THE BORDE'tERS.*

LITERARY SPECTATOR.

WE remember elsewhere considering COOPER as the Vatananerarant: aromatics., and observing that. his home WaS 11p0/1 the waters—that he chose his scenes not like other men, for a comoination of hill and dale, town and stream, but by, their latitude tind longitude. For instance, the eccurrences of the Pilot are all as it were navigated by chart, and the different incidents of the -Red Rover might be gathered from the loa-hook. But COOPER 11:1 another home—he is nearly as familiar with the wild scenes of a new cluering, the rade life of the first settler, and the character and manners of the aborigines who dispute the ground with him, as he is with the stormy experience of the true sea- man. The Pioneers contained two admirable characters, the result of the progress of the Pale-men into the threst, and the gradual de- struction of the Red Indian—we mean Leather Stocking, and his ve- neralde companion, the old Indian Sachem. The Borderers turns upon similar characters and similar scenes, with sonic difference in the epoch, the point of advance in civilization, and the locality. The Borderers are New Englanders ; find tile personages who are not Indians are chiefly Puritans,—not the less ready and willing, lame ver, to put out a strong arm of flesh against the savage inroads of their red neighbours. New England, as is well known, received a large accession of settlers ,after the Restoration, who sought that liberty of conscience and free- dom from persecution on the shores, of the New World, which they were domed at home. One of Mese persons is the venerable Mark Heatimote, stout in fight, and as powerful a wrestler with the Lord in prayer as he was a formidable antagonist to his opponents in the flesh. Captain Mark Heathcote, the Puritan, is the patriarch of a wealthy and flourishing establishment, on the very borders of the settlement s he is the progenitor of a fine and amiable race, and the master of numerous stout foresters and borderers, who do him agricul- tural and pastoral service, armed to the teeth. His house is a fortress, paiisadoed, trenched, and looped ; he possesses a citadel in case of ex- tremity; and besides light arms and other means of defence, his, block- house is surmounted with a patertzro or culverin, of which he is, in case of attaek, the sole manager and gunner; All these paepara- lions are not in vain: the war-whoop is heard in the night, a severe and bloody onset is made upon his strong hold ' • and he with his servants, his family, and children, is driven, after a defence of un- ummon viesnu• and ingenuity, by the force of overwhelming numbers and the power of lire, into his retreat, the citadel and block-house. The conflagration, however, spreads even here, anti the Puritan's last shelter is burnt over his head ; and he, apparently, and all his adherents, die the death. The Indians retreat, glutted with carnage and satiated with revenge ; haying succeeded not only in reducing the whole establishment to cinders, and burning the inhabitants, as they think, but carrying away captive the fair grandchild of the old Puritan, a heantiful girl of seven or eight years of age, as well as an idiot -retainer, a sort of Davie Gellatly, of whom considerable use is made by 1 he author.

The Heat 'mote family are saved by descending the shaft of the well which rises into the block-house. Eight years afterwards we find them all flourishing on their restored habitatiom—surrounded, however, by fenint scenes : a considerable village has risen around them, and the means of defence taken against the Indians are on a far more consider- able scale. The Wish-Ton-Wish, the name of the settlement; is again ceposed to the ravages of the Indians, and is only saved from destruc- tion by an accidental occurrence arising out of the story. In this attack of the Indians, the long-lost captives make their appearance: it is the same tribe of Indians that eight or ten years previously reduced the abode of Mark Heathcote 10 ashes : they bring with them the lost daughter of his house, as the wife of their brave young chief Conan- chef. The gentle and affectionate Ruth is metamorphosed, by time and education, into a splendid savage girl, full of Indian faqir:es and prejudices, and haunted only as by a dream with the memory of her first state of existence.

'I here is much to commend in The Borderers: it is written with great spirit and talent, but in this portion of the work more particularly. The metamorphosis of the fair-hmred Ruth into the chieftain's wife, Narrah-mattah, and the idiot. "Whittal Ring into Nip- sett, a poor miserable Indian with all the feebleness of a white man and all the passion and cunning, and prejudice of a red one, appears to us to be conducted with great knowledge of human nature and power of description. We will quote a part of the scenes which follow the yes- litulion of the daughter of the pious and amiable Ruth, the sorrowing mother.

" when Ruth Heathcote arose from her knees, it was with a hand clasped in that of her child, whom her recent devotion was well suited to make her

4' By the Author of the,Sph. riot, 8:c. .3 vols. Colburn and Bentley. 182% think had been rescued from a condition far more gloomysthan that of the grave. She had used a gentle violence to force the wondering being at her side to join, as far as externals go, in the prayer; and now it was ended, she sought the countenance of her daughter, in order to read the impression the scene had produced, with all the solicitude of a Christian, heightened by the tenderest maternal love."

" Narrah-mattah, as we shall continue to call her, in air, expression, and attitude, resembled one who had a fancied existence in the delusion of sonic exciting dream. Iler car remembered sounds which had so often been re- peated in her infancy, and her memory recalled indistinct recollections of most of thc objects and usages that were so suddenly replaced before her eyes; but the former now conveyed their meaning to a mind that had gained its strength, under a very different system of theology, and the latter came too late to supplant usages that were rooted in her affections, by the aid of all those wild and seductive habits that are known to become nearly uncon- querable in those who have long been subject to their influence. She stood, theiefore, in the centre of the grave, self-restrained group of her nearest kin, like an alien to their blood, resemblingsome timid and but half-tamed tenant of the air, that human art had endeavoured to domesticate, by placing it in the society of the more tranquil and confiding inhabitants of the aviary.

