The Pioneers; Or, The Sources of the Susquehanna

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  "Ha! ha! look! he wears cruel garters!"--Lear.

  The punishments of the common law were still known, at the time ofour tale, to the people of New York; and the whipping-post, and itscompanion, the stocks, were not yet supplanted by the more mercifulexpedients of the public prison. Immediately in front of the jail thoserelics of the older times were situated, as a lesson of precautionaryjustice to the evil-doers of the settlement.

  Natty followed the constables to this spot, bowing his head insubmission to a power that he was unable to op pose, and surrounded bythe crowd that formed a circle about his person, exhibiting in theircountenances strong curiosity. A constable raised the upper part of thestocks, and pointed with his finger to the holes where the old man wasto place his feet. Without making the least objection to the punishment,the Leather-Stocking quietly seated himself on the ground, and sufferedhis limbs to be laid in the openings, without even a murmur; though hecast one glance about him, in quest of that sympathy that humannature always seems to require under suffering but he met no directmanifestations of pity, neither did he see any unfeeling exultation, orhear a single reproachful epithet. The character of the mob, if it couldbe called by such a name, was that of attentive subordination.

  The constable was in the act of lowering the upper plank, when Benjamin,who had pressed close to the side of the prisoner, said, in his hoarsetone, as if seeking for some cause to create a quarrel:

  "Where away, master constable, is the use of clapping a man in them herebilboes? It neither stops his grog nor hurts his back; what for is itthat you do the thing?"

  "'Tis the sentence of the court, Mr. Penguillium, and there's law forit, I s'pose."

  "Ay, ay, I know that there's law for the thing; but where away do youfind the use, I say? it does no harm, and it only keeps a man by theheels for the small matter of two glasses."

  "Is it no harm, Benny Pump," said Natty, raising his eyes with a piteouslook in the face of the steward--"is it no harm to show off a man inhis seventy-first year, like a tame bear, for the settlers to look on?Is it no harm to put an old soldier, that has served through the warof 'fifty-six, and seen the enemy in the 'seventy-six business, into aplace like this, where the boys can point at him and say, I have knownthe time when he was a spectacle for the county? Is it no harm to bringdown the pride of an honest man to be the equal of the beasts of theforest?"

  Benjamin stared about him fiercely, and could he have found a singleface that expressed contumely, he would have been prompt to quarrelwith its owner; but meeting everywhere with looks of sobriety, andoccasionally of commiseration, he very deliberately seated himself bythe side of the hunter, and, placing his legs in the two vacant holes ofthe stocks, he said:

  "Now lower away, master constable, lower away, I tell ye! If-so-bethere's such a thing hereabouts, as a man that wants to see a bear, lethim look and be d--d, and he shall find two of them, and mayhap one ofthe same that can bite as well as growl."

  "But I have no orders to put you in the stocks, Mr. Pump," cried theconstable; "you must get up and let me do my duty."

  "You've my orders, and what do you need better to meddle with my ownfeet? so lower away, will ye, and let me see the man that chooses toopen his mouth with a grin on it."

  "There can't be any harm in locking up a creatur' that will enter thepound," said the constable, laughing, and closing the stocks on themboth.

  It was fortunate that this act was executed with decision, for the wholeof the spectators, when they saw Benjamin assume the position he took,felt an inclination for merriment, which few thought it worth while tosuppress. The steward struggled violently for his liberty again, withan evident intention of making battle on those who stood nearest to him;but the key was already turned, and all his efforts were vain.

  "Hark ye, master constable," he cried, "just clear away your bilboes forthe small matter of a log-glass, will ye, and let me show some of themthere chaps who it is they are so merry about."

  "No, no, you would go in, and you can't come out," returned the officer,"until the time has expired that the Judge directed for the keeping ofthe prisoner."

