The Pioneers (47 page)

Leatherstocking remained on the hill gazing after their retiring figures until they were hidden by a bend in the road, when he whistled in his dogs, and shouldering his rifle, he returned into the forest.

“Well, it was a skeary thing to the young creaters,” said Natty, while he retrod the path towards the plain. “It might frighten an older woman to see a she painter so near her with a dead cub by its side. I wonder if I had aimed at the varmint's eye, if I shouldn't have touched the life sooner than in the forehead; but they are hard-lived animals, and it was a good shot, consid'ring that I could see nothing but the head and the peak of its tail. Hah! who goes there?”

“How goes it, Natty?” said Mr. Doolittle, stepping out of the bushes, with a motion that was a good deal accelerated by the sight of the rifle that was already lowered in his direction. “What! shooting this warm day! Mind, old man, the law don't get hold on you.”

“The law, squire! I have shook hands with the law these forty years,” returned Natty; “for what has a man who lives in the wilderness to do with the ways of the law?”

“Not much maybe,” said Hiram; “but you sometimes trade in venison. I s'pose you know, Leatherstocking, that there is an act passed to lay a fine of five pounds currency, or twelve dollars and fifty cents, by decimals, on every man who kills a deer betwixt January and August. The Judge had a great hand in getting the law through.”

“I can believe it,” returned the old hunter; “I can believe that or anything of a man who carries on as he does in the country.”

“Yes, the law is quite positive, and the Judge is bent on putting it in force—five pounds penalty. I thought I heard your hounds out on the scent of so'thing this morning: I didn't know but they might get you in difficulty.”

“They know their manners too well,” said Natty, carelessly. “And how much goes to the state's evidence, Squire?”

“How much!” repeated Hiram, quailing under the honest but sharp look of the hunter. “The informer gets half I—I believe—yes, I guess it's half. But there's blood on your sleeve, man—you haven't been shooting anything this morning?”

“I have, though,” said the hunter, nodding his head significantly to the other, “and a good shot I made of it.”

“H-e-m!” ejaculated the magistrate; “and where is the game? I s'pose it's of a good nater, for your dogs won't hunt at anything that isn't choice.”

“They'll hunt anything I tell them to, Squire,” cried Natty, favoring the other with his laugh. “They'll hunt you, if I say so. He-e-e-re, he-e-e-re, Hector—he-e-e-re, slut—come this-a-way, pups—come this-a-way—come hither.”

“Oh! I have always heard a good character of the dogs,” returned Mr. Doolittle, quickening his pace by raising each leg in rapid succession as the hounds scented around his person. “And where is the game, Leatherstocking?”

During this dialogue, the speakers had been walking at a very fast gait, and Natty swung the end of his rifle round, pointing through the bushes, and replied:

“There lies one. How do you like such meat?”

“This!” exclaimed Hiram. “Why this is Judge Temple's dog Brave. Take care, Leatherstocking, and don't make an enemy of the Judge. I hope you haven't harmed the animal?”

“Look for yourself, Mr. Doolittle,” said Natty, drawing his knife from his girdle and wiping it in a knowing manner once or twice across his garment of buckskin. “Does his throat look as if I had cut it with this knife?”

“It is dreadfully torn! It's an awful wound—no knife never did this deed. Who could have done it?”

“The painters behind you, Squire.”

“Painters!” echoed Hiram, whirling on his heel with an agility that would have done credit to a dancing master.

“Be easy, man,” said Natty; “there's two of the venomous things; but the dog finished one, and I have fastened the other's jaws for her; so don't be frightened, Squire, they won't hurt you.”

“And where's the deer?” cried Hiram, staring about him with a bewildered air.

“Anan! deer!” repeated Natty.

“Sartain, an't there venison here, or didn't you kill a buck?”

“What! when the law forbids the thing, Squire!” said the old hunter. “I hope there's no law ag'in killing the painters.”

