The Chainbearer Part 94

This military demonstration, on the part of our red brethren, was not without its useful consequences. It gave the "Injins" an intimation of watchfulness, and of a readiness to meet them that prevented any new alarm that night, and satisfied everybody at the Nest that our immediate danger had come to an end. Not only was this the feeling of my uncle and myself, but it was also the feeling of the females, as we found on returning to the house, who had witnessed all that pa.s.sed from the upper windows. After a short interview with my grandmother, she consented to retire, and preparations were made for setting a lookout, and dismissing everybody to their beds again. Manytongues took charge of the watch, though he laughed at the probability of there being any further disturbance that night.

"As for the redskins," he said, "they would as soon sleep out under the trees, at this season of the year, as sleep under a roof; and as for waking--cats a'nt their equals. No--no--colonel; leave it all to me, and I'll carry you through the night as quietly as if we were on the prer-ies and living under good wholesome prer-ie law."

"As quietly, as if we were on the prairies!" We had then reached that pa.s.s in New York, that after one burning, a citizen might really hope to pa.s.s the remainder of his night as quietly as if he were on the prairies! And there was that frothy, lumbering, useless machine, called a government, at Albany, within fifty miles of us, as placid, as self-satisfied, as much convinced that this was the greatest people on earth, and itself their ill.u.s.trious representatives, as if the disturbed counties were so many gardens of Eden, before sin and transgression had become known to it! If it was doing anything in the premises, it was probably calculating the minimum the tenant should pay for the landlord's land, when the latter might be sufficiently worried to part with his estate. Perhaps it was ill.u.s.trating its notions of liberty, by naming the precise sum that one citizen ought to accept, in order that the covetous longings of another should be satisfied!

I was about to retire to my bed, for the first time that night, when my uncle Ro remarked it might be well to see one of our prisoners at least.

Orders had been given to unbind the wretched men, and to keep them in an empty store-room which had no available outlet but the door. Thither we then repaired, and of course were admitted by the sentinels, without a question. Seneca Newcome was startled at my appearance, and I confess I was myself embarra.s.sed how to address him, from a wish to say nothing that might appear like exultation on one side, or concession on the other. My uncle, however, had no such scruples, probably from better knowing his man; accordingly, he came to the point at once.

"The evil spirit must have got great ascendency in the country, Seneca Newcome, when men of your knowledge dip so deeply into his designs,"

said Mr. Littlepage, sternly. "What has my nephew ever done to incite you to come into his house, as an incendiary, like a thief in the night?"

"Ask me no questions, Mr. Littlepage," surlily replied the attorney, "for I shall answer none."

"And this miserable misguided creature who has been your companion. The last we saw of these two men, Hugh, they were quarrelling in the highway, like cat and dog, and there are signs about their faces that the interview became still more hostile than it had been, after we left them."

"And here we find them together, companions in an enterprise of life and death!"

"It is ever thus with rogues. They will push their quarrels to extremities, and make them up in an hour, when the demon of rapine points to an object for common plunder. You see the same spirit in politics, ay, and even in religion. Men that have lived in hostility for half their lives, contending for selfish objects, will suddenly combine their powers to attain a common end, and work together like the most true-hearted friends, so long as they see a chance of effecting their wishes. If honesty were only one-half as active as roguery, it would fare better than it does. But the honest man has his scruples; his self-respect; his consistency, and, most of all, his principles, to mark out his course, and he cannot turn aside at each new impulse, like your pure knave, to convert enemies into friends, and friends into enemies.

And you," turning to Josh Brigham, who was looking surlily on--"who have actually been eating Hugh Littlepage's bread, what has he done, that you should come at midnight, to burn him up like a caterpillar in the spring?"

"He has had his farm long enough"--muttered the fellow--"It's time that poor folks had some chance."

My uncle shrugged his shoulders; then, as if he suddenly recollected himself, he lifted his hat, bowed like a thoroughbred gentleman as he was, when he chose to be, wished Seneca good-night, and walked away. As we retired, he expressed his conviction of the uselessness of remonstrance, in this case, and of the necessity of suffering the law to take its own course. It might be unpleasant to see a Newcome actually hanged, but nothing short of that operation, he felt persuaded, would ever fetch up the breed in its evil courses. Wearied with all that had pa.s.sed, I now went to bed, and slept soundly for the succeeding seven hours. As the house was kept quiet by orders, everybody repaired the lost time, the Nest being as quiet as in those days in which the law ruled in the republic.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Well may we sing her beauties This pleasant land of ours, Her sunny smiles, her golden fruits, And all her world of flowers.

And well would they persuade us now, In moments all too dear, That, sinful though our hearts may be, We have our Eden here."--SIMMS.

The following day was Sunday. I did not rise until nine, and when I withdrew the curtains and opened the shutters of my window, and looked out upon the lawn, and the fields beyond it, and the blue void that canopied all, I thought a lovelier day, or one more in harmony with the tranquil character of the whole scene, never shone from the heavens. I threw up the sash, and breathed the morning air which filled my dressing-room, pregnant with the balms and odors of the hundred sweet-smelling flowers and plants that embellished the shrubberies. The repose of the Sabbath seemed to rest on man and beast; the bees and humming-birds that buzzed about the flowers, even at their usual pursuits, seemed as if conscious of the sanct.i.ty of the day. I think no one can be insensible to the difference there is between a Sabbath in the country and any other day of the week. Most of this, doubtless, is the simple consequence of abstaining from labor; but, connected with the history of the festival, its usual observances, and the holy calm that appears to reign around, it is so very obvious and impressive, that a Sunday in a mild day in June is to me ever a delicious resting-place, as a mere poetical pause in the bustling and turmoil of this world's time.

Such a day was that which succeeded the night through which we had just pa.s.sed, and it came most opportunely to soothe the spirits, tranquillize the apprehensions, and afford a moment for sober reflection.

There lay the smouldering ruins of the barn, it is true; a blackened monument of a wicked deed; but the mood which had produced this waste and wrong appeared to have pa.s.sed away; and in all other respects, far and near, the farms of Ravensnest had never spread themselves before the eye in colors more in consonance with the general benevolence of a bountiful nature. For a moment, as I gazed on the broad view, I felt all my earlier interests in it revive, and am not ashamed to own that a profound feeling of grat.i.tude to G.o.d came over me, when I recollected it was by his Providence I was born the heir to such a scene, instead of having my lot cast among the serfs and dependents of other regions.

After standing at the window a minute, in contemplation of that pleasing view, I drew back, suddenly and painfully conscious of the character and extent of the combination that existed to rob me of my rights in it.

America no longer seemed America to my eyes; but in place of its ancient submission to the law, its quick distinction between right and wrong, its sober and discriminating liberty, which equally avoided submission to the injustice of power, and the excesses of popular delusions, there had been subst.i.tuted the rapacity of the plunderer, rendered formidable by the insidious manner in which it was interwoven with political machinery, and the truckling of the wretches intrusted with authority; men who were playing into the hands of demagogues, solely in order to secure majorities to perpetuate their own influence. Was, then, the State really so corrupt as to lend itself to projects as base as those openly maintained by the anti-renters? Far from it: four men out of five, if not a larger proportion, must be, and indeed are, sensible of the ills that their success would entail on the community, and would lift up heart and hand to-morrow to put them down totally and without pity; but they have made themselves slaves of the lamp; have enlisted in the ranks of _party_, and _dare_ not oppose their leaders, who wield them as Napoleon wielded his ma.s.ses, to further private views, apostrophizing and affecting an homage to liberty all the while! Such is the history of man!

When the family met in the breakfast-room, a singular tranquillity prevailed among us. As for my grandmother, I knew her spirit and early experience, and was not so much surprised to find her calm and reasonable; but these qualities seemed imparted to her four young companions also. Patt could laugh, and yield to her buoyant spirits, just the same as if nothing had occurred, while my uncle's other wards maintained a lady-like quiet, that denoted anything but apprehension.

Mary Warren, however, surprised me by her air and deportment. There she sat, in her place at the table, looking, if possible, the most feminine, gentle, and timid of the four. I could scarcely believe that the blus.h.i.+ng, retiring, modest, pretty daughter of the rector could be the prompt, decided, and clear-headed young girl who had been of so much service to me the past night, and to whose coolness and discretion, indeed, we were all indebted for the roof that was over our heads, and some of us, most probably, for our lives.

Notwithstanding this air of tranquillity, the breakfast was a silent and thoughtful meal. Most of the conversation was between my uncle and grandmother, and a portion of it related to the disposal of the prisoners. There was no magistrate within several miles of the Nest, but those who were tainted with anti-rentism; and to carry Seneca and his companion before a justice of the peace of this character, would be, in effect, to let them go at large. Nominal bail would be taken, and it is more than probable the constable employed would have suffered a rescue, did they even deem it necessary to go through this parade of performing their duties. My uncle, consequently, adopted the following plan. He had caused the two incendiaries to be transferred to the old farm-house, which happened to contain a perfectly dry and empty cellar, and which had much of the security of a dungeon, without the usual defects of obscurity and dampness. The red-men had a.s.sumed the office of sentinels, one having his station at the door, while another watched near a window which admitted the light, while it was scarcely large enough to permit the human body to squeeze through it. The interpreter had received instructions from the agent to respect the Christian Sabbath; and no movement being contemplated for the day, this little duty just suited their lounging, idle habits, when in a state of rest. Food and water, of course, had not been forgotten; and there my uncle Ro had left that portion of the business, intending to have the delinquents carried to a distant magistrate, one of the judges of the county, early on Monday morning. As for the disturbers of the past night, no signs of them were any longer visible; and there being little extensive cover near the Nest, no apprehension was felt of any surprise.

We were still at breakfast, when the tone of St. Andrew's bell came floating, plaintively, through the air, as a summons to prepare ourselves for the services of the day. It was little more than a mile to the church, and the younger ladies expressed a desire to walk. My grandmother, attended by her son, therefore, alone used the carriage, while we young people went off in a body, on foot, half an hour before the ringing of the second bell. Considering the state of the country, and the history of the past night, I was astonished at my own indifference on this occasion, no less than at that of my charming companions; nor was it long before I gave utterance to the feeling.

"This America of ours is a queer place, it must be admitted," I cried, as we crossed the lawn to take a foot-path that would lead us, by pleasant pastures, quite to the church-door, without entering the highway, except to cross it once; "here we have the whole neighborhood as tranquil as if crime never disturbed it, though it is not yet a dozen hours since riot, arson, and perhaps murder, were in the contemplation of hundreds of those who live on every side of us. The change is wonderful!"

"But, you will remember it is Sunday, Hugh," put in Patt. "All summer, when Sunday has come, we have had a respite from disturbances and fears.

In this part of the country, the people are too religious to think of desecrating the Sabbath by violence and armed bands. The anti-renters would lose more than they would gain by pursuing a different course."

I had little or no difficulty in believing this, it being no unusual thing, among us, to find observances of this nature clinging to the habits of thousands, long after the devout feeling which had first instilled it into the race has become extinct. Something very like it prevails in other countries, and among even higher and more intellectual cla.s.ses, where it is no unusual thing to find the most profound outward respect manifested toward the altar and its rites, by men who live in the hourly neglect of the first and plainest commands of the decalogue.

We are not alone, therefore, in this pharisaical spirit, which exists, in some mode or other, wherever man himself is to be found.

But this equivocal piety was certainly manifested to a striking degree, that day, at Ravensnest. The very men who were almost desperate in their covetous longings appeared at church, and went through the service with as much seeming devotion as if conscious of no evil; and a general truce appeared to prevail in the country, notwithstanding there must have been much bitterness of feeling among the discomfited. Nevertheless, I could detect in the countenances of many of the old tenants of the family, an altered expression, and a coldness of the eye, which bespoke anything but the ancient friendly feeling which had so long existed between us.

The solution was very simple; demagogues had stirred up the spirit--not of the inst.i.tutions, but--of covetousness, in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; and so long as that evil tendency predominated, there was little room for better feelings.

"Now I shall have another look at the canopied pew," I cried, as we entered the last field, on our way to the church. "That offensive, but unoffending object, had almost gone out of my mind's eye, until my uncle recollected it, by intimating that Jack Dunning, as he calls his friend and council, had written him it _must_ come down."

"I agree with Mr. Dunning altogether," answered Martha, quickly. "I wish with all my heart, Hugh, you would order that hideous-looking thing to be taken away this very week."

"Why this earnestness, my dear Patt? There has the hideous thing been ever since the church was built, which is now these threescore years, and no harm has come of it, as I know."

"It is harm to be so ugly. It disfigures the church; and then I do not think distinctions of that sort are proper for the house of G.o.d. I know this ever has been my grandmother's opinion; but finding her father-in-law and husband desirous of such an _ornament_, she consented in silence, during their lives."

"What do _you_ say to all this, Miss Warren," I asked, turning to my companion, for by some secret influence I was walking at her side. "Are you 'up canopy' or 'down canopy'?"

"'Down canopy,'" answered Mary, firmly. "I am of Mrs. Littlepage's opinion, that churches ought to contain as little as possible to mark worldly distinctions. Such distinctions are inseparable from life, I know; but it is to prepare for death that we enter such buildings."

"And your father, Miss Warren--have you ever heard him speak of my unfortunate pew?"

Mary hesitated an instant, changed color, then looked up into my face with a countenance so ingenuous and lovely, that I would have forgiven her even a severe comment on some act of folly of my own.

"My father is an advocate for doing away with pews altogether," she answered, "and, of course, can have no particular wish to preserve yours. He tells me, that in the churches of the Romanists, the congregation sit, stand, or kneel, promiscuously before the altar, or crowd around the pulpit, without any distinction of rank or persons.

Surely, that is better than bringing into the very temple the most pitiful of all worldly cla.s.sifications, that of mere money."

"It _is_ better, Miss Warren; and I wish, with all my heart, the custom could be adopted here. But the church that might best dispense with the support obtained from pews, and which by its size and architecture, is best fitted to set the example of a new mode, has gone on in the old way, I understand, and has its pews as well as another."

"Do we get our custom from England, Hugh!" demanded Martha.

"a.s.suredly; as we do most others, good, bad and indifferent. The property-notion would be very likely to prevail in a country like England; and then it is not absolutely true that everybody sits in common, even in the churches of the continent of the old world. The seigneur, under the old regime, in France, had _his_ pew, usually; and high dignitaries of the State in no country are found mingling with the ma.s.s of wors.h.i.+ppers, unless it be in good company. It is true, a _d.u.c.h.esse_ will kneel in the crowd, in most Romish churches, in the towns, for there are too many such persons to accommodate all with privileged seats, and such honors are reserved for the very great; but in the country, there are commonly pews, in by-places, for the great personages of the neighborhood. We are not quite so bad as we fancy ourselves, in this particular, though we might be better."

"But you will allow that a canopied pew is unsuited to this country, brother?"

"Not more to this than to any other. I agree that it is unsuited to all places of wors.h.i.+p, where the petty differences between men, which are created by their own usages, should sink into insignificance, in the direct presence, as it might be, of the power of G.o.d. But, in this country, I find a spirit rising, which some persons would call the 'spirit of the inst.i.tutions,' that is forever denying men rewards, and honors, and credit exactly in the degree in which they deserve them. The moment a citizen's head is seen above the crowd of faces around him, it becomes the mark of rotten eggs, as if he were raised in the pillory, and his fellow-creatures would not tolerate any difference in moral stature."

"How do you reconcile that with the great number of Catos, and Brutuses, not to say of the Gracchi, that are to be found among us?" asked Mary Warren, slyly.

"Oh! these are the mere creatures of party--great men for the nonce.

They are used to serve the purposes of factions, and are be-greated for the occasion. Thus it is, that nine-tenths of the Catos you mention are forgotten, even by name, every political _l.u.s.trum_. But let a man rise, _independently of the people_, by his own merit, and see how the people will tolerate him. Thus it is with my pew--it is a _great_ pew, and become great without any agency of the 'folks;' and the 'folks' don't like it."

The girls laughed at this sally, as light-hearted, happy girls will laugh at anything of the sort; and Patt put in her retort, in her own direct, spirited manner.

"It is a _great_ ugly thing, if that concession will flatter your vanity," she said, "and I do entreat it may come down _greatly_, this present week. Really, you can have no notion, Hugh, how much talk it has made of late."

"I do not doubt it, my dear. The talk is all aimed at the leases; everything that can be thought of, being dragged into the account against us poor landlords, in order to render our cause unpopular, and thus increase the chances of robbing us with impunity. _The good people of this State little imagine that the very evils that the enemies of the inst.i.tutions have long predicted, and which their friends have as warmly repudiated, are now actively at work among us, and that the great experiment is in imminent danger of failing, at the very moment the people are loudly exulting in its success. Let this attempt on property succeed, ever so indirectly, AND IT WILL BE FOLLOWED UP BY OTHERS, WHICH WILL AS INEVITABLY DRIVE US INTO DESPOTISM, AS A REFUGE AGAINST ANARCHY, AS EFFECT SUCCEEDS TO CAUSE_. The danger exists, now, in its very worst form--that of political demagogueism--and must be met, face to face, and put down manfully, and on true principles, or, in my poor judgment, we are gone. Cant is a prevailing vice of the nation, more especially political and religious cant, and cant can never be appeased by concessions. My canopy _shall_ stand, so long as anti-rentism exists at Ravensnest, or be torn down by violence; when men return to their senses, and begin to see the just distinctions between _meum_ and _tuum_, the cook may have it for oven-wood, any day in the week."