CHAPTER I.
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We were on our way from Philadelphia to Baltimore,
in the beautiful month of May, 1814; our boat
crowded with passengers, the oddest collection you
ever saw, and the British lying not far off in considerable
force; and yet, so assured were we of our ability to
escape, as not even to be kept awake by our dangerous
neighborhood. The war, chess, politics, flirting,
pushpin, tetotum, and jackstraws, (cards being prohibited,)
newspapers and religious tracts, had all been
tried, and all in vain to relieve the insipidity of a
pleasant passage, and keep off the drowsiness that
weighed upon our spirits like the rich overloaded
atmosphere of a spice-island, breathing about a soft
summer sea. Even the huge negroes felt and enjoyed
the delicious warmth, as they lay stretched out, heads
and points, over the piles of split wood, with their fat
shiny faces turned up to the sky, and their broad feet
stiffening in the shadow.
The smooth, steady, uninterrupted motion of our
way—it was like one long continued launch—with
the soft sleepy blue overhead, and the still softer
and sleepier wave underneath, would have been too
much for the wakefulness of any body alive, but a
thief-taker on the scent of his prey—or a reader of
some such book as—as—as I intend this to be.
Yaw—aw—aw! I wonder what o'clock 'tis now?
drawled a man who lay stretched out on no less than
five differen' chairs, in a spot which glowed like the
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reflection of a furnace-mouth upon a white-washed
wall; with a yellow handkerchief drawn over his face,
and a hat fixed under his head—Yaw—aw—aw! never
seed sich weather afore since I cum inter the world;
I swan if I did!
The remark was probably intended for me, though
directed to nobody in particular—merely thrown out,
as a lawyer would say—after the manner of people
who want to be familiar without the risk of being
snubbed. I had been dusting the face of my watch a
moment before, and laughing with a pretty little
quakeress, who sat near me, at the perverse ingenuity
of this very man, who had lost his own shadow for
the twentieth time at least, while pursuing it blindfolded,
with his hat pulled over his eyes, and a bandanna
over his mouth. But I told him the hour, nevertheless.
Thee appears to be a stranger in these parts, added
a venerable man, who sat on the other side of the little
quakeress, in a Philadelphia coat and a snuff-colored
beaver; stooping toward me as he spoke, so that a
sprinkle of white hair—the whitest and thinnest I ever
saw, blew athwart her upturned eyes—I could just see
their color through it—they were as like the sky as
any earthly thing could well be—just about as blue,
and just about as clear—starry, with a white mist flying
over them.
I bowed, and was on the point of replying at length,
after the fashion of my country, when there are plenty
of chairs within reach of our arms and legs, like one
of those figures which painters draw from the points
made by five bits of paper, dropped together upon a
table; when a stiff, straight, bony-looking Down
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Easter, with a straw hat, high cheek-bones, a nose like
a sun-dial, and the sharpest mouth you ever saw in a
domesticated Yankee, who had been galloping about
the deck for two hours at full speed, with his new coat
sleeves pushed half way up the elbow, (as if he had
just prepared to wash himself) so as to betray
a cotton shirt with linen wristbands, and large brass
sleeve-buttons; his collar turned back, and his shirtbosom
all open to the waist,—made a full stop in front
and addressed me as follows—looking another
way all the time. If he is a stranger in these parts, I
can tell him he'd better have his eye-teeth cut afore
he's much older; if he don't (lowering his voice to a
sort of whistle, and puckering up his mouth into the
oddest of all possible shapes for a mouth, stooping over,
turning up one foot sideways, and beginning to count
the stitches in the shoe,) if he don't shave putty nigh
the grinstun, somebody 't he's ben so ter'ble thick with
'll show him what's what, afore he's done with him—
ketch a weazle asleep, hey? (cocking his eye at me,)
wish his cake dough; if he don't there's none o' me,
that's all.
Pray sir, said I, in no little trepidation, I confess;
for I saw by his look what no mortal would have
gathered from his speech, that I had something to
fear,—Pray, sir, if you mean me, what is the danger
you speak of?
Instead of replying—he blew a long breath, pulled
down his sleeves, pulled 'em up, looked at my watch
and then at the old quaker; shifted his feet; blew another
long breath; and then set off with more energy
than ever—walking away as if he had a wager in view,
swinging the tail of his queer-shaped coat, which he
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had now thrown back half off his shoulders, first one
side and then the other, at every step he took; now
fanning himself with all his might, and now shading
his face with a ragged newspaper; treading the deck
as if he would go through whap into the seller, as he
called it, where they keep the sarse aboard-ship; and
flirting a new pocket handkerchief after the manner of
most Americans and of all New-Englanders, now this
way and now that, now drawing it through his hand
and now flourishing it in the breeze, till every thing
was in motion about him—leaves, pamphlets, dust,
ribbons, and newspapers.
A pretty way for a body to keep himself cool, said
I, in what I meant for a confidential whisper to the
dear little creature at my elbow,—who let fall her dark
lashes in a hurry, half averted her face in reply, and
bit her under lip.
Too drowsy by half, thought I, and rather too stiff
on the whole, for hot-weather companionship aboard
a steamboat; and looking at her again, I thought her
eyes did not appear quite so blue, nor altogether so
transparent as they had a few minutes before, when she
was inclined to be more sociable; and turning away
from her in somewhat of a huff, I observed a handsome
young man a little way off lounging over the quarterrail
with his hat off, and a mass of black hair, of unshorn
plumage rather, as black as death, and glossy
with strange brightness-floating off and rising and falling
over his temples at every pitch of the boat, as if
stirred and lifted by a strong sea-breeze. Whether
he saw her, I do not know—nor whether he knew
her—but her eye was upon him, and I could see her
mouth tremble, and the delicate lawn over her young
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bosom shiver, as he turned away. And then, happening
to shift my place, I observed the fellow who lay
stretched out his whole length upon half a score of
cane chairs without backs, with his head lifted up
and resting on his elbow—and his face turning after
me—as if instead of being asleep, he had placed
himself there for no purpose on earth but to observe
my motions. I recollected him now—he had stuck to
my side—saying nothing, doing nothing from the first
moment I happened to pull out my watch below; with
all his legs and arms stretched out here and there over
the costly furniture, as if they had been all shipwrecked
together; one leg lying across a superb mahogany
table, another bent over the top of a tilted chair, and
one elbow finding its way slowly—slowly but surely—
through the bottom of a cane-wrought sofa, which he
had contrived to fix up aslant behind him. At this moment
the handkerchief slipped down from his eyes,
and I found him watching me like a cat. At first
I felt rather uneasy; but then, what had I to fear?
The fellow was evidently a down-easter; and therefore,
incapable of any thing that would bring him
within the grasp of the law. Finding that he was observed,
he stretched himself out, gaped like a tame
lioness for half a minute or so, and then turning away,
went to sleep with his back toward me.
A full quarter of an hour after this, when I had entirely
forgotten the man, the handsome stranger, the
little quakeress, and myself—dignity and all, and was
occupied with a strange tumultuous revery, which
came up, and moved before me like a vision of the
future, and which has turned out since to be prophecy—
I heard a bell ring—a slight bustle midships—and then
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boat lurched, and all at once we lay motionless
our upon the slope of the sea. Some of our
machinery was out of order for the first time;
and though the greatest exertions were made, on account
of our dear friends, the British, who were all
abroad over the Chesapeake, we lost nearly five hours
by the delay. During this period, the youthful stranger
with the black hair, entered into conversation
with the old quaker, and continued it so long and so
earnestly, that I had the finest opportunity in the world
for surveying his face. I think I never saw a finer mouth,
more luminous eyes, nor a more exalted, intelligent
countenance, take it altogether. Animated, fiery and
changeable—with a dash of haughty seriousness, and
what I should call sorrow in another—a sort of proud
melancholy, that could not bear to be approached or
questioned,—it fixed my attention from the first, and
absolutely fascinated the poor girl; for though the
conversation did not appear to be intended for her,
and was conducted in a very low voice, I could perceive
that she heard it all, and was deeply interested
in the subject, whatever it was. Her half-opened lips,
her eager attitude—her occasional change of color,
and her low suppressed breathing, betrayed her.
Never shall I forget the altered expression of her
sweet sober child-like face! It began to light up
with a look of womanhood, all alive with a new interest
and a new energy. And yet, so far as I could see,
and I had watched them both very narrowly above an
hour, they were strangers to each other; and the
young man did not even look at her, nor she at him.
But there they sat—he talking to the old man as about
a matter of life and death; and she with her face
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turned away, and her blue eyes fixed upon the far shore,
as if the agitation of her whole frame, down to the
little finger-ends that were tapping the rail near me,
had been caused by something there.
While I was watching her, with the deepest attention—
feeling toward her, and pitying her, as if she
were a beloved sister, and greatly in need of a brother's
care; the queer fellow who had accosted me before,
and who still kept marching to and fro the whole
length of the deck, and clearing a passage for himself
at every sweep of his coat tail, wide enough to allow
three ordinary men to walk abreast, now made another
stop full before me, and turning toward the father,
while he kept his eye on something overboard—I say!
says he; and having secured our attention, he proceeded—
I say tho'! if he don't sleep with one eye
open as I said afore, which I never like to meddle
with other folks's business, there's a chap taint fur off
'll git a swop out o' his hide yit—slick as a whistle;
I vum if he don't!
You know consider'ble don't ye? said the other,
whom we had all supposed to be asleep for the last
hour; lifting his head quietly off the chair, pulling
away the handkerchief from his mouth, just far enough
to allow a squirt of tobacco spittle to escape through
his shut teeth, and eying the speaker with a good natured
leer Whereupon the first, turning slowly toward
him without appearing at all disconcerted, though
evidently taken by surprise, began to eye him in return,
inch by inch, as if he were taking an inventory of
his features and dress; and having finished the survey,
he puckered up his mouth, flung out one of his huge
feet as far it would go, and then put forth a question,
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as usual down-east, by way of reply. There is no
describing his look or manner; both must be left to
the reader's imagination after all, if he has never happened
to see a live Yankee about to engage another at
a game of poke-fun, as they call it where it flourishes
most. Didn't you never hear tell o' them air creuked
sticks they cut away down-east—so creuked they
wun't lay still—hey?
To this something was said, which I did not distinctly
understand, though it appeared to go to the
right place, and set two or three of the bystanders a
laughing.
Wal! retorted the other; you aint long for this
world, I swan! judgin' by your tongue, as they do in
the gab fever.
Not long for this world! retorted his antagonist;
getting under way rather slowly, then drawing himself
out like a portable fishing-rod or a telescope, and
stretching himself up to his full stature—gaping and
throwing both arms abroad as far as he could reach,
like one of anthropophagi after flies--longer 'n yourself
tho' by an inch and a half—and then with a look
which every body followed with his eye, though
nobody ventured to smile, he added—leavin' out noses
Not by two chalks! retorted his antagonist, tapping
the handle of his own visage as he spoke, to show
that he understood him; tho' if you had all the kinks
pulled out o' your carcase, your ears buttoned back,
and a bladder hauled over your mouth accordin' to
law, instead o' that air flashy handercher, you'd be
ever so much longer than ye air now, an' wuth more
too, by a pocky tarnal sight. I'd give as much agin
for ye—with the bristles off.
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This was too much for the gravity of my quaker
friends, though the handsome stranger appeared to
enjoy it most. The old man looked up with a smile of
subdued amazement, I laughed till my sides ached,
the fair girl (she proved to be his grand-daughter at
last) sat looking sideways at the two down-easters,
and struggled to suppress her mirth, till the tears
ran down her cheeks; while they interchanged a look
of triumph with certain of the bystanders, and then
separated—one betaking himself more zealously than
ever, and with the most self-satisfied air in the world,
to his journeying fore and aft the deck, pretending not
to know that he was a subject of admiration to every
body near; while the other, as if equally satisfied
with the issue, having folded his large yellow bandanna
into a new shape, threw himself limb by limb
over the five chairs, pretending to fall asleep again
directly, in spite of the attention he received from two
or three mischievous young dogs, who wanted to keep
them in play.
Again the conversation was renewed between the
the stranger and the old man; but in a very low voice
and with a manner that indicated extraordinary interest
in both; and at last I heard the latter say—Thy
notions are now to me, and I should be glad of a
further acquaintance when we arrive at Baltimore—
or if thee should ever come to Philadelphia—what
may I call thy name?
Middleton, sir—
And thy other name?
Gerard, sir—Gerard Middleton; bowing with his
large troubled eyes fixed upon the daughter for the
first time—and looking as if he would look her
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through, and read her very heart without being observed
by me or the grandfather. I saw instantly that
they had met before—and yet she stood it bravely—I
will say that for her—bravely, considering her youth
and her gentleness. A mere child in years, and looking
as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; and yet, there
she sat perfectly still, and suffered him to pore into the
lighted depth of her own dear eyes, without flinching
or trembling or dropping the lids; and then all at once,
when the trial was over, and he withdrew, partially
abashed I thought from the encounter, she recollected
herself, turned away, and blushed to her finger-ends.
The next time I saw her, she was very pale, and her
lashes were wet with tears.
Another bell—to remind us of our passage-money;
and having run forward to see what the matter was, I
did not immediately return; and when I did—but that
will do for another chapter,
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CHAPTER II.
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The confusion attendant on settling for the passage
having subsided, and the trouble about the machinery
being pretty well over, I returned to my favorite station
by the fair quakeress; where I had an opportunity of
studying Middleton yet more at my leisure. He stood
near me, leaning over the rail and playing with the bolt
of the gangway--I spoke to him twice about the danger,
and he thanked me, though he persisted nevertheless,
and at one time the slightest lurch of the vessel would
have precipitated him into the sea—yet there he stood,
watching the beautiful countenance before him, the
placid mouth and the happy eyes turned up toward
her dear old grandfather, and occasionally wandering
toward mine, (though I am sure she never saw me
after Middleton crossed her path,) whenever he appeared
in a revery, or was looking another way. I
saw now that he was rather tall, and very thin; a decided
southerner in his carriage, indolent, haughty and
graceful—somewhat swarthy too about the uncovered
part of his face, with a very intellectual forehead—
the temples were absolutely transparent—a woman's
mouth, and the most effeminate-looking hands I ever
saw. I never was half so much puzzled before—what
to make of him, I could'nt tell for a long while. His
black joyful eyes and haughty lip, did'nt belong far
enough north for the fine chisseling of the other features,
and the singular beauty of his language. But
when I discovered, as I did before we parted, that he
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was born of a New-England mother, remarkable for
her beauty and accomplishment, and that his father
was a Georgia planter, who died in a duel, which resulted
in the premature birth of his only child—this
very youth—and that after travelling in the south of
Europe, he had been educated in the north for the very
purpose of counteracting his fiery temper, and fortifying
his brave lineage by other and better principles
than he had imbibed in the south, I had a key to the
whole mystery; and from that hour the heart of
Gerard Middleton lay naked before me. I read it like
a map.
Finding I had no business there—the grand-father
being fully competent for the protection of the
child—I bore away for the walking down-easter—the
man with a nose like a sword-fish, and begged him,
half out breath already with no less than four attempts
to bring him to before I succeeded, to have compassion
on me, and tell me what the—gulp!—he meant
by the caution he had favored me with, so early in the
day. But he only walked so much the faster,
evading all my questions so adroitly, and with so much
ease to himself—now by a swing of his coat-tail, which
struck me so heavily as to satisfy me that he carried
weight, like John Gilpin's nag, and that people had
good reason for keeping out of his way, and now by a
flourish of his enormous pocket-handkerchief, that I
began to feel rather vexed with him.
In a con-siderable of a hurry jess now, said he—as if
he expected to arrive at Baltimore so much the sooner
for every step he took, though we lay at the time—
—As idle as a painted ship,
Upon a painted ocean—
Smashin' round like a house a fire a—a—a, he added
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passing me so swiftly that I lost a part of his remark,
and he the whole of my answer. And when I lay too,
waiting to fire into him as he wore upon his heel or
stood away upon a new tack; another and another
word, accompanied by a significant gesture, reached
my ear, and then—away he would go again! right
before the wind! wing and wing, all sails out, the
ballast shifting at every roll, and talking as fast as
ever, though I could'nt make out one word in forty.
No time to talk now! dont ye see where we air?—
right in the jaws o' the inimy; have to fight yit, I
vum if we dont! no runnin' away here, rot an' tarnation
seize the everlastin' steam-boats!; you seem to
be a leetle ryled yourself—dont wonder—dod burn an'
butter my hide; if you ever ketch me aboard o' steam-boat
agin, that's all! I know what you want! Stan'
out o' my way—I'm gettin' ready for a jump—
A jump! what the devil do you mean?—
Yis, a jump—right overboard! smash! the moment
I see the inimy; you may do as you like, you
and the rest o' the passengers, but I'm agoin' to swim
ashore—hullow! look o' there!—what's that-o'-comin'
up there! Aint them the boats?—I say, Cap'n
Trip! hullow, Cap'n Trip! aint them the inimy's
boats?
Captain Trip had been reconnoitering before; and
arriving aft with his spy-glass, he assured us we had
nothing to fear from that quarter, even if it should
prove to be the boats of the enemy; as long before
they could pull up with us, we should be at work under
a double pressure.
Dont believe a word on't, said the Yankee—no
business to come out, an' I toll him so when I wanted
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to walk to Havre de Grace—meachin' feller! never
was half so mad afore—ryled all over, inside and out.
Ryled?
To be sure!—ryled—ructious—there ye go agin!
right off the reel, jest as eff you never heerd o' bein
ryled afore? Hullow there! I say you, mister!
bawling away like a two-and-forty-pounder at a mulatto
who was righting the baggage forward with a handspike,
and trying to get some of the best of it under
cover. Mind how ye jounce that air chist about!
Have to pay for all ye break o' mine, I tell ye now!
An' I say, neighbor, (turning to me) I take you for
a witness. Mind what ye're at now! never seed
sich a feller since I breathed the breath o' life; no
sprawl in ye—great slammerkin' good for nothin'—
there now! What did I tell ye!
One of the boxes had pitched over upon a black fellow
below, who cleared himself with a spring and a
howl, and began leaping about the deck with his foot in
his hand, his enormous mouth as wide open as it would
stretch, and the tears running down his cheeks—
There now! and away bounced the Yankee to his
relief; catching him up in his arms as if he had been
a child, scolding him heartily all the time; and laying
him out over the bales of goods, without appearing to
see the strange faces that gathered about him, or to
care a fig for their profound astonishment, he began
pulling and hauling the leg about, now this way and
now that, and wrenching the foot first one way and
then another, as if he would twist it off, while the
sufferer lay grinding his teeth and uttering an occasional
boo-hoo!—boo-hoo!
Boohoo!—boohoo!—cried the Yankee, who had
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now satisfied himself as to the state of the case.
What's the use o' boo-hooin, I tell ye! Keep a stiff
upper lip; no bones broke—don't I know? Seventh
son of a seventh son—sarved ye right though—aint
hurt half bad enough—never hearn tell o' the rain
water doctor? some calls him the screw-augur doctor,
an' some the steam-doctor—boo-oo—boo-hoo—what
are ye afeard on? Got the stuff till cure ye, if ye'd
jammed your leg off—take the bruise right out by the
roots—look here! whipping out a large box, with a
lead-colored pigment, blue pill or opodeldoc perhaps,
or perhaps the scraping of a carriage-wheel. That's
the stuff for corns, I tell ye! capital too for razorstraps!
addressing himself now to one and now to another
of the bystanders, and either by accident or design
so as to hit rather hard here and there, and raise
a good-natured laugh at the expense of a little somebody
with pinched feet, and a cross-looking old woman
with a beard. Clear grit as ever you see! gut sech a
thing as a jacknife about ye marm?—to the latter, who
stood stooping over the box with a most inquisitive
air, eying him through her golden-bowed spectacles,
and occasionally touching the contents of the box, and
then smelling her fingers in a way that he did'nt appear
to relish—with a red-haired girl in very tight shoes
on one arm, and a sleepy-looking coxcomb with mustachios
on the other—clear grit, I tell ye!—take a
notch out of a broad axe!—whoa! to the nigger,
who-a! there, there!—best furnitoor-polish ever you
come across, mam. There, there, stiddy---stiddy!---
don't kick---plastering the foot all over with his furniture-polish,
and wrapping it up with a bandage of loose
oakum—ah, hah! begin to feel nicely aready, don't
it, mister?
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O, yessa massa, groaned the poor negro—him peel
berry moodch nicaly; tankee massa—berry mudch—
boo-hoo!—gorrigh!
Told ye so! slickest stuff ever you see, aint it mister?
snatching up a rag of tarred canvass and a bunch
of spun-yarn that somebody held near—good for the
lockjaw—tried it on myself; nobody talks faster 'an I
do now, do they marm? fuss chop too for yeller-fever,
an moths, and lip-salve, an bed-bugs—try a leetle
on't, mister, (to the youth in moustachios) or maybe
you'd like a box or yer own—some call it a new sort
o' tooth paste with more varter in't than nineteen sea
hosses; only a quarter dollar a box at retail, or two
dollars a dozen box in all, and take your pay in most
any thing marm, (to the red haired girl) boxes worth
half the money, and more too, marm—take 'em back at
double price, if you aint satisfied, if I ever come across
you agin—sell ye the privilege right out for any o'
the states, so't your son there could make his fortin'
by sellin' it for bears-greese; don't kick, I tell ye!—
to tho nigger—sartain cure for the itch—help yourself,
mister—why if you'll believe me, but I know you wunt,
I've seen it cure a whole neighborhood so privately,
they did'nt know it themselves—chincough—striped-fever
and back-bitin' to boot, only by rubbin' it over
the minister's wig—mortal fine stuff for the hair!—
turns it all manner o' colors—there! letting the limb
go and lifting the poor man up with a bandage on it
about as big as a moderate-sized pillow—see there!
enough's enough, I tell ye—boo-hoo—boo-hoo! If
yer don't stop your blartin' an' boo-hooin, you'll
take cold inside, and that'll take all the varter out o'
the greese—and then, arter that's done, I defy yer to
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stop—I call it greese; but its no more greese than you
air, (to a very fat man who had been laughing at all
the others in succession—it was their turn now) an'
what's more (to the nigger) your foot 'll turn all the
colors of a peacocks'-tail.
How would it answer in a case of yellow fever?
enquired the fat man.
Not knowin' cant say—suppose you try it with a
question or two yourself? But I've known it tried
out an' out with the slow fever?
On a four-wheeled one-horse dearbon, hey? said
somebody near me. Ah, and what's more, on a fever
an' ager; and it cured 'em both afore five o'clock, an'
gut all cleared away by supper time.
And ready for another, hey? continued the same
voice.
Here the poor negro began to hobble off, saying as
he moved away—Tanka massa, tanka berry mush.
I say tho', mister, cried the Yankee, calling after
him—might ask what's to pay; or buy a box o' the
hair-powder—that's the least you can do.
Why lor a bressa massa; massa so good, he neber
tink o' takin' notin' o' poor nigger, hey?
Try me.
I sholl dat! cried the poor fellow, beginning to
whistle, possum up a gum tree—ope he go! ope he go!
with one hand foraging at will in the pockets of his old
tarred trowsers, and the other, perhaps out of sheer
sympathy, sprawling about in the matted wool over-head,
the fingering whereof by a nigger implies great
inward perplexity.
Meanwhile the down-easter had got under way
again; giving me a nod as he went by, to make chase.
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But I had satisfied myself on that point before—his
long legs were altogether too much for me; and my
only chance appeared to lie in raking him as he yawed,
or waylaying him on a return passage. O, that you
could see him! his newly-paved boots falling on the
deck at every step like a machine driving piles, or a
beetle shod with sole-leather; and his pockets rattling
as he drove by, hitting first one person and then another,
like a newly-freighted waggon finding its way
downhill backwards without a driver.
All in good part! said he, talking faster than ever
mortal talked before, with the wind right in his teeth,
so that I lost three words out of four, and had to guess
at the fourth. Forgit and forgive, that's my way,
which if you dont git swapped out o' somthin' hansum
I miss my guess, that's all! can't you see! wears a
putty clever coat to be sure; but when ye git a chance,
jest take a peep into the in'ards or that air umberill o'
his'n with a cloth over it—why its nothin' in this world
but a frame o' sticks 'at he swapped for at French-town—
been whipped into hoss hair long ago, if it
had'nt been kept for a trade. But he knows how the
cat jumps, I tell ye—cute as nutmeg—brought up on
ten-penny nails, pynted at both eends; why that air
hat o' his'n 't you see there, with a new hat-case, bran
fire new, see how he keeps muchin' it—whenever you
look that way; why that's nothin' arter all but an old
three quarter dollar swap, with the wool off, an' more
spots on the brim than you could try out in half a
year—
No!
As true as you're alive—or shake a stick at between
now an' everlastin'.
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Pray tell me, said I, as he hove in sight again,—
what I have to fear from that—ah—he was already
out of hearing.
Why as to that question, said he, some five
minutes after, when we happened to cross one another's
route within speaking distance; my old
granfather, he said to me, says he, more 'n forty
years ago—here he made a full stop for a moment
with his eye upon two other negroes who were at work
with the baggage, and then sweeping by me as before,
I lost the remainder of his reply; and the next words
that reached me were,—don't want yer money; only
did it to try yer—not knowin' cant say—never thought
much o' Jedediah—do you chaw?
I stared and was about to answer, but I was too late.
He had gone by, with the poor old negro halting after
him and holding out a handful of change. We were
under way once more, and there was a great bustle
midships—and I felt the breeze blowing fresh—and
heard the sail run up with a pleasure that I wondered
at. If I had been becalmed for a month on a voyage
to Europe I could not have enjoyed the motion of the
vessel more—springing forward with new life and a
preternatural vigor, as the sea roughened with
the evening breeze and gradually darkened about our
path, over which the white foam poured with a deluge
of lustre from our wheels and prow.
I had lost myself entirely again, and was wandering
away I know not where—over the dim blue waters;
among the bright isles of the sea—far, far away, when
I was brought suddenly to my senses by a familiar
slap on the back. My teeth rattled again at the salutation.
It was the down-easter. I say, give us a nip
-- 020 --
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o' that air snuff o' yourn, 't I see ye have, down below
there, will ye? said he, rounding to as he finished,
and resting on his heel for a moment like a fine ship
that has been struck by a flaw in the midst of a capital
manoeuvre. Putty good o' the sort, hey, what there
is o'nt—an' enough on't too, such as it is; what d'ye
give a bladder?
A bladder! Oh—ah—I understand you now; I
dont buy it by the bladder;
O, you don't, do ye? how then?
By the box.
By the box! you don't say so!
But I do say so.
Oh—ah—whoolsale? Comes cheaper when you
lay it in by the box, hey? Pulling out a piece of ragged
brown-paper from his coat pocket—a store house
of odds and ends, of slops and fragments, blackball and
wafer-boxes, with a bunch of twine, a gimlet or two,
and a leather strap; and having spread the paper in
the palm of his hand, he began helping himself pinch
after pinch, till he had nearly emptied the box and
filled the paper; when seeing what he took for a
beetle or a cockroach at the bottom, he dropped the
last pinch as if he had burnt his fingers, and cried out—
lord a massy! what is it!
Where! where!—cried two or three persons near
me, all speaking together, and looking toward the
quarter where the British were expected. No wonder
they were half frightened out of their wits; I should
have been frightened too, had I not perceived the cause
of his consternation, as he stood pointing at the box,
and making the most horrible faces.
O—that's a bean, said I.
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You dont say so! what's it good for?
To scent the snuff.
Why how ye talk!—pulling it slowly out with his
forefinger and thumb, and feeling it cautiously—
Would'nt a cockroach do? The man evidently had
his misgivings, and like a true down-easter, was trying
to turn it off with a little over-acting; and then after
eyeing it awhile at arm's length, so as to make every
body that stood near doubt whether he was not pretending
ignorance, he began to rub it slowly and cautiously
over the tip-end of his tremendous nose—I
never did see such a nose! that's a fact—it was about
the color and very much the size of a long-necked
winter-squash—the more I saw of it the more I was
troubled, and I saw more and more of it every time I
looked that way—no, no, I never did see such a nose!
and then, having smelt it, he gave it a bite with his fore
teeth—I'm not speaking of the nose now—heaven
forbid!—that belongs to another paragraph—and then
before I could possibly interfere, with his grinders;
my attention being diverted at the time by a half-smothered
girlish giggle. On turning my head, I
found all eyes upon him, as he stood there making
mouths at the bean, preparatory to trying the flavor in
the way mentioned above. I was ready to burst with
laughter and vexation, till I saw that she understood
the matter properly; though I was not altogether
satisfied I confess, when I turned that way and saw
her thinking of the stranger with the passionate lip
and the imperious eye. That she was thinking of him
I knew the moment I saw her face; and she knew that
I knew it; for she never lifted her eyes to mine afterwards,
but sat there trembling, with one snowy
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hand lying so quietly in her lap, and the other stretched
out toward me so helplessly, that I longed to take
it into mine with the clasp of a brother—of an elder
not a younger brother—and say to her: be of good
cheer maiden! I will never betray thee! But how could
I? It was not yet dark; and we were not alone; and
perhaps if I had—for such things have been—perhaps
I might have had my ears boxed for my sympathy, or
a small sword flourished athwart my eyes, brother or
no brother, some cold frosty morning. It makes my
teeth chatter to think of it.
-- --
CHAPTER III.
[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]
Having tasted the bean, chawed it, and smelt of it
inside and out, the down-easter shook his head, and
spitting once or twice with the air of a man who has
heard of the biter bit, and feels rather perplexed on
the whole, take it by-and-large, was about returning
the bean to the box; and would have done so I am
sure, had I not turned away in a hurry, snapped the
lid with a decided emphasis, and begged him to keep
it to scent the snuff with which he had in the paper.
Wal, said he, not at all embarrassed by the proposition
or the look I favored him with—Wal! seein' 'ts
you, I dont care 'f I do—for between you' an' me an'
the post, I've taken a sort of a likin' to you—rather a
sorter than a sorter not—I vow if I haint! and that's
a slum-fac (a solemn fact I believe he meant—a favorite
phrase with him); for I guess you're a putty clever
sort of a feller notwithstandin'—rather equivocal
thought I, as he proceeded. What d'ye have to pay
for sech beans as them, hey? Where d'ye git 'em?
What do they cost? How do ye lay 'em in—by
weight or measure?
By tale, said I.
Oh—laying his finger along the side of his nose and
trying to look arch at the old quaker.
They are worth sixpence a piece, I added.
You don't say so! sixpence a piece! beats all
nater! By jingo, if I dont plant this, right away—do
ye think 'till mind a scratch or two like that? showing
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[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]
me the marks of his fore teeth, and rubbing the bean
with his cuff—did'nt go more 'n half way to the heart—
sixpence a piece! York money though?
No—Massachusetts—New England—Virginia currency.
Wal, if ever! May be you've got some to sell?—
rather guess ye have?
No.
Like to buy, may be? What'll ye give a thousand—
cash?
A thousand! why bless your heart, I—
Or truck out o' the store at cash prices—hullow!
We were interrupted by a great noise, and a cry of,
look out below there! and the next moment a couple
of long chests painted sky-blue, and flowered off in
great style with a border of brimstone-yellow, pitched
headlong from the very tip-top of the luggage; and
the end of one being stove, and the top flying off, the
deck was instantly littered with all sorts of down-east
travelling haberdashery—half a bushel of dried apples
on strings, a quantity of blue-and-white woollen yarn,
with sundry articles of clothing, which had seen their
best days long and long before, a heap of dough-nuts,
a new bridle, part of a sage-cheese, three or four
nests of sugar-boxes, a wooden clock-face and a pair
of spurs with enormous rowels, were among the articles
I remember.
There now! cried my companion, you've jess
done it! I told you so—did'nt I mister? (turning to
me for proof) did'nt I tell you so, when that are gentleman
was a cypherin' about there with the wooden
crow-bar, among all them air chists and boxes?
The gentleman he alluded to was the steward; a
handsome, well-behaved, well-dressed mulatto.
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Never you mind tho'; I'll make him pay for it; or
Cap'n Trip shall make the damage good afore I leave
the vessel—I'm goin' right away to Washintin', and
its wuth five dollars a day to me, every day 't I
lose—
A representative perhaps?
A representatyve?—oh—no! somethin' more'n
that comes too, I ruther guess—
But you've paid your passage, I believe—
So I have, by jingo! What a fool I was to be
sure! but never you mind though—law is law—and
I'll have my money's worth out o' Cap'n Trip afore
I've done with him—you'll be an evidence for me,
wunt ye? Do as much for you any time—ye will
now, wunt ye?—say whether ye will or no; if ye
don't, I'll have ye summoned right away, and here's
your money all ready for ye, slapping his pockets—
for travelling fees an' tendance. Burn my buttons
if I don't fix 'em! Cap'n Trip! I say—Cap'n Trip!
