Wyandotte - James Fenimore Cooper
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37
To the island Captain Willoughby transferred all his stores, and here
he built his hut. This was opposed to the notions of his axe-men, who,
rightly enough, fancied the mainland would be more convenient; but the
captain and the sergeant, after a council of war, decided that the
position on the knoll would be the most military, and might be defended
the longest, against man or beast. Another station was taken up,
however, on the nearest shore, where such of the men were permitted to
"hut," as preferred the location.
These preliminaries observed, the captain meditated a bold stroke
against the wilderness, by draining the pond, and coming at once into
the possession of a noble farm, cleared of trees and stumps, as it
might be by a _coup de main_. This would be compressing the
results of ordinary years of toil, into those of a single season, and
everybody was agreed as to the expediency of the course, provided it
were feasible.
The feasibility was soon ascertained. The stream which ran through the
valley, was far from swift, until it reached a pass where the hills
approached each other in low promontories; there the land fell rapidly
away to what might be termed a lower terrace. Across this gorge, or
defile, a distance of about five hundred feet, the dam had been thrown,
a good deal aided by the position of some rocks that here rose to the
surface, and through which the little river found its passage. The part
which might be termed the key-stone of the dam, was only twenty yards
wide, and immediately below it, the rocks fell away rapidly, quite
sixty feet, carrying down the waste water in a sort of fall. Here the
mill-wright announced his determination to commence operations at
once, putting in a protest against destroying the works of the beavers.
A pond of four hundred acres being too great a luxury for the region,
the man was overruled, and the labour commenced.
The first blow was struck against the dam about nine o'clock, on the 2d
day of May, 1765, and, by evening, the little sylvan-looking lake,
which had lain embedded in the forest, glittering in the morning sun,
unruffled by a breath of air, had entirely disappeared! In its place,
there remained an open expanse of wet mud, thickly covered with pools
and the remains of beaver-houses, with a small river winding its way
slowly through the slime. The change to the eye was melancholy indeed;
though the prospect was cheering to the agriculturist. No sooner did
the water obtain a little passage, than it began to clear the way for
itself, gushing out in a torrent, through the pass already mentioned.
The following morning, Captain Willoughby almost mourned over the works
of his hands. The scene was so very different from that it had
presented when the flats were covered with water, that it was
impossible not to feel the change. For quite a month, it had an
influence on the whole party. Nick, in particular, denounced it, as
unwise and uncalled for, though he had made his price out of the very
circumstance in prospective; and even Sergeant Joyce was compelled to
admit that the knoll, an island no longer, had lost quite half its
security as a military position. The next month, however, brought other
changes. Half the pools had vanished by drainings and evaporation; the
mud had begun to crack, and, in some places to pulverize; while the
upper margin of the old pond had become sufficiently firm to permit the
oxen to walk over it, without miring. Fences of trees, brush, and even
rails, enclosed, on this portion of the flats, quite fifty acres of
land; and Indian corn, oats, pumpkins, peas, potatoes, flax, and
several other sorts of seed, were already in the ground. The spring
proved dry, and the sun of the forty-third degree of latitude was doing
its work, with great power and beneficence. What was of nearly equal
importance, the age of the pond had prevented any recent accumulation
of vegetable matter, and consequently spared those who laboured around
the spot, the impurities of atmosphere usually consequent on its decay.
Grass-seed, too, had been liberally scattered on favourable places, and
things began to assume the appearance of what is termed "living."
August presented a still different picture. A saw-mill was up, and had
been at work for some time. Piles of green boards began to make their
appearance, and the plane of the carpenter was already in motion.
Captain Willoughby was rich, in a small way; in other words, he
possessed a few thousand pounds besides his land, and had yet to
receive the price of his commission. A portion of these means were
employed judiciously to advance his establishment; and, satisfied that
there would be no scarcity of fodder for the ensuing winter, a man had
been sent into the settlements for another yoke of cattle, and a couple
of cows. Farming utensils were manufactured on the spot, and sleds
began to take the place of carts; the latter exceeding the skill of any
of the workmen present.
October offered its products as a reward for all this toil. The yield
was enormous, and of excellent quality. Of Indian corn, the captain
gathered several hundred bushels, besides stacks of stalks and tops.
