“Do you expect, sir, to find gold and silver lying like pebbles on the surface of the earth?—dollars and dimes ready coined to your hands? No, no—the treasure must be sought after to be won. But let them mine; I shall countermine.”
The Judge took an accurate survey of the place, and noted in his memorandum-book such marks as were necessary to find it again in the event of Richard's absence; when the cousins returned to their horses.
On reaching the highway they separated, the sheriff to summon twenty-four “good men and true,” to attend as the inquest of the county, on the succeeding Monday, when Marmaduke held his stated court of “common pleas and general sessions of the peace,” and the Judge to return, musing deeply on what he had seen and heard in the course of the morning.
When the horse of the latter reached the spot where the highway fell toward the valley, the eye of Marmaduke rested, it is true, on the same scene that had, ten minutes before, been so soothing to the feelings of his daughter and her friend, as they emerged from the forest; but it rested in vacancy. He threw the reins to his sure footed beast, and suffered the animal to travel at his own gait, while he soliloquized as follows:
“There may be more in this than I at first supposed. I have suffered my feelings to blind my reason, in admitting an unknown youth in this manner to my dwelling; yet this is not the land of suspicion. I will have Leather-Stocking before me, and, by a few direct questions, extract the truth from the simple old man.”
At that instant the Judge caught a glimpse of the figures of Elizabeth and Louisa, who were slowly descending the mountain, short distance before him. He put spurs to his horse, and riding up to them, dismounted, and drove his steed along the narrow path. While the agitated parent was listening to the vivid description that his daughter gave of her recent danger, and her unexpected escape, all thoughts of mines, vested rights, and examinations were absorbed in emotion; and when the image of Natty again crossed his recollection, it was not as a law Less and depredating squatter, but as the preserver of his child.
CHAPTER XXX.
“The court awards it, and the law doth give it.”
—Merchant of Venice.
Remarkable Pettibone, who had forgotten the wound received by her pride, in contemplation of the ease and comforts of her situation, and who still retained her station in the family of judge Temple, was dispatched to the humble dwelling which Richard already styled “The Rectory,” in attendance on Louisa, who was soon consigned to the arms of her father.