Читать книгу Judge Haliburton's Yankee Stories (Part 2 of 2) - Thomas Chandler Haliburton - Страница 8

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Did you ever drink any Thames water, squire? said the Clockmaker; because it is one of the greatest nateral curiosities in the world. When I returned from Poland, in the hair spekelation, I sailed from London, and we had Thames water on board. Says I to the captain, says I, I guess you want to pyson us, don’t you, with that are nasty, dirty, horrid stuff? how can you think o’ takin’ such water as that? Why, says he, Mr. Slick, it does make the best water in the warld—that’s a fact; yes, and the best porter too; it farments, works off the scum, clarifies itself, and beats all natur’;—and yet look at all them are sewers, and drains, and dye stuffs, and factory-wash, and onmentionables that are poured into it;—it beats the bugs, don’t it? Well squire, our great country is like that are Thames water,—it does receive the outpourin’s of the world,—homocides and regicides,—jail-birds and galley-birds,—poor-house chaps and workhouse chaps,—rebels, infidels, and forgers,—rogues of all sorts, sizes, and degrees,—but it farments, you see, and works clear; and what a’most a beautiful clear stream o’ democracy it does make,—don’t it? Not hot enough for fog, nor cold enough for ice, nor limey enough to fur up the bylers, nor too hard to wash clean, nor raw enough to chop the skin,—but gist the thing; that’s a fact. I wish to gracious you’d come and see for yourself. I’d go with you and cost you nothin’. I’d take a prospectus of a new work and get subscribers; take a pattern book of the Lowell factories for orders; and spekilate a little by the way, so as to clear my shot wherever we went.

You must see for yourself,—you can’t larn nothin’ from books. I have read all the travels in America, and there ain’t one that’s worth a cent. They don’t understand us. They remind me of a lawyer examinin’ of a witness; he don’t want either the truth, the whole truth, or nothin’ but the truth, but he wants to pick out of him gist so much as will prove his case, d’ye see, and would like him to keep dark about the rest; puts artful questions to him on purpose to get an answer to suit him; stops him when he talks too fast, leads him when he goes too slow, praises his own witnesses sky high, and abuses the other side for lyin’, equivocatin’, parjured villains. That’s gist the case with English travellers; instead of lookin’ all round and seein’ into things first, and then comin’ to an opinion, they make up their minds afore they come, and then look for facts to support their views. First comes a great high tory, and a republic smells so bad in his nostrils, he’s got his nose curl’d up like a pug-nose dog all thro’ his journey. He sees no established church, and he swears there’s no religion; and he sees no livery helps, and he says it’s all vulgar; and if he sees a citizen spit, he jumps a one side as scared as if it wor a rifle agoin’ off. Then comes a radical, (and them English radicals are cantankerous-lookin’ critters—that’s a fact,—as sour as vinegar, and lookin’ as cross and as hungry as a bear gist starved out in the spring,) and they say we have the slavery of opinion here; that our preachers want moral courage, and that our great cities are cursed with the aristocracy of wealth. There is no pleasin’ either on ’em. Then come what minister used to call the Optimists, a set of folks, who talk you deef about the perfectibility of human natur’; that men, like caterpillars, will all turn into beautiful critters with wings like butterflies,—a sort of grub angels;—that our great nation is a paradise, and our folks agettin’ out o’ the chrysolis state into somethin’ divine.

I seldom or never talk to none o’ them, unless it be to bam ’em. They think they know every thing, and all they got to do is, to up Hudson like a shot, into the lakes full split, off to Mississippi and down to New Orleans full chisel, back to New York and up Killock, and home in a liner, and write a book. They have a whole stock of notes. Spittin’,—gougin’,—lynchin’,—burnin’ alive,—steam-boats blowed up,—snags,—slavery,—stealin’,—Texas,—state prisons,—men talk slow,—women talk loud,—both walk fast,—chat in steam-boats and stage-coaches,—anecdotes, and so on. Then out comes a book. If its a tory writes it, then the tory papers say it’s the best pictur’ they have seen;—lively, interestin’, intelligent. If a radical, then radical papers say it is a very philosophical work, (whenever a feller gets over his head in it, and cruel unintelligible, he’s deep in philosophy, that chap,) statesman-like view, able work, throws great light on the politics of the day. I wouldn’t give a chaw of tobackey for the books of all of ’em tied up and put into a meal-bag together.

Our folks sarve ’em as the Indgians used to sarve the gulls down to Squantum in old pilgrim times. The cunnin’ critters used to make a sort o’ fish flakes, and catch herrin’ and tom cods, and such sort o’ fish, and put ’em on the flakes, and then crawl onder themselves, and as soon as the gulls lighted to eat the fish, catch hold o’ their legs and pull ’em thro’. Arter that, whenever a feller was made a fool on and took in, they used to say he was gulled. Well, if our folks don’t gull them British travellers, it’s a pity. They do make proper fools on ’em; that’s a fact.

