If the two men under sentence felt any gratitude for the mitigation of the severity, they expressed none. Graves maintained a sullen silence, though his vengeful scowl expressed as much hatred of the prosecutors of the informal trial as did the storm of oaths and abuse that Felton let forth upon them in intermittent gusts.
So the night passed, with snatches of sleep for some, with none for others, while the prisoners were kept under constant guard. With daylight came the summary infliction of the punishment awarded. It was a scene so cruel that Ruth and Martha could not bear to hear, much less to witness it, and Nathan, when an old man, said it was a horrible memory. Yet, severe as was the chastisement inflicted by the Green Mountain Boys upon their persecutors, it was no more cruel than the legal punishment of many light offences in those days, when the whipping post was one of the first adornments of every little hamlet. In conclusion, Ethan Allen gave to Felton and Graves a “Certificate,” written by himself, to the effect:
“This is to Certify that the Bearer has this day rec’d his Just Dues and is permitted to pass beyond the New Hampshire Grants. He Behaving as Becometh. In witness whereof, see the Beech Seal upon his back and our Hands set Hereunto. Signed, Ethan Allen and others.”
Felton cast his upon the ground and stamped upon it, but Graves folded and put his carefully in his pocket, glowering in silence upon his enemies. Then Ethan Allen broke the surveyor’s compass with his own hands and tossed the fragments away.
“Now,” said he, in an awful voice, “depart, and woe be unto you, Marmaduke Felton and Erastus Graves, if you ever set foot in the land of the Green Mountain Boys. You other men, if you come in peace and on honest business, you shall not have a hair of your heads hurt. But if you ever venture to come on such an iniquitous errand as now brought you, by the Great Jehovah, you shall repent in sackcloth and ashes! Forward, march!”
At the command, the surveyor and his men filed off, and the last of the sullen and chap-fallen crew soon disappeared among the trees. They were accompanied some distance by the Green Mountain Boys, when their beloved chieftain rode away to redress wrongs of settlers in other parts.
By noon the clearing was occupied by none but its usual tenants, and, henceforth, though they suffered frequent apprehension of further trouble, they were not molested by any New York claimants.
[CHAPTER VIII—A NOVEL BEAR TRAP]
“You don’t know of anybody hereabouts that wants to hire a good hand, I s’pose?” asked a stranger one August afternoon, as, without unslinging his pack, he set his gun against the log wall beside the door, and leaned upon his axe at the threshold.
By degrees Seth Beeman had enlarged his clearing so far that he already needed stronger hands than Nathan’s to help him in the care of the land already in tilth and in the further extension of his betterments, but he scanned the man closely before he answered. Though unprepossessing, low-browed, and surly looking, he was evidently a stout fellow, and accustomed to work. At length a reply was made by asking such questions as were a matter of course in those days, and are not yet quite obsolete in Yankeeland.