The Chainbearer: or, The Littlepage Manuscripts

Sure heaven bespoke
Our hearts and oak
To give a master to mankind."

    – Young.
Thousandacres and the magistrate held their way directly toward the storehouse; and the log of the sentinel offering a comfortable seat, that functionary was dismissed, when the two worthies took his place, with their backs turned toward my prison. Whether this disposition of their persons was owing to a deep-laid plan of the squatter's, or not, I never knew; but, let the cause have been what it might, the effect was to render me an auditor of nearly all that passed in the dialogue which succeeded. It will greatly aid the reader in understanding the incidents about to be recorded, if I spread on the record the language that passed between my late agent and one who was obviously his confidant in certain matters, if not in all that touched my interests in that quarter of the world. As for listening, I have no hesitation in avowing it, inasmuch as the circumstances would have justified me in taking far greater liberties with the customary obligations of society in its every-day aspect, had I seen fit so to do. I was dealing with rogues, who had me in their power, and there was no obligation to be particularly scrupulous on the score of mere conventional propriety, at least.

"As I was tellin' ye, Thousandacres," Newcome continued the discourse by saying, and that with the familiarity of one who well knew his companion, "the young man is in this part of the country, and somewhere quite near you at this moment" – I was much nearer than the 'squire himself had any notion of at that instant – "yes, he's out in the woods of this very property, with Chainbearer and his gang; and, for 'tinow [for aught I know], measuring out farms within a mile or two of this very spot!"

"How many men be there?" asked the squatter with interest. "If no more than the usual set, 'twill be an onlucky day for them, should they stumble on my clearin'!"

"Perhaps they will, perhaps they wunt; a body never knows. Surveyin' 's a sort o' work that leads a man here, or it leads him there. One never knows where a line will carry him, in the woods. That's the reason I've kept the crittur's out of my own timber-land; for, to speak to you, Thousandacres, as one neighbor can speak to another without risk, there's desp'rate large pine-trees on the unleased hills both north and east of my lot. Sometimes it's handy to have lines about a mill, you know, sometimes 't isn't."

"A curse on all lines, in a free country, say I, 'squire," answered Thousandacres, who looked, as he bestowed this characteristic benediction, as if he might better be named Tenthousandacres; "they're an invention of the devil. I lived seven whull years in Varmount state, as it's now called, the old Hampshire Grants, you know, next-door neighbor to two families, one north and one south on me, and we chopped away the whull time, just as freely as we pleased, and not a cross word or an angry look passed atween us."

"I rather conclude, friend Aaron, you had all sat down under the same title?" put in the magistrate with a sly look at his companion. "When that is the case, it would exceed all reason to quarrel."

"Why, I'll own that our titles were pretty much the same; – possession and free axes. Then it was ag'in York colony landholders that our time was running. What's your candid opinion about law, on this p'int, 'Squire Newcome? – I know you're a man of edication, college l'arnt some say; though, I s'pose, that's no better l'arnin' than any other, when a body has once got it – but what's your opinion about possession? – Will it hold good for twenty-one years, without writin's, or not? Some say it will, and some say it wunt."

"It wunt. The law is settled; there must be a shadow of title, or possession's good for nothin'; no better than the scrapin's of a flour-barrel."

"I've heer'n say the opposyte of that; and there's reason why possession should count ag'in everything. By possession, however, I don't mean hangin' up a pair of saddle-bags on a tree, as is sometimes done, but goin' honestly and fairly in upon land, and cuttin' down trees, and buildin' mills, and housen and barns, and cuttin' and slashin', and sawin' right and left, like all creation. That's what I always doos myself, and that's what I call sich a possession as ought to stand in law – ay, and in gospel, too; for I'm not one of them that flies in the face of religion."

"In that you're quite right; keep the gospel on your side whatever you do, neighbor Thousandacres. Our Puritan fathers didn't cross the ocean, and encounter the horrors of the wilderness, and step on the rock of Plymouth, and undergo more than man could possibly bear, and that all for nothin'!"