His turnips, too, were superabundant in quantity, and of a delicacy and
flavour entirely unknown to the precincts of old lands. The potatoes
had not done so well; to own the truth, they were a little watery,
though there were enough of them to winter every hoof he had, of
themselves. Then the peas and garden truck were both good and plenty;
and a few pigs having been procured, there was the certainty of
enjoying a plenty of that important article, pork, during the coming
winter.
Late in the autumn, the captain rejoined his family in Albany, quitting
the field for winter quarters. He left sergeant Joyce, in garrison,
supported by Nick, a miller, the mason, carpenter, and three of the
axe-men. Their duty was to prepare materials for the approaching
season, to take care of the stock, to put in winter crops, to make a
few bridges, clear out a road or two, haul wood to keep themselves from
freezing, to build a log barn and some sheds, and otherwise to advance
the interests of the settlement. They were also to commence a house for
the patentee.
As his children were at school, captain Willoughby determined not to
take his family immediately to the Hutted Knoll, as the place soon came
to be called, from the circumstance of the original bivouack. This name
was conferred by sergeant Joyce, who had a taste in that way, and as it
got to be confirmed by the condescension of the proprietor and his
family, we have chosen it to designate our present labours. From time
to time, a messenger arrived with news from the place; and twice, in
the course of the winter, the same individual went back with supplies,
and encouraging messages to the different persons left in the clearing.
As spring approached, however, the captain began to make his
preparations for the coming campaign, in which he was to be accompanied
by his wife; Mrs. Willoughby, a mild, affectionate, true-hearted New
York woman, having decided not to let her husband pass another summer
in that solitude without feeling the cheering influence of her
presence.
In March, before the snow began to melt, several sleigh-loads of
different necessaries were sent up the valley of the Mohawk, to a point
opposite the head of the Otsego, where a thriving village called
Fortplain now stands. Thence men were employed in transporting the
articles, partly by means of "jumpers" _improvised_ for the
occasion, and partly on pack-horses, to the lake, which was found this
time, instead of its neighbour the Canaderaiga. This necessary and
laborious service occupied six weeks, the captain having been up as far
as the lake once himself; returning to Albany, however, ere the snow
was gone.
Chapter II.
All things are new--the buds, the leaves,
That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eaves--
There are no birds in last year's nest.
Longfellow.
"I have good news for you, Wilhelmina," cried the captain, coming into
the parlour where his wife used to sit and knit or sew quite half the
day, and speaking with a bright face, and in a cheerful voice--"Here is
a letter from my excellent old colonel; and Bob's affair is all settled
and agreed on. He is to leave school next week, and to put on His
Majesty's livery the week after."
Mrs. Willoughby smiled, and yet two or three tears followed each other
down her cheeks, even while she smiled. The first was produced by
pleasure at hearing that her son had got an ensigncy in the 60th, or
Royal Americans; and the last was a tribute paid to nature; a mother's
fears at consigning an only boy to the profession of arms.
"I am rejoiced, Willoughby," she said, "because _you_ rejoice,
and I know that Robert will be delighted at possessing the king's
commission; but, he is _very_ young to be sent into the dangers of
battle and the camp!"
"I was younger, when I actually went into battle, for _then_ it
was war; now, we have a peace that promises to be endless, and Bob will
have abundance of time to cultivate a beard before he smells gunpowder.
As for myself"--he added in a half-regretful manner, for old habits and
opinions would occasionally cross his mind--"as for myself, the
cultivation of _turnips_ must be my future occupation. Well, the
bit of parchment is sold, Bob has got _his_ in its place, while
the difference in price is in my pocket, and no more need be said--and
here come our dear girls, Wilhelmina, to prevent any regrets. The
father of two such daughters _ought_, at least, to be happy."