  Benjamin, finding that his threats and his struggles were useless, hadgood sense enough to learn patience from the resigned manner of hiscompanion, and soon settled himself down by the side of Natty, witha contemptuousness expressed in his hard features, that showed hehad substituted disgust for rage. When the violence of the steward'sfeelings had in some measure subsided, he turned to his fellow-sufferer,and, with a motive that might have vindicated a worse effusion, heattempted the charitable office of consolation,

  "Taking it by and large, Master Bump-ho, it's but a small matter afterall," he said. "Now, I've known very good sort of men, aboard of theBoadishey, laid by the heels, for nothing, mayhap, but forgetting thatthey'd drunk their allowance already, when a glass of grog has comein their way. This is nothing more than riding with two anchors ahead,waiting for a turn in the tide, or a shift of wind, d'ye see, with asoft bottom and plenty of room for the sweep of your hawse. Now I'veseen many a man, for over-shooting his reckoning, as I told ye mooredhead and starn, where he couldn't so much as heave his broadside round,and mayhap a stopper clapped on his tongue too, in the shape of apump-bolt lashed athwartship his jaws, all the same as an outriggeralong side of a taffrel-rail."

  The hunter appeared to appreciate the kind intentions of the other,though he could not understand his eloquence, and, raising his humbledcountenance, he attempted a smile, as he said:

  "Anan!"

  "'Tis nothing, I say, but a small matter of a squall that will soon blowover," continued Benjamin. "To you that has such a length of keel, itmust be all the same as nothing; thof, seeing that I am little short inmy lower timbers, they've triced my heels up in such a way as to give mea bit of a cant. But what cares I, Master Bump-ho, if the ship strainsa little at her anchor? it's only for a dog-watch, and dam'me but she'llsail with you then on that cruise after them said beaver. I'm not muchused to small arms, seeing that I was stationed at the ammunition-boxes,being summat too low-rigged to see over the hammock-cloths; but I cancarry the game, dye see, and mayhap make out to lend a hand with thetraps; and if so, be you're any way so handy with them as ye be withyour boat-hook, 'twill be but a short cruise after all, I've squared theyards with Squire Dickens this morning, and I shall send him word thathe needn't bear my name on the books again till such time as the cruiseis over."

  "You're used to dwell with men, Benny," said Leather-Stocking,mournfully, "and the ways of the woods would be hard on you, if----"

  "Not a bit--not a bit," cried the steward; "I'm none of yourfair-weather chaps, Master Bump-ho, as sails only in smooth water. WhenI find a friend, I sticks by him, dye see. Now, there's no better mana-going than Squire Dickens, and I love him about the same as I lovesMistress Hollister's new keg of Jamaiky." The steward paused, andturning his uncouth visage on the hunter, he surveyed him with a roguishleer of his eye, and gradually suffered the muscles of his hard featuresto relax, until his face was illuminated by the display of hiswhite teeth, when he dropped his voice, and added; "I say, MasterLeather-Stocking, 'tis fresher and livelier than any Hollands you'll getin Garnsey. But we'll send a hand over and ask the woman for a taste,for I'm so jammed in these here bilboes that I begin to want summat tolighten my upper works."

  Natty sighed, and gazed about him on the crowd, that already began todisperse, and which had now diminished greatly, as its members scatteredin their various pursuits. He looked wistfully at Benjamin, but did notreply; a deeply-seated anxiety seeming to absorb every other sensation,and to throw a melancholy gloom over his wrinkled features, which wereworking with the movements of his mind.

  The steward was about to act on the old principle, that silence givesconsent, when Hiram Doolittle, attended by Jotham, stalked out of thecrowd, across the open space, and approached the stocks. The magistratepassed by the end where Benjamin was seated, and posted himself, at asafe distance from the
steward, in front of the Leather-Stocking. Hiramstood, for a moment, cowering before the keen looks that Natty fastenedon him, and suffering under an embarrassment that was quite new; whenhaving in some degree recovered himself, he looked at the heavens, andthen at the smoky atmosphere, as if it were only an ordinary meetingwith a friend, and said in his formal, hesitating way:

  "Quite a scurcity of rain, lately; I some think we shall have a longdrought on't."