"Wa-a-l, to my notion, the 'horrors of the wilderness,' as you call 'em, is no great matter; though, as for crossin' the ocean, I can easily imagine that must be suthin' to try a man's patience and endurance. I never could take to the water. They tell me there isn't a single tree growin' the whull distance atween Ameriky and England! Floatin' saw-logs be sometimes met with, I've heer'n say, but not a standin' crittur' of a tree from Massachusetts Bay to London town!"

"It's all water, and of course trees be scarce, Thousandacres; but let's come a little clusser to the p'int. As I was tellin' you, the whelp is in, and he'll growl as loud as the old bear himself, should he hear of all them boards you've got in the creek – to say nothin' of the piles up here that you haven't begun to put into the water."

"Let him growl," returned the old squatter, glancing surlily toward my prison; "like a good many other crittur's that I've met with, 'twill turn out that his bark is worse than his bite."

"I don't know that, neighbor Thousandacres, I don't by any means know that. Major Littlepage is a gentleman of spirit and decision, as is to be seen by his having taken his agency from me, who have held it so long, and gi'n it to a young chap who has no other claim than bein' a tolerable surveyor; but who hasn't been in the settlement more than a twelvemonth."

"Gi'n it to a surveyer! Is he one of Chainbearer's measurin' devils?"

"Just so; 'tis the very young fellow Chainbearer has had with him this year or so, runnin' lines an' measurin' land on this very property."

"That old fellow, Chainbearer, had best look to himself! He's thwarted me now three times in the course of his life, and he's gettin' to be desp'rate old; I'm afeard he won't live long!"

I could now see that Squire Newcome felt uneasy. Although a colleague of the squatter's in what is only too apt to be considered a venal roguery in a new country, or in the stealing of timber, it did not at all comport with the scale of his rascality to menace a man's life. He would connive at stealing timber by purchasing the lumber at sufficiently low prices, so long as the danger of being detected was kept within reasonable limits, but he did not like to be connected with any transaction that did not, in the case of necessity, admit of a tolerably safe retreat from all pains and penalties. Men become very much what – not their laws – but what the administration of their laws makes them. In countries in which it is prompt, sure, and sufficiently severe, crimes are mainly the fruits of temptation and necessity; but a state of society may exist, in which justice falls into contempt, by her own impotency, and men are led to offend merely to brave her. Thus we have long labored under the great disadvantage of living under laws that, in a great degree, were framed for another set of circumstances. By the common law, it was only trespass to cut down a tree in England; for trees were seldom or never stolen, and the law did not wish to annex the penalties of felony to the simple offence of cutting a twig in a wood. With us, however, entire new classes of offences have sprung up under our own novel circumstances; and we probably owe a portion of the vast amount of timber-stealing that has now long existed among us, quite as much to the mistaken lenity of the laws, as to the fact that this particular description of property is so much exposed. Many a man would commit a trespass of the gravest sort, who would shrink from the commission of a felony of the lowest. Such was the case with Newcome. He had a certain sort of law-honesty about him, that enabled him in a degree to preserve appearances. It is true he connived at the unlawful cutting of timber by purchasing the sawed lumber, but he took good care, at the same time, not to have any such direct connection with the strictly illegal part of the transaction as to involve him in the penalties of the law. Had timber-stealing been felony, he would have often been an accessory before the act; but in a case of misdemeanor, the law knows no such offence. Purchasing the sawed lumber, too, if done with proper precaution, owing to the glorious subterfuges permitted by "the perfection of reason," was an affair of no personal hazard in a criminal point of view, and even admitted of so many expedients as to leave the question of property a very open one, after the boards were fully in his own possession. The object of his present visit to the clearing of Thousandacres, as the reader will most probably have anticipated, was to profit by my supposed proximity, and to frighten the squatter into a sale on such terms as should leave larger profits than common in the hands of the purchaser. Unfortunately for the success of this upright project, my proximity was so much greater than even Squire Newcome supposed, as to put it in danger by the very excess of the thing that was to produce the result desired. Little did the honest magistrate suppose that I was, the whole time, within twenty feet of him, and that I heard all that passed.

