The Last of the Mohicans quotes

As the credulous and excited traveler related the hazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those children which slumbered within the security of the largest towns.

In short, the magnifying influence of fear began to set at naught the calculations of reason, and to render those who should have remembered their manhood, the slaves of the basest passions.

Even the most confident and the stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming doubtful;

The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without being in any particular manner deformed.

He had all the bones and joints of other men, without any of their proportions.

Erect, his stature surpassed that of his fellows; though seated, he appeared reduced within the ordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety in his members seemed to exist throughout the whole man. His head was large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling;

… and startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in the surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed an indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye followed the easy motions of the savage.

The tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the plumage of the raven.

Her complexion was not brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of the rich blood, that seemed ready to burst its bounds.

“

Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark?

” coldly asked Cora.

“Even so.

The first point to be obtained is to know one’s own mind. Once sure of that, and where women are concerned it is not easy, the next is, to act up to the decision.

I have endeavored to do both, and here I am.”

“

There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red skin!

” said the white man, shaking his head like one on whom such an appeal to his justice was not thrown away.

“

I am no scholar, and I care not who knows it

;

… Iroquois, daren’t deny that I am genuine white,” the scout replied, surveying, with secret satisfaction, the faded color of his bony and sinewy hand, “and I am willing to own that my people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can’t approve.

It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words.

In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of the deeds of his fathers, nor feel a pride in striving to outdo them.

“My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The blood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever.

The Dutch landed, and gave my people the firewater; they drank until the heavens and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found the Great Spirit.

Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot, they were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a Sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have never visited the graves of my fathers.”

The Dutch landed, and gave my people the firewater; they drank until the heavens and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land.

Foot by foot, they were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a Sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have never visited the graves of my fathers.

”

“Where are the blossoms of those summers!—fallen, one by one; so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits.

I am on the hilltop and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows in my footsteps there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.

”

“ ’Tis enough,” returned the father, glancing his eye toward the setting sun; “they shall be driven like deer from their bushes.

Hawkeye, let us eat tonight, and show the Maquas that we are men tomorrow.

”

“

A Mingo is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor any other tribe can alter him

,” he said, when he had regained his former position.

“And, think you, when he saw one of your feet out of the stirrup, he would wait for the other to be free?

Whoever comes into the woods to deal with the natives, must use Indian fashions, if he would wish to prosper in his undertakings.

Go, then; talk openly to the miscreant, and seem to believe him the truest friend you have on ’arth.”

“ ’Tis the name his Canada fathers have given to Magua,” returned the runner, with an air that manifested his pride at the distinction. “

Night is the same as day to Le Subtil, when Munro waits for him.

”

“

Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?

” returned the disappointed scout; “I heard the imp brushing over the dry leaves, like a black snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag’in yon big pine, I pulled as it might be on the scent; but ’twouldn’t do!

“Ay,” returned the composed scout, “the Indians have hid the beasts with the judgment of natives!

Water leaves no trail, and an owl’s eyes would be blinded by the darkness of such a hole.

”

and five is an unnatural number to keep dry, in a hurry-skurry, with a little birchen bark and gum. There, go you all on the rock, and I will bring up the Mohicans with the venison.

A man had better sleep without his scalp, than famish in the midst of plenty.

”

“

An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen

,” returned the scout, ascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. “I trust to other signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the trail of the Mingoes.”

“

Such old foxes as Chingachgook and myself are not often caught in a barrow with one hole

,” said Hawkeye, laughing; “you can easily see the cunning of the place—the rock is black limestone, which everybody knows is soft; it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is scarce;

it makes no uncomfortable pillow, where brush and pine wood is scarce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say was, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any along the Hudson.

But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these sweet young ladies have yet to l’arn!

The place is sadly changed!

hereabouts, it pitches into deep hollows, that rumble and crush the ’arth; and thereaways, it ripples and sings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gullies in the old stone, as if ’twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river seems disconcerted.

First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if unwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt.

Ay, lady, the fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat is coarse, and like a fishnet, to little spots I can show you, where the river fabricates all sorts of images, as if having broke loose from order, it would try its hand at …

The biggest coward I ever knew as called Lyon; and his wife, Patience, would scold you out of hearing in less time than a hunted deer would run a rod.

With an Indian ’tis a matter of conscience; what he calls himself, he generally is

—not that Chingachgook, which signifies Big Sarpent, is really a snake, big or little; but that he understands the windings and turnings of human natur’, and is silent, and strikes his enemies when they least expect him. What may be your calling?”

“

He is a father, and cannot deny his nature.

