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Файл:The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts
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THE CHAINBEARER; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
«Sartain. The magistrate give the sheriff’s deputy a permittimus, and on the strength of that, they permitted me to jail».
«Ye-e-es – I know all about their niceties and appearances!
I have had dealin’s afore many a magistrate, in my day, and
have onsuited many a chap that thought to get the best on’t
afore we begun! Onsuiting the man that brings the suit, is
the cleanest way of getting out of the law, as I knows on; but it
takes a desp’rate long head sometimes to do it! Afore I permit
this young man, I’ll show writin’s, too. Prudence, just onlock
the drawer»
«I wish to correct one mistake before you proceed further», interrupted I. «For the second time, I tell you I am no
lawyer, in any sense of the word. I am a soldier – have commanded a company in General Littlepage’s own regiment, and
served with the army when only a boy in years. I saw both Burgoyne and Cornwallis surrender, and their troops lay down
their arms».
«Good now! Who’d ha’ thought it!» exclaimed the compassionate Lowiny. «And he so young, that you’d hardly think
the wind had ever blown on him!»
My announcement of this new character was not without
a marked effect. Fighting was a thing to the whole family’s
taste, and what they could appreciate better, perhaps, than any
other act or deed. There was something warlike in Thousandacres’ very countenance and air, and I was not mistaken in
supposing he might feel some little sympathy for a soldier.
He eyed me keenly; and whether or not he discovered signs of
the truth of my assertion in my mien, I saw that he once more
relented in purpose.
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
«You out ag’in Burg’yne!» the old fellow exclaimed. «Can
I believe what you say? Why, I was out ag’in Burg’yne myself,
with Tobit and Moses, and Nathaniel and Jedediah – with every male crittur’ of the family, in short, that was big enough to
load and fi re. I count them days as among my very best,
though they did come late, and a’ter old age had made some
head ag’in me. How can you prove you was out ag’in Burg’yne
and Cornwallis?»
I knew that there was often a strange medley of soi-dis-
ant patriotic feeling mixed up with the most confi rmed knavery in ordinary matters, and saw I had touched a chord that
might thrill on the sympathies of even these rude and supremely selfi sh beings. The patriotism of such men, indeed,
is nothing but an enlargement of selfi shness, since they prize
things because they belong to themselves, or they, in one sense,
belong to the things. They take sides with themselves, but never with principles. That patriotism alone is pure, which would
keep the country in the paths of truth, honor, and justice; and
no man is empowered, in his zeal for his particular nation, any
more than in his zeal, for himself, to forget the law of right.
«I cannot prove I was out against Burgoyne, standing here
where I am, certainly», I answered; «but give me an opportunity, and I will show it to your entire satisfaction».
«Which rijiment was on the right, Hazen’s or Brookes’s, in
storming the Jarmans? Tell me that, and I will soon let you
know whether I believe you or not».
«I cannot tell you that fact, for I was with my own battalion, and the smoke would not permit such a thing to be seen.
I do not know that either of the corps you mention was in that
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THE CHAINBEARER; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
particular part of the fi eld that day, though I believe both to
have been warmly engaged».
«He warnt there», drawled out Tobit, in his most dissatisfi ed manner, almost showing his teeth, like a dog, under
the impulse of the hatred he felt.
«He was there!» cried Lowiny, positively; «I know he
was there!»
A slap from Prudence taught the girl the merit of silence;
but the men were too much interested to heed an interruption
as characteristic and as bootless as this.
«I see how it is», added Thousandacres; «I must permit
the chap a’ter all. Seein’, however, that there is a chance of his
having been out ag’in Burg’yne, I’ll permit him without writin’s, and he shan’t be bound. Tobit, take your prisoner away,
and shut him up in the store’us’. When your brothers get back
from their hunt a’ter the Injin, we’ll detarmine among us what
is to be done with him».
Thousandacres delivered his orders with dignity, and they
were obeyed to the letter. I made no resistance, since it would
only have led to a scuffl e, in which I should have sustained
the indignity of defeat, to say nothing of personal injuries.
Tobit, however, did not offer personal violence, contenting himself with making a sign for me to follow him, which
I did, followed in turn by his two double-jointed brothers.
I will acknowledge that, as we proceeded toward my prison,
the thought of fl ight crossed my mind; and I might have attempted it, but for the perfect certainty that, with so many on
my heels, I must have been overtaken, when severe punishment would probably have been my lot. On the whole,
343
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
I thought it best to submit for a time, and trust the future to
Providence. As to remonstrance or deprecation, pride forbade
my having recourse to either. I was not yet reduced so low as to
solicit favors from a squatter.
