia,
as its surgeon!

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

When Mohegan had applied the bark, he freely
relinquished to Richard the needle and thread,
that were used in sowing the bandages, for these
were implements of which the native but little understood
the use; and, stepping back, with decent
gravity, awaited the completion of the business by
the other.

“Reach me the scissors,” said Mr. Jones, when
he had finished, and finished for the second time,
after tying the linen in every shape and form
that it could be placed; “reach me the scissors,
for here is a thread that must be cut off, or it
might get under the dressings, and inflame the
wound. See, John, I have put the lint I scraped,
between two layers of the linen; for though the
bark is certainly best for the flesh, yet the lint
will serve to keep the cold air from the wound.
If any lint will do it good, it is this lint; for I
scraped it myself, and I will not turn my back, at
scraping lint, to any man on the Patent. But I
ought to know how, if any body ought, for my
grandfather was a doctor, and my father had a natural
turn that way.”

“Here, Squire, is the scissors,” said Remarkable,
producing from beneath her petticoat of green
moreen, a pair of dull-looking shears; “well, upon
my say so, you have sewed on the rags, as well
as a woman.”

“As well as a woman!” echoed Richard, with
indignation; “what do women know of such matters?
and you are proof of the truth of what I
say. Who ever saw such a pair of shears used
about a wound? Dr. Todd, I will thank you for
the scissors from the case. Now, young man, I
think you'll do. The shot has been very neatly
taken out, although, perhaps, seeing I had a hand
in it, I ought not to say so; and the wound is
most admirably dressed. You will soon be well

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

again; though the jerk you gave my leaders, must
have a tendency to inflame the shoulder, yet, you
will do, you will do. You were rather flurried, I
suppose, and not used to horses; but I forgive the
accident, for the motive:—no doubt, you had the
best of motives;—yes, yes, now you will do.”

“Then, gentlemen,” said the wounded stranger,
rising, and resuming his clothes, “it will be
unnecessary for me to trespass longer on your
time and patience. There remains but one thing
more to be settled, and that is, our respective rights
to the deer, Judge Temple.”

“I acknowledge it to be thine,” said Marmaduke;
“and much more deeply am I indebted to
thee, than for this piece of venison. But in the
morning thou wilt call here, and we can adjust
this, as well as more important matters. Elizabeth,”—
for the young lady, being apprised that
the wound was dressed, had re-entered the hall,—
“thou wilt order a repast, for this youth, before
we proceed to the church; and Aggy will have a
sleigh prepared, to convey him to his friend.”

“But, sir, I cannot go without a part of the
deer,” returned the youth, seemingly struggling
with his own feelings: “I have already told you,
that I needed the venison for myself.”

“Oh! we will not be particular,” exclaimed
Richard; “the Judge will pay you, in the morning,
for the whole deer; and, Remarkable, give
the lad all of the animal excepting the saddle: so,
on the whole, I think, you may consider yourself
as a very lucky young man;—you have been
shot, without being disabled; have had the wound
dressed in the best possible manner, here in the
woods, as well as it would have been done in the
Philadelphia hospital, if not better; have sold
your deer at a high price and yet can keep most
of the carcass, with the skin in the bargain.

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

'Marky, tell Tom to give him the skin too; and in the
morning, bring the skin to me, and I will give
you half-a-dollar for it, or at least, three-and-six-pence.
I want just such a skin, to cover the pillion
that I am making for cousin Bess.”

“I thank you, sir, for your liberality, and, I
trust, am also thankful for my escape,” returned
the stranger; “but you reserve the very part of
the animal that I wish for my own use. I must
have the saddle myself.”

“Must!” echoed Richard; “must is harder to
be swallowed than the horns of the buck.”

“Yes, must,” repeated the youth; when, turning
his head proudly around him, as if to see who
would dare to controvert his rights, he met the
astonished gaze of Elizabeth, and proceeded more
mildly—“that is, if a man is allowed the possession
of that which his hand hath killed, and the
law will protect him in the enjoyment of his
own.”

