LEATHERSTOCKING TALES – Complete Collection. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

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СКАЧАТЬ colored the cheeks of the girl almost to the brightness of crimson, while her own great efforts suppressed the sounds of the breathing that nearly choked her. “As for farms, they have their uses, and there’s them that like to pass their lives on ’em; but what comfort can a man look for in a clearin’, that he can’t find in double quantities in the forest? If air, and room, and light, are a little craved, the windrows and the streams will furnish ’em, or here are the lakes for such as have bigger longings in that way; but where are you to find your shades, and laughing springs, and leaping brooks, and vinerable trees, a thousand years old, in a clearin’? You don’t find them, but you find their disabled trunks, marking the ‘arth like headstones in a graveyard. It seems to me that the people who live in such places must be always thinkin’ of their own inds, and of universal decay; and that, too, not of the decay that is brought about by time and natur’, but the decay that follows waste and violence. Then as to churches, they are good, I suppose, else wouldn’t good men uphold ’em. But they are not altogether necessary. They call ’em the temples of the Lord; but, Judith, the whole ‘arth is a temple of the Lord to such as have the right mind. Neither forts nor churches make people happier of themselves. Moreover, all is contradiction in the settlements, while all is concord in the woods. Forts and churches almost always go together, and yet they’re downright contradictions; churches being for peace, and forts for war. No, no — give me the strong places of the wilderness, which is the trees, and the churches, too, which are arbors raised by the hand of natur’.”

      “Woman is not made for scenes like these, Deerslayer, scenes of which we shall have no end, as long as this war lasts.”

      “If you mean women of white colour, I rather think you’re not far from the truth, gal; but as for the females of the redmen, such visitations are quite in character. Nothing would make Hist, now, the bargained wife of yonder Delaware, happier than to know that he is at this moment prowling around his nat’ral inimies, striving after a scalp.”

      “Surely, surely, Deerslayer, she cannot be a woman, and not feel concern when she thinks the man she loves is in danger!”

      “She doesn’t think of the danger, Judith, but of the honor; and when the heart is desperately set on such feelin’s, why, there is little room to crowd in fear. Hist is a kind, gentle, laughing, pleasant creatur’, but she loves honor, as well as any Delaware gal I ever know’d. She’s to meet the Sarpent an hour hence, on the p’int where Hetty landed, and no doubt she has her anxiety about it, like any other woman; but she’d be all the happier did she know that her lover was at this moment waylaying a Mingo for his scalp.”

      “If you really believe this, Deerslayer, no wonder you lay so much stress on gifts. Certain am I, that no white girl could feel anything but misery while she believed her betrothed in danger of his life! Nor do I suppose even you, unmoved and calm as you ever seem to be, could be at peace if you believed your Hist in danger.”

      “That’s a different matter —’tis altogether a different matter, Judith. Woman is too weak and gentle to be intended to run such risks, and man must feel for her. Yes, I rather think that’s as much red natur’ as it’s white. But I have no Hist, nor am I like to have; for I hold it wrong to mix colours, any way except in friendship and sarvices.”

      “In that you are and feel as a white man should! As for Hurry Harry, I do think it would be all the same to him whether his wife were a squaw or a governor’s daughter, provided she was a little comely, and could help to keep his craving stomach full.”

      “You do March injustice, Judith; yes, you do. The poor fellow dotes on you, and when a man has ra’ally set his heart on such a creatur’ it isn’t a Mingo, or even a Delaware gal, that’ll be likely to unsettle his mind. You may laugh at such men as Hurry and I, for we’re rough and unteached in the ways of books and other knowledge; but we’ve our good p’ints, as well as our bad ones. An honest heart is not to be despised, gal, even though it be not varsed in all the niceties that please the female fancy.”

      “You, Deerslayer! And do you — can you, for an instant, suppose I place you by the side of Harry March? No, no, I am not so far gone in dullness as that. No one — man or woman — could think of naming your honest heart, manly nature, and simple truth, with the boisterous selfishness, greedy avarice, and overbearing ferocity of Harry March. The very best that can be said of him, is to be found in his name of Hurry Skurry, which, if it means no great harm, means no great good. Even my father, following his feelings with the other, as he is doing at this moment, well knows the difference between you. This I know, for he said as much to me, in plain language.”

      Judith was a girl of quick sensibilities and of impetuous feelings; and, being under few of the restraints that curtail the manifestations of maiden emotions among those who are educated in the habits of civilized life, she sometimes betrayed the latter with a feeling that was so purely natural as to place it as far above the wiles of coquetry as it was superior to its heartlessness. She had now even taken one of the hard hands of the hunter and pressed it between both her own, with a warmth and earnestness that proved how sincere was her language. It was perhaps fortunate that she was checked by the very excess of her feelings, since the same power might have urged her on to avow all that her father had said — the old man not having been satisfied with making a comparison favorable to Deerslayer, as between the hunter and Hurry, but having actually, in his blunt rough way, briefly advised his daughter to cast off the latter entirely, and to think of the former as a husband. Judith would not willingly have said this to any other man, but there was so much confidence awakened by the guileless simplicity of Deerslayer, that one of her nature found it a constant temptation to overstep the bounds of habit. She went no further, however, immediately relinquishing the hand, and falling back on a reserve that was more suited to her sex, and, indeed, to her natural modesty.

      “Thankee, Judith, thankee with all my heart,” returned the hunter, whose humility prevented him from placing any flattering interpretation on either the conduct or the language of the girl. “Thankee as much as if it was all true. Harry’s sightly — yes, he’s as sightly as the tallest pine of the mountains, and the Sarpent has named him accordingly; however, some fancy good looks, and some fancy good conduct, only. Hurry has one advantage, and it depends on himself whether he’ll have t’other or — Hark! That’s your father’s voice, gal, and he speaks like a man who’s riled at something.”

      “God save us from any more of these horrible scenes!” exclaimed Judith, bending her face to her knees, and endeavoring to exclude the discordant sounds, by applying her hands to her ears. “I sometimes wish I had no father!”

      This was bitterly said, and the repinings which extorted the words were bitterly felt. It is impossible to say what might next have escaped her had not a gentle, low voice spoken at her elbow.

      “Judith, I ought to have read a chapter to father and Hurry!” said the innocent but terrified speaker, “and that would have kept them from going again on such an errand. Do you call to them, Deerslayer, and tell them I want them, and that it will be good for them both if they’ll return and hearken to my words.”

      “Ah’s me! Poor Hetty, you little know the cravin’s for gold and revenge, if you believe they are so easily turned aside from their longin’s! But this is an uncommon business in more ways than one, Judith. I hear your father and Hurry growling like bears, and yet no noise comes from the mouth of the young chief. There’s an ind of secrecy, and yet his whoop, which ought to ring in the mountains, accordin’ to rule in such sarcumstances, is silent!”

      “Justice may have alighted on him, and his death have saved the lives of the innocent.”

      “Not it — not it — the Sarpent is not the one to suffer if that’s to be the law. Sartainly there has been no onset, and ’tis most likely that the camp’s deserted, and the men are comin’ back disapp’inted. That accounts for the growls of СКАЧАТЬ