”

“

Do I expect a hungry wolf will satisfy his craving with a mouthful!

They have lost a man, and ’tis their fashion, when they meet a loss, and fail in the surprise, to fall back; but we shall have them on again, with new expedients to circumvent us, and master our scalps.

“

Life is an obligation which friends often owe each other in the wilderness.

I dare say I may have served Uncas some such turn myself before now; and I very well remember that he has stood between me and death five different times; three times from the Mingoes, once in crossing Horican, and—”

Let them draw the sharpest knife, and whirl the swiftest tomahawk, for their bitterest enemy is in their hands.

Uncas, topmost branch of a noble trunk, call on the cowards to hasten, or their hearts will soften, and they will change to women!

”

“

Wisdom is sometimes given to the young, as well as to the old

,” he said; “and what you have spoken is wise, not to call it by a better word.

“

When the white man dies, he thinks he is at peace; but the red men know how to torture even the ghosts of their enemies.

Where is his body? Let the Hurons see his scalp.”

“

Is he a bird, to spread his wings; or is he a fish, to swim without air!

The white chief read in his books, and he believes the Hurons are fools!”

“

Speak; trees have no ears.

”

His spirit was then in the clouds! But when he felt the blows of Munro, his spirit lay under the birch.

The spirit of a Huron is never drunk; it remembers forever!

”

“

No, no, no; better that we die as we have lived, together!

”

Book! what have such as I, who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to do with books?

I never read but in one, and the words that are written there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling; though I may boast that of forty long and hardworking years.

”

“ ’Tis open before your eyes,” returned the scout; “and he who owns it is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God.

I know not but man may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests.

If any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a fool, and that the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to …

“I dare to say there are even stranger sights to be seen in the settlements!” he said, at length. “

Natur’ is sadly abused by man, when he once gets the mastery.

But, go sidling or go straight, Uncas had seen the movement, and their trail led us on to the broken bush.

“

Ay! they respect the dead, and it has this time saved their own lives, and, it may be, the lives of better men too.

”

“

I would I had a thousand men, of brawny limbs and quick eyes, that feared death as little as you!

I’d send them jabbering Frenchers back into their den again, afore the week was ended, howling like so many fettered hounds or hungry wolves.

“And how should it be otherwise? Some were fished from the bottom of the lake; some have been rusting in woods since the discovery of the country; and some were never guns at all—mere privateersmen’s playthings!

Do you think, sir, you can have Woolwich Warren in the midst of a wilderness, three thousand miles from Great Britain?

”

and I’ll just give you a hearing, though all the knights of St. Louis were in a body at the sally-port, with the French saint at their head, crying to speak a word under favor.

A pretty degree of knighthood, sir, is that which can be bought with sugar hogsheads!

and then your twopenny marquisates. The thistle is the order for dignity and antiquity; the veritable nemo me impune lacessit of chivalry. Ye had ancestors in that degree, Duncan, and they were an ornament to the nobles of Scotland.”

“Though not at hand, fortunately for us,” said Montcalm, without waiting, in his ardor, for the interpreter. “

There is a destiny in war, to which a brave man knows how to submit with the same courage that he faces his foes.

”

“Go you, Duncan,” he said; “go with this marquess, as, indeed, marquess he should be; go to his marquee and arrange it all. I have lived to see two things in my old age that never did I expect to behold.

An Englishman afraid to support a friend, and a Frenchman too honest to profit by his advantage.

”

“Where is that sun?” demanded the sullen savage. “Behind the hill; and it is dark and cold. But when he comes again, it will be bright and warm.

Le Subtil is the sun of his tribe.

There have been clouds, and many mountains between him and his nation; but now he shines and it is a clear sky!”

The Indian laughed tauntingly, as he held up his reeking hand, and answered: “

It is red, but it comes from white veins!

”

“for it is only the one that can know the necessity of the judgment; and what is there, short of the other, that can replace the creatures of the Lord?

I hold it a sin to kill the second buck afore the first is eaten, unless a march in front, or an ambushment, be contemplated.

It is a different matter with a few warriors in open and rugged fight, for ’tis their gift to die with the rifle or the tomahawk in hand; according as their natures may happen to be, white or red.

“One moccasin like another! you may as well say that one foot is like another; though we all know that some are long, and others short; some broad and others narrow; some with high, and some with low insteps; some intoed, and some out.

One moccasin is no more like another than one book is like another: though they who can read in one are seldom able to tell the marks of the other.

