The Chainbearer: or, The Littlepage Manuscripts. Cooper James Fenimore
for intellectual advancements. That so few of these candidates rise very high in the scale of knowledge, is in part owing to the circumstance that their lives are so purely practical; and, possibly, in part to the fact that while so much attention has been paid to the foundations of the social edifice, that little art or care has as yet been expended on the superstructure. Nevertheless, the millions of Yankees that are spreading themselves over the land, are producing, and have already produced, a most salutary influence on its practical knowledge, on its enterprise, on its improvements, and consequently on its happiness. If they have not done much for its tastes, its manners, and its higher principles, it is because no portion of the earth is perfect. I am fully aware that this is conceding more than my own father would have conceded in their favor, and twice as much as could have been extracted from either of my grandfathers. But prejudice is wearing away, and the Dutchman and the Yankee, in particular, find it possible to live in proximity and charity. It is possible that my son may be willing to concede even more. Our immigrant friends should remember one thing, however, and it would render them much more agreeable as companions and neighbors, which is this: – he who migrates is bound to respect the habits and opinions of those whom he joins; it not being sufficient for the perfection of everything under the canopy of heaven, that it should come from our own little corner of the earth. Even the pumpkin-pies of the Middle States are vastly better than those usually found in New England. To return to Ravensnest.
The thirty years of the settlement of my patent, then, had not done much for it, in the way of works of art. Time, it is true, had effected something, and it was something in a manner that was a little peculiar, and which might be oftener discovered in the country at the time of which I am writing, than at the present day. The timber of the 'Nest, with the exception of some mountain-land, was principally what, in American parlance, is termed "hard wood." In other words, the trees were not perennial, but deciduous; and the merest tyro in the woods knows that the roots of the last decay in a fourth of the time that the roots of the first endure, after the trunk is severed. As a consequence, the stumps had nearly all disappeared from the fields; a fact that, of itself, gave to the place the appearance of an old country, according to our American notions. It is true, the virgin forest still flourished in immediate contact with those fields, shorn, tilled, and smoothed as they were, giving a wild and solemn setting to the rural picture the latter presented. The contrast was sufficiently bold and striking, but it was not without its soft and pleasant points. From the height whither the Indian had led me, I had a foreground of open land, dotted with cottages and barns, mostly of logs, beautified by flourishing orchards, and garnished with broad meadows, or enriched by fields, in which the corn was waving under the currents of a light summer air. Two or three roads wound along the settlement, turning aside with friendly interest, to visit every door; and at the southern termination of the open country there was a hamlet, built of wood framed, which contained one house that had little taste, but a good deal more of pretension than any of its neighbors; another, that was an inn; a store, a blacksmith's-shop, a school-house, and three or four other buildings, besides barns, sheds, and hog-pens. Near the hamlet, or the "'Nest Village," as the place was called, were the mills of the region. These were a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a fulling-mill, and an oil-mill. All were of moderate dimensions, and, most probably, of moderate receipts. Even the best house was not painted, though it had some very ambitious attempts at architecture, and enjoyed the benefits of no less than four exterior doors, the uses of one of which, as it opened into the air from the second story, it was not very easy to imagine. Doubtless some great but unfinished project of the owner lay at the root of this invention. But living out of doors, as it were, is rather a characteristic of a portion of our people.
The background of this picture, to which a certain degree of rural beauty was not wanting, was the "boundless woods." Woods stretched away, north, and south, and east, far as eye could reach; woods crowned the sides and summits of all the mountains in view; and woods rose up, with their leafy carpeting, from out the ravines and dells. The war had prevented any very recent attempts at clearing, and all the open ground wore the same aspect of homely cultivation, while the dark shades of an interminable forest were spread around, forming a sort of mysterious void, that lay between this obscure and remote people, and the rest of their kind. That forest, however, was not entirely savage. There were other settlements springing up in its bosom; a few roads wound their way through its depth; and, here and there, the hunter, the squatter, or the red man, had raised his cabin, and dwelt amid the sullen but not unpleasant abundance and magnificence of the wilderness.
CHAPTER IX
"O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men;
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men."
"This, then, is Ravensnest!" I exclaimed, after gazing on the scene for several minutes in silence; "the estate left me by my grandfather, and where events once occurred that are still spoken of in my family as some of the most momentous in its history; events, Susquesus, in which you were an actor."
The Indian made a low interjection, but it is not probable he fully understood me. What was there so remarkable in a savage inroad, a house besieged, men slain and scalps taken, that he should remember such things for a quarter of a century!
"I do not see the 'Nest itself, Trueflint," I added; "the house in which my grandfather once lived."
The Onondago did not speak, but he pointed with a finger in a northeasterly direction, making the action distinct and impressive, as is usual with his people. I knew the place by the descriptions I had heard, though it was now mouldering, and had gone far into decay. Logs piled up green, and confined in such a structure, will last some thirty or forty years, according to the nature of the trees from which they come, and the manner in which they have been covered. At that distance I could not well distinguish how far, or how much, time had done its work; but I fancied I knew enough of such matters to understand I was not to expect in the 'Nest a very comfortable home. A family dwelt in the old place, and I had seen some cheeses that had been made on the very fine farm that was attached to it. There was a large and seemingly a flourishing orchard, and the fields looked well; but as for the house, at that distance it appeared sombre, dark, and was barely to be distinguished by its form and chimneys, from any other pile of logs.
I was struck with the silent, dreamy, sabbath-like air of the fields, far and near. With the exception of a few half-naked children who were visible around the dwellings to which we were the closest, not a human being could I discover. The fields were tenantless, so far as men were concerned, though a good many horned cattle were to be seen grazing.
"My tenants are not without stock, I find, Trueflint," I remarked. "There are plenty of cattle in the pastures."
"You see, all young," answered the Onondago. "War do dat. Kill ole one for soldier."
"By the way, as this settlement escaped plunder, I should think its people may have done something by selling supplies to the army. Provisions of all kinds were very high and scarce, I remember, when we met Burgoyne."
"Sartain. Your people sell both side – good trade, den. Feed Yankees – feed Yengeese."
"Well, I make no doubt it was so; for the husbandman is not very apt to hesitate when he can get a good price; and if he were, the conscience of the drover would stand between him and treason. But where are all the men of this country? I do not see a single man, far or near."
"No see him! – dere," answered the Indian, pointing in the direction of the hamlet. "'Squire light council-fire to-day, s'pose, and make speech."
"True enough – there they are, gathered about the school-house. But whom do you mean by the 'squire, who is so fond of making speeches?"
"Ole school-master. Come from salt lake – great friend of grandfader."
"Oh! Mr. Newcome, my agent – true; I might have known that he was king of the settlement. Well, Trueflint, let us go on; and when we reach the tavern