Chapter VIII.

by James Fenimore Cooper

　　"For here the exile met from every clime,And spoke, in friendship, every distant tongue."--Campbell.

　　We have made our readers acquainted with some variety in character andnations, in introducing the most important personages of this legendto their notice; but, in order to establish the fidelity of ournarrative, we shall briefly attempt to explain the reason why we havebeen obliged to present so motley a dramatis personae.

　　Europe, at the period of our tale, was in the commencement of thatcommotion which afterward shook her political institutions to thecentre. Louis the Sixteenth had been beheaded, and a nation onceesteemed the most refined among the civilized people of the world waschanging its character, and substituting cruelty for mercy, andsubtlety and ferocity for magnanimity and courage. Thou sands ofFrenchmen were compelled to seek protection in distant lands. Amongthe crowds who fled from France and her islands, to the United Statesof America, was the gentleman whom we have already mentioned asMonsieur Le Quoi. He had been recommended to the favor of JudgeTemple by the head of an eminent mercantile house in New York, withwhom Marmaduke was in habits of intimacy, and accustomed to exchangegood offices. At his first interview with the Frenchman, our Judgehad discovered him to be a man of breeding, and one who had seen muchmore prosperous days in his own country. From certain hints that hadescaped him, Monsieur Le Quoi was suspected of having been a West-India planter, great numbers of whom had fled from St. Domingo and theother islands, and were now living in the Union, in a state ofcomparative poverty, and some in absolute want The latter was not,however, the lot of Monsieur Le Quoi. He had but little, heacknowledged; but that little was enough to furnish, in the languageof the country, an assortment for a store.

　　The knowledge of Marmaduke was eminently practical, and there was nopart of a settler's life with which he was not familiar. Under hisdirection, Monsieur Le Quoi made some purchases, consisting of a fewcloths; some groceries, with a good deal of gunpowder and tobacco; aquantity of iron-ware, among which was a large proportion of Barlowsjack-knives, potash-kettles, and spiders; a very formidable collectionof crockery of the coarsest quality and most uncouth forms; togetherwith every other common article that the art of man has devised forhis wants, not forgetting the luxuries of looking-glasses and Jews-harps. With this collection of valuables, Monsieur Le Quoi hadstepped behind a counter, and, with a wonderful pliability oftemperament, had dropped into his assumed character as gracefully ashe had ever moved in any other. The gentleness and suavity of hismanners rendered him extremely popular; besides this, the women soondiscovered that he had taste. His calicoes were the finest, or, inother words, the most showy, of any that were brought into thecountry, and it was impossible to look at the prices asked for hisgoods by" so pretty a spoken man," Through these conjoint means, theaffairs of Monsieur Le Quoi were again in a prosperous condition, andhe was looked up to by the settlers as the second best man on the"Patent."*

　　* The term "Patent" which we have already used, and for which we mayhave further occasion, meant the district of country that had beenoriginally granted to old Major Effingham by the "kings letterspatent," and which had now become, by purchase under the act ofconfiscation, the property of Marmaduke Temple. It was a term incommon use throughout the new parts of the State; and was usuallyannexed to the landlords name, as "Temples or Effinghams Patent,"

　　Major Hartmann was a descendant of a man who, in company with a numberof his countrymen, had emigrated with their families from the banks ofthe Rhine to those of the Mohawk. This migration had occurred as farback as the reign of Queen Anne; and their descendants were nowliving, in great peace and plenty, on the fertile borders of thatbeautiful stream.

　　The Germans, or "High Dutchers," as they were called, to distinguishthem from the original or Low Dutch colonists, were a very peculiarpeople. They possessed all the gravity of the latter, without any oftheir phlegm; and like them, the "High Dutchers" were industrious,honest, and economical, Fritz, or Frederick Hartmann, was an epitomeof all the vices and virtues, foibles and excellences, of his race.He was passionate though silent, obstinate, and a good deal suspiciousof strangers; of immovable courage, in flexible honesty, andundeviating in his friendships. In deed there was no change abouthim, unless it were from grave to gay. He was serious by months, andjolly by weeks. He had, early in their acquaintance, formed anattachment for Marmaduke Temple, who was the only man that could notspeak High Dutch that ever gained his en tire confidence Four times ineach year, at periods equidistant, he left his low stone dwelling onthe banks of the Mohawk, and travelled thirty miles, through thehills, to the door of the mansion-house in Templeton. Here hegenerally stayed a week; and was reputed to spend much of that time inriotous living, greatly countenanced by Mr. Richard Jones. But everyone loved him, even to Remarkable Pettibone, to whom he occasionedsome additional trouble, he was so frank, so sincere, and, at times,so mirthful. He was now on his regular Christmas visit, and had notbeen in the village an hour when Richard summoned him to fill a seatin the sleigh to meet the landlord and his daughter.

