CHAPTER XXXIX.
“Selictar! unsheathe then our chief’s scimetar; Tambourgi! thy 'larum
gives promise of war; Ye mountains! that see us descend to the shore,
Shall view us as victors, or view us no more.”-Byron.
The heavy showers that prevailed during the remainder of the day
completely stopped the progress of the flames; though glimmering fires
were observed during the night, on different parts of the hill,
wherever there was a collection of fuel to feed the element. The next
day the woods for ‘many miles were black and smoking, and were
stripped of every vestige of brush and dead wood; but the pines and
hemlocks still reared their heads proudly among the hills, and even
the smaller trees of the forest retained a feeble appearance of life
and vegetation.
The many tongues of rumor were busy in exaggerating the miraculous
escape of Elizabeth; and a report was generally credited, that Mohegan
had actually perished in the flames. This belief became confirmed,
and was indeed rendered probable, when the direful intelligence
reached the village that Jotham Riddel, the miner, was found in his
hole, nearly dead with suffocation, and burnt to such a degree that no
hopes were entertained of his life.
The public attention became much alive to the events of the last few
days ; and, just at this crisis, the convicted counterfeiters took the
hint from Natty, and, on the night succeeding the fire, found means to
cut through their log prison also, and to escape unpunished. When
this news began to circulate through the village, blended with the
fate of Jotham, and the exaggerated and tortured reports of the events
on the hill, the popular opinion was freely expressed, as to the
propriety of seizing such of the fugitives as remained within reach.
Men talked of the cave as a secret receptacle of guilt; and, as the
rumor of ores and metals found its way into the confused medley of
conjectures, counterfeiting, and everything else that was wicked and
dangerous to the peace of society, suggested themselves to the busy
fancies of the populace.
While the public mind was in this feverish state, it was hinted that
the wood had been set on fire by Edwards and the Leather—Stocking, and
that, consequently, they alone were responsible for the damages. This
opinion soon gained ground, being most circulated by those who, by
their own heedlessness, had caused the evil; and there was one
irresistible burst of the common sentiment that an attempt should he
made to punish the offenders. Richard was by no means deaf to this
appeal, and by noon he set about in earnest to see the laws executed.
Several stout young men were selected, and taken apart with an
appearance of secrecy, where they received some important charge from
the sheriff, immediately under the eyes, but far removed from the
ears, of all in the village. Possessed of a knowledge of their duty,
these youths hurried into the hills, with a bustling manner, as if the
fate of the world depended on their diligence, and, at the same time,
with an air of mystery as great as if they were engaged on secret
matters of the state.
At twelve precisely a drum beat the “long roll ' before the” Bold
Dragoon,” and Richard appeared, accompanied by Captain Hollister, who
was clad in Investments as commander of the “Templeton Light
Infantry,” when the former demanded of the latter the aid of the posse
comitatus in enforcing the laws of the country. We have not room to
record the speeches of the two gentlemen on this occasion, but they
are preserved in the columns of the little blue newspaper, which is
yet to be found on the file, and are said to be highly creditable to
the legal formula of one of the parties, and to the military precision
of the other. Everything had been previously arranged, and, as the
red-coated drummer continued to roll out his clattering notes, some
five-and-twenty privates appeared in the ranks, and arranged
themselves in the order of battle.
As this corps was composed of volunteers, and was commanded by a man
who had passed the first five-and-thirty years of his life in camps
and garrisons, it was the non-parallel of military science in that
country, and was confidently pronounced by the judicious part of the
Templeton community, to be equal in skill and appearance to any troops
in the known world; in physical endowments they were, certainly, much
superior! To this assertion there were but three dissenting voices,
and one dissenting opinion. The opinion belonged to Marmaduke, who,
however, saw no necessity for its promulgation. Of the voices, one,
and that a pretty loud one’, came from the spouse of the commander
himself, who frequently reproached her husband for condescending to
lead such an irregular band of warriors, after he had filled the
honorable station of sergeant-major to a dashing corps of Virginia
cavalry through much of the recent war.
Another of these skeptical sentiments was invariably expressed by Mr.
Pump, whenever the company paraded generally in some such terms as
these, which were uttered with that sort of meekness that a native of
the island of our forefathers is apt to assume when he condescends to
praise the customs or character of her truant progeny:
“It’s mayhap that they knows summat about loading and firing, d'ye
see, but as for working ship? why, a corporal’s guard of the
Boadishey's marines would back and fill on their quarters in such a
manner as to surround and captivate them all in half a glass.” As
there was no one to deny this assertion, the marines of the Boadicea
were held in a corresponding degree of estimation.
