The Pioneers (53 page)

“Why, do you see, Squire, the parson was very solemn, and I just closed my eyes in order to think the better with myself, just the same as you'd put in the deadlights to make all snug, and when I opened them ag'in I found the congregation were getting under weigh for home, so I calculated the ten minutes would cover the leeway after the glass was out. It was only some such matter as a cat's nap.”

“Oh, ho! master Benjamin, you were asleep, were you! But I'll set down no such slander against an orthodox divine.” Richard wrote twenty-nine minutes in his journal, and continued—“Why, what's this you've got opposite ten o'clock A.M.? A full moon! Had you a moon visible by day! I have heard of such portents before now, but—eh! what's this alongside of it? An hourglass?”

“That!” said Benjamin, looking coolly over the Sheriff's shoulder, and rolling the tobacco about in his mouth with a jocular air; “why, that's a small matter of my own. It's no moon, Squire, but only Betty Hollister's face; for, d'ye see, sir, hearing all the same as if she had got up a new cargo of Jamaiky from the river, I called in as I was going to the church this morning—ten A.M. was it?—just the time—and tried a glass; and so I logged it, to put me in mind of calling to pay her like an honest man.”

“That was it, was it?” said the Sheriff, with some displeasure at this innovation on his memoranda. “And could you not make a better glass than this? It looks like a death's head and an hourglass.”

“Why, as I liked the stuff, Squire,” returned the steward, “I turned in, homeward bound, and took t'other glass, which I set down at the bottom of the first, and that gives the thing the shape it has. But as I was there again tonight and paid for the three at once, your honor may as well run the sponge over the whole business.”

“I will buy you a slate for your own affairs, Benjamin,” said the Sheriff; “I don't like to have the journal marked over in this manner.”

“You needn't—you needn't, Squire; for seeing that I was likely to trade often with the woman while this barrel lasted, I've opened a fair account with Betty, and she keeps her marks on the back of her bar door, and I keeps the tally on this here bit of a stick.”

As Benjamin concluded he produced a piece of wood on which five very large, honest notches were apparent. The Sheriff cast his eyes on this new ledger for a moment, and continued:

“What have we here! Saturday, two P.M.—why here's a whole family piece! Two wine glasses upside down!”

“That's two women; the one this-a-way is Miss 'Lizzy, and t'other is the parson's young'un.”

“Cousin Bess and Miss Grant!” exclaimed the Sheriff in amazement. “What have they to do with my journal?”

“They'd enough to do to get out of the jaws of that there painter, or panther,” said the immovable steward.

“This here thingum'y, Squire, that maybe looks sum'mat like a rat, is the beast, d'ye see; and this here t'other thing, keel uppermost, is poor old Brave, who died nobly, all the same as an admiral fighting for his king and country: and that there——”

“Scarecrow,” interrupted Richard.

“Ay, mayhap it do look a little wild or so,” continued the steward; “but to my judgment, Squire, it's the best image I've made, seeing it's most like the man himself—well, that's Natty Bumppo, who shot this here painter, that killed that there dog, who would have eaten or done worse to them here young ladies.”

“And what the devil does all this mean?” cried Richard, impatiently.

“Mean!” echoed Benjamin; “it is as true as the Boadishey's logbook——”

He was interrupted by the Sheriff, who put a few direct questions to him that obtained more intelligible answers, by which means he became possessed of a tolerably correct idea of the truth. When the wonder and, we must do Richard the justice to say, the feelings also that were created by this narrative had in some degree subsided, the Sheriff turned his eyes again on his journal, where more inexplicable hieroglyphics met his view.

“What have we here!” he cried. “Two men boxing! Has there been a breach of the peace? Ah, that's the way, the moment my back is turned——”

“That's the Judge and young Master Edwards,” interrupted the steward, very cavalierly.

“How! 'duke fighting with Oliver! What the devil has got into you all? More things have happened within the last thirty-six hours than in the preceding six months.”

