The Pioneers (23 page)

For ten or fifteen minutes, the different individuals, who intended either to bestow or receive edification before the fires of the “Bold Dragoon” on that evening, were collecting, until the benches were nearly filled with men of different occupations. Dr. Todd and a slovenly-looking, shabby-genteel young man, who took tobacco profusely, wore a coat of imported cloth, cut with something like a fashionable air, frequently exhibited a large French silver watch, with a chain of woven hair and a silver key, and who, altogether, seemed as much above the artisans around him as he was himself inferior to the real gentleman, occupied a high-back wooden settee, in the most comfortable corner in the apartment.

Sundry brown mugs, containing cider or beer, were placed between the heavy andirons, and little groups were formed among the guests, as subjects arose, or the liquor was passed from one to the other. No man was seen to drink by himself, nor in any instance was more than one vessel considered necessary for the same beverage; but the glass, or the mug, was passed from hand to hand, until a chasm in the line, or a regard to the rights of ownership, would regularly restore the dregs of the potation to him who defrayed the cost.

Toasts were uniformly drunk; and, occasionally, someone who conceived himself peculiarly endowed by nature to shine in the way of wit would attempt some such sentiment as “hoping that he” who treated “might make a better man than his father,” or, “live till all his friends wished him dead”; while the more humble pot companion contented himself by saying, with a most imposing gravity in his air, “come, here's luck,” or by expressing some other equally comprehensive desire. In every instance, the veteran landlord was requested to imitate the custom of the cupbearers to kings, and taste the liquor he presented, by the invitation of “after you is manners,” with which request he ordinarily complied, by wetting his lips, first expressing the wish of “here's hoping,” leaving it to the imagination of the hearers to fill the vacuum by whatever good each thought most desirable. During these movements, the landlady was busily occupied with mixing the various compounds required by her customers, with her own hands, and occasionally exchanging greetings and inquiries concerning the conditions of their respective families, with such of the villagers as approached the bar.

At length the common thirst being in some measure assuaged, conversation of a more general nature became the order of the hour. The physician, and his companion, who was one of the two lawyers of the village, being considered the best qualified to maintain a public discourse with credit, were the principal speakers, though a remark was hazarded, now and then, by Mr. Doolittle, who was thought to be their inferior only in the enviable point of education. A general silence was produced on all but the two speakers by the following observation from the practitioner of the law:

“So, Dr. Todd, I understand that you have been performing an important operation, this evening, by cutting a charge of buckshot from the shoulder of the son of Leatherstocking?”

“Yes, sir,” returned the other, elevating his little head with an air of importance. “I had a small job up at the Judge's in that way; it was, however, but a trifle to what it might have been, had it gone through the body. The shoulder is not a very vital part; and I think the young man will soon be well. But I did not know that the patient was a son of Leatherstocking: it is news to me to hear that Natty had a wife.”

“It is by no means a necessary consequence,” returned the other, winking, with a shrewd look around the barroom; “there is such a thing, I suppose you know, in law, as a ‘filius nullius.' ”

“Spake it out, man,” exclaimed the landlady; “spake it out in king's English; what for should ye be talking Indian in a room full of Christian folks, though it is about a poor hunter, who is but a little better in his ways than the wild savages themselves? Och! It's to be hoped that the missionaries will, in his own time, make a convarsion of the poor divils; and then it will matter little of what color is the skin, or wedder there be wool or hair on the head.”

“Oh! It is Latin, not Indian, Miss Hollister,” returned the lawyer, repeating his winks and shrewd looks; “and Dr. Todd understands Latin, or how would he read the labels on his gallipots and drawers? No, no, Miss Hollister, the Doctor understands me; don't you, Doctor?”

“Hem—why I guess I am not far out of the way,” returned Elnathan, endeavoring to imitate the expression of the other's countenance by looking jocular. “Latin is a queer language, gentlemen; now I rather guess there is no one in the room except Squire Lippet, who can believe that ‘Far. Av.' means oatmeal in English.”

