“Ay! there’s the rub, Joodge,” cried the landlady.
“How can a man stand up and be preaching his word, when all that he is saying is written down, and he is as much tied to it as iver a thaving dragoon was to the pickets?”
“Well, well,” cried Marmaduke, waving his hand for silence, “there is enough said; as Mr. Grant told us, there are different sentiments on such subjects, and in my opinion he spoke most sensibly. So, Jotham, I am told you have sold your betterments to a new settler, and have moved into the village and opened a school.
Was it cash or dicker?”
The man who was thus addressed occupied a seat immediately behind Marmaduke, and one who was ignorant of the extent of the Judge’s observation might have thought he would have escaped notice.
He was of a thin, shapeless figure, with a discontented expression of countenance, and with something extremely shiftless in his whole air, Thus spoken to, after turning and twisting a little, by way of preparation, he made a reply:
“Why part cash and part dicker.
I sold out to a Pumfietman who was so’thin’ forehanded.
He was to give me ten dollar an acre for the clearin’, and one dollar an acre over the first cost on the woodland, and we agreed to leave the buildin’s to men.
So I tuck Asa Montagu, and he tuck Absalom Bement, and they two tuck old Squire Napthali Green.
And so they had a meetin’, and made out a vardict of eighty dollars for the buildin’s.
There was twelve acres of clearin’ at ten dollars, and eighty-eight at one, and the whole came to two hundred and eighty-six dollars and a half, after paying the men.”
“Hum,” said Marmaduke, “what did you give for the place?”
“Why, besides what’s comin’ to the Judge, I gi’n my brother Tim a hundred dollars for his bargain; but then there’s a new house on’t, that cost me sixty more, and I paid Moses a hundred dollars for choppin’, and loggin’, and sowin’, so that the whole stood to me in about two hundred and sixty dollars.
But then I had a great crop oft on’t, and as I got twenty-six dollars and a half more than it cost, I conclude I made a pretty good trade on’t.”
“Yes, but you forgot that the crop was yours without the trade, and you have turned yourself out of doors for twenty-six dollars.”
“Oh! the Judge is clean out,” said the man with a look of sagacious calculation; “he turned out a span of horses, that is wuth a hundred and fifty dollars of any man’s money, with a bran-new wagon; fifty dollars in cash, and a good note for eighty more; and a side-saddle that was valued at seven and a half—so there was jist twelve shillings betwixt us.
I wanted him to turn out a set of harness, and take the cow and the sap troughs.
He wouldn’t—but I saw through it; he thought I should have to buy the tacklin’ afore I could use the wagon and horses; but I knowed a thing or two myself; I should like to know of what use is the tacklin’ to him!
I offered him to trade back agin for one hundred and fifty-five.
But my woman said she wanted to churn, so I tuck a churn for the change.”
“And what do you mean to do with your time this winter?
You must remember that time is money.”
“Why, as master has gone down country to see his mother, who, they say, is going to make a die on’t, I agreed to take the school in hand till he comes back, It times doesn’t get worse in the spring, I’ve some notion of going into trade, or maybe I may move off to the Genesee; they say they are carryin’ on a great stroke of business that-a-way.
If the wust comes to the wust, I can but work at my trade, for I was brought up in a shoe manufactory.”
It would seem that Marmaduke did not think his society of sufficient value to attempt inducing him to remain where he was, for he addressed no further discourse to the man, but turned his attention to other subjects.
After a short pause, Hiram ventured a question:
“What news does the Judge bring us from the Legislature?
It’s not likely that Congress has done much this session; or maybe the French haven’t fit any more battles lately?”
“The French, since they have beheaded their king, have done nothing but fight,” returned the Judge.
“The character of the nation seems changed.
I knew many French gentlemen during our war, and they all appeared to me to be men of great humanity and goodness of heart; but these Jacobins are as blood thirsty as bull-dogs.”
“There was one Roshambow wid us down at Yorrektown,” cried the landlady “a mighty pratty man he was too; and their horse was the very same.
It was there that the sargeant got the hurt in the leg from the English batteries, bad luck to ‘em.”
“Oh! mon pauvre roil” muttered Monsieur Le Quoi.
“The Legislature have been passing laws,” continued Marmaduke, “that the country much required.
Among others, there is an act prohibiting the drawing of seines, at any other than proper seasons, in certain of our streams and small lakes; and another, to prohibit the killing of deer in the teeming months.
These are laws that were loudly called for by judicious men; nor do I despair of getting an act to make the unlawful felling of timber a criminal offence.”
The hunter listened to this detail with breathless attention, and, when the Judge had ended, he laughed in open derision.
“You may make your laws, Judge,” he cried, “but who will you find to watch the mountains through the long summer days, or the lakes at night?
Game is game, and he who finds may kill; that has been the law in these mountains for forty years to my sartain knowledge; and I think one old law is worth two new ones.
None but a green one would wish to kill a doe with a fa’n by its side, unless his moccasins were getting old, or his leggins ragged, for the flesh is lean and coarse.
But a rifle rings among the rocks along the lake shore, sometimes, as if fifty pieces were fired at once—it would be hard to tell where the man stood who pulled the trigger.”
“Armed with the dignity of the law, Mr. Bumppo,” returned the Judge, gravely, “a vigilant magistrate can prevent much of the evil that has hitherto prevailed, and which is already rendering the game scarce.
I hope to live to see the day when a man’s rights in his game shall be as much respected as his title to his farm.”
“Your titles and your farms are all new together,” cried Natty; “but laws should be equal, and not more for one than another.
I shot a deer, last Wednesday was a fort night, and it floundered through the snow-banks till it got over a brush fence; I catched the lock of my rifle in the twigs in following, and was kept back, until finally the creature got off.
Now I want to know who is to pay me for that deer; and a fine buck it was.
If there hadn’t been a fence I should have gotten another shot into it; and I never drawed upon anything that hadn’t wings three times running, in my born days.
No, no, Judge, it’s the farmers that makes the game scarce, and not the hunters.”