Year afore last, I met an English gall a travellin’ in a steam-boat; she had a French name that I can’t recollect, tho’ I got it on the tip o’ my tongue too: you know who I mean—she wrote books on economy,—not domestic economy, as galls ought, but on political economy, as galls oughtent, for they don’t know nothin’ about it. She had a trumpet in her hand,—thinks I, who on airth is she agoin to hail, or is she agoin’ to try echoes on the river? I watched her for some time, and I found it was an ear trumpet.

Well, well, says I, that’s onlike most English travellers any way, for in a giniral way they wear magnifying glasses, and do enlarge things so, a body don’t know ’em ag’in when he sees ’em. Now, this gall won’t hear one half that’s said, and will get that half wrong, and so it turned out. Says she to me, Beautiful country this Mr. Slick; says she, I’m transported. Transported, said I, why, what onder the sun did you do to home to get transported?—but she larfed right out like any thing; delighted, I mean, said she, it’s so beautiful. It is splendid, said I, no doubt; there ain’t the beat of it to be found any where. Oh! said she, what views, what scenery, what woods, what a river! how I should like to soar away up with that are eagle into the blue sky, and see all its beauties spread out afore me like a map! How grand—every thing is on a grand scale! Have you seen the Kentuckians? said I. Not yet, said she. Stop then, said I, till you see them. They are on a scale that will please you, I guess; whopping big fellows them, I tell you; half horse, half alligator, with a touch of the airthquake. I wasn’t a talking of the men, said she, ’tis the beauties of natur’ I was admiring. Well, said I, once on a time I used to admire the beauties of natur’ too, but I got cured of that. Sit down on this bench, said she, and tell me how it was;—these kind o’ anecdotes serve to illustrate the “moral of feelin’.” Thinks I, this is philosophy now, “moral of feelin’!” Well if the musquitoes don’t illustrate your moral of feeling for you, some of these nights, I’m mistaken. Very immoral fellows, those ’skeeters.

Well, said I, my first tower in the Clock-trade was up Canada way, and I was the first ever went up Huron with clocks. When I reached our fort, at Gratiot, who did I find there as commander of the party, but the son of an old American hero, a sargent at Bunker’s Hill. Well, bein’ the son of an old veteran hero myself, it made quite a fellowship atween us, like. He bought a clock o’ me, and invited me to stay with him till a vessel arrived for Michigan. Well, in the arternoon, we went for to take tea with a gentleman that had settled near the fort, and things were sot out in an arbour, surrounded with honeysuckle, and Isabella grape, and what not; there was a view of the fort from it, and that elegant lake and endless forest; it was lovely—that’s a fact; and the birds flocked round the place, lighted on it, and sung so sweet,—I thought it was the most romantic thing I ever seed since I was a created sinner. So said I to his wife, (a German lady from one of the emigrant ships,) I prefer, said I, your band of birds to the Bowery band of New York, by a long chalk; it’s natur’s music, it’s most delightful, it’s splendid! Furder off, said she, I like ’em more better hash nearer; for the nasty, dirty tivils they tirt in the tay and de shuker; look there, she said, that’s de tird cup now spilte. Lord, it made me sick! I never had any romance in me arter that.

Here the English gall turned round and looked at me for a space quite hard. Said she, you are a humorous people, Mr. Slick; you resemble the Irish very much,—you remind me greatly of that lively, light-hearted, agreeable people. Thank you, said I, marm, for that compliment; we are ginerally thought to resemble each other very much, both in looks and dress; there’s often great mistakes made when they first land from the likeness.

Arter a considerable of a pause, she said, This must be a religious country, said she, ain’t it? for religion is the “highest fact in man’s right, and the root of all democracy.” If religion is the root of democracy, said I, it bears some strange fruit sometimes, as the man said of the pine-tree the five gamblers were Lynched up to Vixburg. I’m glad to see, said she, you have no establishment—it’s an incubus—a dead weight—a nightmare. I ain’t able, said I; I can’t afford it no now; and besides, said I, I can’t get no one to have me. Them that I would have won’t have me, and them that would have me, the devil wouldn’t have, so I don’t see as I’m like to be troubled with a nightmare for one while. I don’t mean that, said she, laughin’; I mean an Established Church. Oh! an Established Church, said I; now I understand; but when I hear ladies talk of establishments, I always think they have matrimony in their heads. The truth is, squire, I don’t like to hear English people come out here, and abuse their church; they’ve got a church and throve under it, and a national character under it, for honour and upright dealin’, such as no other people in Europe have: indeed, I could tell you of some folks who have to call their goods English to get them off in a foreign land at all. The name sells ’em. You may boast of this tree or that tree, and call ’em this dictionary name and that new-fangled name, but give me the tree that bears the best fruit, I say.