The jail to which I was «permitted» by Thousandacres was
a storehouse, or, as he pronounced the word, a «store’us», of
logs, which had been made of suffi cient strength to resist depredations, let them come from whom they might, and they
were quite as likely to come from some within as from any
without. In consequence of its destination, the building was
not ill-suited to become a jail. The logs, of course, gave a suffi cient security against the attempts of a prisoner without tools
or implements of any sort, the roof being made of the same
materials as the sides. There was no window, abundance of
air and light entering through the fi ssures of the rough logs,
which had open intervals between them; and the only artifi cial
aperture was the door. This last was made of stout planks, and
was well secured by heavy hinges, and strong bolts and locks.
The building was of some size, too – twenty feet in length at
least – one end of it, though then quite empty, having been
intended and used as a crib for the grain that we Americans
call, par excellence, corn. Into this building I entered, after
having the large knife that most woodsmen carry taken from
my pocket; and a search was made on my person for any similar implement that might aid me in an attempt to escape.
In that day America had no paper money, from the bay of
Hudson to Cape Horn. Gold and silver formed the currency,
and my pockets had a liberal supply of both, in the shape of
joes and half-joes, dollars, halves, and quarters. Not a piece of
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THE CHAINBEARER; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
coin, of any sort, was molested, however, these squatters not
being robbers, in the ordinary signifi cation of the term, but
merely deluded citizens who appropriated the property of
others to their own use, agreeably to certain great principles of morals that had grown up under their own peculiar
relations to the rest of mankind, their immediate necessities
and their convenience. I make no doubt that every member of the family of Thousandacres would spurn the idea of
his or her being a vulgar thief, drawing some such distinctions in the premises as the Drakes, Morgans, Woodes, Rogers, and others of that school drew between themselves and
the vulgar every day sea-robbers of the seventeenth century,
though with far less reason. But robbers these squatters were
not, except in one mode and that mode they almost raised to
the dignity of respectable hostilities, by the scale on which
they transacted business.
I was no sooner «locked-up» than I began a survey of
my prison and the surrounding objects. There was no diffi culty in doing either, the opening between the logs allowing of a clear reconnoissance on every side. With a view to
keeping its contents in open sight, I fancy, the «store’us» was
placed in the very centre of the settlement, having the mills,
cabins, barns, sheds, and other houses, encircling it in a sort of
hamlet. This circumstance, which would render escape doubly diffi cult, was, notwithstanding, greatly in favor of reconnoitring. I will now describe the results of my observations.
As a matter of course, my appearance, the announcement of
my character, and my subsequent arrest, were circumstances
likely to produce a sensation in the family of the squatter. All
345
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
the women had gathered around Prudence, near the door of
her cabin, and the younger girls were attracted to that spot,
as the particles of matter are known to obey the laws of affi nity. The males, one boy of eight or ten years excepted, were
collected near the mill, where Thousandacres, apparently, was
holding a consultation with Tobit and the rest of the brotherhood, among whom, I fancy, was no one entitled to be termed
an angel. Everybody seemed to be intently listening to the different speakers, the females often turning their eyes toward
their male protectors, anxiously and with long protracted gazes. Indeed, many of them looked in that direction, even while
they gave ear to the wisdom of Prudence herself.
The excepted boy had laid himself, in a lounging, American sort of an attitude, on a saw-log near my prison, and in
a position that enabled him to see both sides of it, without
changing his ground. By the manner in which his eyes were
fastened on the «store’us» I was soon satisfi ed that he was acting in the character of a sentinel. Thus, my jail was certainly
suffi ciently secure, as the force of no man, unaided and without implements, could have broken a passage through the logs.