“The law will do so,” said Judge Temple,
with an air of mortification, mingled with surprise.
“Benjamin, see that the whole deer is placed
in the sleigh; and have this youth conveyed
to the hut of Leather-stocking. But, young man,
thou hast a name, and I shall see you again, in
order to compensate thee for the wrong I have
done thee?”

“I am called Edwards,” returned the hunter,
“Oliver Edwards. I am easily to be seen, sir,
for I live nigh by, and am not afraid to show my
face, having never injured any man.”

“It is we, who have injured you sir,” said Elizabeth;
“and the knowledge that you decline
our assistance would give my father great pain.
He would gladly see you in the morning.”

The young hunter gazed at the fair speaker,

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

until his earnest look brought the blood to her
very temples; when, recollecting himself, he bent
his head, dropping his eyes to the carpet, and replied—

“In the morning, then, will I return, and see
Judge Temple; and I will accept his offer of the
sleigh, in token of our amity.”

“Amity!” repeated Marmaduke; “there was
no malice in the act that injured thee, young man;
there should be none in the feelings which it may
engender.”

“Forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us,” observed Mr. Grant, “is
the language of prayer, used by our Divine Master
himself, and it should be the golden rule of us,
his humble followers.”

The stranger stood a moment, lost in thought,
and then, glancing his dark eyes, rather wildly,
around the hall, he bowed low to the divine, and
moved from the apartment, with an air that would
not admit of detention.

“'Tis strange, that one so young should harbour
such feelings of resentment,” said Marmaduke,
when the door closed behind the stranger;
“but while the pain is recent, and the sense of the
injury is so fresh, he must feel more stongly than
in his cooler moments. I doubt not, we shall see
him, in the morning, more tractable.”

Elizabeth, to whom this speech was addressed,
did not reply, but moved slowly up the hall, by
herself, fixing her eyes on the little figure of the
English ingrained carpet, that covered the floor;
while, on the other hand. Richard gave a loud
crack with his whip, as the stranger disappeared,
and cried—

“Well, 'duke, you are your own master, but I
would have tried law for the saddle, before I would
have given it to the fellow. Do you not own the

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

mountains, as well as the valleys? are not the
woods your own? what right has this chap, or
the Leather-stocking, to shoot in your woods,
without your permission? Now, I have known
a farmer, in Pennsylvania, order a sportsman off
his farm, with as little ceremony as I would order
Benjamin to put a log in the stove. By-the-by,
Benjamin, see how the thermometer stands.
Now, if a man has a right to do this on a farm
of a hundred acres, what power must a landlord
have, who owns sixty thousand—ay! for the matter
of that, including the late purchases, a hundred
thousand? There is Mohegan, to be-sure,
he may have some right, being a native; but it's
little the poor fellow can do now with his rifle.
How is this managed in France, Monsieur Le
Quoi? do you let every body run over your land,
in that country, helter-skelter, as they do here,
shooting the game, so that a gentleman has but
little or no chance with his gun?”

“Bah! diable, no, Meester Deeck,” replied the
Frenchman; “we give, in France, no liberty, except
to de ladi.”

“Yes, yes, to the women, I know,” said Richard;
“that is your Sallick law. I read, sir, all
kinds of books; of France, as well as England;
of Greece, as well as Rome. But if I were in
'duke's place, I would stick up advertisements tomorrow
morning, forbidding all persons to shoot,
or trespass, in any manner, on my woods. I
could write such an advertisement myself, in an
hour, as would put a stop to the thing at once.”

“Richart,” said Major Hartmann, very coolly
knocking the ashes from his pipe into the spittingbox
by his side, “now listen: I have livet seventy-five
years on ter Mohawk, and in ter woots.—
You hat petter mettle as mit ter deyvel, as mit ter

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

hunters. Tey live mit ter gun, and a rifle is
petter as ter law.”