The lawyer in his turn was a good deal embarrassed by this display of learning; for, although he actually had taken his first degree at one of the eastern universities, he was somewhat puzzled with the terms used by his companion. It was dangerous, however, to appear to be outdone in learning in a public barroom, and before so many of his clients; he therefore put the best face on the matter and laughed knowingly, as if there were a good joke concealed under it, that was understood only by the physician and himself. All this was attentively observed by the listeners, who exchanged looks of approbation; and the expressions of “tonguey man,” and “I guess Squire Lippet knows, if anybody doos,” were heard in different parts of the room, as vouchers for the admiration of his auditors. Thus encouraged, the lawyer rose from his chair, and turning his back to the fire, and facing the company, he continued:

“The son of Natty, or the son of nobody, I hope the young man is not going to let the matter drop. This is a country of laws; and I should like to see it fairly tried, whether a man who owns, or says he owns, a hundred thousand acres of land has any more right to shoot a body than another. What do you think of it, Dr. Todd?”

“Oh! Sir, I am of opinion that the gentleman will soon be well, as I said before; the wound isn't in a vital part; and as the ball was extracted so soon, and the shoulder was what I call well attended to, I do not think there is as much danger as there might have been.”

“I say, Squire Doolittle,” continued the attorney, raising his voice, “you are a magistrate and know what is law, and what is not law. I ask you, sir, if shooting a man is a thing that is to be settled so very easily? Suppose, sir, that the young man had a wife and family; and suppose that he was a mechanic like yourself, sir; and suppose that his family depended on him for bread; and suppose that the ball, instead of merely going through the flesh, had broken the shoulder blade and crippled him forever; I ask you all, gentlemen, supposing this to be the case, whether a jury wouldn't give what I call handsome damages?”

As the close of this supposititious case was addressed to the company generally, Hiram did not, at first, consider himself called on for a reply; but finding the eyes of the listeners bent on him in expectation, he remembered his character for judicial discrimination and spoke, observing a due degree of deliberation and dignity.

“Why, if a man should shoot another,” he said, “and if he should do it on purpose, and if the law took notice on't, and if a jury should find him guilty, it would be likely to turn out a state-prison matter.”

“It would so, sir,” returned the attorney. “The law, gentlemen, is no respecter of persons in a free country. It is one of the great blessings that has been handed down to us from our ancestors that all men are equal in the eye of the law as they are by nater. Though some may get property, no one knows how, yet they are not privileged to transgress the laws any more than the poorest citizen in the state. This is my notion, gentlemen; and I think that if a man had a mind to bring this matter up, something might be made out of it that would help pay for the salve—ha! Doctor?”

“Why, sir,” returned the physician, who appeared a little uneasy at the turn the conversation was taking, “I have the promise of Judge Temple before men—not but what I would take his word as soon as his note of hand—but it was before men. Let me see—there was Mounshier Ler Quow, and Squire Jones, and Major Hartmann, and Miss Pettibone, and one or two of the blacks by, when he said that his pocket would amply reward me for what I did.”

“Was the promise made before or after the service was performed?” asked the attorney.

“It might have been both,” returned the discreet physician; “though I'm certain he said so before I undertook the dressing.”

“But it seems that he said his pocket should reward you, Doctor,” observed Hiram. “Now I don't know that the law will hold a man to such a promise; he might give you his pocket with sixpence in't, and tell you to take your pay out on't.”

“That would not be a reward in the eye of the law,” interrupted the attorney—“not what is called a ‘quid pro quo'; nor is the pocket to be considered as an agent, but as part of a man's own person, that is, in this particular. I am of opinion that an action would lie on that promise, and I will undertake to bear him out, free of costs, if he don't recover.”

To this proposition the physician made no reply; but he was observed to cast his eyes around him, as if to enumerate the witnesses, in order to substantiate this promise also, at a future day, should it prove necessary. A subject so momentous as that of suing Judge Temple was not very palatable to the present company in so public a place; and a short silence ensued, that was only interrupted by the opening of the door, and the entrance of Natty himself.