The third unbeliever was Monsieur Le Quoi, who merely whispered to the
sheriff, that the corps was one of the finest he had ever seen second
only to the Mousquetaires of Le Boa Louis! However, as Mrs. Hollister
thought there was something like actual service in the present
appearances, and was, in consequence, too busily engaged with certain
preparations of her own, to make her comments; as Benjamin was absent,
and Monsieur Le Quoi too happy to find fault with anything, the corps
escaped criticism and comparison altogether on this momentous day,
when they certainly had greater need of self-confidence than on any
other previous occasion. Marmaduke was said to be again closeted with
Mr. Van der School and no interruption was offered to the movements of
the troops. At two o’clock precisely the corps shouldered arms,
beginning on the right wing, next to the veteran, and carrying the
motion through to the left with great regularity. When each
musket was quietly fixed in its proper situation, the order was given
to wheel to the left, and march. As this was bringing raw troops, at
once, to face their enemy, it is not to be supposed that the manoeuver
was executed with their usual accuracy; but as the music struck up the
inspiring air of Yankee-doodle, and Richard, accompanied by Mr.
Doolittle preceded the troops boldly down the street, Captain
Hollister led on, with his head elevated to forty-five degrees, with a
little, low cocked hat perched on his crown, carrying a tremendous
dragoon sabre at a poise, and trailing at his heels a huge steel
scabbard, that had war in its very clattering. There was a good deal
of difficulty in getting all the platoons (there were six) to look the
same way; but, by the time they reached the defile of the bridge, the
troops were in sufficiently compact order. In this manner they
marched up the hill to the summit of the mountain, no other alteration
taking place in the disposition of the forces, excepting that a mutual
complaint was made, by the sheriff and the magistrate, of a failure in
wind, which gradually’ brought these gentlemen to the rear. It will
be unnecessary to detail the minute movements that succeeded. We
shall briefly say, that the scouts came in and reported, that, so far
from retreating, as had been anticipated, the fugitives had evidently
gained a knowledge of the attack, and were fortifying for a desperate
resistance. This intelligence certainly made a material change, not
only in the plans of the leaders, but in the countenances of the
soldiery also. The men looked at one another with serious faces, and
Hiram and Richard began to consult together, apart.
At this conjuncture, they were joined by Billy Kirby, who came along
the highway, with his axe under his arm, as much in advance of his
team as Captain Hollister had been of his troops in the ascent. The
wood-chopper was amazed at the military array, but the sheriff eagerly
availed himself of this powerful reinforcement, and commanded his
assistance in putting the laws in force. Billy held Mr. Jones in too
much deference to object; and it was finally arranged that he should
be the bearer of a summons to the garrison to surrender before they
proceeded to extremities. The troops now divided, one party being led
by the captain, over the Vision, and were brought in on the left of
the cave, while the remainder advanced upon its right, under the
orders of the lieutenant. Mr. Jones and Dr. Todd—for the surgeon was
in attendance also—appeared on the platform of rock, immediately over
the heads of the garrison, though out of their sight. Hiram thought
this approaching too near, and he therefore accompanied Kirby along
the side of the hill to within a safe distance of the fortifications,
where he took shelter behind a tree. Most of the men discovered great
accuracy of eye in bringing some object in range between them and
their enemy, and the only two of the besiegers, who were left in plain
sight of the besieged, were Captain Hollister on one side, and the
wood-chopper on the other. The veteran stood up boldly to the front,
supporting his heavy sword in one undeviating position, with his eye
fixed firmly on his enemy, while the huge form of Billy was placed in
that kind of quiet repose, with either hand thrust into his bosom,
bearing his axe under his right arm, which permitted him, like his own
oxen, to rest standing. So far, not a word had been exchanged between
the belligerents. The besieged had drawn together a pile of black
logs and branches of trees, which they had formed into a chevaux-de-
frise, making a little circular abatis in front of the entrance to the
cave. As the ground was steep and slippery in every direction around
the place, and Benjamin appeared behind the works on one side, and
Natty on the other, the arrangement was by no means contemptible,
especially as the front was sufficiently guarded by the difficulty of
the approach. By this time, Kirby had received his orders, and he
advanced coolly along the mountain, picking his way with the same
indifference as if he were pursuing his ordinary business. When he
was within a hundred feet of the works, the long and much-dreaded
rifle of the Leather-Stocking was seen issuing from the parapet, and
his voice cried aloud:
“Keep off! Billy Kirby, keep off! I wish ye no harm; but if a man of
ye all comes a step nigher, there’ll be blood spilt atwixt us. God
forgive the one that draws it first, but so it must be.”
“Come, old chap,” said Billy, good-naturedly, “don’t be crabb’d, but
hear what a man has got to say I’ve no consarn in the business, only
to see right ‘twixt man and man; and I don’t kear the valie of a
beetle-ring which gets the better; but there’s Squire Doolittle,
yonder be hind the beech sapling, he has invited me to come in and ask
you to give up to the law—that’s all.”
“I see the varmint! I see his clothes!” cried the indignant Natty:
“and if he’ll only show so much flesh as will bury a rifle bullet,
thirty to the pound, I’ll make him feel me. Go away, Billy, I bid ye;
you know my aim, and I bear you no malice.”
“You over-calculate your aim, Natty,” said the other, as he stepped
behind a pine that stood near him, “if you think to shoot a man
through a tree with a three-foot butt. I can lay this tree right
across you in ten minutes by any man's watch, and in less time, too;
so be civil—I want no more than what’s right.”
There was a simple seriousness in the countenance of Natty, that
showed he was much in earnest; but it was also evident that he was
reluctant to shed human blood. He answered the taunt of the wood-
chopper, by saying:
“I know you drop a tree where you will, Billy Kirby; but if you show a
hand, or an arm, in doing it, there’ll be bones to be set, and blood
to staunch. If it’s only to get into the cave that ye want, wait till
a two hours’ sun, and you may enter it in welcome; but come in now you
shall not. There’s one dead body already, lying on the cold rocks,
and there’s another in which the life can hardly be said to stay. If
you will come in, there’ll be dead with out as well as within.”
The wood-chopper stepped out fearlessly from his cover, and cried:
“That’s fair; and what’s fair is right. He wants you to stop till
it’s two hours to sundown; and I see reason in the thing. A man can
give up when he’s wrong, if you don’t crowd him too hard; but you
crowd a man, and he gets to be like a stubborn ox—the more you beat,
the worse he kicks.”
The sturdy notions of independence maintained by Billy neither suited
the emergency nor the impatience of Mr. Jones, who was burning with a
desire to examine the hid den mysteries of the cave. He therefore
interrupted this amicable dialogue with his own voice;
“I command you Nathaniel Bumppo, by my authority, to surrender your
person to the law,” he cried. “And I command you, gentlemen, to aid
me in performing my duty. Benjamin Penguillan I arrest you, and order
you to follow me to the jail of the county, by virtue of this
warrant.”
“I’d follow ye, Squire Dickens,” said Benjamin, removing the pipe from
his month (for during the whole scene the ex-major-domo had been very
composedly smoking); ay! I’d sail in your wake, to the end of the
world, if-so— be that there was such a place, where there isn’t,
seeing that it’s round. Now mayhap, Master Hollister, having lived
all your life on shore, you isn’t acquainted that the world, d’ye see”
“Surrender!” interrupted the veteran, in a voice that startled his
hearers, and which actually caused his own forces to recoil several
paces; surrender, Benjamin Pengullan, or expect no quarter.’”
“Damn your quarter!” said Benjamin, rising from the log on which he
was seated, and taking a squint along the barrel of the swivel, which
had been brought on the hill during the night, and now formed the
means of defence on his side of the works. “ Look you, master or
captain, thof I questions if ye know the name of a rope, except the
one that’s to hang ye, there’s no need of singing out, as if ye was
hailing a deaf man on a topgallant yard. May-hap you think you’ve got
my true name in your sheep skin; but what British sailor finds it
worth while to sail in these seas, without a sham on his stern, in
case of need, d’ye see. If you call me Penguillan, you calls me by
the name of the man on whose hand, dye see, I hove into daylight; and
he was a gentleman ; and that’s more than my worst enemy will say of
any of the family of Benjamin Stubbs.”
“Send the warrant round to me, and I’ll put in an alias,” cried Hiram,
from behind his cover.
“Put in a jackass, and you’ll put in yourself, Mister Doo-but-little,”
shouted Benjamin, who kept squinting along his little iron tube, with
great steadiness.