“Yes, it's so indeed, Squire,” returned the steward; “I've known a smart chase, and a fight at the tail of it, where less has been logged than I've got on that there slate. Howsomnever, they didn't come to facers, only passed a little jaw fore and aft.”

“Explain! explain!” cried Richard. “It was about the mines, ha!—ay, ay, I see it, I see it; here is a man with a pick on his shoulder. So you heard it all, Benjamin?”

“Why, yes, it was about their minds, I believe, Squire,” returned the steward; “and by what I can learn, they spoke them pretty plainly to one another. Indeed, I may say that I overheard a small matter of it myself, seeing that the windows was open, and I hard by. But this here is no pick, but an anchor on a man's shoulder; and here's the other fluke down his back, maybe a little too close, which signifies that the lad has got under weigh and left his moorings.”

“Has Edwards left the house?”

“He has.”

Richard pursued this advantage; and, after a long and close examination, he succeeded in getting out of Benjamin all that he knew not only concerning the misunderstanding but of the attempt to search the hut and Hiram's discomfiture. The Sheriff was no sooner possessed of these facts, which Benjamin related with all possible tenderness to the Leatherstocking, than, snatching up his hat and bidding the astonished steward secure the doors and go to his bed, he left the house.

For at least five minutes after Richard disappeared, Benjamin stood with his arms akimbo and his eyes fastened on the door; when, having collected his astonished faculties, he prepared to execute the orders he had received.

It has been already said that the “court of common pleas and general sessions of the peace” or, as it is commonly called, the “county court,” over which Judge Temple presided, held one of its stated sessions on the following morning. The attendants of Richard were officers who had come to the village, as much to discharge their usual duties at this court as to escort the prisoners; and the Sheriff knew their habits too well not to feel confident he should find most, if not all of them, in the public room of the jail, discussing the qualities of the keeper's liquors. Accordingly, he held his way through the silent streets of the village, directly to the small and insecure building that contained all the unfortunate debtors, and some of the criminals of the county, and where justice was administered to such unwary applicants as were so silly as to throw away two dollars in order to obtain one from their neighbors. The arrival of four malefactors in the custody of a dozen officers was an event, at that day, in Templeton; and when the Sheriff reached the jail, he found every indication that his subordinates intended to make a night of it.

The nod of the Sheriff brought two of his deputies to the door, who in their turn drew off six or seven of the constables. With this force Richard led the way through the village towards the bank of the lake, undisturbed by any noise, except the barking of one or two curs, who were alarmed by the measured tread of the party, and by the low murmurs that ran through their own numbers, as a few cautious questions and answers were exchanged, relative to the object of their expedition. When they had crossed the little bridge of hewn logs that was thrown over the Susquehanna, they left the highway and struck into that field which had been the scene of the victory over the pigeons. From this they followed their leader into the low bushes of pines and chestnuts which had sprung up along the shores of the lake, where the plow had not succeeded the fall of the trees, and soon entered the forest itself. Here Richard paused and collected his troop around him.

“I have required your assistance, my friends,” he said, in a low voice, “in order to arrest Nathaniel Bumppo, commonly called the Leatherstocking. He has assaulted a magistrate and resisted the execution of a search warrant by threatening the life of a constable with his rifle. In short, my friends, he has set an example of rebellion to the laws, and has become a kind of outlaw. He is suspected of other misdemeanors and offenses against private rights; and I have this night taken on myself, by the virtue of my office of Sheriff, to arrest the said Bumppo and bring him to the county jail, that he may be present and forthcoming to answer to these heavy charges before the court tomorrow morning. In executing this duty, friends and fellow citizens, you are to use courage and discretion. Courage, that you may not be daunted by any lawless attempts that this man may make with his rifle and his dogs to oppose you; and discretion, which here means caution and prudence, that he may not escape from this sudden attack—and for other good reasons that I need not mention. You will form yourselves in a complete circle around his hut, and at the word ‘advance,' called aloud by me, you will rush forward and, without giving the criminal time for deliberation, enter his dwelling by force and make him your prisoner. Spread yourselves for this purpose, while I shall descend to the shore with a deputy to take charge of that point; and all communications must be made directly to me, under the bank in front of the hut, where I shall station myself and remain in order to receive them.”

