The Chainbearer: or, The Littlepage Manuscripts

"But is he one that is favored? You can never know how much depends on your answer."

"Of that you can judge for yourself. It is 'Squire Seneky Newcome, as he is called hereabouts – the brother of the charming Opportunity, who still reserves herself for you."

"And they are as rank anti-renters as any male and female in the country."

"They are rank Newcomites; and that means that each is for himself. Would you believe it, but Opportunity really gives herself airs with Mary Warren!"

"And how does Mary Warren take such an assumption?"

"As a young person should – quietly and without manifesting any feeling. But there is something quite intolerable in one like Opportunity Newcome's assuming a superiority over any true lady! Mary is as well educated and as well connected as any of us, and is quite as much accustomed to good company; while Opportunity – " here Patt laughed, and then added, hurriedly, "but you know Opportunity as well as I do."

"Oh! yes; she is la vertue, or the virtue, and je suis venue pour."

The latter allusion Patt understood well enough, having laughed over the story a dozen times; and she laughed again when I explained the affair of "the solitude."

Then came a fit of sisterly feeling. Patt insisted on taking off my wig, and seeing my face in its natural dress. I consented to gratify her, when the girl really behaved like a simpleton. First she pushed about my curls until they were arranged to suit the silly creature, when she ran back several steps, clapped her hands in delight, then rushed into "my arms and kissed my forehead and eyes, and called me her brother" – her "only brother" – her "dear, dear Hugh," and by a number of other such epithets, until she worked herself, and me too, into such an excess of feeling that we sat down, side by side, and each had a hearty fit of crying. Perhaps some such burst as this was necessary to relieve our minds, and we submitted to it wisely.

My sister wept the longest, as a matter of course; but, as soon as she had dried her eyes, she replaced the wig, and completely restored my disguise, trembling the whole time lest some one might enter and detect me.

"You have been very imprudent, Hugh, in coming here at all," she said, while thus busy. "You can form no notion of the miserable state of the country, or how far the anti-rent poison has extended, or the malignant nature of its feeling. The annoyances they have attempted with dear grandmother are odious; you they would scarcely leave alive."

"The country and the people must have strangely altered, then, in five years. Our New York population has hitherto had very little of the assassin-like character. Tar and feathers are the blackguards', and have been the petty tyrants' weapons, from time immemorial, in this country; but not the knife."

"And can anything sooner or more effectually alter a people than longings for the property of others? Is not the 'love of money the root of all evil?' – and what right have we to suppose our Ravensnest population is better than another, when that sordid feeling is thoroughly aroused? You know you have written one yourself, that all the American can or does live for is money."

"I have written you, dear, that the country, in its present condition, leaves no other incentive to exertion, and therein it is cursed. Military fame, military rank, even, are unattainable, under our system; the arts, letters, and science bring little or no reward; and there being no political rank that a man of refinement would care for, men must live for money, or live altogether for another state of being. But I have told you, at the same time, Martha, that, notwithstanding all this, I believe the American a less mercenary being, in the ordinary sense of the word, than the European; that two men might be bought, for instance, in any European country, for one here. This last I suppose to be the result of the facility of making a living, and the habits it produces."

"Never mind causes; Mr. Warren says there is a desperate intention to rob existing among these people, and that they are dangerous. As yet they do a little respect women, but how long they will do that one cannot know."

"It may all be so. It must be so, respecting what I have heard and read; yet this vale looks as smiling and as sweet, at this very moment, as if an evil passion never sullied it! But depend on my prudence, which tells me that we ought now to part. I shall see you again and again before I quit the estate, and you will, of course, join us somewhere – at the Springs, perhaps – as soon as we find it necessary or expedient to decamp."

Martha promised this, of course, and I kissed her, previously to separating. No one crossed my way as I descended to the piazza, which was easily done, since I was literally at home. I lounged about on the lawn a few minutes, and then, showing myself in front of the library windows, I was summoned to the room, as I had expected.

Uncle Ro had disposed of every article of the fine jewelry that he had brought home as presents for his wards. The pay was a matter to be arranged with Mrs. Littlepage, which meant no pay at all; and, as the donor afterward told me, he liked this mode of distributing the various ornaments better than presenting them himself, as he was now certain each girl had consulted her own fancy.