“No; there's a bounty on the scalps—but—will your dogs hunt painters, Natty?”

“Anything; didn't I tell you they'd hunt a man? He-e-re, he-e-re, pups——”

“Yes, yes, I remember. Well, they are strange dogs, I must say—I am quite in a wonderment.”

Natty had seated himself on the ground, and having laid the grim head of his late ferocious enemy in his lap, was drawing his knife with a practiced hand around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast in such a manner as to preserve their connection, when he answered:

“What at, Squire? Did you never see a painter's scalp afore? Come, you are a magistrate, I wish you'd make me out an order for the bounty.”

“The bounty!” repeated Hiram, holding the ears on the end of his finger for a moment as if uncertain how to proceed. “Well, let us go down to your hut, where you can take the oath, and I will write out the order. I suppose you have a Bible? All the law wants is the four evangelists and the Lord's Prayer.”

“I keep no books,” said Natty a little coldly. “Not such a Bible as the law needs.”

“Oh! there's but one sort of Bible that's good in law,” returned the magistrate; “and yourn will do as well as another's. Come, the carcasses are worth nothing, man; let us go down and take the oath.”

“Softly, softly, Squire,” said the hunter, lifting his trophies very deliberately from the ground and shouldering his rifle. “Why do you want an oath at all for a thing that your own eyes has seen? Won't you believe yourself, that another man must swear to a fact that you know to be true? You have seen me scalp the creaters, and if I must swear to it, it shall be before Judge Temple, who needs an oath.”

“But we have no pen or paper here, Leatherstocking; we must go to the hut for them, or how can I write the order?”

Natty turned his simple features on the cunning magistrate with another of his laughs, as he said:

“And what should I be doing with scholars' tools? I want no pens or paper, not knowing the use of either; and I keep none. No, no, I'll bring the scalps into the village, squire, and you can make out the order on one of your lawbooks, and it will be all the better for it. The deuce take this leather on the neck of the dog, it will strangle the old fool. Can you lend me a knife, Squire?”

Hiram, who seemed particularly anxious to be on good terms with his companion, unhesitatingly complied. Natty cut the thong from the neck of the hound, and, as he returned the knife to its owner, carelessly remarked:

“ 'Tis a good bit of steel, and has cut such leather as this very same, before now, I dare say.”

“Do you mean to charge me with letting your hounds loose?” exclaimed Hiram, with a consciousness that disarmed his caution.

“Loose!” repeated the hunter—“I let them loose myself. I always let them loose before I leave the hut.”

The ungovernable amazement with which Mr. Doolittle listened to this falsehood would have betrayed his agency in the liberation of the dogs had Natty wanted any further confirmation; and the coolness and management of the old man now disappeared in open indignation.

“Look you here, Mr. Doolittle,” he said, striking the breech of his rifle violently on the ground; “what there is in the wigwam of a poor man like me, that one like you can crave, I don't know; but this I tell you to your face, that you never shall put foot under the roof of my cabin with my consent, and that if you harbor round the spot as you have done lately, you may meet with treatment that you will little relish.”

“And let me tell you, Mr. Bumppo,” said Hiram, retreating, however, with a quick step, “that I know you've broke the law, and that I'm a magistrate and will make you feel it, too, before you are a day older.”

“That for you and your law, too,” cried Natty, snapping his fingers at the justice of the peace. “Away with you, you varmint, before the devil tempts me to give you your desarts. Take care, if I ever catch your prowling face in the woods ag'in, that I don't shoot it for an owl.”

There is something at all times commanding in honest indignation, and Hiram did not stay to provoke the wrath of the old hunter to extremities. When the intruder was out of sight, Natty proceeded to the hut, where he found all quiet as the grave. He fastened his dogs, and tapping at the door, which was opened by Edwards, asked:

“Is all safe, lad!”

“Everything,” returned the youth. “Someone attempted the lock, but it was too strong for him.”

