The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [176]
“She bid me come to see you, and to try and persuade the savages to take more elephants to let you off; but I’ve brought the Bible with me—that will do more than all the elephants in father’s chest!”
“And your father, good little Hetty—and Hurry; did they know of your arr’nd?”
“Nothing. Both are asleep; and Judith and the Serpent thought it best they should not be woke, lest they might want to come again after scalps, when Hist had told them how few warriors, and how many women and children there were in the camp, Judith would give me no peace till I had come ashore, to see what had happened to you.”
“Well, that’s remarkable as consarns Judith! Why should she feel so much unsartainty about me? Ah, I see how it is now; yes, I see into the whole matter now. You must understand, Hetty, that your sister is oneasy lest Harry March should wake, and come blundering here into the hands of the inimy ag’in, under some idee that, being a traveling comrade, he ought to help me in this matter! Hurry is a blunderer, I will allow; but I don’t think he’d risk as much for my sake as he would for his own.”
“Judith don’t care for Hurry, though Hurry cares for her,” replied Hetty innocently, but quite positively.
“I’ve heard you say as much as that afore; yes, I’ve heard that from you afore, gal, and yet it isn’t true. One don’t live in a tribe, not to see something of the way in which liking works in a woman’s heart. Though no way given to marrying myself, I’ve been a looker-on among the Delawares, and this is a matter in which paleface and redskin gifts are all as one the same. When the feelin’ begins, the young woman is thoughtful, and has no eyes or ears onless for the warrior that has taken her fancy; then follows melancholy and sighing, and such sort of actions; after which, especially if matters don’t come to a plain discourse, she often flies round to backbiting and faultfinding, blaming the youth for the very things she likes best in him. Some young creatur’s are forward in this way of showing their love, and I’m of opinion Judith is one of ’em. Now I’ve heard her as much as deny that Hurry was good-looking; and the young woman who could do that, must be far gone indeed.”
“The young woman who liked Hurry would own that he is handsome. I think Hurry very handsome, Deerslayer, and I’m sure everybody must think so that has eyes. Judith don’t like Harry March, and that’s the reason she finds fault with him.”
“Well—well—my good little Hetty, have it your own way If we should talk from now till winter, each would think as at present; and there’s no use in words. I must believe that Judith is much wrapped up in Hurry, and that sooner or later she’ll have him; and this, too, all the more from the manner in which she abuses him; and I dare to say, you think just the contrary But mind what I now tell you, gal, and pretend not to know it,” continued this being, who was so obtuse on a point on which men are usually quick enough to make discoveries, and so acute in matters that would baffle the observation of much the greater portion of mankind; “I see how it is with them vagabonds. Rivenoak has left us, you see, and is talking yonder with his young men; and though too far to be heard, I can see what he is telling them. Their orders is to watch your movements, and to find where the canoe is to meet you, to take you back to the ark, and then to seize all and what they can. I’m sorry Judith sent you, for I suppose she wants you to go back ag’in.”
“All that’s settled, Deerslayer,” returned the girl in a low, confidential, and meaning manner; “and you may trust me to outwit