"Chainbearer is about seventy," returned Newcome, after musing a moment on the character of his companion's last remark. "Yes, about seventy, I should judge from what I've heerd, and what I know of the man. It's a good old age, but folks often live years and years beyond it. You must be suthin' like that yourself, Thousandacres?"

"Seventy-three, every day and hour on't, 'squire; and days and hours well drawn out, too. If you count by old style, I b'lieve I'm a month or so older. But I'm not Chainbearer. No man can say of me, that I ever made myself troublesome to a neighborhood. No man can p'int to the time when I ever disturbed his lines. No man can tell of the day when I ever went into court to be a witness on such a small matter as the length or breadth of lots, to breed quarrels atween neighbors. No, 'Squire Newcome, I set store by my character, which will bear comparison with that of any other inhabitant of the woods I ever met with. And what I say of myself I can say of my sons and da'ghters, too – from Tobit down to Sampson, from Nab to Jeruthy. We're what I call a reasonable and reconcilable breed, minding our own business, and having a respect for that of other people. Now, here am I, in my seventy-fourth year, and the father of twelve living children, and I've made, in my time, many and many a pitch on't, but never was I known to pitch on land that another man had in possession; – and I carry my idees of possession farther than most folks, too, for I call it possession to have said openly, and afore witnesses, that a man intends to pitch on any partic'lar spot afore next ploughin' or droppin' time, as the case may be. No, I respect possession, which ought to be the only lawful title to property, in a free country. When a man wants a clearin' or wants to make one, my doctrine is, let him look about him, and make his pitch on calcerlation; and when he's tired of the spot, and wants a change, let him sell his betterments, if he lights of a chap, and if he doos'nt, let him leave 'em open, and clear off all incumbrances, for the next comer."

It is probable that Jason Newcome, Esq., – magistrates in America are extremely tenacious of this title, though they have no more right to it than any one else – but Jason Newcome, Esq.,[16 - In order to understand Mr. Littlepage in what he says of "esquires," a word of explanation may be necessary. The term "esquire" is, as every well-informed person knows, a title of honor, standing next in degree below that of knight. On the continent of Europe the "écuyer" properly infers nobility, I believe, as nobility is there considered, which is little if any more than the condition of the old English gentry, or of the families having coat-armor. By the English law, certain persons are born esquires, and others have the rank ex officio. Among the last is a justice of the peace, who is legally an "esquire" during his official term. Now this rule prevailed in the colonies, and American magistrates were, perhaps legally, esquires, as well as the English. But titles of honor were abolished at the revolution, and it is a singular contradiction, in substance, to hold that the principle is destroyed while the incident remains. The rank of esquire can no more legally exist in America, than that of knight. In one sense, neither is noble, it is true: but in that broad signification by which all constitutions are, or ought to be interpreted both would come within the proscribed category, as set forth in art. 7th, sect. 9th, and art. 1st, sect. 10th, Const. U. S. Nevertheless, so much stronger is custom than positive law, that not only every magistrate, but every lawyer in the country fancies himself peculiarly an "esquire!" It is scarcely necessary to add that, by usage, the appellation is given by courtesy, wherever the English language is spoken, to all who are supposed to belong to the class of gentlemen. This, after all, is the only true American use of the word. – Editor.] did not carry his notions of the rights of squatters, and of the sacred character of possession, quite as far as did his friend Thousandacres. Newcome was an exceedingly selfish, but withal, an exceedingly shrewd man. I do not know that the term clever, in its broadest signification, would fitly apply to him, for in that sense, I conceive, it means quickness and intelligence enough to do what is right; but he was fully entitled to receive it, under that qualification by which we say a man is "a clever rogue." In a word, Mr. Newcome understood himself, and his relations to the community in which he lived, too well to fall into very serious mistakes by a direct dereliction from his duties, though he lived in a never-ceasing condition of small divergencies that might at any time lead him into serious difficulties. Nevertheless, it was easy enough to see he had no relish for Thousandacres' allusions to the termination of the days of my excellent old friend, Chainbearer; nor can I say that they gave me any particular concern, for, while I knew how desperate the squatters sometimes became, I had a notion that this old fellow's bark would prove worse than his bite, as he had just observed of myself.

It would hardly repay the trouble, were I to attempt recording all that passed next between our two colloquists; although it was a sufficiently amusing exhibition of wily management to frighten the squatter to part with his lumber at a low price, on one side, and of sullen security on the other. The security proceeded from the fact that Thousandacres had me, at that very moment, a prisoner in his storehouse.

A bargain conducted on such terms was not likely soon to come to a happy termination. After a great deal of chaffering and discussing, the conference broke up, nothing having been decided, by the magistrate's saying —

"Well, Thousandacres, I hope you'll have no reason to repent; but I kind o' fear you will."

"The loss will be mine and the b'ys' if I do," was the squatter's answer. "I know I can get all the boards into the creek; and, for that matter, into the river, afore young Littlepage can do me any harm; though there is one circumstance that may yet turn my mind – "

Here the squatter came to a pause; and Newcome, who had risen, turned short round, eagerly, to press the doubt that he saw was working in the other's mind.

"I thought you would think better of it," he said; "for, it's out of doubt, should Major Littlepage l'arn your pitch, that he'd uproot you, as the winds uproot the fallin' tree."

"No, 'squire, my mind's made up," Thousandacres coolly rejoined. "I'll sell, and gladly; but not on the tarms you have named. Two pounds eight the thousand foot, board measure, and taking it all round, clear stuff and refuse, without any store-pay, will carry off the lumber."

"Too much, Thousandacres; altogether too much, when you consider the risks I run. I'm not sartain that I could hold the lumber, even after I got it into the river; for a replevy is a formidable thing in law, I can tell you. One pound sixteen, one-third store-pay, is the utmost farthin' I can offer."

In that day all our calculations were in pounds, shillings and pence.

"Then the bargain's off. – I s'pose, squire, you've the old avarsion to being seen in my settlement?"

"Sartain – sartain," answered Newcome, in haste. "There's no danger of that, I hope. You cannot well have strangers among you?"

"I wunt answer for that. I see some of the b'ys coming out of the woods, yonder; and it seems to me there is a fourth man with them. There is, of a certainty; and it is no other than Susquesus, the Onondago. The fellow is cluss-mouthed, like most redskins; but you can say best whether you'd like to be seen by him, or not. I hear he's a great fri'nd of Chainbearer's."

It was very evident that the magistrate decided, at once, in the negative. With a good deal of decent haste he dodged round a pile of logs, and I saw no more of him until I caught a distant view of his person in the skirts of the woods, at the point whence he had issued into the clearing, two hours before, and where he now received his horse from the hands of the youngest of Thousandacre's sons, who led the animal to the spot for his especial accommodation. Mr. Newcome was no sooner in possession of his beast again, than he mounted and rode away into the depths of the forest. So adroitly was this retreat conducted, that no person of ordinary observation could possibly have detected it, unless indeed his attention had been previously drawn to the movement.

What passed, at parting, between Thousandacres and his visitor, I never knew; but they must have been altogether alone for a few minutes. When the former reappeared, he came out from behind the logs, his whole attention seemingly fastened on the approaching party, composed of his sons and Susquesus. Those resolute and practised men had, indeed, overtaken and captured the Onondago, and were now bringing him a prisoner, unarmed, in their midst, to receive the commands of their father! Notwithstanding all that I knew of this man, and of his character, there was something imposing in the manner in which he now waited for the arrival of his sons and their prisoner. Accustomed to exercise an almost absolute sway in his own family, the old man had acquired some of the dignity of authority; and as for his posterity, old and young, male and female, not excepting Prudence, they had gained very little in the way of freedom, by throwing aside the trammels of regular and recognized law, to live under the rule of their patriarch. In this respect they might be likened to the masses, who, in a blind pursuit of liberty, impatiently cast away the legal and healthful restraints of society, to submit to the arbitrary, selfish, and ever unjust dictation of demagogues. Whatever difference there might be between the two governments, was in favor of that of the squatter, who possessed the feelings of nature in behalf of his own flesh and blood, and was consequently often indulgent.

It is so difficult to read an Indian's mind in his manner, that I did not expect to ascertain the state of the Onondago's feelings by the countenance he wore, on drawing near. In exterior, this man was as calm and unmoved as if just arrived on a friendly visit. His captors had bound him, fearful he might elude them, in some of the thickets they had been compelled to pass; but the thongs seemed to give him neither mental nor bodily concern. Old Thousandacres was stern in aspect; but he had too much experience in Indian character – knew too well the unforgiving nature of the Indians' dispositions, or the enduring memories that forgot neither favors nor injuries, to wantonly increase the feeling that must naturally have been awakened between him and his prisoner.

"Trackless," he said, considerately, "you're an old warrior, and must know that in troubled times every man must look out for himself. I'm glad the b'ys warn't driven to do you any harm; but it would never have done to let you carry the tidings of what has happened here, this morning, to Chainbearer and his gang. How long I may have to keep you, is more than I know myself; but your treatment shall be good, and your wilcome warm, so long as you give no trouble. I know what a redskin's word is; and maybe, a'ter thinkin' on it a little, I may let you out to wander about the clearin', provided you'd give your parole not to go off. I'll think on't, and let you know to-morrow; but to-day I must put you in the store'us' along with the young chap that you travelled here with."

Thousandacres then demanded of his sons an account of the manner in which they had taken their captive; which it is unnecessary to relate here, as I shall have occasion to give it directly in the language of the Indian himself. As soon as satisfied on this head, the door of my prison was opened, and the Onondago entered it unbound, without manifesting the smallest shade of regret, or any resistance. Everything was done in a very lock-up sort of manner; the new prisoner being no sooner "permitted," than the door was secured, and I was left alone with Sureflint; one of the younger girls now remaining near the building as a sentinel. I waited a moment, to make certain we were alone, when I opened the communications with my friend.

"I am very sorry for this, Sureflint," I commenced, "for I had hopes your knowledge of the woods, and practice on trails, would have enabled you to throw off your pursuers, that you might have carried the news of my imprisonment to our friends. This is a sore disappointment to me; having made sure you would let Chainbearer know where I am."

"W'y t'ink different, now, eh? S'pose, 'cause Injin prisoner, can't help himself?"

"You surely do not mean that you are here with your own consent?"

"Sartain. S'pose no want to come; am no come. You t'ink Thousandacres' b'ys catch Susquesus in woods, and he don't want to? Be sure, winter come, and summer come. Be sure, gray hair come a little. Be sure Trackless get ole, by-'m-bye; but he moccason leave no trail yet!"

"As I cannot understand why you should first escape, and then wish to come back, I must beg you to explain yourself. Let me know all that has passed, Sureflint – how it has passed, and why it has passed. Tell it in your own way, but tell it fully."

"Sartain – why no tell? No harm; all good – somet'ing capital! Nebber hab better luck."

"You excite my curiosity, Sureflint; tell the whole story at once, beginning at the time when you slipped off, and carrying it down to the moment of your arrival here."

Hereupon, Susquesus turned on me a significant look, drew his pipe from his belt, filled and lighted it, and began to smoke with a composure that was not easily disturbed. As soon as assured that his pipe was in a proper state, however, the Indian quietly began his story.

"Now listen, you hear," he said. "Run away, 'cause no good to stay here, and be prisoner – dat why."

"But you are a prisoner, as it is, as well as myself, and, by your statement, a prisoner with your own consent."