es did not affect to consider
Hiram Doolittle a perfect empiric in his profession, being in the
constant habit of listening to his treatises on architecture with a
kind of indulgent smile; yet, either from an inability to oppose them
by anything plausible from his own stores of learning, or from secret
admiration, Richard generally submitted to the arguments of his
coadjutor.

Together they had not only directed a dwelling for Marmaduke, but they
had given a fashion to the architecture of the whole country. The
composite order, Mr. Doolittle would contend, was an order composed of
many others, and was intended to be the most useful of all, for it
admitted into its construction such alterations as convenience or
circumstances might require. To this proposition Richard usually
assented; and when rival geniuses, who monopolize not only all the
reputation, but most of the money of the neighborhood, are of a mind,
it is not uncommon to see them lead the fashion, even in graver
matters. In the present instance, as we have already hinted, the
castle, as Judge Temple's dwelling was termed in common parlance, came
to be the model, in some one or other of its numerous excellences, for
every aspiring edifice within twenty miles of it.[63]

[Footnote 63: Judge Cooper's new home was called Otsego Hall. It was
afterward improved by Fenimore Cooper and remained his home during the
many years he spent in Cooperstown. A few years after his death it was
destroyed by fire. Its site is now a village park.]

II

RUNNING THE GANTLET[64]

Tho astonished at first by the uproar, Heyward was soon enabled to
find its solution by the scene that followed. There yet lingered
sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit those bright openings among
the tree-tops where different paths left the clearing to enter the
depths of the wilderness. Beneath one of them, a line of warriors
issued from the woods and advanced slowly toward the dwellings. One in
front bore a short pole, on which, as it afterward appeared, were
suspended several human scalps. The startling sounds that Duncan had
heard were what the whites have not inappropriately called the
"death-hallo"; and each repetition of the cry was intended to announce
to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowledge of Heyward
assisted him in the explanation; and as he knew that the interruption
was caused by the unlooked-for return of a successful war-party, every
disagreeable sensati