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THE

REDSKINS;

OR,

INDIAN AND INJIN:

BEING THE CONCLUSION OF THE

LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS.

BY THE

AUTHOR OF "THE PATHFINDER," "DEERSLAYER,"
"TWO ADMIRALS," ETC.

    In every work regard the writer's end;
    None e'er ran compass more than they intend.
    POPE.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.


NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY BURGESS & STRINGER,

1846.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by

J. FENIMORE COOPER,

in the clerk's office of the District Court for the Northern District
of New York.


STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN, PHILADELPHIA.




PREFACE.


This book closes the series of the Littlepage Manuscripts, which have
been given to the world, as containing a fair account of the comparative
sacrifices of time, money and labour, made respectively by the landlord
and the tenants, on a New York estate; together with the manner in which
usages and opinions are changing among us; as well as certain of the
reasons of these changes. The discriminating reader will probably be
able to trace in these narratives the progress of those innovations on
the great laws of morals which are becoming so very manifest in
connection with this interest, setting at naught the plainest principles
that God has transmitted to man for the government of his conduct, and
all under the extraordinary pretence of favouring liberty! In this
downward course, our picture embraces some of the proofs of that
looseness of views on the subject of certain species of property which
is, in a degree perhaps, inseparable from the semi-barbarous condition
of a new settlement; the gradation of the squatter, from him who merely
makes his pitch to crop a few fields in passing, to him who carries on
the business by wholesale; and last, though not least in this catalogue
of marauders, the anti-renter.

It would be idle to deny that the great principle which lies at the
bottom of anti-rentism, if principle it can be called, is the
assumption of a claim that the interests and wishes of numbers are to be
respected, though done at a sacrifice of the clearest rights of the few.
That this is not liberty, but tyranny in its worst form, every
right-thinking and right-feeling man must be fully aware. Every one who
knows much of the history of the past, and of the influence of classes,
must understand, that whenever the educated, the affluent and the
practised, choose to unite their means of combination and money to
control the political destiny of a country, they become irresistible;
making the most subservient tools of those very masses who vainly
imagine _they_ are the true guardians of their own liberties. The
well-known election of 1840 is a memorable instance of the power of such
a combination; though that was a combination formed mostly for the mere
purposes of faction, sustained perhaps by the desperate designs of the
insolvents of the country. Such a combination was necessarily wanting in
union among the affluent; it had not the high support of principles to
give it sanctity, and it affords little more than the proof of the power
of money and leisure, when applied in a very doubtful cause, in wielding
the masses of a great nation, to be the instruments of their own
subjection. No well-intentioned American legislator, consequently, ought
ever to lose sight of the fact, that each invasion of the right which he
sanctions is a blow struck against liberty itself, which, in a country
like this, has no auxiliary so certain or so powerful as justice.

The State of New York contains about 43,000 square miles of land; or
something like 27,000,000 of acres. In 1783, its population must have
been about 200,000 souls. With such a proportion between people and
surface it is unnecessary to prove that the husbandman was not quite as
dependent on the landholder, as the landholder was dependent on the
husbandman. This would have been true, had the State been an island; but
we all know it was surrounded by many other communities similarly
situated, and that nothing else was so abundant as land. All notions of
exactions and monopolies, therefore, must be untrue, as applied to those
two interests at that day.

In 1786-7, the State of New York, then in possession of all powers on
the subject, abolished entails, and otherwise brought its law of real
estate in harmony with the institutions. At that time, hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of the leases which have since become so obnoxious, were in
existence. With the attention of the State drawn directly to the main
subject, no one saw anything incompatible with the institutions in them.
_It was felt that the landlords had bought the tenants to occupy their
lands by the liberality of their concessions_, and that the latter were
the obliged parties. Had the landlords of that day endeavoured to lease
for one year, or for ten years, no tenants could have been found for
wild lands; but it became a different thing, when the owner of the soil
agreed to part with it for ever, in consideration of a very low rent,
granting six or eight years free from any charge whatever, and
consenting to receive the product of the soil itself in lieu of money.
Then, indeed, men were not only willing to come into the terms, but
eager; the best evidence of which is the fact, that the same tenants
might have bought land, out and out, in every direction around them,
had they not preferred the easier terms of the leases. Now, that these
same men, or their successors, have become rich enough to care more to
be rid of the encumbrance of the rent than to keep their money, the
rights of the parties certainly are not altered.

In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into operation; New
York being a party to its creation and conditions. By that Constitution,
the State deliberately deprived itself of the power to touch the
covenants of these leases, without conceding the power to any other
government; unless it might be through a change of the Constitution
itself. As a necessary consequence, these leases, in a legal sense,
belong to the institutions of New York, instead of being opposed to
them. Not only is the spirit of the institutions in harmony with these
leases, but so is the letter also. Men must draw a distinction between
the "spirit of the institutions" and their own "spirits;" the latter
being often nothing more than a stomach that is not easily satisfied. It
would be just as true to affirm that domestic slavery is opposed to the
institutions of the United States, as to say the same of these leases.
It would be just as rational to maintain, because A. does not choose to
make an associate of B., that he is acting in opposition to the "spirit
of the institutions," inasmuch as the Declaration of Independence
advances the dogmas that men are born equal, as it is to say it is
opposed to the same spirit, for B. to pay rent to A. according to his
covenant.

It is pretended that the durable leases are feudal in their nature. We
do not conceive this to be true; but, admitting it to be so, it would
only prove that feudality, to this extent, is a part of the institutions
of the State. What is more, it would become a part over which the State
itself has conceded all power of control, beyond that which it may
remotely possess as one, out of twenty-eight communities. As respects
this feudal feature, it is not easy to say where it must be looked for.
It is not to be found in the simple fact of paying rent, for that is so
general as to render the whole country feudal, could it be true; it
cannot be in the circumstance that the rent is to be paid "in kind," as
it is called, and in labour, for that is an advantage to the tenant, by
affording him the option, since the penalty of a failure leaves the
alternative of paying in money. It must be, therefore, that these leases
are feudal because they run for ever! Now the length of the lease is
clearly a concession to the tenant, and was so regarded when received;
and there is not probably a single tenant, under lives, who would not
gladly exchange his term of possession for that of one of these
detestable durable leases!

Among the absurdities that have been circulated on this subject of
feudality, it has been pretended that the well-known English statute of
"_quia emptores_" has prohibited fines for alienation; or that the
quarter-sales, fifth-sales, sixth-sales, &c. of our own leases were
contrary to the law of the realm, when made. Under the common law, in
certain cases of feudal tenures, the fines for alienation were an
incident of the tenure. The statute of _quia emptores_ abolished that
general principle, but it in no manner forbade parties _to enter into
covenants of the nature of quarter-sales_, did they see fit. The common
law gives all the real estate to the eldest son. Our statute divides the
real estate among the nearest of kin, without regard even to sex. It
might just as well be pretended that the father cannot devise all his
lands to his eldest son, under our statute, as to say that the law of
Edward I. prevents parties from _bargaining_ for quarter-sales. Altering
a provision of the common law does not preclude parties from making
covenants similar to its ancient provisions.

Feudal tenures were originally divided into two great classes; those
which were called the military tenures, or knight's service, and
_soccage_. The first tenure was that which became oppressive in the
progress of society. Soccage was of two kinds; free and villian. The
first has an affinity to our own system, as connected with these leases;
the last never existed among us at all. When the knight's service, or
military tenures of England were converted into free soccage, in the
reign of Charles II., the concession was considered of a character so
favourable to liberty as to be classed among the great measures of the
time; one of which was the _habeas corpus_ act!

The only feature of our own leases, in the least approaching "villian
soccage," is that of the "day's works." But every one acquainted with
the habits of American life, will understand that husbandmen, in
general, throughout the northern States, would regard it as an advantage
to be able to pay their debts in this way; and the law gives them an
option, since a failure to pay "in kind," or "in work," merely incurs
the forfeiture of paying what the particular thing is worth, in money.
In point of fact, money has always been received for these "day's
works," and at a stipulated price.

But, it is pretended, whatever may be the equity of these leasehold
contracts, they are offensive to the tenants, and ought to be abrogated,
for the peace of the State. The State is bound to make all classes of
men respect its laws, and in nothing more so than in the fulfilment of
their legal contracts. The greater the number of the offenders, the
higher the obligation to act with decision and efficiency. To say that
these disorganizers _ought_ not to be put down, is to say that crime is
to obtain impunity by its own extent; and to say that they _cannot_ be
put down "under our form of government," is a direct admission that the
government is unequal to the discharge of one of the plainest and
commonest obligations of all civilized society. If this be really so,
the sooner we get rid of the present form of government the better. The
notion of remedying _such_ an evil by concession, is as puerile as it is
dishonest. The larger the concessions become, the greater will be the
exactions of a cormorant cupidity. As soon as quiet is obtained by these
means, in reference to the leasehold tenures, it will be demanded by
some fresh combination to attain some other end.

When Lee told Washington, at Monmouth, "Sir, your troops will not stand
against British grenadiers," Washington is said to have answered, "Sir,
you have never tried them." The same reply might be given to those
miserable traducers of this republic, who, in order to obtain votes,
affect to think there is not sufficient energy in its government to put
down so bare-faced an attempt as this of the anti-renters to alter the
conditions of their own leases to suit their own convenience. The county
of Delaware has, of itself, nobly given the lie to the assertion, the
honest portion of its inhabitants scattering the knaves to the four
winds, the moment there was a fair occasion made for them to act. A
single, energetic proclamation from Albany, calling a "spade a spade,"
and not affecting to gloss over the disguised robbery of these
anti-renters, and laying just principles fairly before the public mind,
would of itself have crushed the evil in its germ. The people of New
York, in their general capacity, are not the knaves their servants
evidently suppose.

The assembly of New York, in its memorable session of 1846, has taxed
the rents on long leases; thus, not only taxing the same property twice,
but imposing the worst sort of income-tax, or one aimed at a few
individuals. It has "thimble-rigged" in its legislation, as Mr. Hugh
Littlepage not unaptly terms it; endeavouring to do that indirectly,
which the Constitution will not permit it to do directly. In other
words, as it can pass no direct law "impairing the obligation of
contracts," while it _can_ regulate descents, it has enacted, so far as
one body of the legislature has power to enact anything, that on the
_death_ of a landlord the tenant may convert his lease into a mortgage,
on discharging which he shall hold his land in fee!

We deem the first of these measures far more tyrannical than the attempt
of Great Britain to tax her colonies, which brought about the
revolution. It is of the same general character, that of unjust
taxation; while it is attended by circumstances of aggravation that
were altogether wanting in the policy of the mother country. This is not
a tax for revenue, which is not needed; but a tax to "choke off" the
landlords, to use a common American phrase. It is clearly taxing
_nothing_, or it is taxing the same property twice. It is done to
conciliate three or four thousand voters, who are now in the market, at
the expense of three or four hundred who, it is known, are not to be
bought. It is unjust in its motives, its means and its end. The measure
is discreditable to civilization, and an outrage on liberty.

But, the other law mentioned is an atrocity so grave, as to alarm every
man of common principle in the State, were it not so feeble in its
devices to cheat the Constitution, as to excite contempt. This
extraordinary power is exercised because the legislature _can_ control
the law of descents, though it cannot "impair the obligation of
contracts!" Had the law said at once that on the death of a landlord
each of his tenants should _own_ his farm in fee, the ensemble of the
fraud would have been preserved, since the "law of descents" would have
been so far regulated as to substitute one heir for another; but
changing the _nature_ of a contract, with a party who has nothing to do
with the succession at all, is not so very clearly altering, or
amending, the law of descents! It is scarcely necessary to say that
every reputable court in the country, whether State or Federal, would
brand such a law with the disgrace it merits.

But the worst feature of this law, or attempted law, remains to be
noticed. It would have been a premium on murder. Murder _has_ already
been committed by these anti-renters, and that obviously to effect
their ends; and they were to be told that whenever you shoot a landlord,
as some have already often shot _at_ them, you can convert your
leasehold tenures into tenures in fee! The mode of valuation is so
obvious, too, as to deserve a remark. A master was to settle the
valuation on testimony. The witnesses of course would be "the
neighbours," and a whole patent could swear for each other!

As democrats we protest most solemnly against such bare-faced frauds,
such palpable cupidity and covetousness being termed anything but what
they are. If they come of any party at all, it is the party of the
devil. Democracy is a lofty and noble sentiment. It does not rob the
poor to make the rich richer, nor the rich to favour the poor. It is
just, and treats all men alike. It does not "impair the obligations of
contracts." It is not the friend of a canting legislation, but, meaning
right, dare act directly. There is no greater delusion than to suppose
that true democracy has anything in common with injustice or roguery.

Nor is it an apology for anti-rentism, in any of its aspects, to say
that leasehold tenures are inexpedient. The most expedient thing in
existence is to do right. Were there no other objection to this
anti-rent movement than its corrupting influence, that alone should set
every wise man in the community firmly against it. We have seen too much
of this earth, to be so easily convinced that there is any disadvantage,
nay that there is not a positive advantage in the existence of large
leasehold estates, when they carry with them no political power, as is
the fact here. The common-place argument against them, that they defeat
the civilization of a country, is not sustained by fact. The most
civilized countries on earth are under this system; and this system,
too, not entirely free from grave objections which do not exist among
ourselves. That a poorer class of citizens have originally leased than
have purchased lands in New York, is probably true; and it is equally
probable that the effects of this poverty, and even of the tenure in the
infancy of a country, are to be traced on the estates. But this is
taking a very one-sided view of the matter. The men who became tenants
in moderate but comfortable circumstances, would have been mostly
labourers on the farms of others, but for these leasehold tenures. That
is the benefit of the system in a new country, and the ultra friend of
humanity, who decries the condition of a tenant, should remember that if
he had not been in this very condition, he might have been in a worse.
It is, indeed, one of the proofs of the insincerity of those who are
decrying leases, on account of their aristocratic tendencies, that their
destruction will necessarily condemn a numerous class of agriculturists,
either to fall back into the ranks of the peasant or day-labourer, or to
migrate, as is the case with so many of the same class in New England.
In point of fact, the relation of landlord and tenant is one entirely
natural and salutary, in a wealthy community, and one that is so much in
accordance with the necessities of men, that no legislation can long
prevent it. A state of things which will not encourage the rich to hold
real estate would not be desirable, since it would be diverting their
money, knowledge, liberality, feelings and leisure, from the
improvement of the soil, to objects neither so useful nor so
praiseworthy.

The notion that every husbandman is to be a freeholder, is as Utopian in
practice, as it would be to expect that all men were to be on the same
level in fortune, condition, education and habits. As such a state of
things as the last never yet did exist, it was probably never designed
by divine wisdom that it should exist. The whole structure of society
must be changed, even in this country, ere it could exist among
ourselves, and the change would not have been made a month before the
utter impracticability of such a social fusion would make itself felt by
all.

We have elsewhere imputed much of the anti-rent feeling to provincial
education and habits. This term has given the deepest offence to those
who were most obnoxious to the charge. Nevertheless, our opinion is
unchanged. We know that the distance between the cataract of Niagara and
the Massachusetts line is a large hundred leagues, and that it is as
great between Sandy Hook and the 45th parallel of latitude. Many
excellent things, moral and physical, are to be found within these
limits, beyond a question; but we happen to know by an experience that
has extended to other quarters of the world, for a term now exceeding
forty years, that more are to be found beyond them. If "honourable
gentlemen" at Albany fancy the reverse, they must still permit us to
believe they are too much under the influence of provincial notions.




THE REDSKINS.




CHAPTER I.

    "Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
    She said--Thou wert my daughter; and thy father
    Was duke of Milan; and his only heir
    A princess;--no worse issued."

    _Tempest._


My uncle Ro and myself had been travelling together in the East, and had
been absent from home fully five years, when we reached Paris. For
eighteen months neither of us had seen a line from America, when we
drove through the barriers, on our way from Egypt, viâ Algiers,
Marseilles, and Lyons. Not once, in all that time, had we crossed our
own track, in a way to enable us to pick up a straggling letter; and all
our previous precautions to have the epistles meet us at different
bankers in Italy, Turkey, and Malta, were thrown away.

My uncle was an old traveller--I might almost say, an old resident--in
Europe; for he had passed no less than twenty years of his fifty-nine
off the American continent. A bachelor, with nothing to do but to take
care of a very ample estate, which was rapidly increasing in value by
the enormous growth of the town of New York, and with tastes early
formed by travelling, it was natural he should seek those regions where
he most enjoyed himself. Hugh Roger Littlepage was born in 1786--the
second son of my grandfather, Mordaunt Littlepage, and of Ursula
Malbone, his wife. My own father, Malbone Littlepage, was the eldest
child of that connexion; and he would have inherited the property of
Ravensnest, in virtue of his birthright, had he survived his own
parents; but, dying young, I stepped into what would otherwise have been
his succession, in my eighteenth year. My uncle Ro, however, had got
both Satanstoe and Lilacsbush; two country-houses and farms, which,
while they did not aspire to the dignity of being estates, were likely
to prove more valuable, in the long run, than the broad acres which were
intended for the patrimony of the elder brother. My grandfather was
affluent; for not only had the fortune of the Littlepages centred in
him, but so did that of the Mordaunts, the wealthier family of the two,
together with some exceedingly liberal bequests from a certain Col.
Dirck Follock, or Van Valkenburgh; who, though only a very distant
connexion, chose to make my great-grandmother's, or Anneke Mordaunt's,
descendants his heirs. We all had enough; my aunts having handsome
legacies, in the way of bonds and mortgages, on an estate called
Mooseridge, in addition to some lots in town; while my own sister,
Martha, had a clear fifty thousand dollars in money. I had town-lots,
also, which were becoming productive; and a special minority of seven
years had made an accumulation of cash that was well vested in New York
State stock, and which promised well for the future. I say a "special"
minority; for both my father and grandfather, in placing, the one,
myself and a portion of the property, and the other the remainder of my
estate, under the guardianship and ward of my uncle, had made a
provision that I was not to come into possession until I had completed
my twenty-fifth year.

I left college at twenty; and my uncle Ro, for so Martha and myself
always called him, and so he was always called by some twenty cousins,
the offspring of our three aunts;--but my uncle Ro, when I was done with
college, proposed to finish my education by travelling. As this was only
too agreeable to a young man, away we went, just after the pressure of
the great panic of 1836-7 was over, and our "lots" were in tolerable
security, and our stocks safe. In America it requires almost as much
vigilance to _take care_ of property, as it does industry to acquire it.

Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage--by the way, I bore the same name, though I
was always called Hugh, while my uncle went by the different
appellations of Roger, Ro, and Hodge, among his familiars, as
circumstances had rendered the associations sentimental, affectionate,
or manly--Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, Senior, then, had a system of his
own, in the way of aiding the scales to fall from American eyes, by
means of seeing more clearly than one does, or can, at home, let him
belong where he may, and in clearing the specks of provincialism from
off the diamond of republican water. He had already seen enough to
ascertain that while "our country," as this blessed nation is very apt
on all occasions, appropriate or not, to be called by all who belong to
it, as well as by a good many who do not, could teach a great deal to
the old world, there was a possibility--just a _possibility_, remark, is
my word--that it might also learn a little. With a view, therefore, of
acquiring knowledge seriatim, as it might be, he was for beginning with
the hornbook, and going on regularly up to the belles-lettres and
mathematics. The manner in which this was effected deserves a notice.

Most American travellers land in England, the country farthest advanced
in material civilization; then proceed to Italy, and perhaps to Greece,
leaving Germany, and the less attractive regions of the north, to come
in at the end of the chapter. My uncle's theory was to follow the order
of time, and to begin with the ancients and end with the moderns;
though, in adopting such a rule, he admitted he somewhat lessened the
pleasure of the novice; since an American, fresh from the fresher fields
of the western continent, might very well find delight in memorials of
the past, more especially in England, which pall on his taste, and
appear insignificant, after he has become familiar with the Temple of
Neptune, the Parthenon, or what is left of it, and the Coliseum. I make
no doubt that I lost a great deal of passing happiness in this way, by
beginning at the beginning, or by beginning in Italy, and travelling
north.

Such was our course, however; and, landing at Leghorn, we did the
peninsula effectually in a twelvemonth; thence passed through Spain up
to Paris, and proceeded on to Moscow and the Baltic, reaching England
from Hamburg. When we had got through with the British isles, the
antiquities of which seemed flat and uninteresting to me, after having
seen those that were so much more _antique_, we returned to Paris, in
order that I might become a man of the world, if possible, by rubbing
off the provincial specks that had unavoidably adhered to the American
diamond while in its obscurity.

My uncle Ro was fond of Paris, and he had actually become the owner of a
small hotel in the faubourg, in which he retained a handsome furnished
apartment for his own use. The remainder of the house was let to
permanent tenants; but the whole of the first floor, and of the
_entresol_, remained in his hands. As a special favour, he would allow
some American family to occupy even his own apartment--or rather
_appartement_, for the words are not exactly synonymous--when he
intended to be absent for a term exceeding six months, using the money
thus obtained in keeping the furniture in repair, and his handsome suite
of rooms, including a _salon_, _salle à manger_, _ante-chambre_,
_cabinet_, several _chambres à coucher_, and a _boudoir_--yes, a male
_boudoir_! for so he affected to call it--in a condition to please even
his fastidiousness.

On our arrival from England, we remained an entire season at Paris, all
that time rubbing the specks off the diamond, when my uncle suddenly
took it into his head that we ought to see the East. He had never been
further than Greece, himself; and he now took a fancy to be my companion
in such an excursion. We were gone two years and a half, visiting
Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, the Holy Land, Petra, the Red Sea,
Egypt quite to the second cataracts, and nearly the whole of Barbary.
The latter region we threw in, by way of seeing something out of the
common track. But so many hats and travelling-caps are to be met with,
now-a-days, among the turbans, that a well-mannered Christian may get
along almost anywhere without being spit upon. This is a great
inducement for travelling generally, and ought to be so especially to an
American, who, on the whole, incurs rather more risk now of suffering
this humiliation at home, than he would even in Algiers. But the animus
is everything in morals.

We had, then, been absent two years and a half from Paris, and had not
seen a paper or received a letter from America in eighteen months, when
we drove through the barrier. Even the letters and papers received or
seen previously to this last term, were of a private nature, and
contained nothing of a general character. The "twenty millions"--it was
only the other day they were called the "twelve millions"--but, the
"twenty millions," we knew, had been looking up amazingly after the
temporary depression of the moneyed crisis it had gone through; and the
bankers had paid our drafts with confidence, and without extra charges,
during the whole time we had been absent. It is true, Uncle Ro, as an
experienced traveller, went well fortified in the way of credit--a
precaution by no means unnecessary with Americans, after the cry that
had been raised against us in the old world.

And here I wish to say one thing plainly, before I write another line.
As for falling into the narrow, self-adulatory, provincial feeling of
the American who has never left his mother's apron-string, and which
causes him to swallow, open-mouthed, all the nonsense that is uttered to
the world in the columns of newspapers, or in the pages of your yearling
travellers, who go on "excursions" before they are half instructed in
the social usages and the distinctive features of their own country, I
hope I shall be just as far removed from such a weakness, in any passing
remark that may flow from my pen, as from the crime of confounding
principles and denying facts in a way to do discredit to the land of my
birth and that of my ancestors. I have lived long enough in the "world,"
not meaning thereby the south-east corner of the north-west township of
Connecticut, to understand that we are a vast way behind older nations,
in _thought_ as well as deed, in many things; while, on the opposite
hand, they are a vast way behind us in others. I see no patriotism in
concealing a wholesome truth; and least of all shall I be influenced by
the puerility of a desire to hide anything of this nature, because I
cannot communicate it to my countrymen without communicating it to the
rest of the world. If England or France had acted on this narrow
principle, where would have been their Shakspeares, their Sheridans,
their Beaumonts and Fletchers, and their Molieres! No, no! great
national truths are not to be treated as the gossiping surmises of
village crones. He who reads what I _write_, therefore, must expect to
find what I _think_ of matters and things, and not exactly what he may
happen to think on the same subjects. Any one is at liberty to compare
opinions with me; but I ask the privilege of possessing some small
liberty of conscience in what is, far and near, proclaimed to be the
_only_ free country on the earth. By "far and near," I mean from the St.
Croix to the Rio Grande, and from Cape Cod to the entrance of St. Juan
de Fuca; and a pretty farm it makes, the "interval" that lies between
these limits! One may call it "far and near" without the imputation of
obscurity, or that of vanity.

Our tour was completed, in spite of all annoyances; and here we were
again, within the walls of magnificent Paris! The postilions had been
told to drive to the hotel, in the rue St. Dominique; and we sat down to
dinner, an hour after our arrival, under our own roof. My uncle's tenant
had left the apartment a month before, according to agreement; and the
porter and his wife had engaged a cook, set the rooms in order, and
prepared everything for our arrival.

"It must be owned, Hugh," said my uncle, as he finished his soup that
day, "one _may_ live quite comfortably in Paris, if he possess the
_savoir vivre_. Nevertheless, I have a strong desire to get a taste of
native air. One may say and think what he pleases about the Paris
pleasures, and the Paris _cuisine_, and all that sort of things; but
"home is home, be it ever so homely." A 'd'Inde aux truffes' is capital
eating; so is a turkey with cranberry sauce. I sometimes think I could
fancy even a pumpkin pie, though there is not a fragment of the rock of
Plymouth in the granite of my frame."

"I have always told you, sir, that America is a capital eating and
drinking country, let it want civilization in other matters, as much as
it may."

"Capital for eating and drinking, Hugh, if you can keep clear of the
grease, in the first place, and find a real cook, in the second. There
is as much difference between the cookery of New England, for instance,
and that of the Middle States, barring the Dutch, as there is between
that of England and Germany. The cookery of the Middle States, and of
the Southern States, too, though that savours a little of the West
Indies--but the cookery of the Middle States is English, in its best
sense; meaning the hearty, substantial, savoury dishes of the English in
their true domestic life, with their roast-beef underdone, their
beefsteaks done to a turn, their chops full of gravy, their
mutton-broth, legs-of-mutton, _et id omne genus_. We have some capital
things of our own, too; such as canvass-backs, reedbirds, sheepshead,
shad, and blackfish. The difference between New England and the Middle
States is still quite observable, though in my younger days it was
_patent_. I suppose the cause has been the more provincial origin, and
the more provincial habits, of our neighbours. By George! Hugh, one
could fancy clam-soup just now, eh!"

"Clam-soup, sir, well made, is one of the most delicious soups in the
world. If the cooks of Paris could get hold of the dish, it would set
them up for a whole season."

