University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

The heavy showers that prevailed during
the remainder of the day, completely stopped the
progress of the flames; though glimmering fires
were observed during the night, on different parts
of the hill, wherever there was a collection of fuel
to feed the element. The next day the woods,
for many miles, were black and smoking, and
were stript of every vestige of brush and dead
wood; but the pines and hemlocks still reared
their heads proudly along the hills, and even the
smaller trees of the forest retained a feeble appearance
of life and vegetation.

The many tongues of rumour were busy in exaggerating
the miraculous escape of Elizabeth,
and a report was generally credited, that Mohegan
had actually perished in the flames. This
belief became confirmed, and was indeed rendered
probable, when the direful intelligence reached
the village, that Jotham Riddel, the miner, was
found in his hole, nearly dead with suffocation,

and burnt to such a degree that no hopes were
entertained of his life.

The public attention became much alive to the
events of the last few days, and just at this crisis,
the convicted counterfeiters took the hint from
Natty, and, on the night succeeding the fire,
found means to cut through their log prison also,
and to escape unpunished. When this news begun
to circulate through the village, blended with
the fate of Jotham, and the exaggerated and tortured
reports of the events on the hill, the popular
opinion was freely expressed, as to the propriety
of seizing such of the fugitives as remained within
reach. Men talked of the cave, as a secret receptacle
of guilt; and, as the rumour of ores
and metals found its way into the confused medley
of conjectures, counterfeiting, and every thing
else that was wicked and dangerous to the peace
of society, suggested themselves to the busy fancies
of the populace.

While the public mind was in this feverish state,
it was hinted that the wood had been set on fire
by Edwards and the Leather-stocking, and that,
consequently, they alone were responsible for the
damages. This opinion soon gained ground, being
most circulated by those who, by their own
heedlessness, had caused the evil; and there was
one irresistible burst of the common sentiment,
that an attempt should be made to punish the offenders.
Richard was by no means deaf to this appeal,
and by noon he set about in earnest, to see
the laws executed.

Several stout young men were selected, and taken
apart, with an appearance of secrecy, where
they received some important charge from the
Sheriff, immediately under the eyes, but far removed
from the ears, of all in the village. Possessed

with a knowledge of their duty, these
youths hurried into the hills, with a bustling manner,
as if the fate of the world depended on their
diligence, and, at the same time, with an air of
mystery, as great as if they were engaged on secret
matters of the state.

At twelve precisely, a drum beat the “long roll”
before the “Bold Dragoon,” and Richard appeared,
accompanied by Captain Hollister, who
was clad in his vestments as commander of the
“Templeton Light-Infantry,” when the former
demanded of the latter the aid of the posse comitatus,
in enforcing the laws of the country. We
have not room to record the speeches of the two
gentlemen on this occasion, but they are preserved
in the columns of the little blue newspaper, which
is yet to be found on file, and are said to be highly
creditable to the legal formula of one of the
parties, and to the military precision of the other.
Every thing had been previously arranged, and
as the red-coated drummer continued to roll out
his clattering notes, some five-and-twenty privates
appeared in the ranks, and arranged themselves
in order of battle.

As this corps was composed of volunteers, and
was commanded by a man who had passed the
first five-and-thirty years of his life in camps and
garrisons, it was the nonpareil of military science
in that country, and was confidently pronounced,
by the judicious part of the Templeton community,
to be equal in skill and appearance to any
troops in the known world; in physical endowments
they were, certainly, much superior! To
this assertion there were but three dissenting
voices, and one dissenting opinion. The opinion
belonged to Marmaduke, who, however, saw no
necessity for its promulgation. Of the voices,
one, and that a pretty loud one, came from the

spouse of the commander himself, who frequently
reproached her husband for condescending to
lead such an irregular band of warriors, after he
had filled the honourable station of sergeant-major
to a dashing corps of Virginian cavalry
through much of the recent war.

Another of these sceptical sentiments was invariably
expressed by Mr. Pump, whenever the company
paraded, generally in some such terms as
these, which were uttered with that sort of meekness
that a native of the island of our forefathers
is apt to assume, when he condescends to praise
the customs or characters of her truant progeny—

“It's mayhap that they knows sum'mat about
loading and firing, d'ye see; but as for working
ship! why a corporal's guard of the Boadishey's
marines would back and fill on their quarters in
such a manner as to surround and captivate them
all in half a glass.” As there was no one to deny
this assertion, the marines of the Boadicea
were held in a corresponding degree of estimation.