The old hunter carried in his hand his never failing companion, the rifle; and although all of the company were uncovered excepting the lawyer, who wore his hat on one side, with a certain dam'me air, Natty moved to the front of one of the fires, without in the least altering any part of his dress or appearance. Several questions were addressed to him, on the subject of the game he had killed, which he answered readily, and with some little interest; and the landlord, between whom and Natty there existed much cordiality, on account of their both having been soldiers in youth, offered him a glass of a liquid, which, if we might judge from its reception, was no unwelcome guest. When the forester had got his potation also, he quietly took his seat on the end of one of the logs that lay nigh the fires, and the slight interruption produced by his entrance seemed to be forgotten.

“The testimony of the blacks could not be taken, sir,” continued the lawyer, “for they are all the property of Mr. Jones, who owns their time. But there is a way by which Judge Temple, or any other man, might be made to pay for shooting another, and for the cure in the bargain. There is a way, I say, and that without going into the ‘court of errors,' too.”

“And a mighty big error ye would make of it, Mister Todd,” cried the landlady, “should ye be putting the matter into the law at all, with Joodge Temple, who has a purse as long as one of them pines on the hill, and who is an asy man to dale wid, if yees but mind the humor of him. He's a good man is Joodge Temple, and a kind one, and one who will be no the likelier to do the pratty thing, becase ye would wish to tarrify him wid the law. I know of but one objaction to the same, which is an over carelessness about his sowl. It's neither a Methodie, nor a Papish, or Prasbetyrian, that he is, but just nothing at all; and it's hard to think that he, ‘who will not fight the good fight, under the banners of a rig'lar church, in this world, will be mustered among the chosen in heaven,' as my husband, the captain there, as ye call him, says—though there is but one captain that I know, who desaarves the name. I hopes Latherstocking, ye'll no be foolish, and putting the boy up to try the law in the matter; for 'twill be an evil day to ye both, when ye first turn the skin of so paceable an animal as a sheep into a bone of contention. The lad is wilcome to his drink for nothing, until his shoulther will bear the rifle ag'in.”

“Well, that's gin'rous,” was heard from several mouths at once, for this was a company in which a liberal offer was not thrown away; while the hunter, instead of expressing any of that indignation which he might be supposed to feel at hearing the hurt of his young companion alluded to, opened his mouth, with the silent laugh for which he was so remarkable; and after he had indulged his humor, made this reply:

“I know'd the Judge would do nothing with his smoothbore when he got out of his sleigh. I never saw but one smoothbore that would carry at all, and that was a French-ducking piece, upon the big lakes: it had a barrel half as long ag'in as my rifle and would throw fine shot into a goose at 100 yards; but it made dreadful work with the game, and you wanted a boat to carry it about in. When I went with Sir William ag'in the French, at Fort Niagara, all the rangers used the rifle; and a dreadful weapon it is, in the hands of one who knows how to charge it and keep a steady aim. The Captain knows, for he says he was a soldier in Shirley's; and though they were nothing but baggonet men, he must know how we cut up the French and Iroquois in the scrimmages in that war. Chingachgook, which means ‘Big Sarpent' in English, old John Mohegan, who lives up at the hut with me, was a great warrior then, and was out with us; he can tell all about it, too; though he was overhand for the tomahawk, never firing more than once or twice, before he was running in for the scalps. Ah! times is dreadfully altered since then. Why, Doctor, there was nothing but a footpath, or at the most a track for pack horses, along the Mohawk, from the Jarman Flats up to the forts. Now, they say, they talk of running one of them wide roads with gates on it along the river; first making a road, and then fencing it up! I hunted one season back of the Catskills, nigh hand to the settlements, and the dogs often lost the scent, when they came to them highways, there was so much travel on them; though I can't say that the brutes was of a very good breed. Old Hector will wind a deer in the fall of the year, across the broadest place in the Otsego, and that is a mile and a half, for I paced it myself on the ice, when the tract was first surveyed, under the Indian grant.”