"What is 'crême de Bavière,' and all such nick-nacks, boy, to a good
plateful of clam-soup? Well made, as you say--made as a cook of Jennings
used to make it, thirty years since. Did I ever mention that fellow's
soup to you before, Hugh?"

"Often, sir. I have tasted very excellent clam-soup, however, that he
never saw. Of course you mean soup just flavoured by the little
hard-clam--none of your vulgar _potage_ à la soft-clam?"

"Soft-clams be hanged! they are not made for gentlemen to eat. Of course
I mean the hard-clam, and the small clam, too--

    Here's your fine clams,
    As white as snow;
    On Rockaway
    These clams do grow.

The cries of New York are quite going out, like everything else at home
that is twenty years old. Shall I send you some of this eternal _poulet
à la Marengo?_ I wish it were honest American boiled fowl, with a
delicate bit of shoat-pork alongside of it. I feel amazingly _homeish_
this evening, Hugh!"

"It is quite natural, my dear uncle Ro; and I own to the 'soft
impeachment' myself. Here have we both been absent from our native land
five years, and half that time almost without hearing from it. We know
that Jacob"--this was a free negro who served my uncle, a relic of the
old domestic system of the colonies, whose name would have been Jaaf, or
Yop, thirty years before--"has gone to our banker's for letters and
papers; and that naturally draws our thoughts to the other side of the
Atlantic. I dare say we shall both feel relieved at breakfast to-morrow,
when we shall have read our respective despatches."

"Come, let us take a glass of wine together, in the good old York
fashion, Hugh. Your father and I, when boys, never thought of wetting
our lips with the half-glass of Madeira that fell to our share, without
saying, 'Good health, Mall!' 'Good health, Hodge!'"

"With all my heart, uncle Ro. The custom was getting to be a little
obsolete even before I left home; but it is almost an American custom,
by sticking to us longer than to most people."

"Henri!"

This was my uncle's maitre d'hotel, whom he had kept at board-wages the
whole time of our absence, in order to make sure of his ease, quiet,
taste, skill, and honesty, on his return.

"Monsieur!"

"I dare say"--my uncle spoke French exceedingly well for a foreigner;
but it is better to translate what he said as we go--"I dare say this
glass of vin de Bourgogne is very good; it _looks_ good, and it came
from a wine-merchant on whom I can rely; but Mons. Hugh and I are going
to drink together, à l'Amèricaine, and I dare say you will let us have a
glass of Madeira, though it is somewhat late in the dinner to take it."

"Tres volontiers, Messieurs--it is my happiness to oblige you."

Uncle Ro and I took the Madeira together; but I cannot say much in
favour of its quality.

"What a capital thing is a good Newtown pippin!" exclaimed my uncle,
after eating a while in silence. "They talk a great deal about their
_poire beurrée_, here at Paris; but, to my fancy, it will not compare
with the Newtowners we grow at Satanstoe, where, by the way, the fruit
is rather better, I think, than that one finds across the river, at
Newtown itself."

"They are capital apples, sir; and your orchard at Satanstoe is one of
the best I know, or rather what is left of it; for I believe a portion
of your trees are in what is now a suburb of Dibbletonborough?"

"Yes, blast that place! I wish I had never parted with a foot of the old
neck, though I did rather make money by the sale. But money is no
compensation for the affections."

"_Rather_ make money, my dear sir! Pray, may I ask what Satanstoe was
valued at, when you got it from my grandfather?"

"Pretty well up, Hugh; for it was, and indeed _is_, a first-rate farm.
Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will remember that there are
quite five hundred acres of it, altogether."

"Which you inherited in 1829?"

"Of course; that was the year of my father's death. Why, the place was
thought to be worth about thirty thousand dollars at that time; but land
was rather low in Westchester in 1829."

"And you sold two hundred acres, including the point, the harbour, and a
good deal of the sedges, for the moderate modicum of one hundred and ten
thousand, cash. A tolerable sale, sir!"

"No, not cash. I got only eighty thousand down, while thirty thousand
were secured by mortgage."

"Which mortgage you hold yet, I dare say, if the truth were told,
covering the whole city of Dibbletonborough. A city ought to be good
security for thirty thousand dollars?"

"It is not, nevertheless, in this case. The speculators who bought of me
in 1835 laid out their town, built a hotel, a wharf, and a warehouse,
and then had an auction. They sold four hundred lots, each twenty-five
feet by a hundred, regulation size, you see, at an average of two
hundred and fifty dollars, receiving one-half, or fifty thousand
dollars, down, and leaving the balance on mortgage. Soon after this, the
bubble burst, and the best lot at Dibbletonborough would not bring,
under the hammer, twenty dollars. The hotel and the warehouse stand
alone in their glory, and will thus stand until they fall, which will
not be a thousand years hence, I rather think."

"And what is the condition of the town-plot?"

"Bad enough. The landmarks are disappearing; and it would cost any man
who should attempt it, the value of his lot, to hire a surveyor to find
his twenty-five by a hundred."

"But your mortgage is good?"

"Ay, good in one sense; but it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to
foreclose it. Why, the equitable interests in that town-plot, people the
place of themselves. I ordered my agent to commence buying up the
rights, as the shortest process of getting rid of them; and he told me
in the very last letter I received, that he had succeeded in purchasing
the titles to three hundred and seventeen of the lots, at an average
price of ten dollars. The remainder, I suppose, will have to be
absorbed."

"Absorbed! That is a process I never heard of, as applied to land."

"There is a good deal of it done, notwithstanding, in America. It is
merely including within your own possession, adjacent land for which no
claimant appears. What can I do? No owners are to be found; and then my
mortgage is always a title. A possession of twenty years under a
mortgage is as good as a deed in fee-simple, with full covenants of
warranty, barring minors and _femmes covert_."

"You did better by Lilacsbush?"

"Ah, _that_ was a clean transaction, and has left no drawbacks.
Lilacsbush being on the island of Manhattan, one is sure there will be a
town there, some day or other. It is true, the property lies quite eight
miles from the City Hall; nevertheless, it has a value, and can always
be sold at something near it. Then the plan of New York is made and
recorded, and one can find his lots. Nor can any man say when the town
will not reach Kingsbridge."

"You got a round price for the Bush, too, I have heard, sir?"

"I got three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, in hard cash. I
would give no credit, and have every dollar of the money, at this
moment, in good six per cent. stock of the States of New York and Ohio."

"Which some persons in this part of the world would fancy to be no very
secure investment."

"More fools they. America is a glorious country, after all, Hugh; and it
is a pride and a satisfaction to belong to it. Look back at it, as I
can remember it, a nation spit upon by all the rest of Christendom----"

"You must at least own, my dear sir," I put in, somewhat pertly,
perhaps, "the example might tempt other people; for, if ever there was a
nation that is assiduously spitting on itself, it is our own beloved
land."

"True, it has that nasty custom in excess, and it grows worse instead of
better, as the influence of the better mannered and better educated
diminishes; but this is a spot on the sun--a mere flaw in the diamond,
that friction will take out. But what a country--what a glorious
country, in truth, it is! You have now done the civilized parts of the
old world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be persuaded,
yourself, of the superiority of your native land."

"I remember you have always used this language, uncle Ro; yet have you
passed nearly one-half of your time _out_ of that glorious country,
since you have reached man's estate."

"The mere consequence of accidents and tastes. I do not mean that
America is a country for a bachelor, to begin with; the means of
amusement for those who have no domestic hearths, are too limited for
the bachelor. Nor do I mean that society in America, in its ordinary
meaning, is in any way as well-ordered, as tasteful, as well-mannered,
as agreeable, or as instructive and useful, as society in almost any
European country I know. I have never supposed that the man of leisure,
apart from the affections, could ever enjoy himself half as much at
home, as he may enjoy himself in this part of the world; and I am
willing to admit that, intellectually, most gentlemen in a great
European capital live as much in one day, as they would live in a week
in such places as New York, and Philadelphia, and Baltimore."

"You do not include Boston, I perceive, sir."

"Of Boston I say nothing. They take the mind hard, there, and we had
better let such a state of things alone. But as respects a man or woman
of leisure, a man or woman of taste, a man or woman of refinement
generally, I am willing enough to admit that, _cæteris paribus_, each
can find far more enjoyment in Europe than in America. But the
philosopher, the philanthropist, the political economist--in a word,
the patriot, may well exult in such elements of profound national
superiority as may be found in America."

"I hope these elements are not so profound but they can be dug up at
need, uncle Ro?"

"There will be little difficulty in doing that, my boy. Look at the
equality of the laws, to begin with. They are made on the principles of
natural justice, and are intended for the benefit of society--for the
poor as well as the rich."

"Are they also intended for the rich as well as the poor?"

"Well, I will grant you a slight blemish is beginning to appear, in that
particular. It is a failing incidental to humanity, and we must not
expect perfection. There is certainly a slight disposition to legislate
for numbers, in order to obtain support at the polls, which has made the
relation of debtor and creditor a little insecure, possibly; but
prudence can easily get along with that. It is erring on the right side,
is it not, to favour the poor instead of the rich, if either is to be
preferred?"

"Justice would favour neither, but treat all alike. I have always heard
that the tyranny of numbers was the worst tyranny in the world."

"Perhaps it is, where there is actually tyranny, and for a very obvious
reason. One tyrant is sooner satisfied than a million, and has even a
greater sense of responsibility. I can easily conceive that the Czar
himself, if disposed to be a tyrant, which I am far from thinking to be
the case with Nicholas, might hesitate about doing that, under his
undivided responsibility, which one of our majorities would do, without
even being conscious of the oppression it exercised, or caring at all
about it. But, on the whole, we do little of the last, and not in the
least enough to counterbalance the immense advantages of the system."

"I have heard very discreet men say that the worst symptom of our system
is the gradual decay of justice among us. The judges have lost most of
their influence, and the jurors are getting to be law-makers, as well as
law-breakers."

"There is a good deal of truth in that, I will acknowledge, also; and
you hear it asked constantly, in a case of any interest, not which party
is in the right, but _who_ is on the jury. But I contend for no
perfection; all I say is, that the country is a glorious country, and
that you and I have every reason to be proud that old Hugh Roger, our
predecessor and namesake, saw fit to transplant himself into it, a
century and a half since."

"I dare say now, uncle Ro, it would strike most Europeans as singular that
a man should be proud of having been born an American--Manhattanese, as
you and I both were."

"All that may be true, for there have been calculated attempts to bring
us into discredit of late, by harping on the failure of certain States
to pay the interest on their debts. But all that is easily answered, and
more so by you and me as New Yorkers. There is not a nation in Europe
that would pay its interest, if those who are taxed to do so had the
control of these taxes, and the power to say whether they were to be
levied or not."

"I do not see how that mends the matter. These countries tell us that
such is the effect of your _system_ there, while we are too honest to
allow such a system to _exist_ in this part of the world."

"Pooh! all gammon, that. They prevent the existence of our system for
very different reasons, and they coerce the payment of the interest on
their debts that they may borrow more. This business of repudiation, as
it is called, however, has been miserably misrepresented; and there is
no answering a falsehood by an argument. No American State has
repudiated its debt, that I know of, though several have been unable to
meet their engagements as they have fallen due."

"_Unable_, uncle Ro?"

"Yes, _unable_--that is the precise word. Take Pennsylvania, for
instance; that is one of the richest communities in the civilized world;
its coal and iron alone would make any country affluent, and a portion
of its agricultural population is one of the most affluent I know of.
Nevertheless, Pennsylvania, owing to a concurrence of events, _could_
not pay the interest on her debt for two years and a half, though she is
doing it now, and will doubtless continue to do it. The sudden breaking
down of that colossal moneyed institution, the _soi-disant_ Bank of the
United States, after it ceased to be in reality a bank of the
government, brought about such a state of the circulation as rendered
payment, by any of the ordinary means known to government, _impossible_.
I know what I say, and repeat _impossible_. It is well known that many
persons, accustomed to affluence, had to carry their plate to the mint,
in order to obtain money to go to market. Then something may be
attributed to the institutions, without disparaging a people's honesty.
Our institutions are popular, just as those of France are the reverse;
and the people, they who were on the spot--the home creditor, with his
account unpaid, and with his friends and relatives in the legislature,
and present to aid him, contended for his own money, before any should
be sent abroad."

"Was that exactly right, sir?"

"Certainly not; it was exactly wrong, but very particularly natural. Do
you suppose the King of France would not take the money for his civil
list, if circumstances should compel the country to suspend on the debt
for a year or two, or the ministers their salaries? My word for it, each
and all of them would prefer themselves as creditors, and act
accordingly. Every one of these countries has suspended in some form or
other, and in many instances balanced the account with the sponge. Their
clamour against us is altogether calculated with a view to political
effect."

"Still, I wish Pennsylvania, for instance, had continued to pay, at
every hazard."

"It is well enough to wish, Hugh; but it is wishing for an
impossibility. Then you and I, as New Yorkers, have nothing to do with
the debt of Pennsylvania, no more than London would have to do with the
debt of Dublin or Quebec. _We_ have always paid _our_ interest, and,
what is more, paid it more honestly, if honesty be the point, than even
England has paid hers. When _our_ banks suspended, the State paid its
interest in as much paper as would buy the specie in open market;
whereas England made paper legal tender, and paid the interest on her
debt in it for something like five-and-twenty years, and, that, too,
when her paper was at a large discount. I knew of one American who held
near a million of dollars in the English debt, on which he had to take
unconvertible paper for the interest for a long series of years. No, no!
this is all gammon, Hugh, and is not to be regarded as making us a whit
worse than our neighbours. The equality of our laws is the fact in
which I glory!"

"If the rich stood as fair a chance as the poor, uncle Ro."

"There _is_ a screw loose there, I must confess; but it amounts to no
great matter."

"Then the late bankrupt law?"

"Ay, that was an infernal procedure--that much I will acknowledge, too.
It was special legislation enacted to pay particular debts, and the law
was repealed as soon as it had done its duty. That is a much darker spot
in our history than what is called repudiation, though perfectly honest
men voted for it."

"Did you ever hear of a farce they got up about it at New York, just
after we sailed?"

"Never; what was it, Hugh? though American plays are pretty much all
farces."

"This was a little better than common, and, on the whole, really clever.
It is the old story of Faust, in which a young spendthrift sells
himself, soul and body, to the devil. On a certain evening, as he is
making merry with a set of wild companions, his creditor arrives, and,
insisting on seeing the master, is admitted by the servant. He comes on,
club-footed and behorned, as usual, and betailed, too, I believe; but
Tom is not to be scared by trifles. He insists on his guest's being
seated, on his taking a glass of wine, and then on Dick's finishing his
song. But, though the rest of the company had signed no bonds to Satan,
they had certain outstanding book-debts, which made them excessively
uncomfortable; and the odour of brimstone being rather strong, Tom
arose, approached his guest, and desired to know the nature of the
particular business he had mentioned to his servant. 'This bond, sir,'
said Satan, significantly. 'This bond? what of it, pray? It seems all
right.' 'Is not that your signature?' 'I admit it.' 'Signed in your
blood?' 'A conceit of your own; I told you at the time that ink was just
as good in law.' 'It is past due, seven minutes and fourteen seconds.'
'So it is, I declare! but what of that?' 'I demand payment.' 'Nonsense!
no one thinks of paying now-a-days. Why, even Pennsylvania and Maryland
don't pay.' 'I insist on payment.' 'Oh! you do, do you?' Tom draws a
paper from his pocket, and adds, magnificently, 'There, then, if you're
so urgent--there is a discharge under the new bankrupt law, signed Smith
Thompson.' This knocked the devil into a cocked-hat at once."

My uncle laughed heartily at my story; but, instead of taking the matter
as I had fancied he might, it made him think better of the country than
ever.

"Well, Hugh, we have wit among us, it must be confessed," he cried, with
the tears running down his cheeks, "if we have some rascally laws, and
some rascals to administer them. But here comes Jacob with his letters
and papers--I declare, the fellow has a large basket-full."

Jacob, a highly respectable black, and the great-grandson of an old
negro named Jaaf, or Yop, who was then living on my own estate at
Ravensnest, had just then entered, with the porter and himself lugging
in the basket in question. There were several hundred newspapers, and
quite a hundred letters. The sight brought home and America clearly and
vividly before us; and, having nearly finished the dessert, we rose to
look at the packages. It was no small task to sort our mail, there being
so many letters and packages to be divided.

"Here are some newspapers I never saw before," said my uncle, as he
tumbled over the pile; "'The Guardian of the Soil'--that must have
something to do with Oregon."

"I dare say it has, sir. Here are at least a dozen letters from my
sister."

"Ay, _your_ sister is single, and can still think of her brother; but
mine are married, and one letter a-year would be a great deal. This is
my dear old mother's hand, however; that is something. Ursula Malbone
would never forget her child. Well, _bon soir_, Hugh. Each of us has
enough to do for one evening."

"_Au revoir_, sir. We shall meet at ten to-morrow, when we can compare
our news, and exchange gossip."




CHAPTER II.

    "Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn,
    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?"

    _King Henry VI._


I did not get into my bed that night until two, nor was I out of it
until half-past nine. It was near eleven when Jacob came to tell me his
master was in the _salle à manger_, and ready to eat his breakfast. I
hastened up stairs, sleeping in the _entresol_, and was at table with my
uncle in three minutes. I observed, on entering, that he was very grave,
and I now perceived that a couple of letters, and several American
newspapers, lay near him. His "Good morrow, Hugh," was kind and
affectionate as usual, but I fancied it sad.

"No bad news from home, I hope, sir!" I exclaimed, under the first
impulse of feeling. "Martha's last letter is of quite recent date, and
she writes very cheerfully. I _know_ that my grandmother was perfectly
well, six weeks since."

"I know the same, Hugh, for I have a letter from herself, written with
her own blessed hand. My mother is in excellent health for a woman of
four-score; but she naturally wishes to see us, and you in particular.
Grandchildren are ever the pets with grandmothers."

"I am glad to hear all this, sir; for I was really afraid, on entering
the room, that you had received some unpleasant news."

"And is all your news pleasant, after so long a silence?"

"Nothing that is disagreeable, I do assure you. Patt writes in charming
spirits, and I dare say is in blooming beauty by this time, though she
tells me that she is generally thought rather plain. _That_ is
impossible; for you know when we left her, at fifteen, she had every
promise of great beauty."

"As you say, it is impossible that Martha Littlepage should be anything
but handsome; for fifteen is an age when, in America, one may safely
predict the woman's appearance. Your sister is preparing for you an
agreeable surprise. I have heard old persons say that she was very like
my mother at the same time of life; and Dus Malbone was a sort of toast
once in the forest."

"I dare say it is all as you think; more especially as there are several
allusions to a certain Harry Beekman in her letters, at which I should
feel flattered, were I in Mr. Harry's place. Do you happen to know
anything of such a family as the Beekmans, sir?"

My uncle looked up in a little surprise at this question. A thorough New
Yorker by birth, associations, alliances and feelings, he held all the
old names of the colony and State in profound respect; and I had often
heard him sneer at the manner in which the newcomers of my day, who had
appeared among us to blossom like the rose, scattered their odours
through the land. It was but a natural thing that a community which had
grown in population, in half a century, from half a million to two
millions and a half, and that as much by immigration from adjoining
communities as by natural increase, should undergo some change of
feeling in this respect; but, on the other hand, it was just as natural
that the true New Yorker should not.

"Of course you know, Hugh, that it is an ancient and respected name
among us," answered my uncle, after he had given me the look of surprise
I have already mentioned. "There is a branch of the Beekmans, or
Bakemans, as we used to call them, settled near Satanstoe; and I dare
say that your sister, in her frequent visits to my mother, has met with
them. The association would be but natural; and the other feeling to
which you allude is, I dare say, but natural to the association, though
I cannot say I ever experienced it."

"You will still adhere to your asseverations of never having been the
victim of Cupid, I find, sir."

"Hugh, Hugh! let us trifle no more. There _is_ news from home that has
almost broken my heart."

I sat gazing at my uncle in wonder and alarm, while he placed both his
hands on his face, as if to exclude this wicked world, and all it
contained, from his sight. I did not speak, for I saw that the old
gentleman was really affected, but waited his pleasure to communicate
more. My impatience was soon relieved, however, as the hands were
removed, and I once more caught a view of my uncle's handsome, but
clouded countenance.

"May I ask the nature of this news?" I then ventured to inquire.

"You may, and I shall now tell you. It is proper, indeed, that you
should hear all, and understand it all; for you have a direct interest
in the matter, and a large portion of your property is dependent on the
result. Had not the manor troubles, as they were called, been spoken of
before we left home?"

"Certainly, though not to any great extent. We saw something of it in
the papers, I remember, just before we went to Russia; and I recollect
you mentioned it as a discreditable affair to the State, though likely
to lead to no very important result."

"So I then thought; but that hope has been delusive. There were some
reasons why a population like ours should chafe under the situation of
the estate of the late Patroon, that I thought natural, though
unjustifiable; for it is unhappily too much a law of humanity to do that
which is wrong, more especially in matters connected with the pocket."

"I do not exactly understand your allusion, sir."

"It is easily explained. The Van Rensselaer property is, in the first
place, of great extent--the manor, as it is still called and once was,
spreading east and west eight-and-forty miles, and north and south
twenty-four. With a few immaterial exceptions, including the sites of
three or four towns, three of which are cities containing respectively
six, twenty and forty thousand souls, this large surface was the
property of a single individual. Since his death, it has become the
property of two, subject to the conditions of the leases, of which by
far the greater portion are what are called durable."

"I have heard all this, of course, sir, and know something of it myself.
But what is a durable lease? for I believe we have none of that nature
at Ravensnest."

"No; your leases are all for three lives, and most of them renewals at
that. There are two sorts of 'durable leases,' as we term them, in use
among the landlords of New York. Both give the tenant a permanent
interest being leases for ever, reserving an annual rent, with the
right to distrain, and covenants of re-entry. But one class of these
leases gives the tenant a right at any time to demand a deed in
fee-simple, on the payment of a stipulated sum; while the other gives
him no such privilege. Thus one class of these leases is called 'a
durable lease with a clause of redemption;' while the other is a simple
'durable lease.'"

"And are there any new difficulties in relation to the manor rents?"

"Far worse than that; the contagion has spread, until the greatest ills
that have been predicted from democratic institutions, by their worst
enemies, seriously menace the country. I am afraid, Hugh, I shall not be
able to call New York, any longer, an exception to the evil example of a
neighbourhood, or the country itself a glorious country."

"This is so serious, sir, that, were it not that your looks denote the
contrary, I might be disposed to doubt your words."

"I fear my words are only too true. Dunning has written me a long
account of his own, made out with the precision of a lawyer; and, in
addition, he has sent me divers papers, some of which openly contend for
what is substantially a new division of property, and what in effect
would be agrarian laws."

"Surely, my dear uncle, you cannot seriously apprehend anything of that
nature from our order-loving, law-loving, property-loving Americans!"

"Your last description may contain the secret of the whole movement. The
love of property may be so strong as to induce them to do a great many
things they ought not to do. I certainly do not apprehend that any
direct attempt is about to be made, in New York, to divide its property;
nor do I fear any open, declared agrarian statute; for what I apprehend
is to come through indirect and gradual innovations on the right, that
will be made to assume the delusive aspect of justice and equal rights,
and thus undermine the principles of the people, before they are aware
of the danger themselves. In order that you may not only understand me,
but may understand facts that are of the last importance to your own
pocket, I will first tell you what has been done, and then tell you
what I fear is to follow. The first difficulty--or, rather, the first
difficulty of recent occurrence--arose at the death of the late Patroon.
I say of recent occurrence, since Dunning writes me that, during the
administration of John Jay, an attempt to resist the payment of rent was
made on the manor of the Livingstons; but _he_ put it down _instanter_."

"Yes, I should rather think that roguery would not be apt to prosper,
while the execution of the laws was entrusted to such a man. The age of
such politicians, however, seems to have ended among us."

"It did not prosper. Governor Jay met the pretension as we all know such
a man would meet it; and the matter died away, and has been nearly
forgotten. It is worthy of remark, that _he_ PUT THE EVIL DOWN. But this
is not the age of John Jays. To proceed to my narrative: When the late
Patroon died, there was due to him a sum of something like two hundred
thousand dollars of back-rents, and of which he had made a special
disposition in his will, vesting the money in trustees for a certain
purpose. It was the attempt to collect this money which first gave rise
to dissatisfaction. Those who had been debtors so long, were reluctant
to pay. In casting round for the means to escape from the payment of
their just debts, these men, feeling the power that numbers ever give
over right in America, combined to resist with others who again had in
view a project to get rid of the rents altogether. Out of this
combination grew what have been called the 'manor troubles.' Men
appeared in a sort of mock-Indian dress, calico shirts thrown over their
other clothes, and with a species of calico masks on their faces, who
resisted the bailiffs' processes, and completely prevented the
collection of rents. These men were armed, mostly with rifles; and it
was finally found necessary to call out a strong body of the militia, in
order to protect the civil officers in the execution of their duties."

"All this occurred before we went to the East. I had supposed _those_
anti-renters, as they were called, had been effectually put down."

"In appearance they were. But the very governor who called the militia
into the field, referred the subject of the '_griefs_' of the tenants
to the legislature, as if they were actually aggrieved citizens, when in
truth it was the landlords, or the Rensselaers, for at that time the
'troubles' were confined to their property, who were the aggrieved
parties. This false step has done an incalculable amount of mischief, if
it do not prove the entering wedge to rive asunder the institutions of
the State."

"It is extraordinary, when such things occur, that any man can mistake
his duty. Why were the tenants thus spoken of, while nothing was said
beyond what the law compelled in favour of the landlords?"

"I can see no reason but the fact that the Rensselaers were only two,
and that the disaffected tenants were probably two thousand. With all
the cry of aristocracy, and feudality, and nobility, neither of the
Rensselaers, by the letter of the law, has one particle more of
political power, or political right, than his own coachman or footman,
if the last be a white man; while, in practice, he is in many things
getting to be less protected."

"Then you think, sir, that this matter has gained force from the
circumstance that so many votes depend on it?"

"Out of all question. Its success depends on the violations of
principles that we have been so long taught to hold sacred, that nothing
short of the over-ruling and corrupting influence of politics would dare
to assail them. If there were a landlord to each farm, as well as a
tenant, universal indifference would prevail as to the griefs of the
tenants; and if two to one tenant, universal indignation at their
impudence."

"Of what particular griefs do the tenants complain?"

