The whole group were seated around the fire, with the exception of Richard and Benjamin; the former of whom occupied the root of a decayed stump, that had been drawn to the spot as part of their fuel, and the latter was standing, with his arms akimbo, so near to the flame that the smoke occasionally obscured his solemn visage, as it waved around the pile in obedience to the night airs that swept gently over the water.
“Why, look you, squire, said the major-domo. You may call a lake-fish that will weigh twenty or thirty pounds a serious matter, but to a man who has hauled in a shovel-nosed shirk, d'ye see, it's but a poor kind of fishing after all.”
“I don't know, Benjamin,” returned the sheriff; “a haul of one thousand Otsego bass, without counting pike, pickerel, perch, bull-pouts, salmon-trouts, and suckers, is no bad fishing, let me tell you. There may he sport in sticking a shark, but what is he good for after you have got him? Now, any one of the fish that I have named is fit to set before a king.”
“Well, squire,” returned Benjamin, “just listen to the philosophy of the thing. Would it stand to reason, that such a fish should live and be catched in this here little pond of water, where it's hardly deep enough to drown a man, as you'll find in the wide ocean, where, as every body knows that is, everybody that has followed the seas, whales and grampuses are to be seen, that are as long as one of the pine-trees on yonder mountain?”
“Softly, softly, Benjamin,” said the sheriff, as if he wished to save the credit of his favorite; “why, some of the pines will measure two hundred feet, and even more.”
“Two hundred or two thousand, it's all the same thing,” cried Benjamin, with an air which manifested that he was not easily to be bullied out of his opinion, on a subject like the present. “Haven't I been there, and haven't I seen? I have said that you fall in with whales as long as one of them there pines: and what I have once said I'll stand to!”
During this dialogue, which was evidently but the close of much longer discussion, the huge frame of Billy Kirby was seen extended on one side of the fire, where he was picking his teeth with splinters of the chips near him, and occasionally shaking his head with distrust of Benjamin's assertions.
“I've a notion,” said the wood-chopper, “that there's water in this lake to swim the biggest whale that ever was invented; and, as to the pines, I think I ought to know so'thing consarning them; I have chopped many a one that was sixty times the length of my helve, without counting the eye; and I believe, Benny, that if the old pine that stands in the hollow of the Vision Mountain just over the village—you may see the tree itself by looking up, for the moon is on its top yet—well, now I believe, if that same tree was planted out in the deepest part of the lake, there would be water enough for the biggest ship that ever was built to float over it, without touching its upper branches, I do.”
“Did'ee ever see a ship, Master Kirby?” roared the steward, “did'ee ever see a ship, man? or any craft bigger than a lime-scow, or a wood-boat, on this here small bit of fresh water?”
“Yes, I have,” said the wood-chopper stoutly; “I can say that I have, and tell no lie.”