Chapter 27

by Herman Melville

　　SOME ACCOUNT OF A MAN OF QUESTIONABLE MORALITY, BUT WHO, NEVERTHELESS,WOULD SEEM ENTITLED TO THE ESTEEM OF THAT EMINENT ENGLISH MORALIST WHOSAID HE LIKED A GOOD HATER."Coming to mention the man to whose story all thus far said was but theintroduction, the judge, who, like you, was a great smoker, would insistupon all the company taking cigars, and then lighting a fresh onehimself, rise in his place, and, with the solemnest voice,say--'Gentlemen, let us smoke to the memory of Colonel John Moredock;'when, after several whiffs taken standing in deep silence and deeperreverie, he would resume his seat and his discourse, something in thesewords:"'Though Colonel John Moredock was not an Indian-hater par excellence,he yet cherished a kind of sentiment towards the red man, and in thatdegree, and so acted out his sentiment as sufficiently to merit thetribute just rendered to his memory."'John Moredock was the son of a woman married thrice, and thricewidowed by a tomahawk. The three successive husbands of this woman hadbeen pioneers, and with them she had wandered from wilderness towilderness, always on the frontier. With nine children, she at lastfound herself at a little clearing, afterwards Vincennes. There shejoined a company about to remove to the new country of Illinois. On theeastern side of Illinois there were then no settlements; but on the westside, the shore of the Mississippi, there were, near the mouth of theKaskaskia, some old hamlets of French. To the vicinity of those hamlets,very innocent and pleasant places, a new Arcadia, Mrs. Moredock's partywas destined; for thereabouts, among the vines, they meant to settle.They embarked upon the Wabash in boats, proposing descending that streaminto the Ohio, and the Ohio into the Mississippi, and so, northwards,towards the point to be reached. All went well till they made the rockof the Grand Tower on the Mississippi, where they had to land and dragtheir boats round a point swept by a strong current. Here a party ofIndians, lying in wait, rushed out and murdered nearly all of them. Thewidow was among the victims with her children, John excepted, who, somefifty miles distant, was following with a second party."He was just entering upon manhood, when thus left in nature solesurvivor of his race. Other youngsters might have turned mourners; heturned avenger. His nerves were electric wires--sensitive, but steel. Hewas one who, from self-possession, could be made neither to flush norpale. It is said that when the tidings were brought him, he was ashoresitting beneath a hemlock eating his dinner of venison--and as thetidings were told him, after the first start he kept on eating, butslowly and deliberately, chewing the wild news with the wild meat, asif both together, turned to chyle, together should sinew him to hisintent. From that meal he rose an Indian-hater. He rose; got his arms,prevailed upon some comrades to join him, and without delay started todiscover who were the actual transgressors. They proved to belong to aband of twenty renegades from various tribes, outlaws even amongIndians, and who had formed themselves into a maurauding crew. Noopportunity for action being at the time presented, he dismissed hisfriends; told them to go on, thanking them, and saying he would asktheir aid at some future day. For upwards of a year, alone in the wilds,he watched the crew. Once, what he thought a favorable chance havingoccurred--it being midwinter, and the savages encamped, apparently toremain so--he anew mustered his friends, and marched against them; but,getting wind of his coming, the enemy fled, and in such panic thateverything was left behind but their weapons. During the winter, muchthe same thing happened upon two subsequent occasions. The next year hesought them at the head of a party pledged to serve him for forty days.At last the hour came. It was on the shore of the Mississippi. Fromtheir covert, Moredock and his men dimly descried the gang of Cains inthe red dusk of evening, paddling over to a jungled island inmid-stream, there the more securely to lodge; for Moredock's retributivespirit in the wilderness spoke ever to their trepidations now, like thevoice calling through the garden. Waiting until dead of night, thewhites swam the river, towing after them a raft laden with their arms.On landing, Moredock cut the fastenings of the enemy's canoes, andturned them, with his own raft, adrift; resolved that there should beneither escape for the Indians, nor safety, except in victory, for thewhites. Victorious the whites were; but three of the Indians savedthemselves by taking to the stream. Moredock's band lost not a man."'Three of the murderers survived. He knew their names and persons. Inthe course of three years each successively fell by his own hand. Allwere now dead. But this did not suffice. He made no avowal, but to killIndians