Читать книгу Judge Haliburton's Yankee Stories (Part 2 of 2) - Thomas Chandler Haliburton - Страница 6

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In the evening we sauntered out on the bank of the river, Mr. Slick taking his rifle with him, to shoot blue-winged duck, that often float up the Avon with the tide in great numbers. He made several shots with remarkable accuracy, but having no dogs we lost all the birds, but two, in the eddies of this rapid river. It was a delightful evening, and on our return we ascended the cliff that overlooks the village and the surrounding country, and sat down on the projecting point of limestone rock, to enjoy the glories of the sunset.

This evenin’, said Mr. Slick, reminds me of one I spent the same way at Toronto, in Upper Canada, and of a conversation I had with a British traveller there. There was only himself and me at the inn, and havin’ nothin’ above partikilar to do, says I, ’spose we take the rifle and walk down by the lake this splendid afternoon; who knows but we might see somethin’ or another to shoot? So off we sot, and it was so cool and pleasant we stroll’d a considerable distance up the beach, which is like this, all limestone gravel, only cleaner and less sedement in it.

When we got tired of the glare of the water, and a nasty yallor scum that was on it at that season, we turned up a road that led into the woods. Why, says I, if there ain’t a Carriboo, as I’m alive. Where? said he, seizin’ the rifle, and bringin’ it to his shoulder with great eagerness,—where is it? for heaven’s sake let me have a shot at it! I have long wish’d, said he, to have it to say, before I leave the province, that I had performed that feat of killin’ a Carriboo. Oh, Lord! said I, throwin’ up the point of the gun to prevent an accident,—Oh, Lord! it ain’t one o’ them are sort o’ critters at all; it’s a human Carriboo. It’s a member, him that’s in that are gig, lookin’ as wise as a barber’s block with a new wig on it. The Toronto folks call ’em Carriboos, ’cause they are untamed wild critters from the woods, and come down in droves to the legislatur’. I guess he’s agoin’ to spend the night to the hotel, where we be; if he is, I’ll bring him into our room and train him: you’ll see what sort o’ folks makes laws sometimes. I do believe, arter all, says I, this univarsal suffrage will make univarsal fools of us all;—it ain’t one man in a thousand knows how to choose a horse, much less a member, and yet there are some standin’ rules about the horse, that most any one can larn, if he’ll give his mind to it. There’s the mark o’ mouth,—then there’s the limbs, shape, make, and soundness of ’em; the eye, the shoulder, and, above all, the action. It seems all plain enough, and yet it takes a considerable ’cute man to make a horse-jockey, and a little grain of the rogue too; for there is no mistake about the matter—you must lie a few to put ’em off well. Now, that’s only the lowest grade of knowledge. It takes more skill yet to be a nigger-jockey. A nigger-jockey, said he; for heaven’s sake, what is that? I never heer’d the term afore, since I was a created sinner—I hope I may be shot if I did. Possible, said I, never heer’d tell of a nigger-jockey! My sakes, you must come to the States then;—we’ll put more wrinkles on your horns in a month than you’ll get in twenty years here, for these critters don’t know nothin’. A nigger-jockey, sir, says I, is a gentleman that trades in niggers,—buys them in one State, and sells them in another, where they ar’n’t known. It’s a beautiful science, is nigger flesh; it’s what the lawyers call a liberal profession. Uncle Enoch made enough in one year’s tradin’ in niggers to buy a splendid plantation; but it ain’t every one that’s up to it. A man must have his eye teeth cut afore he takes up that trade, or he is apt to be let in for it himself, instead of putting a leake into others; that’s a fact. Niggers don’t show their age like white folk, and they are most always older than they look. A little rest, ilein’ the joints, good feed, a clean shirt, a false tooth or two, and dyin’ the wool black if it’s got gray, keepin’ ’em close shav’d, and gist given’ ’em a glass ’o whiskey or two afore the sale, to brighten up the eye, has put off many an old nigger of fifty-five for forty. It does more than trimmin’ and groomin’ a horse, by a long chalk. Then if a man knows geography, he fixes on a spot in the next State for meetin’ ag’in, slips a few dollars in Sambo’s hand, and Sambo slips the halter off in the manger, meets massa there, and is sold a second time ag’in. Wash the dye out, let the beard grow, and remove the tooth, and the devil himself couldn’t swear to him ag’in.

If it takes so much knowledge to choose a horse, or choose a nigger, what must it take to choose a member?—Who knows he won’t give the people the slip as Sambo does the first master; ay, and look as different too, as a nigger does, when the dye rubs out, and his black wool looks white ag’in. Ah, squire, there are tricks in all trades, I do believe, except the clock trade. The nigger business, says I, is apt to get a man into court, too, as much as the horse trade, if he don’t know the quirks of the law. I shall never forget a joke I passed off once on a Southerner. I had been down to Charleston, South Carr, where brother Siah is located as a lawyer, and drives a considerable business in that line. Well, one day as I was awalkin’ along out o’ town, asmokin’ of my cigar, who should I meet but a poor old nigger, with a’most an almighty heavy load of pine-wood on his back, as much as he could cleverly stagger onder. Why, Sambo, said I, whose slave be you? You’ve got a considerable of a heavy load there for a man of your years. Oh, Massa, says he, Gor Ormighty bless you (and he laid down his load, and puttin’ one hand on his loins, and t’other on his thigh, he tried to straighten himself up.) I free man now, I no longer slave no more. I purchased my freedom from Gineral Crocodile, him that keeps public at Mud Creek. Oh, Massa, but him gineral took me in terrible, by gosh! Says he, Pompey, says he, you one werry good nigger, werry faithful nigger. I great opinion of you, Pompey; I make a man of you, you dam old tar-brush. I hope I may be skinned alive with wild cats if I don’t. How much money you save, Pomp? Hunder dollars, says I. Well, says he, I will sell you your freedom for that are little sum. Oh, massa gineral, I said, I believe I lib and die wid you;—what old man like me do now? I too old for freeman. O no, massa, leab poor old Pomp to die among de niggers. I tend young massa Gineral and little missy Gineral, and teach ’em how to cow-skin de black villains. Oh, you smart man yet, he says,—quite sound, werry smart man, you airn a great deal o’ money:—I too great regard for you to keep you slave any longer. Well, he persuade me at last, and I buy freedom, and now I starve. I hab no one to take care ob me now; I old and good for nothin’—I wish old Pomp very much dead;—and he boohood right out like a child. Then he sold you to yourself, did he? Yes, massa, said he, and here de paper and de bill ob sale. And he told you you sound man yet? True, massa, ebbery word. Then, says I, come along with me; and I toated him along into Siah’s office. Sy, says I, here’s a job for you. Gineral Crocodile sold this poor old nigger to himself, and warrinted him sound wind and limb. He cheated him like a cantin’ hypocritical sinner as he is, for he’s foundered in his right foot, and ringboned on the left. Sue him on his warranty—there’s some fun in’t.—Fun, said Sy, I tell you it’s a capital joke; and he jump’d up and danced round his office asnappin’ of his fingers, as if he were bit by a galley-nipper. How it will comflustrigate old Sim Ileter, the judge, won’t it? I’ll bambousle him, I’ll befogify his brain for him with warranties general, special, and implied, texts, notes, and comentries. I’ll lead him a dance through civil law, and common law, and statute law; I’ll read old Latin, old French, and old English to him; I’ll make his head turn like a mill-stone; I’ll make him stare like an owl atrying to read by day-light; and he larfed ready to kill himself. Sure enough he did bother him so agoin’ up from one court to another, that Crocodile was glad to compound the matter to get clear of the joke, and paid old Pomp his hundred dollars back again; that’s a fact.

In the course of the evenin’, Mr. Buck, the member elect for the township of Flats, in the Home district, came in, and I introduced him with much ceremony to the Britisher, agivin’ of him a wink at the same time, as much as to say, now I’ll show you the way to train a Carriboo. Well, Squire Buck, said I, I vow I’m glad to see you;—how did you leave Mrs. Buck and all to home?—all well, I hope? Reasonable well, I give you thanks, sir, said he. And so they’ve elected you a member, eh? Well, they wanted some honest men among ’em—that’s a fact, and some onderstandin’ men too; how do you go, Tory or Radical? Oh, pop’lar side of course, said Mr. Buck. M’Kenzie and Papinau have open’d my eyes I tell you; I had no notion afore our government was so rotten—I’m for elective councils, short parliaments, ballot, universal suffrage, and ag’in all officials. Right, said I, you are on the right side then, and no mistake. You’ve a plain path afore you; go straight ahead, and there’s no fear. I should like to do so, said he, but I don’t understand these matters enough, I’m afeer’d, to probe ’em to the bottom; perhaps you’ll be so good as to advise me a little. I should like to talk over these things with you, as they say you are a considerable of an onderstandin’ man, and have seed a good deal of the world. Well, said I, nothin’ would hapify me more, I do assure you. Be independent, that’s the great thing; be independent, that is, attack every thing. First of all, there’s the Church; that’s a grand target, fire away at that till you are tired. Raise a prejudice if you can, and then make every thing a Church question. But I’m a churchman myself, Mr. Slick; and you wouldn’t have me attack my own church, would you? So much the better, said I, it looks liberal;—true liberality, as far as my experience goes, lies in praisin’ every other church, and abusin’ of your own; it’s only bigots that attacks other folks’ doctrine and tenets; no strong-minded, straight ahead, right up and down man does that. It shows a narrer mind and narrer heart that. But what fault is there with the church? said he: they mind their own business, as far as I see, and let other folks alone; they have no privilege here that I know on, that other sects ha’en’t got. It’s pop’lar talk among some folks, and that’s enough, said I. They are rich, and their clergy are larned and genteel, and there’s a good many envious people in the world;—there’s radicals in religion as well as in politics, that would like to see ’em all brought to a level. And then there’s church lands: talk about dividin’ them among other sects, givin’ them to schools, and so on. There’s no harm in robbing Peter if you pay Paul with it—a fair exchange is no robbery, all the world over; then wind up with a church tithe sale, and a military massacre of a poor dissentin’ old woman that was baganuted by bloody-minded sodgers while tryin’ to save her pig. It will make an affectin’ speech, draw tears from the gallery, and thunders of applause from the House.