As the hour of the regular dinner was approaching, we took our leave soon after, not without receiving kind and pressing invitations to visit the Nest again ere we left the township. Of course we promised all that was required, intending most faithfully to comply. On quitting the house we returned toward the farm, though not without pausing on the lawn to gaze around us on a scene so dear to both, from recollection, association, and interest. But I forget, this is aristocratical; the landlord has no right to sentiments of this nature, which are feelings that the sublimated liberty of the law is beginning to hold in reserve solely for the benefit of the tenant!

CHAPTER XII

"There shall be, in England, seven half penny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass." —Jack Cade.

"I do not see, sir," I remarked, as we moved on from the last of these pauses, "why the governors and the legislators, and writers on this subject of anti-rentism, talk so much of feudality, and chickens, and days' works, and durable leases, when we have none of these, while we have all the disaffection they are said to produce."

"You will understand that better as you come to know more of men. No party alludes to its weak points. It is just as you say; but the proceedings of your tenants, for instance, give the lie to the theories of the philanthropists, and must be kept in the background. It is true that the disaffection has not yet extended to one-half, or to one-fourth of the leased estates in the country, perhaps not to one-tenth, if you take the number of the landlords as the standard, instead of the extent of their possessions, but it certainly will, should the authorities tamper with the rebels much longer."

"If they tax the incomes of the landlords under the durable rent system, why would not the parties aggrieved have the same right to take up arms to resist such an act of oppression as our fathers had in 1776?"

"Their cause would be better; for that was only a constructive right, and one dependent on general principles, whereas this is an attempt at a most mean evasion of a written law, the meanness of the attempt being quite as culpable as its fraud. Every human being knows that such a tax, so far as it has any object beyond that of an election-sop, is to choke off the landlords from the maintenance of their covenants, which is a thing that no State can do directly, without running the risk of having its law pronounced unconstitutional by the courts of the United States, if, indeed, not by its own courts."

"The Court of Errors, think you?"

"The Court of Errors is doomed, by its own abuses. Catiline never abused the patience of Rome more than that mongrel assembly has abused the patience of every sound lawyer in the State. 'Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum,' is interpreted, now, into 'Let justice be done, and the court fall.' No one wishes to see it continued, and the approaching convention will send it to the Capulets, if it do nothing else to be commended. It was a pitiful imitation of the House of Lords system, with this striking difference; the English lords are men of education, and men with a vast deal at stake, and their knowledge and interests teach them to leave the settlement of appeals to the legal men of their body, of whom there are always a respectable number, in addition to those in possession of the woolsack and the bench; whereas our Senate is a court composed of small lawyers, country doctors, merchants, farmers, with occasionally a man of really liberal attainments. Under the direction of an acute and honest judge, as most of our true judges actually are, the Court of Errors would hardly form such a jury as would allow a creditable person to be tried by his peers, in a case affecting character, for instance, and here we have it set up as a court of the last resort, to settle points of law!"

"I see it has just made a decision in a libel suit, at which the profession sneers."

"It has, indeed. Now look at that very decision, for instance, as the measure of its knowledge. An editor of a newspaper holds up a literary man to the world as one anxious to obtain a small sum of money, in order to put it into Wall Street, for 'shaving purposes.' Now, the only material question raised was the true signification of the word 'shaving.' If to say a man is a 'shaver,' in the sense in which it is applied to the use of money, be bringing him into discredit, then was the plaintiff's declaration sufficient; if not, it was insufficient, being wanting in what is called an 'innuendo.' The dictionaries, and men in general, understand by 'shaving,' 'extortion,' and nothing else. To call a man a 'shaver' is to say he is an 'extortioner,' without going into details. But, in Wall Street, and among money-dealers, certain transactions that, in their eyes, and by the courts, are not deemed discreditable, have of late been brought within the category of 'shaving.' Thus it is technically, or by convention among bankers, termed 'shaving' if a man buy a note at less than its face, which is a legal transaction. On the strength of this last circumstance, as is set forth in the published opinions, the highest Court of Appeals in New York has decided that it does not bring a man into discredit to say he is a 'shaver!' – thus making a conventional signification of the brokers of Wall Street higher authority for the use of the English tongue than the standard lexicographers, and all the rest of those who use the language! On the same principle, if a set of pickpockets at the Five Points, should choose to mystify their trade a little by including in the term 'to filch' the literal borrowing of a pocket-handkerchief, it would not be a libel to accuse a citizen of 'filching his neighbor's handkerchief!'"

