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THE MONIKINS

BY

J. FENIMORE COOPER

INTRODUCTION.

It is not improbable that some of those who read this book, may feel
a wish to know in what manner I became possessed of the manuscript.
Such a desire is too just and natural to be thwarted, and the tale
shall be told as briefly as possible.

During the summer of 1828, while travelling among those valleys of
Switzerland which lie between the two great ranges of the Alps, and
in which both the Rhone and the Rhine take their rise, I had passed
from the sources of the latter to those of the former river, and had
reached that basin in the mountains that is so celebrated for
containing the glacier of the Rhone, when chance gave me one of
those rare moments of sublimity and solitude, which are the more
precious in the other hemisphere from their infrequency. On every
side the view was bounded by high and ragged mountains, their peaks
glittering near the sun, while directly before me, and on a level
with the eye, lay that miraculous frozen sea, out of whose drippings
the Rhone starts a foaming river, to glance away to the distant
Mediterranean. For the first time, during a pilgrimage of years, I
felt alone with nature in Europe. Alas! the enjoyment, as all such
enjoyments necessarily are amid the throngs of the old world, was
short and treacherous. A party came round the angle of a rock, along
the narrow bridle-path, in single file; two ladies on horseback,
followed by as many gentlemen on foot, and preceded by the usual
guide. It was but small courtesy to rise and salute the dove-like
eyes and blooming cheeks of the former, as they passed. They were
English, and the gentlemen appeared to recognize me as a countryman.
One of the latter stopped, and politely inquired if the passage of
the Furca was obstructed by snow. He was told not, and in return for
the information said that I would find the Grimsel a little
ticklish; "but," he added, smiling, "the ladies succeeded in
crossing, and you will scarcely hesitate." I thought I might get
over a difficulty that his fair companions had conquered. He then
told me Sir Herbert Taylor was made adjutant-general, and wished me
good morning.

I sat reflecting on the character, hopes, pursuits, and interests of
man, for an hour, concluding that the stranger was a soldier, who
let some of the ordinary workings of his thoughts overflow in this
brief and casual interview. To resume my solitary journey, cross the
Rhone, and toil my way up the rugged side of the Grimsel, consumed
two more hours, and glad was I to come in view of the little chill-
looking sheet of water on its summit, which is called the Lake of
the Dead. The path was filled with snow, at a most critical point,
where, indeed, a misplaced footstep might betray the incautious to
their destruction. A large party on the other side appeared fully
aware of the difficulty, for it had halted, and was in earnest
discussion with the guide, touching the practicability of passing.
It was decided to attempt the enterprise. First came a female of one
of the sweetest, serenest countenances I had ever seen. She, too,
was English; and though she trembled, and blushed, and laughed at
herself, she came on with spirit, and would have reached my side in
safety, had not an unlucky stone turned beneath a foot that was much
too pretty for those wild hills. I sprang forward, and was so happy
as to save her from destruction. She felt the extent of the
obligation, and expressed her thanks modestly but with fervor. In a
minute we were joined by her husband, who grasped my hand with warm
feeling, or rather with the emotion one ought to feel who had
witnessed the risk he had just run of losing an angel. The lady
seemed satisfied at leaving us together.

"You are an Englishman?" said the stranger.

"An American."

"An American! This is singular--will you pardon a question?--You
have more than saved my life--you have probably saved my reason--
will you pardon a question?--Can money serve you?"

I smiled, and told him, odd as it might appear to him, that though
an American, I was a gentleman. He appeared embarrassed, and his
fine face worked, until I began to pity him, for it was evident he
wished to show me in some way, how much he felt he was my debtor,
and yet he did not know exactly what to propose.

"We may meet again," I said, squeezing his hand.

"Will you receive my card?"

"Most willingly."

He put "Viscount Householder" into my hand, and in return I gave him
my own humble appellation.

He looked from the card to me, and from me to the card, and some
agreeable idea appeared to flash upon his mind.

"Shall you visit Geneva this summer?" he asked, earnestly.

"Within a month."

"Your address--"

"Hotel de l'Ecu."

"You shall hear from me. Adieu."

