Alas! alas! for poor human nature again. Seldom does man commit a wrong but he sets his ingenuity to work to frame excuses for it. When his mind thus gets to be perverted by the influence of his passions, and more especially by that of rapacity, he never fails to fancy new principles to exist to favor his schemes, and manifests a readiness in inventing them, which, enlisted on the side of goodness, might render him a blessing instead of a curse to his race. But roguery is so active, while virtue is so apt to be passive, that in the eternal conflict that is waged between them, that which is gained by the truth and inherent power of the last is, half the time, more than neutralized by the unwearied exertions of the first! This, I fear, may be found to contain the weak spot of our institutions. So long as law represents the authority of an individual, individual pride and jealousy may stimulate it to constant watchfulness; whereas, law representing the community, carries with it a divided responsibility, that needs the excitement of intolerable abuses ere it will arouse itself in its own vindication. The result is merely another proof that, in the management of the ordinary affairs of life, men are usually found to be stronger than principles.
"Have you ever had occasion to try one of your titles of possession in a court of law, against that of a landholder who got his right from a grant?" I asked, after reflecting a moment on the truth I have just narrated.
Thousandacres shook his head, looked down a moment, and pondered a little in his turn, ere he gave me the following answer:
"Sartain," he said. "We all like to be on the right side, if we can; and some of our folks kind o' persuaded me I might make out, once, ag'in a reg'lar landlord. So I stood trial with him; but he beat me, Mr. Mordaunt, just the same as if I had been a chicken, and he the hawk that had me in his talons. You'll never catch me trusting myself in the claws of the law ag'in, though that happened as long ago as afore the old French war. I shall never trust to law any more. It may do for them that's rich, and don't kear whether they win or lose; but law is a desp'rate bad business for them that hasn't got money to go into it, right eend foremost."
"And should Mr. Littlepage discover your being here, and feel disposed to come to some arrangement with you, what conditions would you be apt to accept?"
"Oh! I'm never ag'in trade. Trade's the spirit of life; and seein' that Gin'ral Littlepage has some right, as I do s'pose is the case, I shouldn't want to be hard on him. If he would keep things quiet, and not make a fuss about it, but would leave the matter out to men, and they men of the right sort, I shouldn't be difficult; for I'm one of that kind that hates lawsuits, and am always ready to do the right thing; and so he'd find me as ready to settle as any man he ever had on his lands."
"But on what terms? You have not told me the terms."
"As to tarms, I'd not be hard, by any means. No man can say old Thousandacres ever druv' hard tarms, when he had the best on't. That's not in my natur', which runs altogether toward reason and what's right. Now you see, Mordaunt, how matters stand atween this Littlepage and myself. He's got a paper title, they tell me, and I've got possession, which is always a squatter's claim; and a good one 'tis, where there's plenty of pine and a mill-seat with a handy market!"
Here Thousandacres stopped to laugh again, for he generally indulged in this way, in so hearty and deep a tone, as to render it difficult to laugh and talk in the same breath. As soon as through, however, he did not forget to pursue the discourse.
"No, no man that understands the woods will gainsay them advantages," added the squatter; "and of all on 'em am I now in the enj'yment. Wa-a-l, Gin'ral Littlepage, as they call him about here, has a paper title; and I've got possession. He has the courts on his side, I'll allow; but here are my betterments—sixty-three as large acres chopped over and hauled to mill, as can be found in all Charlotte, or Washington, as they tell me the county is now called."