"You mean the Rensselaer tenants, I suppose? Why, they _complain_ of
such covenants as they can, though their deepest affliction is to be
found in the fact that they do not own other men's lands. The Patroon
had quarter sales on many of his farms--those that were let in the last
century."

"Well, what of that? A bargain to allow of quarter sales is just as fair
as any other bargain."

"It is fairer, in fact, than most bargains, when you come to analyze it,
since there is a very good reason why it should accompany a perpetual
lease. Is it to be supposed that a landlord has no interest in the
character and habits of his tenants? He has the closest interest in it
possible, and no prudent man should let his lands without holding some
sort of control over the assignment of leases. Now, there are but two
modes of doing this; either by holding over the tenant a power through
his interests, or a direct veto dependent solely on the landlord's
will."

"The last would be apt to raise a pretty cry of tyranny and feudality in
America!"

"Pretty cries on such subjects are very easily raised in America. More
people join in them than understand what they mean. Nevertheless, it is
quite as just, when two men bargain, that he who owns every right in the
land before the bargain is made, should retain this right over his
property, which he consents to part with only with limitations, as that
he should grant it to another. These men, in their clamour, forget that
until their leases were obtained, they had no right in their lands at
all, and that what they have got is through those very leases of which
they complain; take away the leases, and they would have no rights
remaining. Now, on what principle can honest men pretend that they have
rights beyond the leases? On the supposition, even, that the bargains
are hard, what have governors and legislators to do with thrusting
themselves in between parties so situated, as special umpires? I should
object to such umpires, moreover, on the general and controlling
principle that must govern all righteous arbitration--your governors and
legislators are not _impartial_; they are political or party men, one
may say, without exception; and such umpires, when votes are in the
question, are to be sorely distrusted. I would as soon trust my
interests to the decision of feed counsel, as trust them to such
judges."

"I wonder the really impartial and upright portion of the community do
not rise in their might, and put this thing down--rip it up, root and
branch, and cast it away, at once."

"That is the weak point of our system, which has a hundred strong
points, while it has this besetting vice. Our laws are not only made,
but they are administered, on the supposition that there are both
honesty and intelligence enough in the body of the community to see them
_well_ made, and _well_ administered. But the sad reality shows that
good men are commonly passive, until abuses become intolerable; it being
the designing rogue and manager who is usually the most active. Vigilant
philanthropists _do_ exist, I will allow; but it is in such small
numbers as to effect little on the whole, and nothing at all when
opposed by the zeal of a mercenary opposition. No, no--little is ever to
be expected, in a political sense, from the activity of virtue; while a
great deal may be looked for from the activity of vice."

"You do not take a very favourable view of humanity, sir."

"I speak of the world as I have found it in both hemispheres, or, as
your neighbour the magistrate 'Squire Newcome has it, the 'four
hemispheres.' Our representation is, at the best, but an average of the
qualities of the whole community, somewhat lessened by the fact that men
of real merit have taken a disgust at a state of things that is not very
tempting to their habits or tastes. As for a quarter sale, I can see no
more hardship in it than there is in paying the rent itself; and, by
giving the landlord this check on the transfer of his lands, he compels
a compromise that maintains what is just. The tenant is not obliged to
sell, and he makes his conditions accordingly, when he has a good tenant
to offer in his stead. When he offers a bad tenant, he ought to pay for
it."

"Many persons with us would think it very aristocratic," I cried,
laughingly, "that a landlord should have it in his power to say, I will
not accept this or that substitute for yourself."

"It is just as aristocratic, and no more so, than it would be to put it
in the power of the tenant to say to the landlord, you _shall_ accept
this or that tenant at my hands. The covenant of the quarter sale gives
each party a control in the matter; and the result has ever been a
compromise that is perfectly fair, as it is hardly possible that the
circumstance should have been overlooked in making the bargain; and he
who knows anything of such matters, knows that every exaction of this
sort is always considered in the rent. As for feudality, so long as the
power to alienate exists at all in the tenant, he does not hold by a
feudal tenure. He has bought himself from all such tenures by his
covenant of quarter sale; and it only remains to say whether, having
agreed to such a bargain in order to obtain this advantage, he should
pay the stipulated price or not."

"I understand you, sir. It is easy to come at the equity of this matter,
if one will only go back to the original facts which colour it. The
tenant had no rights at all until he got his lease, and can have no
rights which that lease does not confer."

"Then the cry is raised of feudal privileges, because some of the
Rensselaer tenants are obliged to find so many days' work with their
teams, or substitutes, to the landlord, and even because they have to
pay annually a pair of fat fowls! _We_ have seen enough of America,
Hugh, to know that most husbandmen would be delighted to have the
privilege of paying their debts in chickens and work, instead of in
money, which renders the cry only so much the more wicked. But what is
there more feudal in a tenant's thus paying his landlord, than in a
butcher's contracting to furnish so much meat for a series of years, or
a mail contractor's agreeing to carry the mail in a four-horse coach for
a term of years, eh? No one objects to the rent in wheat, and why should
they object to the rent in chickens? Is it because our republican
farmers have got to be so _aristocratic_ themselves, that they do not
like to be thought poulterers? This is being aristocratic on the other
side. These dignitaries should remember that if it be plebeian to
furnish fowls, it is plebeian to receive them; and if the tenant has to
find an individual who has to submit to the degradation of tendering a
pair of fat fowls, the landlord has to find an individual who has to
submit to the degradation of taking them, and of putting them away in
the larder. It seems to me that one is an offset to the other."

"But, if I remember rightly, uncle Ro, these little matters were always
commuted for in money."

"They always must lie at the option of the tenant, unless the covenants
went to forfeiture, which I never heard that they did; for the failure
to pay in kind at the time stipulated, would only involve a payment in
money afterwards. The most surprising part of this whole transaction is,
that men among us hold the doctrine that these leasehold estates are
opposed to our institutions when, being guarantied _by_ the
institutions, they in truth form a part of them. Were it not for these
very institutions, to which they are said to be opposed, and of which
they virtually form a part, we should soon have a pretty kettle of fish
between landlord and tenant."

"How do you make it out that they form a part of the institutions, sir?"

"Simply because the institutions have a solemn profession of protecting
property. There is such a parade of this, that all our constitutions
declare that property shall never be taken without due form of law; and
to read one of them, you would think the property of the citizen is held
quite as sacred as his person. Now, some of these very tenures existed
when the State institutions were framed; and, not satisfied with this,
we of New York, in common with our sister States, solemnly prohibited
ourselves, in the constitution of the United States, from ever meddling
with them! Nevertheless, men are found hardy enough to assert that a
thing which in fact belongs to the institutions, is opposed to them."

"Perhaps they mean, sir, to their spirit, or to their tendency."

"Ah! there may be some sense in that, though much less than the
declaimers fancy. The spirit of institutions is their legitimate object;
and it would be hard to prove that a leasehold tenure, with any
conditions of mere pecuniary indebtedness whatever, is opposed to any
institutions that recognise the full rights of property. The obligation
to pay rent no more creates political dependency, than to give credit
from an ordinary shop; not so much, indeed, more especially under such
leases as those of the Rensselaers; for the debtor on a book-debt can be
sued at any moment, whereas the tenant knows precisely when he has to
pay. There is the great absurdity of those who decry the system as
feudal and aristocratic; for they do not see that those very leases are
more favourable to the tenant than any other."

"I shall have to ask you to explain this to me, sir, being too ignorant
to comprehend it."

"Why, these leases are perpetual, and the tenant cannot be dispossessed.
The longer a lease is, other things being equal, the better it is for
the tenant, all the world over. Let us suppose two farms, the one leased
for five years, and the other for ever: Which tenant is most independent
of the political influence of his landlord, to say nothing of the
impossibility of controlling votes in this way in America, from a
variety of causes? Certainly he who has a lease for ever. He is just as
independent of his landlord, as his landlord can be of him, with the
exception that he has rent to pay. In the latter case, he is precisely
like any other debtor--like the poor man who contracts debts with the
same store-keeper for a series of years. As for the possession of the
farm, which we are to suppose is a desirable thing for the tenant, he of
the long lease is clearly most independent, since the other may be
ejected at the end of each five years. Nor is there the least difference
as to acquiring the property in fee, since the landlord may sell equally
in either case, if so disposed; and if NOT DISPOSED, NO HONEST MAN,
UNDER ANY SYSTEM, OUGHT TO DO ANYTHING TO COMPEL HIM SO TO DO, either
directly or indirectly; AND NO TRULY HONEST MAN WOULD."

I put some of the words of my uncle Ro in small capitals, as the spirit
of the _times_, not of the _institutions_, renders such hints necessary.
But, to continue our dialogue:

"I understand you now, sir, though the distinction you make between the
_spirit_ of the institutions and their _tendencies_ is what I do not
exactly comprehend."

"It is very easily explained. The spirit of the institutions is their
_intention_; their tendencies is the natural direction they take under
the impulses of human motives, which are always corrupt and corrupting.
The 'spirit' refers to what things _ought_ to be; the 'tendencies,' to
what they _are_, or are _becoming_. The 'spirit' of all political
institutions is to place a check on the natural propensities of men, to
restrain them, and keep them within due bounds; while the tendencies
_follow_ those propensities, and are quite often in direct opposition to
the spirit. That this outcry against leasehold tenures in America is
following the tendencies of our institutions, I am afraid is only too
true; but that it is in any manner in compliance with their _spirit_, I
utterly deny."

"You will allow that institutions have their spirit, which ought always
to be respected, in order to preserve harmony?"

"Out of all question. The first great requisite of a political system is
the means of protecting itself; the second, to check its tendencies at
the point required by justice, wisdom and good faith. In a despotism,
for instance, the spirit of the system is to maintain that one man, who
is elevated above the necessities and temptations of a nation--who is
solemnly set apart for the sole purpose of government, fortified by
dignity, and rendered impartial by position--will rule in the manner
most conducive to the true interests of his subjects. It is just as much
the theory of Russia and Prussia that their monarchs reign not for their
own good, but for the good of those over whom they are placed, as it is
the theory in regard to the President of the United States. We all know
that the tendencies of a despotism are to abuses of a particular
character; and it is just as certain that the tendencies of a republic,
or rather of a democratic republic--for republic of itself means but
little, many republics having had kings--but it is just as certain that
the tendencies of a democracy are to abuses of another character.
Whatever man touches, he infallibly abuses; and this more in connection
with the exercise of political power, perhaps, than in the management of
any one interest of life, though he abuses all, even to religion. Less
depends on the nominal character of institutions, perhaps, than on their
ability to arrest their own tendencies at the point required by
everything that is just and right. Hitherto, surprisingly few _grave_
abuses have followed from our institutions; but this matter looks
frightfully serious; for I have not told you half, Hugh."

"Indeed, sir! I beg you will believe me quite equal to hearing the
worst."

"It is true, anti-rentism did commence on the estate of the Rensselaers,
and with complaints of feudal tenures, and of days' works, and fat
fowls, backed by the extravagantly aristocratic pretension that a
'manor' tenant was so much a privileged being, that it was beneath his
dignity, as a free man, to do that which is daily done by
mail-contractors, stage-coach owners, victuallers, and even by
themselves in their passing bargains to deliver potatoes, onions,
turkeys and pork, although they had solemnly covenanted with their
landlords to pay the fat fowls, and to give the days' works. The feudal
system has been found to extend much further, and 'troubles,' as they
are called, have broken out in other parts of the State. Resistance to
process, and a cessation of the payment of rents, has occurred on the
Livingston property, in Hardenberg--in short, in eight or ten counties
of the State. Even among the _bonâ fide_ purchasers, on the Holland
Purchase, this resistance has been organized, and a species of troops
raised, who appear disguised and armed wherever a levy is to be made.
Several men have already been murdered, and there is the strong
probability of a civil war."

"In the name of what is sacred and right, what has the government of the
State been doing all this time?"

"In my poor judgment, a great deal that it ought not to have done, and
very little that it ought. You know the state of politics at home, Hugh;
how important New York is in all national questions, and how nearly tied
is her vote--less than ten thousand majority in a canvass of near half a
million of votes. When this is the case, the least-principled part of
the voters attain an undue importance--a truth that has been abundantly
illustrated in this question. The natural course would have been to
raise an armed constabulary force, and to have kept it in motion, as the
anti-renters have kept their 'Injins' in motion, which would have soon
tired out the rebels, for rebels they are, who would thus have had to
support one army in part, and the other altogether. Such a movement on
the part of the State, well and energetically managed, would have drawn
half the 'Injins' at once from the ranks of disaffection to those of
authority; for all that most of these men want is to live easy, and to
have a parade of military movements. Instead of that, the legislature
substantially did nothing, until blood was spilt, and the grievance had
got to be not only profoundly disgraceful for such a State and such a
country, but utterly intolerable to the well-affected of the revolted
counties, as well as to those who were kept out of the enjoyment of
their property. Then, indeed, it passed the law which ought to have been
passed the first year of the 'Injin' system--a law which renders it
felony to appear armed and disguised; but Dunning writes me this law is
openly disregarded in Delaware and Schoharie, in particular, and that
bodies of 'Injins,' in full costume and armed, of a thousand men, have
appeared to prevent levies or sales. Where it will end, Heaven knows!"

"Do you apprehend any serious civil war?"

"It is impossible to say where false principles may lead, when they are
permitted to make head and to become widely disseminated, in a country
like ours. Still, the disturbances, as such, are utterly contemptible,
and could and would be put down by an energetic executive in ten days
after he had time to collect a force to do it with. In some particulars,
the present incumbent has behaved perfectly well; while in others, in my
judgment, he has inflicted injuries on the right that it will require
years to repair, if, indeed, they are ever repaired."

"You surprise me, sir; and this the more especially, as I know you are
generally of the same way of thinking, on political subjects, with the
party that is now in power."

"Did you ever know me to support what I conceived to be wrong, Hugh, on
account of my political affinities?" asked my uncle, a little
reproachfully as to manner. "But, let me tell you the harm that I
conceive has been done by all the governors who have had anything to do
with the subject; and that includes one of a party to which I am
opposed, and two that are not. In the first place, they have all treated
the matter as if the tenants had really some cause of complaint; when in
truth all their griefs arise from the fact that other men will not let
them have their property just as they may want it, and in some respects
on their own terms."

"That is certainly a grief not to be maintained by reason in a civilized
country, and in a christian community."

"Umph! Christianity, like liberty, suffers fearfully in human hands; one
is sometimes at a loss to recognise either. I have seen ministers of the
gospel just as dogged, just as regardless of general morality, and just
as indifferent to the right, in upholding _their_ parties, as I ever saw
laymen; and I have seen laymen manifesting tempers, in this respect,
that properly belong to devils. But our governors have certainly
treated this matter as if the tenants actually had griefs; when in truth
their sole oppression is in being obliged to pay rents that are merely
nominal, and in not being able to buy other men's property contrary to
their wishes, and very much at their own prices. One governor has even
been so generous as to volunteer a mode of settling disputes with which,
by the way, he has no concern, there being courts to discharge that
office, that is singularly presuming on his part, to say the least, and
which looks a confounded sight more like aristocracy, or monarchy, than
anything connected with leasehold tenure."

"Why, what can the man have done?"

"He has kindly taken on himself the office of doing that for which I
fancy he can find no authority in the institutions, or in their
spirit--no less than advising citizens how they may conveniently manage
their own affairs so as to get over difficulties that he himself
substantially admits, while giving this very advice, are difficulties
that the law sanctions!"

"This is a very extraordinary interference in a public functionary;
because one of the parties to a contract that is solemnly guarantied by
the law, chooses to complain of its _nature_, rather than of its
_conditions_, to pretend to throw the weight of his even assumed
authority into the scales on either side of the question!"

"And that in a popular government, Hugh, in which it tells so strongly
against a man to render him unpopular, that not one man in a million has
the moral courage to resist public opinion, even when he is right. You
have hit the nail on the head, boy; it is in the last degree presuming,
and what would be denounced as tyrannical in any monarch in Europe. But
he has lived in vain who has not learned that they who make the loudest
professions of a love of liberty, have little knowledge of the quality,
beyond submission to the demands of numbers. Our executive has carried
his fatherly care even beyond this; he has actually suggested the terms
of a bargain by which he thinks the difficulty can be settled, which, in
addition to the gross assumption of having a voice in a matter that in
no manner belongs to him, has the palpable demerit of recommending a
pecuniary compromise that is flagrantly wrong as a mere pecuniary
compromise."

"You astonish me, sir! What is the precise nature of his
recommendation?"

"That the Rensselaers should receive such a sum from each tenant as
would produce an interest equal to the value of the present rent. Now,
in the first place, here is a citizen who has got as much property as he
wants, and who wishes to live for other purposes than to accumulate.
This property is not only invested to his entire satisfaction, as
regards convenience, security and returns, but also in a way that is
connected with some of the best sentiments of his nature. It is property
that has descended to him through ancestors for two centuries; property
that is historically connected with his name--on which he was born, on
which he has lived, and on which he has hoped to die; property, in a
word, that is associated with all the higher feelings of humanity.
Because some interloper, perhaps, who has purchased an interest in one
of his farms six months before, feels an _aristocratic_ desire not to
have a landlord, and wishes to own a farm in fee, that in fact he has no
other right to than he gets through his lease, the governor of the great
State of New York throws the weight of his official position against the
old hereditary owner of the soil, by solemnly suggesting, in an official
document that is intended to produce an effect on public opinion, that
he should sell that which he does not wish to sell, but wishes to keep,
and that at a price which I conceive is much below its true pecuniary
value. We have liberty with a vengeance, if these are some of its
antics!"

"What makes the matter worse, is the fact that each of the Rensselaers
has a house on his estate, so placed as to be convenient to look after
his interests; which interests he is to be at the trouble of changing,
leaving him his house on his hands, because, forsooth, one of the
parties to a plain and equitable bargain wishes to make better
conditions than he covenanted for. I wonder what his Excellency proposes
that the landlords shall do with their money when they get it? Buy new
estates, and build new houses, of which to be dispossessed when a new
set of tenants may choose to cry out against aristocracy, and
demonstrate their own love for democracy by wishing to pull others down
in order to shove themselves into their places?"

"You are right again, Hugh; but it is a besetting vice of America to
regard life as all means, and as having no end, in a worldly point of
view. I dare say men may be found among us who regard it as highly
presuming in any man to build himself an ample residence, and to
announce by his mode of living that he is content with his present
means, and does not wish to increase them, at the very moment they view
the suggestions of the governor as the pink of modesty, and excessively
favourable to equal rights! I like that thought of yours about the
house, too; in order to suit the 'spirit' of the New York institutions,
it would seem that a New York landlord should build on wheels, that he
may move his abode to some new estate, when it suits the pleasure of his
tenants to buy him out."

"Do you suppose the Rensselaers would take their money, the principal of
the rent at seven per cent., and buy land with it, after their
experience of the uncertainty of such possessions among us?"

"Not they," said my uncle Ro, laughing. "No, no! they would sell the
Manor-House, and Beverwyck, for taverns; and then any one might live in
them who would pay the principal sum of the cost of a dinner; bag their
dollars, and proceed forthwith to Wall street, and commence the shaving
of notes--that occupation having been decided, as I see by the late
arrivals, to be highly honourable and praiseworthy. Hitherto they have
been nothing but drones; but, by the time they can go to the quick with
their dollars, they will become useful members of society, and be
honoured and esteemed accordingly."

What next might have been said I do not know, for just then we were
interrupted by a visit from our common banker, and the discourse was
necessarily changed.




CHAPTER III.

    "O, when shall I visit the land of my birth,
    The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
    When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
          Our forests, our fountains,
          Our hamlets, our mountains,
    With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?"

    MONTGOMERY.


It was truly news for an American, who had been so long cut off from
intelligence from home, thus suddenly to be told that some of the scenes
of the middle ages--scenes connected with real wrongs and gross abuses
of human rights--were about to be enacted in his own land; that country
which boasted itself, not only to be the asylum of the oppressed, but
the conservator of the right. I was grieved at what I had heard, for,
during my travels, I had cherished a much-loved image of justice and
political excellence, that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My
uncle and myself decided at once to return home, a step that indeed was
required by prudence. I was now of an age to enter into the full
possession of my own property (so far as "new laws and new lords" would
permit); and the letters received by my late guardian, as well as
certain newspapers, communicated the unpleasant fact that a great many
of the tenants of Ravensnest had joined the association, paid tribute
for the support of "Injins," and were getting to be as bad as any of the
rest of them, so far as designs and schemes to plunder were concerned,
though they still paid their rents. The latter circumstance was ascribed
by our agent to the fact that many leases were about to fall in, and it
would be in my power to substitute more honest and better disposed
successors for the present occupants of the several farms. Measures were
taken accordingly for quitting Paris as soon as possible, so that we
might reach home late in the month of May.

"If we had time, I would certainly throw in a memorial or two to the
legislature," observed my uncle, a day or two before we proceeded to
Havre to join the packet. "I have a strong desire to protest against the
invasion of my rights as a freeman that is connected with some of their
contemplated laws. I do not at all like the idea of being abridged of
the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can obtain it, which
is one of the projects of some of the ultra reformers of free and equal
New York. It is wonderful, Hugh, into what follies men precipitate
themselves as soon as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of
politics, religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite
philanthropists who see a great evil affecting the rights of human
nature in one man's hiring a farm from another for as long a term as he
can obtain it, who are at the very extreme in their opinions on free
trade! So free-trade are some of the journals which think it a capital
thing to prevent landlords and tenants from making their own bargains,
that they have actually derided the idea of having established fares for
hackney-coaches, but that it would be better to let the parties stand in
the rain and higgle about the price, on the free-trade principle. Some
of these men are either active agents in stimulating the legislature to
rob the citizen of this very simple control of his property, or passive
lookers-on while others do it."

"Votes, sir, votes."

"It is, indeed, votes, sir, votes; nothing short of votes could
reconcile these men to their own inconsistencies. As for yourself, Hugh,
it might be well to get rid of that canopied pew----"

"Of what canopied pew? I am sure I do not understand you."

"Do you forget that the family-pew in St. Andrew's Church, at
Ravensnest, has a wooden canopy over it--a relic of our colonial
opinions and usages?"

"Now you mention it, I do remember a very clumsy, and, to own the truth,
a very ugly thing, that I have always supposed was placed there, by
those who built the church, by way of ornament."

"That ugly thing, by way of ornament, was intended for a sort of canopy,
and was by no means an uncommon distinction in the State and colony, as
recently as the close of the last century. The church was built at the
expense of my grandfather, Gen. Littlepage, and his bosom friend and
kinsman, Col. Dirck Follock, both good Whigs and gallant defenders of
the liberty of their country. They thought it proper that the
Littlepages should have a canopied pew, and that is the state in which
they caused the building to be presented to my father. The old work
still stands; and Dunning writes me that, among the other arguments used
against your interests, is the fact that your pew is thus distinguished
from those of the rest of the congregation."

"It is a distinction no man would envy me, could it be known that I have
ever thought the clumsy, ill-shaped thing a nuisance, and detestable as
an ornament. I have never even associated it in my mind with personal
distinction, but have always supposed it was erected with a view to
embellish the building, and placed over our pew as the spot where such
an excrescence would excite the least envy."

"In all that, with one exception, you have judged quite naturally. Forty
years ago, such a thing might have been done, and a majority of the
parishioners would have seen in it nothing out of place. But that day
has gone by; and you will discover that, on your own estate, and in the
very things created by your family and yourself, you will actually have
fewer rights of any sort, beyond those your money will purchase, than
any man around you. The simple fact that St. Andrew's Church was built
by your great-grandfather, and by him presented to the congregation,
will diminish your claim to have a voice in its affairs with many of the
congregation."

"This is so extraordinary, that I musk ask the reason."

"The reason is connected with a principle so obviously belonging to
human nature generally, and to American nature in particular, that I
wonder you ask it. It is envy. Did that pew belong to the Newcomes, for
instance, no one would think anything of it."

"Nevertheless, the Newcomes would make themselves ridiculous by sitting
in a pew that was distinguished from those of their neighbours. The
absurdity of the contrast would strike every one."

"And it is precisely because the absurdity does not exist in your case,
that your seat is envied. No one envies absurdity. However, you will
readily admit, Hugh, that a church, and a church-yard, are the two last
places in which human distinctions ought to be exhibited. All are equal
in the eyes of Him we go to the one to worship, and all are equal in the
grave. I have ever been averse to everything like worldly distinction in
a congregation, and admire the usage of the Romish Church in even
dispensing with pews altogether. Monuments speak to the world, and have
a general connexion with history, so that they may be tolerated to a
certain point, though notorious liars."

"I agree with you, sir, as to the unfitness of a church for all
distinctions, and shall be happy on every account to get rid of my
canopy, though that has an historical connexion, also. I am quite
innocent of any feeling of pride while sitting under it, though I will
confess to some of shame at its quizzical shape, when I see it has
attracted the eyes of intelligent strangers."

"It is but natural that you should feel thus; for, while we may miss
distinctions and luxuries to which we have ever been accustomed, they
rarely excite pride in the possessor, even while they awaken envy in the
looker-on."

"Nevertheless, I cannot see what the old pew has to do with the rents,
or my legal rights."

"When a cause is bad, everything is pressed into it that it is believed
may serve a turn. No man who had a good legal claim for property, would
ever think of urging any other; nor would any legislator who had sound
and sufficient reasons for his measures--reasons that could properly
justify him before God and man for his laws--have recourse to slang to
sustain him. If these anti-renters were right, they would have no need
of secret combinations, of disguises, blood-and-thunder names, and
special agents in the legislature of the land. The right requires no
false aid to make it appear the right; but the wrong must get such
support as it can press into its service. Your pew is called
aristocratic, though it confers no political power; it is called a
patent of nobility, though it neither gives nor takes away; and it is
hated, and you with it, for the very reason that you can sit in it and
not make yourself ridiculous. I suppose you have not examined very
closely the papers I gave you to read?"

"Enough so to ascertain that they are filled with trash."

"Worse than trash, Hugh; with some of the loosest principles, and most
atrocious feelings, that degrade poor human nature. Some of the
reformers propose that no man shall hold more than a thousand acres of
land, while others lay down the very intelligible and distinct principle
that no man ought to hold more than he can use. Even petitions to that
effect, I have been told, have been sent to the legislature."

"Which has taken care not to allude to their purport, either in debate
or otherwise, as I see nothing to that effect in the reports."

