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'!"