The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [159]
“And now, Judith, as we understand one another, it is time the Sarpent and I had taken to the canoe,” the hunter concluded. “The star has not risen yet, it’s true, but it soon must; though none of us are likely to be any the wiser for it tonight, on account of the clouds. Howsever, Hist has a ready mind, and she’s one of them that doesn’t always need to have a thing afore her to see it. I’ll warrant you she’ll not be either two minutes or two feet out of the way, unless them jealous vagabonds, the Mingos, have taken the alarm and put her as a stool pigeon to catch us; or have hid her away, in order to prepare her mind for a Huron instead of a Mohican husband.”
“Deerslayer,” interrupted the girl, earnestly; “this is a most dangerous service; why do you go on it at all?”
“Anan! Why you know, gal, we go to bring off Hist, the Sarpent’s betrothed—the maid he means to marry, as soon as we get back to the tribe.”
“That is all right for the Indian—but you do not mean to marry Hist—you are not betrothed, and why should two risk their lives and liberties, to do that which one can just as well perform?”
“Ah!—now I understand you, Judith—yes, now I begin to take the idee. You think as Hist is the Sarpent’s betrothed, as they call it, and not mine, it’s altogether his affair; and as one man can paddle a canoe, he ought to be left to go after his gal alone! But you forget this is our arr‘nd here, on the lake, and it would not tell well to forget an arr’nd just at the pinch. Then, if love does count for so much with some people, particularly with young women, fri‘ndship counts for something, too, with other some. I dare to say the Delaware can paddle a canoe by himself, and can bring off Hist by himself, and perhaps he would like that quite as well as to have me with him; but he couldn’t sarcumvent sarcumventions, or stir up an ambushment, or fight with the savages, and get his sweetheart at the same time, as well by himself as if he had a fri’nd with him, to depend on, even if that fri‘nd is no better than myself. No—no—Judith, you wouldn’t desart one that counted on you, at such a moment, and you can’t, in reason, expect me to do it.”
“I fear—I believe you are right, Deerslayer; yet I wish you were not to go! Promise me one thing, at least, and that is, not to trust yourself among the savages, or to do anything more than to save the girl. That will be enough for once, and with that you ought to be satisfied.”
“Lord bless you! gal; one would think it was Hetty that’s talking, and not the quick-witted and wonderful Judith Hutter! But fright makes the wise silly, and the strong weak. Yes, I’ve seen proofs of that, time and ag‘in. Well, it’s kind and softhearted in you, Judith, to feel this consarn for a fellow creatur’, and I shall always say that you are kind and of true feelin’s, let them that invy your good looks tell as many idle stories of you as they may.”
“Deerslayer!” hastily said the girl, interrupting him, though nearly choked by her emotions, “do you believe all you hear about a poor motherless girl? Is the foul tongue of Hurry Harry to blast my life?”
“Not it, Judith—not it. I’ve told Hurry it wasn’t manful to back-bite them he couldn’t win by fair means; and that even an Indian is always tender, touching a young woman’s good name.”
“If I had a brother, he wouldn’t dare to do it!” exclaimed Judith, her eyes flashing fire. “But, finding me without any protector but an old man, whose ears are getting to be as dull as his feelings, he has his way