Which is all ordered for the best, giving to every man his natural advantages. Let me get down to it, Uncas; neither book nor moccasin is the worse for having two opinions, instead of one.” The scout stooped to the task, and instantly added:

“

Young blood and hot blood, they say, are much the same thing.

We are not about to start on a squirrel hunt, or to drive a deer into the Horican, but to outlie for days and nights, and to stretch across a wilderness where the feet of men seldom go, and where no bookish knowledge would carry …

nay, he even names the tribe of the poor devil, with as much ease as if the scalp was the leaf of a book, and each hair a letter.

What right have Christian whites to boast of their learning, when a savage can read a language that would prove too much for the wisest of them all!

What say you, lad, of what people was the knave?”

Now, the singer was beginning to be footsore and leg-weary, as is plain by his trail. There, you see, he slipped; here he has traveled wide and tottered; and there again it looks as though he journeyed on snowshoes.

Ay, ay, a man who uses his throat altogether, can hardly give his legs a proper training.

”

“

Fire a whole platoon, major.

”

“

The Indians never harm a non-composser.

But why, when the path lay open before your eyes, did you not strike back on your own trail (it is not so blind as that which a squirrel would make), and bring in the tidings to Edward?”

and, had he but spent half the breath in prudent questions that he has blown away in making a trumpet of his throat, we might have known how many warriors they numbered.

It is, altogether, a dangerous path we move in; for a friend whose face is turned from you often bears a bloodier mind than the enemy who seeks your scalp.

”

Your tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post—none of them so lightly on the Yengeese.

The enemy know the shape of your back, but they have never seen the color of your eyes.

Three times have they called on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your name will never be mentioned again in your tribe—it is already forgotten.”

What will our fathers think the tribes of the Wyandots have become? They will look on their children with a dark eye, and say, ‘Go! a Chippewa has come hither with the name of a Huron.’

Brothers, we must not forget the dead; a redskin never ceases to remember.

We will load the back of this Mohican until he staggers under our bounty, and dispatch him after my young men. They call to us for aid, though our ears are not open; they say, ‘Forget us not.’

A glance told him that the blow had failed, and terror changed to admiration. Uncas stood still, looking his enemy in the eye with features that seemed superior to emotion.

Marble could not be colder, calmer, or steadier than the countenance he put upon this sudden and vindictive attack.

Then, as if pitying a want of skill which had proved so fortunate to himself, he smiled, and muttered a few words of contempt in his own tongue.

“No fear of them.

A conjurer must have his time, like a straggling priest in the settlements.

We are as safe from interruption as a missionary would be at the beginning of a two hours’ discourse. Well, Uncas and I fell in with a return party of the varlets; the lad was much too forward for a scout;

But it is no such marvelous feat to exhibit the feats of so dull a beast; though, for that matter, too, a bear may be overacted.

Yes, yes; it is not every imitator that knows natur’ may be outdone easier than she is equaled.

But all our work is yet before us. Where is the gentle one?”

“

Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!

” returned the scout. “There, wrap her in them Indian cloths. Conceal all of her little form. Nay, that foot has no fellow in the wilderness; it will betray her. All, every part. Now take her in your arms, and follow.

“

Put up the tooting we’pon, and teach your throat modesty. Five words of plain and comprehendible English are worth just now an hour of squalling.

”

The Indians were seasonably reminded of his infirmity, and, rushing into the open air, they aroused the village in the manner described.

A native warrior fights as he sleeps, without the protection of anything defensive.

The sounds of the alarm were, therefore, hardly uttered before two hundred men were afoot, and ready for the battle or the chase, as either might be required. The escape was soon known;

He exposed their risk and fallacy with his usual skill; and it was only after he had removed every impediment, in the shape of opposing advice, that he ventured to propose his own projects.

He commenced by flattering the self-love of his auditors; a never-failing method of commanding attention.

When he had enumerated the many different occasions on which the Hurons had exhibited their courage and prowess, in the punishment of insults, he digressed in a high encomium on the virtue of wisdom.

In short, he so blended the warlike with the artful, the obvious with the obscure, as to flatter the propensities of both parties, and to leave to each subject of hope, while neither could say it clearly comprehended his intentions.

The orator, or the politician, who can produce such a state of things, is commonly popular with his contemporaries, however he may be treated by posterity.

All perceived that more was meant than was uttered, and each one believed that the hidden meaning was precisely such as his own faculties enabled him to understand, or his own wishes led him to anticipate.

The orator, or the politician, who can produce such a state of things, is commonly popular with his contemporaries, however he may be treated by posterity.

All perceived that more was meant than was uttered, and each one believed that the hidden meaning was precisely such as his own faculties enabled him to understand, or his own wishes led him to anticipate.