"Ay, I dare say the slang-whangers of those honourable bodies will
studiously keep all such enormities out of sight, as some of them
doubtless hope to step into the shoes of the present landlords, as soon
as they can get the feet out of them which are now in. But these are the
projects and the petitions in the columns of the journals, and they
speak for themselves. Among other things, they say it is nobility to be
a landlord."

"I see by the letter of Mr. Dunning, that they have petitioned the
legislature to order an inquiry into my title. Now, we hold from the
crown----"

"So much the worse, Hugh. Faugh! hold from a crown in a republican
country! I am amazed you are not ashamed to own it. Do you not know,
boy, that it has been gravely contended in a court of justice that, in
obtaining our national independence from the King of Great Britain, the
people conquered all his previous grants, which ought to be declared
void and of none effect?"

"That is an absurdity of which I had not heard," I answered, laughing;
"why, the people of New York, who held all their lands under the crown,
would in that case have been conquering them for other persons! My good
grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom actually fought and bled
in the revolution, must have been very silly thus to expose themselves
to take away their own estates, in order to give them to a set of
immigrants from New England and other parts of the world!"

"Quite justly said, Hugh," added my uncle, joining in the laugh. "Nor is
this half of the argument. The State, too, in its corporate character,
has been playing swindler all this time. You may not know the fact, but
I as your guardian do know, that the quit-rents reserved by the crown
when it granted the lands of Mooseridge and Ravensnest, were claimed by
the State; and that, wanting money to save the people from taxes, it
commuted with us, receiving a certain gross sum in satisfaction of all
future claims."

"Ay, _that_ I did not know. Can the fact be shown?"

"Certainly--it is well known to all old fellows like myself, for it was
a very general measure, and very generally entered into by all the
landholders. In our case, the receipts are still to be found among the
family-papers. In the cases of the older estates, such as those of the
Van Rensselaers, the equity is still stronger in their favour, since the
conditions to hold the land included an obligation to bring so many
settlers from Europe within a given time; conditions that were fulfilled
at great cost, as you may suppose, and on which, in truth, the colony
had its foundation."

"How much it tells against a people's honesty to wish to forget such
facts, in a case like this!"

"There is nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably never known to
those who prate about the conquered rights from the crown. As you say,
however, the civilization of a community is to be measured by its
consciousness of the existence of all principles of justice, and a
familiarity with its own history. The great bulk of the population of
New York have no active desire to invade what is right in this anti-rent
struggle, having no direct interests at stake; _their_ crime is a
passive inactivity, which allows those who are either working for
political advancement, or those who are working to obtain other men's
property, to make use of them, through their own laws."

"But is it not an embarrassment to such a region as that directly around
Albany, to have such tenures to the land, and for so large a body of
people to be compelled to pay rent, in the very heart of the State, as
it might be, and in situations that render it desirable to leave
enterprise as unshackled as possible?"

"I am not prepared to admit this much, even, as a general principle. One
argument used by these anti-renters is, for instance, that the
patroons, in their leases, reserved the mill-seats. Now, what if they
did? Some one must own the mill-seats; and why not the Patroon as well
as another? To give the argument any weight, not as law, not as morals,
but as mere expediency, it must be shown that the patroons would not let
these mill-seats at as low rents as any one else; and my opinion is that
they would let them at rents of not half the amount that would be asked,
were they the property of so many individuals, scattered up and down the
country. But, admitting that so large an estate of this particular sort
has some inconveniences in that particular spot, can there be two
opinions among men of integrity about the mode of getting rid of it?
Everything has its price, and, in a business sense, everything is
entitled to its price. No people acknowledge this more than the
Americans, or practise on it so extensively. Let the Rensselaers be
tempted by such offers as will induce them to sell, but do not let them
be invaded by that most infernal of all acts of oppression, special
legislation, in order to bully or frighten them from the enjoyment of
what is rightfully their own. If the State think such a description of
property injurious in its heart, let the State imitate England in her
conduct towards the slave-holders--_buy_ them out; not _tax_ them out,
and _wrong_ them out, and _annoy_ them out. But, Hugh, enough of this at
present; we shall have much more than we want of it when we get home.
Among my letters, I have one from each of my other wards."

"'Still harping on my daughter,' sir!" I answered, laughing. "I hope
that the vivacious Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, and the meek Miss Anne
Marston, are both perfectly well?"

"Both in excellent health, and both write charmingly. I must really let
you see the letter of Henrietta, as I do think it is quite creditable to
her: I will step into my room and get it."

I ought to let the reader into a secret here that will have some
connexion with what is to follow. A dead-set had been made at me,
previously to leaving home, to induce me to marry either of three young
ladies--Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke, Miss Anne Marston, and Miss
Opportunity Newcome. The advances in the cases of Miss Henrietta
Coldbrooke and Miss Anne Marston came from my uncle Ro, who, as their
guardian, had a natural interest in their making what he was pleased to
think might be a good connexion for either; while the advances on
account of Miss Opportunity Newcome came from herself. Under such
circumstances, it may be well to say who these young ladies actually
were.

Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke was the daughter of an Englishman of good
family, and some estate, who had emigrated to America and married, under
the impulse of certain theories in politics which induced him to imagine
that this was the promised land. I remember him as a disappointed and
dissatisfied widower, who was thought to be daily growing poorer under
the consequences of indiscreet investments, and who at last got to be so
very English in his wishes and longings, as to assert that the common
Muscovy was a better bird than the canvas-back! He died, however, in
time to leave his only child an estate which, under my uncle's excellent
management, was known by me to be rather more than one hundred and
seventy-nine thousand dollars, and which produced a nett eight thousand
a-year. This made Miss Henrietta a belle at once; but, having a prudent
friend in my grandmother, as yet she had not married a beggar. I knew
that uncle Ro went quite as far as was proper, in his letters, in the
way of hints touching myself; and my dear, excellent, honest-hearted,
straightforward old grandmother had once let fall an expression, in one
of her letters to myself, which induced me to think that these hints had
actually awakened as much interest in the young lady's bosom, as could
well be connected with what was necessarily nothing but curiosity.

Miss Anne Marston was also an heiress, but on a very diminished scale.
She had rather more than three thousand a-year in buildings in town, and
a pretty little sum of about sixteen thousand dollars laid by out of its
savings. She was not an only child, however, having two brothers, each
of whom had already received as much as the sister, and each of whom, as
is very apt to be the case with the heirs of New York merchants, was
already in a fair way of getting rid of his portion in riotous living.
Nothing does a young American so much good, under such circumstances, as
to induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a downright
fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in so short a time, that the
agony is soon over. If only vain and frivolous, because young and
ill-educated, the latter being a New York endemic, but with some
foundation of native mind, he lets his whiskers grow, becomes fuzzy
about the chin, dresses better, gets to be much better mannered, soon
loses his taste for the low and vulgar indulgences of his youth, and
comes out such a gentleman as one can only make who has entirely thrown
away the precious moments of youth. If tolerably educated in boyhood,
with capacity to build on, the chances are that the scales will fall
from his eyes very fast on landing in the old world--that his ideas and
tastes will take a new turn--that he will become what nature intended
him for, an intellectual man; and that he will finally return home,
conscious alike of the evils and blessings, the advantages and
disadvantages, of his own system and country--a wiser, and it is to be
hoped a better man. How the experiment had succeeded with the Marstons,
neither myself nor my uncle knew; for they had paid their visit while we
were in the East, and had already returned to America. As for Miss Anne,
she had a mother to take care of her mind and person, though I had
learned she was pretty, sensible and discreet.

Miss Opportunity Newcome was a belle of Ravensnest, a village on my own
property; a rural beauty, and of rural education, virtues, manners and
habits. As Ravensnest was not particularly advanced in civilization, or,
to make use of the common language of the country, was not a very
"aristocratic place," I shall not dwell on her accomplishments, which
did well enough for Ravensnest, but would not essentially ornament my
manuscript.

Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid, who was the son of Jason, of the
house of Newcome. In using the term "house," I adopt it understandingly;
for the family had dwelt in the same tenement, a leasehold property of
which the fee was in myself, and the dwelling had been associated with
the name of Newcome from time immemorial; that is, for about eighty
years. All that time had a Newcome been the tenant of the mill, tavern,
store and farm, that lay nearest the village of Ravensnest, or Little
Nest, as it was commonly called; and it may not be impertinent to the
moral of my narrative if I add that, for all that time, and for
something longer, had I and my ancestors been the landlords. I beg the
reader to bear this last fact in mind, as there will soon be occasion to
show that there was a strong disposition in certain persons to forget
it.

As I have said, Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid. There was also a
brother, who was named Seneca, or Sene_ky_, as he always pronounced it
himself, the son of Ovid, the son of Jason, the first of the name at
Ravensnest. This Seneca was a lawyer, in the sense of a license granted
by the Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as by the Court of Common
Pleas, in and for the county of Washington. As there had been a sort of
hereditary education among the Newcomes for three generations, beginning
with Jason, and ending with Seneca; and, as the latter was at the bar, I
had occasionally been thrown into the society of both brother and
sister. The latter, indeed, used to be fond of visiting the Nest, as my
house was familiarly called, Ravensnest being its true name, whence
those of the "patent" and village; and as Opportunity had early
manifested a partiality for my dear old grandmother, and not less dear
young sister, who occasionally passed a few weeks with me during the
vacations, more especially in the autumns, I had many occasions of being
brought within the influence of her charms--opportunities that, I feel
bound to state, Opportunity did not neglect. I have understood that her
mother, who bore the same name, had taught Ovid the art of love by a
very similar demonstration, and had triumphed. That lady was still
living, and may be termed Opportunity the Great, while the daughter can
be styled Opportunity the Less. There was very little difference between
my own years and those of the young lady; and, as I had last passed
through the fiery ordeal at the sinister age of twenty, there was not
much danger in encountering the risk anew, now I was five years older.
But I must return to my uncle and the letter of Miss Henrietta
Coldbrooke.

"Here it is, Hugh," cried my guardian, gaily; "and a capital letter it
is! I wish I could read the whole of it to you; but the two girls made
me promise never to show their letters to any one, which could mean only
you, before they would promise to write anything to me beyond
commonplaces. Now, I get their sentiments freely and naturally, and the
correspondence is a source of much pleasure to me. I think, however, I
might venture just to give you one extract."

"You had better not, sir; there would be a sort of treachery in it, that
I confess I would rather not be accessary to. If Miss Coldbrooke do not
wish me to read what she writes, she can hardly wish that you should
read any of it to me."

Uncle Ro glanced at me, and I fancied he seemed dissatisfied with my
_nonchalance_. He read the letter through to himself, however, laughing
here, smiling there, then muttering "capital!" "good!" "charming girl!"
"worthy of Hannah More!" &c. &c., as if just to provoke my curiosity.
But I had no desire to read "Hannah More," as any young fellow of
five-and-twenty can very well imagine, and I stood it all with the
indifference of a stoic. My guardian had to knock under, and put the
letters in his writing-desk.

"Well, the girls will be glad to see us," he said, after a moment of
reflection, "and not a little surprised. In my very last letter to my
mother, I sent them word that we should not be home until October; and
now we shall see them as early as June, at least."

"Patt will be delighted, I make no doubt. As for the other two young
ladies, they have so many friends and relations to care for, that I
fancy our movements give them no great concern."

"Then you do both injustice, as their letters would prove. They take the
liveliest interest in our proceedings, and speak of my return as if they
look for it with the greatest expectation and joy."

I made my uncle Ro a somewhat saucy answer; but fair-dealing compels me
to record it.

"I dare say they do, sir," was my reply; "but what young lady does not
look with '_expectation_ and joy' for the return of a friend, who is
known to have a long purse, from Paris!"

"Well, Hugh, you deserve neither of those dear girls; and, if I can help
it, you shall have neither."

"Thank'ee, sir!"

"Poh! this is worse than silly--it is rude. I dare say neither would
accept you, were you to offer to-morrow."

"I trust not, sir, for her own sake. It would be a singularly palpable
demonstration were either to accept a man she barely knew, and whom she
had not seen since she was fifteen."

Uncle Ro laughed, but I could see he was confoundedly vexed; and, as I
loved him with all my heart, though I did not love match-making, I
turned the discourse, in a pleasant way, on our approaching departure.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Hugh," cried my uncle, who was a good deal
of a boy in some things, for the reason, I suppose, that he was an old
bachelor; "I'll just have wrong names entered on board the packet, and
we'll surprise all our friends. Neither Jacob nor your man will betray
us, we know; and, for that matter, we can send them both home by the way
of England. Each of us has trunks in London to be looked after, and let
the two fellows go by the way of Liverpool. That is a good thought, and
occurred most happily."

"With all my heart, sir. My fellow is of no more use to me at sea than
an automaton would be, and I shall be glad to get rid of his rueful
countenance. He is a capital servant on terrâ firma, but a perfect Niobe
on the briny main."

The thing was agreed on; and, a day or two afterwards, both our
body-servants, that is to say, Jacob the black and Hubert the German,
were on their way to England. My uncle let his apartment again, for he
always maintained I should wish to bring my bride to pass a winter in
it; and we proceeded to Havre in a sort of incognito. There was little
danger of our being known on board the packet, and we had previously
ascertained that there was not an acquaintance of either in the ship.
There was a strong family resemblance between my uncle and myself, and
we passed for father and son in the ship, as old Mr. Davidson and young
Mr. Davidson, of Maryland--or Myr-r-land, as it is Doric to call that
state. We had no concern in this part of the deception, unless
abstaining from calling my supposed father "uncle," as one would
naturally do in strange society, can be so considered.

The passage itself--by the way, I wish all landsmen would be as accurate
as I am here, and understand that a "voyage" means "out" and "home," or
"thence" and "back again," while a "passage" means from place to
place--but our passage was pregnant with no events worth recording. We
had the usual amount of good and bad weather, the usual amount of eating
and drinking, and the usual amount of ennui. The latter circumstance,
perhaps, contributed to the digesting of a further scheme of my uncle's,
which it is now necessary to state.

A re-perusal of his letters and papers had induced him to think the
anti-rent movement a thing of more gravity, even than he had first
supposed. The combination on the part of the tenants, we learned also
from an intelligent New Yorker who was a fellow-passenger, extended much
further than our accounts had given us reason to believe; and it was
deemed decidedly dangerous for landlords, in many cases, to be seen on
their own estates. Insult, personal degradation, or injury, and even
death, it was thought, might be the consequences, in many cases. The
blood actually spilled had had the effect to check the more violent
demonstrations, it is true; but the latent determination to achieve
their purposes was easily to be traced among the tenants, in the face of
all their tardy professions of moderation, and a desire for nothing but
what was right. In this case, what was right was the letter and spirit
of the contracts; and nothing was plainer than the fact that these were
not what was wanted.

Professions pass for nothing, with the experienced, when connected with
a practice that flatly contradicts them. It was only too apparent to all
who chose to look into the matter, and that by evidence which could not
mislead, that the great body of the tenants in various counties of New
York were bent on obtaining interests in their farms that were not
conveyed by their leases, without the consent of their landlords, and
insomuch that they were bent on doing that which should be
discountenanced by every honest man in the community. The very fact that
they supported, or in any manner connived at, the so-called "Injin"
system, spoke all that was necessary as to their motives; and, when we
come to consider that these "Injins" had already proceeded to the
extremity of shedding blood, it was sufficiently plain that things must
soon reach a crisis.

My uncle Roger and myself reflected on all these matters calmly, and
decided on our course, I trust, with prudence. As that decision has
proved to be pregnant with consequences that are likely to affect my
future life, I shall now briefly give an outline of what induced us to
adopt it.

It was all-important for us to visit Ravensnest in person, while it
might be hazardous to do so openly. The 'Nest house stood in the very
centre of the estate, and, ignorant as we were of the temper of the
tenants, it might be indiscreet to let our presence be known; and
circumstances favoured our projects of concealment. We were not expected
to reach the country at all until autumn, or "fall," as that season of
the year is poetically called in America; and this gave us the means of
reaching the property unexpectedly, and, as we hoped, undetected. Our
arrangement, then, was very simple, and will be best related in the
course of the narrative.

The packet had a reasonably short passage, as we were twenty-nine days
from land to land. It was on a pleasant afternoon in May when the
hummock-like heights of Navesink were first seen from the deck; and, an
hour later, we came in sight of the tower-resembling sails of the
coasters which were congregating in the neighbourhood of the low point
of land that is so very appropriately called _Sandy_ Hook. The
light-houses rose out of the water soon after, and objects on the shore
of New Jersey next came gradually out of the misty back-ground, until we
got near enough to be boarded, first by the pilot, and next by the
news-boat; the first preceding the last for a wonder, news usually being
far more active, in this good republic, than watchfulness to prevent
evil. My uncle Ro gave the crew of this news-boat a thorough scrutiny,
and, finding no one on board her whom he had ever before seen, he
bargained for a passage up to town.

We put our feet on the Battery just as the clocks of New York were
striking eight. A custom-house officer had examined our carpet-bags and
permitted them to pass, and we had disburthened ourselves of the effects
in the ship, by desiring the captain to attend to them. Each of us had a
town-house, but neither would go near his dwelling; mine being only kept
up in winter, for the use of my sister and an aunt who kindly took
charge of her during the season, while my uncle's was opened
principally for his mother. At that season, we had reason to think
neither was tenanted but by one or two old family servants; and it was
our cue also to avoid them. But "Jack Dunning," as my uncle always
called him, was rather more of a friend than of an agent; and he had a
bachelor establishment in Chamber Street that was precisely the place we
wanted. Thither, then, we proceeded, taking the route by Greenwich
Street, fearful of meeting some one in Broadway by whom we might be
recognised.




CHAPTER IV.

    _Cit._ "Speak, speak."

    _1 Cit._ "You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?"

    _Cit._ "Resolved, resolved."

    _1 Cit._ "First you know, Caius Marcus is chief enemy to the people."

    _Cit._ "We know't, we know't."

    _1 Cit._ "Let's kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price.

             Is't a verdict?"

    _Coriolanus._


The most inveterate Manhattanese, if he be anything of a man of the
world, must confess that New York is, after all, but a Rag-Fair sort of
a place, so far as the eye is concerned. I was particularly struck with
this fact, even at that hour, as we went stumbling along over an
atrociously bad side-walk, my eyes never at rest, as any one can
imagine, after five years of absence. I could not help noting the
incongruities; the dwellings of marble, in close proximity with
miserable, low constructions in wood; the wretched pavements, and, above
all, the country air, of a town of near four hundred thousand souls. I
very well know that many of the defects are to be ascribed to the rapid
growth of the place, which gives it a sort of hobbledehoy look; but,
being a Manhattanese by birth, I thought I might just as well own it
all, at once, if it were only for the information of a particular
portion of my townsmen, who may have been under a certain delusion on
the subject. As for comparing the Bay of New York with that of Naples on
the score of beauty, I shall no more be guilty of any such folly, to
gratify the cockney feelings of Broadway and Bond street, than I should
be guilty of the folly of comparing the commerce of the ancient
Parthenope with that of _old_ New York, in order to excite complacency
in the bosom of some bottegajo in the Toledo, or on the Chiaja. Our
fast-growing Manhattan is a great town in its way--a wonderful
place--without a parallel, I do believe, on earth, as a proof of
enterprise and of the accumulation of business; and it is not easy to
make such a town appear ridiculous by any jibes and innuendoes that
relate to the positive things of this world, though nothing is easier
than to do it for itself by setting up to belong to the sisterhood of
such places as London, Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. There is too
much of the American notion of the omnipotence of numbers among us
Manhattanese, which induces us to think that the higher rank in the
scale of places is to be obtained by majorities. No, no; let us remember
the familiar axiom of "ne sutor ultra crepidum." New York is just the
queen of "business," but not yet the queen of the world. Every man who
travels ought to bring back something to the common stock of knowledge;
and I shall give a hint to my townsmen, by which I really think they may
be able to tell for themselves, as by feeling a sort of moral pulse,
when the town is rising to the level of a capital. When simplicity takes
the place of pretension, is one good rule; but, as it may require a good
deal of practice, or native taste, to ascertain this fact, I will give
another that is obvious to the senses, which will at least be strongly
symptomatic; and that is this: When _squares_ cease to be called
_parks_; when horse-bazaars and fashionable streets are not called
Tattersalls and Bond street; when _Washington_ Market is rechristened
_Bear_ Market, and Franklin and Fulton and other great philosophers and
inventors are plucked of the unmerited honours of having shambles named
after them; when _commercial_ is not used as a prefix to emporium; when
people can return from abroad without being asked "if they are
reconciled to their country," and strangers are not interrogated at the
second question, "how do you like _our city?_" then may it be believed
that the town is beginning to go alone, and that it may set up for
itself.

Although New York is, out of all question, decidedly provincial,
labouring under the peculiar vices of provincial habits and provincial
modes of thinking, it contains many a man of the world, and some, too,
who have never quitted their own firesides. Of this very number was the
Jack Dunning, as my uncle Ro called him, to whose house in Chamber
street we were now proceeding.

"If we were going anywhere but to Dunning's," said my uncle, as we
turned out of Greenwich street, "I should have no fear of being
recognised by the servants; for no one here thinks of keeping a man six
months. Dunning, however, is of the old school, and does not like new
faces; so he will have no Irishman at his door, as is the case with two
out of three of the houses at which one calls, now-a-days."

In another minute we were at the bottom of Mr. Dunning's "stoup"--what
an infernal contrivance it is to get in and out at the door by, in a
hotty-cold climate like ours!--but, there we were, and I observed that
my uncle hesitated.

"_Parlez au_ SUISSE," said I; "ten to one he is fresh from some
Bally-this, or Bally-that."

"No, no; it must be old Garry the nigger"--my uncle Ro was of the old
school himself, and _would_ say "nigger"--"Jack can never have parted
with Garry."

"Garry" was the diminutive of Garret, a somewhat common Dutch christian
name among us.

We rang, and the door opened--in about five minutes. Although the terms
"aristocrat" and "aristocracy" are much in men's mouths in America just
now, as well as those of "feudal" and the "middle ages," and this, too,
as applied to modes of living as well as to leasehold tenures, there is
but one porter in the whole country; and he belongs to the White House,
at Washington. I am afraid even that personage, royal porter as he is,
is often out of the way; and the reception he gives when he _is_ there,
is not of the most brilliant and princely character. When we had waited
three minutes, my uncle Ro said--

"I am afraid Garry is taking a nap by the kitchen-fire; I'll try him
again."

Uncle Ro did try again, and, two minutes later, the door opened.

"What is your pleasure?" demanded the _Suisse_, with a strong brogue.

My uncle started back as if he had met a sprite; but he asked if Mr.
Dunning was at home.

"He is, indeed, sir."

"Is he alone, or is he with company?"

"He is, indeed."

"But _what_ is he, indeed?"

"He is _that_."

"Can you take the trouble to explain which _that_ it is? Has he company,
or is he alone?"

"Just _that_, sir. Walk in, and he'll be charmed to see you. A fine
gentleman is his honour, and pleasure it is to live with him, I'm sure!"

"How long is it since you left Ireland, my friend?"

"Isn't it a mighty bit, now, yer honour!" answered Barney, closing the
door. "T'irteen weeks, if it's one day."

"Well, go ahead, and show us the way. This is a bad omen, Hugh, to find
that Jack Dunning, of all men in the country, should have changed his
servant--good, quiet, lazy, respectable, old, grey-headed Garry the
nigger--for such a bogtrotter as that fellow, who climbs those stairs as
if accustomed only to ladders."

Dunning was in his library on the second floor, where he passed most of
his evenings. His surprise was equal to that which my uncle had just
experienced, when he saw us two standing before him. A significant
gesture, however, caused him to grasp his friend and client's hand in
silence; and nothing was said until the _Swiss_ had left the room,
although the fellow stood with the door in his hand a most inconvenient
time, just to listen to what might pass between the host and his guests.
At length we got rid of him, honest, well-meaning fellow that he was,
after all; and the door was closed.

"My last letters have brought you home, Roger?" said Jack, the moment he
_could_ speak; for feeling, as well as caution, had something to do with
his silence.

"They have, indeed. A great change must have come over the country, by
what I hear; and one of the very worst symptoms is that you have turned
away Garry, and got an Irishman in his place."

"Ah! old men must die, as well as old principles, I find. My poor fellow
went off in a fit last week, and I took that Irishman as a _pis aller_.
After losing poor Garry, who was born a slave in my father's house, I
became indifferent, and accepted the first comer from the intelligence
office."

"We must be careful, Dunning, not to give up too soon. But hear my
story, and then to other matters."

My uncle then explained his wish to be incognito, and his motive.
Dunning listened attentively, but seemed uncertain whether to dissent or
approve. The matter was discussed briefly, and then it was postponed for
further consideration.

"But how comes on this great moral dereliction, called anti-rentism? Is
it on the wane, or the increase?"

"On the wane, to the eye, perhaps; but on the increase so far as
principles, the right, and facts, are concerned. The necessity of
propitiating votes is tempting politicians of all sides to lend
themselves to it; and there is imminent danger now that atrocious wrongs
will be committed under the form of law."

"In what way _can_ the law touch an existing contract? The Supreme Court
of the United States will set that right."

"That is the only hope of the honest, let me tell you. It is folly to
expect that a body composed of such men as usually are sent to the State
Legislature, can resist the temptation to gain power by conciliating
numbers. _That is out of the question._ Individuals of these bodies may
resist, but the tendency there will be as against the few, and in favour
of the many, bolstering their theories by clap-traps and slang political
phrases. The scheme to tax the rents, under the name of quit-rents, will
be resorted to, in the first place."

"That will be a most iniquitous proceeding, and would justify resistance
just as much as our ancestors were justified in resisting the taxation
of Great Britain."

"It would more so, for here we have a written covenant to render
taxation equal. The landlord already pays one tax on each of these
farms--a full and complete tax, that is reserved from the rent in the
original bargain with the tenant; and now the wish is to tax the rents
themselves; and this not to raise revenue, for that is confessedly not
wanted, but most clearly with a design to increase the inducements for
the landlords to part with their property. If that can be done, the
sales will be made on the principle that none but the tenant must be, as
indeed no one else _can_ be, the purchaser; and then we shall see a
queer exhibition--men parting with their property under the pressure of
a clamour that is backed by as much law as can be pressed into its
service, with a monopoly of price on the side of the purchaser, and all
in a country professing the most sensitive love of liberty, where the
prevailing class of politicians are free-trade men!"

"There is no end of these inconsistencies among politicians."

"There is no end of knavery when men submit to 'noses,' instead of
principles. Call things by their right names, Ro, as they deserve to be.
This matter is so plain, that he who runs can read."

