The Lake Gun and other Stories. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

and of the evil they produce. They begin by flattering, and end by ruling. He carries a strong hand, who makes all near him help to uphold it. In the crowd few perceive its weight until it crushes them.

      “Thus was it with See-wise. Half the young men listened to him, and followed in his trail. The aged chiefs took counsel together. They saw that all the ancient traditions were despised, and that new conduct was likely to come in with new opinions. They were too old to change. What was done has never been said, but See-wise disappeared. It was whispered that he had gone down among the fish he loved to take out of season. There is one tradition, that he speared an enormous salmon, and the fish, in its struggles, drew him out of his canoe, and that his hands could not let go of the handle of his spear. Let this be as it may, no one ever saw See-wise any more, in the form in which he had been known to his people. At length the trunk of a tree was seen floating about the Seneca, and one of the oldest of the chiefs, pointing to it, pronounced the name of ‘See-wise.’ He would fish out of season, and his spirit is condemned, they say, to float among the salmon, and trout, and eels, for a thousand winters. It was not long after this that the lake began to speak, in a voice loud as the thunder from the clouds. The Seneca traditions say this is the Manitou calling to See-wise, when he goes down after the fish, out of season.”

      “And do you, an educated man, believe in this tale?” asked Fuller.

      “I can not say. The things learned in childhood remain the longest on the memory. They make the deepest marks. I have seen the evil that a demagogue can do among the pale-faces; why should I not believe the same among my own people?”

      “This is well enough, as respects the curse on the demagogue; but lakes do not usually”

      Fuller had got thus far, when the Seneca, as if in mockery, emitted the sound that has obtained the name of the “Lake Gun” among those who have lived on its banks in these later times. Perhaps it was, in part, the influence of the Seneca’s legend, united to the opinions and statements of the inhabitants of that region, which conspired to make our traveler start, in awe and surprise; for, certainly, the deep-mouthed cannon never gave forth a more impressive and sudden concussion on the ear.

      “It does, indeed, sound very like a gun!” said Fuller, after a long pause had enabled him to speak.

      “It is the voice of the Great Spirit, forbidding See-wise to fish,” answered the Seneca. “For a time the demagogue has all the talking to himself, but, sooner or later, the voice of truth is heard, which is the voice of the Manitou. But I must go nearer to the tree – ha! what has become of it?”

      Fuller looked, and, sure enough, the speck on the water had vanished. This might have been by an unobserved movement in a current; or it might have been owing to a sudden variation in the light; certain it was, no tree could now be seen. Fuller then proposed to use his boat, in endeavoring to get nearer to the “Jew.” The Seneca gave a very cheerful assent, and, throwing his light summer blanket, with an air of manly grace, over a shoulder, he followed to the water-side.

      “Most red men,” resumed the young warrior, as he took his place in the boat, “would see something marvelous in this appearance and disappearance of the swimming Seneca, and would hesitate about going any nearer to him; but this is not my feeling – error is strengthened by neglecting to look into truth. I hope yet to go near See-wise.”

      Fuller hardly knew what to think of his companion’s credulity. At times he appeared to defer to the marvelous and the traditions of his tribe; then, again, the lights of education would seem to gleam upon the darkness of his superstition, and leave him a man of inductive reason. As for himself, he was probably not altogether as much of the last as his pride of race would have led him to hope.

      Peter had seen nothing, but he had heard the “Gun.”

      “’T was a mere flash in the pan to what I have heard, when the lake is in ‘arnest,” said the old fellow, with the love of exaggeration so common with the vulgar. “Still, it was a gun.”

      “A signal that the ‘Wandering Jew’ is near by; so, haul aft the sheets, and let us depart.”

      In a quarter of an hour the boat was lying with her foresheet hauled over, and her helm down, within a hundred yards of the object of the long search of the whole party. It was deep water, and a slight ripple under what might be termed the cutwater of the tree indicated a movement. Perhaps a lower current forced forward the roots, which, in their turn, urged the trunk ahead. As often happens in such cases, the accidental formation of the original fracture, aided by the action of the weather, had given to the end of the trunk a certain resemblance to a human countenance. Peter was the first to point out the peculiarity, which he looked upon uneasily. Fuller soon observed it, and said the aspect was, in sooth, that of a demagogue. The forehead retreated, the face was hatchet-shaped, while the entire expression was selfish, yet undecided. As for the Seneca, he gazed on these signs with wonder, mingled with awe.

      “We see here the wicked See-wise. The Great Spirit – call him Manitou, or call him God – does not forget what is wrong, or what is right. The wicked may flourish for a while, but there is a law that is certain to bring him within the power of punishment. Evil spirits go up and down among us, but there is a limit they can not pass. But Indians like this Swimming Seneca do much harm. They mislead the ignorant, arouse evil passions, and raise themselves into authority by their dupes. The man who tells the people their faults is a truer friend than he who harps only on their good qualities. Be that only a tree, or be it a man bound in this form, for a thousand winters, by the hand of the Great Spirit, it tells the same story. See-wise did once live. His career comes to us in traditions, and we believe all that our fathers told us. Accursed be the man who deceives, and who opens his mouth only to lie! Accursed, too, is the land that neglects the counsels of the fathers to follow those of the sons!”

      “There is a remarkable resemblance between this little incident in the history of the Senecas and events that are passing among our pale-faced race of the present age. Men who, in their hearts, really care no more for mankind than See-wise cared for the fish, lift their voices in shouts of a spurious humanity, in order to raise themselves to power, on the shoulders of an excited populace. Bloodshed, domestic violence, impracticable efforts to attain an impossible perfection, and all the evils of a civil conflict are forgotten or blindly attempted, in order to raise themselves in the arms of those they call the people.”

      “I know your present condition,” answered the young Seneca, openly smiling. “The Manitou may have ordered it for your good. Trust to HIM. There are days in which the sun is not seen – when a lurid darkness brings a second night over the earth. It matters not. The great luminary is always there. There may be clouds before his face, but the winds will blow them away. The man or the people that trust in God will find a lake for every See-wise.”

      Tales for Fifteen: Or, Imagination and Heart

      Introduction

      On 1 February 1823 Charles Wiley published in New York The Pioneers, a new book by the author of The Spy; by noon he had sold 3,500 copies – a record-making sale by the bookselling standards of the time. On 26 June, almost five months later, Wiley quietly offered, as we know from a notice in The Patriot, a New York newspaper, “Tales for Fifteen, or Imagination and Heart, an original work in one volume, by Jane Morgan, price 75c.” The actual author was the author of The Spy; and the two stories, “Imagination” and “Heart,” were obviously imitations of Mrs. Amelia Opie’s popular moral tales, published, as the paper cover noted, when The Spy was in its fourth edition, The Pioneers in its third, and The Pilot in press. The sale was so small that only four copies are known to be extant. Why, one may ask, did James Cooper, who was in 1823 a writer of national and international reputation, publish this volume of imitative stories for adolescent girls, even though his identity was carefully concealed?

      According to Cooper’s own account, Tales for Fifteen was written and given to Charles Wiley as a gesture of friendship to help the publisher out of financial difficulties. This explanation was echoed by the novelist’s daughter Susan in a letter reprinted from the Cooperstown Freeman’s Journal in The Critic on 12 October 1889. It is true that Wiley was having financial troubles in 1823, and Cooper