In this happy state of things, it is not surprising that the management of Magua prevailed.

“It cannot be. The woods are full of game. The head of a warrior needs no other shelter than a sky without clouds; and the Delawares are the enemies, and not the friends of the Yengeese.

Go, the mouth has spoken, while the heart said nothing.

”

ay, and many a bloody Mingo, who has departed to his final account, would be acting his deviltries at this very day, atween the provinces.

I hope the squaw who owns the gourd has more of them in her wigwam, for this will never hold water again!

”

“Ah! had I that piece which furnished the name you use, I would obligate myself to cut the thong, and drop the gourd without breaking it!” returned Hawkeye, perfectly undisturbed by the other’s manner. “

Fools, if you would find the bullet of a sharpshooter in these woods, you must look in the object, and not around it!

”

his cunning tells him how to get together the goods of the earth; and his arms enclose the land from the shores of the saltwater to the islands of the great lake. His gluttony makes him sick.

God gave him enough, and yet he wants all.

Such are the pale faces.

“and these did He fashion to His own mind. He gave them this island as He had made it, covered with trees, and filled with game.

The wind made their clearings; the sun and rain ripened their fruits; and the snows came to tell them to be thankful.

What need had they of roads to journey by! They saw through the hills! When the beavers worked, they lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in winter, skins kept them warm.

He gave them this island as He had made it, covered with trees, and filled with game. The wind made their clearings; the sun and rain ripened their fruits; and the snows came to tell them to be thankful.

What need had they of roads to journey by! They saw through the hills!

When the beavers worked, they lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in winter, skins kept them warm. If they fought among themselves, it was to prove that they were men. They were brave; they were just;

What need had they of roads to journey by! They saw through the hills! When the beavers worked, they lay in the shade, and looked on. The winds cooled them in summer; in winter, skins kept them warm.

If they fought among themselves, it was to prove that they were men.

They were brave; they were just; they were happy.”

he said, in a deep, guttural voice, that was rendered awfully audible by the breathless silence of the multitude; “who speaks of things gone? Does not the egg become a worm—the worm a fly, and perish? Why tell the Delawares of good that is past?

Better thank the Manitou for that which remains.

”

But let them not boast before the face of the Manitou too loud. They entered the land at the rising, and may yet go off at the setting sun.

I have often seen the locusts strip the leaves from the trees, but the season of blossoms has always come again.

”

“A Delaware!

I have lived to see the tribes of the Lenape driven from their council-fires, and scattered, like broken herds of deer, among the hills of the Iroquois!

I have seen the hatchets of a strong people sweep woods from the valleys, that the winds of heaven have spared! The beasts that run on the mountains, and the birds that fly above the trees, have I seen living in the wigwams of men;

Your feeble tribe stands on my shell! What fire that a Delaware can light would burn the child of my fathers,” he added, pointing proudly to the simple blazonry on his skin; “the blood that came from such a stock would smother your flames!

My race is the grandfather of nations!

”

“The hour of Tamenund is nigh!” exclaimed the sage; “the day is come, at last, to the night! I thank the Manitou, that one is here to fill my place at the council-fire. Uncas, the child of Uncas, is found!

Let the eyes of a dying eagle gaze on the rising sun.

”

the snail would be swifter in the race; yet is Uncas before him as they went to battle against the pale faces! Uncas, the panther of his tribe, the eldest son of the Lenape, the wisest Sagamore of the Mohicans!

Tell me, ye Delawares, has Tamenund been a sleeper for a hundred winters?

”

“He has none.

The panther may get into snares set by the women; but he is strong, and knows how to leap through them.

”

“Laughs at the Mingoes.

Go, Huron, ask your squaws the color of a bear.

”

“Huron, her mind is in the tents of her fathers.

An unwilling maiden makes an unhappy wigwam.

”

“The words of the Delaware are said,” returned the sage, closing his eyes, and dropping back into his seat, alike wearied with his mental and his bodily exertion. “

Men speak not twice.

”

“and it may be your gift to lead armies, at some future day, ag’in these imps, the Mingoes. You may here see the philosophy of an Indian fight.

It consists mainly in ready hand, a quick eye and a good cover.

Now, if you had a company of the Royal Americans here, in what manner would you set them to work in this business?”

No—horse,” continued the scout, shaking his head, like one who mused; “horse, I am ashamed to say must sooner or later decide these scrimmages. The brutes are better than men, and to horse must we come at last.

Put a shodden hoof on the moccasin of a redskin, and, if his rifle be once emptied, he will never stop to load it again.

”