Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe, The Chainbearer & The Redskins (Complete Edition). James Fenimore Cooper
Читать онлайн книгу.
which we listened with some curiosity and caution.
“High!” exclaimed some one, very distinctly, in English.
“Jack!” said another voice, in a sort of answering second that could not well be mistaken.
“There’s three for low;—is that good?” put in the first speaker.
“It will do, sir; but here are a ten and an ace. Ten and three, and four and two make nineteen;—I’m game.”
“High, low, Jack and game!” whispered Guert; “here are fellows playing at cards, near us; let us go on and beat up their quarters.”
We did so; and, pushing aside some bushes, broke, quite unexpectedly to all parties, on the Rev. Mr. Worden and Jason Newcome, playing the game of ‘All Fours on a stump;’ or, if not literally in the classic position of using ‘the stump,’ substituting the trunk of a fallen tree for their table. As we broke suddenly in upon the card-players, Jason gave unequivocal signs of a disposition to conceal his hand, by thrusting the cards he held into his bosom, while he rapidly put the remainder of the pack under his thigh, pressing it down in a way completely to conceal it. This sudden movement was merely the effect of a puritanical education, which, having taught him to consider that as a sin which was not necessarily a sin at all, exacted from him that hypocrisy which is the tribute that vice pays to virtue! Very different was the conduct of the Rev. Mr. Worden. Taught to discriminate better, and unaccustomed to set up arbitrary rules of his own as the law of God, this loose observer of his professional obligations is other matters, made a very proper distinction in this. Instead of giving the least manifestation of confusion or alarm, the log on which he was seated was not more unmoved than he remained, at our sudden appearance at his side.
“I hope, Corny, my dear boy,” Mr. Worden cried, “that you did not forget to purchase a few packs of cards; which I plainly see, will be a great resource for us, in this woody region. These cards of Jason’s are so thumbed and handled, that they are not fit to be touched by a gentleman, as I will show you.—Why, what has become of the pack, Master Newcome?—It was on the log but a minute ago!”
Jason actually blushed! Yes, for a wonder, shame induced Jason Newcome to change colour! The cards were reluctantly produced from beneath his leg, and there the schoolmaster sat, as it might be in presence of his school actually convicted of being engaged in the damning sin of handling certain spotted pieces of paper, invented for, and used in the combinations of a game played for amusement.
“Had it been push-pin, now,” Guert whispered, “it would give Mr. Newcome no trouble at all; but he does not admire the idea of being caught at ‘All Fours, on a stump.’ We must say a word to relieve the poor sinner’s distress. I have cards, Mr. Worden, and they shall be much at your service, as soon as we can come at our effects. There is one pack in my knapsack, but it is a little soiled by use, though somewhat cleaner than that. If you wish it, I will hand it to you. I never travel without carrying one or two clean packs with me.”
“Not just now, sir, I thank you. I love a game of Whist, or Picquet, but cannot say I am an admirer of All Fours. As Mr. Newcome knows no other, we were merely killing half an hour, at that game; but I have enough of it to last me for the summer. I am glad that cards have not been forgotten, however; for, I dare say, we can make up a very respectable party at Whist, when we all meet.”
“That we can, sir, and a party that shall have its good players. Miss Mary Wallace plays as good a hand at Whist, as a woman should, Mr. Worden; and a very pretty accomplishment it is, for a lady to possess; useful, sir, as well as entertaining; for anything is preferable to dummy. I do not think a woman should play quite as well as a man, our sex having a natural claim to lead, in all such things; but it is very convenient, sometimes, to find a lady who can hold her hand with coolness and skill.”
“I would not marry a woman who did not understand Picquet,” exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Worden; “to say nothing of Whist, and one or two other games. But, let us be moving, since the hour is getting late.”
Move on we did, and in due time we all reached the place at which we were to halt for the night. This looked like plunging into the wilderness indeed; for the house had but two rooms, one of which was appropriated to the use of the females, while most of us men took up our lodgings in the barn. Anneke and Mary Wallace, however, showed the most perfect good-humour; and our dinner, or supper might better be the name, was composed of deliciously fat and tender broiled pigeons. It was the pigeon season, the woods being full of the birds; and we were told, we might expect to feast on the young to satiety.
About noon the next day, we reached the first clearing on the estate of Ravensnest. The country through which we were travelling was rolling rather than bold; but it possessed a feature of grandeur in its boundless forests. Our route, that day, lay under lofty arches of young leaves, the buds just breaking into the first green of the foliage, tall, straight columns, sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred feet of the trunks of the trees, rising almost without a branch. The pines, in particular, were really majestic, most of them being a hundred and fifty feet in height, and a few, as I should think, nearly if not quite two hundred. As everything grows towards the upper light, in the forest, this ought not to surprise those who are accustomed to see vegetation expand its powers in wide-spreading tops, and low, gnarled branches that almost touch the ground, as is the case in the open fields, and on the lawns of the older regions. As is usual in the American virgin forest, there was very little underbrush; and we could see frequently a considerable distance through these long vistas of trees; or, indeed, until the number of the stems intercepted the sight.
The clearings of Ravensnest were neither very large nor very inviting. In that day, the settlement of new lands was a slow and painful operation, and was generally made at a great outlay to the proprietor. Various expedients were adopted to free the earth from its load of trees; 33 for, at that time, the commerce of the colonies did not reward the toil of the settler in the same liberal manner as has since occurred. Herman Mordaunt, as we moved along, related to me the cost and trouble he had been at already, in getting the ten or fifteen families who were on his property, in the first place, to the spot itself; and, in the second place, to induce them to remain there. Not only was he obliged to grant leases for three lives, or, in some cases, for thirty or forty years, at rents that were merely nominal, but, as a rule, the first six or eight years the tenants were to pay no rent at all. On the contrary, he was obliged to extend to them many favours, in various ways, that cost no inconsiderable sum in the course of the year. Among other things, his agent kept a small shop, that contained the most ordinary supplies used by families of the class of the settler, and these he sold at little more than cost, for their accommodation, receiving his pay in such articles as they could raise from their half-tilled fields, or their sugar-bushes, and turning those again into money, only after they were transported to Albany, at the end of a considerable period. In a word, the commencement of such a settlement was an arduous undertaking, and the experiment was not very likely to succeed, unless the landlord had both capital and patience.
The political economist can have no difficulty in discovering the causes of the circumstances just mentioned. They were to be found in the fact that people were scarce, while land was superabundant. In such a condition of society, the tenant had the choice of his farm, instead of the landlord’s having a selection of his tenants, and the latter were to be bought only on such conditions as suited themselves.
“You see,” continued Herman Mordaunt, as we walked together, conversing on this subject, “that my twenty thousand acres are not likely to be of much use to myself, even should they prove to be of any to my daughter. A century hence, indeed, my descendants may benefit from all this outlay of money and trouble; but it is not probable that either I or Anneke will ever see the principal and interest of the sums that will be expended in the way of roads, bridges, mills, and other things of that sort. Years must go by, before the light rents which will only begin to be paid a year or two hence, and then only by a very few tenants, can amount to a sufficient sum to meet the expenses of keeping up the settlement, to say nothing of the quit-rents to be paid to the crown.”
“This is not very encouraging to a new beginner in the occupation of a landlord,” I answered; “and, when I look into the