And here, without paying the least attention to the
trumpery that lay exposed upon the deck to every
body's observation, off he started after the captain,
calling upon me by name and all the others in the
lump, to bear witness that he had abandoned for a
total loss, and vowing he would'nt go nigh the chist
nor touch to, till he'd come to a fair understanding
with Captain Trip.
Here a grave-looking little personage who stood in his
way, and whom I had seen prompting him a moment
before, took the liberty to follow the yankee a few steps,
when the latter turned upon him with a look of dismay,
and stood staring over his head at me, while the
other went on with a sort of law-lecture about
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[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]
general-average, common-carriers, bailment, &c. &c.—
till the down-easter begun to grow rather shy of him,
and buttoned up his coat, and tucked away his watch-chain,
and crammed both hands into his pockets.
Perhaps he took him for a lawyer—but why conceal
his watch-chain? why screw up his mouth, and look
about him, as if he expected to lose a tooth or two by
sleight of hand?
No sooner had he left me, than I stole up to the
seat I had previously occupied, with a determination
to make sure of it for the remainder of the passage,
when, lo! I found another in possession; a little
dapper Bostonian, who kept a store as they call it,
where every shop is a store, every stick a pole, every
stone a rock, every stall a factory, and every goose a
swan, sold tape which he imported on his own account,
dabbled in literature, puffed poetry for the North-American-Review,
and the North-American-Review
for the newspapers; at his elbow was another, an
educated and travelled Yankee—cold, supercilious
and stiff—standing like the statue of man before the
loveliest of God's creatures, and talking like a book,
even to his washerwoman. I could not help observing
them both; for each was a fair specimen of what
are called the talented and gifted of their several
classes. Both avoided the brave old English word
guess, even where no other would serve their purpose—
trying thereby to conceal their lineage, and
substituting for it, all sorts of awkward and silly circumlocution,
like most of our countrymen who have
heard that to guess betrays the Yankee, or at least
the New-Englander: and so it does, where they make
use of it to express absolute certainty, that is indeed
characteristic of a New-Englander. He will say, when
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[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]
the thermometer is five degrees below zero—Wal, I
guess this is putty cole weather; and if you ask him if
that house yonder belongs to him, he will answer—Wal,
I rather guess it dooze. But in forty-nine cases out of
fifty, the rudest Yankee will employ the word guess
after the manner of the best old English authors; while
the educated Yankee and the Southerner, will resort
to such absurd and bastard phraseology as the following—
to prove they are not Yankees, forsooth!—I
take it; I presume; I conjecture; I fancy; I imagine;
I believe; I anticipate; I contemplate; I reckon;
I calculate, &c. &c. betraying the former shibboleth
nevertheless, even where most careful about
hadn't ought and legis'-latoore, dooze and Fellydelphy,
by talking through the nose in jets, by whimpering
at the end of a long sentence, and by saying I
want you should go with me, or some other pre-eminent
Yankeeism, while counterfeiting the manners
and speech of the South, and affecting to pity his
New-England brethern for their strongly-marked and
hopeless barbarism of language and behavior—there!
that'll do for the present.
By and by, the former went so far as to signify
that he made his own poetry; and being sorely persuaded
by a mischievious girl who had joined the
group, and by the little creature who had so interested
me—zounds! what a mystery your innocent women
are! They may do just what they like, with absolute
impunity!—he was obliging enough to recite a copy
of verses, with a low sweet musical cadence, which
went to the heart of all the women that heard it.
Having somehow or other forgotten a word, he thought
proper to refer to a common-place book he had with
him, lettered ORIGINAL POETRY on both sides, in large
-- 028 --
[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
handsome letters—on opening it, I read the title of
the piece, `written by himself,' and surely never
was title more appropriate, and somebody at my
elbow appeared to think so too, for he read it aloud
with an emphasis that proved to be irresistible—`Lines
beneath a nosegay'—
The little rogue took the idea, and laughed heartily
before she had time to turn away her face, or to stuff
a handkerchief into her mouth; and I—what shall I
say?—I who had already begun to think her eyes not
more than half so blue as they were when we first
came aboard and sat together looking into the deep
still mirror below; her stature to say the least of it,
rather diminutive; her mouth somewhat large, though
I do love a generous mouth, and her unspeakable taciturnity, the best proof she had given or could give
of her good sense—I who had begun to think thus of
her, became instantaneously converted to a contrary
belief, by the sudden burst of girlish hilarity, the ringing
joyousness, and what I should call the unexpectedness
of her laugh. Her eyes were bluer than ever—
her mouth perfect—her good sense altogether wonderful—
and her shape that of the winged women I
had courted in my youth. Ah—ha! said I to myself,
as she laughed all over—I am sure she did, “for it
went a-rippling to my finger-ends”—who is there with
courage to deny to that girl an exquisite perception of
truth and humour, and a strong sense of the ridiculous?
But of whose truth and humour?—I looked up to
see for myself; and there stood another Yankee as I
live! close at her elbow and looking over her shoulder,
with all the ease of an old acquaintance. And
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[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
what was harder for me to put up with—she did not
appear to observe him. Oh Pharaoh! Pharaoh! thought
I, if they had only thought of trying thee with New-Englanders!
In the course of a short conversation that
followed, I found his name was Gage, and that he
and Middleton were old acquaintances; though I had
an idea from the angry flashing of Middleton's eyes,
that he did'nt half like the strange familiarity, the perfect
self-possession, and the steady quiet voice of
Gage. But as for me, I was delighted with him. He
was evidently a New-Englander of the right sort; a
full-blooded, old-fashioned Yankee; and from the
moment I heard him read over the title of the verses
from the book, `Lines beneath a nosegay,' I was determined
to know more of him. No change, nor
shadow of change was there in look or tone, voice or
feature; but a something so self-assured at the time,
so easy and so natural, that for your life, you could'nt
be angry, though he treated you from the first moment
you saw him, as if he had been acquainted with
you all your life long. He would say the severest
things!—but always with such a pleasant eye—no
bitterness—no affected archness—no assumed gravity
was there; nothing of that manner which betrays a
professional wit, who having raised a laugh, or let a
pun, draws out his pocket-handkerchief with a long
sober flourish and wipes his mouth, or turns on his
heel and walks away, as if he attached no sort of value
to his very best things, and might, if he would take
the trouble, do a thousand times better.
He could reason too, and that with extraordinary
power; and in the course of the day and evening we
were together, he impressed me with a very exalted
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opinion of his moral courage. Perhaps an example
or two may give the reader a better idea of him, and
though it may appear to delay the story, it will serve
to abridge it in the long run, by substituting fact for
description—the man himself, heartily engaged in a
favorite cause, for a picture of him or many pictures
of him, wanting that essential feature of individuality—
speech.
Take an example—
Not long after this I found him occupied with the
venerable old quaker in a discussion that interested
me, and appeared to interest others, exceedingly. It
was about war.
But thee will agree with me friend Gage, said the
old man, that if two neighbors, having a dispute, if
thee will, about the boundary of their respective gardens,
or some privilege common to both, were to spend
their time shooting at one another through the fence,
or setting fire to each other's houses, or carrying off
each other's children, and holding them as prisoners
of war and hostages, only to be given up at the end
of the quarred—if they did this, instead of referring
the disputed question to a neighbor, they would only
be acting as nations do, when they go to war about a
patch of territory, hardly worth having at all, and
never worth the sacrifice of one human creature—
never!
And then, after a short pause and a benevolent
smile, as he sat smoothing down the soft silky hair of
his grand-daughter, whose bonnet had slipped off
without being perceived by herself.—Perhaps thee will
agree too, that for such neighbors to talk about honor,
or dignity, or justice, while they are trying to murder
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
one another, would be looked upon, though there
were no law to appeal to, as a great folly and a great
wickedness?
Certainly, sir, said Gage. And I would go further,
much further. I would say that in perhaps ninetynine
cases out of a hundred, if individuals were to act
as nations do in going to war, they would be hunted
to death by common consent, even among savages.
Grandfather, said the girl, in a low timid whisper—
and then she stopped and seeing Middleton's eyes
fixed upon her, with a look that instantly disappeared,
faltered out something relative to the New Zealanders,
adding that it went far to prove what friend
Gage had been saying.
Friend Gage, to be sure! and said without any
visible trepidation, with no drooping of the eye-lids,
nor quivering of the under-lip—and yet, I had reason
to believe that he was a perfect stranger to her. To
tell the truth, I did'nt half like her manner in this behalf,
as a lawyer would say; and as for Middleton, I
could perceive that he was no better pleased than my
self. But when she addressed him also as a friend—
friend Middleton, it appeared to alter the case. He
stared first, and then bowed, and then blushed, and
then looked another way.
Yes, continued Gage, and if they were to employ
other people, as the war-makers do, instead of risking
their own lives and property; or go to war with one
another merely for the sake of employing their supernumeraries,
grumblers, hangers-on, I am very sure that
even among the New Zealanders, a price would soon
be put upon their heads; for if you recollect m'am—
bowing reverentially to the fair creature before him—
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Elizabeth, friend Gage—Elizabeth Hale, that's her
name, said her grandfather, before he had finished the
bow—
Elizabeth—Hale—whispered Middleton—I could
just hear the sound as he breathed it forth, just see
the motion of his lips; his pale face all of a glow,
and the tone so modulated, perhaps by accident, as to
change a question into an apostrophe—Elizabeth
Hale? into Elizabeth! Hail!
But, continued Gage, as soon as he had recovered
from the bow—I would not be understood to mean—
that is to say—there are cases I believe—there may
be cases, I should say—don't you think so Miss Hale?—
wandering, by Jupiter!—(getting more courage and
more breath as he proceeded, and showing that even
he could be disconcerted by a pair of fine child-like
eyes—to the astonishment of myself and the great
joy of Middleton)—there are cases where, in short,
a—a—a where even war would be justifiable, not for
the sacrifice, but to avoid the sacrifice of human life.
Thou shalt not kill, whispered the fair Elizabeth;
and then she turned away, as if unwilling to to be led
into a controversy, and half ashamed of herself and
sorry for having said so much; and I began to feel, as I
saw her studying the deep sea once more, that I should
forgive her soon, for not having appeared to enjoy one
of my very sensible observations in the first part of
our voyage.
But we are not to understand such things literally—
are we sir? continued Gage, addressing himself to the
grandfather, who appeared to triumph in her application
of scripture. If so, we are to kill nothing—
nothing—not even the beast of prey, the serpent, or
the mad dog.
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Thou shalt do no murder, friend Gage—Nehemiah
Gage, I think thee said?—
Yes; Nehemiah—Elizabeth turned her face toward
Middleton, as much as to say—Thine's the prettier
name by far; and Middleton bit his under lip, as much
as to say—I'm sure he thought so—a very sensible
observation Miss Elizabeth! what if they had tried to
christen me Nehemiah?—they'd 'a had a pretty time
of it, don't you think so? And Gage continued—But
if killing a fellow-creature is the murder meant there,
what becomes of the right of self-defence?
I find nothing said about the right of self-defence
in the Book of Life, my young friend: we are commanded
to love our enemies, continued the grand-father,
in a tone that would have stopped that controversy
or any other, ashore.
And our neighbour as ourself, added somebody in
a low whisper at my elbow. It was Middleton talking
to himself; and I saw the color come and go over
the beautiful neck before me, and wander about in
flashes underneath the delicate gauze, like the soft
glow you see toward sunset in the month of September—
when the large white flowers of the wilderness
and the solitude are blowing in the mist and warmth
of our Indian-summer—the sweet-scented waterlilies,
if they would only blow in that month—when
every thing is unsteadied in the atmosphere. I was
completely bewildered. Perhaps the reader may be
so too?
And moreover, continued the grandfather, we are
commanded to do as we would be done by.
Worthy of all acceptation! cried Gage, looking at
the innocent mouth before him as if ready to follow
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[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
the command to the very letter—Middleton's eyes
flashed fire! And I saw, or thought I saw, the shadow
of a projected under lip over the sarsnet-lining of her
little straw-bonnet, as that mouth turned away.
Fearing he had gone too far perhaps, Gage
continued in a different tone, as if with a view to
conciliate both.—It cannot be sir, that you and others
who are willing to live under a government of laws,
where the guilty are punished and the virtuous protected—
by law—it cannot be that you receive these
and other like passages literally?
And why not, I pray thee? How are we to understand
them otherwise—on what authority? The
language is clear—very clear—so clear as to need no
interpretation; so clear as to be incapable of interpretation.
Yet we do, and we must continue to understand
them otherwise. For if literally, my dear sir, we
are to take no heed for the morrow, and to leave the
support of a family to chance; if literally, we are
to do as we would be done by—if, when smitten upon
one cheek, we are literally to turn the other; and if
literally, when a man sueth us at law, and taketh
away our coat, we are to let him have our cloaks
also—if we are to receive all these commands literally,
what would become of us? Why have we any
laws upon earth, or any government? Why any
laws upon earth, or any government? Why any
fastening to our doors, or locks in our houses? Why
not spend all that we have in rewarding the robber
and the ravisher, the house-breaker and the midnightmurderer?
No sir!—one of these two things we
must do, whether christians or not—believers or not—
whether friends or presbyterians, methodists or
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[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
catholics—we must either take these and other like
doctrines in a limited and qualified sense, even as all
Christians do, in practice, and all that make war in
any manner or contribute in any manner to the making
of war, under any provocation; Or—we must
give up the security of law, have done with all government,
from the highest to the lowest, and all the
appendages thereto—raze all our public-prisons, even
to our penitentiaries and bettering-houses, and lunatichospitals
to their very foundations; let loose all the
unhappy creatures that inhabit them for our security—
lay bare all our treasures—
Middleton began to breath fiercely here, and the
fair Elizabeth to look alarmed, sitting with her lips
apart and her eager eyes rivetted on Gage, who continued
with great energy.
Lay bare all our treasures—throw open all our doors—
and leave our daughters and our wives to the
spoiler!
Friend Gage!—Nehemiah Gage! said the grand-father,
with a look of amazement.
I am perfectly serious, added Gage.
I believe thee, and am sorry for it, answered the
grandfather; and when I looked at the fair Elizabeth,
she was pale as death, and her eyes were full of
strange sorrow.
But Gage persevered, and as for me, I was wicked
enough to enjoy the idea of his forfeiting the favor
of both.
Perfectly, my dear sir. I see no other alternative.
He who contends for the literal interpretation of
those passages, must do so upon the ground that all
human means of protection are prohibited; that
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self-defence, not being mentioned in scripture, is therefore
unauthorised; that under all circumstances, and
everywhere, the Believer has nothing to do for himself;—
for what is law, any law, for the protection of
property, life or character, but the right of self-defence
delegated?
The old man shook his reverend locks, and poor
Elizabeth breathed only at long intervals; but when
she did breathe, her eyes were upon Gage—there is
no denying it—with an expression of deep interest.
I began to feel angry with her—.
In which case continued he, standing more upright
and warming with the subject—I hold it sir, to be no
more inconsistent for a christian, who contends for
the literal meaning of those passages, to go to war,
than to go to law.
Grandfather would agree with the there! said Elizabeth,
interrupting him with an eager smile, and a sigh
that I couldn't help referring to another.
Gage put forth his hand upon her arm—so unconsciously,
that she forgot to observe it; adding as he
did so, with an air that astonished me—it was that of
a high-bred handsome fellow, confident of his power
and sure of being well received by a woman, say
what he would, or do what he would; for this neither
Middleton nor I was prepared,—I am obliged to you,
said he; but I have not finished. And I hold sir,
that it would be no more inconsistent for the believer
to go to war, than for any body who adheres to the
literal interpretation of these passages, to fasten his
door o' nights, or to have a lock-and-key under his
roof.
But, my young friend, urged the grandfather—if
-- 037 --
[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
we were all consistent, and always consistent, there
would be no need of bolts and bars, nor locks and
keys—nor even of laws. And it is not for thee and
me to do wrong because others do so; or to be inconsistent
because others are so.
There was a clencher! and I could perceive that it
was so intended, and so understood, by all parties.
Another might have been abashed or puzzled; but
our Yankee appeared to enjoy the idea of hearing a
new argument to answer. My dear sir, said he, we
do not understand each other. What I complain of
is that all are inconsistent; and they, more than all
others, who receiving these passages literally, go to
law, or lock up their money, or under any circumstances
apply to the law for protection.
But we never do go to law, said the grandfather.
Excuse me sir. You never go to law among yourselves.
Yet you go to law with others; and the
stricteth of your faith would not scruple to apply to a
magistrate for protection against any body that he
seriously feared, or any one who threatened to destroy
his property or injure his person.
Very true—and that is what thee calls inconsistency
hey?
Yes. And I go further. I say that if you were
consistent, instead of being what you are, inconsistent,
there would be a stop to the whole business
of life among you. Society would be overrun with
outlaws, robbers and ravishers. Is it a sure mode of
making others honest, for a man to fall asleep in the
highway or the market-place, with his gold lying
about him in heaps? or the best way of making others
peaceable, for a man to go with his hands tied behind
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
him, among ruffians—particularly if he assures them
before hand that he is worth an experiment, by assuring
them before hand that they have nothing to fear.
Constituted as the world now is, he who forbears to
protect his own life, either by applying to the law, or
by making use of the bodily power he may be
endowed with, appears to me, sir, to be a very presumptuous
man. He crowds temptation in the way
of those who are least able to withstand it, and then,
having done this, he relies on a miracle for safety.
Nay more, he tempts Jehovah—why not cast himself
down headlong from the pinnacle of the temple, in his
presumptuous confidence?
The sweet girl grew very uneasy here; and I saw
her thoughts wandering visibly between the eloquent
northerner, and the silent southerner—who stood
aloof with his haughty lip contradicting his lighted
eyes; a gathered and concentrated power about the
mouth, dashed with a something scornful; a loftier
and a more glorious look above, as though he felt
himself carried away by the generous language, and
high bearing of the man before him—spite of a constitutional
antipathy and a something more, which
nobody understood better than the fair Elizabeth,
who instead of being offended by the familiar manner
of Gage, appeared to be pleased with it—or not to
observe it, where to a southerner it seemed worthy of
immediate and special reproof.
Talk of consistency sir! continued Gage, stepping
out from the circle and throwing a hurried glance
round the whole company, as if he had another and a
higher object in view, than the refutation of the old
grandfather, his pale cheek reddening with concealed
-- 039 --
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fire and his grey eyes dilating with extraordinary
brightness for a man of the north. Talk of consistency
sir! If our Father above were consistent,
according to such notions of consistency, he would
love his bitterest enemies most, and he would treat
those best who behaved worst—and so would the
Savior of men!
And is it not so—said Gerard Middleton; do we
not find it so? stepping quietly forth, and urging what
he had to say with a voice that thrilled through and
through me—so earnest and so musical was it and so
eloquent with subdued emotion. What are all the
blessings we receive, all that we enjoy upon earth—
health, strength and intellectual power—opportunity
for doing good—equally distributed every where and
at all times, without regard to our unequal merits?
Nay sir—What is the parable of the prodigal son?
What the illustration that goes with it, showing that
there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth—I have a bad memory for language sir—
What are all these things but the recorded interpretation
of our Father's will? the everlasting order of
his works on earth?
Having said this, he fell back as if astonished at
himself and more than half sorry for having been so
betrayed—in such a place and in such company—and
his lips quivered, and I could see that his hand trembled
violently.
Gage looked up with a glow of surprize and joy
overspreading his intelligent face, and putting forth
his arm, he would have taken Middleton's hand, as it
lay palpitating over the top of a chair; but Middleton
withdrew it, and Gage instead of knocking him down
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—smiled, not bitterly nor insultingly neither, but
pleasantly, as if he understood every pulsation of the
youthful and imperious heart before him.
Magnificently urged! cried he. And yet, if all
were to understand these things as you do, would
there not be encouragement for the transgressor, and
discouragement for the obedient and faithful?—encouragement
for transgression, I should say?
My young friend—Gerard Middleton—I must know
more of thee, said the old man, seeing him about to
reply; and of thee also, Nehemiah Gage—for I am
satisfied (with a smile) I am satisfied that in thee, our
people have a dangerous adversary. I have heard of
thee before. Not contented with abandoning the
faith committed to thee by our fathers', I am afraid
(smiling benevolently upon him and upon Middleton,
as he proceeded) thou hast profited a little to our disadvantage
by thy long familiarity with our opinions?—
Gage colored. And Elizabeth—poor Elizabeth—
she looked as if the Arch-Apostate himself had appeared
to her bodily.
Nevertheless, continued the grandfather, I cannot
deny that thee has a very ingenious plausible way
with thee, Ne-he-miah. I am not convinced to be
sure; and between ourselves I dont much think thee
would wish me to be convinced—thee would rather
have such a controversy continue; would thee not,
Nehemiah?
Gage laughed, but assured him he was greatly
mistaken.
Well, well—I dare say so. Thee is not the first
that has convinced himself in failing to convince
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
others; but before we leave the subject, there is one
passage I would refer thee to, and leave thee to
examine it for thyself, at thy own leisure. I allude
to that, where Simon Peter having a sword, drew it
and smote a servant of the High-Priest and cut off
his ear. Whereupon he was commanded to put up
his sword; for said he, who spake as never, never
man spake, all they that take the sword shall perish
by the sword.
One moment—if you please! cried Gage, seeing
the old man draw the hand of Elizabeth through his
arm, and pull her bonnet over her forehead as if about
to leave us. I am as unwilling as you to continue
the subject here (with a decided emphasis, and a
flutter that betrayed the hope he entertained); but as
I may never have another opportunity—
The devil take your impudence! thought I. Now
there is Middleton, who would give his little finger
for another opportunity as you call it; and here am
I, a personage not very easily disconcerted—yet
neither could have said as much, in that way, if our
lives had depended upon it.
Never continued he—much as I may desire it,—
And some how or other, even I could perceive as well
as the fair Elizabeth, whose blue eyes trembled in
their own lustre when he looked at her, a something
very mournful and sweet in his altered voice—touching
I would say, but for the fellow's breadth of
shoulders, high clear forehead, compressed mouth and
perfect self possession—Allow me to ask you whether
you receive that passage literally?
The old man hesitated.
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
In point of fact, I would ask you sir—if all who
take the sword—all sir, do perish by the sword?
By the sword of the spirit—perhaps, if not by
the sword of the flesh.
Ah!—then you give up the literal meaning! Now,
without referring to the passage where the Saviour
commands every man who hath not a sword to sell
his garment and buy one—I too have a bad memory
for language sir, glancing at Middleton—and without
relying upon the circumstance that he never reproaches
a centurion for following the trade of war;
I should argue from the very passage you have cited,
that one of these things must be true. Either the
Savior of Men did not teach the doctrine of nonresistance
to evil as you understand it; or—I pray
you to consider the alternative:—Or, he did not teach
it clearly and explicitly, and to all: in other words,
my dear sir, that his immediate followers and constant
companions did not so understand it as you understand
it: Or—and here again I beseech you to consider
the alternative—or, that they were guilty of the
most unpardonable outrage toward him, at the very
moment when all his teachings, and promptings and
sufferings were about to be consummated forever! one
of his followers an apostle, not only having a sword,
but wearing it into his very presence; and wearing
it too unrebuked of the others! up to the very
moment when he drew it before the face of his Lord-and-Master,
the Prince of Peace, and smote off the
ear of his enemy! To judge of this argument as I do
think it deserves, let me ask you sir, what would be
thought by your brethren, if a follower of George
Fox were to go armed into the midst of them on a
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
yearly-meeting day? Yet sir—if the Savior taught
the same doctrines, and taught them as clearly as
George Fox did, Simon Peter offered a greater affront
by far to his teacher and to his brethren!
A dead silence followed—nobody moved nor spoke,
till the fair Elizabeth murmured out something, which
led her grandfather to observe, as he looked hurriedly
and anxiously, now at Gage and now at Middleton—
We are commanded to love one another.
Yes, echoed another and a nearer voice, trembling
with timidity and issuing in a low sweet murmur—
Yes!—We are commanded to love one another!
Would you believe it! her eyes—her dove-like
eyes—instead of wandering from Gage to Middleton
and from Middleton to me when she said this, were
fixed upon Middleton!
The fervid young Southerner was completely overpowered.
He stood before her, like a child, speechless
and motionless;—I have no doubt, with a dreadful
sinking of the heart, and a terrible ringing in the
ears. How I pitied him!—But I pitied Gage more.
Both are dead in love with her, said a stranger at my
elbow—and I'm ditto!
-- 044 --
CHAPTER IV.
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
On shifting my quarters and going farther forward,
where I might pursue the train of thought conjured
up by the lively picture of society I had just left, I
found myself in the company of another stranger,
evidently from the south—perhaps from Baltimore,
as he was remarkably well-dressed, rather sallow,
and given to calling unmarried females, whatever
might be their age, Miss—hit or miss, I should say,
though if I were a woman of a certain age, like Hannah
Moore, Joanna Bailie or Elizabeth any body,—
I think I should rather be hit any how, than missed
in that way; at the south, it is regarded as peculiar
to the north, as downright a vulgarism, to say ma'am
to the unmarried, as to talk about a dish of tea, though
both, instead of yankee—are English modes of speech.
Before five minutes were over, that which was only
conjecture at first, became certainty; for the individual
in question while talking with me about the curiosities
of our northern speech, had the misfortune to say
in'-quiry, deciss'ive, adver'tiss, and dif-fic'-ult. We
were interrupted by the Down-Easter with a figurehead
to his face, talking to another. Why then, to
the best o' my belief, said he, the tor'-mented critter!
he's a sort of a travellin' missionary goin' about to
an' fro in the airth seekin' what he may devour ho—
ho—ho!
I started and turned to see whom he had in view—
and whether it was really and truly a laugh or only a
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
dry cough; but I did not succeed in satisfying myself,
and to this day I continue in doubt. He had never
laughed before—to my knowledge—nor do I believe
that he has ever laughed since—like other people.
No great shakes tho' arter all, continued he, sitting
on the windlass, talking apparently to himself, with a
long nine in his mouth, and swinging his legs, somewhere
between 225° and 280° on the average, for
ten minutes together; lives by swappin' watches and
so-forths, six days o' the week, an' preachin' at the
halves, or maybe for his board an' hoss-keep a'
sabba-days.
Preaching at the halves—how's that? said the
southerner.
Why dont you know? in partnership for what's
taken up arter the sarmon's over; sometimes they go
snacks, an' sometimes they sell out aforehand for so
much over an' above thir reglar wages.
How?—snacks—hey? I don't understand you—I
never heard of this before.
I want to know! exclaimed the other down-easter.
Well you do know, replied the southerner, in perfect
good faith, mistaking a northern exclamation for
a formal interrogatory.
Why, continued the down-Easter—there's them
that preaches yer see and then there's them that rides
about an' drums up the congregation—poor business
though, now I can tell ye—quite spylt for the reg'lar
trader—so many pious young men about now that
has their expenses paid, so 't they are able to
under-preach the rest of us; there's some on 'em
gits a dollar a day an' found; when if they was
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
obleege to work honestly for a livin' they wouldn't
airn the salt to their porridge—
Let alone their porridge! said the Baltimorian.
Well well I've no objection to that nyther, answered
the down-easter, also in perfect good faith and
simplicity, mistaking a southern idiom, for a gentle
reproof.
Here a most obstreperous peal of laughter broke
forth, from a tall, showy, handsome, savage looking-fellow,
whom I had not observed before. Who is
he—what's he laughin' at?—sees somethin' over-board,
I ruther guess, dont you?—wonder where he
was brung up, to have no more manners than that
comes to? continued the latter of the down-easters,
tacking question to question by the score, without
waiting for a single answer. Taint half an hour ago
't I heard him talk about growin' potaters an' makin'
corn, an' raisin' niggers—guess he was pokin' fun at
somebody; an' then I should like to know (in a
whisper) what upon irth he means by hog-an-omminy,
an' hoe cakes, an' pone bread, an' mud-larks that's
made into Virginny-ham. I'll be driv right in eend,
if I can see through that.
Before I had time to reply, my friend with the
nose, rounded to and bore away on another tack,
propounding so many questions without appearing to
see me or any body else, or to care a fig about being
answered—talking to himself as it were in a loud
earnest voice—that I determined to have a pull at the
game he was putting up, on my own account, or perhaps
I had better say, on my own `account and risk;'
for there is no little risk in setting a down-Easter.
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
If I am not much deceived, said I—you are a New-Englander;
are you not?
Me!—What makes you think so?
That's enough—I am satisfied now.
Satisfied?—who with?—yourself or me?
Perfectly satisfied—best answer I ever heard in my
life; a great deal better than yes or no; for it amounts
to proof—proof positive—that you are of
those that always answer a question by asking
another.
Why—how you talk!
Here, the travelling-trader against whom I had been
cautioned, and who had followed me without being
perceived, spoke up and addressing himself to the
other who was on the wheel asked him what he
thought of the war—`take it altogether—inside an'
out, as the nigger said.'
Why, what do you think of it yourself? was the
reply.
Ah—ha!—I know what makes ye so snappish; see
through you, when you fust cum aboard—if I didn't,
there's no sneks in our part o' the country—leave't
to you, neighbour:—appealing to me as if we were
on the most familiar terms in the world, and taking
up my hat as he spoke, and blowing about the rich fur
by way of parentheses.
I replied as well as I knew how, and forthwith a
political set-to began, which continued till there
were five or six of a side all talking together—laughing—
swearing—smoking—and calling one another
blue-lights, jacobins, tories, democrats and enemies to
the country. The sharpest and bitterest, nay the
rudest and coarsest things were said—but all in a
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
good-natured way, like brothers pretending to be in
a passion, though they would strike their fists upon
the empty hogsheads, and their eyes would flash and
their chins quiver with rage one minute, and they
would all burst out a laughing together, and clap their
hands, and stamp their feet, and hourra the next, as
the one side or the other happened to give a good
hit. In the midst of the uproar my attention was
called off to another group so thoroughly characteristic
of a steam-boat conversation-party that I
could not forbear listening awhile.
One had a newspaper and was reading aloud to the
rest—in a way that appeared to amuse them exceedingly.
When he came to what he called an outlandish
word, he would stop and spell it, and then push forward
again with a speed that left him breathless at
the end of every paragraph. T. Z. A. R—said he,—
how do you purnounce that air, mister? turning to
Gage; never had no schoolin' to speak of myself—
Ah! said Gage, with a look of surprize—
No, never, an' the leetle I do know I've picked up
here an' there, nobody knows how; an' I don't
purtend above all to know but plaguy leetle about
grammar an' jogrify.—T. Z. A. R.—I should call
that Teazer—the Teazer of Rooshy, hey?
Well, and why not? said Gage; free country you
know.
Wal! I declare! If that aint jest my way o' thinkin'.
Taint more an' three years ago last fall—raising
his voice and looking about him with an air of growing
superiority—when I was a candidate for our leegislater,
or may be youd call it legis'-latoore? some folks
do—an' bein' one o' the se'-lectmen, I was in the
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
school-committee, says I to master Smith says I, who
cares for Noah Webster, says I, or his Third part
eyther says I—or for Perry's dicksonary—I've gut as
good a right to my pernouncyashun as they have to
theirn, says I, ary one of em, says I—T-Z-A-R,—T
stands for T. dont it?—and Z-A-R spells Zar, dont
it?—an' that makes Teazer, if I aint most plaguily
mistaken.
Precisely, said Gage. And if you are ever on the
school-committee again, I advise you to try them all
round with that very word. See if they can spell it
after you, or pronounce it either.
Work em about right, hey? plaguy tough fellows
some on 'em though; take most any word apart ever
you see, and put it together again full as good as 'twas
afore—an' sometimes better. Tried him once with
tremendyous—and squire Joe Smith he yaw hawed
right out, and said he'd be most particularly dumsquizzled
if there was any sich a word. Putty feller
for a squire, wannt he? an' a 'chool committee-man
too! But I guess I paid him well for it, afore I was
done with him. Next year he might 'a been governor,
with a salary o' six hundred dollars a year—
And found? said Gage.
An' found? no indeed—find himself—putty good
wages too, I should say; for my part I offered to
take it for half price and give the balance towards a
new meetin'-house—but bein' a lawyer, he might 'a
had the whool, an ben allowed somethin' hansum to
boot for wear an' tear.
Washing and mending, you mean, hey? said Gage.
No I don't nyther—we do our own washin' an'
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
mendin' where I live—all the representatyves, and
why should'nt the governor?