　　Before explaining the character and situation of Mr. Grant, it will benecessary to recur to times far back in the brief history of thesettlement.

　　There seems to be a tendency in human nature to endeavor to providefor the wants of this world, before our attention is turned to thebusiness of the other. Religion was a quality but little cultivatedamid the stumps of Temples Patent for the first few years of itssettlement; but, as most of its inhabitants were from the moral Statesof Connecticut and Massachusetts, when the wants of nature weresatisfied they began seriously to turn their attention to theintroduction of those customs and observances which had been theprincipal care of their fore fathers. There was certainly a greatvariety of opinions on the subject of grace and free-will among thetenantry of Marmaduke; and, when we take into consideration thevariety of the religious instruction which they received, it caneasily be seen that it could not well be otherwise.

　　Soon after the village had been formally laid out into the streets andblocks that resembled a city, a meeting of its inhabitants had beenconvened, to take into consideration the propriety of establishing anacademy. This measure originated with Richard, who, in truth, wasmuch disposed to have the institution designated a university, or atleast a college. Meeting after meeting was held, for this purpose,year after year. The resolutions of these as sembiages appeared inthe most conspicuous columns of a little blue-looking newspaper, thatwas already issued weekly from the garret of a dwelling-house in thevillage, and which the traveller might as often see stuck into thefissure of a stake, erected at the point where the footpath from thelog-cabin of some settler entered the highway, as a post-office for anindividual. Sometimes the stake supported a small box, and a wholeneighborhood received a weekly supply for their literary wants at thispoint, where the man who "rides post regularly deposited a bundle ofthe precious commodity. To these flourishing resolutions, whichbriefly recounted the general utility of education, the political andgeographical rights of the village of Templeton to a participation inthe favors of the regents of the university, the salubrity of the air,and wholesomeness of the water, together with the cheapness of foodand the superior state of morals in the neighbor hood, were uniformlyannexed, in large Roman capitals, the names of Marmaduke Temple aschairman and Richard Jones as secretary.

　　Happily for the success of this undertaking, the regents were notaccustomed to resist these appeals to their generosity, whenever therewas the smallest prospect of a donation to second the request.Eventually Judge Temple concluded to bestow the necessary land, and toerect the required edifice at his own expense. The skill of Mr., or,as he was now called, from the circumstance of having received thecommission of a justice of the peace, Squire Doolittle, was again putin requisition; and the science of Mr. Jones was once more resortedto.

　　We shall not recount the different devices of the architects on theoccasion; nor would it be decorous so to do, seeing that there was aconvocation of the society of the ancient and honorable fraternity "of the Free and Accepted Masons, at the head of whom was Richard, inthe capacity of master, doubtless to approve or reject such of theplans as, in their wisdom, they deemed to he for the best. The knottypoint was, however, soon decided; and, on the appointed day, thebrotherhood marched in great state, displaying sundry banners andmysterious symbols, each man with a little mimic apron before him,from a most cunningly contrived apartment in the garret of the "BoldDragoon," an inn kept by one Captain Hollister, to the site of theintended edifice. Here Richard laid the corner stone, with suitablegravity, amidst an assemblage of more than half the men, and all thewomen, within ten miles of Templeton.

　　In the course of the succeeding week there was another meeting of thepeople, not omitting swarms of the gentler sex, when the abilities ofHiram at the "square rule" were put to the test of experiment. Theframe fitted well; and the skeleton of the fabric was reared without asingle accident, if we except a few falls from horses while thelaborers were returning home in the evening. From this time the workadvanced with great rapidity, and in the course of the season theLabor was completed; the edifice Manding, in all its heatity andproportions, the boast of the village, the study of young aspirantsfor architectural fame, and the admiration of every settler on thePatent.

