The pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna a descriptive tale |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 7. |
| 8. |
| 9. |
| 10. |
| 11. |
| 12. |
| 13. |
| 14. |
| 15. | CHAPTER XV. |
| 16. |
| 17. |
| 18. |
| 19. |
| 20. |
| 21. |
| 22. |
 | CHAPTER XV. The pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
Lear.
The punishments of the common law were still
known, at the time of our tale, to the people of
New-York; and the whipping-post, with its companion,
the stocks, were not yet supplanted by the
more modern but doubtful expedients of the public
prisons. Immediately in front of the gaol,
those relics of the elder times were situated, as a
lesson of precautionary justice to the evil-doers of
the settlement.
Natty followed the constables to this spot, bowing
his head with submission to a power that he
was unable to oppose, and surrounded by the
crowd, that formed a circle about his person, exhibiting
in their countenances a strong curiosity.
A constable raised the upper part of the stocks,
and pointed with his finger to the holes where the
old man was to place his feet. Without making
the least objection to the punishment, the Leather-stocking
quietly seated himself on the ground,
and suffered his limbs to be laid in the openings,
without even a murmur; though he cast one
glance about him, as if in quest of that sympathy
suffering. If he met no direct manifestations of
pity, neither did he see any savage exultation expressed,
nor hear a single reproachful epithet. The
character of the mob, if it could be called by such
a name, was that of attentive subordination.
The constable was in the act of lowering the
upper plank, when Benjamin, who had pressed
close to the side of the prisoner, said, in his hoarse
tones, as if seeking for some cause to create a
quarrel—
“Where away, master constable, is the use to
be found of clapping a man in them here bilboes?
it neither stops his grog nor hurts his back; what
for is it that you do the thing?”
“'Tis the sentence of the court, Mr. Penguillum,
and there's law for it, I s'pose.”
“Ay, ay, I know that there's law for the thing;
but where away do you find the use, I say? it
does no harm, and it only keeps a man by the heels
for the small matter of two glasses.”
“Is it no harm, Benny Pump,” said Natty,
raising his eyes with a piteous look to the face of
the steward—“is it no harm to show off a man in
his seventy-first year, like a tamed bear, for the
settlers to look on! Is it no harm to put an old
soldier, that has sarved through the war of 'fifty-six,
and seen the inimy in the 'seventy-six business,
into a place like this, where the boys can
point at him and say, I have known the time when
he was a spictacle for the country! Is it no harm
to bring down the pride of an honest man to be
the equal of the beasts of the forest!”
Benjamin stared about him fiercely, and, could
he have found a single face that expressed contumely,
he would have been prompt to quarrel with
its owner; but meeting every where with looks of
sobriety, and occasionally of commiseration, he
hunter, and placing his legs in the two vacant
holes of the stocks, he said—
“Now lower away, master constable, lower
away, I tell ye! If-so-be there's such a thing
hereabouts as a man that wants to see a bear, let
him look and be d—d, and he shall find two of
them, and mayhap one of the same that can bite
as well as growl.”
“But I've no orders to put you in the stocks,
Mr. Pump,” cried the constable; “you must get
up, and let me do my duty.”
“You've my orders, and what do you need
better, to meddle with my own feet? so lower
away, will ye, and let me see the man that chooses
to open his mouth with a grin on it.”
“There can't be any harm in locking up a
creater that will enter the pound,” said the constable,
laughing, and closing the stocks on them
both.
It was fortunate that this act was executed with
decision, for the whole of the spectators, when
they saw Benjamin assume the position he took,
felt an inclination for merriment, which few
thought it worth their efforts to suppress. The
steward struggled violently for his liberty again,
with an evident intention of making battle on
those who stood nearest to him; but the key was
already turned, and all his efforts were made in
vain.
“Hark ye, master constable,” he cried, “just
clear away your bilboes for the small matter of a
log-glass, will ye, and let me show some of them
there chaps who it is that they are so merry
about.”
“No, no, you would go in, and you can't come
out,” returned the officer, “until the time has
the prisoner.”