Taint posserble! said Gage. I looked at him in
amazement. You, would'ntbelieve it possible reader,
for such a man, with such a face, to hoax any body
alive—
The down-easter went on describing how he had
managed to defeat squire Smith, electioneering against
him throughout the whole neighbourhood; putty
feller for a governor! added he, when he had got
through—not to know there was sich a word as tremendyous!
Pray sir, said the little Bostonian—turning with an
air of authority toward Gage, and glancing at the
bystanders, as if to prepare them for a triumph, pray
sir, upon what ground,—if you are serious,—do you
pretend to justify the pronunci-ation of that word,
Tzar?—if you are serious, I say?
If I am serious—my dear sir! What can have led
you to suppose me not serious? The true sound of
the ancient C.—(I began to be puzzled myself here:
was he or was he not humbugging a brother yankee?
For my life, I could'nt tell.)—Of the ancient C. has
never been settled. The learned, (with a bow—
which the other took to himself) are uncertain to this
day, whether he whom we call cæsar was not called
Kæsar by the Romans. The emperor of Germany,
the direct inheritor of the title you know (another
bow) is called der Kaiser, which would seem to justify
the idea.—Odds in favor of Gage.
To be sure, but—and here the other began to look
bewildered.
But then, as the Italians say ladzaretto, and
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
pentsiero, for lazzaretto and pensiero, mixing the sounds
of d and t with those of z and s like the Russians—
another bow—and the Russians having borrowed the
title of Caesar, and corrupted it by their horrible orthography
into Tzar (speaking faster and faster-every
moment, so that his antagonist had no way of escaping
the mystification) I confess I do not well see how we
can avoid following them so far at least as to call
their T, by its right name—T, instead of C. Three
to one for Gage.
Nor I sir—nor I—but then as to the a—a— I want
you should show me, that is to say—for where the
object of discussion is not so much victory, as truth,
we had'nt ought—appealing to the company—never
ought I should say—blushing to the eyes and beginning
to switch his boots with his pocket-handkerchief—
to take too much for granted as Butler says—
ever read Butler's analogy sir? or Adam Smith, or
the Spectator —?
Precisely sir—I agree with you there, said Gage;
but then, Rome was not built in a day!—and he
looked about him with such a knowing air, that several
of the bystanders began to wag their heads at one
another, as much as to say—what a snag of a fellow
at an argument! all to nothing for Gage—no
betters.
And moreover, continued he, addressing himself
anew with a deferential bow to his antagonist—I
have an idea, and I should be happy to have your
opinions upon the subject sir.—I have an idea that
the languages of Europe abound in similar corruptions—
why may we not have the Teazer of Russia,
as well as the Dolphin of France, the Clam of
Tartary and the Dog of Venice?—
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
The clam of Tartary, and the dog of Venice!
cried the other; as if, notwithstanding the perfect
simplicity and good-faith of Gage's countenance, he
had begun to suspect for the first time, that we were
laughing at him. And what might have been the
consequences but for an accidental interruption, I
would not take upon myself to say: for he grew very
pale about the mouth, and there was an angry flashing
of his bright blue eyes that indicated a dangerous
temper. A hundred to one offered; no takers.
I presume sir, said a tall thin awkward man with
knock-knees, and green goggles and protruding eyes,
lugging out his pocket-handkerchief with a violent
flourish, and stepping up to Gage—I presume sir, that
you have never been in Rooshy—speaking in a very
sharp key, and so as to attract every body's attention—
pulling off his goggles and wiping them so carefully,
with his teeth clenched and his queer-looking eyes
roving about over all our faces with an expression of
cool confidence which had a very unfavorable effect
upon those, who, but a moment before, had been ready
to hurra for Gage,—have you sir?—bets equal for
the new comer.
Never, said Gage, without any change of countenance—
never.
Well sir—I have!
The devil you have! said Gage; with an air of such
unaffected astonishment, as to deceive me for a white.
Gage losing favor.
Yes sir! straightening himself up, replacing the
goggles, withdrawing his feelers and giving his pocket-handkerchief
another deliberate and circumstantial
flourish, (five to four against Gage) and there they
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
pronounce the word—give me leave to tell you sir—
Tzar—and not Teazer—
With all my heart, answered Gage; but give me
leave to ask you sir—what does that prove? Bets
even.
Prove sir—prove? said the other, shifting his feet
once or twice, changing his pocket-handkerchief no
less than five times from one hand to the other, and
taking off and putting on his goggles three times,
before he had worked out the answer—wiping them
every time and appealing to each of the different by-standers
by turns, with a peering into his very eyes that
diverted me inexpressibly—Prove sir?—why sir, it
proves that if the Italians do say Ladzaretto, that's
no reason why other people should say Teazer!
Indeed! said Gage, and bets were all going the
other way.
Ah, ha!—there you have him! said the other
antagonist!—answer me that if you can! whispered
a third. That's into yer, a few! I ruther guess!
cried a fourth. The current was evidently setting
hard in favor of the new comer.
Why sir, continued Gage, if you mean to infer that
pronunciation of the word to be right, because they
pronounce it so in Russia, then you would justify
every sort of corruption, every sort of pronunciation;
the Scotch, the Welsh, the Irish, and the Yankee—in
talking English as they do: For they do what?—just
exactly what the Russians do, borrow other peoples
words, appropriate them to their own use, without
leave or license, and spoil them. And then forsooth,
we are to follow their example, are we? If they
cannot spell, we must'nt—if they spell Cæsar with a
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
T, we must, hey? Hourra for you! cried a by-stander,
give it to him Gage! One more round my
boy and the game's up!
My own idee 'gzackly! cried the school-committee-man.
Not a fair case though, answered the man with the
goggles—by no manner o' means; wunt allow it,
nor touch to! As if them that use a word most are
not likely to know best? Getting wild—into him
Gage! One hundred to five—no taker.
Do we always find it so in point of fact? continued
the imperturbable Gage. Did you ever hear a mechanic
say le'-ver? Don't they all say lev'-er? even
the watchmaker and the machinest, with their patent
lev-vers. Do you know a single navigator who
does'nt say hor'-izon for hori'zon, a painter or drawing-master
who does't say a'riel for a-erial? a schoolmaster
who does'nt say pronun-ci-a-tion instead of
pronunshiation, though he never thinks of saying
offi-ci-al, but offishal; a lawyer who does'nt say tosummons
for to summon, evidence for witness,
ten'-ure for te'nure, and perhaps recon'nizance, for
recog'-nizance; a builder who does'nt say pylaster
for pilaster, or a lover of back-gammon who does'nt
play the very devil with the names of the throws,
however well he may speak French at other times—
saying tray-ace, and syzes, and deuces and kayters—
I might go through with society in the same way.
The man with the goggles had nothing to say—he
was thunder-struck at the volubility and seriousness
and readiness of Gage, and stood staring at him,
speechless and motionless, with his mouth wide open.
Fifty to one on Gage—all to nothing! Time! time!
-- 055 --
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—and the adversary not being able to come up,
Gage untied his handkerchief and jumped over the
ropes.
-- --
CHAPNER V.
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
Wal done you 'squire! cried the se'-lect-man,
clapping Gage on the back with tremendous good
will; Hooraw for you, I say! gin' it to 'em both about
right, hey? trig little feller he is too—tho' I cant
say 't I admire to see peeked-toed shoes, or a man's
eyes rigged out with spy-glasses and feelers—gut a
half-pistareen about you frind?—hytee tytee! turning
to another, who appeared to be laboring under some
fierce emotion, his upper lip working after the manner
of Lord Brougham's, and his mouth twitching convulsively
at every motion of his head—who are you
makin' mouths at, hey?
God bless you, my friend, whispered I—the poor
fellow cant help it.
Cant help it! why not, I should like to know?
Why don't you see, whispered another yankee,
he's got a wry mouth.
Rye-mouth—rye-an-injunn more like.
What more could I say? All further explanation
would be useless; and to tell the truth, I could not
help agreeing with the man as to the sort of mouth
before us, much as I pitied the proprietor.
Everlastin' hot weather! aint it you? continued the
down-easter; 'nough to try out a side o'sole-leather;
for my part, I'm all runnin' away.
Taint the fuss time nyther, I'll bate! said the man
with the unfortunate mouth; and then turning toward
a fellow-passenger, he continued, as if renewing a
-- 057 --
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conversation about a murder which had occured the
day before at Philadelphia, I'm no frind to capital
punishment, an' never was; but if ever a feller
desarved to be frittered in two with a hansaw, that
feller dooze.
Sarved her right! cried another; and then after
running himself entirely out of breath, he protested
the man had no right to be hung; while another
declared, with equal appropriateness of language, that
such a cold blooded murder was ridiculous, and that
the man ought to be hung right away—had'nt ought
to live another hour.
The eyes of both were turned upon Gage. I'm of
your opinion said he, speaking to the last—nothing
can be more ridiculous than cutting a woman's throat
in her sleep—in the dead of night.
Ah—ha! what did I tell you? cried the individual
whose opinion he had so handsomely adopted. And
I agree with you, also, continued Gage, turning to the
other, the poor fellow has no right to be hung, and I
dare say if he were hard pushed, he would own it
himself—or give it up, if you were to try him at the
foot of the gallows.
There now—what did I tell you! cried the other.
I say—you!—mister!—shouted the man with the
nose, rounding to, as he happened to see apassenger
at work upon his lips with a spunge dipped
in sweet-oil. They were dreadfully chapped. I say!
try some o' this ere lip-salve, wont ye? had'nt ye
better? allays care some on't about me—slickest
stuff for piles ever you see! lugging out the identical
box we had seen before, and offering the blue pigment
to the sufferer.
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
Faugh!—cried the other—should our engine get
out of order, your panacea might come in play there
again!
Te be sure!—take a notch out of a broad-axe in
less 'an three wipes; did'nt I tell ye so—have
some?
Go to the devil with your nasty trumpery!—
Frind!—I meant no offence, an' I'm sorry for it;
but if you'll allow me to express my opinion, I should
say that a leetle o' that are—a very leetle—scooping
out as much as he could with his thumb-nail, and
holding it up—not more 'an you'd want to soap a
griss-mill with—jess slicked over your lips, inside
an' out, you'd be a much easier man for the rest o'
the day; an' talk more to other people's satisfaction.
And then, having said this, he walked off, enjoying
the half-suppressed laugh that broke forth at intervals
for five minutes afterwards, with the most innocent
look you ever saw. After a while he crossed my
path again—Hullow! said he; don't care if I do take
another nip o' your snuff, seein'-ts you!
I reached him the box, and my gentleman, after
opening it as far as it would go and rapping the kiver
as he called it, and shaking it—as a puppy would an
old hat—and tipping it up, first on one side and then
on the other, till his forefinger and thumb, already
prepared for the business by the lip-salve, had cornered
the last pinch there was left—as the dog Billy
would the rats; and then, without the slightest compunction
or hesitation, availing himself of the advantage,
so that none escaped, he slicked it all up,
and returning the box—he said he ruther guessed I
want very fond o' snuff—only cared a box for
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
fashion-sake! and then, after a short pause and a laugh or two
which set my ears ringing, he added—proper snarl
o' folks here aint they? Wonder how much the
skipper—here he turned to a neighbor—how goes it
Nathan? Cleverly, I'm obleege to ye; how goes it
with yourself?—wonder how much he gits a year,
privilege, perquisytes an' all hey? putty good bairth
I'm a thinkin', if they let him drive on sheers, an' I
rather guess they do by all accounts; ever ben over
the Bay State or Varmount?
Never, said I.
I'm sure I've seen you tho', or somebody plaguy
like you, haint I?
Quite possible.
Quite posserble, hey! more 'n that I rather guess—
why, you look as naiteral, as the nigger said—don't
know yer name though?
No.
Somewhere in the back-parts o' New-Hampshire
may be?
May be so.
Wal! I thought so—I swamp it if I did'nt! felt
considerable acquainted with you from the very fust—
what may I call your name?
What you please.
Ah!—oh—you aint mad nor nothin' I hope.
Not in the least.
Wal then—can't ye tell a feller yer name?
Pretty fair! said I in a voice intended for Gage,
who stood near me, with his arms folded, leaning
over the rail and evidently enjoying the catechism of
the down-easter.
Ah, but your chriss'n name: your given name?
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
Peter.
Peter!—Peter?—ah, I know I'd seen you afore—
somewhere! travellin' hey? ben to Pheladelphy?
I bowed.
Wal, I say though, Mr. Putty—putty—putty—
quair name tho' that o' yourn by the hokey! as ever I
come across.
Pooty-far—pooty-far?—drollest name ever I heard,
make the best on't though—taint none of your choosin'
I spose—bear it like a good feller, thats the way,
never know'd many o' that name in our part o' the
world.
What! never heard o' the Potiphar family! cried
Gage.
Lord you! that I have! Speakin' o' names though,
there'll be a fight aboard, afore long.
A fight! said I, rather alarmed I confess at the
abrupt communication of what I dreaded more than
any earthly thing—a fight in a crowd. I hope not.
O, but there will tho'. That air long chap there
from Tennessee, he's ben havin' a spat with the
capun about you mister (looking at Gage) and he vows
he'll whip you as soon as he gits you ashore.
I looked at Gage. His countenance never altered,
and he replied in such a quiet natural manner, that I
believed him, when he said—You are under a mistake,
my friend; it cannot be with me that he would quarrel.
I have had nothing to say to him.
Thats the very reason! He swears he'll take the
stiffenin' out o' you—an' that air little southerner.
Which little southerner! demanded Gage in quite
another voice. It startled me, and when I looked up,
he was leaning forward with lighted eyes and
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
trembling very hard—his hand shook too, I saw that, as it
lay spread out on the bench, with its rigid sinews and
square muscles in action. It was like the paw of a
wild-beast for strength, and gloriously fashioned.
Why that are chap you was with below, said the
Down-Easter.
Gerard Middleton, hey?
Do tell!—is that his name?
Take the stiffnin' out o' Gerard Middleton—will
he?
Never shall I forget the expression of that man's
face, when he uttered these two brief words—will he!
It made me catch my breath. He got up and walked
away after saying this, and when I looked again I saw
him in close conversation with the down-easter, in a
distant part of the vessel where they could not be
overheard.
If they go to kickin up a dust here, they'd better
look out—that's all, said somebody at my elbow, who
appeared to understand my very thoughts—it was the
swapper against whom I had been cautioned.—I know
a feller 'twould whip the whool boodle of 'em an'
give 'em six—an' there he goes now! ever hear tell
o' Gage—Atherton Gage?—that's the very man; rather
too much of a gentleman to be sure, but he can't
help that—runs in the blood, naitral to the family—
old Jerry P. R. Gage was the biggest gentleman ever
you see, an' so's the whole bylin' of 'em.
Atherton Gage said I—you must be mistaken; his
name is Nehemiah.
Nehemiah!—Nehemiah Gage!—Nehemiah Fiddlestick!
don't I know?
But I heard him say so—it must be Nehemiah?
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
I tell ye taint. His rayal name is Atherton Gage—
his mothers name's Atherton, but jess for the fun o'
the thing sometimes he calls himself Nehemiah, or
Peltiah, or Hezekiah, or some such old-fashioned
name. He's rayal Yankee, I tell ye!—clear grit—an'
smooth as ile; slick as grease, we say. Why where
've you ben all your life, not to hear tell o' Atherton
Gage—son of old deacon Jerry P. R. Gage of Quamphegan?
best wrastler in all New-England; gwin'
right away inter Kentucky, jess to have a try there
with some o' them air fellers that's brought up to
Ingeen-hug among the bears, an' if you ever bate,
I'll bate ye any thing you like in reason—an' plank
the money too—which as I was a sayin'—Old rugged-an'-tough
they used to call his dad, famous wrastler
he was too, warped with hoop-poles an' filled with
oven-wood; beatemest feller ever you see for some
things—ought to go by the name of old say-nothin'
away from our part o' the country, but when he's to
home (talking very slowly and quietly, and eying my
watch-fob all the time)—why Lord you! he's a
match for gab with any body 't ever you come across—
getting hold of my hat and blowing up the fur and
examining every part of it, inside and out, and glancing
every now and then at his own, which he had
rigged out with a new hat-case and stowed away
under the chair. But as you're from Feladelphy—
what a pocky tarnal great place that must be! by all
accounts, may be you can tell us how dry-goods in
jinral is there —?
Dry-goods?
Yes—needles an' pins, and calico and cultery an'
so forth and so forth—putty good cloth that o' yourn
-- 063 --
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
—for war-times—laying his hand on the sleeve of my
coat, and smoothing down the nap—who's your
maker?
My Maker!—Oh, I understand you—my tailor you
mean?
Yis—who made your cote? Is that a Feladelphy
hat o' yourn, though? What do they come at there,
cash on the nail? 'Spose abody was to take three
or four right out, and say no more about it—whoolsale—
hey?
I do not know.
My stars! why didt'nt you say 't you'd come from
Feladelphy?
So I did—but as I do not live there, it would be
impossible for me to answer such questions—.
New York then, hey?
No.
Albany?
I shook my head.
Or New-Haven?—or Providence?—or Boston?—
or—
No sir—no sir—
Or Salem?—or Newberyport?—or Portsmuth?—
beginning to say over Morse's Gazetteer, page by
page.
No! no! no! said I, speaking as fast as I could,
and enjoying his look of amazement and perplexity—
put on for the occasion I believe now—more than I
ought perhaps, if it was not.
Well then! drawing a long breath, and beginning
to admire my boots—where upon airth do ye live! I
should like to know, laying his foot alongside of mine,
and turning it this way and that, as he pursued the
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
investigation, either to satisfy himself about the comparative
size of our feet, or to make me observe that
his boots, evidently new, were topped off in the
highest fashion of the day.
Live—said I—in reply to the last interrogation—
here and there, and every where; in other words—
no where.
Jess so! and then after a long pause—where do
ye stay then? Where do ye keep?
No where.
Wal! you're more'n a match for me, I'll say that
for ye any how! another long pause, but only long
enough to breathe our indefatigble down-easter for
another attack—.
Aint the wandering jew, air ye? and then, instantly
aware that he had overacted his part, he added; you're
from tother side arter all, I'm a' thinkin'?
'Tother side?
From over there—away yender, pointing to the
high-seas. What do ye pay for sech a pair o' boots
as them in Eurup? Newest fashion there—all the
kick I spose, hey?
I laughed—I could not help it—laughed aloud,
and long and heartily. But he was no way disconcerted.
Wal I thought so! if I did'nt there's none o' me,
thats all! more n two hours ago, says I to capin Trip
says I, capin! says I; that air chap there with the
gool watch, he's from the old country, if he aint, I'll
eat a grin-stone—jess so! an' whats more says I,
that air hat he's gut on, aint a rayal beaver hat no more
'n you air, says I—nothin' but a silk hat says I—an'
then, says I, capin Trip, says I—jess look o' them
-- 065 --
[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
cloth stockins outside o' his shoe (eying my drab
gaiters)—any body might know.
Cloth stockings outside of my shoes—the rascal!
Capin Trip, says I, any body might know, says I,—
did'nt I mister? (to the man at the wheel) that he's
from tother side—or (lowering his voice) or wants to
be thought so; and whats more 'an all that, says I—
he dooz'nt seem a mite afeard o' the man' o' war's-man
off there 't we passed as tight as we could spring—
and you know you did'nt!—and what's more yit,
says I, he never says nothin' about the war says I,
an' when he seed leetle Georgee, says I, an old
Tennessee says I, jess goin' to pull hair, says I, he
would'nt hourraw for nyther side, says I—jess so!
Nor did you, sir, if you mean the foolish dispute
below.
Not I, you may depend! a leetle too fur east, I
ruther guess for them sort o' didoes. When the
southerners come to a close grip with one another,
what do we care? don't they keep a hundred or two
o' great nasty bull-niggers a piece, jess to sharpen
their knives on—without a rag to kiver 'em, starvin'
'em most to death all the time, an' lettin' their women
folks and babies slash 'em up with case-knives,
for jess nothin' at all, an massacree 'em most to death,
when there's company to dinner, jess to sehw 'em what
they can do? Haint they sold their own flesh an'
blood many a time to get money for a cock-fight or a
hoss-race?—do'nt we know 'em of old? Thats what
they call gettin' the yeller-boys, I spose—I've been
there, an' I've heern 'em say so many a time; pocky
tarnal shame! butter my hide if taint; an' what
should we care, comin' from a land o' liberty where
-- 066 --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
there aint no niggers to speak of, when we see sech
folks fall together by the ears—where there's hundreds
an' thousands on 'em taint washed from one
years eend to another, an go about the houses thicker
'n the frogs in Ejup, an' a plaguy deal nastier—I've
ben there, I tell ye, an' I know what I'm sayin' of—
which it is no wonder we love to see the feathers
fly.
And why so pray?
Why so! Why what business has the niggers
there? Let them that likes 'em have 'em, I say:
An' if they go to quarlin' about 'em, an' cuttin' one
another's throats, whose business is it? Not ourn I'm
sure. We told 'em how twould be, long enough
ago.
Yet in your part of the country, you are not over
friendly to the blacks—I believe—said somebody in a
quiet mild voice, at our very elbow. It was Middleton
himself.
Frindly! what dye ye mean by that? do ye think
we keep company with niggers, or make frinds of
'em, hey?
And why not, if they are well-behaved?
A nigger well-behaved! guess you don't know
what your talkin' about mister.
Or a mulatto—
Jess as bad—all alike I tell ye; aint a copper to
choose betwixt 'em—if there's a drop o' nigger-blood
in 'em, they'll always show it in their temper.
How in their temper?
How in their temper? Why you know as well as
me—they're right down ugly when theyre mad, clear
niggerish. Why taint more'n a month ago t' I heard
-- 067 --
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
a great he-nigger tell a white man that if he struck
him with his whip, hed split his head open with the
axe—why, in our part o' the country they think
themselves most as good as white folks, every bit
election-days.
And what if they do—if they are otherwise well-behaved—
you tax them, dont you?
Tax 'em! to be sure we do; they are free-niggers
that way.
Do you ever put them into the jury-box?
Into the jury-box—haw, haw, haw!
Or into the militia?
Into the militia! Why frind, you dont seem to
know much about New-England—who do ye think
would train along side a pesky nigger, in a free
country—in the dog-days.
Or a mulatto—
Yes, or a mulatto eyther, down to the fortyeth
generation.
Do you ever allow them to visit you?
Visit me!—niggers visit me!—I'll tell you what
tis frind, if you are pokin' fun at a feller—you'd
better find somethin' else to do, that's all!
But I am perfectly serious. I am only asking a
few questions, which I hope you are good-natured
enough to answer, as civilly as they are put.
Oh, wal! if thats what you're divin' at—whip
away.
Do even the poorest and most worthless of your
white men ever associate freely with the blacks or
mulattos in your part of the country?
Why no! I tell ye. They wunt eat together nor
play together, nor sleep in the same room together if
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
they can help it; and our overseers o' the poor would
be ashamed to ask it, when they're a town-charge.
Are the children of colored people admitted to the
same benches with the whites in your free schools—
On the same benches! By gimini! if I should'nt
like to see sambo Smith's boys cipherin' along aside
o' mine at our town-school! I guess I'd have a word
to say to master Cobb an' the school committee too!
an' the select men! Putty fellers to be sure!
But who is Sambo Smith?
What! never hearn tell o' Sambo Smith! he twas
out in the revolutionary war, and tho' he was only a
hired man o' gineral Green, he fit the innimy more in
three hours one arternoon, with ony one other great
lazy good-for-nothin' nigger 't had lost his arm to
help him—old Cato Frost—you see old Cato laid
down in the grass an' bit off the catriges and primed
the guns, fust one and then tother, as Sambo blazed
away at 'em out o' the stone-mill, where old Put had
left some flour for the continentals—no idea afore
'at ever Sambo had shot off a gun; killed ever so
many o' the troopers afore they'd give up, some said
eighteen or twenty; others not so much, though some
was carried off, my dad says, and he was out the
whool war, that six bodies was found arterwards, in
the bushes an' among the logs in the river.
Ah!—yet this man—who pays taxes—and is free-born
perhaps of free parents?—
So I've hearn tell.
What kind of a character does he bear?
What kind of a character? O, good enough for a
nigger, I tell ye; works hard as any body and brings
up gran children like the rest of us; owes nobody
-- 069 --
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
nothin', takes off his hat to every body he sees when
he goes to the corner, never drinks a drop, nor swears
a word, an' they do say is a rayal christian—belongs
to the church too.
Ah, a member of the church!
Oh!—yes!
Do they allow him to sit side by side, with the
white communicants at the communion-table?
What!—in a tone of unqualified amazement; and
then all at once perceiving the drift of Middleton's
questioning, he added—Why no! the nigger'd rather
take his 'lowance in the porch—I've hearn him
say so.
And so they let him take his allowance in the porch,
hey—like Lazarus.
O, but—ahem! old Sambo, he's gettin' old now
'an he'd a little ruther not go to the table, I
know.
And rather not serve upon the jury, or train with
the militia perhaps—even before he grew old?
To be sure! The nigger'd only be laughed at, if
he was to be darned fool enough to sarve.
You let him go to the polls I hope?
Oh!—yes! We all'ys care him up—parties ben
putty equally divided, so good an' so good, in our
town this five years, an' Sambo gets a ride every
year, one side o' tother; stuffiest nigger ever you see
tho'! Wunt vote for nobody 't he dont like, no
matter who gives him a recommend; and what's more
nigger than all that, he wont tell aforehand which
side he's goin to vote for, and sometimes he wunt
vote for nyther, an' sometimes he'll vote right agin
the side that brung him up.
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
Middleton took off his hat, and drew himself up,
and looked about him, as if wondering to find himself
so altogether alone as he appeared to be, in his majestic
admiration of old Sambo Smith—a glow of indignant
wrath burning all over his forehead—in the depth of
his large dark eyes, and about his firmly shut mouth,
as he walked proudly away.
Ah, ha! gut his belly-full, I ruther guess, continued
the other; don't care which side whips, when the
nigger-drivers falls out among themselves; an' I told
'em so—did'n I mister?—oh, you're in the sulks agin
I see!—dont care for that though; raial down-easter
I tell ye.
And how do you know but I'm a down-easter?
You a donw-easter! eying me more narrowly then
ever, and fumbling for his pocket-handkerchief, as if
to assure himself that all was safe, before he ventured
upon a more particular acquaintance—you a down-easter!
you! shaking his head slowly—very slowly.
Why how can that be? Haint I axed you one by one
about all the places down-east, where a feller could
find sech a slick fit as them are—glancing at my boots
and then at my coat? No, no, Mr. Potiphar—Peter
Potiphar I think you said?—thats what we should
call a snorter, down-east. Ah, you may laugh! laugh
away; laugh as much as ever ye like, but I want you
should go long o' me to the map, and show me where
yer live. Tell you what 'tis neighbor—I can see
through you.
What dye mean sir?
Dont I know ye! an' did'nt I say so when ye fust
come aboard! dont talk to me—whizz! You from
down-east!—putty joke faith! Do you play
-- 071 --
[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
checkers? or fox an' geese?—or morris?—or all fours?—
or shoe-make-loo?—or te-to-tum?
I shook my head, one by one, to this string of
questions, uttered at longer and longer intervals, in a
sharper and sharper voice, till the astonishment of
the man exhausted itself in a long and a fixed stare.
Draw cuts?—or open a book for the nighest letter?
or chalk the floor, hey? or jump up and kick?
I'm yer man by Gawd, stranger! I'm the boy for
any thing or that sort! cried the tall Tennessee
youth, who had kept aloof till now, lying on his back
by the hour, with a long nine in his mouth and a shotbelt
full of sugar plums dangling over his breast.
I'm the boy for that! hourrra! run, jump, or kick,
wrastle or fight, for all I gut here! slapping his
breeches-pockets, and springing up with a loud boisterous
laugh that sounded not unlike the half-smothered
roar of a good-natured wild-beast—I'm your man
for all that, an' half the plunder about ye if ye dare!
hurra! And then he flung a handful of sugar-plums
right and left over the deck where a group of children
were at play.
I had observed him at the breakfast-table, eying the
dishes with a wary look, and fighting shy whenever
he was helped—as if he hated the very knives and
forks for interfering with a more summary method
of getting into what he called the `belly-timber,' after
a fashion of his own—with the paws of a she-bear,
and the appetite of a grist-mill. Yet he was a good
natured, handsome, savage-looking fellow; and at
the worst only a rougher, and I believe in my heart,
a better sort of Yankee, with more manliness and
straight-forwardness than our people have now.
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[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
While I was trying to get a sketch of him, as he
threw himself out his whole length over the bench,
the swapper renewed his attack on me. Fore-warned,
fore-armed thought I, and I determined to favor him
with all the opportunity he could wish.
-- --
CHAPTER VI.
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
I say tho' Mr. Potipher, thats a plaguy neat lookin'
watch o' yourn 'ti seed ye have; I should like to heft
it, if you've no objection—I put my watch into his
hand, without a word of remark—I wonder now if
you'd mind my seein' how'ts put together?—over-hauling
it and hefting it between every two words,
ransacking it inside and out, seal, chain, clasp and
guard, but so cautiously and so skilfully as to show
that I had nothing to fear. That he might proceed
with the investigation more at his leisure, he off coat,
rolled up his shirt-sleaves, loosened his shirt-collar,
and put away his old hat with a deal of superfluous
care, and actually dropped upon his `heads antipodes'
while the boat was plunging through a heavy sea,
much to the amusement of the fair Elizabeth, who
had been clinging to the rail ever since the departure
of Middleton, with desperate strength, and looking
overboard with half-shut eyes and a quivering lip
growing paler and paler at every plunge.
After he had taken it apart and put it together
again—or adopting the definition of the other down-easter
about orthography—after he had spelt it, as
thoroughly as I would allow him—using only a tooth-pick
and a ninepenny whittler as he called the knife
he made use of—he shot the kiver and wiping the face
with his new bandanna as affectionately as a mother
would that of her youngest born after a somerset in a
duck-puddle—he seemed on the point of returning
-- 074 --
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
the watch—hesitated—withdrew his extended arm,
the fingers involuntarily contracting over the treasure—
even while he kept saying, there she is frind!
there she is! take her, and never say 'tive hurt her,
hide or hair. How old is she?—not that I want you
or any body else on airth to tell me that; guess I
know by her click, about as well as any body, without
lookin' at her teeth—
Take care! said I, as he held her up, and swung
her round by the chain: the watch is at your risk—
if she flies off, you must pay for her!
I pay for her! What for? Wal, wal, I spose you
know more about the law 'an I do; dont seem to me
to be altogether fair shakes somehow for a feller to
have to pay jess as much for only lookin' at her
insides a minnit, as if he'd bought her right out—slap
dash—I'll leave it to ary one o' you if tis?
How much do ye offer? askes the Tennessee-youth,
who had been capering about hither and thither for
the last quarter of an hour, like a dislocated windmill
adrift—under an idea that a man six feet high was a
fool to be sea-sick—how much 'll ye give stranger?
And then without waiting for a reply, he added—You
may look at my insides for half the money! out
whittler if ye dare! And away he scampered with
both hands plastered over his mouth—paws I might
say, though he did'nt go on all fours—toward a place
where he told me afterwards he threw up his shoes
and stockings, a jacket lined with tripe (I give his
own language) and his commission, that of major in
the mounted militia, which he had torn to pieces and
swallowed the day before in a rage with his brigadier,
for saying twa'nt gentlemanly to spit on a
-- 075 --
[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
hearth-rug, or to blow your nose with your fingers,
and wipe them on your pantaloons. And I'll
leave it to you, stranger! said he as he wound up the
story of his affront—if sich a feller as that's fit to be
a brigadier o' the mounted rangers? Taint more 'an
a month at the very outside, sense he turned out with
a new pocket-hank'cher for the fuss time—an'ts never
ben out of his hand sense, by Gawd! An' I up an'
told him so—right to his head—mister brigadier says
I, by the time you're a gineral right out, you'll have
a ruffled shirt o' your own says I, an' expect your
understrappers to wash their faces every campaign,
says I; an' eat buffaloe-punch with a knife an' fork,
says I—hourra! if I did'nt I wish I may be d—d!
Ruther a limpsy chain though, continued the down-easter
as soon as he had got his breath; watch putty
fair—best imitation I've seen since I dont know
when.
Imitation? said I.
Yes—pinchback.
Pinchbeck?
Yes—that what dye ye call 'em stuff, washed over
with gool leaf.
Pho, pho man—that is neither pinchback nor imitation.
Posserble! What is it then?
Gold—fine gold.
Maybe you'd like to wage somethin' o' that—man
enough aint ye to back your word with a trifle? pulling
out an old tattered wallet with what appeared to
be a large roll of paper money in it. Say the word,
if you dar'st—and we'll leave it out to the fuss man
comes along for jess what you like.
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
Pho, pho—nonsense; I'm no friend to wagers.
