Читать книгу Judge Haliburton's Yankee Stories (Part 2 of 2) - Thomas Chandler Haliburton - Страница 5

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The day after our arrival at Windsor, being Sunday, we were compelled to remain there until the following Tuesday, so as to have one day at our command to visit the College, Retreat Farm, and the other objects of interest in the neighbourhood. One of the inhabitants having kindly offered me a seat in his pew, I accompanied him to the church, which, for the convenience of the College, was built nearly a mile from the village. From him I learned, that independently of the direct influence of the Church of England upon its own members, who form a very numerous and respectable portion of the inhabitants of Nova Scotia, its indirect operation has been both extensive and important in this colony.

The friends of the establishment, having at an early period founded a college, and patronised education, the professions have been filled with scholars and gentlemen, and the natural and very proper emulation of other sects being thus awakened to the importance of the subject, they have been stimulated to maintain and endow academies of their own.

The general diffusion through the country of a well-educated body of clergymen, like those of the establishment, has had a strong tendency to raise the standard of qualification among those who differ from them, while the habits, manners, and regular conduct of so respectable a body of men naturally and unconsciously modulate and influence those of their neighbours, who may not perhaps attend their ministrations. It is, therefore, among other causes doubtless, owing in a great measure to the exertions and salutary example of the Church in the Colonies that a higher tone of moral feeling exists in the British Provinces than in the neighbouring states, a claim which I find very generally put forth in this country, and though not exactly admitted, yet certainly not denied even by Mr. Slick himself. The suggestions of this gentleman induced me to make some inquiries of the Clockmaker, connected with the subject of an establishment; I therefore asked him what his opinion was of the Voluntary System. Well, I don’t know, said he; what is your’n? I am a member, I replied, of the Church of England; you may, therefore, easily suppose what my opinion is. And I am a citizen, said he, laughing, of Slickville, Onion county, state of Connecticut, United States of America: you may therefore guess what my opinion is too: I reckon we are even now, ar’n’t we? To tell you the truth, said he, I never thought much about it. I’ve been a considerable of a traveller in my day; arovin’ about here and there and every whare; atradin’ wherever I seed a good chance of making a speck; paid my shot into the plate, whenever it was handed round in meetin’, and axed no questions. It was about as much as I could cleverly do, to look arter my own consarns, and I left the ministers to look arter theirn; but take ’em in a gineral way, they are pretty well to do in the world with us, especially as they have the women on their side. Whoever has the women, is sure of the men, you may depend, squire; openly or secretly, directly or indirectly, they do contrive, somehow or another, to have their own way in the eend, and tho’ the men have the reins, the women tell ’em which way to drive. Now, if ever you go for to canvass for votes, always canvass the wives, and you are sure of the husbands.

I recollect when I was last up to Albama, to one of the new cities lately built there, I was awalkin’ one mornin’ airly out o’ town to get a leetle fresh air, for the weather was so plaguy sultry I could hardly breathe a’most, and I seed a most splendid location there near the road; a beautiful white two-story house, with a grand virandah runnin’ all round it, painted green, and green vernitians to the winders, and a white palisade fence in front, lined with a row of Lombardy poplars, and two rows of ’em leadin’ up to the front door, like two files of sodgers with fixt baganuts; each side of the avenue was a grass plot, and a beautiful image of Adam stood in the centre of one on ’em—and of Eve, with a fig-leaf apron on, in t’other, made of wood by a native artist, and painted so nateral no soul could tell ’em from stone.

The avenue was all planked beautiful, and it was lined with flowers in pots and jars, and looked a touch above common, I tell you. While I was astoppin’ to look at it, who should drive by but the milkman with his cart. Says I, stranger, says I, I suppose you don’t know who lives here, do you? I guess you are a stranger, said he, ain’t you? Well, says I, I don’t exactly know as I ain’t, but who lives here? The Rev. Ahab Meldrum, said he, I reckon. Ahab Meldrum, said I, to myself; I wonder if it can be the Ahab Meldrum I was to school with to Slickville, to minister’s, when we was boys. It can’t be possible it’s him, for he was fitter for a State’s prisoner than a State’s preacher, by a long chalk. He was a poor stick to make a preacher on, for minister couldn’t beat nothin’ into him a’most, he was so cussed stupid; but I’ll see any how: so I walks right through the gate, and raps away at the door, and a tidy, well-rigged nigger help opens it, and shows me into a’most an elegant farnished room. I was most darnted to sit down on the chairs, they were so splendid, for fear I should spile ’em. There was mirrors and varses, and lamps, and picturs, and crinkum crankums, and notions of all sorts and sizes in it. It looked like a bazar a’most, it was filled with such an everlastin’ sight of curiosities.

The room was considerable dark too, for the blinds was shot, and I was skear’d to move for fear o’ doin’ mischief. Presently in comes Ahab slowly sailin’ in, like a boat droppin’ down stream in a calm, with a pair o’ purple slippers on, and a figured silk dressin’-gound, and carrying a’most a beautiful-bound book in his hand. May I presume, says he, to inquire who I have the onexpected pleasure of seeing this mornin’. If you’ll gist throw open one o’ them are shutters, says I, I guess the light will save us the trouble of axin’ names. I know who you be by your voice any how, tho’ it’s considerable softer than it was ten years ago. I’m Sam Slick, says I,—what’s left o’ me at least. Verily, said he, friend Samuel, I’m glad to see you; and how did you leave that excellent man and distinguished scholar, the Rev. Mr. Hopewell, and my good friend your father? Is the old gentleman still alive? if so, he must anow be ripe full of years as he is full of honours. Your mother, I think I heer’d, was dead—gathered to her fathers—peace be with her!—she had a good and a kind heart. I loved her as a child: but the Lord taketh whom he loveth. Ahab, says I, I have but a few minutes to stay with you, and if you think to draw the wool over my eyes, it might perhaps take you a longer time than you are athinking on, or than I have to spare;—there are some friends you’ve forgot to inquire after tho’,—there’s Polly Bacon and her little boy.

Spare me, Samuel, spare me, my friend, says he; open not that wound afresh, I beseech thee. Well, says I, none o’ your nonsense then; show me into a room where I can spit, and feel to home, and put my feet upon the chairs without adamagin’ things, and I’ll sit and smoke and chat with you a few minutes; in fact I don’t care if I stop and breakfast with you, for I feel considerable peckish this mornin’. Sam, says he, atakin’ hold of my hand, you were always right up and down, and as straight as a shingle in your dealin’s. I can trust you, I know, but mind,—and he put his fingers on his lips—mum is the word;—bye gones are bye gones,—you wouldn’t blow an old chum among his friends, would you? I scorn a nasty, dirty, mean action, says I, as I do a nigger. Come, foller me, then, says he;—and he led me into a back room, with an oncarpeted painted floor, farnished plain, and some shelves in it, with books and pipes and cigars, pig-tail and what not. Here’s liberty-hall, said he; chew, or smoke, or spit as you please;—do as you like here; we’ll throw off all resarve now; but mind that cursed nigger; he has a foot like a cat, and an ear for every keyhole—don’t talk too loud.

Well, Sam, said he, I’m glad to see you too, my boy; it puts me in mind of old times. Many’s the lark you and I have had together in Slickville, when old Hunks—(it made me start, that he meant Mr. Hopewell, and it made me feel kinder dandry at him, for I wouldn’t let any one speak disrespectful of him afore me for nothin’ I know,)—when old Hunks thought we was abed. Them was happy days—the days o’ light heels and light hearts. I often think on ’em, and think on ’em too with pleasure. Well, Ahab, says I, I don’t gist altogether know as I do; there are some things we might gist as well a’most have left alone, I reckon; but what’s done is done, that’s a fact. Ahem! said he, so loud, I looked round and I seed two niggers bringin’ in the breakfast, and a grand one it was,—tea and coffee and Indgian corn cakes, and hot bread and cold bread, fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, boiled, and fried; presarves, pickles, fruits; in short, every thing a’most you could think on. You needn’t wait, said Ahab, to the blacks; I’ll ring for you, when I want you; we’ll help ourselves.

Well, when I looked round and seed this critter alivin’ this way, on the fat o’ the land, up to his knees in clover like, it did pose me considerable to know how he worked it so cleverly, for he was thought always, as a boy, to be rather more than half onder-baked, considerable soft-like. So, says I, Ahab, says I, I calculate you’r like the cat we used to throw out of minister’s garrat-winder, when we was aboardin’ there to school. How so, Sam? said he. Why, says I, you always seem to come on your feet some how or other. You have got a plaguy nice thing of it here; that’s a fact, and no mistake (the critter had three thousand dollars a-year); how on airth did you manage it? I wish in my heart I had ataken up the trade o’ preachin’ too; when it does hit it does capitally, that’s sartain. Why, says he, if you’ll promise not to let on to any one about it, I’ll tell you. I’ll keep dark about it, you may depend, says I. I’m not a man that can’t keep nothin’ in my gizzard, but go right off and blart out all I hear. I know a thing worth two o’ that, I guess. Well, says he, it’s done by a new rule I made in grammar—the feminine gender is more worthy than the neuter, and the neuter more worthy than the masculine; I gist soft sawder the women. It ’taint every man will let you tickle him; and if you do, he’ll make faces at you enough to frighten you into fits; but tickle his wife, and it’s electrical—he’ll laugh like any thing. They are the forred wheels, start them, and the hind ones foller of course. Now it’s mostly women that tend meetin’ here; the men-folks have their politics and trade to talk over, and what not, and ain’t time; but the ladies go considerable rigular, and we have to depend on them, the dear critters. I gist lay myself out to get the blind side o’ them, and I sugar and gild the pill so as to make it pretty to look at and easy to swaller. Last Lord’s day, for instance, I preached on the death of the widder’s son. Well, I drew such a pictur of the lone watch at the sick bed, the patience, the kindness, the tenderness of women’s hearts, their forgiving disposition—(the Lord forgive me for saying so, tho’, for if there is a created critter that never forgives, it’s a woman; they seem to forgive a wound on their pride, and it skins over and looks all healed up like, but touch ’em on the sore spot ag’in, and see how cute their memory is)—their sweet temper, soothers of grief, dispensers of joy, ministrin’ angels.—I make all the virtues of the feminine gender always,—then I wound up with a quotation from Walter Scott. They all like poetry, do the ladies, and Shakspeare, Scott, and Byron are amazin’ favourites; they go down much better than them old-fashioned staves o’ Watts.

“Oh woman, in our hour of ease,

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,

And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;

When pain and anguish wring the brow,

A ministering angel thou.”

If I didn’t touch it off to the nines it’s a pity. I never heerd you preach so well, says one, since you was located here. I drew from natur’, says I, a squezin’ of her hand. Nor never so touchin’, says another. You know my moddle, says I, lookin’ spooney on her. I fairly shed tears, said a third; how often have you drawn them from me! says I. So true, says they, and so nateral, and truth and natur’ is what we call eloquence. I feel quite proud, says I, and considerable elated, my admired sisters,—for who can judge so well as the ladies of the truth of the description of their own virtues? I must say, I felt somehow kinder inadequate to the task too, I said,—for the depth and strength and beauty of the female heart passes all understandin’.

When I left ’em I heerd ’em say, ain’t he a dear man, a feelin’ man, a sweet critter, a’most a splendid preacher; none o’ your mere moral lecturers, but a rael right down genuine gospel preacher. Next day I received to the tune of one hundred dollars in cash, and fifty dollars produce, presents from one and another. The truth is, if a minister wants to be popular he should remain single, for then the gals all have a chance for him; but the moment he marries he’s up a tree; his flint is fixed then; you may depend it’s gone goose with them arter that; that’s a fact. No, Sam; they are the pillars of the temple, the dear little critters.—And I’ll give you a wrinkle for your horn, perhaps you ain’t got yet, and it may be some use to you when you go down atradin’ with the benighted colonists in the outlandish British provinces. The road to the head lies through the heart. Pocket, you mean, instead of head, I guess, said I; and if you don’t travel that road full chissel it’s a pity.—Well, says I, Ahab, when I go to Slickville I’ll gist tell Mr. Hopewell what a most precious, superfine, superior darn’d rascal you have turned out; if you ain’t No. 1, letter A, I want to know who is, that’s all. You do beat all, Sam, said he; it’s the system that’s vicious, and not the preacher. If I didn’t give ’em the soft sawder they would neither pay me nor hear me; that’s a fact. Are you so soft in the horn now, Sam, as to suppose that the gals would take the trouble to come to hear me tell ’em of their corrupt natur’ and fallen condition; and first thank me, and then pay me for it? Very entertainin’ that to tell ’em the worms will fatten on their pretty little rosy cheeks, and that their sweet plump flesh is nothin’ but grass, flourishin’ to-day, and to be cut down withered and rotten to-morrow; ain’t it? It ain’t in the natur’ o’ things, if I put them out o’ concait o’ themselves, I can put them in concait o’ me; or that they will come down handsome, and do the thing ginteel, its gist onpossible. It warn’t me made the system, but the system made me. The voluntary don’t work well.

System or no system, said I, Ahab, you are Ahab still, and Ahab you’ll be to the eend o’ the chapter. You may decaive the women by soft sawder, and yourself by talkin’ about systems, but you won’t walk into me so easy, I know. It ain’t pretty at all. Now, said I, Ahab, I told you I wouldn’t blow you, nor will I. I will neither speak o’ things past nor things present. I know you wouldn’t, Sam, said he; you were always a good feller. But it’s on one condition, says I, and that is that you allow Polly Bacon a hundred dollars a-year—she was a good gall and a decent gall when you first know’d her, and she’s in great distress now to Slickville, I tell you. That’s onfair, that’s onkind, Sam, said he; that’s not the clean thing; I can’t afford it; it’s a breach o’ confidence this, but you got me on the hip, and I can’t help myself; say fifty dollars, and I will. Done, said I, and mind you’re up to the notch, for I’m in earnest—there’s no mistake. Depend upon me, said he, and, Sam, said he, a shakin’ hands along with me at partin’,—excuse me, my good feller, but I hope I may never have the pleasure to see your face ag’in. Ditto, says I; but mind the fifty dollars a-year, or you will see me to a sartainty—good b’ye.

How different this cussed critter was from poor, dear, good, old Joshua Hopewell. I seed him not long arter. On my return to Connecticut, gist as I was apassin’ out o’ Molasses into Onion County, who should I meet but minister amounted upon his horse, old Captain Jack. Jack was a racker, and in his day about as good a beast as ever hoisted tail, (you know what a racker is, don’t you squire? said the clockmaker; they bring up the two feet on one side first, together like, and then t’other two at once, the same way; and they do get over the ground at a most an amazin’ size, that’s sartin,) but poor old critter, he looked pretty streak’d. You could count his ribs as far as you could see him, and his skin was drawn so tight over him, every blow of minister’s cane on him sounded like a drum, he was so holler. A candle poked into him lighted would have shown through him like a lantern. He carried his head down to his knees, and the hide seem’d so scant a pattern, he showed his teeth like a cross dog, and it started his eyes and made ’em look all outside like a weasel’s. He actilly did look as if he couldn’t help it. Minister had two bags roll’d up and tied on behind him, like a portmanter, and was ajogging on alookin’ down on his horse, and the horse alookin’ down on the road, as if he was seekin’ a soft spot to tumble down upon.

It was curious to see Captain Jack too, when he heerd old Clay acoming along full split behind him; he cock’d up his head and tail, and prick’d up his ears, and look’d corner ways out of his eye, as much as to say, if you are for a lick of a quarter of a mile I don’t feel much up to it, but I’ll try you any way;—so here’s at you. He did try to do pretty, that’s sartin, as if he was ashamed of looking so like Old Scratch, gist as a feller does up the shirt-collar and combs his hair with his fingers, afore he goes into the room among the galls.

The poor skilliton of a beast was ginger to the backbone, you may depend—all clear grit; what there was of him was whalebone; that’s a fact. But minister had no rally about him; he was proper chap-fallen, and looked as dismal as if he had lost every friend that he had on airth. Why, minister, says I, what onder the sun is the matter of you? You and Captain Jack look as if you had the cholera; what makes you so dismal and your horse so thin? what’s out o’ joint now? Nothin’ gone wrong, I hope, since I left? Nothin’ has gone right with me, Sam, of late, said he; I’ve been sorely tried with affliction, and my spirit is fairly humbled. I’ve been more insulted this day, my son, than I ever was afore in all my born days. Minister, says I, I’ve gist one favour to ax o’ you; give me the sinner’s name, and afore daybreak to-morrow mornin’ I’ll bring him to a reck’nin’ and see how the balance stands. I’ll kick him from here to Washington, and from Washington back to Slickville, and then I’ll cow-skin him, till this riding-whip is worn up to shoe-strings, and pitch him clean out o’ the State. The infarnal villain! tell me who he is, and if he war as big as all out-doors, I’d walk into him. I’ll teach him the road to good manners, if he can save eyesight to see it,—hang me if I don’t. I’d like no better fun, I vow. So gist show me the man, that darst insult you, and if he does so ag’in, I’ll give you leave to tell me of it. Thank you, Sam, says he; thank you, my boy, but it’s beyond your help. It ain’t a parsonal affront of that natur’, but a spiritual affront. It ain’t an affront offered to me as Joshua Hopewell, so much as an affront to the minister of Slickville. That is worse still, said I, because you can’t resent it yourself. Leave him to me, and I’ll fix his flint for him.

It’s a long story, Sam, and one to raise grief, but not anger;—you musn’t talk or think of fightin’, it’s not becoming a Christian man, but here’s my poor habitation, put up your horse and come in, and we’ll talk this affair over by and by. Come in and see me,—for, sick as I am, both in body and mind, it will do me good. You was always a kind-hearted boy, Sam, and I’m glad to see the heart in the right place yet;—come in, my son. Well, when we got into the house, and sot down,—says I, minister, what the dickens was them two great rolls o’ canvass for, I seed snugg’d up and tied to your crupper? You looked like a man who had taken his grist to mill, and was returnin’ with the bags for another; and what onder the sun had you in them? I’ll tell you, Sam, said he,—you know, said he,—when you was to home, we had a State Tax for the support o’ the church, and every man had to pay his share to some church or another. I mind, said I, quite well. Well, said he, the inimy of souls has been to work among us, and instigated folks to think this was too compulsory for a free people, and smelt too strong of establishments, and the legislatur’ repealed the law; so now, instead o’ havin’ a rigilar legal stipind, we have what they call the voluntary,—every man pays what he likes, when he likes, and to whom he likes, or if it don’t convene him he pays nothin’;—do you apprehend me? As clear as a boot-jack, says I; nothin’ could be plainer, and I suppose that some o’ your factory people that make canvass have given you a present of two rolls of it to make bags to hold your pay in? My breeches’ pockets, says he, Sam, ashakin’ o’ his head, I estimate, are big enough for that. No, Sam; some subscribe and some don’t. Some say, we’ll give, but we’ll not bind ourselves;—and some say, we’ll see about it. Well, I’m e’en a’most starved, and Captain Jack does look as poor as Job’s turkey; that’s a fact. So I thought, as times was hard, I’d take the bags and get some oats for him, from some of my subscribin’ congregation;—it would save them the cash, and suit me gist as well as the blunt. Wherever I went, I might have filled my bags with excuses, but I got no oats;—but that warn’t the worst of it neither, they turned the tables on me and took me to task. A new thing that for me, I guess, in my old age, to stand up to be catekised like a convarted Heathen. Why don’t you, says one, jine the Temperance Society, minister? Because, says I, there’s no warrant for it in Scriptur’, as I see. A Christian obligation to sobriety is, in my mind, afore any engagement on honour. Can’t think, says he, of payin’ to a minister that countenances drunkenness. Says another,—minister, do you smoke? Yes, says I, I do sometimes; and I don’t care if I take a pipe along with you now;—it seems sociable like. Well, says he, it’s an abuse o’ the critter,—a waste o’ valuable time, and an encouragement of slavery; I don’t pay to upholders of the slave system; I go the whole figur’ for abolition. One found me too Calvinistic, and another too Arminian; one objected to my praying for the President,—for, he said, he was an everlastin’ almighty rascal;—another to my wearin’ a gown, for it was too Popish. In short, I git nothin’ but objections to a’most every thing I do or say, and I see considerable plain my income is gone; I may work for nothin’ and find thread now, if I choose. The only one that paid me, cheated me. Says he, minister, I’ve been alookin’ for you for some time past, to pay my contribution, and I laid by twenty dollars for you. Thank you, said I, friend, but that is more than your share; ten dollars, I think, is the amount of your subscription. Well, says he, I know that, but I like to do things handsum’, and he who gives to a minister lends to the Lord;—but, says he, I’m afeer’d it won’t turn out so much now, for the bank has fail’d since. It’s a pity you hadn’t acall’d afore, but you must take the will for the deed. And he handed me a roll of the Bubble Bank paper, that ain’t worth a cent. Are you sure, said I, that you put this aside for me when it was good? O sartain, says he, I’ll take my oath of it. There’s no ’casion for that, says I, my friend, nor for me to take more than my due neither;—here are ten of them back again. I hope you may not lose them altogether, as I fear I shall. But he cheated me,—I know he did.

This is the blessin’ of the voluntary, as far as I’m consarned. Now I’ll tell you how it’s agoin’ to work upon them; not through my agency tho’, for I’d die first;—afore I’d do a wrong thing to gain the whole univarsal world. But what are you adoin’ of, Sam, said he, acrackin’ of that whip so, says he; you’ll e’en amost deefen me. Atryin’ of the spring of it, says I. The night afore I go down to Nova Scotia, I’ll teach ’em Connecticut quick-step—I’ll larn ’em to make somersets—I’ll make ’em cut more capers than the caravan monkey ever could to save his soul alive, I know. I’ll quilt ’em, as true as my name is Sam Slick; and if they foller me down east, I’ll lambaste them back a plaguy sight quicker than they came; the nasty, dirty, mean, sneaking villains. I’ll play them a voluntary—I’ll fa la sol them, to a jig tune, and show ’em how to count baker’s dozen. Crack, crack, crack, that’s the music, minister; crack, crack, crack, I’ll set all Slickville ayelpin’!

I’m in trouble enough, Sam, says he, without addin’ that are to it; don’t quite break my heart, for such carryin’s on would near about kill me. Let the poor deluded critters be, promise me now. Well, well, says I, if you say so it shall be so;—but I must say, I long to be at ’em. But how is the voluntary agoin’ for to operate on them? Emitic, diuretic, or purgative, eh? I hope it will be all three, and turn them inside out, the ungrateful scoundrils, and yet not be gist strong enough to turn them back ag’in. Sam you’re an altered man, says he. It appears to me the whole world is changed. Don’t talk so on-Christian: we must forget and forgive. They will be the greatest sufferers themselves, poor critters, havin’ destroyed the independence of their minister,—their minister will pander to their vanity. He will be afeer’d to tell them unpalatable truths. Instead of tellin’ ’em they are miserable sinners in need of repentance, he will tell ’em they are a great nation and a great people, will quote more history than the Bible, and give ’em orations not sarmons, encomiums and not censures. Presents, Sam, will bribe indulgences. The minister will be a dum dog! It sarves ’em right, says I; I don’t care what becomes of them. I hope they will be dum dogs, for dum dogs bite, and if they drive you mad,—as I believe from my soul they will,—I hope you’ll bite every one on ’em.

But, says I, minister, talkin’ of presents, I’ve got one for you that’s somethin’ like the thing, I know; and I took out my pocket-book and gave him a hundred dollars. I hope I may be shot if I didn’t. I felt so sorry for him.

Who’s this from? said he, smilin’. From Alabama, said I; but the giver told me not to mention his name. Well, said he, I’d arather he’d asent me a pound of good Virginy pig-tail, because I could have thank’d him for that, and not felt too much obligation. Presents of money injure both the giver and receiver, and destroy the equilibrium of friendship, and diminish independence and self-respect: but it’s all right; it will enable me to send neighbour Dearbourn’s two sons to school. It will do good. ’Cute little fellers them, Sam, and will make considerable smart men, if they are properly seed to; but the old gentleman, their father, is, like myself, nearly used up, and plaguy poor. Thinks I, if that’s your sort, old gentleman, I wish I had my hundred dollars in my pocket-book ag’in, as snug as a bug in a rug, and neighbour Dearbourn’s two sons might go and whistle for their schoolin’. Who the plague cares whether they have any larning or not? I’m sure I don’t. It’s the first of the voluntary system I’ve tried, and I’m sure it will be the last.

Yes, yes, squire, the voluntary don’t work well,—that’s a fact. Ahab has lost his soul to save his body, minister has lost his body to save his soul, and I’ve lost my hundred dollars slap to save my feelins’. The duce take the voluntary, I say.