We parted, he, his lovely wife, and his guides descending to the
Rhone, while I pursued my way to the Hospice of the Grimsel. Within
the month I received a large packet at l'Ecu. It contained a
valuable diamond ring, with a request that I would wear it, as a
memorial of Lady Householder, and a fairly written manuscript. The
following short note explained the wishes of the writer:

"Providence brought us together for more purposes than were at first
apparent. I have long hesitated about publishing the accompanying
narrative, for in England there is a disposition to cavil at
extraordinary facts, but the distance of America from my place of
residence will completely save me from ridicule. The world must have
the truth, and I see no better means than by resorting to your
agency. All I ask is, that you will have the book fairly printed,
and that you will send one copy to my address, Householder Hall,
Dorsetshire, Eng., and another to Captain Noah Poke, Stonington,
Conn., in your own country. My Anna prays for you, and is ever your
friend. Do not forget us.

"Yours, most faithfully,"

"HOUSEHOLDER."

I have rigidly complied with this request, and having sent the two
copies according to direction, the rest of the edition is at the
disposal of any one who may feel an inclination to pay for it. In
return for the copy sent to Stonington, I received the following
letter:

"ON BOARD THE DERBY AND DOLLY,
"STONNIN'TUN, April 1st, 1835.

"AUTHOR OF THE SPY, ESQUIRE:

"Dear Sir:--Your favor is come to hand, and found me in good health,
as I hope these few lines will have the same advantage with you. I
have read the book, and must say there is some truth in it, which, I
suppose, is as much as befalls any book, the Bible, the Almanac, and
the State Laws excepted. I remember Sir John well, and shall gainsay
nothing he testifies to, for the reason that friends should not
contradict each other. I was also acquainted with the four Monikins
he speaks of, though I knew them by different names. Miss Poke says
she wonders if it's all true, which I wunt tell her, seeing that a
little unsartainty makes a woman rational. As to my navigating
without geometry, thats a matter that wasn't worth booking, for it's
no curiosity in these parts, bating a look at the compass once or
twice a day, and so I take my leave of you, with offers to do any
commission for you among the Sealing Islands, for which I sail to-
morrow, wind and weather permitting.

"Yours to sarve, NOAH POKE."

"To the Author of THE SPY, Esquire,
---town,------county, York state.

"P. S.--I always told Sir John to steer clear of too much
journalizing, but he did nothing but write, night and day, for a
week; and as you brew, so you must bake. The wind has chopped, and
we shall take our anchor this tide; so no more at present.

"N. B.--Sir John is a little out about my eating the monkey, which I
did, four years before I fell in with him, down on the Spanish Main.
It was not bad food to the taste, but was wonderful narvous to the
eye. I r'ally thought I had got hold of Miss Poke's youngest born."

THE MONIKINS.

CHAPTER I.

THE AUTHOR'S PEDIGREE,--ALSO THAT OF HIS FATHER.

The philosopher who broaches a new theory is bound to furnish, at
least, some elementary proofs of the reasonableness of his
positions, and the historian who ventures to record marvels that
have hitherto been hid from human knowledge, owes it to a decent
regard to the opinions of others, to produce some credible testimony
in favor of his veracity. I am peculiarly placed in regard to these
two great essentials having little more than its plausibility to
offer in favor of my philosophy, and no other witness than myself to
establish the important facts that are now about to be laid before
the reading world for the first time. In this dilemma, I fully feel
the weight of responsibility under which I stand; for there are
truths of so little apparent probability as to appear fictitious,
and fictions so like the truth that the ordinary observer is very
apt to affirm that he was an eye-witness to their existence: two
facts that all our historians would do well to bear in mind, since a
knowledge of the circumstances might spare them the mortification of
having testimony that cost a deal of trouble, discredited in the one
case, and save a vast deal of painful and unnecessary labor, in the
other. Thrown upon myself, therefore, for what the French call les
pieces justificatives of my theories, as well as of my facts, I see
no better way to prepare the reader to believe me, than by giving an
unvarnished the result of the orange-woman's application; for had my
worthy ancestor been subjected to the happy accidents and generous
caprices of voluntary charity, it is more than probable I should be
driven to throw a veil over those important years of his life that
were notoriously passed in the work-house, but which, in consequence
of that occurrence, are now easily authenticated by valid minutes
and documentary evidence. Thus it is that there exists no void in
the annals of our family, even that period which is usually
remembered through gossiping and idle tales in the lives of most
men, being matter of legal record in that of my progenitor, and so
continued to be down to the day of his presumed majority, since he
was indebted to a careful master the moment the parish could with
any legality, putting decency quite out of the question, get rid of
him. I ought to have said, that the orange-woman, taking a hint from
the sign of a butcher opposite to whose door my ancestor was found,
had very cleverly given him the name of Thomas Goldencalf.