Then there’s judges, another grand mark; and councillors and rich men; call ’em the little big men of a little colony, the would-be aristocracy—the official gang—the favour’d few; call ’em by their Christian and surnames; John Den and Richard Fen, turn up your noses at ’em like a horse’s tail that’s double-nick’d. Salaries are a never-ending theme for you; officials shouldn’t be paid at all; the honour is enough for ’em; a patriot sarves his country for nothin’. Take some big salary for a text, and treat it this way: says you, there’s John Doe’s salary, it is seven hundred and thirty pounds a year, that is two pounds a day. Now, says you, that is sixteen common labourers’ pay at two and six-pence each per day;—shall it be said that one great mammoth official is worth sixteen free citizens who toil harder and fare worse than he does? then take his income for ten years and multiply it. See, says you, in ten years he has received the enormous sum of seven thousand five hundred pounds: then run over all the things seven thousand five hundred pounds would effect on roads, bridges, schools, and so on, and charge him with havin’ been the means of robbin’ the country of all these blessin’s: call ’em blood-suckers, pampered minions, bloated leeches. Then there’s the college, says you; it’s for the aristocracy, to keep up distinctions, to rivet our fetters, to make the rich richer, and the strong stronger; talk of native genius and self-taught artists, of natur’s scholars, of homespun talent; it flatters the multitude this—it’s pop’lar, you may depend. Call the troops mercenaries, vile hirelings, degraded slaves; turn up your eyes to the ceiling and invoke defeat and slaughter on ’em, if they dare to enforce the law; talk of standing armies, of slavery, of legionary tyrants,—call ’em foreigners, vulturs thirsting for blood,—butchers,—every man killed in a row, or a mob, call a victim, a murdered man,—that’s your sort, my darlin’—go the whole hog, and do the thing genteel. Any thing that gives power to the masses will please the masses. If there was nothin’ to attack there would be no champions; if there is no grievance you must make one: call all changes reform, whether it makes it better or not,—any thing you want to alter, call an abuse. All that oppose you, call anti-reformers, upholders of abuses, bigots, sycophants, office-seeking Tories. Say they live by corruption, by oppressin’ the people, and that’s the reason they oppose all change. How streaked they’ll look, won’t they? It will make them scratch their heads and stare, I know. If there’s any man you don’t like, use your privilege and abuse him like Old Scratch,—lash him like a nigger, cut him up beautiful—oh, it’s a grand privilege that! Do this, and you’ll be the speaker of the House, the first pot-hook on the crane, the truckle-head and cap-sheave—you will, I snore. Well, it does open a wide field, don’t it, said Mr. Buck, for an ambitious man? I vow, I believe I’ll take your advice; I like the idea amazin’ly. Lord, I wish I could talk like you,—you do trip it off so glib—I’ll take your advice tho’—I will, I vow. Well then, Mr. Buck, if you really will take my advice, I’ll give it to you, said I, free-gratis for nothin’. Be honest, be consistent, be temperate; be rather the advocate of internal improvement than political change; of rational reform, but not organic alterations. Neither flatter the mob, nor flatter the government; support what is right, oppose what is wrong; what you think, speak; try to satisfy yourself, and not others; and if you are not popular, you will at least be respected; popularity lasts but a day, respect will descend as a heritage to your children.