had become his passion. As an athlete, he had few equals; as ashot, none; in single combat, not to be beaten. Master of thatwoodland-cunning enabling the adept to subsist where the tyro wouldperish, and expert in all those arts by which an enemy is pursued forweeks, perhaps months, without once suspecting it, he kept to theforest. The solitary Indian that met him, died. When a murder wasdescried, he would either secretly pursue their track for some chance tostrike at least one blow; or if, while thus engaged, he himself wasdiscovered, he would elude them by superior skill."'Many years he spent thus; and though after a time he was, in a degree,restored to the ordinary life of the region and period, yet it isbelieved that John Moredock never let pass an opportunity of quenchingan Indian. Sins of commission in that kind may have been his, but noneof omission."'It were to err to suppose,' the judge would say, 'that this gentlemanwas naturally ferocious, or peculiarly possessed of those qualities,which, unhelped by provocation of events, tend to withdraw man fromsocial life. On the contrary, Moredock was an example of somethingapparently self-contradicting, certainly curious, but, at the same time,undeniable: namely, that nearly all Indian-haters have at bottom lovinghearts; at any rate, hearts, if anything, more generous than theaverage. Certain it is, that, to the degree in which he mingled in thelife of the settlements, Moredock showed himself not without humanefeelings. No cold husband or colder father, he; and, though often andlong away from his household, bore its needs in mind, and provided forthem. He could be very convivial; told a good story (though never of hismore private exploits), and sung a capital song. Hospitable, notbackward to help a neighbor; by report, benevolent, as retributive, insecret; while, in a general manner, though sometimes grave--as is notunusual with men of his complexion, a sultry and tragical brown--yetwith nobody, Indians excepted, otherwise than courteous in a manlyfashion; a moccasined gentleman, admired and loved. In fact, no one morepopular, as an incident to follow may prove."'His bravery, whether in Indian fight or any other, was unquestionable.An officer in the ranging service during the war of 1812, he acquittedhimself with more than credit. Of his soldierly character, this anecdoteis told: Not long after Hull's dubious surrender at Detroit, Moredockwith some of his rangers rode up at night to a log-house, there to resttill morning. The horses being attended to, supper over, andsleeping-places assigned the troop, the host showed the colonel hisbest bed, not on the ground like the rest, but a bed that stood on legs.But out of delicacy, the guest declined to monopolize it, or, indeed, tooccupy it at all; when, to increase the inducement, as the host thought,he was told that a general officer had once slept in that bed. "Who,pray?" asked the colonel. "General Hull." "Then you must not takeoffense," said the colonel, buttoning up his coat, "but, really, nocoward's bed, for me, however comfortable." Accordingly he took up withvalor's bed--a cold one on the ground."'At one time the colonel was a member of the territorial council ofIllinois, ands at the formation of the state government, was pressed tobecome candidate for governor, but begged to be excused. And, though hedeclined to give his reasons for declining, yet by those who best knewhim the cause was not wholly unsurmised. In his official capacity hemight be called upon to enter into friendly treaties with Indian tribes,a thing not to be thought of. And even did no such contingecy arise, yethe felt there would be an impropriety in the Governor of Illinoisstealing out now and then, during a recess of the legislative bodies,for a few days' shooting at human beings, within the limits of hispaternal chief-magistracy. If the governorship offered large honors,from Moredock it demanded larger sacrifices. These were incompatibles.In short, he was not unaware that to be a consistent Indian-haterinvolves the renunciation of ambition, with its objects--the pomps andglories of the world; and since religion, pronouncing such thingsvanities, accounts it merit to renounce them, therefore, so far as thisgoes, Indian-hating, whatever may be thought of it in other respects,may be regarded as not wholly without the efficacy of a devoutsentiment.'"Here the narrator paused. Then, after his long and irksome sitting,started to his feet, and regulating his disordered shirt-frill, and atthe same time adjustingly shaking his legs down in his rumpledpantaloons, concluded: "There, I have done; having given you, not mystory, mind, or my thoughts, but another's. And now, for your friendCoonskins, I doubt not, that, if the judge were here, he would pronouncehim a sort of comprehensive Colonel Moredock, who, too much spreadinghis passion, shallows it."