The third unbeliever was Monsieur Le Quoi, who
merely whispered to the sheriff, that the corps was
one of the finest he had ever seen, second only to
the Mousquetaires of Le Bon Louis! However, as
Mrs. Hollister thought there was something like
actual service in the present appearances, and was,
in consequence, too busily engaged with certain
preparations of her own, to make her comments;
as Benjamin was absent, and Monsieur Le
Quoi too happy to find fault with any thing, the
corps escaped criticism and comparison altogether
on this momentous day, when they certainly had
greater need of self-confidence, than on any other
previous occasion. Marmaduke was said to be
again closeted with Mr. Van der School, and
no interruption was offered to the movements of
the troops. At two o'clock precisely the corps

shouldered arms, beginning on the right wing,
next to the veteran, and carrying the motion
through to the left with great regularity. When each
musket was quietly fixed in its proper situation,
the order was given to wheel to the left, and
march. As this was bringing raw troops, at once,
to face their enemy, it is not to be supposed that
the manœuvre was executed with their usual accuracy,
but as the music struck up the inspiring air
of Yankee-doodle, and Richard, accompanied by
Mr. Doolittle, preceded the troops boldly down
the street, Captain Hollister led on, with his head
elevated to forty-five degrees, with a little, low
cocked hat, perched on its crown, carrying a tremendous
dragoon sabre at a poise, and trailing
at his heels a huge steel scabbard, that had war
in its very clattering. There was a good deal of
difficulty in getting all the platoons (there were
six) to look the same way; but, by the time they
reached the defile of the bridge, the troops were
in excellent order. In this manner they marched
up the hill to the summit of the mountain, no
other alteration taking place in the disposition of
the forces, excepting that a mutual complaint was
made by the sheriff and the magistrate, of a failure
in wind, which gradually brought these gentlemen
to the rear. It will be unnecessary to detail
the minute movements that succeeded. We
shall briefly say, that the scouts came in and reported,
that, so far from retreating, as had been
anticipated, the fugitives had evidently gained a
knowledge of the attack, and were fortifying for
a desperate resistance. This intelligence certainly
made a material change, not only in the plans of
the leaders, but in the countenances of the soldiery
also. The men looked at one another with serious
faces, and Hiram and Richard begun to consult
together, apart. At this juncture, they were
joined by Billy Kirby, who came along the highway,
with his axe under his arm, as much in advance
of his team as Captain Hollister had been
of his troops in the ascent. The wood-chopper
was amazed at the military array, but the sheriff
eagerly availed himself of this powerful reinforcement,
and commanded his assistance in putting the
laws in force. Billy held Mr. Jones in too much
deference to object; and it was finally arranged
that he should be the bearer of a summons to the
garrison to surrender, before they proceeded to
extremities. The troops now divided, one party
being led by the captain, over the Vision, and
were brought in on the left of the cave, while the
remainder advanced upon its right, under the orders
of the lieutenant. Mr. Jones and Dr. Todd,
for the surgeon was in attendance also, appeared
on the platform of rock, immediately over the
heads of the garrison, though out of their sight.
Hiram thought this approaching too near, and
he therefore accompanied Kirby along the side of
the hill, to within a safe distance of the fortifications,
where he took shelter behind a tree. Most
of the men discovered a wonderful accuracy of
eye in bringing some object in range between
them and their enemy, and the only two of the besiegers,
who were left in plain sight of the besieged,
were Captain Hollister on one side, and the wood-chopper
on the other. The veteran stood up
boldly to the front, supporting his heavy sword, in
one undeviating position, with his eye fixed firmly
on his enemy, while the huge form of Billy was
placed in that kind of quiet repose, with either hand
thrust into his bosom, bearing his axe under his
right arm, which permitted him, like his own oxen,
to rest standing. So far, not a word had been exchanged
between the belligerents. The besieged
had drawn together a pile of black logs and
branches of trees, which they had formed into
a chevaux-de-frize, making a little circular
abbatis, in front of the entrance to the cave.
As the ground was steep and slippery in every direction
around the place, and Benjamin appeared
behind the works on one side, and Natty on the
other, the arrangement was by no means contemptible,
especially as the front was sufficiently
guarded by the difficulty of the approach. By
this time, Kirby had received his orders, and he
advanced coolly along the mountain, picking his
way with the same indifference as if he were pursuing
his ordinary business. When he was within
a hundred feet of the works, the long and much
dreaded rifle of the Leather-stocking was seen
issuing from the parapet, and his voice cried
aloud—

“Keep off! Billy Kirby, keep off! I wish ye
no harm; but if a man of ye all comes a step nigher,
there'll be blood spilt a-twixt us. God forgive
the one that draws it first; but so it must be.”