At this instant, Beulah and Maud Willoughby, (for so the adopted child
was called as well as the real), entered the room, having taken the
lodgings of their parents, in a morning walk, on which they were
regularly sent by the mistress of the boarding-school, in which they
were receiving what was _then_ thought to be a first-rate American
female education. And much reason had their fond parents to be proud of
them! Beulah, the eldest, was just eleven, while her sister was
eighteen months younger. The first had a staid, and yet a cheerful
look; but her cheeks were blooming, her eyes bright, and her smile
sweet. Maud, the adopted one, however, had already the sunny
countenance of an angel, with quite as much of the appearance of health
as her sister; her face had more finesse, her looks more intelligence,
her playfulness more feeling, her smile more tenderness, at times; at
others, more meaning. It is scarcely necessary to say that both had
that delicacy of outline which seems almost inseparable from the female
form in this country. What was, perhaps, more usual in that day among
persons of their class than it is in our own, each spoke her own
language with an even graceful utterance, and a faultless accuracy of
pronunciation, equally removed from effort and provincialisms. As the
Dutch was in very common use then, at Albany, and most females of Dutch
origin had a slight touch of their mother tongue in their enunciation
of English, this purity of dialect in the two girls was to be ascribed
to the fact that their father was an Englishman by birth; their mother
an American of purely English origin, though named after a Dutch god-
mother; and the head of the school in which they had now been three
years, was a native of London, and a lady by habits and education.
"Now, Maud," cried the captain, after he had kissed the forehead, eyes
and cheeks of his smiling little favourite--"Now, Maud, I will set you
to guess what good news I have for you and Beulah."
"You and mother don't mean to go to that bad Beave Manor this summer,
as some call the ugly pond?" answered the child, quick as lightning.
"That is kind of you, my darling; more kind than prudent; but you are
not right."
"Try Beulah, now," interrupted the mother, who, while she too doted on
her youngest child, had an increasing respect for the greater solidity
and better judgment of her sister: "let us hear Beulah's guess."
"It is something about my brother, I know by mother's eyes," answered
the eldest girl, looking inquiringly into Mrs. Willoughby's face.
"Oh! yes," cried Maud, beginning to jump about the room, until she
ended her saltations in her father's arms--"Bob has got his
commission!--I know it all well enough, now--I would not thank you to
tell me--I know it all now--_dear_ Bob, how he _will_ laugh!
and how happy I am!"
"Is it so, mother?" asked Beulah, anxiously, and without even a smile.
"Maud is right; Bob is an ensign--or, will be one, in a day or two. You
do not seem pleased, my child?"
"I wish Robert were not a soldier, mother. Now he will be always away,
and we shall never see him; then he may be obliged to fight, and who
knows how unhappy it may make _him_?"
Beulah thought more of her brother than she did of herself; and, sooth
to say, her mother had many of the child's misgivings. With Maud it was
altogether different: she saw only the bright side of the picture; Bob
gay and brilliant, his face covered with smiles, his appearance admired
himself, and of course his sisters, happy. Captain Willoughby
sympathized altogether with his pet. Accustomed to arms, he rejoiced
that a career in which he had partially failed--this he did not conceal
from himself or his wife--that this same career had opened, as he
trusted, with better auspices on his only son. He covered Maud with
kisses, and then rushed from the house, finding his heart too full to
run the risk of being unmanned in the presence of females.
A week later, availing themselves of one of the last falls of snow of
the season, captain Willoughby and his wife left Albany for the Knoll.
The leave-taking was tender, and to the parents bitter; though after
all, it was known that little more than a hundred miles would separate
them from their beloved daughters. Fifty of these miles, however, were
absolutely wilderness; and to achieve them, quite a hundred of tangled
forest, or of difficult navigation, were to be passed. The
communications would be at considerable intervals, and difficult. Still
they might be held, and the anxious mother left many injunctions with
Mrs. Waring, the head of the school, in relation to the health of her
daughters, and the manner in which she was to be sent for, in the event
of any serious illness.
Mrs. Willoughby had often overcome, as she fancied, the difficulties of
a wilderness, in the company of her husband. It is the fashion highly
to extol Napoleon's passage of the Alps, simply in reference to its
physical obstacles. There never was a brigade moved twenty-four hours
into the American wilds, that had not greater embarrassments of this
nature to overcome, unless in those cases in which favourable river
navigation has offered its facilities. Still, time and necessity had
made a sort of military ways to all the more important frontier points
occupied by the British garrisons, and the experience of Mrs.
Willoughby had not hitherto been of the severe character of that she
was now compelled to undergo.
