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THE BURDEN WHEREOF, IS HAIL COLUMBIA! 3 page

When the colonel had finished his dinner, which event took place while Martin, who had sent his plate for some turkey, was waiting to begin, he asked him what he thought of the boarders, who were from all parts of the Union, and whether he would like to know any particulars concerning them.

“Pray,” said Martin, “who is that sickly little girl opposite, with the tight round eyes? I don't see anybody here, who looks like her mother, or who seems to have charge of her.”

“Do you mean the matron in blue, sir?” asked the colonel, with emphasis. “That is Mrs Jefferson Brick, sir.”

“No, no,” said Martin, “I mean the little girl, like a doll; directly opposite.”

“Well, sir!” cried the colonel. “THAT is Mrs Jefferson Brick.”

Martin glanced at the colonel's face, but he was quite serious.

“Bless my soul! I suppose there will be a young Brick then, one of these days?” said Martin.

“There are two young Bricks already, sir,” returned the colonel.

The matron looked so uncommonly like a child herself, that Martin could not help saying as much. “Yes, sir,” returned the colonel, “but some institutions develop human natur; others re—tard it.”

“Jefferson Brick,” he observed after a short silence, in commendation of his correspondent, “is one of the most remarkable men in our country, sir!”

This had passed almost in a whisper, for the distinguished gentleman alluded to sat on Martin's other hand.

“Pray, Mr Brick,” said Martin, turning to him, and asking a question more for conversation's sake than from any feeling of interest in its subject, “who is that;” he was going to say “young” but thought it prudent to eschew the word—'that very short gentleman yonder, with the red nose?”

“That is Pro—fessor Mullit, sir,” replied Jefferson.

“May I ask what he is professor of?” asked Martin.

“Of education, sir,” said Jefferson Brick.

“A sort of schoolmaster, possibly?” Martin ventured to observe.

“He is a man of fine moral elements, sir, and not commonly endowed,” said the war correspondent. “He felt it necessary, at the last election for President, to repudiate and denounce his father, who voted on the wrong interest. He has since written some powerful pamphlets, under the signature of “Suturb,” or Brutus reversed. He is one of the most remarkable men in our country, sir.”

“There seem to be plenty of “em,” thought Martin, “at any rate.”

Pursuing his inquiries Martin found that there were no fewer than four majors present, two colonels, one general, and a captain, so that he could not help thinking how strongly officered the American militia must be; and wondering very much whether the officers commanded each other; or if they did not, where on earth the privates came from. There seemed to be no man there without a title; for those who had not attained to military honours were either doctors, professors, or reverends. Three very hard and disagreeable gentlemen were on missions from neighbouring States; one on monetary affairs, one on political, one on sectarian. Among the ladies, there were Mrs Pawkins, who was very straight, bony, and silent; and a wiry-faced old damsel, who held strong sentiments touching the rights of women, and had diffused the same in lectures; but the rest were strangely devoid of individual traits of character, insomuch that any one of them might have changed minds with the other, and nobody would have found it out. These, by the way, were the only members of the party who did not appear to be among the most remarkable people in the country.



Several of the gentlemen got up, one by one, and walked off as they swallowed their last morsel; pausing generally by the stove for a minute or so to refresh themselves at the brass spittoons. A few sedentary characters, however, remained at table full a quarter of an hour, and did not rise until the ladies rose, when all stood up.

“Where are they going?” asked Martin, in the ear of Mr Jefferson Brick.

“To their bedrooms, sir.”

“Is there no dessert, or other interval of conversation?” asked Martin, who was disposed to enjoy himself after his long voyage.

“We are a busy people here, sir, and have no time for that,” was the reply.

So the ladies passed out in single file; Mr Jefferson Brick and such other married gentlemen as were left, acknowledging the departure of their other halves by a nod; and there was an end of THEM. Martin thought this an uncomfortable custom, but he kept his opinion to himself for the present, being anxious to hear, and inform himself by, the conversation of the busy gentlemen, who now lounged about the stove as if a great weight had been taken off their minds by the withdrawal of the other sex; and who made a plentiful use of the spittoons and their toothpicks.

