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Authors: James Fenimore Cooper

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“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. An'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. Penguillian, 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 towards hostility; “so mind yourself! Square yourself, 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 ye 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 courtroom 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 afterwards 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's voice, the steward ceased his employment, and Hiram had an opportunity of raising his discomfited visage towards the mediator. Emboldened by the sight of the Sheriff, Mr. Doolittle again had recourse to his lungs.
“I'll have the 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, reproachfully:
“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 without the reach of the steward, when he broke forth in violent appeals for vengeance. The offense was too apparent to be passed over, and the Sheriff, mindful of the impartiality exhibited by his cousin in the recent trial of the Leatherstocking, 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 objections 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 carpenter's face a-one-side, as you call it, I'll maintain it's ag'in 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 deadwood in his headworks, he knows sum'mat 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 fout at anchor, which was what we did in Port Praya 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 departed, 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 “Templetown Coffee-house,” when Natty rose and hung a blanket before the opening, and the prisoners apparently retired for the night.
CHAPTER XXXV
And to avoid the foe's pursuit,
With spurring put their cattle to't;
And till all four were out of wind,
And danger too, ne'er looked behind.
HUDIBRAS
 
AS the shades of evening approached, the jurors, witnesses, and other attendants on the court began to disperse, and before nine o'clock the village was quiet, and its streets nearly deserted. At that hour Judge Temple and his daughter, followed at a short distance by Louisa Grant, walked slowly down the avenue under the slight shadows of the young poplars, holding the following discourse:
“You can best soothe his wounded spirit, my child,” said Marmaduke; “but it will be dangerous to touch on the nature of his offense; the sanctity of the laws must be respected.”
“Surely, sir,” cried the impatient Elizabeth, “those laws that condemn a man like the Leatherstocking to so severe a punishment, for an offense that even I must think very venial, cannot be perfect in themselves.”
“Thou talkest of what thou dost not understand, Elizabeth,” returned her father. “Society cannot exist without wholesome restraints. Those restraints cannot be inflicted without security and respect to the persons of those who administer them; and it would sound ill indeed to report that a judge had extended favor to a convicted criminal because he had saved the life of his child.”
“I see—I see the difficulty of your situation, dear sir,” cried the daughter; “but in appreciating the offense of poor Natty, I cannot separate the minister of the law from the man.”
“There thou talkest as a woman, child; it is not for an assault on Hiram Doolittle, but for threatening the life of a constable, who was in the performance of——”
“It is immaterial whether it be one or the other,” interrupted Miss Temple, with a logic that contained more feeling than reason; “I know Natty to be innocent, and, thinking so, I must think all wrong who oppress him.”
“His judge among the number! Thy father, Elizabeth?”
“Nay, nay, nay; do not put such questions to me; give me my commission, father, and let me proceed to execute it.”
The Judge paused a moment, smiling fondly on his child, and then dropped his hand affectionately on her shoulder, as he answered:
“Thou hast reason, Bess, and much of it, too, but thy heart lies too near thy head. But listen: in this pocketbook are two hundred dollars. Go to the prison—there are none in this place to harm thee—give this note to the jailor, and when thou seest Bumppo, say what thou wilt to the poor old man; give scope to the feelings of thy warm heart; but try to remember, Elizabeth, that the laws alone remove us from the condition of the savages; that he has been criminal, and that his judge was thy father.”
Miss Temple made no reply, but she pressed the hand that held the pocketbook to her bosom, and taking her friend by the arm, they issued together from the enclosure into the principal street of the village.
As they pursued their walk in silence, under the row of houses, where the deeper gloom of the evening effectually concealed their persons, no sound reached them, excepting the slow tread of a yoke of oxen, with the rattling of a cart, that were moving along the street in the same direction with themselves. The figure of the teamster was just discernible by the dim light, lounging by the side of his cattle with a listless air, as if fatigued by the toil of the day. At the corner, where the jail stood, the progress of the ladies was impeded, for a moment, by the oxen, who were turned up to the side of the building and given a lock of hay, which they had carried on their necks as a reward for their patient labor. The whole of this was so natural, and so common, that Elizabeth saw nothing to induce a second glance at the team, until she heard the teamster speaking to his cattle in a low voice:
“Mind yourself, Brindle; will you, sir! will you!” The language itself was unusual to oxen, with which all who dwell in a new country are familiar; but there was something in the voice, also, that startled Miss Temple. On turning the corner, she necessarily approached the man, and her look was enabled to detect the person of Oliver Edwards, concealed under the coarse garb of a teamster. Their eyes met at the same instant, and, notwithstanding the gloom and the enveloping cloak of Elizabeth, the recognition was mutual.
“Miss Temple!” “Mr. Edwards!” were exclaimed simultaneously, though a feeling that seemed common to both rendered the words nearly inaudible.
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Edwards, after the moment of doubt had passed. “Do I see you so nigh the jail! But you are going to the rectory; I beg pardon, Miss Grant, I believe; I did not recognize you at first.”
The sigh which Louisa uttered was so faint that it was only heard by Elizabeth, who replied quickly:
“We are going not only to the jail, Mr. Edwards, but into it. We wish to show the Leatherstocking that we do not forget his services, and that at the same time we must be just, we are also grateful. I suppose you are on a similar errand; but let me beg that you will give us leave to precede you ten minutes. Good night, sir; I—I—am quite sorry, Mr. Edwards, to see you reduced to such labor; I am sure my father would——”
“I shall wait your pleasure, madam,” interrupted the youth, coldly. “May I beg that you will not mention my being here?”
“Certainly,” said Elizabeth, returning his bow by a slight inclination of her head, and urging the tardy Louisa forward. As they entered the jailor's house, however, Miss Grant found leisure to whisper:
“Would it not be well to offer part of your money to Oliver? Half of it will pay the fine of Bumppo; and he is so unused to hardships! I am sure my father will subscribe much of his little pittance to place him in a station that is more worthy of him.”
The involuntary smile that passed over the features of Elizabeth was blended with an expression of deep and heartfelt pity. She did not reply, however, and the appearance of the jailor soon recalled the thoughts of both to the object of their visit.
The rescue of the ladies and their consequent interest in his prisoner, together with the informal manners that prevailed in the country, all united to prevent any surprise, on the part of the jailor, at their request for admission to Bumppo. The note of Judge Temple, however, would have silenced all objections, if he had felt them, and he led the way without hesitation to the apartment that held the prisoners. The instant the key was put into the lock, the hoarse voice of Benjamin was heard, demanding:
“Yo! hoy! Who comes there?”
“Some visitors that you'll be glad to see,” returned the jailor. “What have you done to the lock, that it won't turn?”
“Handsomely, handsomely, master,” cried the steward; “I have just drove a nail into a berth alongside of this here bolt, as a stopper, d'ye see, so that Master Do-but-little can't be running in and breezing up another fight atwixt us; for, to my account, there'll be but a banyan with me soon, seeing that they'll mulct me of my Spaniards, all the same as if I'd overflogged the lubber. Throw your ship into the wind, and lay by for a small matter, will ye? And I'll soon clear a passage.”
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