The Pioneers (58 page)

The sounds of hammering gave an assurance that the steward was in earnest, and in a short time the lock yielded, when the door was opened.

Benjamin had evidently been anticipating the seizure of his money, for he had made frequent demands on the favorite cask at the “Bold Dragoon,” during the afternoon and evening, and was now in that state which by marine imagery is called “half-seas over.” It was no easy thing to destroy the balance of the old tar by the effects of liquor, for, as he expressed it himself, “he was too low-rigged not to carry sail in all weathers”; but he was precisely in that condition which is so expressively termed “muddy.” When he perceived who the visitors were, he retreated to the side of the room where his pallet lay, and, regardless of the presence of his young mistress, seated himself on it with an air of great sobriety, placing his back firmly against the wall.

“If you undertake to spoil my locks in this manner, Mr. Pump,” said the jailor, “I shall put a stopper, as you call it, on your legs and tie you down to your bed.”

“What for should ye, master?” grumbled Benjamin. “I've rode out one squall today anchored by the heels, and I wants no more of them. Where's the harm of doing all the same as yourself? Leave that there door free outboard, and you'll find no locking inboard, I'll promise ye.”

“I must shut up for the night at nine,” said the jailor, “and it's now forty-two minutes past eight.” He placed the little candle on a rough pine table and withdrew.

“Leatherstocking!” said Elizabeth when the key of the door was turned on them again, “my good friend Leatherstocking! I have come on a message of gratitude. Had you submitted to the search, worthy old man, the death of the deer would have been a trifle, and all would have been well——”

“Submit to the sarch!” interrupted Natty, raising his face from resting on his knees, without rising from the corner where he had seated himself. “D'ye think, gal, I would let such a varmint into my hut? No, no—I wouldn't have opened the door to your own sweet countenance then. But they are wilcome to sarch among the coals and ashes now; they'll find only some such heap as is to be seen at every potashery in the mountains.”

The old man dropped his face again on one hand and seemed to be lost in melancholy.

“The hut can be rebuilt and made better than before,” returned Miss Temple; “and it shall be my office to see it done, when your imprisonment is ended.”

“Can ye raise the dead, child?” said Natty, in a sorrowful voice. “Can ye go into the place where you've laid your fathers, and mothers, and children and gather together their ashes and make the same men and women of them as afore? You do not know what 'tis to lay your head for more than forty years under the cover of the same logs, and to look on the same things for the better part of a man's life. You are young yet, child, but you are one of the most precious of God's creaters. I had a hope for ye that it might come to pass, but it's all over now; this put to that will drive the thing quite out of his mind forever.”

Miss Temple must have understood the meaning of the old man better than the other listeners; for, while Louisa stood innocently by her side, commiserating the griefs of the hunter, she bent her head aside, so as to conceal her features. The action and the feeling that caused it lasted but a moment.

“Other logs, and better, though, can be had, and shall be found for you, my old defender,” she continued. “Your confinement will soon be over, and, before that time arrives, I shall have a house prepared for you, where you may spend the close of your harmless life in ease and plenty.”

“Ease and plenty! House!” repeated Natty, slowly. “You mean well, you mean well, and I quite mourn that it cannot be; but he has seen me a sight and a laughing-stock for——”

“Damn your stocks,” said Benjamin, flourishing his bottle with one hand, from which he had been taking hasty and repeated draughts, while he made gestures of disdain with the other; “who cares for his bilboes? There's a leg that's been stuck up an end like a jib boom for an hour, d'ye see, and what's it the worse for't, ha! Canst tell me, what's it the worser, ha!”

“I believe you forget, Mr. Pump, in whose presence you are,” said Elizabeth.

“Forget you, Miss Lizzy,” returned the steward; “if I do, dam'me; you are not to be forgot, like Goody Prettybones, up at the big house there. I say, old sharp-shooter, she may have pretty bones, but I can't say so much for her flesh, d'ye see, for she looks somewhat like an atomy with another man's jacket on. Now, for the skin of her face, it's all the same as a new topsail with a taut boltrope, being snug at the leaches, but all in a bight about the inner cloths.”