This second important transition in the affairs of my father, might
be deemed a presage of his future fortunes. He was bound apprentice
to a trader in fancy articles, or a shopkeeper who dealt in such
objects as are usually purchased by those who do not well know what
to do with their money. This trade was of immense advantage to the
future prosperity of the young adventurer; for, in addition to the
known fact that they who amuse are much better paid than they who
instruct their fellow-creatures, his situation enabled him to study
those caprices of men, which, properly improved, are of themselves a
mine of wealth, as well as to gain a knowledge of the important
truth that the greatest events of this life are much oftener the
result of impulse than of calculation.

I have it by a direct tradition, orally conveyed from the lips of my
ancestor, that no one could be more lucky than himself in the
character of his master. This personage, who came, in time, to be my
maternal grandfather, was one of those wary traders who encourage
others in their follies, with a view to his own advantage, and the
experience of fifty years had rendered him so expert in the
practices of his calling, that it was seldom he struck out a new
vein in his mine, without finding himself rewarded for the
enterprise, by a success that was fully equal to his expectations,

"Tom," he said one day to his apprentice, when time had produced
confidence and awakened sympathies between them, "thou art a lucky
youth, or the parish officer would never have brought thee to my
door. Thou little knowest the wealth that is in store for thee, or
the treasures that are at thy command, if thou provest diligent, and
in particular faithful to my interests." My provident grandfather
never missed an occasion to throw in a useful moral, notwithstanding
the general character of veracity that distinguished his commerce.
"Now, what dost think, lad, may be the amount of my capital?"

My ancestor in the male line hesitated to reply, for, hitherto, his
ideas had been confined to the profits; never having dared to lift
his thoughts as high as that source from which he could not but see
they flowed in a very ample stream; but thrown upon himself by so
unexpected a question, and being quick at figures, after adding ten
per cent. to the sum which he knew the last year had given as the
net avail of their joint ingenuity, he named the amount, in answered
to the interrogatory.

My maternal grandfather laughed in the face of my direct lineal
ancestor.

"Thou judgest, Tom," he said, when his mirth was a little abated,
"by what thou thinkest is the cost of the actual stock before thine
eyes, when thou shouldst take into the account that which I term our
floating capital."

Tom pondered a moment, for while he knew that his master had money
in the funds, he did not account that as any portion of the
available means connected with his ordinary business; and as for a
floating capital, he did not well see how it could be of much
account, since the disproportion between the cost and the selling
prices of the different articles in which they dealt was so great,
that there was no particular use in such an investment. As his
master, however, rarely paid for anything until he was in possession
of returns from it that exceeded the debt some seven-fold, he began
to think the old man was alluding to the advantages he obtained in
the way of credit, and after a little more cogitation, he ventured
to say as much.

Again my maternal grandfather indulged in a hearty fit of laughter.

"Thou art clever in thy way, Tom," he said, "and I like the
minuteness of thy calculations, for they show an aptitude for trade;
but there is genius in our calling as well as cleverness. Come
hither, boy," he added, drawing Tom to a window whence they could
see the neighbors on their way to church, for it was on a Sunday
that my two provident progenitors indulged in this moral view of
humanity, as best fitted the day, "come hither, boy, and thou shalt
see some small portion of that capital which thou seemest to think
hid, stalking abroad by daylight, and in the open streets. Here,
thou seest the wife of our neighbor, the pastry-cook; with what an
air she tosses her head and displays the bauble thou sold'st her
yesterday: well, even that slattern, idle and vain, and little
worthy of trust as she is, carries about with her a portion of my
capital!"

My worthy ancestor stared, for he never knew the other to be guilty
of so great an indiscretion as to trust a woman whom they both knew
bought more than her husband was willing to pay for.

"She gave me a guinea, master, for that which did not cost a seven-
shilling piece!"

"She did, indeed, Tom, and it was her vanity that urged her to it. I
trade upon her folly, younker, and upon that of all mankind; now
dost thou see with what a capital I carry on affairs? There--there
is the maid, carrying the idle hussy's patterns in the rear; I drew
upon my stock in that wench's possession, no later than the last
week, for half-a-crown!"

Tom reflected a long time on these allusions of his provident
master, and although he understood them about as well as they will
be understood by the owners of half the soft humid eyes and
sprouting whiskers among my readers, by dint of cogitation he came
at last to a practical understanding of the subject, which before he
was thirty he had, to use a French term, pretty well exploite.

I learn by unquestionable tradition, received also from the mouths
of his contemporaries, that the opinions of my ancestor underwent
some material changes between the ages of ten and forty, a
circumstance that has often led me to reflect that people might do
well not to be too confident of the principles, during the pliable
period of life, when the mind, like the tender shoot, is easily bent
aside and subjected to the action of surrounding causes.

During the earlier years of the plastic age, my ancestor was
observed to betray strong feelings of compassion at the sight of
charity-children, nor was he ever known to pass a child, especially
a boy that was still in petticoats, who was crying with hunger in
the streets, without sharing his own crust with him. Indeed, his
practice on this head was said to be steady and uniform, whenever
the rencontre took place after my worthy father had had his own
sympathies quickened by a good dinner; a fact that maybe imputed to
a keener sense of the pleasure he was about to confer.

After sixteen, he was known to converse occasionally on the subject
of politics, a topic on which he came to be both expert and eloquent
before twenty. His usual theme was justice and the sacred rights of
man, concerning which he sometimes uttered very pretty sentiments,
and such as were altogether becoming in one who was at the bottom of
the great social pot that was then, as now, actively boiling, and
where he was made to feel most, the heat that kept it in
ebullition. I am assured that on the subject of taxation, and on
that of the wrongs of America and Ireland, there were few youths in
the parish who could discourse with more zeal and unction. About
this time, too, he was heard shouting "Wilkes and liberty!" in the
public streets.

But, as is the case with all men of rare capacities, there was a
concentration of powers in the mind of my ancestor, which soon
brought all his errant sympathies, the mere exuberance of acute and
overflowing feelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring
all in the one absorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not
claim for my father any peculiar quality in this respect, for I have
often observed that many of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen
that raise a great dust, and scamper as if the highway were too
narrow for their eccentric courses, before they are fairly seated in
the saddle, but who afterward drive as directly at their goals as
the arrow parting from the bow), most indulge their sympathies at
the commencement of their careers, are the most apt toward the close
to get a proper command of their feelings, and to reduce them within
the bounds of common sense and prudence. Before five-and-twenty, my
father was as exemplary and as constant a devotee of Plutus as was
then to be found between Ratcliffe Highway and Bridge Street:--I
name these places in particular, as all the rest of the great
capital in which he was born is known to be more indifferent to the
subject of money.

My ancestor was just thirty, when his master, who like himself was a
bachelor, very unexpectedly, and a good deal to the scandal of the
neighborhood, introduced a new inmate into his frugal abode, in the
person of an infant female child. It would seem that some one had
been speculating on his stock of weakness too, for this poor,
little, defenceless, and dependent being was thrown upon his care,
like Tom himself, through the vigilance of the parish officers.
There were many good-natured jokes practised on the prosperous
fancy-dealer, by the more witty of his neighbors, at this sudden
turn of good fortune, and not a few ill-natured sneers were given
behind his back; most of the knowing ones of the vicinity finding a
stronger likeness between the little girl and all the other
unmarried men of the eight or ten adjoining streets, than to the
worthy housekeeper who had been selected to pay for her support. I
have been much disposed to admit the opinions of these amiable
observers as authority in my own pedigree, since it would be
reaching the obscurity in which all ancient lines take root, a
generation earlier, than by allowing the presumption that little
Betsey was my direct male ancestor's master's daughter; but, on
reflection, I have determined to adhere to the less popular but more
simple version of the affair, because it is connected with the
transmission of no small part of our estate, a circumstance of
itself that at once gives dignity and importance to a genealogy.