It was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater part of it may be summed up in one word. Dollars. All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is a flag to THEM!

One who rides at all hazards of limb and life in the chase of a fox, will prefer to ride recklessly at most times. So it was with these gentlemen. He was the greatest patriot, in their eyes, who brawled the loudest, and who cared the least for decency. He was their champion who, in the brutal fury of his own pursuit, could cast no stigma upon them for the hot knavery of theirs. Thus, Martin learned in the five minutes” straggling talk about the stove, that to carry pistols into legislative assemblies, and swords in sticks, and other such peaceful toys; to seize opponents by the throat, as dogs or rats might do; to bluster, bully, and overbear by personal assailment; were glowing deeds. Not thrusts and stabs at Freedom, striking far deeper into her House of Life than any sultan's scimitar could reach; but rare incense on her altars, having a grateful scent in patriotic nostrils, and curling upward to the seventh heaven of Fame.

Once or twice, when there was a pause, Martin asked such questions as naturally occurred to him, being a stranger, about the national poets, the theatre, literature, and the arts. But the information which these gentlemen were in a condition to give him on such topics, did not extend beyond the effusions of such master-spirits of the time as Colonel Diver, Mr Jefferson Brick, and others; renowned, as it appeared, for excellence in the achievement of a peculiar style of broadside essay called “a screamer.”

“We are a busy people, sir,” said one of the captains, who was from the West, “and have no time for reading mere notions. We don't mind “em if they come to us in newspapers along with almighty strong stuff of another sort, but darn your books.”

Here the general, who appeared to grow quite faint at the bare thought of reading anything which was neither mercantile nor political, and was not in a newspaper, inquired “if any gentleman would drink some?” Most of the company, considering this a very choice and seasonable idea, lounged out, one by one, to the bar-room in the next block. Thence they probably went to their stores and counting-houses; thence to the bar-room again, to talk once more of dollars, and enlarge their minds with the perusal and discussion of screamers; and thence each man to snore in the bosom of his own family.

“Which would seem,” said Martin, pursuing the current of his own thoughts, “to be the principal recreation they enjoy in common.”With that, he fell a-musing again on dollars, demagogues, and barrooms; debating within himself whether busy people of this class were really as busy as they claimed to be, or only had an inaptitude for social and domestic pleasure.

It was a difficult question to solve; and the mere fact of its being strongly presented to his mind by all that he had seen and heard, was not encouraging. He sat down at the deserted board, and becoming more and more despondent, as he thought of all the uncertainties and difficulties of his precarious situation, sighed heavily.

Now, there had been at the dinner-table a middle-aged man with a dark eye and a sunburnt face, who had attracted Martin's attention by having something very engaging and honest in the expression of his features; but of whom he could learn nothing from either of his neighbours, who seemed to consider him quite beneath their notice. He had taken no part in the conversation round the stove, nor had he gone forth with the rest; and now, when he heard Martin sigh for the third or fourth time, he interposed with some casual remark, as if he desired, without obtruding himself upon a stranger's notice, to engage him in cheerful conversation if he could. His motive was so obvious, and yet so delicately expressed, that Martin felt really grateful to him, and showed him so in the manner of his reply.

“I will not ask you,” said this gentleman with a smile, as he rose and moved towards him, “how you like my country, for I can quite anticipate your feeling on that point. But, as I am an American, and consequently bound to begin with a question, I'll ask you how you like the colonel?”

“You are so very frank,” returned Martin, “that I have no hesitation in saying I don't like him at all. Though I must add that I am beholden to him for his civility in bringing me here—and arranging for my stay, on pretty reasonable terms, by the way,” he added, remembering that the colonel had whispered him to that effect, before going out.

