CHAPTER XXXIV

The Pioneers

by James F. Cooper

CHAPTER XXXIV, THE PIONEERS by James F. Cooper
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“Ha! ha! look! he wears cruel garters!”-Lear.

The punishments of the common law were still known, at the time of our
tale, to the people of New York; and the whipping-post, and its
companion, the stocks, were not yet supplanted by the more merciful
expedients of the public prison. Immediately in front of the jail
those relics of the older times were situated, as a lesson of
precautionary justice to the evil-doers of the settlement.

Natty followed the constables to this spot, bowing his head in
submission to a power that he was unable to op pose, and surrounded by
the crowd that formed a circle about his person, exhibiting in their
countenances strong curiosity. A constable raised the upper part of
the stocks, and pointed with his finger to the holes where the old man
was to place his feet. Without making the least objection to the
punishment, the Leather-Stocking quietly seated himself on the ground,
and suffered his limbs to be laid in the openings, without even a
murmur; though he cast one glance about him, in quest of that sympathy
that human nature always seems to require under suffering “ but he met
no direct manifestations of pity, neither did he see any unfeeling
exultation, or hear a single reproachful epithet. The character of
the mob, if it could be 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 hoarse tone, as if seeking for some cause to create a quarrel:

“Where away, master constable, is the use of clapping a man in them
here bilboes? It neither stops his grog nor hurts his back; what for
is it that you do the thing?”

“‘Tis the sentence of the court, Mr. Penguillium, and there’s law for
it, I s’pose.”

“Ay, ay, I know that there’s law for the thing; but where away do you
find the use, I say? it does no harm, and it only keeps a man by the
heels for the small matter of two glasses”

“Is it no harm, Benny Pump,” said Natty, raising his eyes with a
piteous look in the face of the steward—” is it no harm to show off a
man in his 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 war of ‘fifty-six, and seen the enemy in the ‘seventy-six
business, into a place like this, where the boys can point at him and
say, I have known the time when he was a spectacle for the county? Is
it no harm to bring down the pride of an honest man to be the equal of
the beasts of the forest?”

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

“Now lower away, master constable, lower away, I tell ye! If-so-be
there’s such a thing hereabouts, as a man that wants to see a bear,
let him look and be d—d, and he shall find two of them, and mayhap one
of the same that can bite as well as growl.”

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

“You’ve my orders, and what do you need better to meddle with my own
feet? so lower away, will ye, and let me see the man that chooses to
open his mouth with a grin on it.”

“There can’t be any harm in locking up a creatur’ that will enter the
pound,” said the constable, laughing, and closing the stocks on them
both.

It was fortunate that this act was executed with decision, for the
whole of the spectators, when they saw Benjamin assume the position he
took, felt an inclination for merriment, which few thought it worth
while to suppress. The steward struggled violently for his liberty
again, with an 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
for the small matter of a log-glass, will ye, and let me show some of
them there 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 of the prisoner.”

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

“Taking it by and large, Master Bump-ho, it’s but a small matter after
all,” he said. “Now, I’ve known very good sort of men, aboard of the
Boadishey, laid by the heels, for nothing, mayhap, but forgetting that
they’d drunk their allowance already, when a glass of grog has come in
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 a
soft bottom and plenty of room for the sweep of your hawse. Now I’ve
seen many a man, for over-shooting his reckoning, as I told ye moored
head 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
a pump-bolt lashed athwartship his jaws, all the same as an outrigger
along 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 humbled
countenance, he attempted a smile, as he said:

“Anan!”

“‘Tis nothing, I say, but a small matter of a squall that will soon
blow over,” continued Benjamin. “ To you that has such a length of
keel, it must be all the same as nothing; thof, seeing that I am
little short in my lower timbers, they’ve triced my heels up in such a
way as to give me a bit of a cant. But what cares I, Master Bump-ho,
if the ship strains a little at her anchor? it’s only for a dog-watch,
and dam’me but she’ll sail with you then on that cruise after them
said beaver. I'm not much used to small arms, seeing that I was
stationed at the ammunition- boxes, being summat too low-rigged to see
over the ham- mock-cloths; but I can carry the game, dye see, and
mayhap make out to lend a hand with the traps; and if- so-be you’re
any way so handy with them as ye be with your boat-hook, ‘twill be but
a short cruise after all, I've squared the yards with Squire Dickens
this morning, and I shall send him word that he needn’t bear my name
on the books again till such time as the cruise is 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 your fair-
weather chaps, Master Bump-ho, as sails only in smooth water. When I
find a friend, I sticks by him, dye see. Now, there’s no better man
a-going than Squire Dickens, and I love him about the same as I loves
Mistress Hollister’s new keg of Jamaiky.” The steward paused, and
turning his uncouth visage on the hunter, he surveyed him with a
roguish leer of his eye, and gradually suffered the muscles of his
hard features to relax, until his face was illuminated by the display
of his white teeth, when he “ dropped his voice, and added; “I say,
Master Leather-

Stocking, ‘tis fresher and livelier than any Hollands you’ll get in
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 to
lighten my upper works.”

Natty sighed, and gazed about him on the crowd, that already began to
disperse, and which had now diminished greatly, as its members
scattered in their various pursuits. He looked wistfully at Benjamin,
but did not reply; a deeply-seated anxiety seeming to absorb every
other sensation, and to throw a melancholy gloom over his wrinkled
features, which were working with the movements of his mind.

