Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (moboreader TXT) 📗

along, taking the direction of the eastern shore, beneath the forest-clad cliffs of which the ladies had expressed a wish to be rowed; "here are Powis and myself actually rowing together on a mountain lake of America, after having boated as companions on the coast of Africa, and on the margin of the Great Desert. Polynesia, and Terra Australis, may yet see us in company, as hardy cruisers."

"The spirit of the age is, indeed, working wonders in the way you mean," said John Effingham. "Countries of which our fathers merely read, are getting to be as familiar as our own homes to their sons; and, with you, one can hardly foresee to what a pass of adventure the generation or two that will follow us may not reach."

" Vraiment, c'est fort extraordinaire de se trouver sur un lac Americain ," exclaimed Mademoiselle Viefville.

"More extraordinary than to find one's self on a Swiss lake, think you, my dear Mademoiselle Viefville?"

" Non, non, mais tout aussi extraordinaire pour une Parisienne. "

"I am now about to introduce you, Mr. John Effingham and Miss Van Cortlandt excepted," Eve continued, "to the wonders and curiosities of this lake and region. There, near the small house that is erected over a spring of delicious water, stood the hut of Natty Bumppo, once known throughout all these mountains as a renowned hunter; a man who had the simplicity of a woodsman, the heroism of a savage, the faith of a Christian, and the feelings of a poet. A better than he, after his fashion, seldom lived."

"We have all heard of him," said the baronet, looking round curiously; "and must all feel an interest in what concerns so brave and just a man. I would I could see his counterpart."

"Alas!" said John Effingham, "the days of the 'Leather-stockings' have passed away. He preceded me in life, and I see few remains of his character in a region where speculation is more rife than moralizing, and emigrants are plentier than hunters. Natty probably chose that spot for his hut on account of the vicinity of the spring: is it not so. Miss Effingham?"

"He did; and yonder little fountain that you see gushing from the thicket, and which comes glancing like diamonds into the lake, is called the 'Fairy Spring,' by some flight of poetry that, like so many of our feelings, must have been imported; for I see no connection between the name and the character of the country, fairies having never been known, even by tradition, in Otsego."

The boat now came under a shore where the trees fringed the very water, frequently overhanging the element that mirrored their fantastic forms. At this point, a light skiff was moving leisurely along in their own direction, but a short distance in advance. On a hint from John Effingham, a few vigorous strokes of the oars brought the two boats near each other.

"This is the flag-ship," half whispered John Effingham, as they came near the other skiff, "containing no less a man than the 'commodore.' Formerly, the chief of the lake was an admiral, but that was in times when, living nearer to the monarchy, we retained some of the European terms; now, no man rises higher than a commodore in America, whether it be on the ocean or on the Otsego, whatever may be his merits or his services. A charming day, commodore; I rejoice to see you still afloat, in your glory."

The commodore, a tail, thin, athletic man of seventy, with a white head, and movements that were quick as those of a boy, had not glanced aside at the approaching boat, until he was thus saluted in the well-known voice of John Effingham. He then turned his head, however, and scanning the whole party through his spectacles, he smiled good-naturedly made a flourish with one hand, while he continued paddling with the other, for he stood erect and straight in the stern of his skiff, and answered heartily--

"A fine morning, Mr. John, and the right time of the moon for boating. This is not a real scientific day for the fish, perhaps; but I have just come out to see that all the points and bays are in their right places."

"How is it, commodore, that the water near the village is less limpid than common, and that even up here, we see so many specks floating on its surface?"

"What a question for Mr. John Effingham to ask on his native water! So much for travelling in far countries, where a man forgets quite as much as he learns, I fear." Here the commodore turned entirely round, and raising an open hand in an oratorical manner, he added,--"You must know, ladies and gentlemen, that the lake is in blow."

"In blow, commodore! I did not know that the lake bore its blossoms."

"It does, sir, nevertheless. Ay, Mr. John, and its fruits, too; but the last must be dug for, like potatoes. There have been no miraculous draughts of the fishes, of late years, in the Otsego, ladies and gentlemen; but it needs the scientific touch, and the knowledge of baits, to get a fin of any of your true game above the water, now-a-days. Well, I have had the head of the sogdollager thrice in the open air, in my time; though I am told the admiral actually got hold of him once with his hand."

"The sogdollager," said Eve, much amused with the singularities of the man, whom she perfectly remembered to have been commander of the lake, even in her own infancy; "we must be indebted to you for an explanation of that term, as well as for the meaning of your allusion to the head and the open air."