“Come, old chap,” said Billy, good-naturedly,
“don't be crabbed, but hear what a man has got
to say. I've no concarn in the business, only to
see right 'twixt man and man; and I don't kear
the valie of a beetle-ring which gets the better;
but there's Squire Doolittle, out yonder behind
the beech sapling, he has invited me to come in
and ask you to give up to the law—that's all.”

“I see the varmint! I see his clothes!” cried the
indignant Natty; “and if he'll only show so
much flesh as will bury a rifle bullet, thirty to the
pound, I'll make him feel me. Go away, Billy,
I bid ye; you know my aim, and I bear you no
malice.”

“You over calkilate your aim, Natty,” said
the other, as he stepped behind a pine that stood
near him, “if you think to shoot a man through

a tree with a three foot butt. I can lay this tree-top
right across you, in ten minutes, by any
man's watch, and in less time, too; so be civil—I
want no more than what's right.”

There was a simple seriousness in the countenance
of Natty, that showed he was much in
earnest; but it was, also, evident that he was reluctant
to shed human blood. He answered the
vaunt of the wood-chopper, by saying—

“I know you drop a tree where you will, Billy
Kirby; but if you show a hand, or an arm, in
doing it, there'll be bones to be set, and blood to
stanch, I tell you. If it's only to get into the
cave that ye want, wait till a two hour's sun, and
you may enter it in welcome; but come in now
you shall not. There's one dead body, already, lying
on the cold rocks, and there's another in
which the life can hardly be said to stay. If you
will come in, there'll be dead without as well as
within.”

The wood-chopper stept out fearlessly from his
cover, and cried—

“That's fair; and what's fair, is right. He
wants you to stop till it's two hours to sun-down;
and I see reason in the thing. A man can give
up when he's wrong, if you don't crowd him too
hard; but you crowd a man, and he gets to be
like a stubborn ox—the more you beat, the worse
he kicks.”

The sturdy notions of independence maintained
by Billy, neither suited the emergency, nor the
impatience of Mr. Jones, who was burning with a
desire to examine the hidden mysteries of the
cave. He, therefore, interrupted this amicable
dialogue with his own voice.

“I command you, Nathaniel Bumppo, by my
authority, to surrender your person to the law,”
he cried. “And I command you, gentlemen, to

aid me in performing my duty. Benjamin Penguillan,
I arrest you, and order you to follow me
to the gaol of the county, by virtue of this warrant.”

“I'd follow ye, Squire Dickens,” said Benjamin,
removing the pipe from his mouth, (for during
the whole scene the ex-major domo had been
very composedly smoking,) “Ay! I'd sail in
your wake, sir, to the end of the world, if-so-be
that there was such a place, which there isn't, seeing
that it's round. Now, mayhap, Master Hollister,
having lived all your life on shore, you is'nt acquainted
that the world, d'ye-see—”

“Surrender!” interrupted the veteran, in a
voice that startled his hearers, and which actually
caused his own forces to recoil several paces;
“Surrender, Benjamin Penguillum, or expect no
quarter.”

“Damn your quarter,” said Benjamin, rising
from the log on which he was seated, and taking
a squint along the barrel of the swivel, which had
been brought on the hill, during the night, and
now formed the means of defence on his side of
the works. “Look you, Master, or Captain,
thof I questions if ye know the name of a rope,
except the one that's to hang ye, there's no need
of singing out, just as if ye was hailing a deaf
man on a top-gallant-yard. Mayhap you think
you've got my true name in your sheep-skin; but
what British sailor finds it worth while to sail in
these seas, without a sham on his stern, in case of
need, d'ye-see. If you call me Penguillan, you
calls me by the name of the man on whose land,
d'ye-see, I hove into daylight; and he was a gentleman;
and that's more than my worst enemy
will say of any of the family of Benjamin
Stubbs.”

“Send the warrant round to me, and I'll put in
an alias,” cried Hiram, from behind his cover.

“Put in a jackass, and you'll put in yourself,
Mister Doo-but-little,” shouted Benjamin, who
kept squinting along his little iron tube, with great
steadiness.