Having thus taken a look at the general aspect of things,
I had leisure to refl ect on my situation, and the probable
consequences of my arrest. For my life I had no great apprehensions, not as much as I ought to have had under the circumstances; but it did not strike me that I was in any great
danger on that score. The American character, in general, is
not blood-thirsty, and that of New England less so, perhaps,
than that of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, in a case of
property the tenacity of the men of that quarter of the country
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THE CHAINBEARER; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
was proverbial, and I came to the conclusion that I should be
detained, if possible, until all the lumber could be got to market and disposed of, as the only means of reaping the fruit of
past labor. The possibility depended on the escape or the arrest of Surefl int. Should that Indian be taken, Thousandacres
and his family would be as secure as ever in their wilderness;
but on the other hand, should he escape, I might expect to
hear from my friends in the course of the day. By resorting to
a requisition on ‘Squire Newcome, who was a magistrate, my
tenants might be expected to make an effort in my behalf,
when the only grounds of apprehension would be the consequences of the struggle. The squatters were sometimes dangerous under excitement, and when sustaining each other,
with arms in their hands, in what they fancy to be their hardearned privileges. There is no end to the delusions of men on
such subjects, self-interest seeming completely to blind their
sense of right; and I have often met with cases in which parties
who were trespassers, and in a moral view, robbers, ab origine,
have got really to fancy that their subsequent labors (every
new blow of the axe being an additional wrong) gave a sort of
sanctity to possessions, in the defence of which they were willing to die. It is scarcely necessary to say that such persons look
only at themselves, entirely disregarding the rights of others;
but one wonders where the fruits of all the religious instruction of the country are to be found, when opinions so loose and
acts so fl agrant are constantly occurring among us. The fact is,
land is so abundant, and such vast bodies lie neglected and
seemingly forgotten by their owners, that the needy are apt to
think indifference authorizes invasions on such unoccupied
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
property; and their own labor once applied, they are quick to
imagine that it gives them a moral and legal interest in the soil;
though in the eye of the law, and of unbiased reason, each new
step taken in what is called the improvement of a «betterment» is but a farther advance in the direction of wrong-doing.
I was refl ecting on things of this sort, when, looking
through the cracks of my prison, to ascertain the state of matters without, I was surprised by the appearance of a man on
horseback, who was entering the clearing on its eastern side,
seemingly quite at home in his course, though he was travelling without a foot-path to aid him. As this man had a pair of
the common saddle-bags of the day on his horse, I at fi rst took
him for one of those practitioners of the healing art who are
constantly met with in the new settlements, winding their way
through stumps, logs, morasses and forests, the ministers of
good or evil, I shall not pretend to say which. Ordinarily, families like that of Thousandacres do their own «doctoring»; but
a case might occur that demanded the wisdom of the licensed
leech; and I had just decided in my own mind that this must
be one, when, as the stranger drew nearer, to my surprise I saw
that it was no other than my late agent, Mr. Jason Newcome,
and the moral and physical factotum of Ravensnest!
As the distance between the mill that ‘Squire Newcome
leased of me, and that which Thousandacres had set up on
the property of Mooseridge, could not be less than fi ve-andtwenty miles, the arrival of this visitor at an hour so early was
a certain proof that he had left his own house long before
the dawn. It was probably convenient to pass through the farms
and dwellings of Ravensnest on the errand on which he was
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THE CHAINBEARER; OR, THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS
now bent, at an hour of the night or morning when darkness
would conceal the movement. By timing his departure with
the same judgment, it was obvious he could reach home under the concealment of the other end of the same mantle. In
a word, this visit was evidently one, in the objects and incidents of which it was intended that the world at large should
have no share.
The dialogues between the members of the family of Thousandacres ceased, the moment ‘Squire Newcome came in view;
though, as was apparent by the unmoved manner in which
his approach was witnessed, the sudden appearance of this
particular visitor produced neither surprise nor uneasiness.
Although it must have been a thing to be desired by the squatters, to keep their «location» a secret, more especially since
the peace left landlords at leisure to look after their lands,
no one manifested any concern at discovering this arrival in their clearing of the nearest magistrate. Any one might
see, by the manner of men, women, and children, that ‘Squire
Newcome was no stranger, and that his presence gave them
no alarm. Even the early hour of his visit was most probably
that to which they were accustomed, the quick-witted intellects of the young fry causing them to understand the reason
quite as readily as was the case with their seniors. In a word,
the guest was regarded as a friend rather than as an enemy.
Newcome was some little time, after he came into view, in
reaching the hamlet, if the cluster of buildings can be so
termed; and when he did alight, it was before the door of
a stable, toward which one of the boys now scampered, to
be in readiness to receive his horse. The beast disposed of,
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
the ‘squire advanced to the spot where Thousandacres and his
elder sons still remained to receive him, or that near the mill.
The manner in which all parties shook hands, and the cordiality of the salutations generally, in which Prudence and her
daughters soon shared, betokened something more than amity, I fancied, for it looked very much like intimacy.
Jason Newcome remained in the family group some eight
or ten minutes, and I could almost fancy the prescribed inquiries about the «folks» (anglice, folk), the «general state of
health», and the character of the «times», ere the magistrate
and the squatter separated themselves from the rest of the party, walking aside like men who had matters of moment to discuss, and that under circumstances which could dispense with
the presence of any listeners.
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