"A sogdollager, young lady, is the perfection of a thing. I know Mr. Grant used to say there was no such word in the dictionary; but then there are many words that ought to be in the dictionaries that have been forgotten by the printers. In the way of salmon trout, the sogdollager is their commodore. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I should not like to tell you all I know about the patriarch of this lake, for you would scarcely believe me; but if he would not weigh a hundred when cleaned, there is not an ox in the county that will weigh a pound when slaughtered."

"You say you had his head above water?" said John Effingham.

"Thrice, Mr. John. The first time was thirty years ago; and I confess I lost him, on that occasion, by want of science; for the art is not learned in a day, and I had then followed the business but ten years. The second time was five years later: and I had then been fishing expressly for the old gentleman, about a month. For near a minute, it was a matter of dispute between us, whether he should come out of the lake or I go into it; but I actually got his gills in plain sight. That was a glorious haul! Washington did not feel better the night Cornwallis surrendered, than I felt on that great occasion!"

"One never knows the feelings of another, it seems. I should have thought disappointment at the loss would have been the prevailing sentiment on that great occasion, as you so justly term it."

"So it would have been, Mr. John, with an unscientific fisherman; but we experienced hands know better. Glory is to be measured by quality, and not by quantity, ladies and gentlemen; and I look on it as a greater feather in a man's cap, to see the sogdollager's head above water, for half a minute, than to bring home a skiff filled with pickerel. The last time I got a look at the old gentleman, I did not try to get him into the boat, but we sat and conversed for near two minutes; he in the water, and I in the skiff."

"Conversed!" exclaimed Eve, "and with a fish, too! What could the animal have to say!"

"Why, young lady, a fish can talk as well as one of ourselves; the only difficulty is to understand what he says. I have heard the old settlers affirm, that the Leather-stocking used to talk for hours at a time, with the animals of the forest."

"You knew the Leather-stocking, commodore?"

"No, young lady, I am sorry to say I never had the pleasure of looking on him even. He was a great man! They may talk of their Jeffersons and Jacksons, but I set down Washington and Natty Bumppo as the two only really great men of my time."

"What do you think of Bonaparte, commodore?" inquired Paul.

"Well, sir, Bonaparte had some strong points about him, I do really believe. But he could have been nothing to the Leather-stocking, in the woods! It's no great matter, young gentleman, to be a great man among your inhabitants of cities--what I call umbrella people. Why, Natty was almost as great with the spear as with the rifle; though I never heard that he got a sight of the sogdollager."

"We shall meet again this summer, commodore," said John Effingham; "the ladies wish to hear the echoes, and we must leave you."

"All very natural, Mr. John," returned the commodore, laughing, and again flourishing his hand in his own peculiar manner. "The women all love to hear the echoes, for they are not satisfied with what they have once said, but they like to hear it over again. I never knew a lady come on the Otsego, but one of the first things she did was to get paddled to the Speaking Rocks, to have a chat with herself. They come out in such numbers, sometimes, and then all talk at once, in a way quite to confuse the echo. I suppose you have heard, young lady, the opinion people have now got concerning these voices."

"I cannot say I have ever heard more than that they are some of the most perfect echoes known;" answered Eve, turning her body, so as to face the old man, as the skiff of the party passed that of the veteran fisherman.

"Some people maintain that there is no echo at all, and that the sounds we hear come from the spirit of the Leather-stocking, which keeps about its old haunts, and repeats every thing we say, in mockery of our invasion of the woods. I do not say this notion is true, or that it is my own; but we all know that Natty did dislike to see a new settler arrive in the mountains, and that he loved a tree as a muskrat loves water. They show a pine up here on the side of the Vision, which he notched at every new-comer, until reaching seventeen, his honest old heart could go no farther, and he gave the matter up in despair."

"This is so poetical, commodore, it is a pity it cannot be true. I like this explanation of the 'Speaking Rocks,' much better than that implied by the name of 'Fairy Spring.'"

"You are quite right, young lady," called out the fisherman, as the boats separated still farther; "there never was any fairy known in Otsego; but the time has been when we could boast of a Natty Bumppo."

Here the commodore flourished his hand again, and Eve nodded her adieus. The skiff of the party continued to pull slowly along the fringed shore, occasionally sheering more into the lake, to avoid some overhanging and nearly horizontal tree, and then returning so closely to the land, as barely to clear the pebbles of the narrow strand