“I know the creater,” said Natty, “but he'll not trust himself within reach of my rifle very soon——” What more was uttered by the Leatherstocking in his vexation was rendered inaudible by the closing of the door of the cabin.

TIMON OF ATHENS

 

WHEN Marmaduke Temple and his cousin rode through the gate of the former, the heart of the father had been too recently touched with the best feelings of our nature to leave inclination for immediate discourse. There was an importance in the air of Richard, which would not have admitted of the ordinary informal conversation of the Sheriff without violating all the rules of consistency; and the equestrians pursued their way with great diligence for more than a mile in profound silence. At length, the soft expression of parental affection was slowly chased from the handsome features of the Judge and was gradually supplanted by the cast of humor and benevolence that was usually seated on his brow.

“Well, Dickon,” he said, “since I have yielded myself so far implicitly to your guidance, I think the moment has arrived when I am entitled to further confidence. Why and wherefore are we journeying together in this solemn gait?”

The Sheriff gave a loud hem that rang far in the forest, and keeping his eyes fixed on objects before him, like a man who is looking deep into futurity:

“There has always been one point of difference between us, Judge Temple, I may say, since our nativity,” he replied. “Not that I would insinuate that you are at all answerable for the acts of nature; for a man is no more to be condemned for the misfortunes of his birth, than he is to be commended for the natural advantages he may possess; but on one point we may be said to have differed from our births, and they, you know, occurred within two days of each other.”

“I really marvel, Richard, what this one point can be; for, to my eyes, we seem to differ so materially, and so often——”

“Mere consequences, sir,” interrupted the Sheriff. “All our minor differences proceed from one cause, and that is our opinions of the universal attainments of genius.”

“In what, Dickon?”

“I speak plain English, I believe, Judge Temple; at least I ought; for my father, who taught me, could speak——”

“Greek and Latin,” interrupted Marmaduke. “I well know the qualifications of your family in tongues, Dickon. But proceed to the point; why are we traveling over this mountain today?”

“To do justice to any subject, sir, the narrator must be suffered to proceed in his own way,” continued the Sheriff. “You are of opinion, Judge Temple, that a man is to be qualified by nature and education to do only one thing well, whereas I know that genius will supply the place of learning and that a certain sort of man can do anything and everything.”

“Like yourself, I suppose,” said Marmaduke, smiling.

“I scorn personalities, sir, I say nothing of myself; but there are three men on your Patent of the kind that I should term talented by nature for her general purposes, though acting under the influence of different situations.”

“We are better off, then, than I had supposed. Who are these triumvirs?”

“Why, sir, one is Hiram Doolittle; a carpenter by trade, as you know—and I need only point to the village to exhibit his merits. Then he is a magistrate and might shame many a man in his distribution of justice who has had better opportunities.”

“Well, he is one,” said Marmaduke, with the air of a man that was determined not to dispute the point.

“Jotham Riddel is another.”

“Who?”

“Jotham Riddel.”

“What, that dissatisfied, shiftless, lazy, speculating fellow! He who changes his county every three years, his farm every six months, and his occupation every season! An agriculturist yesterday, a shoemaker today, and a schoolmaster tomorrow? That epitome of all the unsteady and profitless propensities of the settlers without one of their good qualities to counterbalance the evil! Nay, Richard, this is too bad for even——but the third?”

“As the third is not used to hearing such comments on his character, Judge Temple, I shall not name him.”

“The amount of all this, then, Dickon, is that the trio, of which you are one, and the principal, have made some important discovery.”

“I have not said that I am one, Judge Temple. As I told you before, I say nothing egotistical. But a discovery has been made, and you are deeply interested in it.”

“Proceed—I am all ears.”

“No, no, 'duke, you are bad enough, I own, but not so bad as that either: your ears are not quite full grown.”

The Sheriff laughed heartily at his own wit and put himself in good humor thereby, when he gratified his patient cousin with the following explanation: