James Fenimore Cooper

“ Is it no harm to bring down the pride of an honest man to be the equal of the beasts of the forest?"
Benjamin stared about him fiercely, and could he have found a single face that expressed contumely, he would have been prompt to quarrel with its owner; but meeting everywhere with looks of sobriety, and occasionally of commiseration, he very deliberately seated himself by the side of the hunter, and, placing his legs in the two vacant holes of the stocks, he said:
"Now lower away, master constable, lower away, I tell ye! ”

“ Pump," cried the constable; "you must get up and let me do my duty."
"You've my orders, and what do you need better to meddle with my own feet? so lower away, will ye, and let me see the man that chooses to open his mouth with a grin on it."
"There can't be any harm in locking up a creatur' that will enter the pound," said the constable, laughing, and closing the stocks on them both. ”

“ Benjamin was occupied in untying his bag of dollars, and did not observe the approach of the magistrate, while Natty turned his face, in which every muscle was working, away from him in disgust, without answering. Rather encouraged than daunted by this exhibition of dislike, Hiram, after a short pause, continued:
"The clouds look as if they’d no water in them, and the earth is dreadfully parched. To my judgment, there’ll be short crops this season, if the rain doesn’t fall quite speedily." ”

“ Penguillium, and there's law for it, I s'pose."
"Ay, ay, I know that there's law for the thing; but where away do you find the use, I say? it does no harm, and it only keeps a man by the heels for the small matter of two glasses"
"Is it no harm, Benny Pump," said Natty, raising his eyes with a piteous look in the face of the steward — "is it no harm to show off a man in his seventy-first year, like a tame bear, for the settlers to look on? ”

“ When I find a friend, I sticks by him, dye see. Now, there's no better man a-going than Squire Dickens, and I love him about the same as I loves Mistress Hollister's new keg of Jamaiky." The steward paused, and turning his uncouth visage on the hunter, he surveyed him with a roguish leer of his eye, and gradually suffered the muscles of his hard features to relax, until his face was illuminated by the display of his white teeth, when he dropped his voice, and added; "I say, Master Leather-Stocking, 'tis fresher and livelier than any Hollands you’ll get in Garnsey. ”

“ Ain’t it enough for any Christian, let him harbor never so much malice, to get an honest old fellow laid by the heels in this fashion, without carrying sail so hard on the poor dog, as if you would run him down as he lay at his anchors? But I’ve logged many a hard thing against your name, master, and now the time’s come to foot up the day’s work, d'ye see; so square yourself, you lubber, square yourself, and we'll soon know who's the better man. ”

“ Is it no harm to put an old soldier, that has served through the war of 'fifty-six, and seen the enemy in the 'seventy-six business, into a place like this, where the boys can point at him and say, I have known the time when he was a spectacle for the county? ”