“Not much beholden,” said the stranger drily. “The colonel occasionally boards packet-ships, I have heard, to glean the latest information for his journal; and he occasionally brings strangers to board here, I believe, with a view to the little percentage which attaches to those good offices; and which the hostess deducts from his weekly bill. I don't offend you, I hope?” he added, seeing that Martin reddened.

“My dear sir,” returned Martin, as they shook hands, “how is that possible! to tell you the truth, I—am—”

“Yes?” said the gentleman, sitting down beside him.

“I am rather at a loss, since I must speak plainly,” said Martin, getting the better of his hesitation, “to know how this colonel escapes being beaten.”

“Well! He has been beaten once or twice,” remarked the gentleman quietly. “He is one of a class of men, in whom our own Franklin, so long ago as ten years before the close of the last century, foresaw our danger and disgrace. Perhaps you don't know that Franklin, in very severe terms, published his opinion that those who were slandered by such fellows as this colonel, having no sufficient remedy in the administration of this country's laws or in the decent and right-minded feeling of its people, were justified in retorting on such public nuisances by means of a stout cudgel?”

“I was not aware of that,” said Martin, “but I am very glad to know it, and I think it worthy of his memory; especially'—here he hesitated again.

“Go on,” said the other, smiling as if he knew what stuck in Martin's throat.

“Especially,” pursued Martin, “as I can already understand that it may have required great courage, even in his time, to write freely on any question which was not a party one in this very free country.”

“Some courage, no doubt,” returned his new friend. “Do you think it would require any to do so, now?”

“Indeed I think it would; and not a little,” said Martin.

“You are right. So very right, that I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us to-morrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me. In some cases I could name to you, where a native writer has ventured on the most harmless and good-humoured illustrations of our vices or defects, it has been found necessary to announce, that in a second edition the passage has been expunged, or altered, or explained away, or patched into praise.”

“And how has this been brought about?” asked Martin, in dismay.

“Think of what you have seen and heard to-day, beginning with the colonel,” said his friend, “and ask yourself. How THEY came about, is another question. Heaven forbid that they should be samples of the intelligence and virtue of America, but they come uppermost, and in great numbers, and too often represent it. Will you walk?”

There was a cordial candour in his manner, and an engaging confidence that it would not be abused; a manly bearing on his own part, and a simple reliance on the manly faith of a stranger; which Martin had never seen before. He linked his arm readily in that of the American gentleman, and they walked out together.

It was perhaps to men like this, his new companion, that a traveller of honoured name, who trod those shores now nearly forty years ago, and woke upon that soil, as many have done since, to blots and stains upon its high pretensions, which in the brightness of his distant dreams were lost to view, appealed in these words—

 

 

“Oh, but for such, Columbia's days were done;

Rank without ripeness, quickened without sun,

Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,

Her fruits would fall before her spring were o'er!”

 

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MARTIN ENLARGES HIS CIRCLE OF AQUAINTANCE; INCREASES HIS STOCK OF WISDOM; AND HAS AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY OF COMPARING HIS OWN EXPERIENCES WITH THOSE OF LUMMY NED OF THE LIGHT SALISBURY, AS RELATED BY HIS FRIEND MR WILLIAM SIMMONS

 

It was characteristic of Martin, that all this while he had either forgotten Mark Tapley as completely as if there had been no such person in existence, or, if for a moment the figure of that gentleman rose before his mental vision, had dismissed it as something by no means of a pressing nature, which might be attended to by-and-bye, and could wait his perfect leisure. But, being now in the streets again, it occurred to him as just coming within the bare limits of possibility that Mr Tapley might, in course of time, grow tired of waiting on the threshold of the Rowdy Journal Office, so he intimated to his new friend, that if they could conveniently walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this piece of business off his mind.

“And speaking of business,” said Martin, “may I ask, in order that I may not be behind-hand with questions either, whether your occupation holds you to this city, or like myself, you are a visitor here?”

“A visitor,” replied his friend. “I was “raised” in the State of Massachusetts, and reside there still. My home is in a quiet country town. I am not often in these busy places; and my inclination to visit them does not increase with our better acquaintance, I assure you.”

