The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [229]
The ascendency which March had obtained over this feebleminded but right-thinking and right-feeling girl arose from a law of nature. Her senses had been captivated by his personal advantages; and her moral communications with him had never been sufficiently intimate to counteract an effect that must have been otherwise lessened, even with one whose mind was as obtuse as her own. Hetty’s instinct of right, if such a term can be applied to one who seemed taught by some kind spirit how to steer her course with unerring accuracy between good and evil, would have revolted at Hurry’s character, on a thousand points, had there been opportunities to enlighten her; but while he conversed and trifled with her sister, at a distance from herself, his perfection of form and feature had been left to produce their influence on her simple imagination and naturally tender feelings, without suffering by the alloy of his opinions and coarseness. It is true, she found him rough and rude; but her father was that, and most of the other men she had seen; and that which she believed to belong to all of the sex, struck her less unfavorably in Hurry’s character than it might otherwise have done. Still, it was not absolutely love that Hetty felt for Hurry, nor do we wish so to portray it, but merely that awakening sensibility and admiration which, under more propitious circumstances, and always supposing no untoward revelations of character on the part of the young man had supervened to prevent it, might soon have ripened into that engrossing feeling. She felt for him an incipient tenderness, but scarcely any passion. Perhaps the nearest approach to the latter that Hetty had manifested, was to be seen in the sensitiveness which had caused her to detect March’s predilection for her sister; for, among Judith’s many admirers, this was the only instance in which the dull mind of the girl had been quickened into an observation of the circumstance.
Hurry received so little sympathy at his departure, that the gentle tones of Hetty, as she thus called after him, sounded soothingly. He checked the canoe, and with one sweep of his powerful arm brought it back to the side of the ark. This was more than Hetty, whose courage had risen with the departure of her hero, expected, and she now shrank timidly back at his unexpected return.
“You’re a good gal, Hetty, and I can’t quit you without shaking hands,” said March, kindly. “Judith, a’ter all, isn’t worth as much as you, though she may be a trifle better looking. As to wits, if honesty and fair dealing with a young man is a sign of sense in a young woman, you’re worth a dozen Judiths; ay, and for that matter, most young women of my acquaintance.”
“Don’t say anything against Judith, Harry,” returned Hetty, imploringly. “Father’s gone, and mother’s gone, and nobody’s left but Judith and me, and it isn’t right for sisters to speak evil, or to hear evil, of each other. Father’s in the lake, and so is mother, and we should all fear God, for we don’t know when we may be in the lake, too.”
“That sounds reasonable, child, as does most you say. Well, if we ever meet again, Hetty, you’d find a fri‘nd in me, let your sister do what she may. I was no great fri’nd of your mother, I’ll allow, for we didn’t think alike on most p‘ints; but then your father, old Tom, and I fitted each other as remarkably as a buckskin garment will fit any reasonable-built man. I’ve always been unanimous of opinion that old Floating Tom Hutter, at the bottom, was a good fellow, and will maintain that ag’in all inimies for his sake, as well as for your’n.”
“Good-bye, Hurry,” said Hetty, who now wanted to hasten the young man off as ardently as she had wished to keep him only the moment before, though she could give no clearer account of the latter than of the former