“I give you but one moment to yield,” cried Richard. “Benjamin!
Benjamin! this is not the gratitude I expected from you.”
“I tell you, Richard Jones,” said Natty, who dreaded the sheriff’s
influence over his comrade; “ though the canister the gal brought be
lost, there’s powder enough in the cave to lift the rock you stand on.
I’ll take off my roof if you don’t hold your peace.”
“I think it beneath the dignity of my office to parley further with
the prisoners,” the sheriff observer to his companion, while they both
retired with a precipitancy that Captain Hollister mistook for the
signal to advance.
“Charge baggonet!” shouted the veteran; “ march!”
Although this signal was certainly expected, it took the assailed a
little by surprise, and the veteran approached the works, crying, “
Courage, my brave lads! give them no quarter unless they surrender;”
and struck a furious blow upward with his sabre, that would have
divided the steward into moieties by subjecting him to the process of
decapitation, but for the fortunate interference of the muzzle of the
swivel. As it was, the gun was dismounted at the critical moment that
Benjamin was applying his pipe to the priming, and in consequence some
five or six dozen of rifle bullets were projected into the air, in
nearly a perpendicular line. Philosophy teaches us that the atmos-
phere will not retain lead; and two pounds of the metal, moulded into
bullets of thirty to the pound, after describing an ellipsis in their
journey, returned to the earth rattling among the branches of the
trees directly over the heads of the troops stationed in the rear of
their captain. Much of the success of an attack, made by irregular
soldiers, depends on the direction in which they are first got in
motion. In the present instance it was retrograde, and in less than a
minute after the bellowing report of the swivel among the rocks and
caverns, the whole weight of the attack from the left rested on the
prowess of the single arm of the veteran. Benjamin received a severe
contusion from the recoil of his gun, which produced a short stupor,
during which period the ex-steward was prostrate on the ground.
Captain Hollister availed himself of this circumstance to scramble
ever the breastwork and obtain a footing in the bastion—for such was
the nature of the fortress, as connected with the cave. The moment
the veteran found himself within the works of his enemy, he rushed to
the edge of the fortification, and, waving his sabre over his head,
shouted:
“Victory! come on, my brave boys, the work’s our own!”
All this was perfectly military, and was such an example as a gallant
officer was in some measure bound to exhibit to his men but the outcry
was the unlucky cause of turning the tide of success. Natty, who had
been keeping a vigalent eye on the wood-chopper, and the enemy
immediately before him, wheeled at this alarm, and was appalled at
beholding his comrade on the ground, and the veteran standing on his
own bulwark, giving forth the cry of victory! The muzzle of the long
rifle was turned instantly toward the captain. There was a moment
when the life of the old soldier was in great jeopardy but the object
to shoot at was both too large and too near for the Leather-Stocking,
who, instead of pulling his trigger, applied the gun to the rear of
his enemy, and by a powerful shove sent him outside of the works with
much greater rapidity than he had entered them. The spot on which
Captain Hollister alighted was directly in front, where, as his feet
touched the ground, so steep and slippery was the side of the
mountain, it seemed to recede from under them. His motion was swift,
and so irregular as utterly to confuse the faculties of the old
soldier. During its continuance, he supposed himself to be mounted,
and charging through the ranks of his enemy. At every tree he made a
blow, of course, as at a foot-soldier; and just as he was making the
cut “St. George” at a half burnt sapling he landed in the highway,
and, to his utter amazement, at the feet of his own spouse. When Mrs.
Hollister, who was toiling up the hill, followed by at least twenty
curious boys, leaning with one hand on the staff with which she
ordinarily walked, and bearing in the other an empty bag, witnessed
this exploit of her husband, indignation immediately got the better,
not only of her religion, but of her philosophy.
“Why, sargeant! is it flying ye are?” she cried—” that I should live
to see a husband of mine turn his hack to an inimy! and such a one!
