Miss Temple must have understood the meaning of the old man better than the other listeners; for while Louisa stood innocently by her side, commiserating the griefs of the hunter, she bent her head aside, so as to conceal her features. The action and the feeling that caused it lasted but a moment.
“Other logs, and better, though, can be had, and shall be found for you, my old defender,” she continued. “Your confinement will soon be over, and, before that time arrives, I shall have a house prepared for you, where I you may spend the close of your long and harmless life in ease and plenty.”
“Ease and plenty! house!” repeated Natty, slowly. “You mean well, you mean well, and I quite mourn that it cannot be; but he has seen me a sight and a laughing-stock for—”
“Damn your stocks,” said Benjamin, flourishing his bottle with one hand, from which he had been taking hasty and repeated draughts, while he made gestures of disdain with the other: “who cares for his bilboes? There's a leg that been stuck up on end like a jibboom for an hour, d'ye see, and what's it the worse for't, ha? canst tell me, what's it the worser, ha?”
“I believe you forget, Mr. Pump, in whose presence you are,” said Elizabeth.
“Forget you, Miss Lizzy?” returned the steward; “if I do, dam'me; you are not to be forgot, like Goody Pretty-bones, up at the big house there. I say, old sharpshooter, she may have pretty bones, but I can't say so much for her flesh, d'ye see, for she looks somewhat like anatomy with another man's jacket on. Now for the skin of her face, it's all the same as a new topsail with a taut bolt-rope, being snug at the leeches, but all in a bight about the inner cloths.”
“Peace—I command you to be silent, sir!” said Elizabeth.
“Ay, ay, ma'am,” returned the steward. “You didn't say I shouldn't drink, though.”
“We will not speak of what is to become of others,” said Miss Temple, turning again to the hunter—“but of your own fortunes, Natty. It shall be my care to see that you pass the rest of your days in ease and plenty.”
“Ease and plenty!” again repeated the Leather-Stocking; “what ease can there be to an old man, who must walk a mile across the open fields, before he can find a shade to hide him from a scorching sun! or what plenty is there where you hunt a day, and not start a buck, or see anything bigger than a mink, or maybe a stray fox! Ah! I shall have a hard time after them very beavers, for this fine. I must go low toward the Pennsylvania line in search of the creatures, maybe a hundred mile; for they are not to be got here-away. No, no—your betterments and clearings have druv the knowing things out of the country, and instead of beaver-dams, which is the nater of the animal, and according to Providence, you turn back the waters over the low grounds with your mill-dams, as if 'twas in man to stay the drops from going where He wills them to go—Benny, unless you stop your hand from going so often to your mouth, you won't be ready to start when the time comes.