“A'nt Marmaduke a Judge?” said Richard,
indignantly. “Where is the use of being a Judge,
or having a Judge, if there is no law? Damn the
fellow! I have a great mind to sue him in the
morning myself, before Squire Doolittle, for meddling
with my leaders. I am not afraid of his rifle.
I can shoot too. I have hit a dollar, many
a time, at fifty rods.”

“Thou hast missed more dollars than ever thou
hast hit, Dickon,” exclaimed the cheerful voice of
the Judge again.—“But we will now take our
evening's repast, which, I perceive by Remarkable's
physiognomy, is in the next room. Monsieur
Le Quoi, Miss Temple has a fair hand, at your
service. Will you lead the way, my child?”

“Ah! ma chere Mam'selle, but too happy to
do so,” said the polite Frenchman, while he offered
his hand; “it is de consolashong, in my baneesh,
to meet a smile from de fair ladi.”

Mr. Grant and Mohegan, continued in the hall,
while the remainder of the party withdrew to an
eating parlour, if we except Benjamin, who civilly
remained, to close the rear after the divine, and to
open the front door, for the exit of the Indian.

“John,” said the divine, when the figure of
Judge Temple disappeared, the last of the group,
“to-morrow is the festival of the nativity of our
blessed Redeemer, when the church has appointed
prayers and thanksgivings, to be offered up by
her children, and when all are invited to partake
of the mystical elements. As you have taken up
the cross, and become a follower of good, and an
eschewer of evil, John, I trust I shall see you before
the altar, with a contrite heart and a meek
spirit.”

“John will come,” said the Indian, betraying

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

no surprise, though he did not understand all the
terms used by the other.

“Yes,” continued Mr. Grant, laying his hand
gently on the tawny shoulder of the aged chief,
“but it is not enough to be there in the body only;
you must come in the spirit, and in truth. The
Redeemer died for all, for the poor Indian, as
well as for the white man. Heaven knows no difference
in colour; nor must earth witness a separation
of the church. It is good and profitable,
John, to freshen the understanding, and support
the wavering, by the observance of our holy festivals;
but all form is but stench, in the nostrils of
the Holy One, unless it be accompanied by a devout
and humble spirit.”

The Indian stepped back a little, and, raising
his body to its utmost powers of erection, he
stretched his right arm on high, and dropped his
fore-finger downward, as if pointing from the heavens,
and striking his other hand on his naked
breast, he said, with energy—

“The eye of the Great Spirit can see from the
clouds;—the bosom of Mohegan is bare!”

“It is well, John, and I hope you will receive
profit and consolation from the performance of
this duty. The Great Spirit overlooks none of
his children; and the man of the woods is as
much an object of his care, as he who dwells in a
palace. I wish you a good night, and pray God
to bless you.”

The Indian bent his head, and they separated—
the one to seek his hut, and the other to join the
party at the supper-table. While Benjamin was
opening the door for the passage of the chief, he
cried, in a tone that was meant to be quite consoling—

“The parson says the word that is true, John.
If-so-be that they took count of the colour of a

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

skin in heaven, why, they might refuse to muster
on their books a christian-born, like myself, just
for the matter of a little tan, from cruising in
warm latitudes; though, for the matter of that, this
damned nor-wester is enough to whiten the skin of
a blackamoor. Let the reefs out of your blanket,
man, or your red hide will hardly weather the
night, without a touch from the frost.”

CHAPTER VIII.

For here the exile met from every clime,
And spoke, in friendship, every distant tongue.
Campbell.

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

We have made our readers acquainted with
some variety in character and nations, in introducing
the most important personages of this legend
to their notice: but, in order to establish the
fidelity of our narrative, we will briefly attempt to
explain the “why and wherefore” of so motley a
dramatis personæ.