"But will this scheme of taxation succeed? It does not effect us, for
instance, as our leases are for three lives."

"Oh! that is nothing; for you they contemplate a law that will forbid
the letting of land, for the future, for a period longer than five
years. Hugh's leases will soon be falling in, and then he can't make a
slave of any man for a longer period than five years."

"Surely no one is so silly as to think of passing such a law, with a
view to put down aristocracy, and to benefit the tenant!" I cried,
laughing.

"Ay, you may laugh, young sir," resumed Jack Dunning; "but such _is_ the
intention. I know very well what will be your course of reasoning; you
will say, the longer the lease, the better for the tenant, if the
bargain be reasonably good; and landlords cannot ask more for the use of
their lands than they are really worth in this country, there happening
to be more lands than there are men to work it. No, no; landlords rather
get less for their lands than they are worth, instead of more, for that
plain reason. To compel the tenant to take a lease, therefore, for a
term as short as five years, is to injure him, you think; to place him
more at the control of his landlord, through the little interests
connected with the cost and trouble of moving, and through the natural
desire he may possess to cut the meadows he has seeded, and to get the
full benefit of manure he has made and carted. I see how you reason,
young sir; but you are behind the age--you are sadly behind the age."

"The age is a queer one, if I am! All over the world it is believed that
long leases are favours, or advantages, to tenants; and nothing can make
it otherwise, _cæteris paribus_. Then what good will the tax do, after
violating right and moral justice, if not positive law, to lay it? On a
hundred dollars of rent, I should have to pay some fifty-five cents of
taxes, as I am assessed on other things at Ravensnest; and does anybody
suppose I will give up an estate that has passed through five
generations of my family, on account of a tribute like that!"

"Mighty well, sir--mighty well, sir! This is fine talk; but I would
advise you not to speak of _your_ ancestors at all. Landlords can't name
_their_ ancestors with impunity just now."

"I name mine only as showing a reason for a natural regard for my
paternal acres."

"That you might do, if you were a tenant; but not as a landlord. In a
landlord, it is aristocratic and intolerable pride, and to the last
degree offensive--as Dogberry says, 'tolerable and not to be endured.'"

"But it is a _fact_, and it is natural one should have some feelings
connected with it."

"The more it is a fact, the less it will be liked. People associate
social position with wealth and _estates_, but not with farms; and the
longer one has such things in a family, the worse for them!"

"I do believe, Jack," put in my uncle Ro, "that the rule which prevails
all over the rest of the world is reversed here, and that with us it is
thought a family's claim is lessened, and not increased, by time."

"To be sure it is!" answered Dunning, without giving me a chance to
speak. "Do you know that you wrote me a very silly letter once, from
Switzerland, about a family called de Blonay, that had been seated on
the same rock, in a little castle, some six or eight hundred years, and
the sort of respect and veneration the circumstance awakened? Well, all
that was very foolish, as you will find when you pay your incognito
visit to Ravensnest. I will not anticipate the result of your schooling;
but, go to school."

"As the Rensselaers and other great landlords, who have states on
durable leases, will not be very likely to give them up, except on terms
that will suit themselves, for a tax as insignificant as that mentioned
by Hugh," said my uncle, "what does the legislature anticipate from
passing the law?"

"That its members will be called the friends of the people, and not the
friends of the landlords. Would any man tax his friends, if he could
help it?"

"But what will that portion of the people who compose the anti-renters
gain by such a measure?"

"Nothing; and their complaints will be just as loud, and their longings
as active, as ever. Nothing that can have any effect on what they wish,
will be accomplished by any legislation in the matter. One committee of
the assembly has actually reported, you may remember, that the State
might assume the lands, and sell them to the tenants, or some one else;
or something of the sort."

"The constitution of the United States must be Hugh's ægis."

"And that alone will protect him, let me tell you. But for that noble
provision of the constitution of the Federal Government, his estate
would infallibly go for one-half its true value. There is no use in
mincing things, or in affecting to believe men more honest than they
are--AN INFERNAL FEELING OF SELFISHNESS IS SO MUCH TALKED OF, AND CITED,
AND REFERRED TO, ON ALL OCCASIONS, IN THIS COUNTRY, THAT A MAN ALMOST
RENDERS HIMSELF RIDICULOUS WHO APPEARS TO REST ON PRINCIPLE."

"Have you heard what the tenants of Ravensnest aim at, in particular?"

"They want to get Hugh's lands, that's all; nothing more, I can assure
you."

"On what conditions, pray?" demanded I.

"As you 'light of chaps,' to use a saying of their own. Some even
profess a willingness to pay a fair price."

"But I do not wish to sell for even a fair price. I have no desire to
part with property that is endeared to me by family feeling and
association. I have an expensive house and establishment on my estate,
which obtains its principal value from the circumstance that it is so
placed that I can look after my interests with the least inconvenience
to myself. What can I do with the money but buy another estate? and I
prefer this that I have."

"Poh! boy, you can shave notes, you'll recollect," said uncle Ro, drily.
"The calling is decided to be honourable by the highest tribunal; and no
man should be above his business."

"You have no right, sir, in a free country," returned the caustic Jack
Dunning, "to prefer one estate to another, more especially when other
people want it. Your lands are leased to honest, hard-working tenants,
who can eat their dinners without silver forks, and whose ancestors----"

"Stop!" I cried, laughing; "I bar all ancestry. No man has a right to
ancestry in a free country, you'll remember!"

"That means landlord-ancestry; as for tenant-ancestry, one can have a
pedigree as long as the Maison de Levis. No, sir; every tenant you have
has every right to demand that his sentiment of family feeling should be
respected. His father planted that orchard, and he loves the apples
better than any other apples in the world----"

"And my father procured the grafts, and made him a present of them."

"His grandfather cleared that field, and converted its ashes into pots
and pearls----"

"And _my_ grandfather received that year ten shillings of rent, for land
off which his received two hundred and fifty dollars for his ashes."

"His great-grandfather, honest and excellent man--nay, super-honest and
confiding creature--first 'took up' the land when a wilderness, and with
his own hands felled the timber, and sowed the wheat."

"And got his pay twenty-fold for it all, or he would not have been fool
enough to do it. I had a great-grandfather, too; and I hope it will not
be considered aristocratic if I venture to hint as much. He--a
dishonest, pestilent knave, no doubt--leased that very lot for six years
without any rent at all, in order that the 'poor, confiding creature'
might make himself comfortable, before he commenced paying his sixpence
or shilling an acre rent for the remainder of three lives, with a moral
certainty of getting a renewal on the most liberal terms known to a new
country; and who knew, the whole time, he could buy land in fee, within
ten miles of his door, but who thought _this_ a better bargain than
_that_."

"Enough of this folly," cried uncle Ro, joining in the laugh; "we all
know that, in our excellent America, he who has the highest claims to
anything, must affect to have the least, to stifle the monster envy;
and, being of one mind as to principles, let us come to facts. What of
the girls, Jack, and of my honoured mother?"

"She, noble, heroic woman! she is at Ravensnest at this moment; and, as
the girls would not permit her to go alone, they are all with her."

"And did you, Jack Dunning, suffer them to go unattended into a part of
the country that is in open rebellion?" demanded my uncle,
reproachfully.

"Come, come! Hodge Littlepage, this is very sublime as a theory, but not
so clear when reduced to practice. I did not go with Mrs. Littlepage and
her young fry, for the good and substantial reason that I did not wish
to be 'tarred and feathered.'"

"So you leave them to run the risk of being 'tarred and feathered' in
your stead?"

"Say what you will about the cant of freedom that is becoming so common
among us, and from which we were once so free; say what you will, Ro, of
the inconsistency of those who raise the cry of 'feudality,' and
'aristocracy,' and 'nobility,' at the very moment they are manifesting a
desire for exclusive rights and privileges in their own persons; say
what you will of dishonesty, envy, that prominent American vice,
knavery, covetousness, and selfishness; and I will echo all you can
utter;--but do not say that a woman can be in serious danger among any
material body of Americans, even if anti-renters, and mock-redskins in
the bargain."

"I believe you are right there, Jack, on reflection. Pardon my warmth;
but I have lately been living in the old world, and in a country in
which women were not long since carried to the scaffold on account of
their politics."

"Because they meddled with politics. Your mother is in no serious
danger, though it needs nerve in a woman to be able to think so. There
are few women in the State, and fewer of her time of life anywhere, that
would do what she has done; and I give the girls great credit for
sticking by her. Half the young men in town are desperate at the thought
of three such charming creatures thus exposing themselves to insult.
Your mother has only been sued."

"Sued! Whom does she owe, or what can she have done to have brought this
indignity on her?"

"You know, or ought to know, how it is in this country, Littlepage; we
must have a little law, even when most bent on breaking it. A downright,
straight-forward rascal, who openly sets law at defiance, is a wonder.
Then we have a great talk of liberty when plotting to give it the
deepest stab; and religion even gets to share in no small portion of our
vices. Thus it is that the anti-renters have dragged in the law in aid
of their designs. I understand one of the Rensselaers has been sued for
money borrowed in a ferry-boat to help him across a river under his own
door, and for potatoes bought by his wife in the streets of Albany!"

"But neither of the Rensselaers need borrow money to cross the ferry, as
the ferry-men would trust him; and no lady of the Rensselaer family ever
bought potatoes in the streets of Albany, I'll answer for it."

"You have brought back some knowledge from your travels, I find!" said
Jack Dunning, with comic gravity. "Your mother writes me that _she_ has
been sued for twenty-seven pairs of shoes furnished her by a shoemaker
whom she never saw, or heard of, until she received the summons!"

"This, then, is one of the species of annoyances that has been adopted
to bully the landlords out of their property?"

"It is; and if the landlords have recourse even to the covenants of
their leases, solemnly and deliberately made, and as solemnly guarantied
by a fundamental law, the cry is raised of 'aristocracy' and
'oppression' by these very men, and echoed by many of the creatures who
get seats in high places among us--or what _would_ be high places, if
filled with men worthy of their trusts."

"I see you do not mince your words, Jack."

"Why should I? Words are all that is left me. I am of no more weight in
the government of this State than that Irishman, who let you in just
now, will be, five years hence--less, for he will vote to suit a
majority; and, as I shall vote understandingly, my vote will probably do
no one any good."

Dunning belonged to a school that mingles a good deal of speculative and
impracticable theory, with a great deal of sound and just principles;
but who render themselves useless because they will admit of no
compromises. He did not belong to the class of American _doctrinaires_,
however, or to those who contend--no, not _contend_, for no one does
that any longer in this country, whatever may be his opinion on the
subject--but those who _think_ that political power, as in the last
resort, should be the property of the few; for he was willing New York
should have a very broad constituency. Nevertheless, he was opposed to
the universal suffrage, in its wide extent, that does actually exist; as
I suppose quite three-fourths of the whole population are opposed to it,
in their hearts, though no political man of influence, now existing, has
the moral calibre necessary to take the lead in putting it down. Dunning
deferred to principles, and not to men. He well knew that an infallible
whole was not to be composed of fallible parts; and while he thought
majorities ought to determine many things, that there are rights and
principles that are superior to even such _unanimity_ as man can
manifest, and much more to their majorities. But Dunning had no selfish
views connected with his political notions, wanting no office, and
feeling no motive to affect that which he neither thought nor wished. He
never had quitted home, or it is highly probable his views of the
comparative abuses of the different systems that prevail in the world
would have been essentially modified. Those he saw had unavoidably a
democratic source, there being neither monarch nor aristocrat to produce
any other; and, under such circumstances, as abuses certainly abound, it
is not at all surprising that he sometimes a little distorted facts, and
magnified evils.

"And my noble, high-spirited, and venerable mother has actually gone to
the Nest to face the enemy!" exclaimed my uncle, after a thoughtful
pause.

"She has, indeed; and the noble, high-spirited, though not venerable,
young ladies have gone with her," returned Mr. Dunning, in his caustic
way.

"All three, do you mean?"

"Every one of them--Martha, Henrietta, and Anne."

"I am surprised that the last should have done so. Anne Marston is such
a meek, quiet, peace-loving person, that I should think _she_ would have
preferred remaining, as she naturally might have done, without exciting
remark, with her own mother."

"She has not, nevertheless. Mrs. Littlepage _would_ brave the
anti-renters, and the three maidens _would_ be her companions. I dare
say, Ro, you know how it is with the gentle sex, when they make up their
minds?"

"My girls are all good girls, and have given me very little trouble,"
answered my uncle, complacently.

"Yes, I dare say that may be true. You have only been absent from home
five years, this trip."

"An attentive guardian, notwithstanding, since I left you as a
substitute. Has my mother written to you since her arrival among the
hosts of the Philistines?"

"She has, indeed, Littlepage," answered Dunning, gravely; "I have heard
from her three times, for she writes to urge my not appearing on the
estate. I did intend to pay her a visit; but she tells me that it might
lead to a violent scene, and can do no good. As the rents will not be
due until autumn, and Master Hugh is now of age and was to be here to
look after his own affairs, I have seen no motive for incurring the risk
of the tarring and feathering. We American lawyers, young gentleman,
wear no wigs."

"Does my mother write herself, or employ another?" inquired my uncle,
with interest.

"She honours me with her own hand. Your mother writes much better than
you do yourself, Roger."

"That is owing to her once having carried chain, as she would say
herself. Has Martha written to you?"

"Of course. Sweet little Patty and I are bosom friends, as you know."

"And does she say anything of the Indian and the negro?"

"Jaaf and Susquesus? To be sure she does. Both are living still, and
both are well. I saw them myself, and even ate of their venison, so
lately as last winter."

"Those old fellows must have each lived a great deal more than his
century, Jack. They were with my grandfather in the old French war, as
active, useful men--older, then, than _my_ grandfather!"

"Ay! a nigger or a redskin, before all others, for holding on to life,
when they have been temperate. Let me see--that expedition of
Abercrombie's was about eighty years since; why, these fellows must be
well turned of their hundred, though Jaap is rather the oldest, judging
from appearances."

"I believe no one knows the age of either. A hundred each has been
thought, now, for many years. Susquesus was surprisingly active, too,
when I last saw him--like a healthy man of eighty."

"He has failed of late, though he actually shot a deer, as I told you,
last winter. Both the old fellows stray down to the Nest, Martha writes
me; and the Indian is highly scandalized at the miserable imitations of
his race that are now abroad. I have even heard that he and Yop have
actually contemplated taking the field against them. Seneca Newcome is
their especial aversion."

"How is Opportunity?" I inquired. "Does she take any part in this
movement?"

"A decided one, I hear. She is anti-rent, while she wishes to keep on
good terms with her landlord; and that is endeavouring to serve God and
Mammon. She is not the first, however, by a thousand, that wears two
faces in this business."

"Hugh has a deep admiration of Opportunity," observed my uncle, "and you
had needs be tender in your strictures. The modern Seneca, I take it, is
dead against us?"

"Seneky wishes to go to the legislature, and of course he is on the side
of votes. Then his brother is a tenant at the mill, and naturally wishes
to be the landlord. He is also interested in the land himself. One thing
has struck me in this controversy as highly worthy of notice; and it is
the _naïveté_ with which men reconcile the obvious longings of
covetousness with what they are pleased to fancy the principles of
liberty! When a man has worked a farm a certain number of years, he
boldly sets up the doctrine that the fact itself gives him a high moral
claim to possess it for ever. A moment's examination will expose the
fallacy by which these sophists apply the flattering unction to their
souls. They work their farms under a lease, and in virtue of its
covenants. Now, in a moral sense, all that time can do in such a case,
is to render these covenants the more sacred, and consequently more
binding; but these worthies, whose morality is all on one side, imagine
that these time-honoured covenants give them a right to fly from their
own conditions during their existence, and to raise pretensions far
exceeding anything they themselves confer, the moment they cease."

"Poh, poh! Jack; there is no need of refining at all, to come at the
merits of such a question. This is a civilized country, or it is not. If
it be a civilized country, it will respect the rights of property, and
its own laws; and if the reverse, it will not respect them. As for
setting up the doctrine, at this late day, when millions and millions
are invested in this particular species of property, that the leasehold
tenure is opposed to the _spirit_ of institutions of which it has
substantially formed a part, ever since those institutions have
themselves had an existence, it requires a bold front, and more capacity
than any man at Albany possesses, to make the doctrines go down. Men may
run off with the notion that the _tendencies_ to certain abuses, which
mark every system, form their spirit; but this is a fallacy that a very
little thought will correct. Is it true that proposals have actually
been made, by these pretenders to liberty, to appoint commissioners to
act as arbitrators between the landlords and tenants, and to decide
points that no one has any right to raise?"

"True as Holy Writ; and a regular 'Star Chamber' tribunal it would be!
It is wonderful, after all, how extremes do meet!"

"That is as certain as the return of the sun after night. But let us now
talk of our project, Jack, and of the means of getting among these
self-deluded men--deluded by their own covetousness--without being
discovered; for I am determined to see them, and to judge of their
motives and conduct for myself."

"Take care of the tar-barrel, and of the pillow-case of feathers,
Roger!"

"I shall endeavour so to do."

We then discussed the matter before us at length and leisurely. I shall
not relate all that was said, as it would be going over the same ground
twice, but refer the reader to the regular narrative. At the usual hour,
we retired to our beds, retaining the name of Davidson, as convenient
and prudent. Next day Mr. John Dunning busied himself in our behalf, and
made himself exceedingly useful to us. In his character of an old
bachelor, he had many acquaintances at the theatre; and through his
friends of the green-room he supplied each of us with a wig. Both my
uncle and myself spoke German reasonably well, and our original plan was
to travel in the characters of immigrant trinket and essence pedlars.
But I had a fancy for a hand-organ and a monkey; and it was finally
agreed that Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, senior, was to undertake this
adventure with a box of cheap watches and gilded trinkets; while Mr.
Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior, was to commence his travels at home, in
the character of a music-grinder. Modesty will not permit me to say all
I might, in favour of my own skill in music in general; but I sang well
for an amateur, and played, both on the violin and flute, far better
than is common.

Everything was arranged in the course of the following day, our wigs of
themselves completely effecting all the disguises that were necessary.
As for my uncle, he was nearly bald, and a wig was no great encumbrance;
but my shaggy locks gave me some trouble. A little clipping, however,
answered the turn; and I had a hearty laugh at myself, in costume, that
afternoon, before Dunning's dressing-room glass. We got round the felony
law, about being armed and disguised, by carrying no weapons but our
tools in the way of trade.




CHAPTER V.

    "And she hath smiles to earth unknown----
    Smiles, that with motion of their own
    Do spread, and sink, and rise;
    That come and go with endless play
    And ever, as they pass away,
    Are hidden in her eyes."

    WORDSWORTH.


I was early in costume the following morning. I question if my own
mother could have known me, had she lived long enough to see the
whiskers sprout on my cheeks, and to contemplate my countenance as a
man. I went into Dunning's library, drew the little hurdy-gurdy from its
hiding-place, slung it, and began to play St. Patrick's Day in the
Morning, with spirit, and, I trust I may add, with execution. I was in
the height of the air, when the door opened, and Barney thrust his
high-cheeked-bone face into the room, his mouth as wide open as that of
a frozen porker.

"Where the divil did ye come from?" demanded the new footman, with the
muscles of that vast aperture of his working from grin to grim, and grim
to grin again. "Yee's wilcome to the tchune; but how comes ye here?"

"I coomes vrom Halle, in Preussen. Vat isht your vaterland?"

"Be yees a Jew?"

"Nein--I isht a goot Christian. Vilt you haf Yankee Tootle?"

"Yankee T'under! Ye'll wake up the masther, and he'll be displais'd,
else ye might work upon t'at tchune till the end of time. That I should
hear it here, in my own liberary, and ould Ireland t'ree thousand
laigues away!"

A laugh from Dunning interrupted the dialogue, when Barney vanished, no
doubt anticipating some species of American punishment for a presumed
delinquency. Whether the blundering, well-meaning, honest fellow really
ascertained who we were that breakfasted with his master, I do not
know; but we got the meal and left the house without seeing his face
again, Dunning having a young yellow fellow to do the service of the
table.

I need scarcely say that I felt a little awkward at finding myself in
the streets of New York in such a guise; but the gravity and
self-possession of my uncle were a constant source of amusement to me.
He actually sold a watch on the wharf before the boat left it, though I
imputed his success to the circumstance that his price was what a
brother dealer, who happened to be trading in the same neighbourhood,
pronounced "onconscionably low." We took a comfortable state-room
between us, under the pretence of locking-up our property, and strolled
about the boat, gaping and looking curious, as became our class.

"Here are at least a dozen people that I know," said my uncle, as we
were lounging around--loafing around, is the modern Doric--about the
time that the boat was paddling past Fort Washington; "I have
reconnoitred in all quarters, and find quite a dozen. I have been
conversing with an old school-fellow, and one with whom I have ever
lived in tolerable intimacy, for the last ten minutes, and find my
broken English and disguise are perfect. I am confident my dear mother
herself would not recognise me."

"We can then amuse ourselves with my grandmother and the young ladies,"
I answered, "when we reach the Nest. For my part, it strikes me that we
had better keep our own secret to the last moment."

"Hush! As I live, there is Seneca Newcome this moment! He is coming this
way, and we must be Germans again."

Sure enough, there was 'Squire Seneky, as the honest farmers around the
Nest call him; though many of them must change their practices, or it
will shortly become so absurd to apply the term "honest" to them, that
no one will have the hardihood to use it. Newcome came slowly towards
the forecastle, on which we were standing; and my uncle determined to
get into conversation with him, as a means of further proving the virtue
of our disguises, as well as possibly of opening the way to some
communications that might facilitate our visit to the Nest. With this
view, the pretended pedlar drew a watch from his pocket, and, offering
it meekly to the inspection of the quasi lawyer, he said--

"Puy a vatch, shentlemans?"

"Hey! what? Oh! a watch," returned Seneca, in that high, condescending,
vulgar key, with which the salt of the earth usually affect to treat
those they evidently think much beneath them in intellect, station, or
some other great essential, at the very moment they are bursting with
envy, and denouncing as aristocrats all who are above them. "Hey! a
watch, is it? What countryman are you, friend?"

"A Charmans--ein Teutscher."

"A German--ine Tycher is the place you come from, I s'pose?"

"Nein--ein Teutscher isht a Charman."

"Oh, yes! I understand. How long have you been in Ameriky?"

"Twelf moont's."

"Why, that's most long enough to make you citizens. Where do you live?"

"Nowhere; I lifs jest asht it happens--soometimes here, ant soometimes
dere."

"Ay, ay! I understand--no legal domicile, but lead a wandering life.
Have you many of these watches for sale?"

"Yees--I haf asht many as twenty. Dey are as sheep as dirt, and go like
pig clocks."

"And what may be your price for this?"

"Dat you can haf for only eight tollars. Effery poty wilt say it is
golt, dat doesn't know petter."

"Oh! it isn't gold then--I swan!"--what this oath meant I never exactly
knew, though I suppose it to be a puritan mode of saying "I swear!" the
attempts to cheat the devil in this way being very common among their
pious descendants, though even "Smith Thompson" himself can do no man
any good in such a case of conscience--"I swan! you come plaguy near
taking even me in! Will you come down from that price any?"

"If you wilt gif me some atfice, perhaps I may. You look like a goot
shentlemans, and one dat woultn't sheat a poor Charmans; ant effery poty
wants so much to sheat de poor Charmans, dat I will take six, if you
will drow in some atfice."

"Advice? You have come to the right man for that! Walk a little this
way, where we shall be alone. What is the natur' of the matter--action
on the case, or a tort?"

"Nein, nein! it isht not law dat I wants, put atfice."

"Well, but advice leads to law, ninety-nine times in a hundred."

"Ya, ya!" answered the pedlar, laughing; "dat may be so; put it isht not
what I vants--I vants to know vere a Charman can trafel wit' his goots
in de coontry, and not in de pig towns."

"I understand you--six dollars, hey! That sounds high for such a looking
watch"--he had just before mistaken it for gold--"but I'm always the
poor man's friend, and despise aristocracy"--what Seneca hated with the
strongest hate, he ever fancied he _despised_ the most, and by
aristocracy he merely understood gentlemen and ladies, in the true
signification of the words--"why, I'm always ready to help along the
honest citizen. If you could make up your mind, now, to part with this
one watch for nawthin', I think I could tell you a part of the country
where you might sell the other nineteen in a week."

"Goot!" exclaimed my uncle, cheerfully. "Take him--he ist your broberty,
and wilcome. Only show me de town where I canst sell de nineteen
udders."

Had my uncle Ro been a true son of peddling, he would have charged a
dollar extra on each of the nineteen, and made eleven dollars by his
present liberality.

"It is no town at all--only a township," returned the literal Seneca.
"Did you expect it would be a city?"

"Vat cares I? I woult radder sell my vatches to goot, honest, country
men, dan asht to de best burghers in de land."

"You're my man! The right spirit is in you. I hope you're no patroon--no
aristocrat?"

"I don't know vat isht badroon, or vat isht arishtocrat."

"No! You are a happy man in your ignorance. A patroon is a nobleman who
owns another man's land; and an aristocrat is a body that thinks himself
better than his neighbours, friend."

"Well, den, I isht no badroon, for I don't own no land at all, not even
mine own; and I ishn't petter asht no poty at all."

"Yes, you be; you've only to think so, and you'll be the greatest
gentleman of 'em all."

"Well, den, I will dry and dink so, and be petter asht de greatest
shentlemans of dem all. But dat won't do, nudder, as dat vilt make me
petter dan you; for you are one of de greatest of dem all, shentlemans."

"Oh! as for me, let me alone. I scorn being on their level. I go for
'Down with the rent!' and so'll you, too, afore you've been a week in
our part of the country."

"Vat isht de rent dat you vants to git down?"

"It's a thing that's opposed to the spirit of the institutions, as you
can see by my feelin's at this very moment. But no matter! I'll keep the
watch, if you say so, and show you the way into that part of the
country, as your pay."

"Agreet, shentlemans. Vat I vants is atfice, and vat you vants is a
vatch."

Here uncle Ro laughed so much like himself, when he ought clearly to
have laughed in broken English, that I was very much afraid he might
give the alarm to our companion; but he did not. From that time, the
best relations existed between us and Seneca, who, in the course of the
day, recognised us by sundry smiles and winks, though I could plainly
see he did not like the anti-aristocratic principle sufficiently to wish
to seem too intimate with us. Before we reached the islands, however, he
gave us directions where to meet him in the morning, and we parted, when
the boat stopped alongside of the pier at Albany that afternoon, the
best friends in the world.