Benjamin, finding that his threats and his struggles
were useless, had good sense enough to learn
patience from the resigned manner of his companion,
and soon settled himself down by the side
of Natty, with a contemptuousness expressed in
his hard features, that showed he had subsituted
disgust for rage. When the violence of the steward's
feelings had in some measure subsided, he
turned to his fellow sufferer, and, with a motive
that might have vindicated a worse effusion, he attempted
the charitable office of consolation.
“Taking it by and large, Master Bump-ho, 'tis
but a small matter, after all,” he said. “Now
I've known very good sort of men, aboard of the
Boadishey, laid by the heels, for nothing, mayhap,
but forgetting that they'd drunk their allowance
already, when a glass of grog has come in
their way. This is nothing more than riding
with two anchors ahead, waiting for a turn in the
tide, or a shift of wind, d'ye see, with a soft bottom
and plenty of room for the sweep of your
hawse. Now I've seen many a man, for over-shooting
his reckoning, as I told ye, moored head
and starn, where he couldn't so much as heave his
broadside round, and mayhap a stopper clapt on
his tongue too, in the shape of a pump-bolt lashed
athwart-ship his jaws, all the same as an out-rigger
along side of a taffrel-rail.”
The hunter appeared to appreciate the kind intentions
of the other, though he could not understand
his eloquence; and raising his humbled
countenance, he attempted a smile in vain, as he
said—
“Anan!”
“'Tis nothing, I say, but a small matter of a
squall, that will soon blow over,” continued Benjamin.
it must be all the same as nothing; thof, seeing
that I'm a little short in my lower timbers, they've
triced my heels up aloft in such a way as to give
me a bit of a slue. But what cares I, Master
Bump-ho, if the ship strains a little at her anchor;
it's only for a dog-watch, and dam'me but she'll
sail with you then on that cruise after them said
beaver. I'm not much used to small arms, seeing
that I was stationed at the ammunition-boxes, being
sum'mat too low-rigged to see over the hammock-cloths;
but I can carry the game d'ye see,
and mayhap make out to lend a hand with the
traps; and if-so-be you're any way so handy with
them as ye be with your boat-hook, 'twill be but
a short cruise after all. I've squared the yards
with Squire Dickens this morning, and I shall send
him word that he needn't bear my name on
the books again till such time as the cruise is
over.”
“You're used to dwell with men, Benny,” said
Leather-stocking, mournfully, “and the ways of
the woods would be hard on you, if”—
“Not a bit—not a bit,” cried the steward;
“I'm none of your fair-weather chaps, Master
Bump-ho, as sails only in smooth water. When
I find a friend I sticks by him, d'ye see. Now,
there's no better man a-going than Squire Dickens,
and I love him about the same as I loves
Mistress Hollister's new keg of Jamaiky.” The
steward paused, and turning his uncouth visage
on the hunter, he survey'd him with a roguish
leer of his eye, and gradually suffered the muscles
of his hard features to relax, until his face was illuminated
by the display of his white teeth, when
he dropped his voice, and added—“I say, Master
Leather-stocking, 'tis fresher and livelier than
any Hollands you'll get in Garnsey. But we'll
for I'm so jammed in these here bilboes, that I
begin to want sum'mat to lighten my upper-works.”
Natty sighed, and gazed about him on the
crowd, that already begun to disperse, and which
had now diminished greatly, as its members scattered
in their various pursuits. He looked wistfully
at Benjamin, but did not reply; a deeply-seated
anxiety seeming to absorb every other sensation,
and to throw a melancholy gloom over his
wrinkled features, which were working with the
movements of his mind.
The steward was about to act on the old principle,
that silence gives consent, when Hiram Doolittle,
attended by Jotham, stalked out of the crowd,
across the open space, and approached the stocks.
The magistrate passed by the end where Benjamin
was seated, and posted himself, at a safe
distance from the steward, in front of the Leather-stocking.
Hiram stood, for a moment, cowering
before the keen looks that Natty fastened on him,
and suffering under an embarrassment that was
quite new; when, having in some degree recovered
himself, he looked at the heavens, and then
at the smoky atmosphere, as if it were only an ordinary
meeting with a friend, and said, in his formal,
hesitating way—
“Quite a scurcity of rain lately; I some think
we shall have a long drought on't.”
Benjamin was occupied in untying his bag of
dollars, and did not observe the approach of the
magistrate, while Natty turned his face, in which
every muscle was working, away from him in disgust,
without answering. Rather encouraged than
daunted by this exhibition of dislike, Hiram, after
a short pause, continued—
“The clouds look as if they'd no water in
judgment, there'll be short crops this season, if
the rain doosn't fall quite speedily.”
The air with which Mr. Doolittle delivered this
prophetical opinion was peculiar to his species. It
was a jesuitical, cold, unfeeling, and selfish manner,
that seemed to say, “I have kept within the
law,” to the man he had so cruelly injured. It
quite overcame the restraint that the old hunter
had been labouring to impose on himself, and he
burst out in a warm glow of indignation.
“Why should the rain fall from the clouds,”
he cried, “when you force the tears from the eyes
of the old, the sick, and the poor! Away with ye
—away with ye! you may be formed in the image
of the Maker, but Satan dwells in your heart.
Away with ye, I say! I am mournful, and the sight
of ye brings bitter thoughts.”
Benjamin ceased thumbing his money, and
raised his head, at the instant that Hiram, who
was thrown off his guard by the invectives of the
hunter, unluckily trusted his person within reach
of the steward, who grasped one of his legs, with
a hand that had the grip of a vice, and whirled
the magistrate from his feet, before he had either
time to collect his senses, or exercise the strength
he did really possess. Benjamin wanted neither
proportions nor manhood in his head, shoulders,
and arms, though all the rest of his frame appeared
to be originally intended for a very different
sort of a man. He exerted his physical powers,
on the present occasion, with much discretion,
and as their positions were a great disadvantage
to his antagonist, without at all discomposing the
steward, the struggle resulted, very soon, in Benjamin
getting the magistrate fixed in a posture
somewhat similar to his own, and manfully placed
face to face.
“You're a ship's cousin, I tell ye, Master Doo-but-little,”
roared the steward—“some such matter
as a ship's cousin, sir. I know you, I do, with
your fair-weather speeches to Squire Dickens, to
his face, and then you go and sarve out your grumbling
to all the old women in the town, do ye.
An't it enough for any christian, let him harbour
never so much malice, to get an honest old fellow
laid by the heels in this fashion, without carrying
sail so hard on the poor dog, as if you would run
him down as he lay at his anchors? But I've
logged many a hard thing against your name,
master, and now the time's come to foot up the
day's work, d'ye see; so square yourself, you lubber,
square yourself, and we'll soon know who's the
better man.”
“Jotham!” cried the frightened magistrate—
“Jotham! call in the constables. Mr. Penguillum,
I command the peace—I order you to keep
the peace.”
“There's been more peace than love atwixt us,
master,” cried the steward, making some very equivocal
demonstrations towards hostility; “so mind
yourself! square yourself, I say! do you smell
this here bit of a sledge-hammer?”
“Lay hands on me if you dare!” exclaimed
Hiram, as well as he could under the grasp which
the steward held on his throttle—“lay hands on
me if you dare!”
“If ye call this laying, master, you are welcome
to the eggs,” roared the steward.
It becomes our disagreeable duty to record
here, that the acts of Benjamin now became perfectly
unequivocal; for he darted his sledge-hammer
violently on the anvil of Mr. Doolittle's countenance,
and the place became, in an instant, a scene of
tumult and confusion. The crowd rushed in a
dense circle around the spot, while some run to
of the more juvenile part of the multitude had a
desperate trial of speed, to see who should be the
happy man to communicate the critical situation
of the magistrate to his wife.
Benjamin worked with great industry and a
good deal of skill, at his occupation, using
one hand to raise up his antagonist, while he
knocked him over with the other; for he would
have been disgraced in his own estimation, had
he struck a blow on a fallen adversary. By this
considerate arrangement he found means, however,
to hammer the visage of Hiram out of all
shape, by the time that Richard succeeded in forcing
his way through the throng to the point of
combat. The Sheriff afterwards declared that,
independent of his mortification, as preserver of
the peace of the county, at this interruption to its
harmony, he was never so grieved in his life, as
when he saw this breach of unity between his favourites.
Hiram had in some degree become necessary
to his vanity, and Benjamin, strange as it
may appear, he really loved. This attachment
was exhibited in the first words that he uttered.
“Squire Doolittle! Squire Doolittle! I am
ashamed to see a man of your character and office
forget himself so much as to disturb the peace, insult
the court, and beat poor Benjamin in this
manner!”
At the sound of Mr. Jones' voice the steward
ceased his employment, and Hiram had an opportunity
of raising his discomfited visage towards
the mediator. Emboldened by the sight of the
Sheriff, Mr. Doolittle again had recourse to his
lungs.
“I'll have the law on you for this,” he cried,
desperately; “I'll have the law on you for this.
I demand that you take his body into custody.”
By this time Richard was master of the true
state of the case, and, turning to the steward, he
cried—
“Benjamin, how came you in the stocks! I always
thought you were as mild and docile as a
lamb. It was for your docility that I most esteemed
you. Benjamin! Benjamin! you have not
only disgraced yourself, but your friends, by
this shameless conduct. Bless me! bless me! Mr.
Doolittle, he seems to have knocked your face
all of one side.”
Hiram by this time had got on his feet again,
and without the reach of the steward, when he
broke forth in violent appeals for vengeance. The
offence was too apparent to be passed over, and
the Sheriff, mindful of the impartiality exhibited
by his cousin in the recent trial of the Leather-stocking,
came to the painful conclusion that it
was necessary to commit his major-domo to
prison. As the time of Natty's punishment was
expired, and Benjamin found that they were to
be confined, for that night at least, in the same
apartment, he made no very strong objections to
the measure, nor spoke of bail, though, as the
Sheriff preceded the party of constables that conducted
them to the gaol, he uttered the following
remonstrance:—
“As to being birthed with Master Bump-ho for
a night or so, it's but little I think of it, Squire
Dickens, seeing that I calls him an honest man,
and one as has a handy way with boat-hooks and
rifles; but as for owning that a man desarves any
thing worse than a double allowance, for knocking
that carpenter's face a-one-side, as you call
it, I'll maintain it's ag'in reason and christianity.
If there's a blood-sucker in this 'ere country,
if he hasn't got all the same as dead-wood in his
head-works, he knows sum'mat of me. Where's
the mighty harm, Squire, that you take it so much
to heart! It's all the same as any other battle,
d'ye see, sir, being fair broadside to broadside,
only that it was fout at anchor, which was what
we did in Port Praya roads, when Suff'ring
came in among us; and a suff'ring time he had
of it, before he got out again.”
Richard thought it unworthy of him to make any
reply to this speech; but when his prisoners were
safely lodged in an outer dungeon, ordering the
bolts to be drawn and the key turned, he withdrew.
Benjamin held frequent and friendly dialogues
with different people, through the iron gratings,
during the afternoon; but his companion paced
their narrow limits, in his moccasins, with quick,
impatient treads, his face hanging on his breast
in dejection, or when lifted, at moments, to the
idlers at the window, lighted, perhaps, for an instant,
with the childish aspect of aged forgetfulness,
which would vanish directly in an expression
of deep and obvious anxiety.
At the close of the day Edwards was seen at
the window, in close and earnest dialogue with his
friend; and after he departed it was thought that
he had communicated words of comfort to the
hunter, who threw himself on his pallet, and was
soon in a deep sleep. The curious spectators had
exhausted the conversation of the steward, who
had drunk good fellowship with half of his acquaintance,
and as Natty was no longer in motion,
by eight o'clock, Billy Kirby, who was the last
lounger at the window, retired into the “Templetown
Coffee-House,” when Natty rose and
hung a blanket before the opening, and the prisoners
apparently retired for the night.
| CHAPTER XV. The pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna | |