Читать книгу Brother Jonathan - Hezekiah Butterworth - Страница 5

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Dennis O’Hay, a young Irishman, and a shipwrecked mariner, had been landed at Norwich, Conn., by a schooner which had come into the Thames from Long Island Sound. A lusty, hearty, clear-souled sailor was Dennis; the sun seemed to shine through him, so open to all people was his free and transparent nature.

“The top of the morning to everybody,” he used to say, which feeling of universal brotherhood was quite in harmony with the new country he had unexpectedly found, but of which he had heard much at sea.

Dennis looked around him for some person to whom he might go for advice in the strange country to which he had been brought. He did not have to look far, for the town was not large, but presently a man whose very gait bespoke importance, came walking, or rather marching, down the street. Dennis went up to him.

“An’ it is somebody in particular you must be,” said Dennis. “You seem to me like some high officer that has lost his regiment, cornet, horse, drum-major, and all; no, I beg your pardon. I mean—well, I mean that you seem to me like one who might be more than you are; I beg your pardon again; you look like a magistrate in these new parts.”

“And who are you with your blundering honesty, my friend? You are evidently new to these parts?”

“And it is an Irishman that I am.”

“The Lord forbid, but I am an Englishman.”

“Then we are half brothers.”

“The Lord forbid. What brings you here?”

“Storms, storms, and it is a shipwrecked mariner that I am. And I am as poor as a coot, and you have ruffles, and laces, and buckles, but you have a bit of heart. I can see that in your face. Your blood don’t flow through a muscle. Have you been long in these parts?”

“Longer than I wish to have been. This is the land of blue-laws, as you will find.”

“And it is nothing that I know of the color of the laws, whether they be blue, or red, or white. Can you tell me of some one to whom a shipwrecked sailor could go for a roof to shelter him, and some friendly advice? You may be the very man?”

“No, no, no. I am not your man. My name is Peters, Samuel Peters, and I am loyal to my king and my own country, and here the people’s hearts are turning away from both. I am one too many here. But there is one man in these parts to whom every one in trouble goes for advice. If a goose were to break her leg she would go to him to set it. The very hens go and cackle before his door. Children carry him arbutuses and white lady’s-slippers in the spring, and wild grapes in the fall, and the very Indians double up so when they pass his house on the way to school. His house is in the perpendicular style of architecture, I think. Close by it is a store where they talk Latin and Greek on the grist barrels, and they tell such stories there as one never heard before. He settles all the church and colony troubles, which are many, doctors the sick, and keeps unfaculized people, as they call the poor here, from becoming an expense to the town. He looks solemn, and wears dignified clothes, but he has a heart for everybody; the very dogs run after him in the street, and the little Indian children do the same. He is a kind of Solomon. What other people don’t know, he does. But he has a suspicious eye for me.”

“That is my man, sure,” said Dennis. “Children and dogs know what is in the human heart. What may that man’s name be? Tell me that, and you will be doing me a favor, your Honor.”

“His name is Jonathan Trumbull. They call him ‘Brother Jonathan,’ because he helps everybody, hinders nobody, and tries to make broken-up people over new.”

“And where does he live, your Honor?”

“At a place called Lebanon, there are so many cedars there. I do not go to see him, because I did so once, but while he smiled on every one else, he scowled this way on me, as if he thought that I was not all that I ought to be. He is a magistrate, and everybody in the colony knows him. He marries people, and goes to the funerals of people who go to heaven.”

“That is my man. What are the blue-laws?”

“One of the blue-laws reads that married people must live together or go to jail. If a man and woman who were not married were to go to him to settle a dispute, he would say to them—‘Join your right hands.’ When he rises up to speak in church, the earth stands still, and the hour glass stops, and the sun on the dial. But he has no use for me.”

“That is my man, sure,” said Dennis. “Trumbull, Trumbull, but it was his ship on which I sailed from Derry, and that was lost.”

“He has lost two ships before. It is strange that a man whose meal-chest is open to all should be so unfortunate. It don’t seem to accord with the laws of Providence. I sometimes doubt that he is as good as all the people think him to be.”

“But the fruits of life are not money-making, your Honor. A man’s influence on others is the fruit of life, and what he is and does. A man is worth just what his soul is worth, and not less or more. He is the man that I am after, for sure. How does one get to his house?”

“The open road from Norwich leads straight by his house, all the way to Boston, through Windham County, where lately the frogs had a great battle, and millions of them were slain.”

Dennis opened his eyes.

“Faix?”

“Faix, stranger. Yes, yes; I have just written an account of the battle, to be published in England. After the frogs had a battle, the caterpillars had another, and then the hills at a place called Moodus began to rumble and quake, and become colicky and cough. This is a strange country.

“But these things,” he added, “are of little account in comparison to the fact that the heart of the people is turning against the laws that the good king and his minister make for the welfare of the colony. They allow the people here to be one with the home government by bearing a part of the taxes. And the people’s hearts are becoming alien. I do not wonder that frogs fight, and caterpillars, and that the hills groan and shake and upset milk-pans, and make the maids run they know not where.”

“I must seek that man they call ‘Brother Jonathan.’ Something in me says I must. That way? Well, Dennis O’Hay will start now; it is a sorry story that I will have to tell him, but it is a true heart I will have to take to him.”

“I am going back to England,” said Mr. Peters.

“Well, good-by is it to you,” said Dennis, and the young Irishman set his face toward Lebanon of the cedars, on the road from Boston to Philadelphia by way of New York. He stopped by the way to talk with the people he met about the warlike times, and things happening at Boston town.

His mind was filled with wonder at what he heard. What a curious man the same Brother Jonathan might be! Who were the Indian children? What was the story of the battle of the frogs, and of the caterpillars; what was the cause of the coughing mountains at Moodus; why did Brother Jonathan, a man of such great heart, scowl at the same Mr. Peters, and who was this same Mr. Peters?

Dennis took off his hat as he went on toward Lebanon, turning over in his mind these questions. He swung his hat as he went along, and the blue jays peeked at him and laughed, and the conquiddles (bobolinks) seemed to catch the wonder in his mind, and to fly off to the hazel coverts. Rabbits stood up in the highway, then shook their paws and ran into the berry bushes by the brooks.

Everything seemed strange, as he hurried on, picking berries when he stopped to rest.

At noon the sun glared; fishing hawks, or ospreys, wheeled in the air, screaming. A bear, with her cubs, stopped at the turn of the way. The bear stood up. Dennis stood still.

The bear looked at Dennis, and Dennis at the bear. Then the bear seemed to speak to the cubs, and she and her family bounded into the cedars.

This was not Londonderry. Everything was fresh, shining and new. At night the air was full of the wings of birds, as the morning had been of songs of birds.

The sun of the long day fell at last, and the twilight shone red behind the gray rocks, oaks and cedars.

Dennis sat down on the pine needles.

“It is a sorry tale that I will have to tell Brother Jonathan to-morrow,” said he. “It will hurt my heart to hurt his heart.”

Then the whippoorwills began to sing, and Dennis fell asleep under the moon and stars.

If the reader would know more about Mr. Peters, Samuel Peters, let him consult any colonial library, and he will find there a collection of stories of early Connecticut, such as would tend to make one run home after dark. The same Mr. Peters was an Episcopal clergyman, who did not like the Connecticut main or the “blue-laws.”[1]

[1] See Appendix for some of Rev. Samuel Peters’ queer stories.

Dennis came to the farming town on the hills among the green cedars; he banged on the door of the Governor’s house with his hard knuckles, in real Irish vigor.

The Governor’s wife answered the startling knock.

“And faith it is a shipwrecked sailor. I am from the north of ould Ireland, it is now, and would you be after a man of all work, or any work? There is lots of days of work now in these two fists, lady, and that you may well believe.” He bowed three times.

“The Governor is away from home,” said my lady. “He has gone to New Haven by the sea. What is your name?”

“My name is Dennis O’Hay, an honest name as ever there was in Ireland of the north countrie, and I am an honest man.”

“You look it, my good friend. You have an honest face, but there is fire in it.”

“And there are times, lady, when the coals should burn on the hearth of the heart, and flame up into one’s cheeks and eyes. A storm is coming, lady, a land storm; there are hawks in the air. I would serve you well, lady. It is a true heart that you have. I can see it in your face, lady.”

“And what can you do, Dennis O’Hay? You were bred to the sea.”

“And it is little that I can not do, that any man can do with his two fists. You have brains up here among the hills, lady, but there may come a day that you will need fists as well as brains, and wits more than all, for I am a peaceable man; I can work, and I could suffer or die for such people as you all seem to be up here. The heart of Dennis O’Hay is full of this new cause for liberty. I could throw up my hat over the sun for that cause, lady. I would enlist in that cause, and drag the guns to the battle-field like a packhorse. Oh, I am full of America, honest now, and no blarney.”

“I do not meddle with my husband’s affairs, but I can not turn you away from these doors. How could I send away any man who is willing to enlist for a cause like ours? Dennis O’Hay, go to the tavern over there, and ask for a meal in the name of Faith Trumbull. Then come back here and I will give you the keys to the store in the war office, for I can trust you with the keys, and when my goodman comes back I will send him to you.”

“Lady, this is the time to say a word to you. Ask about me among the other sailors, if they come here, so that you may know that I have lived an honest life. Does not your goodman need a guard?”

“I had never thought of such a thing.”

“You are sending soldiers and food and cattle to the camps, I hear; who knows what General Gage might be led to do? They have secret guards in foreign parts, men of the ‘secret service,’ as they call them. Lady, there are things that come to one, down from the skies, or up from the soul. It is all like the ‘pattern on the mount of vision’ that they preach about. A voice within me has been saying, ‘Go and work for the Governor among the hills, and watch out for him.’ But you must test me first, lady. I would keep you from harm; there is nothing that should ever stand between these two fists of Dennis O’Hay and such as you. But that day will come. I will go to the tavern now, and God and all the saints bless you, and your goodman forever, and make a great nation of this green land of America, and keep the same Dennis O’Hay, which I am that, in the way of his duty.”

The tavern, which became an historic inn, where some of the most notable people of America and of France were entertained during the days of the Revolution, stood at a little distance from the Governor’s house. Dennis O’Hay went there so elated that he tossed his sailor’s hat into the air.

“It is little that I would not do for a lady like that,” he said. “The sea tossed me here on purpose. Night, thou mayest have my service; watch me, ye stars! Liberty, thou mayest have my blood; call me, ye fife and drum. Let me but get at the heart of the Governor, and his life and home shall be secure from all harm under the clear eye of Dennis O’Hay. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! and it is here I am in America!”

The landlord stood in the door.

“And who are you, my friend?”

“Dennis, your Honor.”

“And what brings you here?”

“Not the ship; for the ship went down. What brings me here? My two legs—no——”

He paused, and looked reverent.

“The Hand Unseen. I came to enlist in the struggles for the freedom of America. Give me a bite in the name of the lady down the road.”

“My whole table is at your service, my friend. I like your spirit. We need you here.”

“And here I am—how I got here I do not know, but I am here, and my name is Dennis O’Hay.”

He waited long for the return of the Governor to the war office, or country store, looking out of the window over the tops of the green hills.

“An’ faix, I do believe,” he said at last, “I minds me that this is the day when the world stands still. But, O my eyes, what is it that you see now?”

A light form of a little one came out of the door of the Governor’s house and walked to the war office. It was a girl, beautiful in figure, with a sensitive face, full of sympathy and benevolence.

She opened the door.

“My name is Faith,” said she. “I am Mr. Trumbull’s daughter. I keep store sometimes when my father, the Governor, is away late. I thought I would open the store this afternoon. Customers are likely to come, near nightfall.”

“I would help you tend store,” said Dennis O’Hay, “if I only knew how. It is not handy at a bargain that I would be now, and barter people, if you call them that here, would all get the best of me. But I may be able to do such things some day.”

He looked out of the window, and suddenly exclaimed—“Look!”

A man on a noble horse was coming, flying as it seemed, down the Lebanon road from the Windham County hills. His horse leaped into the air at times, as full of high spirit, and dashed up to the store.

Faith, the beautiful girl, went to the door.

“He is gone to New Haven, Mr. Putnam.”

“I want to see him at once; there is secret news from Boston. But I must see him. I must not leave here until he returns. I will go over to the tavern and wait.”

Dennis came out and stood in front of the store.

“Stranger,” said the rider, “and who are you? You do not look like a farmer.”

“Who am I? I am myself, sure, a foreigner among foreigners, Dennis O’Hay, a castaway, from the north of Ireland.”

“And what brings you here?”

“I came to enlist,” said Dennis.

“You will be wanted,” said Mr. Putnam. “You have shoulders as broad as Atlas, who carried the world on his back.”

“The world on his back? What did he walk upon?”

“That is a question too much,” said the rider. “I’ll leave my horse in your hands, Dennis O’Hay, and go to the tavern and see what I can find out about the Governor’s movements there.”

He strode across the green.

The sun was going down, sending up red and golden lances, as it were, over the dark shades of the cedars. On the hills lay great farms half in glittering sunlight, half in dark shadows.

“Have you any thought when the Governor will return?” asked the rider of the tavern-keeper.

“No, Israel, I have not—but I hear that there is important news from Boston—that it is suspected that the British are about to make a move to capture the stores of American powder at Concord. The Governor, I mind me, knows something about the secrets of powder hiding, but of that I can not be sure.”

“Great events are at hand,” said Putnam. “I can feel them in the air. I had the same feeling before the northern campaign. I must stay here until the Governor arrives.”

“You shall have the best the tavern affords,” said the innkeeper.

The sun went down blazing on the hills, seeming like a far gate of heaven, as its semicircular splendors filled the sky. Then came the hour of shadows with the advent of the early stars, and then the grand procession of the night march of the hosts of heaven that looks bright indeed over the dark cedars.

The air was silent, as though the world were dead. The taverners listened long in front of the tavern for the sound of horses’ feet on the Lebanon road.

“Will the Governor come alone?” asked Dennis O’Hay of Israel Putnam, the rider.

“Yes, my sailor friend; who is there to harm him?”

“But there will be danger. There ought to be a guard on the Lebanon road. Did not the Governor save the powder, ammunition, and stores, in the northern war? So they said at Norwich. Some day General Gage will put a long eyes on him.”

“Silence!”

The taverners went into the tavern and sat down in the common room.

“I will wait until midnight before I go to my room. My message to the Governor must be delivered as soon as he returns.”

The public room was lighted with candles, and a fire was kindled on the hearth. It was spring, but a hearth fire had a cheerful glow even then.

The taverners talked of the military events around Boston town, then told stories of adventure. Dennis came from the store, and sat down with the rest.

“Mr. Putnam,” said one of them, “the story of your hunting the she-wolf is told in all the houses of the new towns, but we have never heard it from yourself. The clock weights sink low, and we wish to keep awake. Tell us about that wily wolf, and how you felt when your eyes met hers in the cave.”