Europe was, at the period of our tale, in the
commencement of that mighty commotion which
afterwards shook her political institutions to their
centre. Louis the Sixteenth had been beheaded,
and a nation, once esteemed the most refined
amongst the civilized people of the world, was
changing her character, and substituting cruelty
for mercy, and subtlety and ferocity for magnanimity
and courage. Thousands of Frenchmen
were compelled to seek protection in distant lands.
Among the crowds who fled from France and her
islands, to the United States of America, was the
gentleman whom we have already mentioned as
Monsieur Le Quoi. He had been recommended
to the favour of Judge Temple, by the head of an
eminent mercantile house in New-York, with

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

whom Marmaduke was in habits of intimacy, and
accustomed to an exchange of good offices. At
his first interview with the Frenchman, our Judge
had discovered him to be a man of breeding, and
one who had seen much more prosperous days in
his own country. From certain hints that had
escaped him, Monsieur Le Quoi was suspected of
having been a West-India planter, great numbers
of whom had fled from St. Domingo and the
other islands, and were now living in the Union,
in a state of comparative poverty, and some in
absolute want. The latter was not, however, the
lot of Monsieur Le Quoi. He had but little, he
acknowledged, but that little was enough to furnish,
in the language of the country, an “assortment
for a store.”

The knowledge of Marmaduke was eminently
practical, and there was no part of a settler's life
with which he was not familiar. Under his direction,
Monsieur Le Quoi made some purchases,
consisting of a few cloths; some groceries, with a
good deal of tea and tobacco; a quantity of ironware,
among which was a large proportion of
Barlow's jack-knives, potash-kettles, and spiders;
a very formidable collection of crockery, of the
coarsest quality, and most uncouth forms; together
with every other common article that the
art of man has devised for his wants, not forgetting
the luxuries of looking-glasses and Jew'sharps.
With this collection of valuables, Monsieur
Le Quoi had stepped behind a counter, and,
with a wonderful pliability of temperament, had
dropped into his assumed character as gracefully
as he had ever moved in any other. The gentleness
and suavity of his manners rendered him
extremely popular; besides this, the women soon
discovered that he had a taste. His calicoes were
the finest, or, in other words, the most showy, of

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

any that were brought into the country; and it
were impossible to look at the prices, asked for
his goods, by “so pretty a spoken man.” Through
these conjoint means, the affairs of Monsieur Le
Quoi were again in a prosperous condition, and
he was looked up to by the settlers as the second
best man on the “Patent.”

This term, Patent, which we have already used,
and for which we may have further occasion,
meant the district of country that had been originally
granted to old Major Effingham, by the
“King's letters patent,” and which had now become,
by purchase under the act of confiscation,
the property of Marmaduke Temple. It was a
term in common use, throughout the new parts of
the state, and was usually annexed to the landlord's
name, as “Temple's, or Effingham's Patent.”

Major Hartmann was the descendant of a man,
who, in company with a number of his countrymen,
had migrated, with their families, from the
banks of the Rhine, to those of the Mohawk.
This transmigration had occurred as far back as
the reign of Queen Anne; and their descendants
were now living, in great peace and plenty, on
the fertile borders of that beautiful stream.

The Germans, or “High Dutchers,” as they were
called, to distinguish them from the original, or
Low Dutch colonists, were a very peculiar people.
They possessed all the gravity of the latter,
without any of their phlegm; and, like them, the
“High Dutchers” were industrious, honest, and
economical.