“I give you but one moment to yield in,” cried
Richard. “Benjamin! Benjamin! This is not
the gratitude I expected from you.”

“I tell you, Richard Jones,” said Natty, who
dreaded the sheriff's influence over his comrade;
“though the canister the gal brought, be lost,
there's powder enough in the cave to lift the
rock you stand on. I'll take off my roof, if you
don't hold your peace.”

“I think it beneath the dignity of my office to
parley further with the prisoners,” the sheriff observed
to his companion, while they both retired
with a precipitancy that Captain Hollister mistook
for the signal to advance.

“Charge baggonet!” shouted the veteran;
“march!”

Although this signal was certainly expected, it
took the assailed a little by surprise, and the veteran
approached the works, crying, “courage,
my brave lads! give them no quarter unless they
surrender,” and struck a furious blow upwards
with his sabre that would have divided the steward
in moieties, by subjecting him to the process of
decapitation, but for the fortunate interference of
the muzzle of the swivel. As it was, the gun was
dismounted at the critical moment that Benjamin
was applying his pipe to the priming, and in consequence,
some five or six dozen of rifle bullets
were projected into the air, in, nearly, a perpendicular
line. Philosophy teaches us that the atmosphere
will not retain lead; and two pounds of the
metal moulded into bullets, of thirty to the pound,

after describing an ellipsis in their journey, returned
to the earth, rattling among the branches
of the trees directly over the heads of the troops
stationed in the rear of their captain. Much of
the success of an attack made by irregular
soldiers, depends on which way they are first got
in motion. In the present instance, it was retrograde,
and in less than a minute after the loud
bellowing report of the swivel among the rocks
and caverns, the whole weight of the attack,
from the left, rested on the prowess of the single
arm of the veteran. Benjamin received a severe
contusion from the recoil of his gun, which produced
a short stupor, during which period the ex-steward
was prostrate on the ground. Capt.
Hollister availed himself of this circumstance to
scramble over the breast-work and obtain a footing
in the bastion—for such was the nature of the
fortress, as connected with the cave. The moment
the veteran found himself within the works
of his enemy, he rushed to the edge of the fortification,
and waving his sabre over his head, shouted—

“Victory! come on, my brave boys, the work's
our own!”

All this was perfectly military, and was such
an example as a gallant officer was in some measure
bound to exhibit to his men; but the outcry
was the unlucky cause of turning the tide of success.
Natty, who had been keeping a vigilant
eye on the wood-chopper, and the enemy immediately
before him, wheeled at this alarm, and was
appalled at beholding his comrade on the ground,
and the veteran standing on his own bulwark,
giving forth the cry of victory! The muzzle of
the long rifle was turned instantly towards the
captain. There was a moment when the life of
the old soldier was in great jeopardy; but the

object to shoot at was both too large and too near
for the Leather-stocking, who, instead of pulling
his trigger, applied the gun to the rear of his enemy,
and by a powerful shove, sent him outside
of the works with much greater rapidity than he
had entered them. The spot on which Capt. Hollister
alighted was directly in front, where, as his
feet touched the ground, so steep and slippery was
the side of the mountain, it seemed to recede from
under them. His motion was wonderfully swift,
and so irregular, as utterly to confuse the faculties
of the old soldier. During its continuance,
he supposed himself to be mounted and charging
through the ranks of his enemy. At every tree
he made a blow, of course, as at a foot-soldier;
and just as he was making the cut “St. George” at
a half-burnt sapling, he landed in the highway,
and, to his utter amazement, at the feet of his own
spouse. When Mrs. Hollister, who was toiling
up the hill, followed by at least twenty curious
boys, leaning with one hand on the staff with
which she ordinarily walked, and bearing in the
other an empty bag, witnessed this exploit of her
husband, indignation immediately got the better
not only of her religion, but of her philosophy.

“Why, Sargeant! is it flying ye are?” she
cried—“That I should live to see a husband of
mine turn his back to the inimy! and sich a one!
Here have I been telling the b'ys as we come
along, all about the saige of Yorrektown, and how
ye was hurted; and how ye'd be acting the same
ag'in the day; and I mate ye retrating jist as the
first gun is fired. Och! I may trow away the
bag! for if there's plunder 'twill not be the wife
of sich as yeerself that will be privileged to be
getting the same. They do say too, there's a
power of goold and silver in the place—the Lord
forgive me for setting my heart on sich worreldly

things; but what falls in the battle, there's Scripter
for believing it the just property of the victor.”