  Benjamin was occupied in untying his bag of dollars, and did not observethe approach of the magistrate, while Natty turned his face, in whichevery muscle was working, away from him in disgust, without answering.Rather encouraged than daunted by this exhibition of dislike, Hiram,after a short pause, continued:

  "The clouds look as if they'd no water in them, and the earth isdreadfully parched. To my judgment, there'll be short crops this season,if the rain doesn't fail quite speedily."

  The air with which Mr. Doolittle delivered this prophetical opinionwas peculiar to his species. It was a jesuitical, cold, unfeeling, andselfish manner, that seemed to say, "I have kept within the law," to theman he had so cruelly injured. It quite overcame the restraint that theold hunter had been laboring to impose on himself, and he burst out in awarm glow of indignation.

  "Why should the rain fall from the clouds," he cried, "when you forcethe tears from the eyes of the old, the sick, and the poor! Away withye--away with ye! you may be formed in the image of the Maker, but Satandwells in your heart. Away with ye, I say! I am mournful, and the sightof ye brings bitter thoughts."

  Benjamin ceased thumbing his money, and raised his head at the instantthat Hiram, who was thrown off his guard by the invectives of thehunter, unluckily trusted his person within reach of the steward, whograsped one of his legs with a hand that had the grip of a vise, andwhirled the magistrate from his feet, before he had either time tocollect his senses or to exercise the strength he did really possess.Benjamin wanted neither proportions nor manhood in his head, shoulders,and arms, though all the rest of his frame appeared to be originallyintended for a very different sort of a man. He exerted his physicalpowers on the present occasion, with much discretion; and, as he hadtaken his antagonist at a great disadvantage, the struggle resultedvery soon in Benjamin getting the magistrate fixed in a posture somewhatsimilar to his own, and manfully placed face to face.

  "You're a ship's cousin, I tell ye, Master Doo-but-little," roared thesteward; "some such matter as a ship's cousin, sir. I know you, I do,with your fair-weather speeches to Squire Dickens, to his face, and thenyou go and sarve out your grumbling to all the old women in the town,do ye? Ain't it enough for any Christian, let him harbor never so muchmalice, to get an honest old fellow laid by the heels in this fashion,without carrying sail so hard on the poor dog, as if you would run himdown as he lay at his anchors? But I've logged many a hard thing againstyour name, master, and now the time's come to foot up the day's work,d'ye see; so square yourself, you lubber, square yourself, and we'llsoon know who's the better man."

  "Jotham!" cried the frightened magistrate--"Jotham! call in theconstables. Mr. Penguillium, I command the peace--I order you to keepthe peace."

  "There's been more peace than love atwixt us, master," cried thesteward, making some very unequivocal demonstrations toward hostility;"so mind yourself! square your self, I say! do you smell this here bitof a sledge-hammer?"

  "Lay hands on me if you dare!" exclaimed Hiram, as well as he could,under the grasp which the steward held on his throttle--"lay hands onme if you dare!"

  "If you call this laying, master, you are welcome to the eggs," roaredthe steward.

  It becomes our disagreeable duty to record here, that the acts ofBenjamin now became violent; for he darted his sledge-hammer violentlyon the anvil of Mr. Doolittle's countenance, and the place became inan instant a scene of tumult and confusion. The crowd rushed in a densecircle around the spot, while some ran to the court room to give thealarm, and one or two of the more juvenile part of the multitude hada desperate trial of speed to see who should be the happy man tocommunicate the critical situation of the magistrate to his wife.

  Benjamin worked away, with great industry and a good deal of skill,at his occupation, using one hand to raise up his antagonist, while heknocked him over with the other; for he would have been disgraced inhis own estimation, had he struck a blow on a fallen adversary. By thisconsiderate arrangement he had found means to hammer the visage ofHiram out of all shape, by the time Richard succeeded in forcing hisway through the throng to the point of combat. The sheriff afterwarddeclared that, independently of his mortification as preserver of thepeace of the county, at this interruption to its harmony, he was neverso grieved in his life as when he saw this breach of unity between hisfavorites. Hiram had in some degree become necessary to his vanity, andBenjamin, strange as it may appear, he really loved. This attachment wasexhibited in the first words that he uttered.

  "Squire Doolittle! Squire Doolittle! I am ashamed to see a man of yourcharacter and office forget himself so much as to disturb the peace,insult the court, and beat poor Benjamin in this manner!"

  At the sound of Mr. Jones' voice, the steward ceased his employment, andHiram had an opportunity of raising his discomfited visage toward themediator. Emboldened by the sight of the sheriff, Mr. Doolittle againhad recourse to his lungs.

  "I'll have law on you for this," he cried desperately; "I'll have thelaw on you for this. I call on you, Mr. Sheriff, to seize this man, andI demand that you take his body into custody."

  By this time Richard was master of the true state of the case, and,turning to the steward, he said reproach fully:

  "Benjamin, how came you in the stocks? I always thought you were mildand docile as a lamb. It was for your docility that I most esteemedyou. Benjamin! Benjamin! you have not only disgraced yourself, but yourfriends, by this shameless conduct, Bless me! bless me! Mr. Doolittle,he seems to have knocked your face all of one side."

  Hiram by this time had got on his feet again, and with out the reach ofthe steward, when he broke forth in violent appeals for vengeance. Theoffence was too apparent to be passed over, and the sheriff, mindfulof the impartiality exhibited by his cousin in the recent trial of theLeather-Stocking, came to the painful conclusion that it was necessaryto commit his major-domo to prison. As the time of Natty's punishmentwas expired, and Benjamin found that they were to be confined, for thatnight at least, in the same apartment, he made no very strong objectionto the measure, nor spoke of bail, though, as the sheriff preceded theparty of constables that conducted them to the jail, he uttered thefollowing remonstrance:

  "As to being berthed with Master Bump-ho for a night or so, it's butlittle I think of it, Squire Dickens, seeing that I calls him an honestman, and one as has a handy way with boat-hooks and rifles; but as forowning that a man desarves anything worse than a double allowance, forknocking that carpenters face a-one-side, as you call it, I'll maintainit's agin' reason and Christianity. If there's a bloodsucker in this'ere county, it's that very chap. Ay! I know him! and if he hasn'tgot all the same as dead wood in his headworks, he knows summat of me.Where's the mighty harm, squire, that you take it so much to heart?It's all the same as any other battle, d'ye see sir, being broadsideto broadside, only that it was foot at anchor, which was what we did inPort Pray a roads, when Suff'ring came in among us; and a suff'ring timehe had of it before he got out again."

  Richard thought it unworthy of him to make any reply to this speech, butwhen his prisoners were safely lodged in an outer dungeon, ordering thebolts to be drawn and the key turned, he withdrew.

  Benjamin held frequent and friendly dialogues with different people,through the iron gratings, during the afternoon; but his companion pacedtheir narrow' limits, in his moccasins, with quick, impatient treads,his face hanging on his breast in dejection, or when lifted, at moments,to the idlers at the window, lighted, perhaps, for an instant, with thechildish aspect of aged forgetfulness, which would vanish directly in anexpression of deep and obvious anx
iety.

  At the close of the day, Edwards was seen at the window, in earnestdialogue with his friend; and after he de parted it was thought that hehad communicated words of comfort to the hunter, who threw himself onhis pallet and was soon in a deep sleep. The curious spectators hadexhausted the conversation of the steward, who had drunk good fellowshipwith half of his acquaintance, and, as Natty was no longer in motion,by eight o'clock, Billy Kirby, who was the last lounger at the window,retired into the "Templeton Coffee-house," when Natty rose and hung ablanket before the opening, and the prisoners apparently retired for thenight.