" Notwithstanding the strength of her affections, and her devotion to all the natural duties of her station, Ruth Heathcote was not now to learn the manlier in which she was to subdue any violence in their exhibition, The first indulgence or joy and gratitude was over, and in its place appeared the never tiring, vigilant, engrossing, but regulated watchfulness, which the events would naturally create. The doubts, misgivings, and even fearful ap- prehensions that beset her, were smothered in an appearance of satisfaction;

and something gleamings of happiness were again seen playing about a brow that had so long been clouded with an unobtrusive, but corroding care.

" And thou recallest thine infancy, my Ruth ?' asked the mother, when the respectful period of silence, which ever succeeded prayer in that family, was passed, Thy thoughts have not been altogether strangers to us, but nature bath had its place in thine heart. Tell us child of thy wanderings in the forest ; and of the sufferings that one so tender must have undergone, among a barbarous people. There is pleasure in listening to all thou hast seen and felt, now that we know there is an end to unhappiness.'" " She spoke to an car that was dealt:, language like this. Narra-mattalt evidently understood her words, while their meaning was wrapped in an obscurity that she neither wished to, nor was capable of comprehending. Keeping a gaze, in which pleasure and wonder were powerfully blended, on that soft look of affection which beamed from her mother's eye, she felt

hurriedly among the folds of her dress, and drawing a belt thatNv she, was gaily ornamented, after the most ingenious fashion of her adopted people, approached her half-pleased, half-distressed _parent, and, with hands that trembled equally with timidity and pleasure, shearrang.ed it around her person, in a manner to show its richness to the best advantage. Pleased with her. performance, the artless being eagerly sought approbation irm eyes that be- spoke little else than regret. Alarmed at an expressionshe could not translate, the gaze of Narrah-mattah wandered, as if it sought support against some sensation to which she was a stranger. Whittal Ring had stolen into the room, and missing the customary features of her own cherished home, the looks of the startled creature rested on the countenance of the witless wan- derer. She pointed eagerly at the work of her hands, appealing by an elo- quent and artless gesture to the taste of one who should know whether she had done well.

" Bravely ! ' returned Wittal, approaching nearer to the subject of his admiration. ''Tis a brave belt, and none but the wife of a Sachem could make so rare a gift.'

" Here is the hand of him visible who dealeth in all wickedness,' said the Puritan. "Co corrupt the heart with vanities and to mislead the affections, by luring them to the things of life is the guile in which he delighteth. A fallen nature lendeth but too reailY, aid. We must deal with the child in fervour and watchfulness, or better that her bones were lying by the side of those little ones of thy flock, who are already inheritors of the promise."

" Respect kept Ruth silent, but while she sorrowed over the ignorance of her child, natural affection was strong at her heart. With the tact of a woman, and the tenderness of a mother, she both saw and felt that severity was not the means to effect the improvement, they desired. Taking a scat herself, she drew her child to her person, and first imploring silence by a glance at those around her, she proceeded in a manner thatavas dictated b3 the mysterious influence of nature, to fathom the depth of her daughten mind.

Come nearer, Narra-mattah,' she said, using the name to which the other would alone answer, Thou art still in thy youth, my child, but if bath pleased Him whose will is law, to have made thee witness of man changes in this varying life. Tell me if thou recallest the days of infancy and if thy thoughts ever returned to thy father's house during those wear3 years thou west kept from our view ?

Her mother then asks her if she remembers playing with the chil. dren of the pale-faces ?

"The attentive being at the knee of Ruth listened greedily. Her know ledge of the language of her childhood had been sufficiently implanted, befor. her captivity, and it had been too often exercised by intercourse with 111 whites, and more particularly with Whittal Ring, to leave her in any daub of the meaning of what she now heard. Stealing a timid look over a shouldet she sought the countenance of Martha, and studying her lineaments fur tic a minute, with intense regard, she laughed aloud, in the contagious merit meat of an Indian girl. " Thou bast not forgotten us ! That glance at her who was the companio

of thy infancy assures me but there is One who must sti be known to thee, my child : He who sitteth above the clouds, who holdet the earth in the hollow of his band, and who looketh in mercy on all tha journey on the path to which his finger pointeth. Bath He yet a place I thy thoughts ? Thou rememberest his holy name, and still Clint:est of hi power ? "The listener bent her head aside, as if to catch the just meaning of who she heard, the shadows of deep reverence passing over a face that had late] been an smiling. After a pause she audibly murmured the word- " Manitou.'

Manitou, or Jehovah ; God, or King of Kings, and Lord of lords! mattereth little which word is used to express his power. Thou known him then, and hast never ceased to call upon his name ?'

" Narra-mattah is a woman. She is afraid to speak to the Manito aloud. He knows the voices of the chiefs, and opens his ears when they as help.'

"The Puritan groaned."

The mother, after other matter of inquiry and precept, alluded I her complexion and her race' which she, the daughter, took as a ma ter of shame. Whittal was, however, ready with her defence.

" The wife of the Sachem bath begun to change : she will soon be hi Nipsett—all red. See,' he added, laying a finger on a part of his own arm

where the sun and the wind had not destroyed the original colour, 'the evil spirit poured water into his blood too, but it will come out again.'" He then goes on to abuse the lying pale-faces, as he calls his coun- trymen, to threaten them with his impotent vengeance, and to imitate the action of scalping, with all signs of triumph and exaltation. The fair Narra-mattah gazes on his savagery with true Indian delight, to the grief and heartbreaking of her poor mother, and to the horror of the Puritan.

We shall return to The Borderers.