The first fifty miles were passed over in a sleigh, in a few hours, and
with little or no personal fatigue. This brought the travellers to a
Dutch inn on the Mohawk, where the captain had often made his halts,
and whither he had from time to time, sent his advanced parties in the
course of the winter and spring. Here a jumper was found prepared to
receive Mrs. Willoughby; and the horse being led by the captain
himself, a passage through the forest was effected as far as the head
of the Otsego. The distance being about twelve miles, it required two
days for its performance. As the settlements extended south from the
Mohawk a few miles, the first night was passed in a log cabin, on the
extreme verge of civilization, if civilization it could be called, and
the remaining eight miles were got over in the course of the succeeding
day. This was more than would probably have been achieved in the virgin
forest, and under the circumstances, had not so many of the captain's
people passed over the same ground, going and returning, thereby
learning how to avoid the greatest difficulties of the route, and here
and there constructing a rude bridge. They had also blazed the trees,
shortening the road by pointing out its true direction.
At the head of the Otsego, our adventurers were fairly in the
wilderness. Huts had been built to receive the travellers, and here the
whole party assembled, in readiness to make a fresh start in company.
It consisted of more than a dozen persons, in all; the black domestics
of the family being present, as well as several mechanics whom Captain
Willoughby had employed to carry on his improvements. The men sent in
advance had not been idle, any more than those left at the Hutted
Knoll. They had built three or four skiffs, one small batteau, and a
couple of canoes. These were all in the water, in waiting for the
disappearance of the ice; which was now reduced to a mass of
stalactites in form, greenish and sombre in hue, as they floated in a
body, but clear and bright when separated and exposed to the sun. The
south winds began to prevail, and the shore was glittering with the
fast-melting piles of the frozen fluid, though it would have been vain
yet to attempt a passage through it.
The Otsego is a sheet that we have taken more than one occasion to
describe, and the picture it then presented, amidst its frame of
mountains, will readily be imagined by most of our readers. In 1765, no
sign of a settlement was visible on its shores; few of the grants of
land in that vicinity extending back so far. Still the spot began to be
known, and hunters had been in the habit of frequenting its bosom and
its shores, for the last twenty years or more Not a vestige of their
presence, however, was to be seen from the huts of the captain; but
Mrs. Willoughby assured her husband, as she stood leaning on his arm,
the morning after her arrival, that never before had she gazed on so
eloquent, and yet so pleasing a picture of solitude as that which lay
spread before her eyes.
"There is something encouraging and soothing in this bland south wind,
too," she added, "which seems to promise that we shall meet with a
beneficent nature, in the spot to which we are going. The south airs of
spring, to me are always filled with promise."
"And justly, love; for they are the harbingers of a renewed vegetation.
If the wind increase, as I think it may, we shall see this chilling
sheet of ice succeeded by the more cheerful view of water. It is in
this way, that all these lakes open their bosoms in April."
Captain Willoughby did not know it, while speaking, but, at that
moment, quite two miles of the lower, or southern end of the lake, was
clear, and the opening giving a sweep to the breeze, the latter was
already driving the sheets of ice before it, towards the head, at a
rate of quite a mile in the hour. Just then, an Irishman, named Michael
O'Hearn, who had recently arrived in America, and whom the captain had
hired as a servant of all work, came rushing up to his master, and
opened his teeming thoughts, with an earnestness of manner, and a
confusion of rhetoric, that were equally characteristic of the man and
of a portion of his nation.
"Is it journeying south, or to the other end of this bit of wather, or
ice, that yer honour is thinking of?" he cried "Well, and there'll be
room for us all, and to spare; for divil a bir-r-d will be left in that
quarter by night, or forenent twelve o'clock either, calculating by the
clock, if one had such a thing; as a body might say."
As this was said not only vehemently, but with an accent that defies
imitation with the pen, Mrs. Willoughby was quite at a loss to get a
clue to the idea; but, her husband, more accustomed to men of Mike's
class, was sufficiently lucky to comprehend what he was at.
"You mean the pigeons, Mike, I suppose," the captain answered, good-
humouredly. "There are certainly a goodly number of them; and I dare
say our hunters will bring us in some, for dinner. It is a certain sign
that the winter is gone, when birds and beasts follow their instincts,
in this manner. Where are you from, Mike?"
"County Leitrim, yer honour," answered the other, touching his cap.
"Ay, that one may guess," said the captain, smiling, 'but where last?"
"From looking at the bir-r-ds, sir!--Och! It's a sight that will do
madam good, and contains a sartainty there'll be room enough made for
us, where all these cr'atures came from. I'm thinking, yer honour, if
we don't ate _them_, they'll be wanting to ate _us_. What a
power of them, counting big and little; though they 're all of a size,
just as much as if they had flown through a hole made on purpose to
kape them down to a convanient bigness, in body and feathers."