"But the libel was uttered to the world, and not to the brokers of Wall Street only, who might possibly understand their own terms."

"Very true; and was uttered in a newspaper that carried the falsehood to Europe; for the writer of the charge, when brought up for it, publicly admitted that he had no ground for suspecting the literary man of any such practices. He called it a 'joke.' Every line of the context, however, showed it was a malicious charge. The decision is very much as if a man who is sued for accusing another of 'stealing' should set up a defence that he meant 'stealing' hearts, for the word is sometimes used in that sense. When men use epithets that convey discredit in their general meaning, it is their business to give them a special signification in their own contexts, if such be their real intention. But I much question if there be a respectable money-dealer, even in Wall Street, who would not swear, if called on in a court of justice so to do, that he thought the general charge of 'shaving' discreditable to any man."

"And you think the landlords whose rents were taxed, sir, would have a moral right to resist?"

"Beyond all question; as it would be an income-tax on them only of all in the country. What is more, I am fully persuaded that two thousand men embodied to resist such tyranny would look down the whole available authority of the State; inasmuch as I do not believe citizens could be found to take up arms to enforce a law so flagrantly unjust. Men will look on passively and see wrongs inflicted, that would never come out to support them by their own acts. But we are approaching the farm, and there are Tom Miller and his hired men waiting our arrival."

It is unnecessary to repeat, in detail, all that passed in this our second visit to the farm-house. Miller received us in a friendly manner, and offered us a bed, if we would pass the night with him. This business of a bed had given us more difficulty than anything else in the course of our peregrinations. New York has long got over the "two-man" and "three-man bed" system, as regards its best inns. At no respectable New York inn is a gentleman now asked to share even his room, without an apology and a special necessity, with another, much less his bed; but the rule does not hold good as respects pedlers and music-grinders. We had ascertained that we were not only expected to share the same bed, but to occupy that bed in a room filled with other beds. There are certain things that get to be second nature, and that no masquerading will cause to go down; and, among others, one gets to dislike sharing his room and his tooth-brush. This little difficulty gave us more trouble that night at Tom Miller's than anything we had yet encountered. At the taverns, bribes had answered our purpose; but this would not do so well at a farm residence. At length the matter was got along with by putting me in the garret, where I was favored with a straw bed under my own roof, the decent Mrs. Miller making many apologies for not having a feather-smootherer, into which to "squash" me. I did not tell the good woman that I never used feathers, summer or winter; for, had I done so, she would have set me down as a poor creature from "oppressed" Germany, where the "folks" did not know how to live. Nor would she have been so much out of the way quoad the beds, for in all my journeyings I never met with such uncomfortable sleeping as one finds in Germany, off the Rhine and out of the large towns.²³

While the negotiation was in progress I observed that Josh Brigham, as the anti-rent disposed hireling of Miller's was called, kept a watchful eye and an open ear on what was done and said. Of all men on earth, the American of that class is the most "distrustful," as he calls it himself, and has his suspicions the soonest awakened. The Indian on the war-path – the sentinel who is posted in a fog, near his enemy, an hour before the dawn of day – the husband that is jealous, or the priest that has become a partisan, is not a whit more apt to fancy, conjecture, or assert, than the American of that class who has become "distrustful." This fellow, Brigham, was the very beau ideal of the suspicious school, being envious and malignant, as well as shrewd, observant, and covetous. The very fact that he was connected with the "Injins," as turned out to be the case, added to his natural propensities the consciousness of guilt, and rendered him doubly dangerous. The whole time my uncle and myself were crossing over and figuring in, in order to procure for each a room, though it were only a closet, his watchful, distrustful looks denoted how much he saw in our movements to awaken curiosity, if not downright suspicion. When all was over, he followed me to the little lawn in front of the house, whither I had gone to look at the familiar scene by the light of the setting sun, and began to betray the nature of his own suspicions by his language.

"The old man" (meaning my uncle Ro) "must have plenty of gold watches about him," he said, "to be so plaguy partic'lar consarnin' his bed. Peddlin' sich matters is a ticklish trade, I guess, in some parts?"

"Ja; it ist dangerous somevhere, but it might not be so in dis goot coontry."

"Why did the old fellow, then, try so hard to get that little room all to himself, and shove you off into the garret? We hired men don't like the garret, which is a hot place in summer."

"In Charmany one man hast ever one bed," I answered, anxious to get rid of the subject.

I bounced a little, as "one has one-half of a bed" would be nearer to the truth, though the other half might be in another room.

"Oh! that's it, is't? Wa-a-l, every country has its ways, I s'pose. Jarmany is a desp'ate aristocratic land, I take it."

"Ja; dere ist moch of de old feudal law, and feudal coostum still remaining in Charmany."

"Landlords a plenty, I guess, if the truth was known. Leases as long as my arm, I calkerlate?"

"Vell, dey do dink, in Charmany, dat de longer might be de lease, de better it might be for de denant."

As that was purely a German sentiment, or at least not an American sentiment, according to the notions broached by statesmen among ourselves, I made it as Dutch as possible by garnishing it well with d's.

"That's a droll idee! Now, we think, here, that a lease is a bad thing; and the less you have of a bad thing, the better."

"Vell, dat ist queer, so queer as I don't know! Vhat vill dey do as might help it?"

"Oh! the legislature will set it all right. They mean to pass a law to prevent any more leases at all."

"Und vill de beople stand dat? Dis ist a free country, efferybody dells me, and vilt der beoples agree not to hire lands if dey vants to?"

"Oh! you see we wish to choke the landlords off from their present leases; and, by and by, when that is done, the law can let up again."

"But ist dat right? Der law should be joost, und not hold down und let oop, as you calls it."

"You don't understand us yet, I see. Why that's the prettiest and the neatest legislation on airth! That's just what the bankrupt law did."

"Vhat did her bankroopt law do, bray? Vhat might you mean now? – I don't know."

"Do! why, it did wonders for some on us, I can tell you! It paid our debts, and let us up when we was down; and that's no trifle, I can tell you. I took 'the benefit,' as it is called, myself."

"You! – you might take der benefit of a bankrupt law! You, lifing here ast a hiret man, on dis farm!"

"Sartain; why not? All a man wanted under that law was about $60 to carry him through the mill; and if he could rake and scrape that much together, he might wipe off as long a score as he pleased. I had been dealin' in speckylation, and that's a make or break business, I can tell you. Well, I got to be about $423.22 wuss than nothin'; but, having about $90 in hand, I went through the mill without getting cogged the smallest morsel! A man doos a good business, to my notion, when he can make twenty cents pay a whull dollar of debt."

"Und you did dat goot business?"

"You may say that; and now I means to make anti-rentism get me a farm cheap – what I call cheap; and that an't none of your $30 or $40 an acre, I can tell you!"

It was quite clear that Mr. Joshua Brigham regarded these transactions as so many Pragmatic Sanctions, that were to clear the moral and legal atmospheres of any atoms of difficulty that might exist in the forms of old opinions, to his getting easily out of debt, in the one case, and suddenly rich in the other. I dare say I looked bewildered, but I certainly felt so, at thus finding myself face to face with a low knave, who had a deliberate intention, as I now found, to rob me of a farm. It is certain that Joshua so imagined, for, inviting me to walk down the road with him a short distance, he endeavored to clear up any moral difficulties that might beset me, by pursuing the subject.

"You see," resumed Joshua, "I will tell you how it is. These Littlepages have had this land long enough, and it's time to give poor folks a chance. The young spark that pretends to own all the farms you see, far and near, never did anything for 'em in his life; only to be his father's son. Now, to my notion, a man should do suthin' for his land, and not be obligated for it to mere natur'. This is a free country, and what right has one man to land more than another?"

"Or do his shirt, or do his dobacco, or do his coat, or do anyding else."

"Well, I don't go as far as that. A man has a right to his clothes, and maybe to a horse, or a cow, but he has no right to all the land in creation. The law gives a right to a cow as ag'in' execution."