“You have been abroad?” asked Martin,

“Oh yes.”

“And, like most people who travel, have become more than ever attached to your home and native country,” said Martin, eyeing him curiously.

“To my home—yes,” rejoined his friend. “To my native country AS my home—yes, also.”

“You imply some reservation,” said Martin.

“Well,” returned his new friend, “if you ask me whether I came back here with a greater relish for my country's faults; with a greater fondness for those who claim (at the rate of so many dollars a day) to be her friends; with a cooler indifference to the growth of principles among us in respect of public matters and of private dealings between man and man, the advocacy of which, beyond the foul atmosphere of a criminal trial, would disgrace your own old Bailey lawyers; why, then I answer plainly, No.”

“Oh!” said Martin; in so exactly the same key as his friend's No, that it sounded like an echo.

“If you ask me,” his companion pursued, “whether I came back here better satisfied with a state of things which broadly divides society into two classes—whereof one, the great mass, asserts a spurious independence, most miserably dependent for its mean existence on the disregard of humanizing conventionalities of manner and social custom, so that the coarser a man is, the more distinctly it shall appeal to his taste; while the other, disgusted with the low standard thus set up and made adaptable to everything, takes refuge among the graces and refinements it can bring to bear on private life, and leaves the public weal to such fortune as may betide it in the press and uproar of a general scramble—then again I answer, No.”

And again Martin said “Oh!” in the same odd way as before, being anxious and disconcerted; not so much, to say the truth, on public grounds, as with reference to the fading prospects of domestic architecture.

“In a word,” resumed the other, “I do not find and cannot believe and therefore will not allow, that we are a model of wisdom, and an example to the world, and the perfection of human reason, and a great deal more to the same purpose, which you may hear any hour in the day; simply because we began our political life with two inestimable advantages.”

“What were they?” asked Martin.

“One, that our history commenced at so late a period as to escape the ages of bloodshed and cruelty through which other nations have passed; and so had all the light of their probation, and none of its darkness. The other, that we have a vast territory, and not—as yet—too many people on it. These facts considered, we have done little enough, I think.”

“Education?” suggested Martin, faintly.

“Pretty well on that head,” said the other, shrugging his shoulders, “still no mighty matter to boast of; for old countries, and despotic countries too, have done as much, if not more, and made less noise about it. We shine out brightly in comparison with England, certainly; but hers is a very extreme case. You complimented me on my frankness, you know,” he added, laughing.

“Oh! I am not at all astonished at your speaking thus openly when my country is in question,” returned Martin. “It is your plainspeaking in reference to your own that surprises me.”

“You will not find it a scarce quality here, I assure you, saving among the Colonel Divers, and Jefferson Bricks, and Major Pawkinses; though the best of us are something like the man in Goldsmith's comedy, who wouldn't suffer anybody but himself to abuse his master. Come!” he added. “Let us talk of something else. You have come here on some design of improving your fortune, I dare say; and I should grieve to put you out of heart. I am some years older than you, besides; and may, on a few trivial points, advise you, perhaps.”

There was not the least curiosity or impertinence in the manner of this offer, which was open-hearted, unaffected, and good-natured. As it was next to impossible that he should not have his confidence awakened by a deportment so prepossessing and kind, Martin plainly stated what had brought him into those parts, and even made the very difficult avowal that he was poor. He did not say how poor, it must be admitted, rather throwing off the declaration with an air which might have implied that he had money enough for six months, instead of as many weeks; but poor he said he was, and grateful he said he would be, for any counsel that his friend would give him.

It would not have been very difficult for any one to see; but it was particularly easy for Martin, whose perceptions were sharpened by his circumstances, to discern; that the stranger's face grew infinitely longer as the domestic-architecture project was developed. Nor, although he made a great effort to be as encouraging as possible, could he prevent his head from shaking once involuntarily, as if it said in the vulgar tongue, upon its own account, “No go!” But he spoke in a cheerful tone, and said, that although there was no such opening as Martin wished, in that city, he would make it matter of immediate consideration and inquiry where one was most likely to exist; and then he made Martin acquainted with his name, which was Bevan; and with his profession, which was physic, though he seldom or never practiced; and with other circumstances connected with himself and family, which fully occupied the time, until they reached the Rowdy Journal Office.

