“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 at the same things for the better part of I a man’s life.
You are young yet, child, but you are one of the most precious of God’s creatures.
I had hoped 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 for ever.”
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 I you may spend the close of your long and 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 been stuck up on end like a jibboom 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 Pretty-bones, up at the big house there.
I say, old sharpshooter, she may have pretty bones, but I can’t say so much for her flesh, d’ye see, for she looks somewhat like anatomy 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 bolt-rope, being snug at the leeches, 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 Leather-Stocking; “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 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 Pennsylvania line in search of the creatures, maybe a hundred mile; for they are not to be got here-away.
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 mill-dams, 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 of my legs and give me the bearings and the distance of where you want me 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 agin’ 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 mouth.
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 a 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 push such a thread as sinews.
But if he hasn’t got past hearing, he shalt 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, Leather-Stocking, 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 block-house, 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, rising from his stupor; “well, here’s off.
Ay! ay! you catch ‘em, and I’ll hold on to them said beaver-hats.”