"Und doesn't der law gif a right to der landt, too? You must not depend on der law, if you might succeed."

"We like to get as much law as we can on our side. Americans like law: now, you'll read in all the books —our books, I mean, them that's printed here – that the Americans be the most lawful people on airth, and that they'll do more for the law than any other folks known!"

"Vell, dat isn't vhat dey says of der Americans in Europe; nein, nein, dey might not say dat."

"Why, don't you think it is so? Don't you think this the greatest country on airth, and the most lawful?"

"Vell, I don'ts know. Das coontry ist das coontry, und it ist vhat it ist, you might see."

"Yes; I thought you would be of my way of thinking, when we got to understand each other." Nothing is easier than to mislead an American on the estimate foreigners place on them: in this respect they are the most deluded people living, though, in other matters, certainly among the shrewdest. "That's the way with acquaintances, at first; they don't always understand one another: and then you talk a little thick, like. But now, friend, I'll come to the p'int – but first swear you'll not betray me."

"Ja, ja – I oonderstandst; I most schwear I won't bedray you: das ist goot."

"But, hold up your hand. Stop; of what religion be you?"

"Gristian, to be sure. I might not be a Chew. Nein, nein; I am a ferry vat Gristian."

"We are all bad enough, for that matter; but I lay no stress on that. A little of the devil in a man helps him along, in this business of ourn. But you must be suthin' more than a Christian, I s'pose, as we don't call that bein' of any religion at all, in this country. Of what supportin' religion be you?"

"Soobortin'; vell, I might not oonderstands dat. Vhat is soobortin' religion? Coomes dat vrom Melanchton und Luther? – or coomes it vrom der Pope? Vhat ist dat soobortin' religion?"

"Why, what religion do you patronize? Do you patronize the standin' order, or the kneelin' order? – or do you patronize neither? Some folks thinks its best to lie down at prayer, as the least likely to divart the thoughts."

"I might not oonderstand. But nefer mindt der religion, und coome to der p'int dat you mentioned."

"Well, that p'int is this. You're a Jarman, and can't like aristocrats, and so I'll trust you; though, if you do betray me, you'll never play on another bit of music in this country, or any other! If you want to be an Injin, as good an opportunity will offer to-morrow as ever fell in a man's way?"

"An Injin! Vhat goot vill it do to be an Injin? I dought it might be better to be a vhite man, in America?"

"Oh! I mean only an anti-rent Injin. We've got matters so nicely fixed now, that a chap can be an Injin without any paint at all, or any washin' or scrubbin', but can convart himself into himself ag'in, at any time, in two minutes. The wages is good and the work light; then we have rare chances in the stores, and round about among the farms. The law is, that an Injin must have what he wants, and no grumblin', and we take care to want enough. If you'll be at the meetin', I'll tell you how you'll know me."

"Ja, ja – dat ist goot; I vill be at der meetin', sartainly. Vhere might it be?"

"Down at the village. The word came up this a'ternoon, and we shall all be on the ground by ten o'clock."

"Vilt der be a fight, dat you meet so bunctually, and wid so moch spirit?"

"Fight! Lord, no; who is there to fight, I should like to know? We are pretty much all ag'in the Littlepages, and there's none of them on the ground but two or three women. I'll tell you how it's all settled. The meetin' is called on the deliberative and liberty-supportin' plan. I s'pose you know we've all sorts of meetin's in this country?"

"Nein; I dought dere might be meetin's for bolitics, vhen der beople might coome, but I don't know vhat else."

"Is't possible! What, have you no 'indignation meetin's' in Jarmany? We count a great deal on our indignation meetin's, and both sides have 'em in abundance, when things get to be warm. Our meetin' to-morrow is for deliberation and liberty-principles generally. We may pass some indignation resolutions about aristocrats, for nobody can bear them critturs in this part of the country, I can tell you."

