“What is life but a scene of care, Where each one must toil in his way? Then let us be jolly, and prove that we are A set of good fellows, who seem very rare, And can laugh and sing all the day. Then let us be jolly And cast away folly, For grief turns a black head to gray.”
“There, 'Duke, what do you think of that? There is another verse of it, all but the last line. I haven't got a rhyme for the last line yet. Well, old John, what do you think of the music? as good as one of your war-songs, ha?”
“Good!” said Mohegan, who had been sharing deeply in the potations of the landlady, besides paying a proper respect to the passing mugs of the Major and Marmaduke.
“Bravo! pravo! Richart,” cried the Major, whose black eyes were beginning to swim in moisture; “pravisimo his a goot song; put Natty Pumppo has a petter. Letter-Stockint, vilt sing? say, olt poy, vilt sing ter song as apout ter wools?”
“No, no, Major,” returned the hunter, with a melancholy shake of the head, “I have lived to see what I thought eyes could never behold in these hills, and I have no heart left for singing. If he that has a right to be master and ruler here is forced to squinch his thirst, when a-dry, with snow-Water, it ill becomes them that have lived by his bounty to be making merry, as if there was nothing in the world but sunshine and summer.”
When he had spoken, Leather-Stocking again dropped his head on his knees, and concealed his hard and wrinkled features with his hands. The change from the excessive cold without to the heat of the bar-room, coupled with the depth and frequency of Richard's draughts, had already levelled whatever inequality there might have existed between him and the other guests, on the score of spirits; and he now held out a pair of swimming mugs of foaming flip toward the hunter, as he cried:
“Merry! ay! merry Christmas to you, old boy! Sun shine and summer! no! you are blind, Leather-Stocking, 'tis moonshine and winter—take these spectacles, and open your eyes—
So let us be jolly,
And cast away folly,
For grief turns a black head to gray.
—Hear how old John turns his quavers. What damned dull music an Indian song is, after all, Major! I wonder if they ever sing by note.”
While Richard was singing and talking, Mohegan was uttering dull, monotonous tones, keeping time by a gentle motion of his head and body. He made use of but few words, and such as he did utter were in his native language, and consequently only understood by himself and Natty. Without heeding Richard, he continued to sing a kind of wild, melancholy air, that rose, at times, in sudden and quite elevated notes, and then fell again into the low, quavering sounds that seemed to compose the character of his music.