Fritz, or Frederick Hartmann, was an epitome
of all the vices and virtues, foibles and excellences,
of his race. He was passionate, though silent,
obstinate, and a good deal suspicious of
strangers; of immoveable courage, inflexible honesty,
and undeviating in his friendships. Indeed,

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

there was no change about him, unless it were
from grave to gay. He was serious by months,
and jolly by weeks. He had, early in their acquaintance,
formed an attachment for Marmaduke
Temple, who was the only man, that could not
talk High Dutch, that ever gained his entire confidence.
Four times in each year, at periods
equi-distant, he left his low stone dwelling, on the
banks of the Mohawk, and travelled the thirty
miles, through the hills, to the door of the mansion-house
in Templeton. Here he generally staid a
week, and was reputed to spend much of that time
in riotous living, countenanced by Mr. Richard
Jones. But every one loved him, even to Remarkable
Pettibone, to whom he occasioned some additional
trouble; he was so frank, so sincere, and, at
times, so mirthful. He was now in his regular
Christmas visit, and had not been in the village
an hour, when Richard summoned him to fill a
seat in the sleigh, to meet the landlord and his
daughter.

Before explaining the character and situation
of Mr. Grant, it will be necessary to recur to
times far back in the brief history of the settlement.

There seems to be a tendency in human nature
to endeavour to provide for the wants of this
world, before our attention is turned to the business
of the other. Religion was a quality but little
cultivated, amid the stumps of Temple's Patent,
for the first few years of its settlement; but
as most of its inhabitants were from the moral
states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, when
the wants of nature were satisfied, they began seriously
to turn their attention to the introduction
of those customs and observances, which had been
the principal care of their forefathers. There was
certainly a great variety of opinions, on the

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

subject of grace and free-will amongst the tenantry
of Marmaduke; and, when we take into consideration
the variety of the religious instruction which
they received, it can easily be seen, that it could
not well be otherwise.

Soon after the village had been formally laid
out, into the streets and blocks that resembled a
city, a meeting of its inhabitants had been convened,
to take into consideration the propriety of
establishing an Academy! This measure originated
with Richard, who, in truth, was much disposed
to have the institution designated a University,
or at least a College. Meeting after
meeting was held, for this purpose, year after year.
The resolutions of these assemblages appeared in
the most conspicuous columns of a little, bluelooking
newspaper, that was already issued weekly
from the garret of a dwelling-house in the village,
and which the traveller might as often see,
stuck into the fissure of a stake, that had been
erected, at the point where the footpath from the
log cabin of some settler entered the highway, as
a post-office for an individual. Sometimes the
stake supported a small box, and a whole neighbourhood
received a weekly supply, for their literary
wants, at this point, where the man who
“rides post,” regularly deposited a bundle of the
precious commodity. To these flourishing resolutions,
which briefly recounted the general utility
of education, the political and geographical rights
of the village of Templeton, to a participation in
the favours of the regents of the university, and the
salubrity of the air, and wholesomeness of the water,
together with the cheapness of food, and the
superior state of morals in the neighbourhood,
were uniformly annexed, in large Roman capitals,
the names of Marmaduke Temple, as chairman,
and Richard Jones, as secretary.

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

Happily for the success of this undertaking, the
regents were not accustomed to resist these appeals
to their generosity, whenever there was the
prospect of a donation to second the request.
Eventually, Judge Temple concluded to bestow
the necessary land, and to erect the required edifice
chiefly at his own expense. The skill of Mr.,
or, as he was now called, from the circumstance of
his having received the commission of a justice of
the peace, Squire Doolittle, was again put in requisition,
and the science of Mr. Jones was once
more restored to.

We shall not recount the different devices of
these architects on the occasion; nor would it be
decorous so to do, seeing that there was a convocation
of the society of the ancient and honourable
fraternity “of the free and accepted masons,”
at the head of whom was Richard, in the capacity
of master, doubtless to approve or reject, such of
the plans as, in their wisdom, they deemed to be
for the best. The knotty point was, however,
soon decided; and, on the appointed day, the
brotherhood marched, in great state, displaying
sundry banners and mysterious symbols, each
man with a little mimic apron before him, from a
most cunningly contrived appartment in the garret
of the “Bold Dragoon,” an inn, kept by one
Captain Hollister, to the site of the intended edifice.
Here Richard laid the corner-stone, with
great state, amidst an assemblage of more than
half the men, and all the women, within ten miles
of Templeton.

