The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [253]
A general movement followed, each of the competitors got ready, and the girls stood in eager expectation of the result. The eagle had made a wide circuit after his low swoop, and fanning his way upward, once more hovered nearly over the hut, at a distance even greater than before Chingachgook gazed at him, and then expressed his opinion of the impossibility of striking a bird at that great height, and while he was so nearly perpendicular, as to the range. But a low murmur from Hist produced a sudden impulse, and he fired. The result showed how well he had calculated, the eagle not even varying his flight, sailing round and round in his airy circle, and looking down, as if in contempt, at his foes.
“Now, Judith,” cried Deerslayer, laughing, with glistening and delighted eyes, “we’ll see if Killdeer isn’t Killeagle too! Give me room, Sarpent, and watch the reason of the aim, for by reason anything may be l’arned.”
A careful sight followed, and was repeated again and again, the bird continuing to rise higher and higher. Then followed the flash and the report. The swift messenger sped upwards, and, at the next instant, the bird turned on its side, and came swooping down, now struggling with one wing and then with the other, sometimes whirling in a circuit, next fanning desperately as if conscious of its injury, until, having described several complete circles around the spot, it fell heavily into the end of the ark. On examining the body, it was found that the bullet had pierced it about halfway between one of its wings and the breastbone.
CHAPTER XXVI
“Upon two stony tables, spread before her,
She leaned her bosom, more than stony hard;
There slept the impartial judge, and strict restorer
Of wrong or right, with pain or with reward;
There hung the score of all our debts, the card
Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were painted;
Was never heart of mortal so untainted,
But when the roll was read, with thousand terrors fainted.”
Giles Fletcher
“WE’VE DONE AN ONTHOUGHTFUL thing, Sarpent—yes, Judith, we’ve done an onthoughtful thing in taking life with an object no better than vanity!” exclaimed Deerslayer, when the Delaware held up the enormous bird, by its wings, and exhibited the dying eyes riveted on its enemies with the gaze that the helpless ever fasten on their destroyers. “ ’Twas more becomin’ two boys to gratify their feelin’s in this onthoughtful manner, than two warriors on a warpath, even though it be their first. Ah’s me! well, as a punishment I’ll quit you at once, and when I find myself alone with them bloody-minded Mingos, it’s more than like I’ll have occasion to remember that life is sweet, even to the beasts of the woods and the fowls of the air. Here, Judith; there’s Killdeer; take him back ag’in, and keep him for some hand that’s more desarving to own such a piece.”
“I know of none as deserving as your own, Deerslayer,” answered the girl in haste; “none but yours shall keep the rifle.”
“If it depended on skill, you might be right enough, gal, but we should know when to use firearms as well as how to use ‘em. I haven’t l’arnt the first duty yet, it seems; so keep the piece till I have. The sight of a dyin’ and distressed creatur‘, even though it be only a bird, brings wholesome thoughts to a man who don’t know how soon his own time may come, and who is pretty sartain that it will come afore the sun sets; I’d give back all my vain feelin’s and rej’icin’s in hand and eye, if that poor eagle was only on its nest ag’in with its young, praisin’ the Lord, for anything that we can know about the matter, for health and strength! ”
The listeners were confounded with this proof of sudden repentance in the hunter, and that, too, for an indulgence so very common, that men seldom stop to weigh its consequences, or the physical suf fering it may bring on the unoffending and helpless. The Delaware