This speech, which Richard had been studying during his walk, had the effect that all similar performances produce, of bringing the dangers of the expedition immediately before the eyes of his forces. The men divided, some plunging deeper into the forest in order to gain their stations without giving an alarm, and others continuing to advance at a gait that would allow the whole party to go in order: but all devising the best plan to repulse the attack of a dog, or to escape a rifle bullet. It was a moment of dread expectation and interest.

When the Sheriff thought time enough had elapsed for the different divisions of his force to arrive at their stations, he raised his voice in the silence of the forest and shouted the watchword. The sounds played among the arched branches of the trees in hollow cadences; but when the last sinking tone was lost on the ear, in place of the expected howls of the dogs, no other noises were returned but the crackling of torn branches and dried sticks as they yielded before the advancing steps of the officers. Even this soon ceased, as if by a common consent, when the curiosity and impatience of the Sheriff getting the complete ascendency over discretion, he rushed up the bank, and in a moment stood on the little piece of cleared ground in front of the spot where Natty had so long lived. To his amazement, in place of the hut he saw only its smoldering ruins.

The party gradually drew together about the heap of ashes and the ends of smoking logs; while a dim flame in the center of the ruin, which still found fuel to feed its lingering life, threw its pale light, flickering with the passing currents of the air, around the circle, now showing a face with eyes fixed in astonishment, and then glancing to another countenance, leaving the former shaded in the obscurity of night. Not a voice was raised in inquiry, nor an exclamation made in astonishment. The transition from excitement to disappointment was too powerful for speech: and even Richard lost the use of an organ that was seldom known to fail him.

The whole group were yet in the fullness of their surprise when a tall form stalked from the gloom into the circle, treading down the hot ashes and dying embers with callous feet; and standing over the light, lifted his cap, and exposed the bare head and weather-beaten features of the Leatherstocking. For a moment he gazed at the dusky figures who surrounded him, more in sorrow than in anger, before he spoke.

“What would ye with an old and helpless man?” he said. “You've driven God's creaters from the wilderness, where his providence had put them for his own pleasure: and you've brought in the troubles and divilties of the law, where no man was ever known to disturb another. You have driven me, that have lived forty long years of my appointed time in this very spot, from my home and the shelter of my head, lest you should put your wicked feet and wasty ways in my cabin. You've driven me to burn these logs under which I've eaten and drunk—the first of Heaven's gifts, and the other of the pure springs—for the half of a hundred years; and to mourn the ashes under my feet, as a man would weep and mourn for the children of his body. You've rankled the heart of an old man, that has never harmed you or you'rn, with bitter feelings towards his kind, at a time when his thoughts should be on a better world; and you've driven him to wish that the beasts of the forest, who never feast on the blood of their own families, was his kindred and race: and now, when he has come to see the last brand of his hut, before it is melted into ashes, you follow him up, at midnight, like hungry hounds on the track of a worn-out and dying deer. What more would ye have? For I am here—one too many. I come to mourn, not to fight; and, if it is God's pleasure, work your will on me.”

When the old man ended, he stood, with the light glimmering around his thinly covered head, looking earnestly at the group, which receded from the pile with an involuntary movement, without the reach of the quivering rays, leaving a free passage for his retreat into the bushes, where pursuit, in the dark, would have been fruitless. Natty seemed not to regard this advantage; but stood facing each individual in the circle in succession, as if to see who would be the first to arrest him. After a pause of a few moments, Richard began to rally his confused faculties; and, advancing, apologized for his duty and made him his prisoner. The party now collected; and, preceded by the Sheriff, with Natty in their center, they took their way towards the village.