What I tell you is the truth, nevertheless.
Sneks an' spiders! you dont say so!—If the wind
cants in a little more 't the norrard the fog 'll scale off
I ruther guess; wherebouts are ye goin' to set now
marm?—I did'nt speak to you, mister; nor to you
nyther, marm—nary one o' ye; but to that pore little
gal there; she ought to have somethin' to take right
away and somethin' to hold on by too—ah, what's
that are book about? Leetle a more.
All these questions and remarks were uttered in
precisely the same tone of voice, now to one by-stander,
now to another; and then he took up a
volume—it was Walter Scott's Rokeby—Leetle o'
more, you'd a' lost it overboard—R. O. K—rok-E—
rokee—b. y. by—Rocke-eby—that's it, hey?—chock
full o' varse hey?
Precisely, said Gage—Rockeby baby on the tree-top!—
humming the old nursery air with his eye upon
Middleton, poor fellow! who sat near the little
quakeress, so altered and so pale—so deadly pale—
and so helpless, that much as he desired to continue a
conversation with her, which the down-easter had
interrupted, he could not—and after several attempts,
rising up, and opening his mouth, and clinging to the
rail within a few feet of her, anxious to betray a
proper sympathy for one so beautiful and so attractive,
he finished, by turning his back abruptly upon her,
and rushing to a distant part of the deck. I saw him
and pitied him—of all sickness, there is none so
selfish, so hateful and so prosaic, none so trying to a
first love, I do in my heart believe, as that of the sea—
-- 077 --
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
with its `untrampled floor,' and glorious depths, and
magnificent shadows, and glad waters, and blue lustre,
and all that.
They were like strangers for a time, sitting so near
to each other all the while, that over and over again,
her beautiful hair swept over his very mouth and eyes,
and instead of thrilling at the touch, he never knew it—
nor did she! I pitied them both, and was happier
than either I verily believe, when they recovered so
far as to recognize one another, and smile and blush,
at their odd forgetfulness of propriety;—one of the
prettiest feet in the world having wandered away
from the modest drapery that clung to the instep and
shivered with every breath—and the slope of a perfect
shoulder, from which the plentiful gauze had been
lifted away by the sea-breeze, or the motion of the
boat, having some how or other found its way into
the open air on the side next the enamored youth—
whose cravat always negligently tied, was now
dropping like a shower of snow into his bosom—
while his black hair fell with a prodigious effect
about his pale face—I never saw a finer picture—
both were in love, deeply desperately in love. I
saw it in their eyes, I heard it in their breathing—
and I turned away.
Not pure goole tho' whatever you may say, neighbor,
continued the down-easter, following me as I
moved away; jewellers goole may be? or Attlebury-goole?
We make broches o' lead an pewter, at
most of ou tin-ware factories, and then give 'em a
lick o' goole leaf or copper-leaf—all the same in dry
weather—never seed a watch sarved so before to
day tho'.
-- 078 --
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
Maybe, you've seen a chist o' draws washed over
with mahogany, hey?—or tin-ware put together with
shoe-maker's wax, said the man with the nose, dropping
into conversation here as naitral as could be—
If you haint, I have!
You dont say so!
Wal that's pooty nigh the truth for you—what if
you try agin!
Wal, if ever! fetching a long breath and pretending
to be overwhelmed with astonishment. Con'sarn
it all mister! anybody that takes you for a dumb fool
would'nt be very much mistaken, would they?
Not more 'an half as much as if they took you for
an honest man. Try agin, will ye! and off he
marched.
You shet your yop, an' mind your own business—
if you know when you're well off! said the the first
after the other was out of hearing And so mister
Potipher, as I was a sayin'—Peter I think you said:—
I've gut a neephew o' that name, all'ays a favoryte
name with me; smart feller as ever you come across—
lugging out a heavy silver watch, as he said this,
a genuine bull's-eye with a huge copper logging-chain,
a bell-metal face, and a bear-trap for a toy
dangling at the end of it; dropping his voice or
changing the subject whenever any body came
near—What an everlastin' spell o' weather we
have had! haint we?—a bit of a rogue he was
too, when he want more 'n knee high to a
bumbly-bee—
Jess what I should expect! said the other,
cutting in again as he passed by, and continuing
a sort of yaw, haw! till it was drowned by the
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
noise of the sea bursting and roaring about our
path.
Clear grit an' no grease I tell ye!—twirling the
great lubberly chain about his wrist, and leering at
me through a pair of eyebrows like swallow's nests.
Not much in names tho' arter all—may be? There
now!—jess look o' that air! There's a watch for
you! Thats what I call somethin' like! none o' them
pitch-pine bureaus jess slicked over with a wash o'
moggany not half so thick as your nail—that are
feller's ben talkin' about—wonder what he's good for—
all jaw like a sheep's head, while I'm allers right
up an down like a sheep's tail goin' over a wall—
why, neighbor, that air's about the beatemest watch
ever you see—ben a a-guyin' more'n sixty years right
off the reel—never stopped to wheeze, I tell ye! jess
look o' here now—see what a hell-fired noise it
makes!
He was right. Whenever he shook it, and held it
up to my ear, it made a noise like a coffee-mill. I
jumped when I first heard it, and he called out for me
not to be afraid.
Heft it, said he—heft it man; what are ye afeard
of? twunt hurt ye.
I took it up, and seeing Gage a little way off, began
heaving and weighing it with both hands.
Heavy agin as that o' yourn, ye see! capped an'
jewelled—and then, lowering his voice to a dry whisper,
he added, what'll ye give to boot?
Give! said I, in amazement.
Or take!
I laughed—I could bear it no longer—laughed till
my sides ached; and poor Elizabeth laughed too,
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
and her excellent old grandfather upon whose arm
her head lay, with her luxuriant hair all abroad over
her disordered neck, he laughed, and all who heard
us, except that strange fellow—Nehemiah Gage—
or Atherton Gage, if I might believe the down-easter,
laughed with her.
But our swapper was not a man to be so easily
thrown out; and after a little rest, he began once
more in a still lower whisper, with his eye upon
Gage; and after saying, I want you should give me a
letter o' recommend to Pheladelphy, as I ruther guess
I shall go back that way, and I'll give you another to
Barnstable, or Boothbay, or most any where along
ashore—he wound up with, How'll you swap?
Swap!
That's it! ben out in no less 'an two wars aready—
heft it will ye? spry as ever yer see! another pause,
and another careful examination of my countenance
followed, as if he—the poor innocent—was afraid of
being cheated by me! we are pon honor, I hope?
I hope so, said I.
Fact is, I aint much of a sharper myself; and then
seeing the other down-easter approach, he lifted up
his head as if talking about some very indifferent
affair, and asked him if he could whittle agin the
wind.
The other, who had been whittling a bit of soft
pine for the last half hour, into forty successive
shapes—now rounding it into a spigot, and now into a
clothes' pin—now into a small spoon, and finally into
a miniature snuff-box with a moveable cover and a
perfect hinge, cut out of the solid wood, working his
penknife with consummate ease and swiftness, heaved
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
to at this queer salutation, and after eying his antagonist
with a knowing look for a moment, he tipped me
a wink, as much as to say—didint I tell ye so! and
was walking off; when the other, not at all embarrassed
by the reproof, stopped him by saying, I
say, mister, let me see your knife a minnit!
Wal—there! said the other holding it up before his
eyes.
Pshaw! you know what I mean—I want to borry
it—holding out his hand—cant you let a feller see
the edge.
No—nor feel the pynt, without I keep hold o' the
handle; gut eyes in the eends o' your fingers hey?
and off he walked.
That air chap's no gentleman—I swan if he is!
aint fit to carry guts to a bear; howsomever as I said
afore; aint much of a sharper myself, and if we're
gwyin' to trade fair—
To trade fair—I dont understand you; who spoke
of trading?
Fair play's a jooel friend—hate a sharper as I do
pyz'n; a dicker's a dicker I allays concate, where
people's upon honor, but not where they aint; dont
care how close a feller is—closer an' button-wood-bark,
all the better for me, for I love to git away jist
by the skin o' my teeth—an' a leetle more.
I began to grow tired of this. Thank you for my
watch, said I; offering to return his at the same
time.
But he hesitated about receiving his own back, and
began looking about—perhaps to find a witness that
would prove a swap—saying as he did so, with more
and more earnestness and vivacity every moment,—
-- 082 --
[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]
Which as I said afore, if you've a mind to stick to
the swap—a bargain 's a bargain you know?—aint it
mister? to a foot passenger on his way to Baltimore.
I'll thank you for my watch, was my answer to
this.
My stars! Have it now, or wait till you can git it?
all honey an' hug a minnit ago; an' now! marsy on
us! what a change!
Give me the watch!
Why what a feeze you air in, to be sure!
Dont provoke me sir!
At a word then—how'll you swap?
No how—give me the watch I say.
Possable! Buy it of ye then—what 'll ye take?
I started to my feet, I dare say with no very amiable
expression of countenance, for I had grown
heartily tired of his pertinacity.
Buy or sell frind—all the same to me—what 'll ye
give? make us an offer, if ye dare!
At this moment a loud jarring bell, wheezing and
sounding far and wide over the agitated sea, interrupted
our talk; and up came the steward to say dinner
was ready. But I would not stir a step till I had
secured my watch. And the down-easter, who tried
to allay my fears by reminding me that he did'nt consider
the watch as altogether at his risk, would'nt
leave me till I agreed to a proposition which tickled
me prodigiously. And what do you think it was,
reader? Why nothing more nor less than for me to
leave the value of my superb repeater to be fixed by
a third person, and then to sell her at the price he
named!
As I live, I had half a mind to say yes, and refer the
-- 083 --
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
question to the very individual who had watched over
me so faithfully, and warned me so frequently against
the tricks of this fellow.
But perhaps he suspected my design; for he added
in the same breath, as if to secure himself against
any misfortune of that nature—that instead of choosing
an umpire, we should take the first person that
came along, and then if I refused to sell, or if
he refused to buy, at the price mentioned, the
party falling back should treat or pay for three
dinners. By jove! said I to myself, but I'll fix him
so far as three dinners go—he richly deserves it—
and so under pretence of more fully understanding
the proposition, I repeated it after him, keeping my
eye upon the man with the nose, then evidently preparing
to follow the others to dinner—and finished
just at the critical moment, to secure him as the first
person that came along. Already had he grasped the
mahogany railing—a moment more, and he would
have disappeared down the companion-way. Such
an opportunity for revenge was not to be let slip,
and I insisted on the very letter of our contract.
My antagonist demurred for a moment, and there was
a something in his eye, which at any other time would
have induced me to relent.
Wal, said he, if it must be so, it must I 'spose—
though I should'nt think twould be any put-out to
you to take somebody else; and then he gave up,
though with evident unwillingness, and a peculiar
twitch of the mouth and sparkle of the eye that
delighted me exceedingly at the time—though not so
much afterwards; and we called the man to us, and
I stated the question—chuckling at the bare idea of
-- 084 --
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
out-witting one down-easter by the help of another,
and so handsomely too!
Why! said the umpire, whose hurry to get away
augmented in exact proportion to the noise below—a
noise like nothing I had ever before, asleep or awake—
a country-tavern election day, or a crockery-ware
shop running off at the heels of wild-horses, or
another Brummagem got loose and breaking up for a
voyage over sea, with steam-engines to match—these
and these only occur to me as even tolerable types of
the uproar that followed, growing louder and louder
every moment, till we could hardly hear ourselves
speak—Why—a—a—standing first on one leg and
then on the other—if you're both agreed.
We assured him we were, and my companion,
began to look so sheepish—you've no idea how
diverted I felt, though as the venerable quaker afterwards
assured me, I kept my countenance to a charm,
all things considered. N. B. I never forgave him for
the remark.
Why, continued the umpire—twisting the watch-chain
about his fingers and hefting the whole concern
as he called it—and weighing the whole matter so
conscientiously—upon my word, I have no patience
with myself, when I think of his unmatchable coolness
or of my own self-satisfied stupidity—why to tell ye
the truth mister; you're both strangers to me—I'm
no great judge o' these ere kind o' jimcracks—fair
tradin's gut to be putty pore business now, an' fair
traders terrible skase—most every body jockies for
themselves now—feller cant cut his own fodder, if he
dont shave tarnation close, I tell ye! which its my
opinion, an' you may let it go for jess whats worth an'
-- 085 --
[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
no more—that's my way—an' your watch may be
gool as you say—and may be not: whereupon—
shifting his leg and interchanging a glance with the
old quaker, who bit his lip and looked at me—whereupon,
as I said afore, considerin' how turrible thick
you've ben all the parsage, notwithstandin' all I could
say—could'nt tell which was which five minutes ago,
you sot so close together—hitching up his mouth till
there was only one side to it, as if astonished at the
clearness of his own exposition—A-a-a its my best
judgment frinds—never good for much though, as I
said afore—that somewhere about fifteen dollars—or
fifteen-fifty—or say fifteen-seventy-five, at the very
outside, weighing the watch again with a grave
thoughtful air as he concluded the decree—would be
about the fair valley on't these times, an' pesky hard
times they air too, I tell ye! Judge of my amazement!
Why sir said I, laughing in spite of my vexation at
the ridiculous figure I cut, between such a pair of
thorough-bred sharpers—only consider; fifteen dollars
or fifteen-fifty, or fifteen seventy-five, at the very outside
as you say—upon my word, the little amethyst
you see there, the smallest seal of the whole bunch,
cost me double the money!
Dare say! cant help that tho'; dont pertend to be
much of a judge—both strangers to me, as I said
before.
Very well, said I, though I longed to remind him
of what he had said of the other, some three hours
earlier in the day—when he knew him of old—Very
well! lifting my foot with an emphasis which diverted
the old quaker prodigiously, and the young quakeress
-- 086 --
[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]
too, if I might judge by what I could see of her
mouth below the handkerchief that she held up to it,
and beginning to descend the stairs—very well—
I am satisfied.
What!—hey!—satisfied!—you aint though, air
ye! cried both together, struck all of a heap it seemed
to me. Taint posserble! cried the umpire. Why!....!
cried the swapper; and there I left them
staring at one another as if thunderstruck. Their
first idea undoubtedly was, that instead of jockeying
me, as they termed it, they were handsomely jockied
themselves, perhaps with something inferior to pinchback
or bell-metal.
Yes, I repeated, yes my good sir, satisfied—so far
as to—making a full stop to enjoy their perplexity—
so far as to—we were interrupted again just here.
Mind though! cried the umpire, the disinterested
umpire, who had happened upon us by accident, after
cautioning me so frequently and so earnestly to beware
of the other,—mind though! you jest warranted
that are watch pure goold; an' what's more, I'm a
witness on't; and if I'm no judge, as I said afore, I
ruther guess I'm a bit of lawyer when I am at home—
haw, haw, haw!
Whereupon, I continued—satisfied, gentlemen,
if you will hear me out—so far as to pay for three
dinners, and treat you both—
Jess so! cried the first. Ginmee you yit—by
Jings! added the other—hourray! their countenances
brightening up immediately—
And treat you both, as you deserve,—I added from
between my shut teeth—I could'nt help it—the rascals!
Saying this, I hurried down the steps and left
-- 087 --
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
them whispering together. But my ill-humor I own
vanished on my arrival at the dinner-table, whither
they pursued me instantly and without shame or
remorse, each fortifying the other at every remark
and pretending to the last never to have met before,
nor even to know the others name. I saw clearly
enough now that they had been playing the whole
voyage through—not so much for the watch, as for
the dinners, being, after all perhaps, rather better
judges of the latter than of the former commodity;
and that if they had failed to get it in this, or in some
other similar way, by hook or by crook, as they term
it, they would have gone without or dined on the contents
of their sugar-boxes, and wallets, and saddle-bags—
ginger-bread and salt-fish perhaps, or apples
and cheese, or rye-and-indian-bread, fat-pork and cold
beans—but we have gone far enough perhaps, for one
chapter.
-- --
CHAPTER VII.
[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
Mind, Cap'n Trip! this ere man pays for the three—
for both of us two an' himself! cried the foremost
in doubling the captain's chair, on our way to the table;
to which very delicate intimation I had nothing
to say, as the captain did not hear them in the bustle
of making room for two or three new comers. Our
places were now secure, and I had seated myself with
a view to business—being, if I may be allowed so to
speak—in a devil of a hurry to go to work, and as
hungry as a wolf, two-thirds famished—when one of
my two associates called out to the steward in passing,
a colored man—I say, mister! this 'ere man here,
pointing to me, and then laying hold of my collar, pays
for three; mind now! ye're to look to him for all we
eat an' drink—no put out to you, I hope?
This matter stated, and the judgment of law fairly
bespoken, they seated themselves one on each side of
me—as if to make sure of a subject, much to my annoyance,
but altogether more to my amusement; for
all eyes were upon me, whenever they condescended
to open their mouths. Middleton I thought understood
the matter and compassionated my situation;
but as for Gage—I believe in my heart I should have
quarrelled with him any where else, but for the reputation
he had, so much did he appear to enjoy my
occasional embarrassment and their uncouth familiarities,
though he said nothing, and there was little in
his look to complain of, except perhaps a slight
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
convulsive twitching about the mouth, accompanied by a
brief contraction of the forehead, now and then, which
another might not have cared for.
Two tables were spread the whole length of the
large cabin; both were crowded at last, and I have no
doubt there were two hundred passengers, may be
more, all eating together and all talking together as
fast and as loud as they could speak, for about half
an hour.
Pray, sir—to give the reader some idea of the
scene—pray, sir, murmured a fat choleric-looking
man, opposite me, will you do me the favor to—pah!
what the devil is that! cried another at my elbow,
jumping half out of his chair and overturning a dish
of melted butter that a servant was trying to push by
his elbow. Will you do me the favor, sir, continued
the first, as to help me to a—a—to help me—to a—to
a!—growing more and more nervous and impatient,
and speaking louder and louder at every repetition,
till the murmur had became a shout—
Hullow there! bear a hand, will ye—interrupted
another.
To help me to a—to a—
Louder! louder! screamed a voice further off, like
a wretched clarionet with the reed split—louder!
louder! can't hear a word you say! Two plates encounter
each other at this moment—midway of the
table—both are smashed—the veal cutlets fly one
way and the fried fish another—louder, if you please!
I turned my head toward the speaker, and saw a
little thin man stooping half across the table with his
hand to his ear, trying to make out the bluff petition
of the choleric old gentleman, who had risen half out
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of his chair, and now stood with his mouth wide open—
his head stretched toward the other—and gesticulating,
like a thorough-bred East India captain,
doubling the Cape—with bad officers—in a hurricane.
A laugh on my left obliged me to turn my head that
way. One of the down-easters had pulled a large
roasted fowl out of the dish, upon the soiled table-cloth,
and was sawing it in two mid-ships, with his
mouth full of bread-and-butter, which he kept supplied
during the whole operation.
Waiter!—wai—ter! screamed another shrill voice
afar off, so shrill as to be distinctly heard through all
the uproar, like a “wry-necked fife' at a militia muster,
or an octavo flute in a full band—haloo there! not
a waiter to be seen, by George!
Not a waiter to be seen—faith! I can see nothing
but waiters, answered somebody else.
Here, boy, here! this way an' be damned to you!
growled another. Cuss the nigger! he shouted again,
with his mouth so full he could'nt make himself heard.
Begga parron, massa! twan't my fawt, if massa
preeze.
Nor was it. The chicken—a devilish tough chicken
I thought, and so did the sufferer, I dare say, had
slipped from the clutches of the operator from down-east,
into the lap of a burly midshipman, who was
that instant reaching his plate across the table, swimming
with fish gravy—poor fellow! it turned out to
be pudding-sauce, after he had cursed the nigger
again, cleared his throat and swabbed his white kerseymeres.
Nobody knew how it got there—he had
just spread out the favorite part of a favorite fish—
and there he sat, eying it in dismay, and breathing as
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if he had been under water half an hour; while the
down-easter stood leaning over the table with his knife
and fork in the air, and his eyes rivetted on the hacked
and hewed skeleton, as it tumbled from the midshipman's
lap into the settee, and from the settee into the
middle of the floor—there to be kicked about until
dinner was over.
Hulloo there! bear a hand, will ye?—what's the
matter now?—Devil to pay and no pitch hot!—There
ye go agin! sloppin' the grease all over the table
cloth!—What's that to you, I should like to know?—
Should ye?—Yes I should.—You be damned!—I say
youngster, can you tell the difference between the—
the—capital fish, hey?—the hypotheneuse of a right
angle-triangle with the stops off, and the distance between—
a mouthful o' cabbage if you please—between
time and space?—helping the other who had interrupted
him, to full half a cabbage.
No, sir! but I can tell you sir—raising his voice by
degrees, and waxing warmer and warmer as he proceeded,
till he was actually inarticulate with rage---
while the other kept on eating---you're a---boo---oo--oo---
Thank ye sir, said the other, interrupting him with
a good natured laugh---that's what I call a smasher!
I say, you mister! thank ye for a leetle more o'
your'e sarse! The man stared, and then began to pour
out some pudding-sauce upon the offered plate---
Dod butter it all! I did'nt see what you was a doin'
of. That aint the kind o' sarse I wanted, puddin'-gravy
to corn-fish! pulling away his plate and leaving
the sauce to run all over the table-cloth---I wanted
cabbage or potaters, or most any sort o' garden sarse---
there, there! most any one 'll do for me---aint
over an' above particlar.
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A short pause followed---a breathing spell---and the
clamor died away, voice by voice, like the prattle of
girls at a crowded party, where all talk together and
all are silent together; and then, after a minute or two,
recommenced again louder than before---you'd have
thought the vessel afire, by the shouting and screaming.
Bread up there!---This way nigger! Goode-goree-midee---never
heerd nodin' like 'm! yelled the nigger,
in reply. Hourraw there, hourraw! I say steward---
steward!---this way, my good fellow; can't you give
us a mouthful?—Stewart, I say---Hell and damnation!
must I bawl my heart out before I can make you
hear?---Ay, ay sir!—comin' directly sir.---Stewart, I
say!---Sir to you.
Here boy, here, cried another somebody, in a voice
like one suffocating with heat and thirst---take my
plate---get me a clean glass---and a bottle of---Ay, ay,
sir!---porter; an' some fruit pie---is that dried peach
or cramberry---(cram-berry! whispered Gage)---and
a small piece of fresh butter, and a—stop, stop!
aint half done yet; where the devil are ye goin'
to?—Stop! I say—But the servant was already out
of hearing.
Josh! I say Josh—slobber-cakes all gone?—Jawsh!
I say!—hand us over the big speakin' trumpet, hollar
fire, and set the big bell a-goin'! theres a good feller;
nobody 'll hear it!
Fire and fury! squeaked another `still small voice'
never seed sech a boat since I breathed the breath o'
life—driv me fust one side an' then 'tother, ever since
I cum aboard, an' never get me nothin' to eat arter
all.—One day in the courts of the lord is better
-- 093 --
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than a thousand, so I'v hearn our preacher say, an'
that's my notion of a steam-boat.—Hush your jaw
there!
Dont you say that agin!
Shet your clam!—like that better?—hold your
yop!
Tell you what, my frind: you'll run agin the eend
o' my arm if you dont look well ahead—through you,
like shell-beans, if you get me ryled in airnest!
A feller might starve here an' nobody know nothin'
about it. Nigger—I say!—nigger—stewart—nigger!
Why don't ye strangle that child?—Ma! ma!
where's ma? I want ma!—if you dont, I will, by
the Lord Harry! git out ye little tom-cat! give him
a two-and-forty pounder to play with—No ma go
away! waugh! Chuck him into the boiler! Wau—
au—augh!—I want ma!
Here a very pompous gentleman, who had not
opened his mouth before, reached over toward a short
citizen, whom I had been observing, and who was
just in the middle of a large plate of beef, reeking
with delicious blood, gravy and yellow-mustard, over
which you could see his huge bald-pate vibrating this
way and that with the regularity of a pendulum as he
cut and swallowed and sopped, and sopped and swallowed
and cut, puffing and blowing at intervals of a
minute or more, and never lifting his eyes from the
plate—reached over, as I said before, and begged him
with a sober countenance and a dignified motion of
the extended arm, speaking very slowly, and loud
enough to call the attention of the whole company
toward him—to put his fork into a potato.
The other did so—took the offered fork, and thrust
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it into a potato, without looking up—and left it
there.
The pompous gentleman stared and then with
another and a lower bow and a compassionate smile
for the by-standers, he told the other he'd be obliged
to him for his fork.
Whereupon the other bowed in reply, and pulled
out the fork, without looking up, and reached it across
the table to him with such a literal innocent air, that
the midshipman who was just pouring down a tumbler
of porter, burst forth into a roar of ungovernable
laughter, scattering the foam over all his neighbours,
and showering his white kerseymeres with a new
color, as he held the empty bottle in the air with one
hand; and the empty tumbler in the other. The
laugh was so hearty—so unexpected—and so outrageous,
that all within reach of the echo were
obliged to laugh with him, before he had finished—
save and except the pompous gentleman himself who
sat swelling and heaving with rage, till he grew almost
black in the face; and the gourmand, who was too
much occupied for a laugh—looking up only once
during the whole uproar, and then with such a stare
of unsuspecting good-nature, as to set us all a-going
again, louder than ever. And now, reader, imagine
yourself surrounded for half an hour by outcries like
these already mentioned, intermixed with the following,
of which I took a memorandam the first opportunity
after I left the dinner-table.
Stewart I say!—Ay, ay, sir. Stewart! stewart!—
Here I am sir—lowering his voice, I aint deef, sir.—
Who said you was? take my plate an' be hanged to
ye; an' ax that lady there, with my compliments to
-- 095 --
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her, if she'll take a glass o' porter!—What'll you
have now sir, said another blackey, in passing our part
of the table.
Now sir! why zounds an' death, you lump of tarred
rattlin with a figger-head to match; I havent had
nothin' at all yit—your very good health marm!—
beg your pardon sir—(the speaker had just blown the
froth from his porter into the ruffled-bosom of his
next neighbor)—I was lookin' at the lady sir.
Hourra there, hourra! green peas 'll be all gone if
you don't mind your eyes, cuffee.—Thank ye for a
few more o' them air green peas—dont feel very well
somehow—never able to eat nothin' hearty when I'm
at sea!
By jingo, growled a double bass in reply—guess he
never was at sea then; eat nothin' but green peas
since he sot down—hourraw for you, cuffee!
Sir, said a well-dressed, well-bred looking man
with a short neck, a tight stiff cravat, a florid face,
drab gaiters, and hair powder that flew about the
table strangely enough, as he wiped his mouth on the
table-cloth, or helped himself, as he did frequently
from the open snuff-box at his elbow, with decided
emphasis—a—a—sir, I never could exactly understand—
filling his mouth with water and squirting it
through his teeth into what he called a finger-glass,
to the astonishment and disgust of the low-bred
natives about him—a-a—not exactly---why the colored
Americans are called cuffees.
Gerard Middleton started and sat eying the stranger---a
portentous flash going over his high pale
forehead---a swarthy glow---leaving it instantly paler
than before; and but for Gage, who interfered with
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a remark that caused every body to turn that way, I
believe in my heart we should have had an immediate
interchange of cards. A stranger, I presume? said
Gage, with a most deferential bow; to which the other
returned a very encouraging smile, and a bow remarkable
for its dignity and impressiveness. Gage
continued---The people of this country sir, as you
have undoubtedly observed, are of two colors, black
and white.
Black or white, I presume sir---with a still more
encouraging bow.
As you please, my dear sir---one should be careful
in the use of copulatives in such cases---black or white
sir--or—glancing at Middleton—or half-and-half sometimes
at the south, where they are called milk-and-molasses.
Middleton's eyes flashed fire; but the imperturbable
Gage continued—
The whites in America, are the cuffers, and the
blacks are the cuffees.
Middleton smiled faintly and was turning away,
when the stranger whipped out a memorandum-book
and began writing in it with unspeakable earnestness.
The smile became a laugh, and he stopped and took
the hand of Gage with an expression that I never
shall forget while I breathe. The stranger was out
on furlough perhaps from Sheffield or Birmingham, or
peradventure from the Scotch navy, on a holiday
voyage of discovery. A book which has appeared
since, would appear to be---a-a---but no matter for
that.
I had now leisure to attend to the doings of the
company in another quarter. For my own part, I
-- 097 --
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could eat nothing---there was no time to eat---no
elbow-room—no space for swallowing; it was about
as much as one's life were worth to try where I sat,
wedged in for two thirds of my length between the
two indefatigable down-easters; so that if any one
of the whole three moved or wriggled, the other two
were certain to drop their food from their lifted-knives,
or to slop their tumblers over, on the way to
their mouths.
Here you nigger! this way—fetch me another glass
o' that air coslin' stuff, you know what (with a wink
and a laugh) I say Bob!—hourrah there! will ye
take a pull with me, if ye dare?—Will I?—try me.
Well then you-go to-hell! as the Frenchman said,
ha, ha, haw!—Same to you Swipes! You're from
Rhode-Island, hey?—An' you're from Delaware—
hey?—Not as you knows on!—Have a gardeen
'pynted for you as soon as I git ashore.—Would ye
though?
Having now made sure of a plate of soup, not so
much to eat, as to play with, I renewed my conversation
with my right-hand neighbor, and asked him how
he came to suppose me an old-countryman, as he
called me. Why, said he, us ra-al ginooines always
begin what we have to say with a wal or a why—and
then in the first place fustly, fact is, jest arter you
come aboard—eat away man! eat away! if you know
when you are well off, any body might know you're
not o' these parts—
I have divided that pie twice already, said a man
opposite, to another who wanted a share.
So you have—with yourself both times; said the
other; you remind me of the boy who complained of
-- 098 --
[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
his bed-fellow for taking half the bed—and why not?
said his mother? he's entitled to half, aint he? yes
mother, said the boy—but how should you like to
have him take out all the soft for his half?—he will
have his half right out o' the middle! and I have to
sleep both sides of him—
Ah! and what did his mother say? asked the literal
creature above mentioned, who had just finished his
share of the ox.
Not of these parts! how so? said I, resuming the
subject with my down-easter's friend.
Eatin' brawth fust! when there's duck an' green
peas at three dollars a peck right under your nose—
might lays in most enough to pay your passage. I
say mister—halves there! halves, I say!
The man he called to, was dividing another large
pie fore and aft with a single sweep of his cleaver.
Flimsiest cloth ever I did see—wonder what he
gin for this—lifting up a corner of the table-cloth
with one hand, and looking through it up the companion-way,
while he fed himself diligently with the
other; wonder how much that stood him in—guess if
I had him at 'Derry, he'd find it come a good deal
cheaper—put it to him leetle more'n half price for
cash, or approved endorsed notes.
Here, you nigger! gimmee you yit!—mamma!
mamma! screamed a child from the far cabin. To
which the mother screamed in reply—Hold yer yop,
George Federick Smith, if I have to come to you
I'll—boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!—will yer! Hush there,
Matildy Charlotty Smith! I'll take an' whip ye both
if ye dont shet up—I will so!—Why dont you carry
the poor little dears about in your arms Dinah? and
-- 099 --
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the female voice went off by another passage to the
deck.
Pose you tink poor ole dinah nebber had notin'
else ado, an' tote you all about a ship, hey, said the
girl, as soon as the mother was out of hearing—up
stars an' down?—Pa, pa! ma, ma! I want my pa! I
want my ma!—boo-hoo! boo-hoo! boo-hoo!—Hush
you noise, ye liddle debbil you!
When I was a little boy, my mother told me,
If I didn't lie still, she'd come an' hold me,
Whistled the midshipman between his shut teeth.—
What's that door shot for—oh, I see—innocent Abigail!
fastened her chamber-door with a boiled carrot—.
Heered that story another way, said his companion—
she tied herself up with her garters, and left
a knife in the winder.
I say Sambo—take and care that away; care it up
on deck and empt it overboard, abaft the main-chains,
dye hear? to the wind'ard o' that are weather-gage
ye see there, pointing to the Yankee's nose. Whew—
ew—ew—!—d—d etarnal hot here, hey?—Hot as blue
blazes—my buttons are droppin' off by spoon-fulls.
That's your conceit—another conspyracy I swan!
two o' the stubbedest fellers ever I did see, and
always at it!
More green peas! more green peas!—Halloo, mister!
what are ye at now?—Beg your pardon sir.—
Blast an' set fire to your nonsense, you've stuck that
are fork into me half way up to the handle!—Hope
not sir; very sorry sir—thank ye for another spoonful
or two o' them air green peas.—Consarn it all neighbor,
if I think them are green peas 'll continner long
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at this rate—better have a dip now (in a whisper to
me.) No I thank ye—Had'nt ye better?—All gone
sir, all gone! cried the waiter.—All gone!—heaven
and earth! ye dont say so!—all gone! why how ye
talk! Have'nt had a single mouthful yit! cried two
or three voices on the right and left of me, in accents
of dismay.
Jess so! cried another—jess so! And never shall
I forget the sound to my dying day; you'd have
thought his wife had fallen over-board—or his pocket-book.
Cap'n Thrip, cap'n Thrip! cried a little gentleman
what lithped, coming forward and speaking as it were
with a mouthful of cotton-wool—it aint potheble!—
Gentlemen! gentlemen! cried Nicodemus Trip from
the further part of the table—the ladies, the ladies!—
gentlemen, the ladies!
The ladies had long been trying to escape from the
back-seats—each waiting for all the others to begin
the move; and now their husband's, lover's and
father's beginning to perceive a certain paleness overspread
the faces of some who had been very cheerful
on deck, started up and made way for them to escape
as well as they could. All were imprisoned, not a
few sea-sick, and others far too sleepy or too lazy to
move, while the boat went pitching and rolling with
prodigious swiftness, and the trampling on deck was
absolutely deafening. For my own part, as I could
neither escape, unless I crawled over the table or
under it, nor get a nap where I was, I determined to
see the dinner through---and make the most of it. N.
B. I am keeping my promise now.
Cap'n Thrip, I say!---Wal sir?---Be you deef?---No,
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sir, I believe not, what'll you please to have?---Why
that are plaguy boy o' yourn hath 'ad my plate thith
half hour an' more too, an' I aint git a mouthful yit;
Jess so! added the down-easter, We are all a sufferin'
here in jess exactly the same way.
Very sorry, gentlemen, very sorry indeed---what
can I help you to, this way?---Thum duck an' green
peath, if you pleath.
Lord help the man! whispered Gage, as the other
continued in a broken-hearted whisper, thatth my
only chanth here, I thee plainly!---Why stranger!
they've all ben gone this half hour, said the Kentuckian---bones
an' all; Avast there!---ben---bin---
bean---I wonder which is accordin' to Gunter? demanded
a weather beaten sea-captain, who was passing
at the moment.---None o' your---the speaker
happened to lift his eye before he finished; whereupon
he made a full stop and let the sea-captain off---
and then followed by a different passage-way, adding
I don't believe that are chap 'll ever set the north-river
afire!
Nor I---but I should'nt wonder if he was to try,
added the swapper on my left. And then turning to
me---did'nt you never hear tell Mr. Potti---Pottipher;
speaking to me with his mouth full, his plate full, both
hands full, and a heap of odds and ends piled up along
side of his plate, consisting of apples, and cheese,
cake, pie, two or three kinds of tart, which he had
tasted and rejected I thought, for he made a wry-face
over each as he laid it aside. But when every thing
else had been disposed of, he began to nibble at these
fragments, which disappeared one after another, to
my infinite amazement, before he took down his
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elbows, upon which he was leaning in profound
thought---his head resting by the ears upon his clenched
hands, till he had gobbled up (or down?) every fragment,
crumb and chip of the whole; and then he lifted
his head and looked about him so innocently! as if he
could have done as much by half a peck more, without
knowing it. Judge of my surprise therefore, when I
heard him say, in a low querulous tone, just before he
left the table, that had been sick ever since last fall;
never was very rugged, an' about this time every
year, always felt wuss than ever by a darned sight---
rather pokerish too when he was on the water---no
kind o' sprawl. It aint often I eat any thing, said he;
an' when I do eat, I dont eat much---but the leetle I
do eat, dooze me good—somehow!
I say! didn't you never hear tell---continued he,
with his two eyes starting out of his head, and every
button of his coat upon the full stretch---here you
nigger! I'll have my brawth now---Bad 'nuff to be
poor nigger massa, widout hab his shin kick, said the
boy, and I thought so too.---Come, come, beauty!
lets have the brawth.
What! cried Gage—after eating fish, meat, and peas;
pudding, fruit, roast-beef and pie---to say nothing of
chickens, ducks and the five baskets you left---you're
not going to begin again with soup!
Free country neighbor—feller may eat brawth I
hope, whenever he likes, if he is able to pay for it---
or (winking at his confederate) or able to make
another pay for it, an' don't eat more 'n his 'lowance;
an' more'n all that, a feller can eat brawth when he
can't eat nothin' else to speak of.
Indeed!---To be sure! brawth 'll go where hearty
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vittels wunt, I ruther guess. Nothin' better'n brawth
to fill up the chinks with; and what's more yit, I'm
of opinion that a dinner's a dinner—no matter
who pays for't. Now mister, you don't have to pay
no more for me, than that are little cock-sparrer's
dad there dooze for him; an' he aint eat more'n half
a dozen pinches o' dough since he com aboard—which
if you aint observed him yourself, you may ask the
cap'n—I say tho' mister I want you should give
me that air letter o' recommend to Feledelphy,
afore we split—as I think its like as not I may go
that way, some time or other; cost you nothin' but
the paper—and that I'm willin' to pay for. And
then turning to the other, he added—was them your
weddin' spurs 't I see, when your chist gut jounced
open frind?
Wal! I swan if I dont think you're the very feller
't had a box made for his wife 't opened like an eight-day
clock-case, the very mornin' arter he was tied
up—an' allaws cared the key with him.
How ye talk! right away from down-east aint ye,
where a cow an' a caff an' a calico gown is a gals
portion.
An' you're from the place ant ye? where a potater-patch,
with cracks int so wide, that the grass-hoppers
are picked up at the bottom by handfuls—all their
necks broke trying to jump over—is a portion for the
oldest son? And then turning to me, he said, his father
was once riding by one of the great farms he referred
to, when observing the wretchedness of the land, he
side—the fellow that owns this must be plaguy poor.
Not so poor as you think for! answered a voice from
the blackberry-bushes—for I dont own but a third on't
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my father gin away one third to git a man take
tother.
Turrible sight o' rain lately—when'd you come
down?
Dreadful sight o' weather lately—when'd you come
up?—
You aint acquainted with a man by the name of—
Turney-General! said the other interrupting him
with a loud laugh—or the chief-justice o' the soopreme
Judicial court hey?
I say frind—turning to me with perfect self-possession—
I'm some tired o' that fellers gab; wish
he'd make himself skerce—all jaw like a sheeps
head—only ben tryin' out the stuff, an' you see all its
good for: and now, if you say so, I'll tell you how I
found you out.
Found me out sir—!
Found ye out—I'll tell ye—slick as a whistle! fetching
me a slap on the thigh; dont be fractious. No
fault o' your'n—people has to be born putty much
where other folks say, barrin' accidents; dare say
theres some honest folks enough to be heard of that
side o' the water—cant be helped now—make the
best on't: bear it like a man Mr. Potipher—git naite-ralized
right away, and let 'em lump it if they dont
like it, an' squirm their hides off; that's none o' your
look out—is it? All fair when you're made a
natyve.
Or a representatyve, and sent to the legisslatoore,
added Gage.
Jess so!
But sir, said I—mr—a—a—what may I call your
name?
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[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]
Fairfield sir. Obadiah G. Fairfield, seventh son of
Bigah S. T. Fairfield an' Marcey his wife, both o'
Groton, old Massatusetts—can you spell Massatusetts?
No—but please to tell me how you found me out,
as you term it?
Aint tired any, air ye? Maybe you'd better lay
down, had'nt ye.—No I thank ye.—Had'nt ye better?
Not berths enough I'm afeard, whispered somebody
else. That may depend upon the length of the
passage added another, very innocently, glancing at
the ladies cabin, where a tremendous pow wow had
just broken out, Such a screaming of mothers! and
such a squalling of babies—the dear creatures—you
never heard ashore in all your life, no matter what your
profession may be, nor what your experience. No
two of the whole were quiet for five minutes together,
till the end of the passage.
Why, continued the swapper, in reply to my question:
Before we'd ben together long, you says, says
you, to that air tother chap there—a friend o' you'rn
I spose aint he?—but you dont care much about
knowin', arter all, I see.
You are mistakin—I should like to know.
Should ye! would'nt give a trifle to know, would
ye?
A trifle—yes: not much though—
O ye would, would ye?—dont know what you'd
consider a trifle—would'nt mind a drop o' somethin
to set fire to the cobwebs, would ye? Aint very
stingey, air ye?
Not very.
Thought so! look to me a right down ginerous
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feller; but some folks when they're travellin' for
pleasure; plaguy close-fisted.
Indeed.
Oh yes—that they air—closer 'an button-wood-bark;
an' whatever you git out o' them, you git by
the skin o' their teeth. Wouldn't mind tellin' you
the whool—honor bright now—right off the reel, as
quick's a flash, if you'd do the thing that's hansum.
And what do you call the thing that's hansum?
Why, shell out for three—two besides yourself—
I allays bate for three, so that I may take in a friend,
now and then—
You never lose a chance to take in a friend, I dare
say?
Not I! love to be neighborly—do as you are done
by—that's my way; an' a drop or two o' real
ginoyne—what say ye to whiskey for three? with
a slap on my shoulder that I can feel to this day,
whenever I think of my unpreparedness and of the
echo that followed the blow. What say ye to whiskey
for three!
I assented, and my man was just going to clench
the bargain with a shake of the hand, when hearing
a slight rustle and turning my head quickly, I caught
a glimpse of a little scrap of paper passing under a
plate towards the fellow I was chaffering with, who,
as he pretended to look another way, though I continued
to watch him all the time, read it instantly,
with a glance at the decanter of whiskey then actually
on the table and furnished gratis to the company.—
And then he blushed—upon my soul he did!—blushed
to the very heart I dare say—adding in a different
voice, would'nt say wine for three, would ye?
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Yes but I would though—to the emount of a bottle
or two.
Wal then! fact is frind Potipher—stopping to draw
a long breath—if we should happen to be snapped up,
that was the very word—snapped-up—or fired into
by one o' the innimy, twould be no more 'n what we
all desarve—might a gone by the stage—jess so!—
And with that says I—but have yer made up your
mind, hey?
My mind—for what pray—
Never to part with her.
I stared.
There now! that's right down ugly o' you: know
what I mean as well as any body.
Upon my word I do not though; I have no idea of
what you mean.
Why Lord you! (squeaking) I mean that everlastin'
time-piece o' yourn, that you concait is goold—now
have you made up your mind never to part with her—
yes or no?
No.
Uglier an' uglier, by Moses! I dont often swear,
an' when I do, I dont swear much, but the little I do
swear dooze me good! (with a still higher and sharper
squeak). But when a feller's in airnest, why the—
dickens!—cant you tell us, hey?
Hav'nt made up yer mind though, have ye?
No. But answer my question and we'll talk about
the watch afterwards.
Will yer tho'! thats a good feller! Fact is then,
talking about the British, ye said says you, they aint
any more to blame for havin' a king than we air for
havin' a president—jess so!—jess as people's brought
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up, says you; some folks likes a king, an' some
doozent—poor critters! And then ye koted some
varses, pair o' varses we call 'em—about fools an adminstations,
so't I could see plain enough which side
you was on, without goin skonickin' round arter you
much further.
I remember it—
For forms of government, let fools contest,
That which is best administered, is best—hey?
Jess so! an' then arter that, ye kind o' made
believe 't you'd never hearn tell how nigh we come
to takin' the biggest half o' the old country in one
scrape—two more privateers an' we might 'a took
tother half, as Paul Jones an' commodore Tucker told
the king to his teeth.
Nor did I ever hear of the circumstance before.
How did it happen—where—when?
There now! thats jess the way with all. To look
at ye, a body would think you'd never hearn tell o'
the revolutioniary war—nor general Gage—nor old
Put—likely story for a man o' your years. Ah, is
that you, master Puriniton? haint seed you afore—
where ye from? how long ben aboard?—where ye
gwyin' to?—what are ye doin' of South?—how'd ye
leave the family—hope the whole on 'em's well,
hey? &c. &c.
Cleverly I thank ye! And with this one reply to
the others five-and-forty question, he moved on.
Jess the way with ye all, continued Fairfield—aint
a copper to choose; never see an ole countryman yit
twould'nt face a feller down about that are story
where Gineral Washinton (which he was only a
youngster at the time) went ashore with Paul Jones
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an' come pretty plaguy near carin' off the whole
royal family, crown, jewels, prince o' Wales an' all—
proper sight on 'em there was too, by all accounts—
and tippin' the ole tower into the sea. Chock full o'
prejudyce yit; any body can see that.
Prejudice! how so—in what way?
Haint forgot the ole war. May be you've never
hearn tell o' that nyther—hey?
Yes but I have though.
O, ye have, have ye? Wal thats somethin' for you
to give up any how.
For me to give up. Why what the devil do you
take me for?
Take ye for! Why for one o' the innimy.
One of the enemy!
To be sure!—an Englishman.
But I am not an Englishman.
What—not Irish I hope?—moving off with
visible trepidation.
No.
Nor Scotch?
No!
Why what on the face o' the universal airth, air ye
then?
An American sir—a native American.
You!—moving still further off, and hastily
gathering up his duds from the bench—you a natyve
American!
Yes! a native New-Englander—a through-bred
Yankee.
This was altogether too much for my conspirators.
Amos! cried one, with a look of dismay. Obadi—
ah! groaned the other; and then they interchanged a
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look of such piteable amazement and perplexity, that
I could'nt help thinking they were more than half
sorry for having preyed upon their own kith and kin—
for the Yankees of old—the Hebrew Yankees were
forbidden to do this; while they were encouraged to
profit by the stranger.—It may be however that they
had only some secret misgivings, that they were afraid
of being outwitted after all, when they discovered the
truth. At this moment there was a faint cry on deck,
followed instantly—instantly—by another in a different
voice, louder and nearer and uttered with a
most apalling intonation. What my own thoughts
were I do not know; but this I do know, that all the
faces about me grew suddenly and frightfully pale, as
if death-struck, and that we all started up and stood
holding our breath and looking at one another as if—
Gracious God!—I never shall forget the unspeakable
horror of that one moment—never—never—though I
should live a thousand years!
-- --
CHAPTER VIII.
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A moment of death-like stillness followed, and then
there was another faint sobbing cry afar off, a shriek
at my very elbow that thrilled through and through
me—a great rush overhead—a loud trampling on
deck—two or three heavy rolls, and a lurch, accompanied
by a trembling of the timbers that frightened
me half out of my senses, and a screaming from
every part of the ship, growing louder and louder at
every roll. In the belief that we were going down,
and that I had not a moment to lose, I sprang for the
companion-way, overturning every body in the passage,
and arrived on deck just in time to see a large
powerful man go headfirst over the side of the vessel,
as she recovered from the last roll and swung round
with a heavy lurch to the leward, jarring and shivering
through all her timbers at every dip of the
wheels—the women clinging to whatever they happened
to be near, their white veils and dishevelled
hair streaming away from their grasp, and their clothes
rattling fiercely in the wind—the frighted passengers
trying to assist the crew, and running about hither and
thither at every cry of the captain—Gage struggling
with somebody whom I afterwards found to be Gerard
Middleton, the handsome young Southerner, and calling
for assistance, within a few feet of the opening
gangway—the sea roaring and flashing directly under
their feet, with the swift brightness of a torrent—a
portion of the lee-bulwarks carried away and the
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heavy gate hanging by the top hinge, and swinging to
and fro with a violence that nothing could resist.
Save her! save her! screamed another and another
female voice. Heavenly Father! save her! shouted
Middleton, disengaging his right-arm and grasping
the shattered bulwark, against which his powerful
adversary had planted his foot, and was bearing with
all the strength of his body—the huge gate shrieking
and clapping at brief intervals, with a noise that overpowered
every thing else—the deck slippery with
spoon-drift—and the sea roaring for its prey.
Stop the engine! cried Gage, with a voice like a
trumpet. Heave her about captain Trip, and I will
answer for her safety—Gerard Middleton!—
They were now within a few inches of the very
brink—the sea almost on a level with their feet—
wrestling together as with all their strength—
Gerard Middleton! I swear to you by the Everlasting
God that if you go—we go together!
Be it so! cried Middleton stooping for a last effort
as he spoke—and the next moment he was pitched
head-long into the midst of a coil of rigging that lay
aft. Courage! courage! cried his antagonist, following
him and standing over him, ready to renew the
attack if he stirred with an evil purpose. Courage!
down with your boat my boys! over with all
your split-wood.—Ay, ay, shouted the captain, securing
the heavy gate as he spoke, and lashing it
home with the strength of a giant—away with ye,
my lads!
And away with the women too! cried Gage—they
have no business here—away with you to the cabin
ladies! we'll answer for your safety, if you'll betake
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yourselves to prayer in a quiet way—and leave off
screaming—
Cant hear yourself speak now, cried a sailor—and
away flew the split wood from both sides of the deck,
and away scampered the women.
Over with it my lads! over with it! chairs, tables
and all! continued captain Trip—and instantly the
waters on both sides of our path were covered with
every thing buoyant that lay within reach—you'd
have thought our deck had been swept by a West
India hurricane—and as I ran aft, where Middleton
was lying apparently insensible, with Gage standing
over him like a roused lion over a refractory cub, I
saw a man pull down a large box from a pile of luggage—
empty it on deck with one blow of his foot—
secure the lid—stop the key-hole with a wad of
oakum—run as far aft as he could go—and wait there
till another who had just kicked off his boots—laid
aside his coat and hat as deliberately as if he were
going to an afternoon's nap—and who, calling upon
captain Trip to take notice, that they were left in his
charge, and that he must be answerable for them if any
thing happened,—got ready for a plunge. It was all
the work of a minute or two—hardly more—and it
was only after the struggle was over and the terror
no more, that I had time to arrange the circumstances
in my memory as they occurred. The two then
heaved the box overboard—the brave boat wore
round at the same instant—and over went the lastmentioned
man, just as I staggered to the lee-railing,
and caught a glimpse of a strong swimmer afar off,
and right in our wake, where our pathway was all
white and luminous with the irrisistable thundering of
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our wheels in their backward revolution. As I looked,
I saw something more—yet further off and in a
different direction—a mass of white drapery buoyed
up and whirling and eddying with the swift waters.
I stretched out my arms involuntarily and might have
gone overboard too, but for Gage—for my heart died
within me—and I felt sure—ay, strange as it may
seem—perfectly sure that she, in whom I had felt so
much interest, she and no other, was now beyond the
reach of him and of help. I could even persuade
myself, as I stood clinging to the rails, and gasping
for breath, and watching what I saw in the distance,
that I could see her arms uplifted in her agony, and
her dark lustrous hair washing over her beautiful
face—
And there we stood, I know not how long, they
and I to the number of twenty or thirty altogether,
helpless and speechless, gazing as if fascinated with
terror upon the white halo, as it appeared to be slowly
and gradually sinking into the depth of waters. And
yet there was hope—some hope—for every blow of
the engine, every revolution of the wheel brought us
nearer, and the boats were already cast off, and the
oars were bending to the resolute fellows that manned
them; while the roar of the sea and the noise of the
wheels aboard were not enough to overpower the
encouraging cries of pull away! pull away! thats
your sort my lads—pull away!
One of the two persons who had jumped over-board
was now found to be on the wrong side of our
path, while the other had entirely disappeared, and
we were looking about and enquiring with our eyes,
for most of us were afraid or unable to speak, who
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[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
he was and where he was, with a feeling of the
deepest anxiety. A breathless silence had succeeded
to the overwhelming uproar. Captain Trip, who was
below when the accident happened, had now got command
of his vessel, and you might have heard a pin
drop fore and aft her whole length, but for the noise
of the machinery and the ringing of the loud waters
when struck by the paddles, or thundering across our
pathway.
One circumstance I never shall forget—here stood
the old man—the aged grandfather—I could have
sworn to the relationship at a glance—unutterable
terror and hope and faith, and more than a grand-father's
love, all struggling together for mastery in
his agitated countenance—and each prevailing by
turns. As he stood holding on by the rail, with his
hat off, his hair blowing about his venerable face, and
his dim eyes fixed upon the disappearing brightness—
the white robe of his dear child fast vanishing, forever
and ever into the depths of the terrible sea—
forever and ever!—I saw him glance at poor Middleton,
who was lying on a bench near, as if utterly
overcome by the struggle—and I thought I could
perceive a look of self-reproach, on the one part and
a look of pity on the other.
How it happened that I did nothing but stare—
first at one object and then at another, all this time,
I do not know—I never knew—it is not my way in
seasons of danger—I never lost my self-command
before; and though but a poor swimmer and of course
utterly incapable of helping a fellow-creature in such
an extremity by jumping over-board, still I might
have been of some use in some other way, I think
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now, if I had not been stupified by the suddenness
and singularity of the adventure; and my heart has
reproached me a thousand and a thousand times since
for my boyish helplessness at the time—babyish I
might say—as I and some thirty more able-bodied
men stood there, motionless and speechless, waiting
the issue of life and death to one of that most beautiful
of God's creatures, without one cry—and I am
afraid without one prayer; though, as I hope for
mercy hereafter, I would have risked my life any
where—at any time—for almost any body—in almost
any other way; and but for the latter part of our
acquaintance, might have done it for her. Let others
expound the riddle that have the courage—I have
not.
Another and another faint cry reached us, and then,
just as the leading boat was rounding to, and one of
the oars was lifted as if to touch the object, the
drapery shivered and shook, and the boat lurched and
drifted away and appeared to be unmanageable. We
shut our eyes. And when we looked that way again,
we were very near, and lo! there was nothing to be
seen but a large spot near the top of the water, somewhat
lighter-colored than the rest over the smooth
dark level of the sea—Ah! the shriek! the loud
unearthly, overwhelming shriek that followed! Every
heart burst forth at once on every side of me—above
and below—as with a cry of horror. We altered our
course and were shooting by, swifter and more swiftly
at every revolution of the wheels, when we heard
voices from the sea right under our bows; and again
we were breathless and anxious, though not so much
in terror now, as in hope. A moment more, and
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cries of keep her away! keep her away! you'll run
us down!—back the engine! were heard from the
sea and from the deck, followed by—there she is!
hurrah!—all safe, hurrah!—Amos 'll bring her up, as
sure as a die—didnt I tell yer so! fish up oysters fore
to day. I say—you—mister!—it was the yankee who
had thrown the chest over, speaking to somebody
whom I was unable to see, as he appeared to be just
under our bows—Here, take my hat! mind though
you must pay for it, case and all, if you're ever wuth
enough arter ye git ashore—there tis! cost foursixty-nine
cash, Boston money—one thirty-one allowed
for the odds o' Philadelphy an' no dicker—turn
the mouth down, and keep it under water with a good
grip an' hold it there—stiddy, stiddy!—and you
might as well try to drown a bladder; there! you've
gut the knack now, and you may float this half hour;
and if you git tired a few, sing out to me, and I'll
spell ye!
The moment he began to speak, I ran forward,
and saw a large powerful man—it proved to be the
Tennessee-youth, apparently quite exhausted, and fast
dropping a-stern; yet holding on by the hat, with its
mouth under water and floating as if buoyed up with
a cork-jacket.
Thats you stranger! never mind me; you look out
for the wimmen-folks and I'll take care o' myself—
ride-and-tie if I cant do better; haint swum the 'Hio
for nothin' I warrant ye, six months upon the stretch,
five knot and a half agin the stream with a buffalo
under each arm, and a catamount on my back—putty
severe boatin' tho' where I am. Something more he
added in a cheerful voice, but we were already out
of reach, and the next moment, another loud, joyful
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and long reiterated cry announced that the object of
our search had re-appeared once more. I looked—
and saw both boats, which were now a long way off,
pulling together toward a spot where something
appeared like another very small boat. While I
was yet looking, somebody rose up from it, and
plunged into the sea. A moment more, and a slight
glimmering broke through the water, and the blue
chest emerged in full sight before our path, and lay
rocking upon the surface. Hourray! hourray! cried
a voice at my elbow, did'nt I tell ye so! He'll have
her now! if he dont, there's no sneks. When he
div the last time I knew what he was arter—hourray!
There now! capering about the deck and rubbing his
hands for joy—there now! see as well under water as
you can see here. Brung up to divin' at Pawtucket
Falls—ever there any on ye?—seen 'em jump off the
rich pole o' the Factory there, five stories high?—
swim like a fish—feared o' nothin' dead or alive—
dont be in sich a tarnal feeze neighbor (to the grand-father,
whose countenance I never shall forget as he
stood there—hardly venturing to let go his hold or to
look toward the sea). Bate ye what ye like ye'll see
her agin. There now!—see there!—did'nt I tell ye
so, as the old woman said, when the hog eet the
grinstone, hurray!
As he spoke, a strong arm appeared pushed forth
from the dread level of the deep, and clutching a mass
of white drapery. A short brief struggle ensued—
one end of the blue chest tilted in the air—and a voice
came up with more than mortal energy, as out of the
very jaws of Death, saying—Obadiah! Obadiah! I've
gut her, by jingo!
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Hourray for you! you old rascal you; thats our
Amos! if taint I'm a chowderhead; jess like him—
hourray!
I shall not hourray! I never hourray till I'm out of
the woods, answered the other.
Jess so! cried the first, fetching the old man a slap
on the back, and cutting another caper with both feet
in the air. Ever see sich a feller?
By this time both boats were along side of the
sufferer, and by the help of the blue chest and a rope
or two, and a spare bench, they were all safe.
Now my lads! now pull away for that fine fellow
astern! cried Gage.
Ay, ay sir! And away they sprung.
Could'nt ye spell a feller, hey? shouted the man
with the box, evidently exhausted with the fatigue of
supporting his burthen, which was now in full sight—
her eyes closed, and her beautiful hair all about over
his broad shoulders.
Over went one of the crew and a passenger, head-first
in reply.
And over went Gage after them, not head-first like
the others, but steadily and safely by a rope; and
over went the youthful Georgian after him, though he
could'nt swim his length, and had only been prevented
by Gage from throwing himself overboard where
certain death awaited him.
Ah my brave fellow! cried Gage to the yankee, as
he dropped into the water, holding only the rope with
one hand—What ails you? are you hurt?
Jess you mind your own business an' take care o'
the gal. When she's safe, you may give me a boost
if you like—hulloo, hey, what!—there's another
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fellow over there cant swim a mouthful, you take
care o' him, will ye; I'm too tired for that—pocky
tarnal tired, I ruther guess.
Gracious God—Middleton—is that you! cried Gage,
leaving the poor girl and her exhausted preserver, to
take care of themselves, and pulling after the adventurous
madman like a giant.
I had it now in my power to be of some use—a
little—not much; and intending to share in the glory
of the achievement, I grasped at the poor girl, stooping
over the bulwarks to do so, and with the help of
two or three more, succeeded in lifting her, speechless
and to all appearance lifeless, into the arms of
the women who had gathered about us; and was
turning away to assist the poor old grandfather, when
I heard the voice of the yankee below crying out—
hang on! hang on! by gosh I'll treat! Whereupon
I looked over and beheld Obadiah the swapper, dragging
Amos out of the great deep, literally, by the hair
of the head.
Mind the kew Diah! mind the kew I tell you; its
apt to stretch!—there't goes!
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the
quieu parted near the middle, the upper part slipping
off like the skin of a squirel's tail, and letting poor
Amos into the sea again, over head and ears. It was
half a minute before he came up, and when he did,
the first words he spoke after getting his breath were—
Did'nt I tell ye so?
Did'nt I tell ye so! retorted the other looking at
the end of the quieu which he held in his hand, as if
he himself were drowning. Who'd a thought o'
your wearin' a false kew! Darn me if I dont believe
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the story Eunice Blair told me about ye teeth now—
I 'member seein' a sojer scalped once 'twore a wig,
and the Indian was most frightened o' the two—aint
ye ashamed o' yourself, our Amos?
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CHAPTER IX.
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But enough. All were rescued, all in safety, and
we were then at leisure to enquire into the cause of
the accident. It appeared that poor Elizabeth was
leaning against the rail of the lee-gang-way, which
had worked loose or been left unfastened, and that,
as half a score of the little romps, who had taken advantage
of a clear deck while their mamas and the
he-creatures were at dinner below, to have a little
noise, were engaged in a race, one of them ran against
her and she was precipitated backwards—ay, backwards—
into the foaming unfathomable deep.
All eyes were now turned upon her deliverer. The
poor girl once in charge of the women, he was by far
the most interesting personage aboard—I can see him
this moment!—there he stands! the great long rawboned,
half-Scotch, half methodist-looking fellow,
with his arms dangling to his knees, the water running
in a puddle from the legs of his trowsers, and his coalblack
hair streaming over his shoulders like the mane
of a cart-horse. While we were standing about him,
the grandfather appeared on deck, and passing by all
the rest of us, went straightway up to him, and, without
paying any attention whatever to our numberless
enquiries, took him by both hands—then stopped before
him, and struggled with himself for half a minute
or more, trying to speak—and then turning away, began
to sob like a child. I do not know that I was
ever so much affected in my life. Again he made the
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attempt, and again he was obliged to turn away, with
his heart too full for speech, faltering out a word or
two about the Preserver of Men.
Jess so! cried Obadiah G. Fairfield, rubbing his
forepaws together, capering about the deck, and
hourrawing at intervals. Beats all nater! Allys the
way with our Amos—and testifying his joy by a thous
and uncouth extravagancies, which I now began to see
through. They were brothers—our Amos had betrayed
their relationship.
At last I heard the old grandfather say—I do not
know how to thank thee; I am getting very childish;
but if thee will go with us to Philadelphia and see her
mother and the rest of our family, they will satisfy
thee perhaps, that though we are a people of few
words, we are not o' the unthankful or the forgetful.
No, I thank ye, no occasion said Amos, beginning
to haul on his coat over his dripping clothes—no
proud flesh here nyther frind—what may I call yer
name?
Abraham Leach.
Well then, if its all the same to you Abraham, as I
aint much used to your ways, nor you to mine—and
then he stopped, grew very pale, and asked for a
bandage and something warm to take the chill off;
and then, before we could put forth a hand to help
him, though twenty of us were standing about, he
staggered away with outstretched arms, and fell his
whole length upon the wet slippery deck, within three
feet of the open gangway—the passage-way to another
world. Then it was, and not till then, that we saw
the whole strength of his character. On lifting him
up, we found his breast severely cut, and his left arm
disabled.
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Gracious God! he is bleeding to death, cried one
of the bystanders.
Not by two chalks! muttered Amos; wan't brung
up in the medders to be kicked to death by grasshoppers;
howsomever frinds, if its all the same to you, I
should like a bandage to sling my arm, with a sheet
or two o' brown paper for my head, a handful o'
wormwood bruised with a wine glass o' New-England—
rayal ginwyne, (smacking his white lips,) and a
mug half an' half—two mugs I should say; for I owe
that are chap there a handsome treat, (nodding to
Obadiah, who held up the fag end of the quieu in reply,)
and Amos O. P. Fairfield aint one of them air 't
play sherk, I ruther guess, when it comes to a treat;
if it hadn't a ben for 'Diah I might 'a gone to the bugs
arter all.
To the fishes, more like, said Obadiah; might a
laid in a stock o' kew-leather 'mong the eels, haw,
haw!
That air plaguy split-wood's none o' the softest, I
tell ye, for a feller to dive inter, both gwyin' different
ways, and both in a dreadful hurry.
Here a pocket-book was put into his hand, as it lay
over his brother's knee.
Hullo! what's this 'ere?—turning it over, and
shifting it three or four times from one hand to the
other.
It is thine, whispered a voice at my elbow; it belongs
to thee.
B'longs to me! no sich a thing; wunt own it nor
touch to; never seed it afore—who are you makin'
mouths at?
A person here stepped forward, who had been
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making signs for a long time at Amos, and whispered
something in his ear, at which his countenance brightened
up, and rolling over and supporting himself on
his elbows, he opened the pocket-book, and pulling
forth a quantity of bank-notes, which lay smoothly
spread out between two-folds of worn parchment; and
puckering up his mouth and clenching his teeth as if to
avoid betraying his inward joy, he proceeded to count
the money, dollar by dollar, in a voice loud enough to
be heard by all the bystanders, while Obadiah stood
watching him, with a look of perplexity, which gradually
gave way to another, more resembling anxiety,
and then to another of downright shame. His lip
quivered—his cheek changed color—and if I was not
greatly deceived, there was a drop of scalding water
in his eye.
But Amos heeded him not, and having finished the
count, he lifted himself up, announced the sum total
to be two hundred and sixty odd dollars, Filadelphy
and Baltimore money, adding—not worth so much as
Boston money, by twenty-five per cent though; and
then, after wiping his hands, he proceeded to lay it all
back again into the parchment wrapper, smoothing it
down with extraordinary care, drew forth a piece of
red tape from his pocket, along with a handful of
snarled twine, leather-straps, waxed-ends, a gimlet and
spare screws—measured it—snipped off a piece of
the proper length with a single snap of his large
glistening teeth—tied up the parcel with great sobriety
and deliberation, and then to our amazement, reached
it back to the person who had been whispering to him,
without saying a word more.
Whereupon Obadiah pressed forward and clenching
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him by the hand, without speaking, though he blushed
more than ever, and his handsome eyes looked
handsomer than ever, burst forth into an uncontrolable
fit of laughter; and then stopped suddenly—looked
silly—and went away, as if ashamed of being so
happy, or of betraying so much of his real nature even
to a brother.
And why not keep it friend Amos? whispered the
old quaker, who had stolen up to us unperceived, and
was trying to expostulate with him, so as not to be
heard by others.
No, no; thank ye as much as if I did—no 'casion.
Do take it—do; thee'll oblige me greatly, and her
mother also. It is but a trifle from her abundance.
May be so, but between you an' me an' the post,
neighbor, that aint the way I git my livin'.
I dare say not, continued the old man, his eyes filling
with tears of joy and thankfulness; but thee has
'most spoiled thy clothes, and hurt theeself grievously,
an' I have a right, as thee says, to indemnify thee according
to law.
Not by a jug-full; cant obleege me at law, frind.
The old man shook his head.
Well, then, if its all the same to you frind Leach, or
frind Abraham—I dont know what your Pheladelphy
fashion is, but we say frind so and so, in our parts—
I aint dreadful particular ye see about my clothes;
never was good for much, all I had on wasn't worth
a five-dollar bill; and as for my hurts, why man alive,
we dont mind sich sort o' things where I com from,
two jumps of a rattle-snek—ben through a row o'
griss-mills afore now, arter an' ole hat I dropped a
fishin'; so yer see I shan't take yer money nor touch
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to; but I say—you—mister, (turning to me as he
finished) brother 'Diah'll finish the trade with you for
that air watch o' yourn, about the slickest, if you'll
give him another chance, while my clothes are a dryin'.
The good old man smiled—how could he help it?—
at the perfect seriousness of the proposal, and patting
him on the shoulder, invited him to go below and have
a trade with him for his watch, pulling out a heavy
old-fashioned affair of his own, as he spoke.
That will I; cried Amos—and then stopping and
struggling with himself, he added; no no thank ye—
taint in my line to make-believe swap; I can see
through you—(good naturedly)—you mean to be too
much for Amos O. P. Fairfield.
But Obadiah was not willing to let slip so fine a
chance, and when I next saw him, he was seated at
one of the side-benches below, for a regular swap,
without caring a fig for the evident displeasure of his
brother, or thinking of any thing else on earth, I am
sure; the old quaker trying to give boot for the bulleyed
warming-pan with a pewter-face, and the other
trying to swap it into him—fairly—in the way of
business.
It was dark now, and we were making our way toward
Baltimore smoothly enough I thought; nor did
I observe, till we had come together about the tables
below, that Gage and Middleton were no longer on the
same terms they had been at first; each appearing to
to hold himself apart and aloof from the other; and
from the Tennessee youth, who appeared to believe
that Gage could not have prevented Middleton
from going overboard, if the latter had been as
much in earnest as he pretended, I began to fear that
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mischief was brewing, and resolved in my own mind to
to watch the parties and prevent them at all hazards.
For myself, I was satisfied that Gage had saved Middleton's
life by his violence, and that nothing but a
fair opportunity for explanation was needed, to satisfy
both of the fact. So, instead of going to sleep as most
of the passengers did, I kept my position at the table,
where two strangers were engaged in a game of
checkers—Middleton sitting afar off, with his hat
pulled over his eyes, and his arms folded on his chest.
I longed to speak to him, but was afraid. On casting
round my eyes for Gage, I found him asleep on a
settee, his countenance turned away from the light, and
breathing as freely as heart could desire. Of course
there would be no difficulty in dealing with him.
Your true Yankee is always reasonable—always—
even at the moment of unsheathing the sword, or
pulling a hair-trigger.
Near me, with their ponderous legs outstretched
over the superb furniture, half-asleep and half-awake,
were Amos and Obadiah, and five or six down-easters,
dozing by fits and snoring by turns. Many attempts
were made at conversation, such as you may hear
aboard a stage-coach in the grey of the morning, after
a night, voyage over a rough road in miserable
weather—lazy questions, lazily put, and more lazily
answered—one would gape to see them in a newspaper—
people talking to themselves, and then waiting
for a reply, or yawning and stretching all around, one
after another.
Yaw—aw—aw, wonder where we are now? says one;
how far be we says a second; begins to be rather cold
here, mutters a third. Very! adds a fourth, muffling
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himself up to the eyes. The next moment they are
all growling together, and all in the same key. My
watch has stopped; if it taint I'm a bigger fool than
you are. Only half-past nine! 'taint posserble. You
dont say so—gettin' to be rather warm here. Very!
I say steward! how far is it to where we put up to
night? Dont know 'azacly sir, I'll ax the cap'n. See
't ye do—aw, aw, aw!—hot as blazes! Very! Man
re-appears, saying tis better than two hours sail. Better!
I should call it wuss by a darnation-sight. Yaw,
aw, aw! everlastin' cold weather we have for the season.
Very! At last the party got waked up, and
the following conversation took place.
But we have two Universities, my dear sir, said the
fat stranger who had been taking notes. Have ye
tho'? Well, I should like to know what they're good
for. So should I, muttered Gage, lifting himself up
on one elbow and preparing to take his part in this,
or any other discussion that offered a fair opportunity
for playing with both sides of a question—for every
body knows that our University at Harvard is the first
in the world—is'nt it gentlemen? To be sure it is;
whoever denied it? answered two or three voices
together. Nobody—in America. Talk of libraries
and professorships, and oriental literature and all
that, pho, pho! as a body may say—
Precisely! added a little dapper Bostonian. You
are a true patriot sir, and I honor you for your impartiality.
That, (snapping his fingers with a revolutionary
flourish) that! for your German Universities,
and your Cambridge and Oxford Universities! what
do they know about the improved system established
at old Harvard?
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Very true sir; give me your hand, cried Gage,
Very true sir. In orthography, arithmetic and
English grammar, to say nothing of the higher
branches of mathematics, we have a—
Precisely sir! Here bows were interchanged all
around, followed by sundry compliments to one another's
love of country, and freedom from prejudice,
when my attention was called to another quarter.
What a strange foreign look he has! said somebody
at another table; for my part, I believe he was
just as much in earnest when he tried to jump over
at last—cant be a native American surely.
He is a southerner raised in the north.
You dont say so! answered a third voice.
Of the best blood in the country too, I can tell you
that.
Wal if ever! Why judgin' by his looks, I'd wager
a trifle that he had a cross o' the nigger in him.
Hush, for God's sake, whispered the other, turning
with a look of alarm toward the subject of their conversation,
whose breathing grew very audible a
minute or two afterwards, though we thought him
asleep. Such a remark as that sir, continued the
speaker, would cost you or any other man alive—
more than you would like to pay.
Wal, if there aint a drop or nigger, there is o'
Ingunn blood in him, or I miss my guess—no harm
in that I hope?
Sir!—I entreat you.
Why what's the matter now!
If you wish to leave this boat alive, take my advice
and avoid such remarks before the Men of the South.
You aint serious tho', air ye?
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But I am serious. I look upon it as a matter of
life and death.
Fiddle de dee!—That for ye men o' the south, I
say!
And are the men of the south ashamed of being
thought to have descended from the original proprietors
of the new world? said Gage, speaking in a
loud clear natural voice—the chiefs, the princes, and
the kings of North-America! Shame on them if
they are!
A suppressed breathing made me look up, and there
stood Middleton directly in front of Gage, his under-lip
quivering, and his large luminous eyes all afire
with inward commotion.
But Gage continued with the same steady look and
firm voice, leaning back in his chair as he finished;
and after some few remarks of a general nature respecting
the men of the south, wound up with an
eloquent apostrophe to the Indians—cutting, as with
a two-edged sword into the very joints and marrow of
that unholy and ungrateful pride, which in the North
as well as in the South (for in the north it is highly
penal for whites to intermarry with Indians) has prohibited
all companionship, other than that of master
and slave, the oppressor and the oppressed, between
them.
Middleton was evidently disturbed, and the Tennessee
youth drew near, hoping I dare say, and believing
I am sure, that something serious would grow
out of the conversation before they finished.
And now Middleton, said Gage—my dear Middleton,
a word with you before all these witnesses. You
want a quarrel with me—I see it plainly.
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Middleton grew paler and paler every moment, and
he shook all over; but the wrath of his black eye
was not so deadly as before.
Now, continued Gage, the plain truth is that you
are in the wrong; and therefore I have determined
not to allow you to quarrel with me. Nevertheless,
for treating you like a madman (as you were) I beg
your pardon—for saving your life in spite of your
determination to throw it away, I—
Here a most unlucky laugh, badly-suppressed from
the Tennessee youth, had well nigh set us altogether
by the ears again; but Gage favored him with a look
of reproof, and the savage was turning away, with a
sort of good-natured growl, when, happening to catch
the eye of Middleton, his countenance instantly
changed and he drew himself up to his full stature,
and stood facing him and waiting for Gage to finish.
Yes sir, continued Gage, yet more deliberately—
For saving your life in spite of your determination
to throw it away, Gerard Middleton, I am ready, if
you require it, and before all these witnesses, to beg
your pardon heartily and humbly.
That's what I call showin' the white-feather, by
Gawd! cried the Tennessee boy, turning on his heel
as he spoke.
Middleton's eyes flashed fire; but Gage merely
looked up, and begging him not to interfere, turned
quietly to the other and asked him what he meant by
the remark, and whether it was intended for him.
What do I mean, stranger? I mean jess what I
say—You are showin' the white feather; an' you
know well enough what that means, if you have ever
been in the woods an' seen the whippoor-will run
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[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]
away
with her tail-feathers draggin' after her, one
each side o' the bunch, as white as the driven snow—
that's what I mean, take it as ye like.
By all which I am to understand that you believe
me wanting in courage to resent insult, or to punish
insolence—in plain English, that I am what bullies
and swaggerers would call a coward?
What do you mean by that sir! who d'ye call a
swaggerer.
You shall know in a moment, said Gage, slowly
rising from the chair, and measuring his tall handsome
antagonist with an eye that neither shifted nor quailed,
and a countenance that never altered, till he had
finished. You believe me to be a coward then?
I do.
And you would insult me, nevertheless?
I would.
What think you of your own courage then? Is it
not the courage of a swaggerer, to insult a coward?
For a moment the high-spirited fellow was abashed;
but the next, observing a smile or a sneer about the
mouth of Middleton, he uttered something—something,
I know not what, nor could I ever learn that
any body there had fully understood it; and instantly,
but for Gage, who grappled with the Tennesseean
and threatened to call captain Trip, they would have
sprung at each other's throats across the table. As it
was, they were instantly separated, and withdrew in
a portentous silence to their respective berths.
We were now approaching Baltimore. The outline
of the city was already visible upon the clear blue
sky, in a mass of huge broken shadow, with the
cathedral crowning the whole, and the
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Washingtonmonument upheaving itself into the unclouded vault,
like the wonders you see on your approach to Rome,
while yet afar off; and I had begun to hope that we
should have no further trouble, when happening to
turn away from the light, I had a view of Gage in a
mirror as he sat with his back toward me, and for the
first time in my life I felt as if nothing could save one
fellow-creature from the wrath of another—nothing.
And yet he had only grown a little more serious; and
so long as he sat with his back toward me, talking
pleasantly with the other passengers, I should not
have suspected from his voice that any thing was the
matter. But from the moment I saw his face there,
I felt alarmed—I know not why—the reader must
have seen such a face to understand me—alarmed
for the safety of the Tennesseean.
Yet as I have said before, the conversation was
cheerful enough, and nobody else, not even captain
Trip himself, appeared to think seriously of the trifling
dispute which had occurred.
Again I found myself at my old employment of
studying character and hoarding up phraseology.
He'll do it any day o' the week, said a man at my
elbow, let alone Saturdays—of course the speaker
was a Marylander of Irish parentage. What a heap
a folks there was to be sure, said another—a Virginian
of course—a mighty little man of his age, said a
third—a Carolinian. I shot the door, an' went an' sot
down, said a fourth. I'm tired some; I aint tired
any, added a fifth and sixth. Care that up, an' empt
it; I expect he was eenjest tired to death—all Yankees.
No marm I have not—wal I want yer to, ditto,
ditto. Resky, jumpy, skerse, a dark-complected
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man; I should admire to see you do it: He said how
he could handle me, and told him he might have a
chance to try; use your thinkers: I vum if I would—
ditto, ditto, ditto. Good deal o' land about here:
nice putty stars, but lord you, as the gal said to her
feller, if you could only see the bunch thats right over
our front door. There now! its all gut to be strained
over agin! as the old woman said, when the dog p—d
in her milk-pan. Thats right down ugly o' you. I'm
rather porely now. See any thing partiklar in that
feller there?—makes poetry himself sabbadays, made
more poetry an' you could shake a stick at; never
thought o' trying his hand at it nyther, till arter he
failed in the timber-trade. You belong to Poland?
No, to Minot—you aint acquainted with a man by the
name o' Dodge, Joel Dodge, air ye?—all Yankees of
one sort or another.
Thus far had I proceeded, taking down every remarkable
phrase that met my ear, upon the blank leaf
of a new novel, which lay before me—a page that I
preserved for many years, and have now most faithfully
copied, when a passenger who came below for his
umbrella and great coat, informed us we should reach
the wharf in a few minutes. I ran up on deck and
getting my luggage together, was standing over it and
listening to the noise of the steam, as it bellowed and
roared through the huge cylinder, when the boat
reached the wharf, and the next moment, dark as it
was, two mortal enemies found each other out, as by
the instinct of unappeasable hate, and before a soul
could interfere, a splash was heard in the deep still
water, accompanied by a loud half-smothered cry,
which made us all rush to the spot whence it
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proceeded. A man was over-board. We drew him in.
He was pale, and speechless, and bloody.
Gracious God sir, cried I, going up to Middleton,
who stood near the edge of the water, with the light
of a dozen lamps streaming upon his face—his foot
planted—his hat off—his collar open, his black hair
flying loose in the wind, and his eye fixed with a
dreadful expression of unrelenting wrath upon the
rescued man, who lay stretched out like a dead body
upon the wharf, with a cloak thrown over him and a
portmanteau under his head—Gracious God sir, what
have you done!
I have dirked him, was the reply.
I shuddered; for the spoke with a cheerful voice,
and I could have sworn that he smiled; for his black
joyful eyes were shining with a newer and more
savage lustre.
We parted before I knew the whole truth; but not
before I saw him in custody, and heard him say with
a light cheerful air—pho, pho, my dear Gage, we are
even now. What are you afraid of? the poor fellow
may thank his stars that he had me to deal with,
instead of you—there's a chance for him now.
Gerard Middleton.
Pho, pho, I know what you mean to say.
If that man should not recover—
Why then he'll be cured of gouging, that's all, putting
his hand to his forehead as he spoke, and showing
how narrow had been his own escape from the loss
of an eye—the hair was literally torn from his
temples—and there was the mark of a thumb-nail.
Man! man! cried Gage, I wonder at you.
I told him what I would do, if he did'nt release me
instantly—and I did it—and there he lies!
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God forgive you, said I; farewell!
Farewell sir.
And here we parted—He for a prison or a scaffold,
and I for the south.
-- --
CHAPTER X.
[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]
After this, my curiosity led me far to the south,
where I was a long while detained. On my return
through Baltimore, I made some enquiries about Middleton,
the result of which was very satisfactory to me,
for I had begun to feel a deep solicitude concerning
him. It appeared on trial that his huge adversary drew
a knife, as he stepped upon the wharf where the blow
was given, that he sprung at Middleton and'seized him
by the throat, apparently for the purposes of throwing
him into the river, that he twisted his right hand into
his hair, and that something was said by one or both
about gouging, the very instant before the cry, which
was followed by the plunge overboard. Middleton
was therefore set free, though the man had not recovered,
and it was probable never would recover. I had
the further satisfaction of hearing that he forgave Middleton,
and that he spoke of the affair to the judges of
the court in such a way as to excite the admiration of
all who heard him. The public sympathy when I arrived
at Baltimore was divided between the two; every
body spoke well of the Tennessean, of his fortitude,
courage and magnanimity; and every body spoke well
of Middleton, who might have escaped a trial if he
would; but he gave himself up after an accidental
rescue, and was only discharged in due course of law.
The more I knew of this man—the more I heard of
his behavior from the day that I saw him arrested, in
a matter of life and death, up to the hour of his
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acquittal by a jury, the more anxious I grew about him.
He appeared to me to be made for superior things—
for great things—and to have need of such advice
and such help as a man a few years older than himself
might give, were he invested with the authority of
an elder brother. I would have done much for him,
for he appeared capable of doing much for the world.
But whither had he gone? where should I seek him,
or that strange fellow that was with him, Gage? Nobody
could tell me, though I pursued the enquiry for
a long while.
At last however, just when I had given up all idea
of ever seeing either of the two again, chance threw
us together in a very odd way. I was at New York
waiting the arrival of a ship, in which I intended to go
on a voyage to the South-Sea. She was hourly expected,
and I was therefore obliged to hold myself in
readiness, night and day; and not knowing what else
to do in such a state, I contrived to waste as much of
my time as I could in the society of beautiful women,
who make up a fifth part of the population of New-York,
and among others, in that of a widow—a magnificient
creature—a lady too, if there was ever a thing
so delightful or so artificial on that side of the sea,
with a set-off in the shape of two great sprawling
daughters. It may be that I was in love with her;
and it may be—I would not swear that I was not—in
love with all three at the same time, for I missed the
ship after all, and had two or three narrow escapes of
one sort and another.
She was youthful at the avowed age of thirty-one
or two, in a part of the country where women at the
age of two score generally contrive to look as if they
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[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]
had never been less than fifty. She was a sort of
epicure—an epicure in every thing—I dare not say
voluptuary, that being a dis-logistic word. She
breathed an atmosphere that was always ready to
kindle about her; and she passed her life in touching
and tasting for experiment sake, whatever it was not
very safe either to touch or taste. I never saw a
woman so followed in America, though she was not
over wealthy; but then the was beautiful, the leader
of New-York fashion, rather witty and sufficiently
pious for the period I speak of. She appeared to me
to have made up her mind—God forgive her—to enjoy
life as much as it is possible for a woman to enjoy
it, where men are legislators for every body. She
knew that spies were set on every side of her path;
she knew that there is no out-living nor escaping reproach,
whether it be deserved or not, if a woman step
over the invisible boundary that we have made for her;
and yet, she was eternally trespassing where no other
female would have the courage to look—trespassing
with one foot, while the other was anchored in safety;
peeping into prohibited places; or standing a-tiptoe
and looking over the barrier, and trembling and
thrilling afar off.
She delighted in what are called innocent pleasantries,
in pretty little misunderstandings, in half whispered,
half-acted inuendoes, though she would look all
the time as if she had no mischief in her heart, and
speak as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; and
she had a way—it would be impossible for me to describe
it—a way that no young woman ever had, a
way that few married women ever had (while they
were married) of entrapping hearts with a snare that
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[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]
every body could see; now by flirting with a ribbon
that shivered with every breath she drew, or lay as if
it were alive upon her superb shoulder; now by
gathering up her exuberant hair; now by permitting
a bird to play with her shut lips, or to plunge his beak
into a mouth like a wet rose-bud; now by coquetting
with a child or a guitar; now by toying with a watch in
her bosom set with jewels, or a miniature, a chain, or
a necklace, the sparkle of which would be sure to attract
the eye; now by pulling up her slipper—halfsitting,
half-lounging the while, upon a deep couch
covered with loose drapery.
I had seen her in my youth, I knew her when the
war of 1812 broke out, and I knew her at the close of
that war, when it began to be considered a very proper
thing for people to go to church twice a day—rain
or shine—provided they were not able to keep a carriage.
I knew her at a period when fire and earth-quake
had made it rather fashionable to pray—and
when very respectable and very genteel people, were
known to pray—and when the most beautiful women
of New-York were to be seen at church, though Broadway,
the Battery, and both rivers were open at the
time; and she appeared to me to grow younger and
younger every year.
At the period I speak of, she had become rather devout;
every body spoke of her piety, and I had observed
that there was a stir among the British officers, who
happened to be there on parole at the same time—
hardly one of them ever missing the church she frequented,
when it was understood that she was to be
there, and very few the day or the hour, as they paraded
up and down before their favorite places of
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[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]
worship, if they saw her carriage roll by; many of them
showing the most exemplary moderation, forbearance
and self-denial, when the weather would not allow them
to break out in their holiday-uniforms, by going to
church, nevertheless, with any thing to cover them till
they were faily housed, when the loudness and solemnity
of their responses and the clangor of their kneeling,
were enough to do your heart good. Take it altogether,
it was a very refreshing season—as we say
there; and I was repeatedly assured by Mrs. Amory
the fair widow, that she had seen a young naval officer,
who sat behind her pew, so wrought upon by the eloquence
of Dr. Mason, that he was obliged to cover his
face with his hands—very pretty hands they were too,
and remain with his head in a corner till the Congregation
were set free; and that she saw another, a military
man (with a new coat covered with new bullion,
a new hat, and no umbrella) betray a very becoming
sense of his awful situation, one day when it suddenly
clouded overhead, as they come out of church together,
now by turning up his eyes to heaven, with a
look almost of despair, and now by muttering a few
broken sentences, which appeared to be heaved up
from the very bottom of his heart. I was futhermore
assured by a clergyman that he had never known such
a revival at New-York—as that which took place
while the British were thundering at her gates; but
then he acknowledged that soon after the war broke
out, there was a fearful awakening at the north; and
I heard from another quarter that the land shook, that
armies were seen parading over the sky, and great
ships riding at anchor in the hollow of the mountains,
where the fog was like a sea, and the noise of the
wind like the roar of the sea.
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It is a time of war, said another, and if a time of
war will not make people serious and regular in their
attendance at church—provided they have new clothes,
no other place to go to, and nothing else to do, why
the devil is in it. Oh! for shame! cried the beautiful
widow, adjusting a magnificent shawl, and stepping
away so as to show the whole sweep of her person—
you are too severe. Am I?
Yes.—You would not be at church this very day,
but for the shawl you received last night from India.
She was already on her way up the broad aisle,
with every eye upon her; and every pulse fluttering
at the sight of her cashmere.
In spite of all we say in America about the patricians
of Europe, and their foolish pride of birth, we
are not without our patricians here—people of yesterday
or the day before, who having had grandfathers
of their own, are not to be confounded with the people
of to-day. When I first knew the fair widow, she
was manœuvering for a place among the former; when
we parted she was manœuvering still, but I fear with
little or no prospect of success, for some how or
other, it had come to be known that her father was
nobody—neither a lawyer nor a merchant, not even
a retail-merchant—nothing but a tailor. Of course
the widow, but for the carriage and pair that she still
continued to keep, her beauty, and her supposed
wealth, which gave her the lead for a time in the little
world of high fashion at New-York, would never
have been situated in what is called good-society
there—meaning the society of the few that live without
work, or by a profession, or by merchandize
imported by the cargo, to say nothing of the best
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society there, the ancient nobility of America, whose
fathers happen to have died where, if history be true,
their fathers happened to live.
It cannot be denied however that so long as the
widow was able to sport her cashmeres and her
carriage, not a few of the second class of republican
nobility, were vastly condescending to her at church,
where it is understood that a whisper, a bow, or a
shake of the hand, is to go for nothing if it be not
authenticated elsewhere.
Why do you live such a life? said I to her one day,
as we sat together in the deep couch I spoke of, she
with her eyes fixed upon the fire, and I studying the
changes that I saw in her face—Why give people
such power over you?
Why!—her lip quivered, a shadow that I had never
seen there before, played about her mouth, and her
forehead shook in the fire light. Because I am a
mother—
Well, and what if you are—
A mother; and every body knows that the first
duty of a mother is to be, when her daughters are
old enough to appear in the world—what I never
shall be—heigho!
And what is that?
An old woman—my dear Mr. Fox.
I was very much struck by the tone of voice, in
which these few words were uttered. They appeared
to issue from the very bottom of her heart.
She continued—I am a widow.
Your own fault, if you are a widow long, said I.
A widow, and past the age, when, whatever we do
is looked upon with charity; a mother—and—and—
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Her eyes filled—
With two grown-up daughters; a widow, with a
feeling which, whatever other people may say, she
knows to be the feeling that agitated her in youth,
always at work in her heart—heigho! I wish I was
in my grave—heigho!
I tried to sooth her. You in your grave! said I—
You! why what would you do there pray?
I might sleep—Mr. Fox.
Query—
Heigho!
Nonsense. You have it in your power to be happy,
and to make others happy; and yet you are wicked
enough to wish yourself where—between ourselves
now, my dear madam—I doubt if you would have the
same power that you enjoy here.
If I had never been married at all, I—I beg your
pardon—I—I do wish you would go for Kate.
Certainly, said I, she's a dear good girl.
She looked at me—Well, why dont you go?
Lord bless you, said I, without moving a step, aint
I going as fast as I can?
Very well—turning away her head, as if she
did not hear me, and looking into the fire with a
faint smile—And everybody knows that the chief duty
of a mother is to maintain her daughters, from the
day they are old enough, or large enough—Kate is
very tall of her age—dont you think so?—at every
sacrifice—and both much younger than you would
suppose—hey?—
I bowed.
Keep them she must, at every sacrifice—and at
every humiliation to herself, in just exactly that rank
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of society, where they have no clear, indisputable
right to be.
Very true; what else can she be good for?
What else?
After a certain age, I mean.
Of course—with a smile—heigho!
Whether she be married or a widow, old or young,
beautiful as the day—or—or—
She drew a long breath.
Or ugly as the witch of Endor.
Very true, my dear friend—where they must live
in a state of warfare with everybody that comes in
their way.
In bad humor with everybody—
And with themselves into the bargain; for nobody
knows how to behave to them in society, whether as
equals, or humble companions, or as people having as
good a right as their neighbours, to make themselves
uncomfortable and ridiculous in a certain way.
And where everybody who, crosses their path will
be sure to wonder at them—said I.
True, true.
For that proves that they are in a rank of society,
where, but for intrigue, electioneering, and sheer
impudence, they never would be.
Very true.
In this comfortable situation, they grow up, their
hearts brimful of bitterness and fear, and sickly hope;
forever slipping back in their up-hill ascent, and forever
leaning forward.
Very true—and elbowing the less happy or the less
ambitious at every step, under pretence of keeping
their places—
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Bowing their way up, till they get a head or a toe
into the group just above them, shouldering them
aside at the next breath, and then turning their backs
upon them, through every successive stage of society;
all whom they have out-stripped rejoicing in every
humiliation they meet with, and all whom they approach
wondering aloud at their audacity; but all—
every where—above, below, and about their path,
uniting together against them, forever on the watch
to discover their faults, and forever disposed to
magnify their failures, and rejoice over their humiliations.
Ah my dear sir, I feel the truth of what you say—
every word is true.
Then why persevere in that path? Believe me
madam—it is not the way to respectability, whatever
you may suppose. Your children are made unhappy
to no purpose; they will not be suffered to remain
where you have tried to place them.
I believe you; but what am I to do?
Give up the society of people you do not care for.
Ah! you know not how much you ask!
And the society of those who do not care for you.
Oh Lord! what would become of me?
You would be happier than ever—
Query, as you say; I cannot bear solitude—heigho!
Solitude!
Yes; your plan would leave me—I very much
fear—in a deplorable state.
How so?
Altogether alone. Here she heaved a sigh that
went to my heart, and her eyes fell, and her little
snowy hand slipped away from the place on which it
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rested, and fell upon the crimson drapery of the
couch, like a live bird escaped from a snare.
I wish you could be prevailed upon to see this
matter as I do, said I, slipping my hand after hers in
such a way as to alarm neither—You might be very
happy.
She shook her head with a faint smile.
And why not, pray?
How can you ask! am I not the mother of two
grown-up girls?
And what if you are?
And am I not younger at the heart, this very day,
than either of the two, my dear friend?
Upon my word, I believe you are.
Still young, without the privileges of youth?
I could have wept a tear or two here, at the very
sound of her voice.
A mother of women, without a share of that insensibility
which I regard as their highest prerogative.
I understand you—I pity you.
Excuse me, I cannot bear to be pitied—heigho.
Pho, pho—that is the talk of your every-day novelreader.
But I am very serious.
Pho, pho; cannot bear to be pitied! you! why
what are you made of? There is not a creature alive
in the shape of woman, ay, or of man either, who in
saying that, would say the truth. It were easier to
live without hope, than without pity.
To say all in a word—I am a widow.
That's true—
If I were to withdraw from society at my age,
what would people say?
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Say! That you were a thousand times wiser than
they ever thought you.
It would be ascribed to the jealousy of a mother;
it would be said every where that I withdrew to
escape the mortification of being rivaled, or it may be
eclipsed by my own daughters. Ah my dear Mr. Fox—
do you know I have taken a great fancy to your
name—christian-name I mean—but proceed.
In which case, they would be thought older than
they are, and you, therefore, older than you are; and
you might be obliged to go into your grave a widow.
I mean to go into my grave a widow.
Really!
Yes—heigho!
I know better.
She snatched away her hand, which some how or
other—I never knew how—I had contrived to clasp,
and withdrew her foot which had strayed into the
middle of the hearth-rug, where it loitered with an
expression (feet have a deal of expression, love) that
well might give me the heart-ache, as I sat by her
side.
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CHAPTER XI.
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We continued our conversation.
You go to church twice a day now.
Now! I have done so for a whole year.
Ever since your pulpit was furnished with a tall,
handsome, unmarried man, of high family.
Absurd!
So pious too—so severe of speech and so very
devout, always in the way of a prayer-meeting, or a
lecture, now.
Why to tell you the truth, I have no great aversion
to these matters now; we see very good society at
church—
The truth will out! You have no dislike to the
church, nor to the pious, nor to praying a little yourself
in a private way—when there are no cards out,
nor much risk of your being caught by the ungodly;
nor would you refuse to appear at a public conference,
or at a chapel I dare say—if you were supported in
the measure by the presence of good-society. You
are perfectly satisfied with yourself, you care not
whither you go, nor what you do—so long as you are
in good-society. You have two daughters to bring
up, and being yourself neither very old nor very
ugly, you would endure any thing to preserve their
place and yours in good-society—
You are very severe—
Then what I say must be very true. Would you
not—I ask you as I would have you ask me—wo wo u
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you not wear a mob-cap, or say thee and thou, if it
were the fashion?
To be sure I would—why not? I see no harm in
a mob-cap, nor in saying thee and thou, if other
people do.
Other people of high fashion. You would undergo
a sociable private awakening I dare say, or a snug
revival at your own house, if it were required of you?
To be sure I would—
Ay, or sing through the nose
“I'll take my staff and travel on
“The way that Zion's pilgrim's gone,
with every other tune of the conventicle, to the
guitar, the harp, or the piano, if you were kept in
countenance by what you call good-society? You
go to the house of the Lord every sabbath-day, as
you call it, Mrs. Amory, not because you care a fig
for what is done there, but because, now that the
British are nigh, you are pretty sure of meeting with
good-society there; and you go to the table of your
Saviour (provided there be no other engagement,)
because there, even there, good-society may sometimes
be met with—
Heigho.
At this very time, that no part of your superfluous
piety may run to waste, you are a member of two or
three little evangelical associations, got up for the
encouragement of the poor and the base, for the promotion
of tittle-tattle and the scriptures; and you are
secretary to a sort of club, where, at so many coppers
a week (filched out of your servants or your milkwoman)
every member is entitled to a cup of tea and
a vote in the election of her favorites to power in this
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world and the next; where you intermeddle with
mysteries and work-bags at the same time; where
you rummage among the stars and the cherubim with
as familiar an air, as other bonnetted things do among
paste jewelry, Brazil diamonds, or changeable silk in
a retail shop; where you prattle about heaven and—
the other place, very much as you do about your
puddings and pies; and select places for good-society,
in the sky, and for unbelievers—not in the sky; as if
each of you had a map of our Father's house—that
house with many mansions—with a plan of the pit
and boxes.
Well—
You are a member, to my knowledge, of a tractsociety,
and a part of your pastime is a sort of wholesale
piracy; you learn to make books, not by combining
letters and syllables, but paragraphs and periods;
by pasting together bits of newspapers, of little
greasy story books, of superannuated almanacks, of
worn-out ballads; producing therefrom, by slight
changes of titles, names, dates and facts, or by transposing
an occasional period, the most affecting and
well-authenticated narratives, either of surprising
conversions to your creed, or of terrible judgments
on the misbeliever, with certificates in blank for all
who are pious enough to vouch for their truth—
You are in a sweet humor, to be sure; we lay no
claim to the authorship of the works we put forth
we merely abridge them for the poor.