　　It was a long, narrow house of wood, painted white, and more than halfwindows; and, when the observer stood at the western side of thebuilding, the edifice offered but a small obstacle to a full view ofthe rising sun. It was, in truth, but a very comfortless open place,through which the daylight shone with natural facility. On its frontwere divers ornaments in wood, designed by Richard and executed byHiram; but a window in the centre of the second story, immediatelyover the door or grand entrance, and the "steeple" were the pride ofthe building. The former was, we believe, of the composite order; forit included in its composition a multitude of ornaments and a greatvariety of proportions. It consisted of an arched compartment in thecentres with a square and small division on either side, the wholeincased in heavy frames, deeply and laboriously moulded in pine-wood,and lighted with a vast number of blurred and green-looking glass ofthose dimensions which are commonly called "eight by ten." Blinds,that were intended to be painted green, kept the window in a state ofpreservation, and probably might have contributed to the effect of thewhole, had not the failure in the public funds, which seems always tobe incidental to any undertaking of this kind, left them in the sombrecoat of lead-color with which they had been originally clothed. The"steeple" was a little cupola, reared on the very centre of the roof,on four tall pillars of pine that were fluted with a gouge, and loadedwith mouldings. On the tops of the columns was reared a dome orcupola, resembling in shape an inverted tea-cup without its bottom,from the centre of which projected a spire, or shaft of wood,transfixed with two iron rods, that bore on their ends the letters N.S. E. and W, in the same metal. The whole was surmounted by animitation of one of the finny tribe, carved in wood by the hands ofRichard, and painted what he called a "scale-color." This animal Mr.Jones affirmed to be an admirable resemblance of a great favorite ofthe epicures in that country, which bore the title of "lake-fish," anddoubtless the assertion was true; for, although intended to answer thepurposes of a weathercock, the fish was observed invariably to lookwith a longing eye in the direction of the beautiful sheet of waterthat lay imbedded in the mountains of Templeton.

　　For a short time after the charter of the regents was received, thetrustees of this institution employed a graduate of one of the Easterncolleges to instruct such youth as aspired to knowledge within thewalls of the edifice which we have described. The upper part of thebuilding was in one apartment, and was intended for gala-days andexhibitions; and the lower contained two rooms that were intended forthe great divisions of education, viz., the Latin and the Englishscholars. The former were never very numerous; though the sounds of"nominative, pennaa--genitive, penny," were soon heard to issue fromthe windows of the room, to the great delight and manifest edificationof the passenger.

　　Only one laborer in this temple of Minerva, however, was known to getso far as to attempt a translation of Virgil. He, indeed, appeared atthe annual exhibition, to the prodigious exultation of all hisrelatives, a farmers family in the vicinity, and repeated the wholeof the first eclogue from memory, observing the intonations of thedialogue with much judgment and effect. The sounds, as they proceededfrom his mouth, of

　　"Titty-ree too patty-lee ree-coo-bans sub teg-mi-nee faa-gy

　　Syl-ves-trem ten-oo-i moo-sam, med-i-taa-ris, aa-ve-ny."

　　were the last that had been heard in that building, as probably theywere the first that had ever been heard, in the same language, thereor anywhere else. By this time the trustees discovered that they hadanticipated the age and the instructor, or principal, was supersededby a master, who went on to teach the more humble lesson of "the morehaste the worst speed," in good plain English.

　　From this time until the date of our incidents, the academy was acommon country school, and the great room of the building wassometimes used as a court-room, on extraordinary trials; sometimes forconferences of the religious and the morally disposed, in the evening;at others for a ball in the afternoon, given under the auspices ofRichard; and on Sundays, invariably, as a place of public worship.

　　When an itinerant priest of the persuasion of the Methodists,Baptists, Universalists, or of the more numerous sect of thePresbyterians, was accidentally in the neighborhood, he was ordinarilyinvited to officiate, and was commonly rewarded for his services by acollection in a hat, before the congregation separated. When no suchregular minister offered, a kind of colloquial prayer or two was madeby some of the more gifted members, and a sermon was usually read,from Sterne, by Mr. Richard Jones.

