"Well, sir, Bonaparte had some strong points about him, I do really believe. But he could have been nothing to the Leather-stocking, in the woods! It's no great matter, young gentleman, to be a great man among your inhabitants of cities--what I call umbrella people. Why, Natty was almost as great with the spear as with the rifle; though I never heard that he got a sight of the sogdollager."
"We shall meet again this summer, commodore," said John Effingham; "the ladies wish to hear the echoes, and we must leave you."
"All very natural, Mr. John," returned the commodore, laughing, and again flourishing his hand in his own peculiar manner. "The women all love to hear the echoes, for they are not satisfied with what they have once said, but they like to hear it over again. I never knew a lady come on the Otsego, but one of the first things she did was to get paddled to the Speaking Rocks, to have a chat with herself. They come out in such numbers, sometimes, and then all talk at once, in a way quite to confuse the echo. I suppose you have heard, young lady, the opinion people have now got concerning these voices."
"I cannot say I have ever heard more than that they are some of the most perfect echoes known;" answered Eve, turning her body, so as to face the old man, as the skiff of the party passed that of the veteran fisherman.
"Some people maintain that there is no echo at all, and that the sounds we hear come from the spirit of the Leather-stocking, which keeps about its old haunts, and repeats every thing we say, in mockery of our invasion of the woods. I do not say this notion is true, or that it is my own; but we all know that Natty did dislike to see a new settler arrive in the mountains, and that he loved a tree as a muskrat loves water. They show a pine up here on the side of the Vision, which he notched at every new-comer, until reaching seventeen, his honest old heart could go no farther, and he gave the matter up in despair."
"This is so poetical, commodore, it is a pity it cannot be true. I like this explanation of the 'Speaking Rocks,' much better than that implied by the name of 'Fairy Spring.'"
"You are quite right, young lady," called out the fisherman, as the boats separated still farther; "there never was any fairy known in Otsego; but the time has been when we could boast of a Natty Bumppo."
Here the commodore flourished his hand again, and Eve nodded her adieus. The skiff of the party continued to pull slowly along the fringed shore, occasionally sheering more into the lake, to avoid some overhanging and nearly horizontal tree, and then returning so closely to the land, as barely to clear the pebbles of the narrow strand with the oar.
Eve thought she had never beheld a more wild or beautifully variegated foliage, than that which the whole leafy mountainside presented. More than half of the forest of tall, solemn pines, that had veiled the earth when the country was first settled, had already disappeared; but, agreeably to one of the mysterious laws by which nature is governed, a rich second growth, that included nearly every variety of American wood, had shot up in their places. The rich Rembrandt-like hemlocks, in particular, were perfectly beautiful, contrasting admirably with the livelier tints of the various deciduous trees. Here and there, some flowering shrub rendered the picture gay, while masses of the rich chestnut, in blossom, lay in clouds of natural glory among the dark tops of the pines.
The gentlemen pulled the light skiff fully a mile under this overhanging foliage, occasionally frightening some migratory bird from a branch, or a water-fowl from the narrow strand. At length, John Effingham desired them to cease rowing, and managing the skiff for a minute or two with the paddle which he had used in steering, he desired the whole party to look up, announcing to them that they were beneath the 'Silent Pine.'