The types of American character are very few--much fewer than the American people imagine. There are three or four original types very difficult to distinguish from their varieties; and all the rest are mere modifications--variations on the same air. It is thus somewhat difficult to portray any character purely American, without the risk of displaying characteristics which have been sketched by more skilful hands. The outside of the man, however, affords greater scope than the inside; for Americans are by no means always long, thin, sinewy fellows, as they are too frequently represented; and the man who now spoke was a specimen of a very different kind. He might be five feet five or six in height, and was anything but corpulent; yet he was, in chest and shoulders, as broad as a bull; and though the lower limbs were more lightly formed than the upper, yet the legs, as well as the arms, displayed the strong, rounded muscles swelling forth at every movement. His hair was as black as jet, without the slightest mixture of grey, though he could not be less than fifty-four or fifty-five years of age; and his face, which was handsome, with features somewhat eagle-like, was browned, by exposure, to a colour nearly resembling that of mahogany. With his shaggy bear-skin cap, well worn, and a frock of deer-skin, with the hair on, descending to the knees, he looked more like a bison or bonassus than anything human; and, expecting to hear him roar, one was surprised to trace tones soft and gentle, though rather nasal, to such a rude and rugged form.
While Walter carried his basket of fish to the kitchen, and Mr. Prevost's guest was gazing at the stranger, in whom Edith seemed to recognize an acquaintance, the master of the house himself appeared from behind the latter, saying, as he came,--
"Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Brooks; Major Kielmansegge--Captain Jack Brooks."
"Pooh, pooh, Prevost," exclaimed the other. "Call me by my right name. I war Captain Brooks long agone. I'm new christened, and called Woodchuck now--that's because I burrow, major. Them Ingians are wonderful circumdiferous; but they have found that, when they try tricks with me, I can burrow under them; and so they call me Woodchuck, 'cause it's a burrowing sort of a beast."
"I do not exactly understand you," replied the gentleman who had been called Major Kielmansegge; "what is the exact meaning of circumdiferous?"
"It means just circumventing like," answered the Woodchuck. "First and foremost, there's many of the Ingians--the Aloquin, for a sample--that never tell a word of truth. No, no, not they. One of them told me so plainly, one day: 'Woodchuck,' says he, 'Ingian seldom tell truth; he know better than that. Truth too good a thing to be used every day: keep that for time of need.' I believe, at that precious moment, he spoke the truth, the first time for forty years."
The announcement that breakfast was ready interrupted the explanation of Captain Brooks, but appeared to afford him great satisfaction; and, at the meal, he certainly ate more than all the rest of the party put together, consuming everything set before him with a voracity truly marvellous. He seemed, indeed, to think some apology necessary for his furious appetite.
"You see, major," he said, as soon as he could bring himself to a pause sufficiently long to utter a whole sentence, "I eat well when I do eat; for sometimes I get nothing for three or four days together. When I get to a lodge like this, I take in stores for my next voyage, as I can't tell what port I shall touch at again."
"Pray do you anticipate a long cruise just now?" asked the stranger.
"No, no," answered the other, laughing; "but I always prepare against the worst. I am just going up the Mohawk, for a step or two, to make a trade with some of my friends of the Five Nations--the Iroquois, as the French folks call them. But I shall trot up afterwards to Sandy Hill and Fort Lyman, to see what is to be done there in the way of business. Fort Lyman I call it still, though it should be Fort Edward now; for, after the brush with Dieskau, it has changed its name. Ay, that was a sharp affair, major. You'd ha' like to bin there, I guess."