In the course of the succeeding week, there was
another meeting of the people, not omitting
swarms of the gentler sex, when the abilities of
Hiram, at the “square rule,” were put to the test

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

of experiment. The frame fitted well; and the
skeleton of the fabric was reared without a single
accident, if we except a few falls from horses,
while the labourers were returning home in the
dusk of the evening. From this time, the work
advanced with great rapidity, and in the course of
the season, the labour was completed; the edifice
standing, in all its beauty and proportions, the
boast of the village, the study of the young aspirants
for architectural fame, and the admiration of
every settler on the Patent.

It was a long, narrow house, of wood, painted
white, and more than half windows; and when
the observer stood at the western side of the building,
the edifice offered but a small obstacle to a
full view of the rising sun. It was, in truth, but
a very comfortless, open place, through which the
daylight shone with prodigious facility. On its
front were divers ornaments, in wood, designed
by Richard, and executed by Hiram; but a window
in the centre of the second story, immediately
over the door, or grand entrance, and the “steeple,”
were the pride of the building. The former
was, we believe, of the composite order, for it included
in its composition a multitude of ornaments,
and a great variety in figure. It consisted
of an arched compartment in the centre, with a
square, and smaller division on either side, the
whole encased in heavy frames, deeply and laboriously
moulded in pine wood, and lighted with a
vast number of blurred and green-looking glass,
of those dimensions which are commonly called
“eight by ten.” Blinds, that were intended to
be painted green, kept the window in a state of
preservation, and probably might have contributed
to the effect of the whole, had not the failure in
the public funds, which seems always to be incidental
to any undertaking of this kind, left them

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

in the sombre coat of lead colour with which they
had been originally clothed. The “steeple” was
a little cupola, reared on the very centre of the
roof, on four tall pillars of pine, that were fluted
with a gouge, and loaded with mouldings. On
the tops of the columns was reared a dome, or cupola,
resembling in shape an inverted tea-cup
without its bottom, from the centre of which projected
a spire, or shaft of wood, transfixed with two
iron rods, that bore on their ends the letters N. S.
E. and W., in the same metal. The whole was
surmounted by an imitation of one of the finny
tribe, carved in wood, by the hands of Richard,
and painted, what he called, a “scale-colour.”
This animal Mr. Jones affirmed to be an admirable
resemblance of a great favourite of the epicures
in that country, which bore the title of
“lake-fish;” and doubtless the assertion was true;
for, although intended to answer the purposes of
a weathercock, the fish was observed invariably
to look, with a longing eye, in the direction of the
beautiful sheet of water that lay imbedded in the
mountains of Templeton.

For a short time after the charter of the regents
was received, the trustees of this institution employed
a graduate of one of the eastern colleges,
to instruct such youth as aspired to knowledge,
within the walls of the edifice which we have described.
The upper part of the building was in
one apartment, and was intended for gala-days
and exhibitions; and the lower contained two,
that were intended for the great divisions of education,
viz. the Latin and the English scholars. The
former were never very numerous; though the
sounds of “nominative, pennaa; genitive, penny,”
were soon heard to issue from the windows of the
room, to the great delight and manifest edification
of the passengers.

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

Only one labourer in this temple of Minerva,
however, was known to get so far as to attempt a
translation of Virgil. He, indeed, appeared at
the annual exhibition, to the prodigious exultation
of all his relatives, a farmer's family in the vicinity,
and repeated the whole of the first eclogue
from memory, observing the intonations of the
dialogue with much judgment and effect. The
sounds, as they proceeded from his mouth, of


“Titty-ree too patty-lee ree-coo-bans sub teg-mi-nee faa-gy
Syl-ves-trem ten-oo-i moo-sam med-i taa-ris aa-ve-ny”—
were the last that had been heard in that building,
as probably they were the first that had ever been
heard, in the same language, there or any where
else. For by this time the trustees had discovered,
that they had anticipated the age, and the
instructor, or principal, was superseded by a master,
who went on to teach the more humble lesson
of “the more haste the worse speed,” in good,
plain English.

