"Lord bless the major! met Thousandacres? Why, I've met him a hundred times! We all know the old man well enough; and many and many is the time I've met him at raisin's, and trainin's, and town meetin's, and political meetin's, too. I've even seen him in court, though Thousandacres don't set much store by law, not half as much as he and every other man ought to do; for law is excellent, and society would be no better than a collection of wild beasts, as I often tell Miss Newcome, if it hadn't law to straighten it out, and to teach the misguided and evil-disposed what's right. I s'pose the major will coincide with that idee?"
"I have no particular objection to the sentiment, sir, but wish it was more general. As you have seen this person Thousandacres so often, perhaps you can tell me something of his character. My opportunities of knowing the man have been none of the best; for most of the time I was his prisoner he had me shut up in an out-building in which I believe he has usually kept his salt, and grain, and spare provisions."
"Not the old store'us'!" exclaimed the magistrate, looking a little aghast, for the reader will doubtless recollect that the confidential dialogue between him and the squatter, on the subject of the lumber, had occurred so near that building as to be overheard by me. "How long has the major been in this clearin', I wonder?"
"Not a very great while in fact, though long enough to make it appear a week. I was put into the storehouse soon after my seizure, and have passed at least half my time there since."
"I want to know! Perhaps the major got in that hole as 'arly as yesterday morn?"
"Perhaps I did, sir. But, Mr. Newcome, on looking round at the quantity of lumber these men have made, and recollecting the distance they are from Albany, I am at a loss to imagine how they could hope to get their ill-gotten gains to market without discovery. It would seem to me that their movements must be known, and that the active and honest agents of this part of the country would seize their rafts in the water-courses; thus making the very objects of the squatters' roguery the means of their punishment. Is it not extraordinary that theft, in a moral sense at least, can be systematically carried on, and that on so large a scale, with such entire impunity?"
"Wa-a-l—I s'pose the major knows how things turn, in this world. Nobody likes to meddle."
"How, sir—not meddle! This is contrary to all my experience of the habits of the country, and all I have heard of it! Meddling, I have been given to understand, is the great vice of our immigrant population, in particular, who never think they have their just rights, unless they are privileged to talk about, and sit in judgment on the affairs of all within twenty miles of them; making two-thirds of their facts as they do so, in order to reconcile their theories with the wished-for results."
"Ah! I don't mean meddlin' in that sense, of which there is enough, as all must allow. But folks don't like to meddle with things that don't belong to them in such serious matters as this."
"I understand you—the man who will pass days in discussing his neighbor's private affairs, about which he absolutely knows nothing but what has been obtained from the least responsible and most vulgar sources, will stand by and see that neighbor robbed and say nothing, under the influence of a sentiment so delicate, that it forbids his meddling with what don't belong to him."