The Chainbearer Part 62

"I understand you, then; it is only the things that you _desire_ to use that you deem it a privilege for the law to leave me."

"I am afraid we shall never agree, Mr. Warren, about this anti-rent business; and I'm very sorry for it, as I wish particularly to think as you do," glancing his eye most profanely toward Mary as he spoke. "I am for the movement-principle, while you are too much for the stand-still doctrine."

"I am certainly for remaining stationary, Mr. Newcome, if progress mean taking away the property of old and long-established families in the country, to give it to those whose names are not to be found in our history; or, indeed, to give it to any but those to whom it rightfully belongs."

"We shall never agree, my dear sir, we shall never agree;" then, turning toward my uncle with the air of superiority that the vulgar so easily a.s.sume--"What do _you_ say to all this, friend Dafidson--are you up-rent or down-rent?"

"Ja, mynheer," was the quiet answer; "I always downs mit der rent vens I leave a house or a garten. It is goot to pay de debts; ja, it ist herr goot."

This answer caused the clergyman and his daughter to smile, while Opportunity laughed outright.

"You won't make much of your Dutch friend, Sen," cried this buoyant young lady; "he says you ought to keep on paying rent!"

"I apprehend Mr. Dafidson does not exactly understand the case,"

answered Seneca, who was a good deal disconcerted, but was bent on maintaining his point. "I have understood you to say that you are a man of liberal principles, Mr. Dafidson, and that you've come to America to enjoy the light of intelligence and the benefits of a free government."

"Ja; ven I might coome to America, I say, vell, dat 'tis a goot c.o.o.ntry, vhere an honest man might haf vhat he 'arns, ant keep it, too. Ja, ja!

dat ist vhat I say, and vhat I d.i.n.ks."

"I understand you, sir; you come from a part of the world where the n.o.bles eat up the fat of the land, taking the poor man's share as well as their own, to live in a country where the law is, or soon will be, so equal that no citizen will dare to talk about his _estates_, and hurt the feelin's of such as haven't got any."

My uncle so well affected an innocent perplexity at the drift of this remark as to make me smile, in spite of an effort to conceal it. Mary Warren saw that smile, and another glance of intelligence was exchanged between us; though the young lady immediately withdrew her look, a little consciously and with a slight blush.

"I say that you like equal laws and equal privileges, friend Dafidson,"

continued Seneca, with emphasis; "and that you have seen too much of the evils of n.o.bility and of feudal oppression in the Old World, to wish to fall in with them in the New."

"Der noples ant der feudal privileges ist no goot," answered the trinket-pedler, shaking his head with an appearance of great distaste.

"Ay, I knew it would be so; you see, Mr. Warren, no man who has ever lived under a feudal system can ever feel otherwise."

"But what have we to do with feudal systems, Mr. Newcome? and what is there in common between the landlords of New York and the n.o.bles of Europe, and between their leases and feudal tenures?"

"What is there? A vast deal too much, sir, take my word for it. Do not our very governors, even while ruthlessly calling on one citizen to murder another----"

"Nay, nay, Mr. Newcome," interrupted Mary Warren, laughing, "the governors call on the citizens _not_ to murder each other."

"I understand you, Miss Mary; but we shall make anti-renters of you both before we are done. Surely, sir, there is a great deal too much resemblance between the n.o.bles of Europe and our landlords, when the honest and freeborn tenants of the last are obliged to pay tribute for permission to live on the very land that they till, and which they cause to bring forth its increase."

"But men who are not n.o.ble let their lands in Europe; nay, the very serfs, as they become free and obtain riches, buy lands and let them, in some parts of the old world, as I have heard and read."

"All feudal, sir. The whole system is pernicious and feudal, serf or no serf."

"But, Mr. Newcome," said Mary Warren, quietly, though with a sort of demure irony in her manner that said she was not without humor and understood herself very well, "even you let your land--land that you lease, too, and which you do not own, except as you hire it from Mr.

Littlepage."

Seneca gave a hem, and was evidently disconcerted; but he had too much of the game of the true progressive movement--which merely means to _lead_ in changes, though they may lead to the devil--to give the matter up. Repeating the hem, more to clear his brain than to clear his throat, he hit upon his answer, and brought it out with something very like triumph.

"That is one of the evils of the present system, Miss Mary. Did I own the two or three fields you mean, and to attend to which I have no leisure, I might _sell_ them; but now it is impossible, since I can give no deed. The instant my poor uncle dies--and he can't survive a week, being, as you must know, nearly gone--the whole property, mills, taverns, farms, timber-lot and all, fall in to young Hugh Littlepage, who is off frolicking in Europe, doing no good to himself or others, I'll venture to say, if the truth were known. That is another of the hards.h.i.+ps of the feudal system; it enables one man to travel in idleness, wasting his substance in foreign lands, while it keeps another at home, at the plough-handles and the cart-tail."

"And why do you suppose Mr. Hugh Littlepage wastes his substance, and is doing himself and country no good, in foreign lands, Mr. Newcome? That is not at all the character I hear of him, nor is it the result that I expect to see from his travels."

"The money he spends in Europe might do a vast deal of good at Ravensnest, sir."

"For my part, my dear sir," put in Mary again, in her quiet but pungent way, "I think it remarkable that neither of our late governors has seen fit to enumerate the facts just mentioned by Mr. Newcome among those that are opposed to the spirit of the inst.i.tutions. It is, indeed, a great hards.h.i.+p that Mr. Seneca Newcome cannot sell Mr. Hugh Littlepage's land."

"I complain less of that," cried Seneca, a little hastily, "than of the circ.u.mstance that all my rights in the property must go with the death of my uncle. _That_, at least, even you, Miss Mary, must admit is a great hards.h.i.+p."

"If your uncle were unexpectedly to revive, and live twenty years, Mr.

Newcome----"

"No, no, Miss Mary," answered Seneca, shaking his head in a melancholy manner; "_that_ is absolutely impossible. It would not surprise me to find him dead and buried on our return."

"But, admit that you may be mistaken, and that your lease should continue--you would still have a rent to pay?"

"Of that I wouldn't complain in the least. If Mr. Dunning, Littlepage's agent, will just promise, in as much as half a sentence, that we can get a new lease on the old terms, I'd not say a syllable about it."

"Well, here is one proof that the system has its advantages!" exclaimed Mr. Warren, cheerfully. "I'm delighted to hear you say this; for it is something to have a cla.s.s of men among us whose simple promises, in a matter of money, have so much value! It is to be hoped that their example will not be lost."

"Mr. Newcome has made an admission I am also glad to hear," added Mary, as soon as her father had done speaking. "His willingness to accept a new lease on the old terms is a proof that he has been living under a good bargain for himself hitherto, and that down to the present moment he has been the obliged party."

This was very simply said, but it bothered Seneca amazingly. As for myself, I was delighted with it, and could have kissed the pretty, arch creature who had just uttered the remark; though I will own that as much might have been done without any great reluctance, had she even held her tongue. As for Seneca, he did what most men are apt to do when they have the consciousness of not appearing particularly well in a given point of view; he endeavored to present himself to the eyes of his companions in another.

"There is one thing, Mr. Warren, that I think you will admit ought not to be," he cried, exulting, "whatever Miss Mary thinks about it; and that is, that the Littlepage pew in your church ought to come down."

"I will not say that much, Mr. Newcome, though I rather think my daughter will. I believe, my dear, you are of Mr. Newcome's way of thinking in respect to this canopied pew, and also in respect to the old hatchments?"

"I wish neither was in the church," answered Mary, in a low voice.

From that moment I was fully resolved neither should be, as soon as I got into a situation to control the matter.

"In that I agree with you entirely, my child," resumed the clergyman; "and were it not for this movement connected with the rents, and the false principles that have been so boldly announced of late years, I might have taken on myself the authority, as rector, to remove the hatchments. Even according to the laws connected with the use of such things, they should have been taken away a generation or two back. As to the pew, it is a different matter. It is private property; was constructed with the church, which was built itself by the joint liberality of the Littlepages and mother Trinity; and it would be a most ungracious act to undertake to destroy it under such circ.u.mstances, and more especially in the absence of its owner."

"You agree, however, that it ought not to be there?" asked Seneca, with exultation.

"I wish with all my heart it were not. I dislike everything like worldly distinction in the house of G.o.d; and heraldic emblems, in particular, seem to be very much out of place where the cross is seen to be in its proper place."

"Wa-all now, Mr. Warren, I can't say I much fancy crosses about churches either. What's the use in raising vain distinctions of any sort. A church is but a house, after all, and ought so to be regarded."

"True," said Mary, firmly; "but the house of G.o.d."

"Yes, yes, we all know, Miss Mary, that you Episcopalians look more at outward things, and more respect outward things, than most of the other denominations of the country."

"Do you call leases 'outward things,' Mr. Newcome?" asked Mary, archly; "and contracts, and bargains, and promises, and the rights of property, and the obligation to 'do as you would be done by?'"

"Law! good folks," cried Opportunity, who had been all this time tumbling over the trinkets, "I wish it was 'down with the rent' for ever, with all my heart; and that not another word might ever be said on the subject. Here is one of the prettiest pencils, Mary, I ever did see; and its price is only four dollars. I wish, Sen, you'd let the rent alone, and make me a present of this very pencil."

As this was an act of which Seneca had not the least intention of being guilty, he merely s.h.i.+fted his hat from one side of his head to the other, began to whistle, and then he coolly left the room. My uncle Ro profited by the occasion to beg Miss Opportunity would do him the honor to accept the pencil as an offering from himself.

"You an't surely in earnest!" exclaimed Opportunity, flus.h.i.+ng up with surprise and pleasure. "Why, you told me the price was four dollars, and even that seems to me desperate little!"