Have you forgot the time that you come on to the lake shore, when there wasn’t even a jail to lodge in: and didn’t I give you my own bear-skin to sleep on, and the fat of a noble buck to satisfy the cravings of your hunger?
Yes, yes—you thought it no sin then to kill a deer!
And this I did, though I had no reason to love you, for you had never done anything but harm to them that loved and sheltered me.
And now, will you shut me up in your dungeons to pay me for my kindness?
A hundred dollars!
Where should I get the money?
No, no—there’s them that says hard things of you, Marmaduke Temple, but you ain’t so bad as to wish to see an old man die in a prison, because he stood up for the right.
Come, friend, let me pass; it’s long sin’ I’ve been used to such crowds, and I crave to be in the woods agin.
Don’t fear me, Judge—I bid you not to fear me; for if there’s beaver enough left on the streams, or the buckskins will sell for a shilling apiece, you shall have the last penny of the fine.
Where are ye, pups? come away, dogs, come away! we have a grievous toil to do for our years, but it shall be done—yes, yes, I’ve promised it, and it shall be done!”
It is unnecessary to say that the movement of the Leather-Stocking was again intercepted by the constable; but, before he had time to speak, a bustling in the crowd, and a loud hem, drew all eyes to another part of the room.
Benjamin had succeeded in edging his way through the people, and was now seen balancing his short body, with one foot in a window and the other on a railing of the jury-box. To the amazement of the whole court, the steward was evidently preparing to speak.
After a good deal of difficulty, he succeeded in drawing from his pocket a small bag, and then found utterance.
“If-so-be,” he said, “that your honor is agreeable to trust the poor fellow out on another cruise among the beasts, here’s a small matter that will help to bring down the risk, seeing that there’s just thirty-five of your Spaniards in it; and I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that they was raal British guineas, for the sake of the old boy.
But ‘tis as it is; and if Squire Dickens will just be so good as to overhaul this small bit of an account, and take enough from the bag to settle the same, he’s welcome to hold on upon the rest, till such time as the Leather-Stocking can grapple with them said beaver, or, for that matter, forever, and no thanks asked.”
As Benjamin concluded, he thrust out the wooden register of his arrears to the
“Bold Dragoon” with one hand, while he offered his bag of dollars with the other.
Astonishment at this singular interruption produced a profound stillness in the room, which was only interrupted by the sheriff, who struck his sword on the table, and cried:
“Silence!”
“There must be an end to this,” said the Judge, struggling to overcome his feelings.
“Constable, lead the prisoner to the stocks.
Mr. Clerk, what stands next on the calendar?”
Natty seemed to yield to his destiny, for he sank his head on his chest, and followed the officer from the court room in silence.
The crowd moved back for the passage of the prisoner, and when his tall form was seen descending from the outer door, a rush of the people to the scene of his disgrace followed.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
“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.”