"Such a flight of pigeons in Ireland, would make a sensation, Mike,"
observed the captain, willing to amuse his wife, by drawing out the
County Leitrim-man, a little.
"It would make a dinner, yer honour, for every mother's son of 'em,
counting the gur-r-rls, in the bargain! Such a power of bir-r-ds, would
knock down 'praties, in a wonderful degree, and make even butthermilk
chape and plenthiful. Will it be always such abundance with us, down at
the Huts, yer honour? or is this sight only a delusion to fill us with
hopes that's never to be satisfied?"
"Pigeons are seldom wanting in this country, Mike, in the spring and
autumn; though we have both birds and beasts, in plenty, that are
preferable for food."
"Will it be plentthier than this?--Well, it's enough to destroy human
appetite, the sight of 'em! I'd give the half joe I lost among them
blackguards in Albany, at their Pauss, as they calls it, jist to let my
sisther's childer have their supper out of one of these flocks, such as
they are, betther or no betther. Och! its pleasant to think of them
childer having their will, for once, on such a power of wild, savage
bir-r-ds!"
Captain Willoughby smiled at this proof of _naivete_ in his new
domestic, and then led his wife back to the hut; if being time to make
some fresh dispositions for the approaching movement. By noon, it
became apparent to those who were waiting such an event, that the lake
was opening; and, about the same time, one of the hunters came in from
a neighbouring mountain, and reported that he had seen clear water, as
near their position as three or four miles. By this time it was blowing
fresh, and the wind, having a clear rake, drove up the honeycomb-
looking sheet before it, as the scraper accumulates snow. When the sun
set, the whole north shore was white with piles of glittering icicles;
while the bosom of the Otsego, no longer disturbed by the wind,
resembled a placid mirror.
Early on the following morning, the whole party embarked. There was no
wind, and men were placed at the paddles and the oars. Care was taken,
on quitting the huts, to close their doors and shutters; for they were
to be taverns to cover the heads of many a traveller, in the frequent
journeys that were likely to be made, between the Knoll and the
settlements. These stations, then, were of the last importance, and a
frontier-man always had the same regard for them, that the mountaineer
of the Alps has for his "refuge."
The passage down the Otsego was the easiest and most agreeable portion
of the whole journey. The day was pleasant, and the oarsmen vigorous,
if not very skilful, rendering the movement rapid, and sufficiently
direct. But one drawback occurred to the prosperity of the voyage.
Among the labourers hired by the captain, was a Connecticut man, of the
name of Joel Strides, between whom and the County Leitrim-man, there
had early commenced a warfare of tricks and petty annoyances; a warfare
that was perfectly defensive on the part of O'Hearn, who did little
more, in the way of retort, than comment on the long, lank, shapeless
figure, and meagre countenance of his enemy. Joel had not been seen to
smile, since he engaged with the captain; though three times had he
laughed outright, and each time at the occurrence of some mishap to
Michael O'Hearn the fruit of one of his own schemes of annoyance.
On the present occasion, Joel, who had the distribution of such duty,
placed Mike in a skiff, by himself, flattering the poor fellow with the
credit he would achieve, by rowing a boat to the foot of the lake,
without assistance. He might as well have asked Mike to walk to the
outlet on the surface of the water! This arrangement proceeded from an
innate love of mischief in Joel, who had much of the quiet waggery,
blended with many of the bad qualities of the men of his peculiar
class. A narrow and conceited selfishness lay at the root of the larger
portion of this man's faults. As a physical being, he was a perfect
labour-saving machine, himself; bringing all the resources of a
naturally quick and acute mind to bear on this one end, never doing
anything that required a particle more than the exertion and strength
that were absolutely necessary to effect his object. He rowed the skiff
in which the captain and his wife had embarked, with his own hands;
and, previously to starting, he had selected the best sculls from the
other boats, had fitted his twhart with the closest attention to his
own ease, and had placed a stretcher for his feet, with an intelligence
and knowledge of mechanics, that would have done credit to a Whitehall
waterman. This much proceeded from the predominating principle of his
nature, which was, always to have an eye on the interests of Joel
Strides; though the effect happened, in this instance, to be beneficial
to those he served.