So! abridgement with you, means the tearing a
book to pieces and putting a few of the leaves together
again?
She made no reply.
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It is further lawful I hear, when you have no tracts
before the board, for the members to sigh in rotation
over the particular depravity of such or such a person,
who, to prove your impartiality, or your superiority
to the prejudices of the world, is either a relation, a
friend, or a neigh bor.
But we always give our authority for what we say.
So as to prevent the possibility of its being attributed
to envy, or malice, or tea-gossip.
Why, what would you have!
I hear too, that she who has the readiest tongue,
the shrillest voice, and the greatest variety of anecdotes
not generally known, of domestic infidelities
and squabbles in our city, is made chair-woman—over
sea they would call her a char-woman.
Lady president if you please.
Well, who is your lady president now, pray?
The lady of Mr. B—
The lady! pshaw—
Of Mr. B— the rich banker.
The rich banker! fiddle de dee, Mrs. A— we have
no bankers here.
And a very pious lady she is too, and very charitable.
How dare you say so! She is a woman of no true
piety, of no fixed religious faith, and you know it; a
mere gossip and the worst of all gossips, a gossip in
creeds, without knowledge, and without a spark of
true charity, if you mean the charity that seeth no
evil—hopeth no evil.
Thinketh, if you please—
A woman who believes that they who are not of
her church must be—I will not say what now; and
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that your good-for-nothing moral people, who do
their duty on earth for the sake of what may be had
on earth, and belong to no church at all, are hardly
worth praying for; a woman of no worth, of no
character—
Of no character!
Of no principle; very like the majority of women
though, educated as they now are, not so positively
bad, as negatively good. She charitable! God forgive
you! Her charity is confined to those who go
to her church, or visit where she visits, or to people
whom she knows, loves, or shares in the reputation of,
whatever it may be; or it is that kind of give-and
take-charity which induces her to excuse every thing
in every body, partly that she may appear amiable,
and partly in the hope that one day or other, we may
be ready to excuse every thing in her. It is not the
charity that engirdles the earth, embracing every
creature alive, our enemies—the whole human family,
pressing them together on every side as with a sort
of moral atmosphere, by which, and through which
the pulsation of a heart here may sound through all
the hearts of Europe, and the throb of a heart there,
sound through every other quarter of the globe.
Ah, but how humble she is, and how meek!
Very! humble enough to go in the attire of a
princess to beg for the poor; humble enough to wash
the clean feet of the youthful and the healthy,—if
she had a crown upon her head, or if a whole nation
were looking at her; humble enough I dare say,
when the sea roars, when the sky thunders, or the
earth shakes—to hide herself in holes and corners
with abject humility.
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Lord, how you talk!
She is not of them that are able to stand upright in
the earth-quake, yet fear to blaspheme their Maker,
by calling any work of his hands, least of all that
which he has made in his own image, utterly vile and
worthless.
If you go on so, I must leave you!
Thus much to give the reader an idea of Mrs. A's
character, and that of her conversation. It may be
that he has heard a beautiful widow reason before—if
not, he will be gratified with what I affirm to be a
true report of the discourse that she indulged me
with: let me add here that Mrs. Amory was precisely
of that age, whatever that may be, when a woman is
most to be feared by a full grown man. Young
women, and beautiful children of that age that all
women wish to be, “Sweet sixteen,” seldom or never
succeed in snaring a full-grown man; or if they do,
they are never able to keep him. The proud, the
wise, and the mature of the male sex are not much
given (whatever the poets may say, and whatever the
fair may suppose) to doating upon women while they
doat upon green-apples and confectionary, chalk or
charcoal, or bread-and-butter, and skip the rope, hour
after hour, with what is called a sincere and innocent
joy; they cannot abide the unfledged nestling—they
seek a braver appetite, a heavier plumage and a
louder note in the bird that is to sing them to sleep
in the pride of their strength—birds that are met
with only in the far-quiet and shadowey places of our
earth, or along the sea-shore—the solitary spirits of
the solitude.
You are to be with us on Friday week, I hope,
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said Mrs. Amory, laying her hand with a sweet careless
air upon my shoulder, in the midst of my revery.
On Friday week! I hope not.
Very civil, to be sure—
If the ship does not arrive soon—Good God! it is
impossible for me to stay here; I am wasting my life
away, fretting myself to death.
Poor man—perhaps you are in love.
God forbid—ah; a knock—I must be off.
Off now! off in such a hurry! no, no, my dear sir,
that will never do. If you must leave me, wait till
you see who it is—Ah—I know that step!—dont
escape now the moment the door is opened, I beseech
you—Ah, my dear Mr. G. how d'ye do; where's your
Georgia friend?
Here to-morrow, said the new comer. It was
Atherton Gage himself, but so altered, so pale and so
haggard, I scarcely knew him.
Will he indeed!
I thought you were determined never to admit the
handsome profligate, as I have heard you call him,
into your house again, said Gage.
Ah, but he is not so bad now, I hope?
Worse than ever.
What can I do?
Do!—pshaw—
I beg your pardon! Mr. G. Mr. F.; Mr. F. Mr. G.
Ha, ha, ha!
Happy to see you, Mr. F.
How d'ye do, Mr. G? And we both laughed at the
oddity of the introduction.
Well, said Mrs. A.; hereafter you shall be Mr. F.
and you Mr. G. You shall go by no other names.
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It was indeed the very Gage I saw on board the
steam-boat; we recognized each other immediately,
and having laughed heartily together at our absurd
introduction by Mrs. Amory, we were on a very
familiar footing before we parted.
Ah, you appear to know each other! cried she.
We have met before, said I.
Under very peculiar circumstances, added Mr. G.;
this gentleman saw the whole of that unhappy affair,
which led to the overthrow of our plans for the
South.
Indeed! How wonderful that I should never have
heard either of you speak of the other! Pray, Mr.
Fox—turning to me.
We did not know each other madam; said I.
But you shall know each other now—the two best
friends I have on earth.
Gage smiled, I bowed, the widow returned my bow,
and I was the happiest man alive.
We passed the evening together, and a part of the
next day, and the whole of the next, and before the
week was over, we were on the best terms in the
world, with the widow, with ourselves, and with each
other. But one thing puzzled me—I was anxious to
hear about Elizabeth Hale, the fair Quakeress—but
whenever I alluded to her, he would contrive to
change the subject, so that up to the last hour of my
being with him, I was never able to learn whether she
was dead or alive; and yet some how or other, I had
a suspicion that he knew, and was determined not to
gratify me.
On Friday you are to go with me to Mrs. A's great
annual party—we shall take no excuse; I want you
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to see Middleton, said Gage, one evening as we sat
lounging together at the play; I want you to see that
fellow in his glory—surrounded by all the finest
women of New-York, though they know and everybody
else knows here, that he is a very sad fellow
among the women—a-sheer profligate.
Are you serious?
Quite. You will hear him declared to be so by all
the mothers, and all the daughters of the city.
Who avoid him of course.
Avoid him! pho—if he should be there on Friday
evening, I would have you watch their behaviour
toward him; it will show you the true character of
many—of our beautiful widow among the rest.
Of our beautiful widow—I began to feel a misgiving.
Why sir, you must know that from my boyhood
up, I have been reckoned a very exemplary sort of a
somebody—having the reputation of great wealth
(undeservedly I confess) yet being no way remarkable
for the vices of the age. Mr. Amory gave one
of her large parties a month or two ago—perhaps
you were there?
No; I had gone up the North-River.
Well, I was invited, was unfashionable enough to
go before day-break, and received, so long as there
was no other young man in the room of more wealth
or of a worse character, a deal of attention—To say
all in a word, Atherton, dear Atherton was particularly
distinguished by every body. So then, said I, interrupting
him, your name is Atherton Gage after all,
and not Nehemiah?
Yes—But let me finish. Now I know of nothing so
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awful, as being formally introduced to a jury of
mothers, who have heard a deal of you, who have
been expecting you for a whole hour, and who have,
God knows how many daughters on their hands
undisposed of—such daughters being seated in a row,
all about the room, every two flanking a mother, all
with their eyes fixed on the floor, and all, you would
suppose holding their breath, as you enter the room.
To see the looks that are interchanged as you draw
near! Round you go—round the whole room after
the man of the house, repeating the names that you
hear, but always repeating them so that nobody
knows what you say; bowing always to the wrong
person, to Miss Amory, when you are introduced to
the mother of ten boys, whom you are desirous of
complimenting on her family, or to the mother of ten
boys when you are presented to Miss Emily Bibb
Tucker.
A real name, I'd swear—
A real name, you may swear, and then the triumph
of the daughters, when the virtuous monster appears,
about whom they have heard so much, and the
sheepish look of the mothers, who begin to see they
have a little overshot the mark, the compassionate
drowsy expression of their virtuous eyes, the solemn
elevation of their virtuous noses; for my own part
sir, I do not wonder at all that modest men grow desperate,
after having been once in company with libertines
before modest women. Why sir, on the night I
speak of, Middleton did not appear till it was time
for the better sort of people to go; but from the
instant he did appear—bless you—We modest
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well-behaved young fellows, might as well have been at
the bottom of the red-sea. Nobody saw us—nobody
heard us—nobody cared for us. We were not treated
with common decency by the virtuous women; we
might have starved, but for the humanity of the waiters,
or commissaries rather, whose instinct seems to lead
them on such occasions to those who are particularly
virtuous or particularly modest; to all who, if they
were to pop off on the spot with an apoplexy, would
never be missed by the people about them, before
they saw the name in the next morning's paper; to
every body male or female who never speaks a loud
word in company, nor ever at all, but when spoken
to, nor ever then, without laying just three fingers of
the left hand flat upon the mouth and fetching a sort
of a-hem! thus—a—a—a-hem! You smile sir, but
what I say is very true; Mrs. Amory had just put
a question to me for the fifth time, which question I
had answered four times, and was about to answer a
fifth time in precisely the same words, when Gerard
Middleton entered the room—the most notorious
profligate of New-York—Mrs. Amory never heard a
syllable of my fifth answer.
I laughed heartily at the air with which this was
said—it was so natural, so true.
I did not much like this, you may be sure, continued
Gage; for I knew that I was generally spoken
of as amiable, sweet tempered and wholesome; so
very sensible for my age, that it was quite a comfort
sometimes to hear me talk, and fitted of course to
make any woman happy. But will Gerard Middleton,
now, luddy tuddy! it was directly the reverse. But
while everybody said so of me, nobody seemed to
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believe it, even among the fair who said so to my
teeth—every one appeared disposed to except herself—
so much for my virtue—I might make any
woman happy and welcome—if she would let me; all
appeared to believe this, and there the matter ended
for any advantage my virtuous character was to me.
To be sure, they stuffed me with cake till I could not
speak so as to be understood, and scalded me with hot-water
till I could hardly see out of my eyes; and
then if I made up to a fine woman, however remarkable
she might be, I found that she only lifted her head
for a moment—and after seeing who it was, went back
to her sweetmeats, or cake or ice-cream, as if she had
done all that could reasonably be expected of a virtuous
woman toward a virtuous man. Flesh and blood!
I have seen such things! Why sir, the women go
before such as me in their dishabille, without a touch
of remorse, or a throb of self reproach—the dishabille
of their minds I mean. But I am all out of breath—
after a short pause, he returned to the subject.
I felt rather curious to see how they would bear
with Middleton, on the night I alluded to; and the
more, as I myself had heard our dear delightful
widow say that he was a young fellow, without either
religion or manners, or piety or good-breeding; I
preserve her climax, for I remember it well; she was
puffing me to my face, her dear friend Atherton, for
being so superior to most people of my age.—But
you dont appear to relish what I am saying of the
widow.
Not much to be sure, but still—I—I—should like to
know the truth.
Should you? Well, I admire your courage.
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Go on, if you please—
Well, I have heard her wonder what other women
could find in him so attractive—a mere boy—
Ah, but boys are the devil with women of a certain
age.
For her own part, he was the last person in the
world whom she would permit a child of hers to
associate with, and so—and so—she associated with
him herself.
Of me, Mrs. Amory had always spoken in the
highest terms, praising me to the skies before Kate
and Phœbe, (the first of whom I was dead in love
with); and yet when I came to see her and them
together, I was received with only that kind of attention
which everybody pays to the feeble and innofensive,
to the helpless and the contemptible. Once,
to be sure, when there were to be only a few maiden
ladies of no particular age with her, some of the
Bible-Society, who wanted a secretary, and a few
teachers of the Sunday-school who were on the look
out for help, I had a regular invite for the season,
with the run of the parlor and as much cake and tea
as I could manage; but then, whether we met once a
week, or once a month, I always had to work hard for
my tea, was regarded as the least unfashionable of
the set, and generally passed my time at the board,
jammed in between two pair of bony hips that never
stirred without stirring me. But then to give the—
glorious widow—her due, if she accedentally ran her
head against me at church, I was pretty sure to be
seen by her; and some times would be favored with
a question or two on the way home, if she walked,
while I was trotting at her elbow and carrying my
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umbrella so as to protect her and expose myself; but
then she never heard my reply—never—I will say
that for the widow—never in all her life, or else, if
she did, she certainly had the most unlucky memory;
for at the very next breath, if she spoke at all, it
would be to repeat the very same question, probably
in the very same words, looking at her tidy feet, or
dallying with her own pretty fingers the while—
Ah, what a long breath you drew just then!
Did I! sorry for it.
Well, everybody spoke of me in the same way, and
treated me in the same way; everybody praised my
virtues, and everybody neglected me. I passed for a
young man, God forgive them, wholly superior to the
vanities of the day, the world, the flesh and the
devil; wherefore the ladies of a certain age were in the
habit of speaking and acting before me, very much
as if I were a lady of a certain age myself; and
the girls, dear creatures,—why, they were as careless
and slovenly (I can't bear the word sluttish) in my
presence—heigho—as if I were a wooden youth, or
a great lubberly younger brother of their own. After
a while, however, a sad story got abroad concerning
myself and one of my mother's chamber-maids—there
was not a word of truth in it, I confess, but so long
as it was believed, I did not lack for invitations—of
that you may be sure; and if I appeared in company
the girls either opened their eyes at me, or made
mouths, or pulled up their slippers, or hid their feet,
or would not see me till after they had washed their
faces and combed their hair.
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CHAPTER XII.
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Friday evening arrived, and Gage and I were
together at the very place where I had determined
never to be again. My ship was ready to sail, but I
cared no longer for the ship; the South-sea voyage
lay before me, but I could not bear to think of the
south-sea; I had but one hope in the world—but one
desire. I had not been able to sleep for three nights—
ever since our conversation at the play; I had put off
the hour of going to bed as long as I possibly could;
knowing that the night would be a sleepless one, a
night of sorrow and fever, and fear and bitter self-reproach,
and every night the same till I should be
weary and sick of life; and I had risen morning
after morning at a very early hour, because I had
found it so, morning after morning; though every
night when I laid my aching head upon the pillow, it
was with a determination to be very late on the
following day—for what else could I do? Hour after
hour, would I lie with my eyes shut, striving to wear
away the time, to count myself asleep, to remember
the very words that she spoke to me, as we sat side
by side on that couch—hang that couch—the very
day before I encountered her dear friend Gage—hang
her dear friend Gage—endeavouring to persuade myself,
though I dared not look at my watch, that I had
wasted a goodly portion of the day, while yet it
lacked seven or eight hours of noon; that she did
care for me after all, though I had no courage to
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think of her behaviour when the arrival of Middleton
was mentioned, or of the color that flashed up over
her pale face when she heard Gage say that we were
acquainted. Perhaps, thought I, perhaps Gage may
be a rival of mine; perhaps he may not like her
manner toward me, and if so—by heaven! I will see
them together!—I wish I could see her alone with
Gage or Middleton—no matter which—it would be
easy for me to behave like a man if I know the truth,
much as I love her—love her! yes I do love her! I
love her as I never loved any other woman; but so
long as I am in doubt, I must behave like a boy—I
must and will!
So, on Friday evening, though the ship was ready
for sea, instead of going abroad, I went where I
might see the woman I most loved on earth betray
her love, not for me, but for another—a mere boy.
She saw me the moment I entered the room, and
came up to me, and gave me both her hands before
all the company. How was it possible to doubt her
after that? She had never looked so well. Her
large clear eyes, of a color that no two persons were
ever able to agree about, were full of expression, full
of subdued beauty, and her black hair—massive and
black as foliage carved in ebony, was like that of a
woman just hurried out of a bath to her own bridal,
with hardly time enough to coil up the magnificent
profusion of her wet shining tresses. To tell the
truth however, the whole truth, I must own that
although she gave me both hands with a show of
cordiality, which at any other time would have made
a fool of me, I was not altogether satisfied by her
manner; it was too eager, too hurried, too anxious—
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and her eyes were upon the door all the time she was
talking to me; and though she flattered me to my
face with a fine speech, and though I knew it was
flattery, and though it is very flattering to know that
you are worth flattering, still—still—my heart misgave
me. I could not breathe as I now breathe,
and I could see nothing but eyes all about me, hear
nothing but a confused murmur, for the first minute
or two after I entered.
She—I do not like to say Mrs. Amory, or the
widow, in this part of my story, she was at the head
of those who were thought to have a peculiar knack
at entertaining company. She had a word for everybody,
a smile for everybody, and a hand for everybody.
Sometimes, to be sure, I found that it was the
very same word, and that while she was giving her
hand to A, she was talking to B, smiling to C, and
bowing to D.
It would not be two much to say that her tongue
was never idle, from the first moment I saw her till
the very last; hour after hour was consumed in repeating
the same or similar things over and over
again to every body she spoke to; and yet she
appeared to me over-thoughtful and over-anxious all
the first part of the evening. She was called witty,
and smart, and showy, and clever (by an Englishman;
pray observe this, for in this country, to be clever is
to be good-natured, as to be a fine woman here is to
be a woman of agreeable manners and pretty good
sense, whatever may be her shape, while in England
a fine woman is a large, dignified showy woman,) and
I cannot deny that she gave out her oranges and
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[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]
repartees, cakes and conundrums, riddles and sweetmeats
with a deal of propriety and grace.
And yet, (I will say Mrs. Amory now, for I just
begin to remember how she treated me, and have
worked myself up to the right humor for telling the
truth of her,) Mrs. A. was not very witty, she was
only rather so; her replies were quick, and therefore
they passed for repartees; whatever she said, was
said with an air of smartness and fire which took
people by surprize, and therefore she appeared to be
witty. Her wit however, was only the wit of the
toy-shop, the retail-haberdashery of the drawing
room, the every-day retorts, which are to be met
with on every-day conversation cards—they could
not go wrong, they could easily be invited, and
almost anybody might entrap another into saying that
which would justify a cut-and-dried repartee; it was
nothing of that high-bred sprightly playfulness of the
tongue, that capricious, brilliant coquetry of a superior
understanding, the dear delightful nonsense of a happy
heart, which when it is natural, is so captivating. No,
no, my dear widow—it was the common, poor, conventional
wit which people use after having associated
long together and got all their good things in common—
a sort of genteel cant of their own, which
enables any two of them, if they meet before a
stranger, to play off, a certain quantity of rehearsed
and prepared lively dialogue as if it were
unpremeditated. Reader—perhaps you may have
seen two weather-beaten old-fellows, who had been
at sea together some forty years before, sit and laugh
at each others unintelligible joke's “turn about” as
they say, for two or three hours together on a stretch;
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[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]
or perhaps you may have met with two broken-down
bachelors, on a raw day at a windy corner, and heard
them as they stood shivering in their light coats (with
the tails blowing over their heads) and plethoric
trowsers, holding on by their hats and complimenting
each other on their good looks, till you wondered
how they were able to keep their countenances? If
so, you have an idea of what I mean by thorough-bred
courtesy and conventional wit.
So—so—cried Gage, coming up to me as I stood in
a far corner of the room, watching the people about
me as if they and I were not of the same earth—So,
so! how d'ye do, glad to see you; I like your way,
you mean to be of our side, I see.
Of your side—how—
You mean to be virtuous and meek; well, well, it
gives you many advantages. They permit us to linger
after the rest are gone, to hear what every body has
to say of every other body—after every other body's
back is turned.
Quere—if that would be so agreeable?
You are getting serious!
No, no—I hope not.
Yes you are—so take hold of my arm, and come
along with me, and will try to entertain you.
I took his arm, and we walked away together; for
I knew not how to escape from the misery of my own
thought; I longed to be away on board the ship, or
any where—at the very bottom of the South-Sea, and
yet I had not the courage to move. The woman that
held such power over me—God knows how and for
what purpose, if she did not love me—stood a little way
off, and my heart died within me, as I saw her color
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[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]
come and go, at every knock at the door, and at every
step that approached us.
Why sir, continued Gage, as we drew near to a
group of ladies all talking together—I have seen our
widow—ah! there she is now—I have seen her pull
that very group to pieces one by one, after they had
been prattling together as they are now, for a whole
hour; I have seen her laugh at and mimic the fat
mother, who to give the lady her due, is to be sure a
terrible eater—a—a—a (mimicking) can't sleep ma'm,
can't upon my word after a late supper with you;
very bad health just now, very—thankee my dear;
another leg o' the chicken, if you please—very delicate
indeed, I assure you; really now its quite distressing
to see how some people gorge—a jelly if you please,
my dear; one would think they were never able to
get enough—upon my word that cream looks nice,
I'll trouble you sir, or that they never got any goodies
at home; with all my heart sir—though I never drink
wine, your very good health sir! a bit o' the breast
my dear; thank you sir for one of the sweet-breads—
a—a—I have long had a desire to see how they are got
up; by the by, love—there's a cranberry-tart near
you—much obleeged to you—I have known people,
and very pretty-behaved people they were too, with
such a stomach!—a jelly my dear if you please, they
would digest an ostrich—thank you love.
By this time, we had got into the middle of a magnificent
room which overlooked the North-River; and
I stood there a while, studying the characters about
me, as they passed and eddied and whirled hither and
thither, like the shadows we see in a camera obscura.
It appeared to be crowded with strangers, people
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[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]
from abroad, British officers and American officers,
naval and military, here a judge and there a shop-keeper;
on my left a general who walked with his
toes in and his head forward, there a legislator unable
to express himself in his mother-tongue. Here a fat
wealthy West-Indian, with a shape and a complexion
so like that of a huge overgrown toad, as to provoke
every body that saw her to cry out at the resemblance,
there a dear little mahogony daughter with
hair blacker than the wing of a raven. The mother
you see, is a little tipsy—or so—hiccup—said Gage,
and does nothing you see but laugh now and
then very oddly and abruptly, at nobody knows
what, pull forth a splendid watch with a deliberate
flourish, set it, or wind it up, and put it back into her
feather-bed, with another flourish, and a sparkle each
time that never fails to produce a dead silence, you
see, among the ladies about her—who have neither
watches nor diamonds—it absolutely takes their
breath away.
By her side was another large woman, who appeared
very anxious I thought concerning five great
gawky girls who sat in a row at her elbow; and I
heard her whisper to one of the five that Mr. somebody-or-other,
who was then helping them to a batch
of cake, was not to be encouraged, being as she had
reason to know, a young man of no property.
Ah, said I, they are very rich I suppose, and the
mother would keep an eye on the cake-bearers.
Alarmingly so—
How much?
Guess.
Why, fifty thousand dollars each.
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[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]
No—five thousand dollars or so, not more.
Indeed!
Among the whole five.
What airs!
Yes—for heiresses.
Who is that pray? said a neighbor to Mr. Gage,
pointing as he spoke, to a young fellow that stood
near, of a noble aspect, with the wisdom and sincerity
of a good man so conspicuous in his broad clear forehead,
fine mouth, and composed carriage, that no one
could have doubted his goodness, it appeared to me—
at least I could not, after I saw that nobody went
near him, except once or twice, to see if he had enough
bread-and-butter for the evening.
That, said Gage with a smile, which I understood,
is a unitarian preacher, a moral man of the North;
and a very good fellow he is too.
That I am sure of, said I.
You know the discipline of the college where they
are bred perhaps.
Perhaps I do; but a look at his plate would be
enough to satisfy me; you may estimate the moral
character of every man here, by the degree of attention
he receives.
Bitter enough—you seem to have little or no use for
your plate, I see, and if I were you—ah!
He stopped in the middle of the sentence, left me,
and hurried away to the most extraordinary looking
young man I ever saw, with a bright olive complexion,
a perfectly Greek face, and large black eyes.
He appeared to be full six feet high, and he wore his
hair parted upon his forehead and falling back over
his shoulders with a slovenly savage air that reminded
me of something I had seen before.
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[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]
Pray said I, turning to a neighbour, can you tell me
the name of that person—
A long deep breath at my elbow made me turn the
other way. It was my dear, dear Mrs. Amory—there
she stood! within a step of me without seeing me,
her body bent forward, her hands half-locked in a
superb shawl, and her eyes rivetted—ay, rivetted on
the stranger, who threw up his head with a look of
surprize when he saw me. It was Gerard Middleton,
but so altered, so grown, so superior to what he was
when we parted on the wharf, that I should have
passed him on the high-way without knowing him.
Oh Mrs. Amory! said I to myself, when I saw her
look, and his carriage toward her. Oh, Mrs. Amory,
Mrs. Amory, oh! High time for you to be off Mr. Fox,
and the sooner you are off the better, Mr. Fox, and
the sooner you are on your way to the bottom of the
South-sea, the better Mr. Fox. Another man would
not have waited for this—but you are a—what am I?—
you are a fool Mr. Fox. Very true, said I, Then why
don't you go Mr. Fox. Because I am fool enough to
desire nothing but her happiness—and if I see that
he is really dear to her; if it be in my power to promote
their union, I will do so, whatever be the sacrifice
to me. You are a d—d fool, to be sure Mr. Fox;
and here my soliloquy ended much to my relief. Now
Middleton was undoubtedly the handsomest man
there; and though I felt a strong desire to cut his
throat, I could not help liking the brave haughty
negligence, the proud, happy freedom of his carriage
and look, as he stood in the midst of us with every
eye upon him, and my dear widow biting her underlip
at his side.
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What was to be done? Should I go—or should I
stay? Should I run off like a boy, and go a-board
the ship, and behave like a fool for the rest of the
voyage; or should I carry the matter through like a
man; stay where I was, and outbrave the proud
woman to her face?
Hey!—what!—in a brown study again? said Gage.
Here Middleton! this way—I wish you to be acquainted
with Mr. Fox. We bowed to each other, or
more properly at each other, and after some talk
about, I never knew what, we were intruded upon by
a lawyer—with a light blue neck-cloth, rings and
broaches, a tilter in his walk, and a pretty wife—a
fellow nevertheless of extraordinary black-letter erudition,
said Gage, who saw me staring at him, with a
good heart, a clear head, a genteel temper, and a huge
library; quite a character, studies hard, works faithfully
at his profession, takes the most comprehensive
and profound views of the science—
Of the science of law! said I, bitterly enough I
hope.
Perhaps you may not call it a science.
No faith—not I.
Ask any of these gentlemen here.
All of the bar, I suppose?
Pretty much.
Excuse me.
Well sir, as I was a saying.
He takes the most admirable and comprehensive
views of the law.
In de main sair, said a Frenchman who stood near,
but not in de tail.
And yet, ha, ha, ha! he wears rings, ruffles, breast
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[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]
pins, and a stock that half-strangles him, the queerest
colored cloth in the world for his coat, and gets along
the high-way with a sort of a tittupping hitch, as if
he had the spring-halt. In a ball-room, he would pass
for a man-milliner, or what is far more contemptible
in a state where women are helpless or not allowed to
maintain themselves, for a retail shop-keeper.
I bowed, and several of neighbours hurried away
from our party, as he proceeded.
What say you Mr. Fox?
I say as you do Mr. Gage.
In a court of justice you would take him, if you
were too far off to hear what he said, for a travelling
jeweller, from the North, trying to put off some of
his ware upon the judges. Look—look!—he is
eternally at play with his watch-chain, or wiping the
inside of his palms with a linen cambric handkerchief,
or pulling his chin, or taking off, wiping, and replacing
his gold-mounted spectacles—let us go nearer, and
you shall hear what they have to say, that group of
lawyers you see there, our legislators, our masters;
our law-makers and our law-interpreters.
-- --
CHAPTER XIII.
[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]
Yes sir, said one of the number as we drew near.
But I maintain that the words A. and B. were married
on such a day, are sufficiently precise to show that
the said A. and B. were, on such a day, made husband
and wife.
Excuse me Judge Blarney.
And excuse me brother Lyman.
In every such case, all that we require should be
certainty to a common intent, a reasonable certainty.
Very true, Judge.
And Lord Coke says that, in pleading, which I
regard as analogous, we shall not be required to state
things with more certainty than they are capable of.
Does Lord Coke say that?
He dooze indeed—
And, that where pleading tends to infiniteness.
Well, well Judge; but how does it appear by the
words in question that A. and B. are male and female?
And if they are not, Judge—I put this to you, with
great confidence—if they are not! how can they be
man and wife?
True brother—true, said another lawyer by the
name of Sewall.
What if you save the point? said a third.
And—proceeded the speaker, and sir—and!—if that
be the case, and if it be demurrable to for uncertainty
sir, as I hold it to be sir—and sir!—and!—as you
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[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]
cannot travel out of the record, sir—it appears to me
sir, that the words A. and B. sir, were married sir, are
not enough to show that A. and B. are entitled to relief
as parties to the Bill in question!
Well put brother Lyman! well argued brother
Blarney! cried a little man who stood in the rear of
the judge; nevertheless I submit (looking over the
the arm of the judge, and vociferating as if he were on
trial, in a matter of life and death,) I submit, I say,
(The devil you do, cried Gage, who'd a thought it?)
that in addition to the words A. and B. were married—
the said A. and the said B. I suppose'—
To be sure—
—I assumed that, from my knowledge of the high
legal character of our learned brother; in addition to
those words I say, I submit with all due deference,
that the word together might have been used, or may
hereafter be used—a hem!—with propriety.
So as to read thus, brother Parsons—A. and B.
were married together—hey? said Lyman.
Precisely, sir, That's the point I would make.
But how would that show what you are desirous to
show; they may be both men, or both women, and
yet both married together.
Well, to be sure! and so they might brother Lyman.
In which case, added another, what if we say that
A. married B. or B. A.?
Well, and if we do, what then? said the learned
brother in the blue cravat; A. may have been a clergyman,
a minister, or a magistrate, (vide laws of the colony,
Re-Co.)
Re-Co., said I, what does that mean?
Revised code—
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[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]
—Or a notary (vide laws of France, code Napoleon
etc. etc.) or a blacksmith, (vide laws of Scotland) in
which case, though A. were to marry B. still B. would
not be A's. wife.
True, true, cried several of the group, nodding to
each other all round with a look of admiration.
Pray brother H.— continued the Judge, how
would it work to say,—perhaps you have authorities
already on the point—
Brother H. made a very low bow.
—To say, in such a bill, that A. and B. married together,
in the active sense, you observe—not in the
passive, brother H.; not were married together.
Why, it appears to me, if the court please—(a laugh)—
I beg pardon of the court, (another laugh) I mean to
say, Judge Blarney, that we have disposed of that point
already, because if people are married at the same
time, they are married together, although as we have
it in Sir Matthew Hale, and in the great case of Perrin
and Blake, they are not married so as to become
legally man and wife; which I take to be the point in
issue. Our bill being intended to shew that A. & B.
are in fact husband and wife, we say—
Ah! ha! but I have you now, brother H!— we
shall adopt your idea, we shall say that A. and B.
were made husband and wife.
Liable to the same objection brother B. for they
may be made so, not to each other, but to some other
individuals.
Good God, sir! cried Gage, is there to be no end of
this—no way of telling the story on paper.
What if you say that A. and B. were united on such
a day—together, said I, not knowing what else to say.
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[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]
Just as bad: for two people may be united together—
to two different people, and at the same instant,
you observe.
How are we to say it, I beseech you! said Middleton,
who began to get interested, in common with
every body else, carried away by the earnestness, perplexity,
and subtlety of the disputants, who looked to
be sure as if they were discussing a matter of life and
death to each.
Why,... hesitating... why—a—a—
Tip him a fee Middleton, said Gage in a whisper.
You might say, continued the lawyer, that on such
a day, (naming the day) at such a place, (naming the
place,) A. and B. (the said A. and the said B.) were
joined together in lawful wedlock—viz. the said A. to
the said B.
And why not say they were married to each other,
or that they married with each other, or that the man
took the woman to wife?
Why to be sure—but you'll excuse me—the law sir,
the law requires great nicety in these matters; mere
common sense might allow you to say—that is—that
is—in short sir, there is no authority on your side—
No authority, sir!
None, sir, none in the world sir.
Why, sir, it is the very language of the classics.
The lawyer smiled, and the Judge drew a long breath,
which to my ear, sounded like the monosyllable pooh!
Quere de hoc. Here we parted, I was thunder-struck.
I had never seen the exceeding efficacy of
words before, never seen the mystery of language
so delicately obvious. Lord! how the study of the
law, thought I, must enlarge and elevate and sharpen
the proud faculties of man.
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My reflections were interrupted by a voice near me—
Pooh, pooh, love—pooh, pooh! said a large man
to his little wife, who hung upon his arm, like a heap
of millinery, pooh, pooh love, how you talk—
Ah, but he's proper smart though...
Smart! a fellow with only one idea in his head.
One eye, dear!.. how can you say so! I'm sure
he's got two eyes, dear!
Why, mother!... why, ma!... good lord, what
a fool you are, love!
What for?... did'nt you say he'd got but one eye,
dear? (to the husband.)
Yes ma, but father meant what you call an idee.
There now!... that's always with you; talking
about forchune and virtchue, and idee-ahs, how should
I know what you mean, if you dont talk like other
people?
I tell you what, brother Joe, said a sweet girl near
me, as we moved away, he may pick and choose
among the very women that make mouths at him, and
you'll find it so: he may marry any woman here he
pleases.
And who may not, Miss Peggy. The ugliest and
the silliest may marry whom they please, may they
not, my dear? added a joker by profession.
Sister Peggy. I do beseech you to make more use
of the relatives, whispered her brother, a tall stiff young
man, just away from Harvard for the holidays. You
never hear me say that I would marry any body I
please—
No, indeed... you are not such a fool as that comes
to, I hope.
But any body whom I please, or that I please.
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Do you mean, said the lawyer, in a blue stock, who
had followed us to the spot; pray sir, allow me to ask
you—drawing out a rose-colored handkerchief, with
a low bow and a flourish, and taking off his gold-mounted
spectacles, and wiping them very deliberately
before he went any further—to ask you sir, if you
hold a—a—
Permit me, interrupted a man whom I heard called
master Gray, permit me to observe sir, that the idiom
of our language will admit of a... of a sort of a—
To be sure, that is the very thing sir, I assure you
sir, that I intended to lay before the—to offer that
is—for the consideration of the.....
You'll excuse me! added the grammarian—he
stood six feet four—the idiom of our language—raising
his voice as the lawyer tried to raise his, but the tall
man having got the start of him by at least eleven
inches, the lawyer could never hope to overtake his
altitude—of our language I say sir, and I think I ought
to know—
Yes, you ought to know, said somebody near me;
there is no doubt of that—
The idiom of our language I say, will permit us
to employ either mode indifferently.
Oh! very indifferently! cried the same voice; I
knew by the very key—the very pitch—that it belonged
to somebody who had a reputation for wit, so
eager, and so sharp, and so decided, and so well-timed
for effect was it.
Every body laughed, and then, after the laugh had
continued for a minute or so, every body began to
look about for the cause. O! but it grieved me to
hear the laugh that followed every speech and almost
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every word that escaped from the mouth of this man.
To see how eagerly he was followed, how he was
waited for, and how they would laugh as if they were
ready to die, if he but opened his mouth or pointed
his finger.
I withdrew from the place, and I know not how long
I should have kept away, though the woman of my
heart was there and the southerner who appeared to
have got possession of hers, but for a strange quiet
which caused me to look up; when I beheld the latter
standing near the centre of the room, and literally
holding forth, in a low voice to be sure, but loud
enough to fill the air with music, unabashed, unmoved
by the stare of a hundred eyes.
He never talked so well, nor so fluently, nor so
eloquently, nor so connectedly before, whispered
Gage, who stood near me. And he is sure to talk
best, where no other man would be able to talk at all.
No matter where he is, nor how situated, he can bear
the heavy, dead, insupportable silence of a large company,
better than any other talker I ever heard.
He seems to me very sure of being heard with favor.
Pray, sir, how do you define it? said a middle-aged
young lady, as if she had entered the course for a talk
with him.
I should say, was the reply, though it would be no
easy matter to give a definition, that enthusiasm is a
sort of moral electricity—
Pooh!—said Gage—his talking was for talk sake.
I knew it, I saw it in his air—I saw it in every
word he spoke, and yet he carried me away with him
at last: he stood so bravely up to the encounter of all
the eyes in the room, and poured his heart out with
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such unstudied, earnest, clear simplicity, in such a
fine, free colloquial style, with such impassioned sincerity;
using with wonderful aptitude the very words
that seemed made for their places, and fitted for the
expression of a thousand subtle and exquisite meanings,
which became instantly perceptible to me, as he
talked and reasoned.
But while we were gathered about him, his fine bold
voice died away, and immediately a pair of large glass
doors were thrown open, and all the company poured
into the garden, which lay below us like a theatrical
show of wood and water.
Follow me, said Mrs. Amory, tapping Middleton
on the arm—with a smile which went to my heart.
He obeyed with a careless lounge, and we followed
them to the river side. Ah! cried Gage, one may
look into the lighted water now, like the disembodied—
among the stars. Look! upon my word, I can see
the fish darting hither and thither like so many flashes
of light, through the dim shadowy depth; and you
I hope will stick by us, he added glancing at the plate
of the preacher who lingered in the rear; and as for
you (in a whisper to the widow) my notion is that you
had better have an eye on that serious-looking pale
man. I have been at his elbow this half hour, and you
may take my word it, he is not a fellow to be quieted
with nuts and gingerbread—
Hush, Atherton—hush, he'll hear you—
—Nor to be bribed into insignificance by a stray
smile, or a great piece of pound-cake.
We were now at the very edge of the water—a large
green spot of well-trodden turf on our right, and a
group of old trees on our left.
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Now, sir, said Gage, now if you desire to know the
real character of the woman who rules you, and would
rule every body if she could, with a sceptre of iron—
twisted about with full blown roses—stick to my side.
If he does not bring her out, I will—what say you—
yes or no?—will you pitch me into the river, knock
me down, or give me the hug of a brother?
I could not reply—my heart was too heavy and my
breathing too thick.
You know, continued he, that your every-day women
have a knack of be-praising each other, till they
provoke you either to laugh at or to contradict them,
which contradictions by the by, I never knew a woman
lose her temper about, although the dearest of
her “dear five hundred friends” were the sufferer.
Now, if you will keep near me and watch the widow,
you shall see her play a game as much superior to
that, as that is superior to the bare-faced play of two
fish-women, who hate each other and abuse each other
by the hour.
The younger part of the females were now dancing
away, every one with her heart in her eyes, much as we
might expect from newly-born creatures, never permitted,
save under the most jealous and vigilant guardianship,
to feel the influence of shadow and greenness,
or wind and moonlight, or sky and water.
Among them was one, who excited a universal murmur
of surprise wherever she went. Every eye was
upon her—every bound and every swing was followed
by a leap of the heart among those who stood near
me (if they were to be believed) and by correspondent
inclinations of the part of those who were a little
further off. They persuaded her to sing, and I should
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say from the little I heard, that—somehow or other,
it was not music, but something better than music—
the melody of wild birds in the sky—it issued I dare
say from her benign mouth, but it appeared to issue
from her large dreaming eyes—I borrow this idea
from Gage, who filled me with poetry before I knew
where I was. While we were looking after her, she
emerged for a moment from the shade of a drooping
willow near us, into the broad light of the moon.
Gracious God! breathed somebody at my elbow—
it was the cry of a heart overburthened with joy,
brimful of prayer—instantaneously delivered of some
bright hope. Gracious God—what a face!—
Now for it, whispered Gage, now for the beautiful
widow!
—Look into the depth of her eyes! you may see
her very soul in motion there!
That you may! said the widow—
You may look down as it were into the deep of her
heart—
Precisely, said the widow.
But how is this—you do not appear to like her so
much—who is she?
Not like her! bless your heart, how mistaken you
are! why that is the very girl you have heard me
speak so much of—
Not Rosa Moore!
—The same; but I see you like her, and I am so
glad! for do you know, my friend, that there are
people, who some how or other, don't appear to like
that wild expression of the eye, which to me, and I
dare say to you, is the chief charm of her face—the
pure poetry of the girl's nature.
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I never saw so much poetry in a mortal's face before
cried Middleton; nor so much purity.
Indeed—never!
No, never!
Well, I am glad to hear you say so—poor thing!
Poor thing, widow! is she so very much to be
pitied?
Pitied—O, no! what could put such an idea into
your head; to tell you the truth, she is a prodigious
favorite of mine—heigho.
Indeed, as you say, in—deed!
—though for the last year or two I have not been
able to see poor Rosa, quite so—ah, we are overheard—
Well, what if we are—
Some other time if you please—
Nay, nay, my dear widow, if you please; out with
what you have to say, if you mean to impeach her
character—
Impeach her character!—I!—Heaven forbid!
But you might as well impeach it, as to say you
have something to tell me about her, which you dare
not tell me before a third person—
How you talk! Hush, hush—don't talk so loud—
all I meant to say was—
No, no, my dear Madam, no whispering here, if
you please.
—Well then—the dear girl does look rather too
much like her unfortunate mother; but—a—a—how
do you like her dancing?
Beautiful!—beautiful!
You do think so, don't you? I knew you would;
and you have no idea how delighted I am to have you
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-- 187 --
[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]
Rather late in life?
Considering her age, I mean; her poor mother, as
I told you, being a sort of a—having a—but that's no
fault of her's you know, and I would not have our
dear sweet Rosa reminded of it, no not for the world—
Tut—tut—
Ah! cried Gage, looking up to the sky, ah! upon
my soul, widow, I can see the rest of the family.
Oh fye, Mr. Gage.
Don't stare, widow, I mean the creatures of the blue
sky, the angels that keep watch over the pure and
good—Ah, widow, widow! the Being that made her
must have been less terrible than you believe in your
church.
Why, how you talk Atherton Gage! how dare you—
are you not afraid the sky will fall.
No indeed, not I.
All very true and very sublime, I dare say, continued
Mrs. Amory, but, I'll leave it to Mr. Fox—
would'nt it have been as well for the dear, dear creature,
to learn a figure with live partners, before she
threw off with such people as you see there—
Madam, said I.
Widow! said her companion, letting go her arm.
Sir.
A word more and I shall hate you—continued the
latter.
And so shall I; whispered Gage.
In-deed! why, you know she must have learnt with
chairs, for you see that whenever the people change
places the poor girl is all at sea—
Fire and fury!
If she would turn her toes out however, I do say,
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and I do not care who hears me, that Rosa would be
a most lovely dancer....
Whew!—whew!—whew! cried Fox, do the women
up there, (pointing to the sky) do they turn their
toes out, think ye?
How do I know, said the widow—such mysteries
are above our knowledge; but—
But if they dance, you will say—
If they do dance, I humbly hope they do not dance
parrot-toed.
Now as for me, said Middleton, I'd rather see all
the cherubim at work on all-fours parrot-toed, than
beautiful creatures of earth dancing after the fashion of
our day.
Oh—dreadful!
Why Mr. Middleton! said somebody else, you are
enough to scare every body out o' the room.
Really, Mr. Middleton, added the fair widow, you
make our blood run cold—
I am sorry for that, my dear widow; but when
I see people who ought to know better, praising a step
in the dance of a pretty girl, not because it is beautitiful
or graceful, but because it is difficult, I am—ah—
ready to—ready for—'sdeath! it cannot be!
Well, sir, ready for what?
Heavens! how pale you are! cried the widow.
Pale! not I, indeed!
But you are pale Gerard, you are! whispered Gage
and your lip quivers, and I see a fine sweat on your
forehead, which—my dear fellow!—let us begone!
you are ill—very ill, I am sure.
No, no—I am better now, that sweep of the fresh
air, and the voice, I don't hear it now—do you?
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What voice?
What voice, my dear Atherton, look at me.
Gage turned and looked—and then throwing up his
hands with a remarkable change of countenance, he
added in a low voice, madman! all eyes are upon you!
Atherton Gage! I did hear it, I tell you.
Hear what!
I heard a peculiar note in the uproar just now—
don't laugh at me—I would swear to it on my death-bed.
Nay, may, Gerard—recollect yourself—you are deceived.
The widow grew very pale now, and her breathing
changed, and her eyes wandered away into the shadow,
with a look that made me wish myself on board
the ship once more, and once for all.
How do you like her singing? continued a pretty
girl near me, who had not opened her mouth for a
whole hour, and she opened it now, in the hope that
nobody would hear what she said—just as I have seen
a youthful orator, who had made up his heart for a
speech, wait—and wait—and wait—and stew and
wriggle, and wriggle and stew, till the meeting was
nearly over, when if a great uproar occurred, enough
to encourage him, up he would jump and call on the
Moderator—Mr. Moderator! Mr. Moderator! Mr.
Moderator! in a big bold voice, which if the Moderator
saw him, or the mob grew still, in the hope of a
speech, would end with—I beg leave to say, uttered
in a hurried far off squeak, that nobody, not even the
Moderator could be able to trace.
Very much, said I.
I did'nt speak to you, said she, putting up her lip at
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me, and looking at the hero of the night, as if we all
three belonged to the nursery.
Ah, but if you had been so lucky as to hear the
sweet girl sing before she took lessons, you would
have liked her still better I am sure, said Mrs. Amory.
Why so—
Ah, she was so natural then!
But what a fine figure though! said Gage, touching
me with his elbow.
Very fine, said I—very! Superb!
True, said Mrs. Amory—that's precisely the word
for her—superb—and yet, would you believe it? she
has not come to her growth yet; she is only in her
fifteenth year—
In-deed!
Yes—but her mother was very large; are you partial
to large women, Gerard—Mr. Middleton. I mean.
Large women! said Middleton—no indeed, not I—
but who said any thing about large women or fat
women? She is what Mr. Fox calls her, a superblooking
girl—
And so she is, and I quite agree with you; a superb
woman for a ride on horse-back, for the head of a
table, for a walk on the battery, or a walk in the ball-room,
though not perhaps petite enough altogether,
for a dance—a tea-table, or a fire-side, or a nursery.
There, there! that'll do—ah! what is that but a
step, I should like to know! as pretty a rigadoon as
ever I saw in my life.
And so it is I declare! and see too how near she is
to the music, now—only a little too fast, a very little—
dear Rosa!
She a little fast, no my dear widow—the music's a
little too slow, whenever they do not move together.
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There again! cried Gage, the sound appears to
come up out of the earth where her foot falls, very
much as if it waited for the step; and her voice too—
Lord, Lord! what a voice to be sure! Would you
have such a voice whimpering a lullaby over a heap
of blue and white yarn; with the toe of such a foot
as you see there, on the tip-end of a cradle-rocker?
Why, it sounds like a—like a—a nest of canary-birds,
in a hawthorn bush, pure Italian coming up by starlight
from the deep sea—where now Gerard?
Mr. Middleton!—Mr. Middleton? what's the matter!
what ails you! stop, I beseech you!
Madam—
Before you go that way, a word with you, and with
our two friends here—
With me! said the haughty southerner.
With me, said I, and my heart was in my throat.
Why, Middleton! how agitated you are!—cried
Gage.
Woman—woman!—are you playing tricks with
me again!
Middleton—Gerard Middleton, hear me—recollect
yourself, I beseech you.
Woman! repeated he, in a low voice, woman—I
feel a dread here—my heart misgives me—you know
the story—you know the whole of it, I never asked
you how; but you have heard my oath, and I should
hope—look at me—I hear a voice—you know what I
mean.
I do—you have heard the voice of a broken-hearted
girl; a girl that should have been your wife, Gerard
Middleton, years, ago, though you are still a boy—
Here's a to-do! thought I—here's a blow up! hang
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me, if I don't believe I shall suffer the ship to go sea
without me, after all!
My wife! she my wife! a half-breed of the Creeks.
And what are you, but a half-breed?
Madam! say what you have to say, and let me go?
I have not come here to be insulted: my birth is pure—
my blood is pure, though I may be somewhat
darker than your babies of the north.
You loved her, did you not?
I did.
You married her too, did you not, according to the
laws of her tribe?
And what if I did?
Ah! you blush!
And what if I do?
It gives me hope, it gives me courage. That woman
is now here. She is not so dark as I am—will
you see her—I beseech you to see her!
And why should I see her! You do not hope—
surely, surely, you do not hope that I would marry a
woman with a drop of indian-blood in her veins! I
loved her, and I love her yet—I love her too much to
risk her with my kindred—but you do not believe
me—
No sir, I do not—
Well, then, hear the truth. I would not put my
hand into hers now, I would not kiss her forehead
now, for all the wealth of America. Had you known
me, you would never have dared to say what you
have now said—were she a white woman, I tell you,
were she from among the proudest of our proud white
women, I would not marry her now. You have an
idea that because I love, because I have
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[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]
acknowledged to you that I never should cease to love her;
because I would drain my heart here, before your
face, to make her happy, you believe I would be
wretch enough to marry her—
No sir, not to marry her, but to acknowledge her.
We know that she is your wife now, your lawful
wife—and a wife that you or any other man might be
proud of—
You do not know all.
I do, I do; I know that you deserted her, that after
she knew our law, you refused to marry her by that
law, and that you left her a prey to the white men—
If you knew all—all—you would not speak as you
now do to me.
I know enough to justify me in saying that she deserves
you, and that she loves you so much that you
will be the death of her, and that—ah!—where is
your courage now!
God be merciful to you! I feel that she is near me!
Speak to her! speak to her I conjure you! let her
not see me!
Something approached here: and he folded his
arms and waited for it with his eyes fixed upon the
earth; and after a few moments two females drew
near, one a little in advance of the other in a black
satin dress that glittered and shivered as if her very
soul were escaping from her body. She saw Middleton,
and stopped short on her way, and held out both
her hands—but he would not see her, and I had only
time to observe, by a side view of her face and the
turn of her neck, that she was very beautiful and
rather fair, with little or nothing to show that she
had the impure drop in her blood.
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Madam, said Middleton, to the widow, in a voice
that I should not have known, so altered was it—I do
not shrink nor quail, you perceive. She does. Now
is your time to save her—go to her—go to her if you
have any mercy; tell her that I forgive her, she will
know what you mean; but say that—so help me God!—
I will never touch her hand again, while I breathe
the breath of life! She has made a devil of me! and
wo to her, and wo to you! if you do not check her
now that she is about crossing my path!
Let us go! said a voice, which appeared father off,
as if it came from her companion. There is no hope.
I have made the trial, I have done my duty, and now,
he is yours—I have done with him forever. His fate
is in your hands—do with him what you will. I told
you how it would be. Let us go.
I started with astonishment, and was satisfied that
the speech issued, not from the lips of the girl I saw,
but from the other. That is no Indian, said I to Gage,
as we walked away.
You are mistaken—she is a fourth breed.
How so?
Come this way—Her grand-father was a Spaniard;
her grand-mother a native Creek; she is a quadroon,
therefore; she was brought up among the Creeks:
and there he met with her full five years ago. They
were married, and they were happy, for he did not
know until they had been married a few weeks, that
her blood was not pure—
Not pure!—
—No; and as they were married, not according to
our law, he told her that she should never be his
wife—his real wife; and forsook her; and his father
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sent him to college to complete his education: There!
you know the whole story now—poor fellow, I pity
him; he'll never marry another, and he cannot marry
her by the laws of Georgia.
D—n the laws of Georgia!
So I say; for she's a noble creature.
And he!—what is he!—
He!—oh, he is of the blood-royal of the south.
By the Gods, if I knew her, I would offer myself to
her—
Would you really!
Yes, I would!
Are you aware of the consequences?
Perfectly: if it were known to the whites of our
free and equal community, she and I both, and our
children's children would be pointed at and scoffed at,
for the marriage. And yet, were we to cross the sea,
and take refuge in Europe, I should be greeted by
princes for the sake of my wife, and she would be the
equal of their proudest women.
-- --
CHAPTER XIV.
[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]
Not a wink of sleep did I get for the whole night,
after the scene I have described. I was too happy—
my heart was too full; but then, to be sure, I had no
need of sleep, I could bear to be awake now, for my
mouth was no longer parched by my breathing, nor
my blood heavy with a heaviness which no mortal
could bear, without feeling that if it continued, he
would soon have no business on earth. Ah, thought
I, as I lay hour after hour with my eyes shut and the
window curtains drawn—Ah! what a noble creature
it is! How unjust I have been! how I have wronged
her admirable heart! and how meekly she has borne
the outrage! And what if she is a little given to
coquetry, who cares? And what if she is a little
absent in her speech? And what if she does a little
overdo the character of a religious woman, that she
may keep well with society, and get rid of her two
daughters? Why should you blame her Mr. Fox?
I'sn't she a mother? Mr. Fox, and if she should ever
become your—gulp, Mr. Fox—wouldn't that be so
much the better for you Mr. Fox? Talk of her bad
faith too, toward other women! Why, what a fool
you are, Mr. Fox! and what a knave you are Mr.
Fox, when, if either of you had half an eye, you
would see that she takes a very sincere pleasure in
the society of the young and beautiful of—of—of her
own sex. And of our sex too, I should have added
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at any other time, but now I was too happy. And
what if she—ah, a knock—who's there?
A boy from the ship, sir—
Well what does he want, sir?
He wants to see you—
Open the door; what do you want my lad?
Want you sir.
Me!
If you please; we're only waitin' for you; anchor's
weighed sir; fair a wind as ever blowed—
Give my compliments to captain Goff, and tell him
I have had no sleep for a week, that I can't think of
a trip to the south-sea, before I have had a nap, and
that if the wind keeps fair, I shall try to be aboard in
the course of the day.
May be you'll write as much to the cap'n—that's
rather a tough message for him, jess when the ship is
ready for sea.
D—the ship!
You'll excuse me sir, but we never hear nobody
damn the ship, and it's my private opinion sir.
You rascal! if you dare to shake your head at me,
I'll—odds bobbs! I'll beat you to death—
Ah, you're abed now, an' so I've only to say that
if you don't go aboard the boat now, you'll never go
aboard the ship—for we're tired o' waitin' for you.
Be off, you dog you!—
Very well sir—
What are you laughing at?
Your things are aboard, you know?
D—n the things!
Very well sir, good by'e sir—a pleasant voyage to
you sir; you'll find your things on the wharf.
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On the wharf!
Ay sir; cap'n Goff told us to take them up with
us in the jolly-boat, and if you did'nt see proper to
be ready for this wind, to leave 'em on the wharf, and
wish you a pleasant voyage—in the wake o' the widder
Amory.
I could bear this no longer. To be jested with
about the widow Amory by the captain of a ship—
the messenger a cabin boy, was a little too bad. Out
I jumped, with a full determination to pitch the rascal
through the window; but he slipped off, and I heard
him laughing outside of the door, which he flung in
my face, and all the way down stairs. I had half a
mind to follow him in my shirt.
However—I was now out of bed, Jupiter be
praised, though but for him (the boy I mean) I should
have whiled away another hour in that place of all
places for a man half mad with love; and being up,
I had the courage to stay up, though I was never
addicted to air-baths, and to occupy a full hour in
getting my clothes on. Before I was rigged for the
day, another messenger arrived, with a note from the
dear, dear widow, calling me her dear dear friend,
and praying me to give her a call about five, and to
bring with me some book, to justify me for calling at
such an hour of the day.
Ah, ha! said I to myself, now we are coming to it;
our widow is in the trap, the very trap she laid for
us! now query, whether to give her a little trout
play before we let her feel the hook or not? So
much for perseverance—faint heart never won fair
lady—d—n the ship!
As the clock struck five, on that memorable day—
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the happiest day of my life, the knocker sounded
with a double rap (such as the postmen of England
give) at No. — Broadway; and the next moment I
was on a sofa by the side of the beautiful widow. I
have sent for you, said she, that I may explain to you
the cause of what you saw here last evening. The
truth is—heigho—and here she faltered, and some
how or other, I got hold of her hand again—it was
like a live bird in my grasp—and in short I was very
happy, so happy I declare, that if she had proposed
to pledge me in a glass of laudanum, I would have
pledged her, and gone to sleep forever at her side.
What I say will appear strange I know, but I cannot
help it. I say nothing but the truth. Most men
would not like to die at such a time, I dare say; but
as for me—I did not care half so much for life as
for companionship—everlasting companionship. My
doubts were gone—she loved me, even as I loved her,
and though she did not actually promise marriage, I
knew by the brilliant moisture in her eyes, and by
the swelling of her heart, and by the changes of color,
that I should prevail one day or other; and so, as I
have said before, I was happy.
Well—before we parted, she told me the story of
the Indian girl. It wore another shape now; she had
been so well educated as to be able to teach in a sort
of missionary-school; her mother was only a half
breed, her father a white man, so that she had
little or no impure blood in her veins. Middleton
had met with her first in the neighbourhood of a
plantation that his father had on the very outskirts of
Georgia. He fell in love with her and she with him,
and so they were separated. His father sent him to
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college, and her mother took her into the wilderness,
where she taught her to avoid the pale man. But the
boy grew tired of the north, and after many years,
they met again at a lodge in the creek territory, and
there, the mother being dead and the father away,
the boy and the girl were married—he with no
thought of treachery, for he loved her; she in the
deep seriousness of Indian faith. After they had
been married a few weeks, a missionary fell in the
way of the poor bride while her young husband was
out in search of his father, and persuaded her that
she was living as the bad women of Scripture lived
ages and ages ago, as the pure of heart and proud of
soul should not live. The Indian wife grew sorrowful,
and having satisfied herself that by the law of
the young white man's tribe she was not a wife, she
met him on his way back, and before she would suffer
him to lay his mouth to her forehead, being so taught
by the missionary at her elbow, she demanded of her
boy-husband to be acknowledged by the law of his
tribe, even as he had been acknowledged by the law
of her tribe. At any other time, it may be, for the
boy loved her so much that he grew serious—it may
be that he would have done all that she prayed for—
but now—now, while the prompter stood at her elbow,
and appeared to glory in the power of the church,
the boy said no. A week passed over, and still he
said no—another week, and he and his wife were
apart forever, he mad with jealousy, she stung to the
heart, believing the boy to be even what the missionary
told her he was, a betrayer. But she was a proud
girl and her spirit awoke when the boy deserted her;
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and she prayed the missionary to tell her how she
might be worthy, as worthy as the proud white women
were, of such love as the proud white men bore
toward such as they made their wives by the law.
He told her how to be what the white women are, he
educated her, and his wife trained her to the church,
and they took her away to the sea shore—such is
her story.
But he deceived her, and deceived her at a time
when she needed all the consolation of hope and
faith and charity, for she was beathing the very air
that her husband breathed, and hearing every day
that he was leading a life which would separate them
forever. She inquired of the church, and they told
her with their hands on the bible and with tears in
their eyes, that if she could not reclaim the boy to
the path of truth, virtue, or in other words to the
true faith, he would be miserable, and she happy, in
their future life, that both would be apart, forever and
ever. I will save him! said she—I will save him,
or—and she stopped, and her voice died away, and she
spoke not another word until the interview was
arranged that I saw by the river side.
But who was that other female with her?
I do not know—I never saw her face till she flung
aside her veil and stood before him with outstretched
arms.
What!—was not she that came forward, that pale,
slender creature, the Indian wife you are speaking of?
No, indeed—she was a stranger to me; I never saw
her before.
Indeed!—there is some mystery about this matter;
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I should like to have some talk with Mr. Middleton
about her.
Not for for your life, my dear friend—I am sure he
did not see her, and even I, intimate as we are, would
not mention the subject to him for the world.
After a little further conversation, I found that the
interview was planned by the dear creature at my elbow,
the very woman that we had so cruelly judged
the night before. Upon my word, when I thought of
the conversation that Gage and I held together about
her, and of the dreadful misgiving I had—when I
saw her studying the eyes of Middleton, I was ready to
go down on my knees before her, and bury my head
in her lap and—beg her pardon. However, to make
all sure, I said to her as I got up to go—
My dear Laura—
Well Peter! said she.
Peter!—Oh that unfortunate name of mine! I have
kept it back as long as I could—it has been the death
of me.
I wish I knew exactly what your feelings are toward
that young man—
Gerard Middleton, you mean. Oh, I look upon
him as a sort of child—poor fellow! he has very few
friends in this part of the world, very few, and he regards
me in the light of a mother—
Indeed!
Oh, yes! I often speak of my three children; the
truth is, I love the poor boy very much.
And I love you the more! cried I, for having the
courage to tell me so.
I cannot give him up.—You'll not require that?
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Give him up! No indeed—poor fellow, I pity him
as much as you do, and for your sake I will do any
thing to serve him.
Do you love me, Peter?
God! how I do love you! said I, and then I kissed
her mouth and her eyes, with a feeling of such pure
and innocent joy, as I know it is not in the nature of
a bad man to feel. Laura—I added—Laura! look at
me, I beseech you, while I say that I have such confidence
in you, that if you were my wife—
Her head fell on my shoulder... heigho!
—My wife, dear, and I had to go to the ends of the
earth, I should leave you with such a fixed faith in
your loyalty, that nothing would be able to raise a
doubt or a fear in my mind, save the avowal of unworthiness
from your own lips.
She wept; I could feel the tears trickle over my
hand.
If it should be so, if you should ever be my wife,
you shall not have to reproach me with a lack of confidence
in you—for if there be truth in the heart of
man, love, I would trust you any where on earth—
And well you might!
—With any body on earth...
Here she kissed me, and my heart threw a somerset.
Ay, and strange as it may look to you, were you
my wife now, now while I speak to you, I would give
you up to another man, if I saw that I could not make
you happy, and that that he could, or if I knew
that you loved him better than you loved me.
Ah! smiling through her tears, and shaking her
head—ah my dear, dear Peter.
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I could do so, Laura, for I have done so.
I believe you; and here she kissed me and clung to
me, as if—ah!—as if we had loved each other, and
each other alone, up from our very childhood.
But enough—enough—the catastrophe drew near,
and I—I could neither eat nor sleep for joy; I passed
half my time with her. I saw her every day of my
life—and every day I loved her more and more; I
forgot her age, I forgot her widowhood—I forgot
every thing but her love and her ready-made family,
and the hour that was to make me, not a bridegroom
for a day, but a bridegroom for life.
About a week before the consummation of our marriage
that was to be, my dear Laura grew so affectionate
that I was afraid to trust myself with her. And
one morning as we sat on the deep couch together—
cooing and billing—very much as I am afraid other
people do, when they have a good opportunity, in
spite of their mothers and the preachers, and the story-books,
I played off the hero in such a way, that my
dear, dear Laura, burst into tears, and called me a
godlike man.
I tried to get away, but her overpowering love and
gratitude held me, till we heard a knock at the door,
when she darted out of the room, saying with a sweet
smile—a smile, that I am afraid, will haunt me to
my death-bed, that she would be with me, after the
visiter, whoever he might be, was chaired, and that I
must not be alarmed again, as I had been once before
if she spoke to me on entering the room, just as if I
had not seen her before during the day. I agreed to
this, for I love propriety in every possible shape—
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hough not very fond of trick. By the time she
was out of one door, a stranger entered another.
It was Middleton—he turned very pale when he saw
me, though I supposed he knew every thing: and
more pale, after I told him in reply to a direct enquiry
on his part, that I had seen the widow, and that
she had hurried away but a few moments before
I waited until she made her appearance, gave her my
hand in a hurry, to show that I was not afraid to leave
her in such company, bowed to Middleton, and left
her.
The next day I received a letter from her, just as I
was going out of the door toward her house. I do not
give in the passages that follow, the very words of her
letter—word for word—simply because it contained
a request that I would return it, which I did, and the
passages that follow are given from memory. They
are few—but they are enough to show the character
of the woman.
“I have deceived you and every body else. I
loved Gerard Middleton a year and a half before I
knew you: I love him still, and I have given him
every proof of love I ever gave you, and more—yet I
am not altogether bad.
I love him still better than any other man.—I
hope you will hate me—I esteem and admire
you—I shall never see you again, if I can help it—
never alone certainly.—He knows every thing, and
regards me as he ought; I did intend to see you both
together, to explain myself to both, and to hear from
you both how you scorn and loathe me.—Do not
call—I shall not see you, I have all confidence in you—
it is impossible to have more, but I cannot suffer
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you to keep this terrible letter, for fear of accidents.
I hope you will write and say just what you think of
my behaviour, you need not be afraid to say any thing
to me.—But oh!—I do not speak for myself—oh,
my poor children!—You need not fear that I will
do any thing desperate—I promise you I will not—
when you next hear of me, I shall be more worthy of
your good opinion.”
END OF FIRST VOLUME.