Mr Tapley appeared to be taking his ease on the landing of the first floor; for sounds as of some gentleman established in that region whistling “Rule Britannia” with all his might and main, greeted their ears before they reached the house. On ascending to the spot from whence this music proceeded, they found him recumbent in the midst of a fortification of luggage, apparently performing his national anthem for the gratification of a grey-haired black man, who sat on one of the outworks (a portmanteau), staring intently at Mark, while Mark, with his head reclining on his hand, returned the compliment in a thoughtful manner, and whistled all the time. He seemed to have recently dined, for his knife, a casebottle, and certain broken meats in a handkerchief, lay near at hand. He had employed a portion of his leisure in the decoration of the Rowdy Journal door, whereon his own initials now appeared in letters nearly half a foot long, together with the day of the month in smaller type; the whole surrounded by an ornamental border, and looking very fresh and bold.

“I was a'most afraid you was lost, sir!” cried Mark, rising, and stopping the tune at that point where Britons generally are supposed to declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never—

“Nothing gone wrong, I hope, sir?”

“No, Mark. Where's your friend?”

“The mad woman, sir?” said Mr Tapley. “Oh! she's all right, sir.”

“Did she find her husband?”

“Yes, sir. Leastways she's found his remains,” said Mark, correcting himself.

“The man's not dead, I hope?”

“Not altogether dead, sir,” returned Mark; “but he's had more fevers and agues than is quite reconcilable with being alive. When she didn't see him a-waiting for her, I thought she'd have died herself, I did!”

“Was he not here, then?”

“HE wasn't here. There was a feeble old shadow come a-creeping down at last, as much like his substance when she know'd him, as your shadow when it's drawn out to its very finest and longest by the sun, is like you. But it was his remains, there's no doubt about that. She took on with joy, poor thing, as much as if it had been all of him!”

“Had he bought land?” asked Mr Bevan.

“Ah! He'd bought land,” said Mark, shaking his head, “and paid for it too. Every sort of nateral advantage was connected with it, the agents said; and there certainly was ONE, quite unlimited. No end to the water!”

 

“It's a thing he couldn't have done without, I suppose,” observed Martin, peevishly.

“Certainly not, sir. There it was, any way; always turned on, and no water-rate. Independent of three or four slimy old rivers close by, it varied on the farm from four to six foot deep in the dry season. He couldn't say how deep it was in the rainy time, for he never had anything long enough to sound it with.”

“Is this true?” asked Martin of his companion.

“Extremely probable,” he answered. “Some Mississippi or Missouri lot, I dare say.”

“However,” pursued Mark, “he came from I-don't-know-where-and-all, down to New York here, to meet his wife and children; and they started off again in a steamboat this blessed afternoon, as happy to be along with each other as if they were going to Heaven. I should think they was, pretty straight, if I may judge from the poor man's looks.”

“And may I ask,” said Martin, glancing, but not with any displeasure, from Mark to the negro, “who this gentleman is? Another friend of yours?”

“Why sir,” returned Mark, taking him aside, and speaking confidentially in his ear, “he's a man of colour, sir!”

“Do you take me for a blind man,” asked Martin, somewhat impatiently, “that you think it necessary to tell me that, when his face is the blackest that ever was seen?”

“No, no; when I say a man of colour,” returned Mark, “I mean that he's been one of them as there's picters of in the shops. A man and a brother, you know, sir,” said Mr Tapley, favouring his master with a significant indication of the figure so often represented in tracts and cheap prints.

“A slave!” cried Martin, in a whisper.