"Albany! dear, good old Albany!" exclaimed my uncle Ro, as we stopped on
the draw of the bridge to look at the busy scene in the basin, where
literally hundreds of canal-boats were either lying to discharge or to
load, or were coming and going, to say nothing of other craft; "dear,
good old Albany! you are a town to which I ever return with pleasure,
for you at least never disappoint me. A first-rate country-place you
are; and, though I miss your quaint old Dutch church, and your
rustic-looking old _English_ church from the centre of your principal
street, almost every change _you_ make is respectable. I know nothing
that tells so much against you as changing the name of Market street by
the paltry imitation of Broadway; but, considering that a horde of
Yankees have come down upon you since the commencement of the present
century, you are lucky that the street was not called the Appian Way.
But, excellent old Albany! whom even the corruptions of politics cannot
change in the core, lying against thy hillside, and surrounded with thy
picturesque scenery, there is an air of respectability about thee that I
admire, and a quiet prosperity that I love. Yet, how changed since my
boyhood! Thy simple stoups have all vanished; thy gables are
disappearing; marble and granite are rising in thy streets, too, but
they take honest shapes, and are free from the ambition of mounting on
stilts; thy basin has changed the whole character of thy once
semi-sylvan, semi-commercial river; but it gives to thy young manhood an
appearance of abundance and thrift that promise well for thy age!"

The reader may depend on it that I laughed heartily at this rhapsody;
for I could hardly enter into my uncle's feelings. Albany is certainly a
very good sort of a place, and relatively a more respectable-looking
town than the "_commercial_ emporium," which, after all, externally, is
a mere huge expansion of a very marked mediocrity, with the pretension
of a capital in its estimate of itself. But Albany lays no claim to be
anything more than a provincial town, and in that class it is highly
placed. By the way, there is nothing in which "_our_ people," to speak
idiomatically, more deceive themselves, than in their estimate of what
composes a capital. It would be ridiculous to suppose that the
representatives of such a government as this could impart to any place
the tone, opinions, habits and manners of a capital; for, if they did,
they would impart it on the novel principle of communicating that which
they do not possess in their own persons. Congress itself, though
tolerably free from most shackles, including those of the constitution,
is not up to that. In my opinion, a man accustomed to the world might be
placed blindfolded in the most finished quarter of New York, and the
place has new quarters in which the incongruities I have already
mentioned do not exist, and, my life on it, he could pronounce, as soon
as the bandage was removed, that he was not in a town where the tone of
a capital exists. The last thing to make a capital is trade. Indeed, the
man who hears the words "business" and "the merchants" ringing in his
ears, may safely conclude, _de facto_, that he is not in a capital. Now,
a New-York village is often much less rustic than the villages of the
most advanced country of Europe; but a New-York town is many degrees
below any capital of a large State in the old world.

Will New York ever be a capital? Yes--out of all question, yes. But the
day will not come until after the sudden changes of condition which
immediately and so naturally succeeded the revolution, have ceased to
influence ordinary society, and those above again impart to those below
more than they receive. This restoration to the natural state of things
must take place, as soon as society gets settled; and there will be
nothing to prevent a town living under our own institutions--spirit,
_tendencies_ and all--from obtaining the highest tone that ever yet
prevailed in a capital. The folly is in anticipating the natural course
of events. Nothing will more hasten these events, however, than a
literature that is controlled, not by the lower, but by the higher
opinion of the country; which literature is yet, in a great degree, to
be created.

I had dispensed with the monkey, after trying to get along with the
creature for an hour or two, and went around only with my music. I would
rather manage an army of anti-renters than one monkey. With the
hurdy-gurdy slung around my neck, therefore, I followed my uncle, who
actually sold another watch before we reached a tavern. Of course we did
not presume to go to Congress Hall, or the Eagle, for we knew we should
not be admitted. This was the toughest part of our adventures. I am of
opinion my uncle made a mistake; for he ventured to a second-class
house, under the impression that one of the sort usually frequented by
men of our supposed stamp might prove too coarse for us, altogether. I
think we should have been better satisfied with the coarse fare of a
coarse tavern, than with the shabby-genteel of the house we blundered
into. In the former, everything would have reminded us, in a way we
expected to be reminded, that we were out of the common track; and we
might have been amused with the change, though it is one singularly hard
to be endured. I remember to have heard a young man, accustomed from
childhood to the better habits of the country, but who went to sea a
lad, before the mast, declare that the coarseness of his shipmates, and
there is no vulgarity about a true sailor, even when coarsest, gave him
more trouble to overcome, than all the gales, physical sufferings,
labour, exposures and dangers, put together. I must confess, I have
found it so, too, in my little experience. While acting as a strolling
musician, I could get along with anything better than the coarse habits
which I encountered at the table. Your silver-forkisms, and your purely
conventional customs, as a matter of course, no man of the world
attaches any serious importance to; but there are conventionalities that
belong to the fundamental principles of civilized society, which become
second nature, and with which it gets to be hard, indeed, to dispense. I
shall say as little as possible of the disagreeables of my new trade,
therefore, but stick to the essentials.

The morning of the day which succeeded that of our arrival at Albany, my
uncle Ro and I took our seats in the train, intending to go to Saratoga,
viâ Troy. I wonder the Trojan who first thought of playing this
travestie on Homer, did not think of calling the place Troyville, or
Troyborough! That would have been semi-American, at least, whereas the
present appellation is so purely classical! It is impossible to walk
through the streets of this neat and flourishing town, which already
counts its twenty thousand souls, and not have the images of Achilles,
and Hector, and Priam, and Hecuba, pressing on the imagination a little
uncomfortably. Had the place been called Try, the name would have been a
sensible one; for it is trying all it can to get the better of Albany;
and, much as I love the latter venerable old town, I hope Troy may
succeed in its trying to prevent the Hudson from being bridged. By the
way, I will here remark, for the benefit of those who have never seen
any country but their own, that there is a view on the road between
Schenectady and this Grecian place, just where the heights give the
first full appearance of the valley of the Hudson, including glimpses of
Waterford, Lansingburg and Albany, with a full view of both Troys,
which gives one a better idea of the affluence of European scenery, than
almost any other spot I can recall in America. To my hurdy-gurdy:

I made my first essay as a musician in public beneath the windows of the
principal inn of Troy. I cannot say much in favour of the instrument,
though I trust the playing itself was somewhat respectable. This I know
full well, that I soon brought a dozen fair faces to the windows of the
inn, and that each was decorated with a smile. Then it was that I
regretted the monkey. Such an opening could not but awaken the dormant
ambition of even a "patriot" of the purest water, and I will own I was
gratified.

Among the curious who thus appeared, were two whom I at once supposed to
be father and daughter. The former was a clergyman, and, as I fancied by
something in his air, of "_the_ Church," begging pardon of those who
take offence at this exclusive title, and to whom I will just give a
hint in passing. Any one at all acquainted with mankind, will at once
understand that no man who is certain of possessing any particular
advantage, ever manifests much sensibility because another lays claim to
it also. In the constant struggles of the jealous, for instance, on the
subject of that universal source of jealous feeling, social position,
the man or woman who is conscious of claims never troubles himself or
herself about them. For them the obvious fact is sufficient. If it be
answered to this that the pretension of "_the_ Church" is exclusive, I
shall admit it is, and "conclusive," too. It is not exclusive, however,
in the sense urged, since no one denies that there are many branches to
"the Church," although those branches do not embrace everything. I would
advise those who take offence at "our" styling "ourselves" "_the_
Church," to style themselves "_the_ Church," just as they call all their
parsons bishops, and see who will care about it. That is a touchstone
which will soon separate the true metal from the alloy.

My parson, I could easily see, was a _Church_ clergyman--not a
_meeting_-house clergyman. How I ascertained that fact at a glance, I
shall not reveal; but I also saw in his countenance some of that
curiosity which marks simplicity of character: it was not a vulgar
feeling, but one which induced him to beckon me to approach a little
nearer. I did so, when he invited me in. It was a little awkward, at
first, I must acknowledge, to be beckoned about in this manner; but
there was something in the air and countenance of the daughter that
induced me not to hesitate about complying. I cannot say that her beauty
was so _very_ striking, though she was decidedly pretty; but the
expression of her face, eyes, smile, and all put together, was so
singularly sweet and feminine, that I felt impelled by a sympathy I
shall not attempt to explain, to enter the house, and ascend to the door
of a parlour that I saw at once was public, though it then contained no
one but my proper hosts.

"Walk in, young man," said the father, in a benevolent tone of voice. "I
am curious to see that instrument; and my daughter here, who has a taste
for music, wishes it as much as I do myself. What do you call it?"

"Hurty-gurty," I answered.

"From what part of the world do you come, my young friend?" continued
the clergyman, raising his meek eyes to mine still more curiously.

"Vrom Charmany; vrom Preussen, vere did reign so late de good Koenig
Wilhelm."

"What does he say, Molly?"

So the pretty creature bore the name of Mary! I liked the Molly, too; it
was a good sign, as none but the truly respectable dare use such
familiar appellations in these ambitious times. Molly sounded as if
these people had the _aplomb_ of position and conscious breeding. Had
they been vulgar, it would have been Mollissa.

"It is not difficult to translate, father," answered one of the sweetest
voices that had ever poured its melody on my ear, and which was rendered
still more musical by the slight laugh that mingled with it. "He says he
is from Germany--from Prussia, where the good King William lately
reigned."

I liked the "father," too--that sounded refreshing, after passing a
night among a tribe of foul-nosed adventurers in humanity, every one of
whom had done his or her share towards caricaturing the once pretty
appellatives of "Pa" and "Ma." A young lady may still say "Papa," or
even "Mamma," though it were far better that she said "Father" and
"Mother;" but as for "Pa" and "Ma," they are now done with in
respectable life. They will not even do for the nursery.

"And this instrument is a hurdy-gurdy?" continued the clergyman. "What
have we here--the name spelt on it?"

"Dat isht de maker's name--_Hochstiel fecit_."

"Fecit!" repeated the clergyman; "is that German?"

"Nein--dat isht Latin; _facio_, _feci_, _factum_, _facere_--_feci_,
_feciste_, FECIT. It means make, I suppose you know."

The parson looked at me, and at my dress and figure, with open surprise,
and smiled as his eye glanced at his daughter. If asked why I made this
silly display of lower-form learning, I can only say that I chafed at
being fancied a mere every-day street musician, that had left his monkey
at home, by the charming girl who stood gracefully bending over her
father's elbow, as the latter examined the inscription that was stamped
on a small piece of ivory which had been let into the instrument. I
could see that Mary shrunk back a little under the sensitive feeling, so
natural to her sex, that she was manifesting too much freedom of manner
for the presence of a youth who was nearer to her own class than she
could have supposed it possible for a player on the hurdy-gurdy to be. A
blush succeeded; but the glance of the soft blue eye that instantly
followed, seemed to set all at rest, and she leaned over her father's
elbow again.

"You understand Latin, then?" demanded the parent, examining me over his
spectacles from head to foot.

"A leetle, sir--just a ferry leetle. In my coontry, efery mans isht
obliget to be a soldier some time, and them t'at knows Latin can be made
sergeants and corporals."

"That is Prussia, is it?"

"Ya--Preussen, vere so late did reign de goot Koenig Wilhelm."

"And is Latin much understood among you? I have heard that, in Hungary,
most well-informed persons even speak the tongue."

"In Charmany it isht not so. We all l'arnts somet'ing, but not all dost
l'arn efery t'ing."

I could see a smile struggling around the sweet lips of that dear girl,
after I had thus delivered myself, as I fancied, with a most accurate
inaccuracy; but she succeeded in repressing it, though those provoking
eyes of hers continued to laugh, much of the time our interview lasted.

"Oh! I very well know that in Prussia the schools are quite good, and
that your government pays great attention to the wants of all classes,"
rejoined the clergyman; "but I confess some surprise that _you_ should
understand anything of Latin. Now, even in this country, where we boast
so much----"

"Ye-e-s," I could not refrain from drawling out, "dey does poast a great
teal in dis coontry!"

Mary actually laughed; whether it was at my words, or at the somewhat
comical manner I had assumed--a manner in which simplicity was _tant
soit peu_ blended with irony--I shall not pretend to say. As for the
father, his simplicity was of proof; and, after civilly waiting until my
interruption was done, he resumed what he had been on the point of
saying.

"I was about to add," continued the clergyman, "that even in this
country, where we boast so much"--the little minx of a daughter passed
her hand over her eyes, and fairly coloured with the effort she made not
to laugh again--"of the common schools, and of their influence on the
public mind, it is not usual to find persons of your condition who
understand the dead languages."

"Ye-e-s," I replied; "it isht my condition dat misleats you, sir. Mine
fat'er wast a shentlemans, and he gifet me as goot an etication as de
Koenig did gif to de Kron Prinz."

Here, my desire to appear well in the eyes of Mary caused me to run into
another silly indiscretion. How I was to explain the circumstance of the
son of a Prussian gentleman, whose father had given him an education as
good as that which the King of his country had given to its Crown
Prince, being in the streets of Troy, playing on a hurdy-gurdy, was a
difficulty I did not reflect on for a moment. The idea of being thought
by that sweet girl a mere uneducated boor, was intolerable to me; and I
threw it off by this desperate falsehood--false in its accessories, but
true in its main facts--as one would resent an insult. Fortune favoured
me, however, far more than I had any right to expect.

There is a singular disposition in the American character to believe
every well-mannered European at least a count. I do not mean that those
who have seen the world are not like other persons in this respect; but
a very great proportion of the country never has seen any other world
than a world of "business." The credulity on this subject surpasseth
belief; and, were I to relate facts of this nature that might be
established in a court of justice, the very parties connected with them
would be ready to swear that they are caricatures. Now, well-mannered I
trust I am, and, though plainly dressed and thoroughly disguised,
neither my air nor attire was absolutely mean. As my clothes were new, I
was neat in my appearance; and there were possibly some incongruities
about the last, that might have struck eyes more penetrating than those
of my companions. I could see that both father and daughter felt a
lively interest in me, the instant I gave them reason to believe I was
one of better fortunes. So many crude notions exist among us on the
subject of convulsions and revolutions in Europe, that I dare say, had I
told any improbable tale of the political condition of Prussia, it would
have gone down; for nothing so much resembles the ignorance that
prevails in America, generally, concerning the true state of things in
Europe, as the ignorance that prevails in Europe, generally, concerning
the true state of things in America. As for Mary, her soft eyes seemed
to me to be imbued with thrice their customary gentleness and
compassion, as she recoiled a step in native modesty, and gazed at me,
when I had made my revelation.

"If such is the case, my young friend," returned the clergyman, with
benevolent interest, "you ought, and _might_ easily be placed in a
better position than this you are now in. Have you any knowledge of
Greek?"

"Certainly--Greek is moch study in Charmany."

'In for a penny, in for a pound,' I thought.

"And the modern languages--do you understand any of them?"

"I speaks de five great tongues of Europe, more ast less well; and I read
dem all, easily."

"The _five_ tongues!" said the clergyman, counting on his fingers;
"what can they be, Mary?"

"French, and German, and Spanish, and Italian, I suppose, sir."

"These make but four. What can be the fifth, my dear?"

"De yoong laty forgets de Englisch. De Englisch is das funf."

"Oh! yes, the English!" exclaimed the pretty creature, pressing her lips
together to prevent laughing in my face.

"True--I had forgotten the English, not being accustomed to think of it
as a mere European tongue. I suppose, young man, you naturally speak the
English less fluently than any other of your five languages?"

"Ya!"

Again the smile struggled to the lips of Mary.

"I feel a deep interest in you as a stranger, and am sorry we have only
met to part so soon. Which way shall you be likely to direct your steps,
my Prussian young friend?"

"I go to a place which is callet Ravensnest--goot place to sell vatch,
dey tells me."

"Ravensnest!" exclaimed the father.

"Ravensnest!" repeated the daughter, and that in tones which put the
hurdy-gurdy to shame.

"Why, Ravensnest is the place where I live, and the parish of which I am
the clergyman--the Protestant Episcopal clergyman, I mean."

This, then, was the Rev. Mr. Warren, the divine who had been called to
our church the very summer I left home, and who had been there ever
since! My sister Martha had written me much concerning these people, and
I felt as if I had known them for years. Mr. Warren was a man of good
connexions, and some education, but of no fortune whatever, who had gone
into _the_ Church--it was the church of his ancestors, one of whom had
actually been an English bishop, a century or two ago--from choice, and
contrary to the wishes of his friends. As a preacher, his success had
never been great; but for the discharge of his duties no man stood
higher, and no man was more respected. The living of St. Andrew's,
Ravensnest, would have been poor enough, had it depended on the
contributions of the parishioners. These last gave about one hundred and
fifty dollars a-year, for their share of the support of a priest. I
gave another hundred, as regularly as clock-work, and had been made to
do so throughout a long minority; and my grandmother and sister made up
another fifty between them. But there was a glebe of fifty acres of
capital land, a wood-lot, and a fund of two thousand dollars at
interest; the whole proceeding from endowments made by my grandfather,
during his lifetime. Altogether, the living may have been worth a clear
five hundred dollars a year, in addition to a comfortable house, hay,
wood, vegetables, pasture, and some advantages in the way of small
crops. Few country clergymen were better off than the rector of St.
Andrew's, Ravensnest, and all as a consequence of the feudal and
aristocratic habits of the Littlepages, though I say it, perhaps, who
might better not, in times like these.

My letters had told me that the Rev. Mr. Warren was a widower; that Mary
was his only child; that he was a _truly_ pious, not a _sham_-pious, and
a really zealous clergyman; a man of purest truth, whose word was
gospel--of great simplicity and integrity of mind and character; that he
never spoke evil of others, and that a complaint of this world and its
hardships seldom crossed his lips. He loved his fellow-creatures, both
naturally and on principle; mourned over the state of the diocese, and
greatly preferred piety even to high-churchism. High-churchman he was,
nevertheless; though it was not a high-churchmanship that outweighed the
loftier considerations of his Christian duties, and left him equally
without opinions of his own in matters of morals, and without a proper
respect, in practice, for those that he had solemnly vowed to maintain.

His daughter was described as a sweet-tempered, arch, modest, sensible,
and well-bred girl, that had received a far better education than her
father's means would have permitted him to bestow, through the
liberality and affection of a widowed sister of her mother's, who was
affluent, and had caused her to attend the same school as that to which
she had sent her own daughters. In a word, she was a most charming
neighbour; and her presence at Ravensnest had rendered Martha's annual
visits to the "old house" (built in 1785) not only less irksome, but
actually pleasant. Such had been my sister's account of the Warrens and
their qualities, throughout a correspondence of five years. I have even
fancied that she loved this Mary Warren better than she loved any of her
uncle's wards, herself of course excepted.

The foregoing flashed through my mind, the instant the clergyman
announced himself; but the coincidence of our being on the way to the
same part of the country, seemed to strike him as forcibly as it did
myself. What Mary thought of the matter, I had no means of ascertaining.

"This is singular enough," resumed Mr. Warren. "What has directed your
steps towards Ravensnest?"

"Dey tell mine ooncle 'tis goot place to sell moch vatch."

"You have an uncle, then? Ah! I see him there in the street, showing a
watch at this moment to a gentleman. Is your uncle a linguist, too, and
has he been as well educated as you seem to be yourself?"

"Certain--he moch more of a shentleman dan ast de shentleman to whom he
now sell vatch."

"These must be the very persons," put in Mary, a little eagerly, "of
whom Mr. Newcome spoke, as the"--the dear girl did not like to say
pedlars, after what I had told them of my origin; so she added--"dealers
in watches and trinkets, who intended to visit our part of the country."

"You are right, my dear, and the whole matter is now clear. Mr. Newcome
said he expected them to join us at Troy, when we should proceed in the
train together as far as Saratoga. But here comes Opportunity herself,
and her brother cannot be far off."

At that moment, sure enough, my old acquaintance, Opportunity Newcome,
came into the room, a public parlour, with an air of great
self-satisfaction, and a _nonchalance_ of manner that was not a little
more peculiar to herself than it is to most of her caste. I trembled for
my disguise, since, to be quite frank on a very delicate subject,
Opportunity had made so very dead a set at me--"setting a cap" is but a
pitiful phrase to express the assault I had to withstand--as scarcely to
leave a hope that her feminine instinct, increased and stimulated with
the wish to be mistress of the Nest house, could possibly overlook the
thousand and one personal peculiarities that must still remain about
one, whose personal peculiarities she had made her particular study.




CHAPTER VI.

    "O, sic a geek she gave her head,
    And sic a toss she gave her feather;
    Man, saw ye ne'er a bonnier lass
    Before, among the blooming heather?"

    ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.


"Ah! here are some charming French _vignettes_!" cried Opportunity,
running up to a table where lay some inferior coloured engravings, that
were intended to represent the cardinal virtues, under the forms of
tawdry female beauties. The workmanship was French, as were the
inscriptions. Now, Opportunity knew just enough French to translate
these inscriptions, simple and school-girl as they were, as wrong as
they could possibly be translated, under the circumstances.

"_La Vertue_," cried Opportunity, in a high, decided way, as if to make
sure of an audience "_The_ Virtue; _La Solitude_," pronouncing the last
word in a desperately English accent, "_The_ Solitude; La Charité, _The_
Charity. It is really delightful, Mary, as 'Sarah Soothings' would say,
to meet with these glimmerings of taste in this wilderness of the
world."

I wondered who the deuce "Sarah Soothings" could be, but afterwards
learned this was the nom-de-guerre of a female contributor to the
magazines, who, I dare say, silly as she might be, was never silly
enough to record the sentiments Opportunity had just professed to
repeat. As for _The la Charité_, and _The la Vertue_, they did not in
the least surprise me; for Martha, the hussy, often made herself merry
by recording that young lady's _tours de force_ in French. On one
occasion I remember she wrote me, that when Opportunity wished to say
_On est venu me chercher_, instead of saying "I am come for," in homely
English, which would have been the best of all, she had flown off in the
high flight of "Je suis venue pour."

Mary smiled, for she comprehended perfectly the difference between _la
Solitude_ and _the_ Solitude; but she said nothing. I must acknowledge
that I was so indiscreet as to smile also, though, Opportunity's back
being turned towards us, these mutual signs of intelligence that escaped
us both through the eyes, opened a species of communication that, to me
at least, was infinitely agreeable.

Opportunity, having shown the owner of the strange figure at which she
had just glanced on entering the room, that she had studied French, now
turned to take a better look at him. I have reason to think my
appearance did not make a very happy impression on her; for she tossed
her head, drew a chair, seated herself in the manner most opposed to the
descent of down, and opened her budget of news, without the least regard
to my presence, and apparently with as little attention to the wishes
and tastes of her companions. Her accent, and jumping, hitching mode of
speaking, with the high key in which she uttered her sentiments, too,
all grated on my ears, which had become a little accustomed to different
habits, in young ladies in particular, in the other hemisphere. I
confess myself to be one of those who regard an even, quiet, graceful
mode of utterance, as even a greater charm in a woman than beauty. Its
effect is more lasting, and seems to be directly connected with the
character. Mary Warren not only pronounced like one accustomed to good
society; but the modulations of her voice, which was singularly sweet by
nature, were even and agreeable, as is usual with well-bred women, and
as far as possible from the jerking, fluttering, now rapid, now drawling
manner of Opportunity. Perhaps, in this age of "loose attire," loose
habits, and free and easy deportment, the speech denotes the gentleman,
or the lady, more accurately than any other off-hand test.

"Sen is enough to wear out anybody's patience!" exclaimed Opportunity.
"We must quit Troy in half an hour; and I have visits that I ought to
pay to Miss Jones, and Miss White, and Miss Black, and Miss Green, and
Miss Brown, and three or four others; and I can't get him to come near
me."

"Why not go alone?" asked Mary, quietly. "It is but a step to two or
three of the houses, and you cannot possibly lose your way. I will go
with you, if you desire it."

"Oh! lose my way? no, indeed! I know it too well for that. I wasn't
educated in Troy, not to know something of the streets. But it looks so,
to see a young lady walking in the streets without a beau! I never wish
to cross a room in company without a beau; much less to cross a street.
No; if Sen don't come in soon, I shall miss seeing every one of my
friends, and that will be a desperate disappointment to us all; but it
can't be helped: walk without a beau I _will not_, if I never see one of
them again."

"Will you accept of me, Miss Opportunity?" asked Mr. Warren. "It will
afford me pleasure to be of service to you."

"Lord! Mr. Warren, you don't think of setting up for a beau at your time
of life, do you? Everybody would see that you're a clergyman, and I
might just as well go alone. No, if Sen don't come in at once, I must
lose my visits; and the young ladies will be so put out about it, I
know! Araminta Maria wrote me, in the most particular manner, never to
go through Troy without stopping to see _her_, if I didn't see another
mortal; and Kathe_rine_ Clotilda has as much as said she would never
forgive me if I passed her door. But Seneca cares no more for the
friendships of young ladies, than he does"--Miss Newcome pronounced this
word "doos," notwithstanding her education, as she did "been," "ben,"
and fifty others just as much out of the common way--"But Seneca cares
no more for the friendships of young ladies, than he does for the young
patroon. I declare, Mr. Warren, I believe Sen will go crazy unless the
anti-renters soon get the best of it; he does nothing but think and talk
of 'rents,' and 'aristocracy,' and 'poodle usages,' from morning till
night."

We all smiled at the little mistake of Miss Opportunity, but it was of
no great consequence; and I dare say she knew what she meant as well as
most others who use the same term, though they spell it more accurately.
"Poodle usages" are quite as applicable to anything now existing in
America, as "feudal usages."

"Your brother is then occupied with a matter of the last importance to
the community of which he is a member," answered the clergyman, gravely.
"On the termination of this anti-rent question hangs, in my judgment, a
vast amount of the future character, and much of the future destiny, of
Yew York."

"I wonder, now! I'm surprised to hear you say this, Mr. Warren, for
generally you're thought to be unfriendly to the movement. Sen says,
however, that everything looks well, and that _he_ believes the tenants
will get their lands throughout the State before they've done with it.
He tells me we shall have Injins enough this summer at Ravensnest. The
visit of old Mrs. Littlepage has raised a spirit that will not easily be
put down, he says."

"And why should the visit of Mrs. Littlepage to the house of her
grandson, and to the house built by her own husband, and in which she
passed the happiest days of her life, 'raise a spirit,' as you call it,
in any one in that part of the country?"

"Oh! you're episcopal, Mr. Warren; and we all know how the Episcopals
feel about such matters. But, for my part, I don't think the Littlepages
are a bit better than the Newcomes, though I won't liken them to some I
could name at Ravensnest; but I don't think they are any better than
you, yourself; and why should they ask so much more of the law than
other folks?"

"I am not aware that they do ask more of the law than others; and, if
they do, I'm sure they obtain less. The law in this country is virtually
administered by jurors, who take good care to graduate justice, so far
as they can, by a scale suited to their own opinions, and, quite often,
to their prejudices. As the last are so universally opposed to persons
in Mrs. Littlepage's class in life, if there be a chance to make her
suffer, it is pretty certain it will be improved."

"Sen says he can't see why he should pay rent to a Littlepage, any more
than a Littlepage should pay rent to him."

"I am sorry to hear it, since there is a very sufficient reason for the
former, and no reason at all for the latter. Your brother uses the land
of Mr. Littlepage, and that is a reason why he should pay him rent. If
the case were reversed, then, indeed, Mr. Littlepage should pay rent to
your brother."

"But what reason is there that these Littlepages should go on from
father to son, from generation to generation, as our landlords, when
we're just as good as they. It's time there was some change. Besides,
only think, we've been at the mills, now, hard upon eighty years,
grandpa having first settled there; and we have had them very mills,
now, for three generations among us."

"High time, therefore, Opportunity, that there should be some change,"
put in Mary, with a demure smile.

"Oh! you're so intimate with Marthy Littlepage, I'm not surprised at
anything _you_ think or say. But reason is reason, for all that. I
haven't the least grudge in the world against young Hugh Littlepage; if
foreign lands haven't spoilt him, as they say they're desperate apt to
do, he's an agreeable young gentleman, and I can't say that _he_ used to
think himself any better than other folks."

"I should say none of the family are justly liable to the charge of so
doing," returned Mary.

"Well, I'm amazed to hear you say _that_, Mary Warren. To my taste,
Marthy Littlepage is as disagreeable as she can be. If the anti-rent
cause had nobody better than she is to oppose it, it would soon
triumph."

"May I ask, Miss Newcome, what particular reason you have for so
thinking?" asked Mr. Warren, who had kept his eye on the young lady the
whole time she had been thus running on, with an interest that struck me
as somewhat exaggerated, when one remembered the character of the
speaker, and the value of her remarks.

"I think so, Mr. Warren, because everybody says so," was the answer. "If
Marthy Littlepage don't think herself better than other folks, why don't
she _act_ like other folks. Nothing is good enough for her in her own
conceit."

Poor little Patt, who was the very _beau idéal_ of nature and
simplicity, as nature and simplicity manifest themselves under the
influence of refinement and good-breeding, was here accused of fancying
herself better than this ambitious young lady, for no other reason than
the fact of the little distinctive peculiarities of her air and
deportment, which Opportunity had found utterly unattainable, after one
or two efforts to compass them. In this very fact is the secret of a
thousand of the absurdities and vices that are going up and down the
land at this moment, like raging lions, seeking whom they may devour.
Men often turn to their statutebooks and constitution to find the
sources of obvious evils, that, in truth, have their origin in some of
the lowest passions of human nature. The entrance of Seneca at that
moment, however, gave a new turn to the discourse, though it continued
substantially the same. I remarked that Seneca entered with his hat on,
and that he kept his head covered during most of the interview that
succeeded, notwithstanding the presence of the two young ladies and the
divine. As for myself, I had been so free as to remove my cap, though
many might suppose it was giving myself airs, while others would have
imagined it was manifesting a degree of respect to human beings that was
altogether unworthy of freemen. It is getting to be a thing so
particular and aristocratic to take off the hat on entering a house,
that few of the humbler democrats of America now ever think of it!

As a matter of course, Opportunity upbraided her delinquent brother for
not appearing sooner to act as her beau; after which, she permitted him
to say a word for himself. That Seneca was in high good-humour, was
easily enough to be seen; he even rubbed his hands together in the
excess of his delight.

"Something has happened to please Sen," cried the sister, her own mouth
on a broad grin, in her expectation of coming in for a share of the
gratification. "I wish you would get him to tell us what it is, Mary;
he'll tell _you_ anything."

I cannot describe how harshly this remark grated on my nerves. The
thought that Mary Warren could consent to exercise even the most distant
influence over such a man as Seneca Newcome, was to the last degree
unpleasant to me; and I could have wished that she would openly and
indignantly repel the notion. But Mary Warren treated the whole matter
very much as a person who was accustomed to such remarks would be apt to
do. I cannot say that she manifested either pleasure or displeasure; but
a cold indifference was, if anything, uppermost in her manner. Possibly,
I should have been content with this; but I found it very difficult to
be so. Seneca, however, did not wait for Miss Warren to exert her
influence to induce him to talk, but appeared well enough disposed to do
it of his own accord.

"Something _has_ happened to please me, I must own," he answered; "and I
would as lief Mr. Warren should know what it is, as not. Things go ahead
finely among us anti-renters, and we shall carry all our p'ints before
long!"

"I wish I were certain no points would be carried but those that ought
to be carried, Mr. Newcome," was the answer. "But what has happened,
lately, to give a new aspect to the affair?"

"We're gaining strength among the politicians. Both sides are beginning
to court us, and the 'spirit of the institutions' will shortly make
themselves respected."

"I am delighted to hear that! It is in the intention of the institutions
to repress covetousness, and uncharitableness, and all frauds, and to do
nothing but what is right," observed Mr. Warren.

"Ah! here comes my friend the travelling jeweller," said Seneca,
interrupting the clergyman, in order to salute my uncle, who at that
instant showed himself in the door of the room, cap in hand. "Walk in,
Mr. Dafidson, since that is your name: Rev. Mr. Warren--Miss Mary
Warren--Miss Opportunity Newcome, my sister, who will be glad to look at
your wares. The cars will be detained on some special business, and we
have plenty of time before us."

All this was done with a coolness and indifference of manner which went
to show that Seneca had no scruples whatever on the subject of whom he
introduced to any one. As for my uncle, accustomed to these free and
easy manners, and probably not absolutely conscious of the figure he cut
in his disguise, he bowed rather too much like a gentleman for one of
his present calling, though my previous explanation of our own connexion
and fallen fortunes had luckily prepared the way for this deportment.

"Come in, Mr. Dafidson, and open your box--my sister may fancy some of
your trinkets; I never knew a girl that didn't."

The imaginary pedlar entered, and placed his box on a table near which I
was standing, the whole party immediately gathering around it. My
presence had attracted no particular attention from either Seneca or his
sister, the room being public, and my connexion with the vender of
trinkets known. In the mean time, Seneca was too full of his good news
to let the subject drop; while the watches, rings, chains, brooches,
bracelets, &c. &c., were passed under examination.

"Yes, Mr. Warren, I trust we are about to have a complete development of
the spirit of our institutions, and that in futur' there will be no
privileged classes in New York, at least."

"The last will certainly be a great gain, sir," the divine coldly
answered. "Hitherto, those who have most suppressed the truth, and who
have most contributed to the circulation of flattering falsehoods, have
had undue advantages in America."

Seneca, obviously enough, did not like this sentiment; but I thought, by
his manner, that he was somewhat accustomed to meeting with such rebuffs
from Mr. Warren.

"I suppose you will admit there _are_ privileged classes now among us,
Mr. Warren?"

"I am ready enough to allow that, sir; it is too plain to be denied."

"Wa-all, I should like to hear _you_ p'int 'em out; that I might see if
we agree in our sentiments."

"Demagogues are a highly privileged class. The editors of newspapers are
another highly privileged class; doing things, daily and hourly, which
set all law and justice at defiance, and invading, with perfect
impunity, the most precious rights of their fellow-citizens. The power
of both is enormous; and, as in all cases of great and irresponsible
power, both enormously abuse it."

"Wa-all, that's not my way of thinking at all. In my judgment, the
privileged classes in this country are your patroons and your landlords;
men that's not satisfied with a reasonable quantity of land, but who
wish to hold more than the rest of their fellow-creatur's."

"I am not aware of a single privilege that any patroon--of whom, by the
way, there no longer exists one, except in name--or any landlord,
possesses over any one of his fellow-citizens."

"Do you call it no privilege for a man to hold all the land there may
happen to be in a township? I call that a great privilege; and such as
no man should have in a free country. Other people want land as well as
your Van Renssalaers and Littlepages; and other people mean to have it,
too."

"On that principle, every man who owns more of any one thing than his
neighbour is privileged. Even I, poor as I am, and am believed to be, am
privileged over you, Mr. Newcome. I own a cassock, and have two gowns,
one old and one new, and various other things of the sort, of which you
have not one. What is more, I am privileged in another sense; since I
can _wear_ my cassock and gown, and bands, and _do_ wear them often;
whereas you cannot wear one of them all without making yourself laughed
at."

"Oh! but them are not privileges I care anything about; if I did I would
put on the things, as the law does not prohibit it."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Newcome; the law does prohibit you from wearing
_my_ cassock and gown contrary to my wishes."

"Wa-all, wa-all, Mr. Warren; we never shall quarrel about that; I don't
desire to wear your cassack and gown."

"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 towards 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
towards my uncle with the air of superiority that the vulgar so easily
assume--"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 coontry,
vhere an honest man might haf vhat he 'arns, ant keep it, too. Ja, ja!
dat ist vhat I say, ant vhat I dinks."

"I understand you, sir; you come from a part of the world where the
nobles eat up the fat of the land, taking the poor man's share as well
as his 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 nobility and of feudal oppression in the old world, to wish to
fall in with them in the new."

"Der nobles ant der feudal privileges ist no goot," answered the
trinket-pedlar, 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 nobles 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 nobles of Europe and our landlords, when the
honest and free-born 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 noble 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 humour, 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,
tavern, 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
hardships 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 institutions. It is, indeed, a
great hardship that Mr. Seneca Newcome cannot sell Mr. Hugh Littlepage's
land."

"I complain less of that," cried Seneca, a little hastily, "than of the
circumstance 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 hardship."

"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 class 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 endeavoured 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, exultingly, "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 circumstances, 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 every thing like
worldly distinction in the house of God; and heraldic emblems, in
particular, seem to me 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 God."

"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 shifted 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 honour
to accept the pencil as an offering from himself.

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

"Dat ist de price to anudder," said the gallant trinket-dealer; "but dat
ist not de price to you, Miss Opportunity. Ve shall trafel togedder; ant
vhen ve gets to your coontry, you vill dell me de best houses vhere I
might go mit my vatches ant drinkets."

"That I will; and get you in at the Nest House, in the bargain," cried
Opportunity, pocketing the pencil without further parley.

In the mean time my uncle selected a very neat seal, the handsomest he
had, being of pure metal, and having a real topaz in it, and offered it
to Mary Warren, with his best bow. I watched the clergyman's daughter
with anxiety, as I witnessed the progress of this _galantérie_, doubting
and hoping at each change of the ingenuous and beautiful countenance of
her to whom the offering was made. Mary coloured, smiled, seemed
embarrassed, and, as I feared, for a single moment doubting; but I must
have been mistaken, as she drew back, and, in the sweetest manner
possible, declined to accept the present. I saw that Opportunity's
having just adopted a different course added very much to her
embarrassment, as otherwise she might have said something to lessen the
seeming ungraciousness of the refusal. Luckily for herself, however, she
had a gentleman to deal with, instead of one in the station that my
uncle Ro had voluntarily assumed. When this offering was made, the
pretended pedlar was ignorant altogether of the true characters of the
clergyman and his daughter, not even knowing that he saw the rector of
St. Andrew's, Ravensnest. But the manner of Mary at once disabused him
of an error into which he had fallen through her association with
Opportunity, and he now drew back himself with perfect tact, bowing and
apologizing in a way that I thought must certainly betray his disguise.
It did not, however; for Mr. Warren, with a smile that denoted equally
satisfaction at his daughter's conduct, and a grateful sense of the
other's intended liberality, but with a simplicity that was of proof,
turned to me and begged a tune on the flute which I had drawn from my
pocket and was holding in my hand, as expecting some such invitation.

If I have any accomplishment, it is connected with music; and
particularly with the management of the flute. On this occasion I was
not at all backward about showing off, and I executed two or three airs,
from the best masters, with as much care as if I had been playing to a
salon in one of the best quarters of Paris. I could see that Mary and
her father were both surprised at the execution, and that the first was
delighted. We had a most agreeable quarter of an hour together; and
might have had two, had not Opportunity--who was certainly well named,
being apropos of everything--began of her own accord to sing, though not
without inviting Mary to join her. As the latter declined this public
exhibition, as well as my uncle Ro's offering, Seneca's sister had it
all to herself; and she sang no less than three songs, in quick
succession, and altogether unasked. I shall not stop to characterize the
music or the words of these songs, any further than to say they were
all, more or less, of the Jim Crow school, and executed in a way that
did them ample justice.

As it was understood that we were all to travel in the same train, the
interview lasted until we were ready to proceed; nor did it absolutely
terminate then. As Mary and Opportunity sat together, Mr. Warren asked
me to share his seat, regardless of the hurdy-gurdy; though my attire,
in addition to its being perfectly new and neat, was by no means of the
mean character that it is usual to see adorning street-music in general.
On the whole, so long as the instrument was not _en evidence_, I might
not have seemed very much out of place seated at Mr. Warren's side. In
this manner we proceeded to Saratoga, my uncle keeping up a private
discourse the whole way with Seneca, on matters connected with the rent
movement.

As for the divine and myself, we had also much interesting talk
together. I was questioned about Europe in general and Germany in
particular; and had reason to think my answers gave surprise as well as
satisfaction. It was not an easy matter to preserve the Doric of my
assumed dialect, though practice and fear contributed their share to
render me content to resort to it. I made many mistakes, of course, but
my listeners were not the persons to discover them. I say my listeners,
for I soon ascertained that Mary Warren, who sat on the seat directly
before us, was a profoundly attentive listener to all that passed. This
circumstance did not render me the less communicative, though it did
increase the desire I felt to render what I said worthy of such a
listener. As for Opportunity, she read a newspaper a little while,
munched an apple a very little while, and slept the rest of the way. But
the journey between modern Troy and Saratoga is not a long one, and was
soon accomplished.




CHAPTER VII.

                          "I will tell you;
    If you'll bestow a small (of what you have little),
    Patience, a while, you'll hear the belly's answer."

    MENENIUS AGRIPPA.


At the springs we parted, Mr. Warren and his friends finding a
conveyance, with their own horses, in readiness to carry them the
remainder of the distance. As for my uncle and myself, it was understood
that we were to get on in the best manner we could, it being expected
that we should reach Ravensnest in the course of a day or two. According
to the theory of our new business, we ought to travel on foot, but we
had a reservation _in petto_ that promised us also the relief of a
comfortable wagon of some sort or other.

"Well," said my uncle, the moment we had got far enough from our new
acquaintances to be out of ear-shot, "I must say one thing in behalf of
Mr. Seneky, as he calls himself, or Sen, as his elegant sister calls
him, and that is, that I believe him to be one of the biggest scoundrels
the state holds."

"This is not drawing his character _en beau_," I answered, laughing.
"But why do you come out so decidedly upon him at this particular
moment?"

"Because this particular moment happens to be the first in which I have
had an opportunity to say anything since I have known the rascal. You
must have remarked that the fellow held me in discourse from the time we
left Troy until we stopped here."

"Certainly; I could see that his tongue was in motion unceasingly: what
he said, I have to conjecture."

"He said enough to lay bare his whole character. Our subject was
anti-rent, which he commenced with a view to explain it to a foreigner;
but I managed to lead him on, step by step, until he let me into all his
notions and expectations on the subject. Why, Hugh, the villain actually
proposed that you and I should enlist, and turn ourselves into two of
the rascally mock redskins."

"Enlist! Do they still persevere so far as to keep up that organization,
in the very teeth of the late law?"

"The law! What do two or three thousand voters care for any penal law,
in a country like this? Who is to enforce the law against them? Did they
commit murder, and were they even convicted, as _might_ happen under the
excitement of such a crime, they very well know nobody would be hanged.
Honesty is always too passive in matters that do not immediately press
on its direct interests. It is for the interest of every honest man in
the State to set his face against this anti-rent movement, and to do all
he can, by his vote and influence, to put it down into the dirt, out of
which it sprang, and into which it should be crushed; but not one in a
hundred, even of those who condemn it _toto cælo_, will go a foot out of
their way even to impede its progress. All depends on those who have the
power; and they will exert that power so as to conciliate the active
rogue, rather than protect the honest man. You are to remember that the
laws are executed here on the principle that 'what is everybody's
business is nobody's business.'"

"You surely do not believe that the authorities will wink at an open
violation of the laws!"

"That will depend on the characters of individuals; most will, but some
will not. You and I would be punished soon enough, were there a chance,
but the mass would escape. Oh! we have had some precious disclosures in
our corner of the car! The two or three men who joined Newcome are from
anti-rent districts, and seeing me with their friend, little reserve has
been practised. One of those men is an anti-rent lecturer; and, being
somewhat didactic, he favoured me with some of his arguments,
_seriatim_."

"How! Have they got to lectures? I should have supposed the newspapers
would have been the means of circulating their ideas."

"Oh, the newspapers, like hogs swimming too freely, have cut their own
throats; and it seems to be fashionable, just at this moment, not to
believe them. Lecturing is the great moral lever of the nation at
present."

"But a man can lie in a lecture, as well as in a newspaper."

"Out of all question; and if many of the lecturers are of the school of
this Mr. Holmes--'Lecturer Holmes,' as Seneca called him--but, if many
are of _his_ school, a pretty set of liberty-takers with the truth must
they be."

"You detected him, then, in some of these liberties?"

"In a hundred: nothing was easier than for a man in my situation to do
that; knowing, as I did, so much of the history of the land-titles of
the State. One of his arguments partakes so largely of the weak side of
our system, that I must give it to you. He spoke of the gravity of the
disturbances--of the importance to the peace and character of the State
of putting an end to them; and then, by way of corollary to his
proposition, produced a scheme for changing the titles, IN ORDER TO
SATISFY THE PEOPLE!"

"The people, of course, meaning the tenants; the landlords and _their_
rights passing for nothing."

"That is one beautiful feature of the morality--an eye, or a cheek, if
you will--but here is the _nose_, and highly Roman it is. A certain
portion of the community wish to get rid of the obligations of their
contracts; and finding it cannot be done by law, they resort to means
that are opposed to all law, in order to effect their purposes. Public
law-breakers, violators of the public peace, they make use of their own
wrong as an argument for perpetuating another that can be perpetuated in
no other way. I have been looking over some of the papers containing
proclamations, &c., and find that both law-makers and law-breakers are
of one mind as to this charming policy. Without a single manly effort to
put down the atrocious wrong that is meditated, the existence of the
wrong itself is made an argument for meeting it with concessions, and
thus sustaining it. Instead of using the means the institutions have
provided for putting down all such unjust and illegal combinations, the
combinations are a sufficient reason of themselves why the laws should
be altered, and wrong be done to a few, in order that many may be
propitiated, and their votes secured."

"This is reasoning that can be used only where real grievances exist.
But there are no real grievances in the case of the tenants. They may
mystify weak heads in the instance of the Manor leases, with their
quarter sales, fat hens, loads of wood and days' works; but my leases
are all on three lives, with rent payable in money, and with none of the
conditions that are called feudal, though no more feudal than any other
bargain to pay articles in kind. One might just as well call a bargain
made by a butcher to deliver pork for a series of years feudal. However,
feudal or not, my leases, and those of most other landlords, are running
on lives; and yet, by what I can learn, the discontent is general; and
the men who have solemnly bargained to give up their farms at the
expiration of the lives are just as warm for the 'down-rent' and titles
in fee, as the Manor tenants themselves! They say that the obligations
given for actual purchases are beginning to be discredited."

"You are quite right; and there is one of the frauds practised on the
world at large. In the public documents, only the Manor leases, with
their pretended feudal covenants and their perpetuity, are kept in view,
while the combination goes to _all_ leases, or nearly all, and certainly
to all _sorts_ of leases, where the estates are of sufficient extent to
allow of the tenants to make head against the landlords. I dare say
there are hundreds of tenants, even on the property of the Renssalaers,
who are honest enough to be willing to comply with their contracts if
the conspirators would let them; but the rapacious spirit is abroad
among the occupants of other lands, as well as among the occupants of
theirs, and the government considers its existence a proof that
concessions should be made. The discontented must be appeased, right or
not!"

"Did Seneca say anything on the subject of his own interests?"

"He did; not so much in conversation with me, as in the discourse he
held with 'Lecturer Holmes.' I listened attentively, happening to be
familiar, through tradition and through personal knowledge, with all the
leading facts of the case. As you will soon be called on to act in that
matter for yourself, I may as well relate them to you. They will serve,
also, as guides to the moral merits of the occupation of half the farms
on your estate. These are things, moreover, you would never know by
public statements, since all the good bargains are smothered in silence,
while those that may possibly have been a little unfavourable to the
tenant are proclaimed far and near. It is quite possible that, among the
many thousands of leased farms that are to be found in the State, some
bad bargains may have been made by the tenants; but what sort of a
government is that which should undertake to redress evils of this
nature? If either of the Renssalaers, or you yourself, were to venture
to send a memorial to the Legislature setting forth the grievances _you_
labour under in connection with this very 'mill-lot'--and serious losses
do they bring to you, let me tell you, though grievances, in the proper
sense of the term, they are not--you and your memorial would be met with
a general and merited shout of ridicule and derision. One man has no
rights, as opposed to a dozen."

"So much difference is there between _'de la Rochefocauld et de la
Rochefoucauld_.'"

"All the difference in the world: but let me give you the facts, for
they will serve as a rule by which to judge of many others. In the first
place, my great-grandfather Mordaunt, the 'patentee,' as he was called,
first let the mill-lot to the grandfather of this Seneca, the tenant
then being quite a young man. In order to obtain settlers, in that early
day, it was necessary to give them great advantages, for there was
vastly more land than there were people to work it. The first lease,
therefore, was granted on highly advantageous terms to that Jason
Newcome, whom I can just remember. He had two characters; the one, and
the true, which set him down as a covetous, envious, narrow-minded
provincial, who was full of cant and roguery. Some traditions exist
among us of his having been detected in stealing timber, and in various
other frauds. In public he is one of those virtuous and hard-working
pioneers who have transmitted to their descendants all their claims,
those that are supposed to be moral, as well as those that are known to
be legal. This flummery may do for elderly ladies, who affect snuff and
bohea, and for some men who have minds of the same calibre, but they are
not circumstances to influence such legislators and executives as are
fit to be legislators and executives. Not a great while before my
father's marriage, the said Jason still living and in possession, the
lease expired, and a new one was granted for three lives, or twenty-one
years certain, of which one of the lives is still running. That lease
was granted, on terms highly favourable to the tenant, sixty years
since, old Newcome, luckily for himself and his posterity, having named
this long-lived son as one of his three lives. Now Seneky, God bless
him! is known to lease a few of the lots that have fallen to his share
of the property for more money than is required to meet all your rent on
the whole. Such, in effect, has been the fact with that mill-lot for the
last thirty years, or even longer; and the circumstance of the great
length of time so excellent a bargain has existed, is used as an
argument why the Newcomes ought to have a deed of the property for a
nominal price; or, indeed, for no price at all, if the tenants could
have their wishes."

"I am afraid there is nothing unnatural in thus perverting principles;
half mankind appear to me really to get a great many of their notions
_dessus dessous_."

"Half is a small proportion; as you will find, my boy, when you grow
older. But was it not an impudent proposal of Seneca, when he wished you
and me to join the corps of 'Injins?'"

"What answer did you make? Though I suppose it would hardly do for us to
go disguised and armed, now that the law makes it a felony, even while
our motive, at the bottom, might be to aid the law."

"Catch me at that act of folly! Why, Hugh, could they prove such a crime
on either of _us_, or any one connected with an old landed family, we
should be the certain victims. No governor would dare pardon _us_. No,
no; clemency is a word reserved for the obvious and confirmed rogues."

"We might get a little favour on the score of belonging to a very
powerful body of offenders."

"True; I forgot that circumstance. The more numerous the crimes and the
criminals, the greater the probability of impunity; and this, too, not
on the general principle that power cannot be resisted, but on the
particular principle that a thousand or two votes are of vast
importance, where three thousand can turn an election. God only knows
where this thing is to end!"

We now approached one of the humbler taverns of the place, where it was
necessary for those of our apparent pretensions to seek lodgings, and
the discourse was dropped. It was several weeks too early in the season
for the Springs to be frequented, and we found only a few of those in
the place who drank the waters because they really required them. My
uncle had been an old stager at Saratoga--a beau of the "purest water,"
as he laughingly described himself--and he was enabled to explain all
that it was necessary for me to know. An American watering-place,
however, is so very much inferior to most of those in Europe, as to
furnish very little, in their best moments, beyond the human beings they
contain, to attract the attention of the traveller.

In the course of the afternoon we availed ourselves of the opportunity
of a return vehicle to go as far as Sandy Hill, where we passed the
night. The next morning, bright and early, we got into a hired wagon and
drove across the country until near night, when we paid for our passage,
sent the vehicle back, and sought a tavern. At this house, where we
passed the night, we heard a good deal of the "Injins" having made their
appearance on the Littlepage lands, and many conjectures as to the
probable result. We were in a township, or rather on a property that was
called Mooseridge, and which had once belonged to us, but which, having
been sold, and in a great measure paid for by the occupants, no one
thought of impairing the force of the covenants under which the parties
held. The most trivial observer will soon discover that it is only when
something is to be gained that the aggrieved citizen wishes to disturb a
covenant. Now, I never heard any one say a syllable against either of
the covenants of his lease under which he held his farm, let him be ever
so loud against those which would shortly compel him to give it up! Had
I complained of the fact--and such facts abounded--that my predecessors
had incautiously let farms at such low prices that the lessees had been
enabled to pay the rents for half a century by subletting small portions
of them, as my uncle Ro had intimated, I should be pointed at as a
fool. "Stick to your bond" would have been the cry, and "Shylock" would
have been forgotten. I do not say that there is not a vast difference
between the means of acquiring intelligence, the cultivation, the
manners, the social conditions, and, in some senses, the social
obligations of an affluent landlord and a really hard-working, honest,
well-intentioned husbandman, his tenant--differences that should dispose
the liberal and cultivated gentleman to bear in mind the advantages he
has perhaps inherited, and not acquired by his own means, in such a way
as to render him, in a certain degree, the repository of the interests
of those who hold under him; but, while I admit all this, and say that
the community which does not possess such a class of men is to be
pitied, as it loses one of the most certain means of liberalizing and
enlarging its notions, and of improving its civilization, I am far from
thinking that the men of this class are to have their real superiority
of position, with its consequences, thrown into their faces only when
they are expected to give, while they are grudgingly denied it on all
other occasions! There is nothing so likely to advance the habits,
opinions, and true interests of a rural population, as to have them all
directed by the intelligence and combined interests that ought to mark
the connection between landlord and tenant. It may do for one class of
political economists to prate about a state of things which supposes
every husbandman a freeholder, and rich enough to maintain his level
among the other freeholders of the State. But we all know that as many
minute gradations in means must and do exist in a community, as there
exists gradations in characters. A majority soon will, in the nature of
things, be below the level of the freeholder, and by destroying the
system of having landlords and tenants, two great evils are created--the
one preventing men of large fortunes from investing in lands, as no man
will place his money where it will be insecure or profitless, thereby
cutting off real estate generally from the benefits that might be and
would be conferred by their capital, as well as cutting it off from the
benefits of the increased price which arise from having such buyers in
the market; and the other is, to prevent any man from being a husbandman
who has not the money necessary to purchase a farm. But they who want
farms _now_, and they who will want votes next November, do not look
quite so far ahead as that, while shouting "equal rights," they are, in
fact, for preventing the poor husbandman from being anything but a
day-labourer.

