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Файл:Satanstoe; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts
.pdf
SATANSTOE; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
along the uneven road, which soon became very little more
than a line cut through the forest, with an occasional wheeltrack, but without the least attempt to level the surface of
the ground by any artifi cial means. This was the place where
we were to overtake Mr. Worden and Jason, and where we did
fi nd their effects; the owners themselves having gone on in
advance, leaving word that we should fall in with them somewhere on the route.
Guert and I marched in front, our youth and vigour enabling us to do this with great ease to ourselves. Knowing that
the ladies were well cared for, on horseback, we pushed on, in
order to make provision for their reception, at a house a few
miles distant, where we were to pass the night. This building
was of logs, of course, and stood quite alone in the wilderness,
having, however, some twenty or thirty acres of cleared land
around it; and it would not do to pass it, at that time of the day.
The distance from this solitary dwelling to the fi rst habitation on Herman Mordaunt’s property, was eighteen miles;
and that was a length of road that would require the whole of
a long May day to overcome, under our circumstances.
Guert and myself might have been about a mile in advance of the rest of the party, when we saw a sort of semi-clearing before us, that we mistook at fi rst for our resting-place.
A few acres had been chopped over, letting in the light of
the day upon the gloom of the forest, but the second growth
was already shooting up, covering the area with high bushes. As we drew nearer, we saw it was a small, abandoned
clearing. Entering it, voices were heard at no great distance,
and we stopped; for the human voice is not heard, in such
411
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
a place, without causing the traveller to pause, and stand to
his arms. This we did; after which we listened with some
curiosity and caution.
«High!» exclaimed some one, very distinctly, in English.
«Jack!» said another voice, in a sort of answering second
that could not well be mistaken.
«There’s three for low; – is that good?» put in the fi rst
speaker.
«It will do, sir; but here are a ten and an ace. Ten and three,
and four and two make nineteen; – I’m game».
«High, low, Jack and game!» whispered Guert; «here are
fellows playing at cards, near us; let us go on and beat up their
quarters».
We did so; and, pushing aside some bushes, broke, quite
unexpectedly to all parties, on the Rev. Mr. Worden and Jason Newcome, playing the game of ‘All Fours on a stump;’
or, if not literally in the classic position of using ‘the stump,’
substituting the trunk of a fallen tree for their table. As we
broke suddenly in upon the card-players, Jason gave unequivocal signs of a disposition to conceal his hand, by thrusting
the cards he held into his bosom, while he rapidly put the remainder of the pack under his thigh, pressing it down in a way
completely to conceal it. This sudden movement was merely
the effect of a puritanical education, which, having taught
him to consider that as a sin which was not necessarily a sin at
all, exacted from him that hypocrisy which is the tribute that
vice pays to virtue! Very different was the conduct of the Rev.
Mr. Worden. Taught to discriminate better, and unaccustomed to set up arbitrary rules of his own as the law of God,
412
SATANSTOE; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
this loose observer of his professional obligations is other matters, made a very proper distinction in this. Instead of giving
the least manifestation of confusion or alarm, the log on which
he was seated was not more unmoved than he remained, at our
sudden appearance at his side.
«I hope, Corny, my dear boy», Mr. Worden cried, «that you
did not forget to purchase a few packs of cards; which I plainly
see, will be a great resource for us, in this woody region. These
cards of Jason’s are so thumbed and handled, that they are not
fi t to be touched by a gentleman, as I will show you. – Why,
what has become of the pack, Master Newcome? – It was on
the log but a minute ago!»
Jason actually blushed! Yes, for a wonder, shame induced
Jason Newcome to change colour! The cards were reluctantly
produced from beneath his leg, and there the schoolmaster sat,
as it might be in presence of his school actually convicted of
being engaged in the damning sin of handling certain spotted
pieces of paper, invented for, and used in the combinations of
a game played for amusement.
«Had it been push-pin, now», Guert whispered, «it would
give Mr. Newcome no trouble at all; but he does not admire
the idea of being caught at ‘All Fours, on a stump.’ We must
say a word to relieve the poor sinner’s distress. I have cards,
Mr. Worden, and they shall be much at your service, as soon as
we can come at our effects. There is one pack in my knapsack,
but it is a little soiled by use, though somewhat cleaner than
that. If you wish it, I will hand it to you. I never travel without
carrying one or two clean packs with me».
413
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
«Not just now, sir, I thank you. I love a game of Whist,
or Picquet, but cannot say I am an admirer of All Fours. As
Mr. Newcome knows no other, we were merely killing half
an hour, at that game; but I have enough of it to last me for
the summer. I am glad that cards have not been forgotten,
however; for, I dare say, we can make up a very respectable
party at Whist, when we all meet».
«That we can, sir, and a party that shall have its good players.
Miss Mary Wallace plays as good a hand at Whist, as a woman
should, Mr. Worden; and a very pretty accomplishment it is,
for a lady to possess; useful, sir, as well as entertaining; for anything is preferable to dummy. I do not think a woman should
play quite as well as a man, our sex having a natural claim to
lead, in all such things; but it is very convenient, sometimes, to
fi nd a lady who can hold her hand with coolness and skill».
«I would not marry a woman who did not understand
Picquet», exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Worden; «to say nothing of
Whist, and one or two other games. But, let us be moving, since
the hour is getting late».
Move on we did, and in due time we all reached the place at
which we were to halt for the night. This looked like plunging
into the wilderness indeed; for the house had but two rooms,
one of which was appropriated to the use of the females, while
most of us men took up our lodgings in the barn. Anneke
and Mary Wallace, however, showed the most perfect goodhumour; and our dinner, or supper might better be the name,
was composed of deliciously fat and tender broiled pigeons.
It was the pigeon season, the woods being full of the birds; and
we were told, we might expect to feast on the young to satiety.
414
SATANSTOE; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
About noon the next day, we reached the fi rst clearing on
the estate of Ravensnest. The country through which we were
travelling was rolling rather than bold; but it possessed a fea-
ture of grandeur in its boundless forests. Our route, that day,
lay under lofty arches of young leaves, the buds just breaking
into the fi rst green of the foliage, tall, straight columns, sixty,
eighty, and sometimes a hundred feet of the trunks of the trees,
rising almost without a branch. The pines, in particular, were
really majestic, most of them being a hundred and fi fty feet in
height, and a few, as I should think, nearly if not quite two
hundred. As everything grows towards the upper light, in
the forest, this ought not to surprise those who are accus-
tomed to see vegetation expand its powers in wide-spreading
tops, and low, gnarled branches that almost touch the ground,
as is the case in the open fi elds, and on the lawns of the older
regions. As is usual in the American virgin forest, there was
very little underbrush; and we could see frequently a consid-
erable distance through these long vistas of trees; or, indeed,
until the number of the stems intercepted the sight.
415
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The clearings of Ravensnest were neither very large nor
very inviting. In that day, the settlement of new lands was
a slow and painful operation, and was generally made at
a great outlay to the proprietor. Various expedients were ad-
33
opted to free the earth from its load of trees;
the commerce of the colonies did not reward the toil of the settler in the same liberal manner as has since occurred. Herman
Mordaunt, as we moved along, related to me the cost and trouble he had been at already, in getting the ten or fi fteen families
who were on his property, in the fi rst place, to the spot itself;
and, in the second place, to induce them to remain there. Not
only was he obliged to grant leases for three lives, or, in some
cases, for thirty or forty years, at rents that were merely nomi-
33
The late venerable Hendrick Frey was a man well known to
all who dwelt in the valley of the Mohawk. He had been a friend,
contemporary, and it is believed an executor of the celebrated Sir
William Johnson, Bart. Thirty years since, he related to the writer
the following anecdote. Young Johnson fi rst appeared in the valley
as the agent of a property belonging to his kinsman, Admiral Sir
Peter Warren, K. B.; who, having married in the colony, had acquired
several estates in it. Among other tracts was one called Warrensbush, on the Mohawk, on which young Johnson fi rst resided. Finding it diffi cult to get rid of the trees around his dwelling, Johnson
sent down to the admiral, at New York, to provide some purchases
with which to haul the trees down to the earth, after grubbing and
cutting the roots on one side. An acre was lowered in this manner,
each tree necessarily lying at a larger angle to the earth than the
next beneath it. An easterly wind came one night, and, to Johnson’s surprise, he found half his trees erect again, on rising in the
morning! The mode of clearing lands by ‘purchases’ was then abandoned. – EDITOR.
for, at that time,
416
SATANSTOE; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
nal, but, as a rule, the fi rst six or eight years the tenants were to
pay no rent at all. On the contrary, he was obliged to extend to
them many favours, in various ways, that cost no inconsiderable sum in the course of the year. Among other things, his
agent kept a small shop, that contained the most ordinary supplies used by families of the class of the settler, and these he
sold at little more than cost, for their accommodation, receiving his pay in such articles as they could raise from their halftilled fi elds, or their sugar-bushes, and turning those again
into money, only after they were transported to Albany, at
the end of a considerable period. In a word, the commencement of such a settlement was an arduous undertaking, and
the experiment was not very likely to succeed, unless the landlord had both capital and patience.
The political economist can have no diffi culty in discovering the causes of the circumstances just mentioned. They
were to be found in the fact that people were scarce, while land
was superabundant. In such a condition of society, the tenant
had the choice of his farm, instead of the landlord’s having
a selection of his tenants, and the latter were to be bought
only on such conditions as suited themselves.
«You see», continued Herman Mordaunt, as we walked together, conversing on this subject, «that my twenty thousand
acres are not likely to be of much use to myself, even should
they prove to be of any to my daughter. A century hence, indeed, my descendants may benefi t from all this outlay of
money and trouble; but it is not probable that either I or Anneke will ever see the principal and interest of the sums that
will be expended in the way of roads, bridges, mills, and other
417
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
things of that sort. Years must go by, before the light rents
which will only begin to be paid a year or two hence, and then
only by a very few tenants, can amount to a suffi cient sum to
meet the expenses of keeping up the settlement, to say nothing of the quit-rents to be paid to the crown».
«This is not very encouraging to a new beginner in the occupation of a landlord», I answered; «and, when I look into
the facts, I confess, I am surprised that so many gentlemen in
the colony are willing to invest the sums they annually do in
wild lands».
«Every man who is at his ease in his moneyed affairs, Corny,
feels a disposition to make some provision for his posterity.
This estate, if kept together, and in single hands may make
some descendant of mine a man of fortune. Half a century will
produce a great change in this colony; at the end of that period, a child of Anneke’s may be thankful that his mother had
a father who was willing to throw away a few thousands of his
own, the surplus of a fortune that was suffi cient for his wants
without them, in order his grandson may see them converted
into tens, or possibly into hundreds of thousands».
«Posterity will, at least, owe us a debt of gratitude,
Mr. Mordaunt; for I now see that Mooseridge is not likely to
make either Dirck or myself very affl uent patroons».
«On that you may rely. Satanstoe will produce you more
than the large tracts you possess in this quarter».
«Do you no longer fear, sir, that the war, and apprehension of Indian ravages, may drive your people off?»
«Not much at present, though the danger was great at one
time. The war may do me good, as well as harm. The armies
418
SATANSTOE; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
consume everything they can get – soldiers resembling locusts, in this respect. My tenants have had the commissaries among them; and, I am told, every blade of grass they can
spare – all their surplus grain, potatoes, butter, cheese, and, in
a word, everything that can be eaten, and with which they are
willing to part, has been contracted for at the top of the market. The King pays in gold, and the sight of the precious metals
will keep even a Yankee from moving».
About the time this was said, we came in sight of the spot
Herman Mordaunt had christened Ravensnest; a name that
had since been applied to the whole property. It was a log
building, that stood on the verge of a low cliff of rocks, at
a point where a bird of that appellation had originally a nest on
the uppermost branches of a dead hemlock. The building had
been placed, and erected, with a view to defence, having served
for some time as a sort of rallying point to the families of
the tenantry, in the event of an Indian alarm. At the commencement of the present war, taking into view the exposed
position of his possessions on that frontier, – frontier as to
settlement, if not as to territorial limits, – Herman Mordaunt
had caused some attention to be paid to his fortifi cations;
which, though they might not have satisfi ed Mons. Vauban,
were not altogether without merit, considered in reference to
their use in case of a surprise.
The house formed three sides of a parallelogram, the open
portion of the court in the centre, facing the cliff. A strong picket served to make a defence against bullets on that side; while
the dead walls of solid logs were quite impregnable against any
assault known in forest warfare, but that of fi re. All the win-
419
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
dows opened on the court; while the single outer door was
picketed, and otherwise protected by the coverings of plank.
I was glad to see by the extent of this rude structure, which
was a hundred feet long by fi fty in depth, that Anneke and
Mary Wallace would not be likely to be straitened for room.
Such proved to be the fact; Herman Mordaunt’s agent having
prepared four or fi ve apartments for the family, that rendered
them as comfortable as people could well expect to be in such
a situation. Everything was plain, and many things were rude;
but shelter, warmth and security had not been neglected.
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