“Ah!” said Mark in the same tone. “Nothing else. A slave. Why, when that there man was young—don't look at him while I'm a-telling it—he was shot in the leg; gashed in the arm; scored in his live limbs, like crimped fish; beaten out of shape; had his neck galled with an iron collar, and wore iron rings upon his wrists and ankles. The marks are on him to this day. When I was having my dinner just now, he stripped off his coat, and took away my appetite.”

“Is THIS true?” asked Martin of his friend, who stood beside them.

“I have no reason to doubt it,” he answered, shaking his head “It very often is.”

“Bless you,” said Mark, “I know it is, from hearing his whole story. That master died; so did his second master from having his head cut open with a hatchet by another slave, who, when he'd done it, went and drowned himself; then he got a better one; in years and years he saved up a little money, and bought his freedom, which he got pretty cheap at last, on account of his strength being nearly gone, and he being ill. Then he come here. And now he's a-saving up to treat himself, afore he dies, to one small purchase—it's nothing to speak of. Only his own daughter; that's all!” cried Mr Tapley, becoming excited. “ Liberty for ever! Hurrah! Hail, Columbia!”

“Hush!” cried Martin, clapping his hand upon his mouth; “and don't be an idiot. What is he doing here?”

“Waiting to take our luggage off upon a truck,” said Mark. “He'd have come for it by-and-bye, but I engaged him for a very reasonable charge (out of my own pocket) to sit along with me and make me jolly; and I am jolly; and if I was rich enough to contract with him to wait upon me once a day, to be looked at, I'd never be anything else.”

The fact may cause a solemn impeachment of Mark's veracity, but it must be admitted nevertheless, that there was that in his face and manner at the moment, which militated strongly against this emphatic declaration of his state of mind.

“Lord love you, sir,” he added, “they're so fond of Liberty in this part of the globe, that they buy her and sell her and carry her to market with “em. They've such a passion for Liberty, that they can't help taking liberties with her. That's what it's owing to.”

“Very well,” said Martin, wishing to change the theme. “Having come to that conclusion, Mark, perhaps you'll attend to me. The place to which the luggage is to go is printed on this card. Mrs Pawkins's Boarding House.”

“Mrs Pawkins's boarding-house,” repeated Mark. “Now, Cicero.”

“Is that his name?” asked Martin

“That's his name, sir,” rejoined Mark. And the negro grinning assent from under a leathern portmanteau, than which his own face was many shades deeper, hobbled downstairs with his portion of their worldly goods; Mark Tapley having already gone before with his share.

Martin and his friend followed them to the door below, and were about to pursue their walk, when the latter stopped, and asked, with some hesitation, whether that young man was to be trusted?

“Mark! oh certainly! with anything.”

“You don't understand me—I think he had better go with us. He is an honest fellow, and speaks his mind so very plainly.”

“Why, the fact is,” said Martin, smiling, “that being unaccustomed to a free republic, he is used to do so.”

“I think he had better go with us,” returned the other. “He may get into some trouble otherwise. This is not a slave State; but I am ashamed to say that a spirit of Tolerance is not so common anywhere in these latitudes as the form. We are not remarkable for behaving very temperately to each other when we differ; but to strangers! no, I really think he had better go with us.”

Martin called to him immediately to be of their party; so Cicero and the truck went one way, and they three went another.

They walked about the city for two or three hours; seeing it from the best points of view, and pausing in the principal streets, and before such public buildings as Mr Bevan pointed out. Night then coming on apace, Martin proposed that they should adjourn to Mrs Pawkins's establishment for coffee; but in this he was overruled by his new acquaintance, who seemed to have set his heart on carrying him, though it were only for an hour, to the house of a friend of his who lived hard by. Feeling (however disinclined he was, being weary) that it would be in bad taste, and not very gracious, to object that he was unintroduced, when this open-hearted gentleman was so ready to be his sponsor, Martin—for once in his life, at all events—sacrificed his own will and pleasure to the wishes of another, and consented with a fair grace. So travelling had done him that much good, already.


Date: 2016-01-14; view: 504


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