From this time, until the date of our incidents,
the Academy was a common country school; and
the great room of the building was sometimes used
as a court-room, on extraordinary trials; sometimes
for conferences of the religious and the morally
disposed in the evening; at others for a ball
in the afternoon, given under the auspices of Richard;
and on Sundays, invariably, as a place of
public worship.

When an itinerant priest, of the persuasion of
the Methodists, Baptists, Universalists, or of the
more numerous sect of the Presbyterians, was accidentally
in the neighbourhood, he was ordinarily
invited to officiate, and was commonly rewarded
for his services by a collection in a hat, before
the congregation separated. When no such regular
minister offered, a kind of colloquial prayer

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

or two was made, by some of the more gifted
members, and a sermon was usually read, from
Sterne, by Mr Richard Jones.

The consequence of this desultory kind of
priesthood was, as we have already intimated, a
great diversity in opinion, on the more abstruse
points of our faith. Each sect had its adherents,
though neither was regularly organized and disciplined.
Of the religious education of Marmaduke,
we have already written, nor was the doubtful
character of his faith completely removed by
his marriage. The mother of Elizabeth was an
Episcopalian, as, indeed, was the mother of the
Judge himself; and the good taste of Marmaduke
revolted at the familiar colloquies which the leaders
of the conferences held with the Deity, in
their nightly meetings. In form, he was certainly
an Episcopalian, though not a sectary of that denomination.
On the other hand, Richard was as
rigid in the observance of the canons of his
church, as he was inflexible in his opinions. Indeed,
he had once or twice essayed to introduce
the Episcopal form of service, on the Sundays
that their pulpit was vacant; but Richard was a
good deal addicted to carrying all things to an excess,
and then there was something so papal in his
air, that the greater part of his hearers deserted
him on the second Sabbath—on the third, his only
auditor was Ben Pump!

Before the war of the revolution, the English
church was supported, in their colonies, with much
interest, by some of its adherents in the mother
country, and a few of the congregations were very
amply endowed. But, for a season, after the independence
of the states was established, this sect
of Christians languished, for the want of the highest
order of its priesthood. Pious and suitable
divines were at length selected, and sent to the

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

mother country, to receive that authority, which,
it is understood, can only be transmitted directly
from one to the other, and thus obtain, in order
to preserve, that unity in their churches,
which properly belonged to a people of the same
nation. But unexpected difficulties presented
themselves, in the oaths with which the policy of
England had fettered their establishment; and much
time was spent, before a conscientious sense of duty
would permit the prelates of Britain to delegate
the authority which was so earnestly sought.
Time, patience, and zeal, however, removed every
impediment; and the venerable men, who had been
set apart by the American churches, at length returned
to their expecting diocesses, endowed with
the most elevated functions of their earthly church.
Priests and deacons were ordained; and missionaries
provided, to keep alive the expiring flame of
devotion in such members as were deprived of
the ordinary ministrations, by dwelling in new
and unorganized districts.

Of this number was Mr. Grant. He had been
sen into the county of which Templeton was the
capital, and had been kindly invited by Marmaduke,
and officiously pressed by Richard, to take
up his abode in the village itself. A small and
humble dwelling was prepared for his family, and
the divine had made his appearance in the place,
but a few days previously to the time of his introduction
to the reader. As his forms were entirely
new to most of the inhabitants, and a clergyman
of another denomination had previously occupied
the field, by engaging the academy, the
first Sunday after his arrival was suffered to pass
in silence; but now that his rival had passed on,
like a meteor, filling the air with the light of his
wisdom, Richard was empowered to give notice,
that “Public worship, after the forms of the

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

Protestant Episcopal Church, would be held, on
the night before Christmas, in the long-room of
the academy in Templeton, by the Rev. Mr.
Grant.”