Here I have been telling the b’ys, as we come along, all about the
saige of Yorrektown, and how ye was hurted; and how ye’d be acting the
same agin the day; and I mate ye retraiting jist as the first gun is
fired. Och! I may trow away the bag! for if there’s plunder, ‘twill
not be the wife of sich as yerself that will be privileged to be
getting the same. They do say, too, there is a power of goold and
silver in the place—the Lord forgive me for setting my heart on
woorldly things; but what falls in the battle, there’s scriptur’ for
believing, is the just property of the victor,”
“Retreating!” exclaimed the amazed veteran; “where’s my horse? he has
been shot under me—I——”
“Is the man mad?” interrupted his wife—” devil the horse do ye own,
sargeant, and ye’re nothing but a shabby captain of malaishy. Oh! if
the ra’al captain was here, tis the other way ye’d be riding, dear, or
you would not follow your laider!”
While this worthy couple were thus discussing events, the battle began
to rage more violently than ever above them. When Leather-Stocking
saw his enemy fairly under headway, as Benjamin would express it, he
gave his attention to the right wing of the assailants. It would have
been easy for Kirby, with his powerful frame, to have seized the
moment to scale the bastion, and, with his great strength, to have
sent both of its defenders in pursuit of the veteran; but hostility
appeared to he the passion that the wood-chopper indulged the least in
at that moment, for, in a voice that was heard by the retreating left
wing, he shouted:
“Hurrah well done, captain! keep it up! how he handles his bush-hook!
he makes nothing of a sapling!” and such other encouraging
exclamations to the flying veteran, until, overcome by mirth, the
good-natured fellow seated himself on the ground, kicking the earth
with delight, and giving vent to peal after peal of laughter.
Natty stood all this time in a menacing attitude, with his rifle
pointed over the breastwork, watching with a quick and cautions eye
the least movement of the assail ants. The outcry unfortunately
tempted the ungovernable curiosity of Hiram to take a peep from behind
his cover at the state of the battle. Though this evolution was
performed with great caution, in protecting his front, he left, like
many a better commander, his rear exposed to the attacks of his enemy.
Mr. Doolittle belonged physically to a class of his countrymen, to
whom Nature has denied, in their formation, the use of curved lines.
Every thing about him was either straight or angular. But his tailor
was a woman who worked, like a regimental contractor, by a set of
rules that gave the same configuration to the whole human species.
Consequently, when Mr. Doolittle leaned forward in the manner
described, a loose drapery appeared behind the tree, at which the
rifle of Natty was pointed with the quickness of lightning. A less
experienced man would have aimed at the flowing robe, which hung like
a festoon half-way to the earth ; but the Leather-Stocking knew both
the man and his female tailor better; and when the smart report of the
rifle was heard, Kirby, who watched the whole manoeuvre in breath less
expectation. saw the bark fly from the beech and the cloth, at some
distance above the loose folds, wave at the same instant. No battery
was ever unmasked with more promptitiude than Hiram advanced from
behind the tree at this summons.
He made two or three steps, with great precision, to the front and,
placing one hand on the afflicted part, stretched forth the other with
a menacing air toward Natty, and cried aloud:
“Gawl darn ye: this shan’t he settled so easy; I’ll follow it up from
the ‘common pleas’ to the ‘court of errors.’”
Such a shocking imprecation, from the mouth of so orderly a man as
Squire Doolittle, with the fearless manner in which he exposed
himself, together with, perhaps, the knowledge that Natty’s rifle was
unloaded, encouraged the troops in the rear, who gave a loud shout,
and fired a volley into the tree-tops, after the contents of the
swivel. Animated by their own noise, the men now rushed on in
earnest; and Billy Kirby, who thought the joke, good as it was, had
gone far enough, was in the act of scaling the works, when Judge
Temple appeared on the opposite side, exclaiming:
“Silence and peace! why do I see murder and blood shed attempted? Is
not the law sufficient to protect itself, that armed bands must be
gathered, as in rebellion and war, to see justice performed?”
“‘Tis the posse comitatus,” shouted the sheriff, from a distant rock,
“who-”
“Say rather a posse of demons. I command the peace.” “Hold shied not
blood!” cried a voice from the top of the Vision. “ Hold, for the
sake of Heaven, fire no more! all shall be yielded! you shall enter
the cave!”
Amazement produced the desired effect. Natty, who had reloaded his
piece, quietly seated himself on the logs, and rested his head on his
hands, while the “ Light Infantry” ceased their military movements,
and waited the issue in suspense.
In less than a minute Edwards came rushing down the hill, followed by
Major Hartman, with a velocity that was surprising for his years.
They reached the terrace in an instant, from which the youth led the
way, by the hollow in the rock, to the mouth of the cave, into which
they both entered, leaving all without silent, and gazing after them
with astonishment.