Whatever may have been the real opinion of the reputed father
touching his rights to the honors of that respectable title, he soon
became as strongly attached to the child, as if it really owed its
existence to himself. The little girl was carefully nursed,
abundantly fed, and throve accordingly. She had reached her third
year, when the fancy-dealer took the smallpox from his little pet,
who was just recovering from the same disease, and died at the
expiration of the tenth day.

This was an unlooked-for and stunning blow to my ancestor, who was
then in his thirty-fifth year and the head shopman of the
establishment, which had continued to grow with the growing follies
and vanities of the age. On examining his master's will, it was
found that my father, who had certainly aided materially of late in
the acquisition of the money, was left the good-will of the shop,
the command of all the stock at cost, and the sole executorship of
the estate. He was also intrusted with the exclusive guardianship of
little Betsey, to whom his master had affectionately devised every
farthing of his property. An ordinary reader may be surprised that a
man who had so long practised on the foibles of his species, should
have so much confidence in a mere shopman, as to leave his whole
estate so completely in his power; but, it must be remembered, that
human ingenuity has not yet devised any means by which we can carry
our personal effects into the other world; that "what cannot be
cured must be endured"; that he must of necessity have confided this
important trust to some fellow-creature, and that it was better to
commit the keeping of his money to one who, knowing the secret by
which it had been accumulated, had less inducement to be dishonest,
than one who was exposed to the temptation of covetousness, without
having a knowledge of any direct and legal means of gratifying his
longings. It has been conjectured, therefore, that the testator
thought, by giving up his trade to a man who was as keenly alive as
my ancestor to all its perfections, moral and pecuniary, he provided
a sufficient protection against his falling into the sin of
peculation, by so amply supplying him with simpler means of
enriching himself. Besides, it is fair to presume that the long
acquaintance had begotten sufficient confidence to weaken the effect
of that saying which some wit has put into the mouth of a wag, "Make
me your executor, father; I care not to whom you leave the estate."
Let all this be as it might, nothing can be more certain than that
my worthy ancestor executed his trust with the scrupulous fidelity
of a man whose integrity had been severely schooled in the ethics of
trade. Little Betsey was properly educated for one in her condition
of life; her health was as carefully watched over as if she had been
the only daughter of the sovereign instead of the only daughter of a
fancy-dealer; her morals were superintended by a superannuated old
maid; her mind left to its original purity; her person jealously
protected against the designs of greedy fortune-hunters; and, to
complete the catalogue of his paternal attentions and solicitudes,
my vigilant and faithful ancestor, to prevent accidents, and to
counteract the chances of life, so far as it might be done by human
foresight, saw that she was legally married, the day she reached her
nineteenth year, to the person whom, there is every reason to think,
he believed to be the most unexceptionable man of his acquaintance--
in other words, to himself. Settlements were unnecessary between
parties who had so long been known to each other, and, thanks to the
liberality of his late master's will in more ways than one, a long
minority, and the industry of the ci-devant head shopman, the
nuptial benediction was no sooner pronounced, than our family
stepped into the undisputed possession of four hundred thousand
pounds. One less scrupulous on the subject of religion and the law,
might not have thought it necessary to give the orphan heiress a
settlement so satisfactory, at the termination of her wardship.

I was the fifth of the children who were the fruits of this union,
and the only one of them all that passed the first year of its life.
My poor mother did not survive my birth, and I can only record her
qualities through the medium of that great agent in the archives of
the family, tradition. By all that I have heard, she must have been
a meek, quiet, domestic woman; who, by temperament and attainments,
was admirably qualified to second the prudent plans of my father for
her welfare. If she had causes of complaint, (and that she had,
there is too much reason to think, for who has ever escaped them?)
they were concealed, with female fidelity, in the sacred repository
of her own heart; and if truant imagination sometimes dimly drew an
outline of married happiness different from the fact that stood in
dull reality before her eyes, the picture was merely commented on by
a sigh, and consigned to a cabinet whose key none ever touched but
herself, and she seldom.

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