This annunciation excited great commotion
among the sectaries to whom it was made. Some
wondered as to the nature of the exhibition; others
sneered; but a far greater part, recollecting the
essays of Richard in that way, and mindful of
the liberality, or rather laxity, of Marmaduke's
notions on the subject of sectarianism, thought it
most prudent to be silent.

The expected evening was, however, the wonder
of the hour; nor was the curiosity at all diminished,
when Richard and Benjamin, on the
morning of the eventful day, were seen to issue
from the woods in the neighbourhood of the village,
each bearing on his shoulders a large bunch
of evergreens. This worthy pair was observed
to enter the academy, and carefully to fasten the
door, after which their proceedings remained a
profound secret to the rest of the village; Mr.
Jones, before he commenced this mysterious business,
having informed the schoolmaster, to the
great delight of the white-headed flock he governed,
that there could be no school that day. Marmaduke
was apprised of all these preparations, by
letter, and it was especially arranged, that he and
Elizabeth should arrive in season, to participate
in the solemnities of the evening.

After this digression, we shall return to our narrative.

CHAPTER IX.

Now all admire, in each high-flavour'd dish.
The capabilities of flesh—fowl—fish;
In order due each guest assumes his station.
Throbs high his breast with fond anticipation,
And prelibates the joys of mastication.
Heliogabaliad.

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The apartment to which Monsieur Le Quoi
handed Elizabeth, communicated with the hall,
through the door that led under the urn which was
supposed to contain the ashes of Dido. The
room was spacious, and of very just proportions;
but in its ornaments and furniture, the same diversity
of taste, and imperfection of execution,
were to be observed, as existed in the hall. Of
furniture, there were a dozen green, wooden arm-chairs,
with cushions of moreen, taken from the
same piece as the petticoat of Remarkable. The
tables were spread, and their materials and workmanship
could not be seen; but they were heavy,
and of great size. There was an enormous glass,
in a gilt frame, hung against the wall, and a cheerful
fire, of the hard or sugar-maple, burning on
the hearth. The latter was the first object that
struck the attention of the Judge, who, on beholding
it, exclaimed, rather angrily, to Richard—

“How often have I forbidden the use of the
sugar-maple for fires, in my dwelling. The sight
of that sap, as it exudes with the heat from the

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ends of those logs, is painful to me, Richard.
Really, it behooves the owner of woods so extensive
as mine, to be cautious what example he
sets to his people, who are already felling the forests,
as if no end could be found to their treasures,
nor any limits to their extent. If we go on
in this way, twenty years hence we shall want fuel.

“Fuel in these hills, cousin 'duke!” exclaimed
Richard, in derision—“fuel for our fires! why
you might as well predict, that the fish will die,
for the want of water in the lake, because I intend,
when the frost gets out of the ground, to lead one
or two of the springs, through logs, into the village.
But you are always a little wild on such
subjects, Marmaduke.”

“Is it wildness,” returned the Judge, earnestly,
“to condemn a practice, which devotes these jewels
of the forest, these precious gifts of nature,
these mines of comfort and wealth, to the common
uses of a fire-place? But I must, and will, the
instant that the snow is off the earth, send out a
party into the mountains, to explore for coal.”

“Coal!” echoed Richard; “who the devil do
you think will dig for coal, when in hunting for a
bushel, he would have to rip up more roots of
trees, than would keep him in fuel for a twelvemonth?
Poh! poh! Marmaduke, you should
leave the management of these things to me,
who have a natural turn that way. It was I that
ordered this fire, and a noble one it is, to warm
the blood in the veins of my pretty cousin Bess.”

“The motive, then, must be your apology,
Dickon,” said the Judge.—“But, gentlemen, we
are waiting. Elizabeth, my child, take the head
of the table; Richard, I see, means to spare me
the trouble of carving, by sitting opposite to
you.”

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