　　The consequence of this desultory kind of priesthood was, as we havealready intimated, a great diversity of opinion on the more abstrusepoints of faith. Each sect had its adherents, though neither wasregularly organized and disciplined. Of the religious education ofMarmaduke we have already written, nor was the doubtful character ofhis faith completely removed by his marriage. The mother of Elizabethwas an Episcopalian, as indeed, was the mother of the Judge himself;and the good taste of Marmaduke revolted at the familiar colloquieswhich the leaders of the conferences held with the Deity, in theirnightly meetings. In form, he was certainly an Episcopalian, thoughnot a sectary of that denomination. On the other hand, Richard was asrigid in the observance of the canons of his church as he wasinflexible in his opinions. Indeed, he had once or twice essayed tointroduce the Episcopal form of service, on the Sundays that thepulpit was vacant; but Richard was a good deal addicted to carryingthings to an excess, and then there was some thing so papal in his airthat the greater part of his hearers deserted him on the secondSabbath--on the third his only auditor was Ben Pump, who had all theobstinate and enlightened orthodoxy of a high churchman.

　　Before the war of the Revolution, the English Church was supported inthe colonies, with much interest, by some of its adherents in themother country, and a few of the congregations were very amplyendowed. But, for the season, after the independence of the Stateswas established, this sect of Christians languished for the want ofthe highest order of its priesthood. Pious and suitable divines wereat length selected, and sent to the mother country, to receive thatauthority which, it is understood, can only be transmitted directlyfrom one to the other, and thus obtain, in order to reserve, thatunity in their churches which properly belonged to a people of thesame nation. But unexpected difficulties presented themselves, in theoaths with which the policy of England had fettered theirestablishment; and much time was spent before a conscientious sense ofduty would permit the prelates of Britain to delegate the authority soearnestly sought. Time, patience, and zeal, however, removed everyimpediment, and the venerable men who had been set apart by theAmerican churches at length returned to their expecting dioceses,endowed with the most elevated functions of their earthly church.Priests and deacons were ordained, and missionaries provided, to keepalive the expiring flame of devotion in such members as were deprivedof the ordinary administrations by dwelling in new and unorganizeddistricts.

　　Of this number was Mr. Grant. He had been sent into the county ofwhich Templeton was the capital, and had been kindly invited byMarmaduke, and officiously pressed by Richard, to take up his abode inthe village. A small and humble dwelling was prepared for his family,and the divine had made his appearance in the place but a few dayspreviously to the time of his introduction to the reader, As his formswere entirely new to most of the inhabitants, and a clergyman ofanother denomination had previously occupied the field, by engagingthe academy, the first Sunday after his arrival was allowed to pass insilence; but now that his rival had passed on, like a meteor fillingthe air with the light of his wisdom, Richard was empowered to givenotice that "Public worship, after the forms of the ProtestantEpiscopal Church, would be held on the night before Christmas, in thelong room of the academy in Templeton, by the Rev. Mr. Grant."

　　This annunciation excited great commotion among the differentsectaries. Some wondered as to the nature of the exhibition; otherssneered; but a far greater part, recollecting the essays of Richard inthat way, and mindful of the liberality, or rather laxity, ofMarmadukes notions on the subject of sectarianism, thought it mostprudent to be silent.

　　The expected evening was, however, the wonder of the hour; nor was thecuriosity at all diminished when Richard and Benjamin, on the morningof the eventful day, were seen to issue from the woods in theneighborhood of the village, each bearing on his shoulders a largebunch of evergreens. This worthy pair was observed to enter theacademy, and carefully to fasten the door, after which theirproceedings remained a profound secret to the rest of the village; Mr.Jones, before he commenced this mysterious business, having informedthe school-master, to the great delight of the white-headed flock hegoverned, that there could be no school that day. Marmaduke wasapprised of all these preparations by letter, and it was especiallyarranged that he and Elizabeth should arrive in season to participatein the solemnities of the evening.

　　After this digression, we shall return to our narrative.