The steward was about to act on the old principle, that silence gives
consent, when Hiram Doolittle, attended by Jotham, stalked out of the
crowd, across the open space, and approached the stocks. The
magistrate passed by the end where Benjamin was seated, and posted
himself, at a safe distance from the steward, in front of the Leather-
Stocking. Hiram stood, for a moment, cowering before the keen looks
that Natty fastened on him, and suffering under an embarrassment that
was quite new; when having in some degree recovered himself, he looked
at the heavens, and then at the smoky atmosphere, as if it were only
an ordinary meeting with a friend, and said in his formal, hesitating
way:

“Quite a scurcity of rain, lately; I some think we shall have a long
drought on’t.”

Benjamin was occupied in untying his bag of dollars, and did not
observe the approach of the magistrate, while Natty turned his face,
in which every 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 is
dreadfully 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 opinion
was peculiar to his species. It was a jesuitical, cold, unfeeling,
and selfish manner, that seemed to say, “I have kept within the law,”
to the man he had so cruelly injured. It quite overcame the restraint
that the old hunter had been laboring to impose on himself, and he
burst out in a warm glow of indignation.

“Why should the rain fall from the clouds,” he cried, “when you force
the tears from the eyes of the old, the sick, and the poor! Away with
ye—away with ye! you may be formed in the image of the Maker, but
Satan dwells in your heart. Away with ye, I say! I am mournful, and
the sight of ye brings bitter thoughts.”

Benjamin ceased thumbing his money, and raised his head at the instant
that Hiram, who was thrown off his guard by the invectives of the
hunter, unluckily trusted his person within reach of the steward, who
grasped one of his legs with a hand that had the grip of a vise, and
whirled the magistrate from his feet, before he had either time to
collect 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
originally intended for a very different sort of a man. He exerted
his physical powers on the present occasion, with much discretion;
and, as he had taken his antagonist at a great disadvantage, the
struggle resulted very soon in Benjamin getting the magistrate fixed
in a posture somewhat similar to his own, and manfully placed face to
face.

“You’re a ship’s cousin, I tell ye, Master Doo-but-little,” roared the
steward; “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
then you 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 much malice, 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 him down as he lay at his anchors? But I’ve logged many a
hard thing against your 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’ll soon know who’s the better man.”

“Jotham!” cried the frightened magistrate—” Jotham! call in the
constables. Mr. Penguillium, I command the peace—I order you to keep
the peace.”

“There's been more peace than love atwixt us, master,” cried the
steward, making some very unequivocal demonstrations toward hostility;
“so mind yourself! square your self, I say! do you smell this here bit
of 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 on
me if you dare!”

“If you call this laying, master, you are welcome to the eggs,” roared
the steward.

It becomes our disagreeable duty to record here, that the acts of
Benjamin now became violent; for he darted his sledge-hammer violently
on the anvil of Mr. Doolittle’s countenance, and the place became in
an instant a scene of tumult and confusion. The crowd rushed in a
dense circle around the spot, while some ran to the court room to give
the alarm, and one or two of the more juvenile part of the multitude
had a desperate trial of speed to see who should be the happy man to
communicate 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 he
knocked him over with the other; for he would have been disgraced in
his own estimation, had he struck a blow on a fallen adversary. By
this considerate arrangement he had found means to hammer the visage
of Hiram out of all shape, by the time Richard succeeded in forcing
his way through the throng to the point of combat. The sheriff
afterward declared that, independently of his mortification as
preserver of the peace of the county, at this interruption to its
harmony, he was never so grieved in his life as when he saw this
breach of unity between his favorites. Hiram had in some degree
become necessary to his vanity, and Benjamin, strange as it may
appear, he really loved. This attachment was exhibited in the first
words that he uttered.

“Squire Doolittle! Squire Doolittle! I am ashamed to see a man of your
character 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,
and Hiram had an opportunity of raising his discomfited visage toward
the mediator. Emboldened by the sight of the sheriff, Mr. Doolittle
again had recourse to his lungs.

“I’ll have law on you for this,” he cried desperately; “I’ll have the
law on you for this. I call on you, Mr. Sheriff, to seize this man,
and I 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 mild
and docile as a lamb. It was for your docility that I most esteemed
you. Benjamin! Benjamin! you have not only disgraced yourself, but
your friends, 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
of the steward, when he broke forth in violent appeals for vengeance.
The offence was too apparent to be passed over, and the sheriff,
mindful of the impartiality exhibited by his cousin in the recent
trial of the Leather-Stocking, came to the painful conclusion that it
was necessary to commit his major-domo to prison. As the time of
Natty’s punishment was expired, and Benjamin found that they were to
be confined, for that night at least, in the same apartment, he made
no very strong objection to the measure, nor spoke of bail, though, as
the sheriff preceded the party of constables that conducted them to
the jail, he uttered the following remonstrance:

“As to being berthed with Master Bump-ho for a night or so, it’s but
little I think of it, Squire Dickens, seeing that I calls him an
honest man, and one as has a handy way with boat-hooks and rifles; but
as for owning that a man desarves anything worse than a double
allowance, for knocking that carpenters face a-one-side, as you call
it, I’ll maintain it’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’t got 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 broadside to broadside, only that it was foot at anchor,
which was what we did in Port Pray a roads, when Suff’ring came in
among us; and a suff’ring time he had of it before he got out again.”

Richard thought it unworthy of him to make any reply to this speech,
but when his prisoners were safely lodged in an outer dungeon,
ordering the bolts 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
paced their 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 the childish aspect of aged forgetfulness, which would
vanish directly in an expression of deep and obvious anxiety.

At the close of the day, Edwards was seen at the window, in earnest
dialogue with his friend; and after he de parted it was thought that
he had communicated words of comfort to the hunter, who threw himself
on his pallet and was soon in a deep sleep. The curious spectators
had exhausted the conversation of the steward, who had drunk good
fellowship with 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 a blanket before the opening, and the prisoners apparently
retired for the night.