A church must be paid, and the mode don’t much signify; at any rate, it ain’t for them to abuse it, tho’ other folks may choose to copy it, or let it alone, as it convenes them. Your people, said she, are in advance of the clergy; your ministers are half men, half women, with a touch of the noodle. You’d be better without ’em; their parochial visits do more harm than good. In that last remark, said I, I concur; for if there’s a gall in their vicinity, with a good fortin’, they’ll snap her up at once; a feller has no chance with ’em. One on ’em did brother Eldad out of one hundred thousand dollars that way. I don’t speak of that, said she, rather short like; but they haven’t moral courage. They are not bold shepherds, but timid sheep; they don’t preach abolition, they don’t meddle with public rights. As to that, said I, they don’t think it right to hasten on the crisis, to preach up a servile war, to encourage the blacks to cut their masters’ throats; they think it a dangerous subject any way; and besides, said I, they have scruples o’ conscience if they ought to stir in it at all. These matters are state rights, or state wrongs, if you please, and our Northern States have no more right to interfere in ’em than they have to interfere in the affairs of any other independent sovereign state in Europe. So I don’t blame ministers much for that, arter all,—so come now. In England, says I, you maintain that they ought not to meddle with public rights, and call ’em political priests, and all that sort o’ thing, and here you abuse ’em for not meddlin’ with ’em; call ’em cowards, dumb dogs, slaves to public opinion, and what not. There’s no pleasin’ some folks.

As to religion, says I, bein’ the “root of democracy,” it’s the root of monarchy too, and all governments, or ought to be; and there ain’t that wide difference arter all atween the two countries some folks think on. Government here, both in theory and practice, resides with the people; and religion is under the care of the real government. With you, government is in the executive, and religion is in the hands of the government there. Church and state are to a sartain extent connected therefore in both. The difference with us is, we don’t prefer one and establish it, and don’t render its support compulsory. Better, perhaps, if we did, for it burns pretty near out sometimes here, and has to be brought to by revivals and camp-meetins’, and all sorts of excitements; and when it does come to, it don’t give a steady clear light for some time, but spits and sputters and cracks like a candle that’s got a drop o’ water on the wick. It don’t seem kinder rational, neither, that screamin’ and screechin’, and hoopin’ and hollerin’, like possest, and tumblin’ into faintin’s, and fits, and swoons, and what not.

I don’t like preachin’ to the narves instead of the judgment.—I recollect a lady once, tho’, convarted by preachin’ to her narves, that was an altered woman all the rest o’ her days. How was that? said she; these stories illustrate the “science of religion.” I like to hear them. There was a lady, said I, (and I thought I’d give her a story for her book,) that tried to rule her husband a little tighter than was agreeable,—meddlin’ with things she didn’t onderstand, and dictatin’ in matters of politics and religion, and every thing a’most. So one day her husband had got up considerable airly in the mornin’, and went out and got a tailor, and brought him into his wife’s bed-room afore she was out o’ bed:—“Measure that woman,” said he, “for a pair of breeches; she’s detarmined to wear ’em, and I’m resolved folks shall know it,” and he shook the cowskin over the tailor’s head to show him he intended to be obeyed. It cured her,—she begged, and prayed, and cried, and promised obedience to her husband. He spared her, but it effectuated a cure. Now that’s what I call preachin’ to the narves: Lord, how she would have kicked and squeeled if the tailor had a——. A very good story, said she, abowin’ and amovin’ a little, so as not to hear about the measurin’,—a very good story indeed.

If you was to revarse that maxim o’ yourn, said I, and say democracy is too often found at the root of religion, you’d be nearer the mark, I reckon. I knew a case once exactly in point. Do tell it to me, said she; it will illustrate “the spirit of religion.” Yes, said I, and illustrate your book too, if you are a writin’ one, as most English travellers do. Our congregation, said I, at Slickville, contained most of the wealthy and respectable folk there, and a most powerful and united body it was. Well, there came a split once on the election of an elder, and a body of the upper-crust folks separated and went off in a huff. Like most folks that separate in temper, they laid it all to conscience; found out all at once they had been adrift afore all their lives, and join’d another church as different from our’n in creed as chalk is from cheese; and to show their humility, hooked on to the poorest congregation in the place. Well, the minister was quite lifted up in the stirrups when he saw these folks gine him; and to show his zeal for them the next Sunday, he looked up at the gallery to the niggers, and, said he, my brether’n, said he, I beg you won’t spit down any more on the aisle seats, for there be gentlemen there now. Gist turn your heads, my sable friends, and let go over your shoulders. Manners, my brothers, manners before backey. Well, the niggers seceded; they said, it was an infringement on their rights, on their privilege of spittin’, as freemen, where they liked, how they liked, and when they liked, and they quit in a body. “Democracy,” said they, “is the root of religion.”

Is that a fact? said she. No mistake, said I; I seed it myself; I know ’em all. Well, it’s a curious fact, said she, and very illustrative. It illustrates the universality of spittin’, and the universality of democracy. It’s characteristic. I have no fear of a people where the right of spittin’ is held sacred from the interminable assaults of priestcraft. She laid down her trumpet, and took out her pocket-book and began to write it down. She swallar’d it all. I have seen her book since, it’s gist what I expected from her. The chapter on religion strikes at the root of all religion; and the effects of such doctrines are exhibited in the gross slander she has written ag’in her own sex in the States, from whom she received nothin’ but kindness and hospitality. I don’t call that pretty at all; it’s enough to drive hospitality out of the land.

I know what you allude to, said I, and fully concur with you in opinion, that it is a gross abominable slander, adopted on insufficient authority, and the more abominable from coming from a woman. Our church may be aristocratic; but if it is, it teaches good manners, and a regard for the decencies of life. Had she listened more to the regular clergy, and less to the modern illuminati, she might have learned a little of that charity which induces us to think well of others, and to speak ill of none. It certainly was a great outrage, and I am sorry that outrage was perpetrated by an Englishwoman. I am proper glad you agree with me, squire, said he; but come and see for yourself, and I will explain matters to you; for without some one to let you into things you won’t understand us. I’ll take great pleasure in bein’ your guide, for I must say I like your conversation.—How singular this is! to the natural reserve of my country, I add an uncommon taciturnity; but this peculiar adaptation to listening has every where established for me that rare, but most desirable reputation, of being a good companion. It is evident, therefore, that listeners are everywhere more scarce than talkers, and are valued accordingly. Indeed, without them, what would become of the talkers?

Yes, I like your conversation, said the clockmaker (who the reader must have observed has had all the talk to himself). We are like the Chinese; they have two languages, the written language and the spoken language. Strangers only get as far as the spoken one; but all secret affairs of religion and government are sealed up in the written one; they can’t make nothin’ of it. That’s gist the case with us; we have two languages, one for strangers, and one for ourselves. A stranger must know this, or he’s all adrift. We’ve got our own difficulties, our own doubts, our own troubles, as well as other folks,—it would be strange if we hadn’t; but we don’t choose to blart ’em all out to the world.

Look at our President’s Message last year; he said, we was the most prosperous nation on the face of the airth, peace and plenty spreadin’ over the land, and more wealth than we know’d how to spend. At that very time we was on the point of national bankruptcy. He said, the great fire at New York didn’t cause one failure; good reason why, the goods were all owned at London and Lyons, and the failures took place there, and not here. Our President said on that occasion, our maxim is, “do no wrong, and suffer no insult.” Well, at that very time our gineral was marchin’ into the Mexican territory, and our people off South, boarded Texas and took it,—and our folks down North-east were ready to do the same neighbourly act to Canada, only waitin’ for Papeneau to say, “All ready.” He boasted we had no national debt, but a large surplus revenue in the public chist, and yet, add up the public debt of each separate state, and see what a whappin’ large one that makes. We don’t intertain strangers, as the English do, with the troubles of our household and the bother our servants give us; we think it ain’t hospitable, nor polished, nor even good manners; we keep that for the written language among ourselves. If you don’t believe my word, go and ask the Britisher that was at Mr. Madison’s court when the last war broke out—he was the only man to Washington that know’d nothing about it—he didn’t understand the language. I guess you may go and pack up your duds and go home, said Mr. Madison to him one day, when he called there to the levee. Go home! said he, and he wrinkled up his forehead, and drew up his eyelids, as much as to say, I estimate you are mad, ain’t you? Go home! said he. What for? Why, said he, I reckon we are at war. At war! said the Englishman; why, you don’t say so? there can’t be a word of truth in the report: my dispatches say nothin’ of it. Perhaps not, said the President, quite cool, (only a slight twitch of his mouth showed how he would like to haw, haw, right out, only it warn’t decent,) perhaps not, but I presume I declared war yesterday, when you was engaged a playin’ of a game at chess with Mrs. Madison. Folks say they raelly pitied him, he looked so taken aback, so streaked, so completely dumbfounded. No, when I say you can’t make us out, you always laugh; but it’s true you can’t without an interpreter. We speak the English language and the American language; you must larn the American language, if you want to understand the American people.