his own meagre, but
still muscular hands. »Ah! he liv'd in the settlements, and was wise, only,
after their fashions. But you have often seen him, and you have heard him
discourse of Uncas, and of the wilderness?«
    »Often! He was then an Officer of the King; but when the war took place
between the Crown and her Colonies, my grandfather did not forget his
birth-place, but threw off the empty allegiance of names, and was true to his
proper country; he fought on the side of Liberty.«
    »There was reason in it; and what is better, there was Natur. Come, sit ye
down, beside me lad; sit ye down and tell me of what your grand'ther used to
speak, when his mind dwelt on the wonders of the wilderness.«
    The youth smiled, no less at the importunity than at the interest manifested
by the old man, but, as he found that there was no longer, the least appearance
of any violence being contemplated, he unhesitatingly complied.
    »Give it all, to the trapper, by rule and by figures of speech,« said Paul,
very coolly taking his seat on the other side of the young soldier. »It is the
fashion of old age to relish these ancient traditions, and, for that matter, I
can say, that I dont dislike to listen to them, myself.«
    Middleton smiled, again, and perhaps with a slight air of derision; but good
naturedly turning to the trapper, he continued -
    »It is a long, and might prove a painful story. Blood-shed and all the
horrors of Indian cruelty and of Indian warfare, are fearfully mingled in the
narrative.«
    »Ay, give it all to us, stranger,« continued Paul; »we are used to these
matters in Kentuck; and I must say, I think a story none the worse, for having a
few scalps in it!«
    »But he told you of Uncas, did he!« resumed the trapper, without regarding
the slight interruptions of the bee hunter, which amounted to no more than a
sort of by-play. »And, what thought he, and said he, of the lad, in his parlour,
with the comforts and ease of the settlements at his elbow?«
    »I doubt not, he used a language similar to that he would have adopted in
the woods, and had he stood face to face with his friend -«
    »Did he call the savage his friend