“Retreating!” exclaimed the amazed veteran;
“where's my horse? he has been shot under
me—I—”

“Is the man mad!” interrupted his wife—
“divil the horse do ye own, sargeant, and yee're
nothing but a shabby captain of malaishy. Och!
if the ra'al captain was here, 'tis the other way
ye'd be riding, dear, or you would not follow
your lader!”

While this worthy couple were thus discussing
events, the battle began to rage more violently
than ever, above them. When the Leather-stocking
saw his enemy fairly under head-way,
as Benjamin would express it, he gave his attention
again to the right wing of the assailants. It
would have been easy for Kirby, with his powerful
frame, to have seized the moment to scale the
bastion, and with his great strength, to have
sent both its defenders in pursuit of the veteran;
but hostility appeared to be the passion that the
wood-chopper indulged the least in, at that moment,
for, in a voice that was heard even by the
retreating left wing, he shouted,

“Hurrah! well done, captain! keep it up!
how he handles his bush hook! he makes nothing
of a sapling!” and such other encouraging exclamations
to the flying veteran, until, overcome by his
mirth, the good-natured fellow seated himself on
the ground, kicking the earth with delight, and
giving vent to peal after peal of laughter.

Natty stood all this time in a menacing attitude,
with his rifle pointed over his breast-work,
watching with a quick and cautious eye the least
movement of the assailants. The outcry unfortunately
tempted the ungovernable curiosity of Hiram
to take a peep from behind his cover, at the state

of the battle. Though this evolution was performed
with great caution, in protecting his
front, he left, like many a better commander, his
rear exposed to the attacks of his enemy. Mr.
Doolittle belonged physically to a class of his countrymen,
to whom nature has denied, in their
formation, the use of curved lines. Every thing
about him was either straight or angular. But
his tailor was a woman who worked like a regimental
contractor, by a set of rules that gave the
same configuration to the whole human species.
Consequently, when Mr. Doolittle leaned forward
in the manner described, a loose drapery appeared
behind the tree, at which the rifle of Natty was
pointed with the quickness of lightning. A less
experienced man would have aimed at the flowing
robe, which hung like a festoon half way to the
earth; but the Leather-stocking knew both the
man and his female tailor better, and when the
smart report of the rifle was heard, Kirby, who
watched the whole manœuvre in breathless expectation,
saw the bark fly from the beech, and
the cloth, at some distance above the loose folds,
wave at the same instant. No battery was ever
unmasked with more promptitude than Hiram
advanced, from behind the tree, at this summons.

He made two or three steps, with great precision,
to the front, and, placing one hand on the
afflicted part, stretched forth the other, with a
menacing air, towards Natty, and cried aloud—

“Gawl darn ye! this shan't be settled so easy;
I'll follow it up from the `common pleas' to the
`court of errors.' ”

Such a shocking imprecation, from the mouth
of so orderly a man as Squire Doolittle, with the
fearless manner in which he exposed himself, together
with, perhaps, the knowledge that Natty's

rifle was unloaded, encouraged the troops in the
rear, who gave a loud shout, and fired a volley
into the tree-tops, after the contents of the swivel.
Animated by their own noise, the men now rushed
on in earnest, and Billy Kirby, who thought
the joke, good as it was, had gone far enough,
was in the act of scaling the works, when Judge
Temple appeared on the opposite side, exclaiming—

“Silence and peace! why do I see murder and
bloodshed attempted! is not the law sufficient to
protect itself, that armed bands must be gathered,
as in rebellion and war, to see justice performed!”

“'Tis the posse comitatus,” shouted the Sheriff,
from a distant rock, “who”—

“Say rather a posse of demons. I command
the peace.”—

“Hold! shed not blood!” cried a voice from
the top of the Vision—“Hold! for the sake of
Heaven, fire no more! all shall be yielded! you
shall enter the cave!”

Amazement produced the desired effect. Natty,
who had reloaded his piece, quietly seated
himself on the logs, and rested his head on his
hand, while the “Light Infantry” ceased their
military movements, and waited the issue in mute
suspense.

In less than a minute Edwards came rushing
down the hill, followed by Major Hartmann with
a velocity that was surprising for his years. They
reached the terrace in an instant, from which the
youth led the way, by the hollow in the rock, to
the mouth of the cave, into which they both entered;
leaving all without silent and gazing after
them with astonishment.