“Peace—I command you to be silent, sir!” said Elizabeth.

“Ay, ay, ma'am,” returned the steward. “You didn't say I shouldn't drink, though.”

“We will not speak of what is to become of others,” said Miss Temple, turning again to the hunter—“but of your own fortunes, Natty. It shall be my care to see that you pass the rest of your days in ease and plenty.”

“Ease and plenty!” again repeated the Leatherstocking. “What ease can there be to an old man who must walk a mile across the open fields before he can find a shade to hide him from a scorching sun! Or what plenty is there where you may hunt a day, and not start a buck, or see anything bigger than a mink, or maybe a stray fox! Ah! I shall have a hard time after them very beavers, for this fine. I must go low toward the Pennsylvany line in search of the creaters, maybe a hundred mile; for they are not to be got hereaway. No, no,—your betterments and clearings have druv the knowing things out of the country; and instead of beaver dams, which is the nater of the animal, and according to Providence, you turn back the waters over the low grounds with your milldams, as if 'twas in man to stay the drops from going where He wills them to go.—Benny, unless you stop your hand from going so often to your mouth, you won't be ready to start when the time comes.”

“Hark'ee, Master Bump-ho,” said the steward; “don't you fear for Ben. When the watch is called, set me on my legs and give me the bearings and distance of where you want to steer, and I'll carry sail with the best of you, I will.”

“The time has come now,” said the hunter, listening; “I hear the horns of the oxen rubbing ag'in the side of the jail.”

“Well, say the word, and then heave ahead, shipmate,” said Benjamin.

“You won't betray us, gal?” said Natty, looking simply into the face of Elizabeth. “You won't betray an old man, who craves to breathe the clear air of heaven? I mean no harm; and if the law says that I must pay the hundred dollars, I'll take the season through, but it shall be forthcoming; and this good man will help me.”

“You catch them,” said Benjamin, with a sweeping gesture of his arm, “and if they get away again, call me a slink, that's all.”

“But what mean you?” cried the wondering Elizabeth. “Here you must stay for thirty days; but I have the money for your fine in this purse. Take it; pay it in the morning and summon patience for your month. I will come often to see you, with my friend; we will make up your clothes with our own hands; indeed, indeed, you shall be comfortable.”

“Would ye, children?” said Natty, advancing across the floor with an air of kindness and taking the hand of Elizabeth. “Would ye be so kearful of an old man, and just for shooting the beast which cost him nothing? Such things doesn't run in the blood, I believe, for you seem not to forget a favor. Your little fingers couldn't do much on a buckskin, nor be you used to such a thread as sinews. But if he hasn't got past hearing, he shall hear it and know it, that he may see, like me, there is some who know how to remember a kindness.”

“Tell him nothing,” cried Elizabeth, earnestly; “if you love me, if you regard my feelings, tell him nothing. It is of yourself only I would talk, and for yourself only I act. I grieve, Leatherstocking, that the law requires that you should be detained here so long; but, after all, it will be only a short month, and——”

“A month!” exclaimed Natty, opening his mouth with his usual laugh. “Not a day, nor a night, nor an hour, gal. Judge Temple may sintence, but he can't keep, without a better dungeon than this. I was taken once by the French, and they put sixty-two of us in a blockhouse, nigh hand to old Frontinac; but 'twas easy to cut through a pine log to them that was used to timber.” The hunter paused and looked cautiously around the room, when, laughing again, he shoved the steward gently from his post, and removing the bedclothes, discovered a hole recently cut in the logs with a mallet and chisel. “It's only a kick, and the outside piece is off, and then——”

“Off! Ay, off!” cried Benjamin, rousing from his stupor. “Well, here's off. Ay! ay! You catch 'em, and I'll hold on to them said beaver hats.”

“I fear this lad will trouble me much,” said Natty; “ 'twill be a hard pull for the mountain, should they take the scent soon, and he is not in a state of mind to run.”

“Run!” echoed the steward. “No, sheer alongside, and let's have a fight of it.”

“Peace!” ordered Elizabeth.

“Ay, ay, ma'am.”

“You will not leave us, surely, Leatherstocking,” continued Miss Temple; “I beseech you, reflect that you will be driven to the woods entirely, and that you are fast getting old. Be patient for a little time, when you can go abroad openly and with honor.”

“Is there beaver to be catched here, gal?”

“If not, here is money to discharge the fine, and in a month you are free. See, here it is in gold.”

“Gold!” said Natty, with a kind of childish curiosity. “It's long sin' I've seen a gold piece. We used to get the broad joes, in the old war, as plenty as the bears be now. I remember there was a man in Dieskau's army, that was killed, who had a dozen of the shining things sewed up in his shirt. I didn't handle them myself, but I seen them cut out with my own eyes; they was bigger and brighter than them be.”

“These are English guineas and are yours,” said Elizabeth; “an earnest of what shall be done for you.”

“Me! Why should you give me this treasure?” said Natty, looking earnestly at the maiden.

“Why! Have you not saved my life? Did you not rescue me from the jaws of the beast?” exclaimed Elizabeth, veiling her eyes, as if to hide some hideous object from her view.

The hunter took the money, and continued turning it in his hand for some time, piece by piece, talking aloud during the operation.

“There's a rifle, they say, out on the Cherry Valley, that will carry a hundred rods and kill. I've seen good guns in my day, but none quite equal to that. A hundred rods with any sartainty is great shooting! Well, well—I'm old, and the gun I have will answer my time. Here, child, take back your gold. But the hour has come; I hear him talking to the cattle, and I must be going. You won't tell of us, gal—you won't tell of us, will ye?”

“Tell of you!” echoed Elizabeth. “But take the money, old man; take the money, even if you go into the mountains.”

“No, no,” said Natty, shaking his head kindly; “I would not rob you so for twenty rifles. But there's one thing you can do for me, if ye will, that no other is at hand to do.”

“Name it—name it.”

“Why, it's only to buy a canister of powder—'twill cost two silver dollars. Benny Pump has the money ready, but we daren't come into the town to get it. Nobody has it but the Frenchman. 'Tis of the best, and just suits a rifle. Will you get it for me, gal?—say, will you get it for me?”

“Will I! I will bring it to you, Leatherstocking, though I toil a day in quest of you through the woods. But where shall I find you, and how?”

“Where!” said Natty, musing a moment—“tomorrow, on the Vision; on the very top of the Vision, I'll meet you, child, just as the sun gets over our heads. See that it's the fine grain; you'll know it by the gloss and the price.”

“I will do it,” said Elizabeth, firmly.

Natty now seated himself, and, placing his feet in the hole, with a slight effort he opened a passage through into the street. The ladies heard the rustling of hay, and well understood the reason why Edward was in the capacity of a teamster.

“Come, Benny,” said the hunter; “ 'twill be no darker tonight, for the moon will rise in an hour.”

“Stay!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “It should not be said that you escaped in the presence of the daughter of Judge Temple. Return, Leatherstocking, and let us retire, before you execute your plan.”

Natty was about to reply when the approaching footsteps of the jailor announced the necessity of his immediate return. He had barely time to regain his feet, and to conceal the hole with the bedclothes, across which Benjamin very opportunely fell, before the key was turned, and the door of the apartment opened.

“Isn't Miss Temple ready to go?” said the civil jailor. “It's the usual hour for locking up.”

“I follow you, sir,” returned Elizabeth, “good night, Leatherstocking.”

“It's a fine grain, gal, and I think 'twill carry lead further than common. I am getting old, and can't follow up the game with the step that I used to could.”

Miss Temple waved her hand for silence, and preceded Louisa and the keeper from the apartment. The man turned the key once, and observed that he would return and secure his prisoners, when he had lighted the ladies to the street. Accordingly, they parted at the door of the building, when the jailor retired to his dungeons, and the ladies walked, with throbbing hearts, towards the corner.

“Now the Leatherstocking refuses the money,” whispered Louisa, “it can all be given to Mr. Edwards, and that added to——”