Lest this manuscript should get into the hands of some of those who do not understand the real condition of New York society, it may be well to explain that "aristocrat" means, in the parlance of the country, no other than a man of gentleman-like tastes, habits, opinions, and associations. There are gradations among the aristocracy of the State, as well as among other men. Thus he who is an aristocrat in a hamlet, would be very democratic in a village; and he of the village might be no aristocrat in the town, at all; though, in the towns generally, indeed always, when their population has the least of a town character, the distinction ceases altogether, men quietly dropping into the traces of civilized society, and talking or thinking very little about it. To see the crying evils of American aristocracy, then, one must go into the country. There, indeed, a plenty of cases exist. Thus, if there happen to be a man whose property is assessed at twenty-five per cent. above that of all his neighbors – who must have right on his side bright as a cloudless sun to get a verdict, if obliged to appeal to the laws – who pays fifty per cent. more for everything he buys, and receives fifty per cent. less for everything he sells, than any other person near him – who is surrounded by rancorous enemies, in the midst of a seeming state of peace – who has everything he says and does perverted, and added to, and lied about – who is traduced because his dinner-hour is later than that of "other folks" – who don't stoop, but is straight in the back – who presumes to doubt that this country in general, and his own township in particular, is the focus of civilization – who hesitates about signing his name to any flagrant instance of ignorance, bad taste, or worse morals, that his neighbors may get up in the shape of a petition, remonstrance, or resolution – depend on it that man is a prodigious aristocrat, and one who, for his many offences and manner of lording it over mankind, deserves to be banished. I ask the reader's pardon for so abruptly breaking in upon Joshua's speech, but such very different notions exist about aristocrats, in different parts of the world, that some such explanation was necessary in order to prevent mistakes. I have forgotten one mark of the tribe that is, perhaps, more material than all the rest, which must not be omitted, and is this: – if he happen to be a man who prefers his own pursuits to public life, and is regardless of "popularity," he is just guilty of the unpardonable sin. The "people" will forgive anything sooner than this; though there are "folks" who fancy it as infallible a sign of an aristocrat not to chew tobacco. But, unless I return to Joshua, the reader will complain that I cause him to stand still.

"No, no," continued Mr. Brigham; anything but an aristocrat for me. I hate the very name of the sarpents, and wish there warn't one in the land. To-morrow we are to have a great anti-rent lecturer out – "

"A vhat?"

"A lecturer; one that lectur's, you understand, on anti-rentism, temperance, aristocracy, government, or any other grievance that may happen to be uppermost. Have you no lecturers in Jarmany?"

"Ja, ja; dere ist lecturers in das universities – blenty of dem."

"Well, we have 'em universal and partic'lar, as we happen to want 'em. To-morrow we're to have one, they tell me, the smartest man that has appeared in the cause. He goes it strong, and the Injins mean to back him up with all sorts of shrieks and whoopin's. Your hurdy-gurdy, there, makes no sort of music to what our tribe can make when we fairly open our throats."

"Vell, dis ist queer! I vast told dat der Americans vast all philosophers, und dat all dey didt vast didt in a t'oughtful and sober manner; und now you dells me dey screams deir arguments like Injins!"

"That we do! I wish you'd been here in the hard-cider and log-cabin times, and you'd a seen reason and philosophy, as you call it! I was a whig that summer, though I went democrat last season. There's about five hundred on us in this country that makes the most of things, I can tell you. What's the use of a vote, if a body gets nothin' by it? But to-morrow you'll see the business done up, and matters detarmined for this part of the world, in fine style. We know what we're about, and we mean to carry things through quite to the end."

"Und vhat do you means to do?"

"Well, seein' that you seem to be of the right sort, and be so likely to put on the Injin shirt, I'll tell you all about it. We mean to get good and old farms at favorable rates. That's what we mean to do. The people's up and in 'arnest, and what the people want they'll have! This time they want farms, and farms they must have. What's the use of havin' a government of the people, if the people's obliged to want farms? We've begun ag'in' the Rensselaers, and the durables, and the quarter-sales, and the chickens; but we don't, by no manner of means, think of eending there. What should we get by that? A man wants to get suthin' when he puts his foot into a matter of this natur'. We know who's our fri'nds and who's our inimies! Could we have some men I could name for governors, all would go clear enough the first winter. We would tax the landlords out, and law 'em about in one way and another, so as to make 'em right down glad to sell the last rod of their lands, and that cheap, too!"