We obtained tolerably decent lodgings at our inn, though the profoundest
patriot America possesses, if he know anything of other countries, or of
the best materials of his own, cannot say much in favour of the sleeping
arrangements of an ordinary country inn. The same money and the same
trouble would render that which is now the very _beau idéal_ of
discomfort, at least tolerable, and in many instances good. But who is
to produce this reform? According to the opinions circulated among us,
the humblest hamlet we have has already attained the highest point of
civilization; and as for the people, without distinction of classes, it
is universally admitted that they are the best educated, the acutest,
and the most intelligent in Christendom;--no, I must correct myself;
they are all this, except when they are in the act of leasing lands, and
then the innocent and illiterate husbandmen are the victims of the arts
of designing landlords, the wretches![1]

We passed an hour on the piazza, after eating our supper, and there
being a collection of men assembled there, inhabitants of the hamlet, we
had an opportunity to get into communication with them. My uncle sold a
watch, and I played on the hurdy-gurdy, by way of making myself popular.
After this beginning, the discourse turned on the engrossing subject of
the day, anti-rentism. The principal speaker was a young man of about
six-and-twenty, of a sort of shabby genteel air and appearance, whom I
soon discovered to be the attorney of the neighbourhood. His name was
Hubbard, while that of the other principal speaker was Hall. The last
was a mechanic, as I ascertained, and was a plain-looking working-man of
middle age. Each of these persons seated himself on a common "kitchen
chair," leaning back against the side of the house, and, of course,
resting on the two hind legs of the rickety support, while he placed his
own feet on the rounds in front. The attitudes were neither graceful nor
picturesque, but they were so entirely common as to excite no surprise.
As for Hall, he appeared perfectly contented with his situation, after
fidgeting a little to get the two supporting legs of his chair just
where he wanted them; but Hubbard's eye was restless, uneasy, and even
menacing, for more than a minute. He drew a knife from his pocket--a
small, neat pen-knife only, it is true--gazed a little wildly about him,
and just as I thought he intended to abandon his nicely poised chair,
and to make an assault on one of the pillars that upheld the roof of the
piazza, the innkeeper advanced, holding in his hand several narrow slips
of pine board, one of which he offered at once to 'Squire Hubbard. This
relieved the attorney, who took the wood, and was soon deeply plunged
in, to me, the unknown delights of whittling. I cannot explain the
mysterious pleasure that so many find in whittling, though the
prevalence of the custom is so well known. But I cannot explain the
pleasure so many find in chewing tobacco, or in smoking. The precaution
of the landlord was far from being unnecessary, and appeared to be taken
in good part by all to whom he offered "whittling-pieces," some six or
eight in the whole. The state of the piazza, indeed, proved that the
precaution was absolutely indispensable, if he did not wish to see the
house come tumbling down about his head. In order that those who have
never seen such thing may understand their use, I will go a little out
of the way to explain.

The inn was of wood, a hemlock frame with a "siding" of clap-boards. In
this there was nothing remarkable, many countries of Europe, even, still
building principally of wood. Houses of lath and plaster were quite
common, until within a few years, even in large towns. I remember to
have seen some of these constructions, while in London, in close
connection with the justly celebrated Westminster Hall; and of such
materials is the much-talked-of miniature castle of Horace Walpole, at
Strawberry Hill. But the inn of Mooseridge had some pretensions to
architecture, besides being three or four times larger than any other
house in the place. A piazza it enjoyed, of course; it must be a pitiful
village inn that does not: and building, accessaries and all, rejoiced
in several coats of a spurious white lead. The columns of this piazza,
as well as the clap-boards of the house itself however, exhibited the
proofs of the danger of abandoning your true whittler to his own
instincts. Spread-eagles, five points, American flags, huzzahs for Polk!
the initials of names, and names at full length, with various other
similar conceits, records, and ebullitions of patriotic or party-otic
feelings, were scattered up and down with an affluence the said volumes
in favour of the mint in which they had been coined. But the most
remarkable memorial of the industry of the guests was to be found on one
of the columns; and it was one at a corner, too, and consequently of
double importance to the superstructure--unless, indeed, the house were
built on that well-known principle of American architecture of the last
century, which made the architrave uphold the pillar, instead of the
pillar the architrave. The column in question was of white pine, as
usual--though latterly, in brick edifices, bricks and stucco are much
resorted to--and, at a convenient height for the whittlers, it was
literally cut two-thirds in two. The gash was very neatly made--that
much must be said for it--indicating skill and attention; and the
surfaces of the wound were smoothed in a manner to prove that
appearances were not neglected.

"Vat do das?" I asked of the landlord, pointing to this gaping wound in
the main column of his piazza.

"That! Oh! That's only the whittlers," answered the host, with a
good-natural smile.

Assuredly the Americans _are_ the best-natured people on earth! Here was
a man whose house was nearly tumbling down about his ears--always bating
the principle in architecture just named--and he could smile as Nero may
be supposed to have done when fiddling over the conflagration of Rome.

"But vhy might de vhittler vhittle down your house?"

"Oh! this is a free country, you know, and folks do pretty much as they
like in it," returned the still smiling host. "I let 'em cut away as
long as I dared, but it was high time to get out 'whittling-pieces' I
believe you must own. It's best always to keep a ruff (roof) over a
man's head, to be ready for bad weather. A week longer would have had
the column in two."

"Vell, I dinks I might not bear dat! Vhat ist mein house ist mein house,
ant dey shall not so moch vittles."

"By letting 'em so much vittles there, they so much vittles in the
kitchen; so you see there is policy in having your under-pinnin' knocked
away sometimes, if it's done by the right sort of folks."

"You're a stranger in these parts, friend?" observed Hubbard,
complacently, for by this time his "whittling-piece" was reduced to a
shape, and he could go on reducing it, according to some law of the art
of whittling, with which I am not acquainted. "We are not so particular
in such matters as in some of your countries in the old world."

"Ja--das I can see. But does not woot ant column cost money in America,
someding?"

"To be sure it does. There is not a man in the country who would
undertake to replace that pillar with a new one, paint and all, for less
than ten dollars."

This was an opening for a discussion on the probable cost of putting a
new pillar into the place of the one that was injured. Opinions
differed, and quite a dozen spoke on the subject; some placing the
expense as high as fifteen dollars, and others bringing it down as low
as five. I was struck with the quiet and self-possession with which each
man delivered his opinion, as well as with the language used. The
accent was uniformly provincial, that of Hubbard included, having a
strong and unpleasant taint of the dialect of New England in it; and
some of the expressions savoured a little of the stilts of the
newspapers; but, on the whole, the language was sufficiently accurate
and surprisingly good, considering the class in life of the speakers.
The conjectures, too, manifested great shrewdness and familiarity with
practical things, as well as, in a few instances, some reading. Hall,
however, actually surprised me. He spoke with a precision and knowledge
of mechanics that would have done credit to a scholar, and with a
simplicity that added to the influence of what he said. Some casual
remark induced me to put in--"Vell, I might s'pose an Injin voult cut so
das column, but I might not s'pose a vhite man could." This opinion gave
the discourse a direction towards anti-rentism, and in a few minutes it
caught all the attention of my uncle Ro and myself.

"This business is going ahead after all!" observed Hubbard, evasively,
after others had had their say.

"More's the pity," put in Hall. "It might have been put an end to in a
month, at any time, and ought to be put an end to in a civilized land."

"You will own, neighbour Hall, notwithstanding, it would be a great
improvement in the condition of the tenants all over the State, could
they change their tenures into freeholds."

"No doubt 't would; and so it would be a great improvement in the
condition of any journeyman in my shop if he could get to be the boss.
But that is not the question here, the question is, what right has the
State to say any man shall sell his property unless he wishes to sell
it? A pretty sort of liberty we should have if we all held our houses
and gardens under such laws as that supposes!"

"But do we not all hold our houses and gardens, and farms, too, by some
such law?" rejoined the attorney, who evidently respected his
antagonist, and advanced his own opinions cautiously. "If the public
wants land to use, it can take it by paying for it."

"Yes, to _use_; but use is everything. I've read that old report of the
committee of the House, and don't subscribe to its doctrines at all.
Public 'policy,' in that sense, doesn't at all mean public 'use.' If
land is wanted for a road, or a fort, or a canal, it must be taken,
under a law, by appraisement, or the thing could not be had at all; but
to pretend, because one side to a contract wishes to alter it, that the
State has a right to interfere, on the ground that the discontented can
be bought off in this way easier and cheaper than they can be made to
obey the laws, is but a poor way of supporting the right. The same
principle, carried out, might prove it would be easier to buy off
pickpockets by compromising than to punish them. Or it would be easy to
get round all sorts of contracts in this way."

"But all governments use this power when it becomes necessary, neighbour
Hall."

"That word _necessary_ covers a great deal of ground, 'Squire Hubbard.
The most that can be made of the necessity here is to say it is cheaper,
and may help along parties to their objects better. No man doubts that
the State of New York can put down these anti-renters; and, I trust,
_will_ put them down, so far as force is concerned. There is, then, no
other necessity in the case, to begin with, than the necessity which
demagogues always feel, of getting as many votes as they can."

"After all, neighbour Hall, these votes are pretty powerful weapons in a
popular government."

"I'll not deny that; and now they talk of a convention to alter the
constitution, it is a favourable moment to teach such managers they
shall not abuse the right of suffrage in this way."

"How is it to be prevented? You are an universal suffrage man, I know?"

"Yes, I'm for universal suffrage among honest folks; but do not wish to
have my rulers chosen by them that are never satisfied without having
their hands in their neighbours' pockets. Let 'em put a clause into the
constitution providing that no town, or village, or county shall hold a
poll within a given time after the execution of process has been openly
resisted in it. That would take the conceit out of all such
law-breakers, in very short order."

It was plain that this idea struck the listeners, and several even
avowed their approbation of the scheme aloud. Hubbard received it as a
new thought, but was more reluctant to admit its practicability. As
might be expected from a lawyer accustomed to practise in a small way,
his objections savoured more of narrow views than of the notions of a
statesman.

"How would you determine the extent of the district to be
disfranchised?" he asked.

"Take the legal limits as they stand. If process be resisted openly by a
combination strong enough to look down the agents of the law in a town,
disfranchise that town for a given period; if in more than one town,
disfranchise the offending towns; if a county, disfranchise the whole
county."

"But, in that way you would punish the innocent with the guilty."

"It would be for the good of all; besides, you punish the innocent for
the guilty, or _with_ the guilty rather, in a thousand ways. You and I
are taxed to keep drunkards from starving, because it is better to do
that than to offend humanity by seeing men die of hunger, or tempting
them to steal. When you declare martial law you punish the innocent with
the guilty, in one sense; and so you do in a hundred cases. All we have
to ask is, if it be not wiser and better to disarm demagogues, and those
disturbers of the public peace who wish to pervert their right of
suffrage to so wicked an end, by so simple a process, than to suffer
them to effect their purposes by the most flagrant abuse of their
political privileges?"

"How would you determine _when_ a town should lose the right of voting?"

"By evidence given in open court. The judges would be the proper
authority to decide in such a case; and they would decide, beyond all
question, nineteen times in twenty, right. It is the interest of every
man who is desirous of exercising the suffrage on right principles, to
give him some such protection against them that wish to exercise the
suffrage on wrong. A peace-officer can call on the _posse comitatus_ or
on the people to aid him; if enough appear to put down the rebels, well
and good; but if enough do not appear, let it be taken as proof that the
district is not worthy of giving the votes of freemen. They who abuse
such a liberty as man enjoys in this country are the least entitled to
our sympathies. As for the mode, that could easily be determined, as
soon as you settled the principle."

The discourse went on for an hour, neighbour Hall giving his opinions
still more at large. I listened equally with pleasure and surprise.
"These, then, after all," I said to myself, "are the real bone and sinew
of the country. There are tens of thousands of this sort of men in the
State, and why should they be domineered over, and made to submit to a
legislation and to practices that are so often without principle, by the
agents of the worst part of the community? Will the honest for ever be
so passive, while the corrupt and dishonest continue so active?" On my
mentioning these notions to my uncle, he answered:

"Yes; it ever has been so, and, I fear, ever will be so. _There_ is the
curse of this country," pointing to a table covered with newspapers, the
invariable companion of an American inn of any size. "So long as men
believe what they find _there_, they can be nothing but dupes or
knaves."

"But there is good in newspapers."

"That adds to the curse. If they were nothing but lies, the world would
soon reject them; but how few are able to separate the true from the
false! Now, how few of these papers speak the truth about this very
anti-rentism! Occasionally an honest man in the corps does come out; but
where one does this, ten affect to think what they do not believe, in
order to secure votes;--votes, votes, votes. In that simple word lies
all the mystery of the matter."

"Jefferson said, if he were to choose between a government without
newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would take the last."

"Ay, Jefferson did not mean newspapers as they are now. I am old enough
to see the change that has taken place. In his day, three or four fairly
convicted lies would damn any editor; now, there are men that stand up
under a thousand. I'll tell you what, Hugh, this country is jogging on
under two of the most antagonist systems possible--Christianity and the
newspapers. The first is daily hammering into every man that he is a
miserable, frail, good-for-nothing being, while the last is eternally
proclaiming the perfection of the people and the virtues of
self-government."

"Perhaps too much stress ought not to be laid on either."

"The first is certainly true, under limitations that we all understand;
but as to the last, I will own I want more evidence than a newspaper
eulogy to believe it."

After all, my uncle Ro is sometimes mistaken; though candour compels me
to acknowledge that he is very often right.




CHAPTER VIII.

            "I see thee still;
    Remembrance, faithful to her trust,
    Calls thee in beauty from the dust;
    Thou comest in the morning light,
    Thou 'rt with me through the gloomy night;
    In dreams I meet thee as of old:
    Then thy soft arms my neck enfold,
    And thy sweet voice is in my ear:
    In every sense to memory dear
            I see thee still."

    SPRAGUE.


It was just ten in the morning of the succeeding day when my uncle Ro
and myself came in sight of the old house at the Nest. I call it _old_,
for a dwelling that has stood more than half a century acquires a touch
of the venerable, in a country like America. To me it was truly old, the
building having stood there, where I then saw it, for a period more than
twice as long as that of my own existence, and was associated with all
my early ideas. From childhood I had regarded that place as my future
home, as it had been the home of my parents and grand-parents, and, in
one sense, of those who had gone before them for two generations more.
The whole of the land in sight--the rich bottoms, then waving with
grass--the side-hills, the woods, the distant mountains--the orchards,
dwellings, barns, and all the other accessaries of rural life that
appertained to the soil, were mine, and had thus become without a
single act of injustice to any human being, so far as I knew and
believed. Even the red man had been fairly bought off by Herman
Mordaunt, the patentee, and so Susquesus, the Redskin of Ravensnest, as
our old Onondago was often called, had ever admitted the fact to be. It
was natural that I should love an estate thus inherited and thus
situated. NO CIVILIZED MAN, NO MAN, INDEED, SAVAGE OR NOT, HAD EVER BEEN
THE OWNER OF THOSE BROAD ACRES, BUT THOSE WHO WERE OF MY OWN BLOOD. This
is what few besides Americans _can_ say; and when it can be said truly,
in parts of the country where the arts of life have spread, and amid the
blessings of civilization, it becomes the foundation of a sentiment so
profound, that I do not wonder those adventurers-errant who are flying
about the face of the country, thrusting their hands into every man's
mess, have not been able to find it among their other superficial
discoveries. Nothing can be less like the ordinary cravings of avarice
than the feeling that is thus engendered; and I am certain that the
general tendency of such an influence is to elevate the feelings of him
who experiences it.

And there were men among us, high in political station--high as such men
ever can get, for the consequence of having such men in power is to draw
down station itself nearer to their own natural level--but men in power
had actually laid down propositions in political economy which, if
carried out, would cause me to sell all that estate, reserving, perhaps,
a single farm for my own use, and reinvest the money in such a way as
that the interest I obtained might equal my present income! It is true,
this theory was not directly applied to me, as my farms were to fall in
by the covenants of their leases, but it had been directly applied to
Stephen and William Van Rensselaer, and, by implication, to others; and
my turn might come next. What business had the Rensselaers, or the
Livingstons, or the Hunters, or the Littlepages, or the Verplancks, or
the Morgans, or the Wadsworths, or five hundred others similarly placed,
to entertain "sentiments" that interfered with "business," or that
interfered with the wishes of any straggling Yankee who had found his
way out of New England, and wanted a particular farm on his own terms?
It is aristocratic to put sentiment in opposition to trade; and TRADE
ITSELF IS NOT TO BE TRADE ANY LONGER THAN ALL THE PROFIT IS TO BE FOUND
ON THE SIDE OF NUMBERS. Even the principles of holy trade are to be
governed by majorities!

Even my uncle Ro, who never owned a foot of the property, could not look
at it without emotion. He too had been born there--had passed his
childhood there--and loved the spot without a particle of the grovelling
feeling of avarice. He took pleasure in remembering that our race had
been the only owners of the soil on which he stood, and had that very
justifiable pride which belongs to enduring respectability and social
station.

"Well, Hugh," he cried, after both of us had stood gazing at the grey
walls of the good and substantial, but certainly not very beautiful
dwelling, "here we are, and we now may determine on what is next to be
done. Shall we march down to the village, which is four miles distant,
you will remember, and get our breakfasts there?--shall we try one of
your tenants?--or shall we plunge at once _in medias res_, and ask
hospitality of my mother and your sister?"

"The last might excite suspicion, I fear, sir. Tar and feathers would be
our mildest fate did we fall into the hands of the Injins."

"Injins! Why not go at once to the wigwam of Susquesus, and get out of
him and Yop the history of the state of things. I heard them speaking of
the Onondago at our tavern last night, and while they said he was
generally thought to be much more than a hundred, that he was still like
a man of eighty. That Indian is full of observation, and may let us into
some of the secrets of his brethren."

"They can at least give us the news from the family; and though it might
seem in the course of things for pedlars to visit the Nest House, it
will be just as much so for them to halt at the wigwam."

This consideration decided the matter, and away we went towards the
ravine or glen, on the side of which stood the primitive-looking hut
that went by the name of the "wigwam." The house was a small cabin of
logs, neat and warm, or cool, as the season demanded. As it was kept up,
and was whitewashed, and occasionally furnished anew by the
landlord--the odious creature! he who paid for so many similar things
in the neighbourhood--it was never unfit to be seen, though never of a
very alluring, cottage-like character. There was a garden, and it had
been properly made that very season, the negro picking and pecking about
it, during the summer, in a way to coax the vegetables and fruits on a
little, though I well knew that the regular weedings came from an
assistant at the Nest, who was ordered to give it an eye and an
occasional half-day. On one side of the hut there was a hog-pen and a
small stable for a cow; but on the other the trees of the virgin forest,
which had never been disturbed in that glen, overshadowed the roof. This
somewhat poetical arrangement was actually the consequence of a
compromise between the tenants of the cabin, the negro insisting on the
accessories of his rude civilization, while the Indian required the
shades of the woods to reconcile him to his position. Here had these two
singularly associated beings--the one deriving his descent from the
debased races of Africa, and the other from the fierce but lofty-minded
aboriginal inhabitant of this continent--dwelt nearly for the whole
period of an ordinary human life. The cabin itself began to look really
ancient, while those who dwelt in it had little altered within the
memory of man! Such instances of longevity, whatever theorists may say
on the subject, are not unfrequent among either the blacks or the
"natives," though probably less so among the last than among the first,
and still less so among the first of the northern than of the southern
sections of the republic. It is common to say that the great age so
often attributed to the people of these two races is owing to ignorance
of the periods of their births, and that they do not live longer than
the whites. This may be true, in the main, for a white man is known to
have died at no great distance from Ravensnest, within the last
five-and-twenty years, who numbered more than his six score of years;
but aged negroes and aged Indians are nevertheless so common, when the
smallness of their whole numbers is remembered, as to render the fact
apparent to most of those who have seen much of their respective people.

There was no highway in the vicinity of the wigwam, for so the cabin was
generally called, though wigwam, in the strict meaning of the word, it
was not. As the little building stood in the grounds of the Nest House,
which contain two hundred acres, a bit of virgin forest included, and
exclusively of the fields that belonged to the adjacent farm, it was
approached only by foot-paths, of which several led to and from it, and
by one narrow, winding carriage-road, which, in passing for miles
through the grounds, had been led near the hut, in order to enable my
grandmother and sister, and, I dare say, my dear departed mother, while
she lived, to make their calls in their frequent airings. By this
sweeping road we approached the cabin.

"There are the two old fellows, sunning themselves this fine day!"
exclaimed my uncle, with something like tremor in his voice, as we drew
near enough to the hut to distinguish objects. "Hugh, I never see these
men without a feeling of awe, as well as of affection. They were the
friends, and one was the slave of my grandfather; and as long as I can
remember, have they been aged men! They seem to be set up here as
monuments of the past, to connect the generations that are gone with
those that are to come."

"If so, sir, they will soon be all there is of their sort. It really
seems to me that, if things continue much longer in their present
direction, men will begin to grow jealous and envious of history itself,
because its actors have left descendants to participate in any little
credit they may have gained."

"Beyond all contradiction, boy, there is a strange perversion of the old
and natural sentiments on this head among us. But you must bear in mind
the fact, that of the two millions and a half the State contains, not
half a million, probably, possess any of the true York blood, and can
consequently feel any of the sentiments connected with the birth-place
and the older traditions of the very society in which they live. A great
deal must be attributed to the facts of our condition; though I admit
those facts need not, and ought not to unsettle principles. But look at
those two old fellows! There they are, true to the feelings and habits
of their races, even after passing so long a time together in this hut.
There squats Susquesus on a stone, idle and disdaining work, with his
rifle leaning against the apple-tree; while Jaaf--or Yop, as I believe
it is better to call him--is pecking about in the garden, still a slave
at his work, in fancy at least."

"And which is the happiest, sir--the industrious old man or the idler?"

"Probably each finds most happiness in indulging his own early habits.
The Onondago never _would_ work, however, and I have heard my father
say, great was his happiness when he found he was to pass the remainder
of his days in _otium cum dignitate_, and without the necessity of
making baskets."

"Yop is looking at us; had we not better go up at once and speak to
them?"

"Yop may stare the most openly, but my life on it the Indian _sees_
twice as much. His faculties are the best, to begin with; and he is a
man of extraordinary and characteristic observation. In his best days
nothing ever escaped him. As you say, we will approach."

My uncle and myself then consulted on the expediency of using broken
English with these two old men, of which, at first, we saw no necessity;
but when we remembered that others might join us, and that our
communications with the two might be frequent for the next few days, we
changed our minds, and determined rigidly to observe our incognitos.

As we came up to the door of the hut, Jaaf slowly left his little garden
and joined the Indian, who remained immoveable and unmoved on the stone
which served him for a seat. We could see but little change in either
during the five years of our absence, each being a perfect picture, in
his way, of extreme but not decrepit old age in the men of his race. Of
the two, the black--if black he could now be called, his colour being a
muddy grey--was the most altered, though that seemed scarcely possible
when I saw him last. As for the Trackless, or Susquesus, as he was
commonly called, his temperance throughout a long life did him good
service, and his half-naked limbs and skeleton-like body, for he wore
the summer dress of his people, appeared to be made of a leather long
steeped in a tannin of the purest quality. His sinews, too, though much
stiffened, seemed yet to be of whip-cord, and his whole frame a species
of indurated mummy that retained its vitality. The colour of the skin
was less red than formerly, and more closely approached to that of the
negro, as the latter now was, though perceptibly different.

"Sago--sago," cried my uncle, as we came quite near, seeing no risk in
using that familiar semi-Indian salutation.[2] "Sago, sago, dis charmin'
mornin; in my tongue, dat might be _guten tag_."

"Sago," returned the Trackless, in his deep, guttural voice, while old
Yop brought two lips together that resembled thick pieces of overdone
beef-steak, fastened his red-encircled gummy eyes on each of us in turn,
pouted once more, working his jaws as if proud of the excellent teeth
they still held, and said nothing. As the slave of a Littlepage, he held
pedlars as inferior beings; for the ancient negroes of New York ever
identified themselves, more or less, with the families to which they
belonged, and in which they so often were born. "Sago," repeated the
Indian, slowly, courteously, and with emphasis, after he had looked a
moment longer at my uncle, as if he saw something about him to command
respect.

"Dis ist charmin' day, frients," said uncle Ro, placing himself coolly
on a log of wood that had been hauled for the stove, and wiping his
brow. "Vat might you calls dis coontry?"

"Dis here?" answered Yop, not without a little contempt. "Dis is York
Colony; where you come from to ask sich a question?"

"Charmany. Dat ist far off, but a goot coontry; ant dis ist goot
coontry too."

"Why you leab him, den, if he be good country, eh?"

"Vhy you leaf Africa, canst you dell me dat?" retorted uncle Ro,
somewhat coolly.

"Nebber was dere," growled old Yop, bringing his blubber lips together
somewhat in the manner the boar works his jaws when it is prudent to get
out of his way. "I'm York-nigger born, and nebber seen no Africa; and
nebber want to see him, nudder."

It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaaf belonged to a school by which
the term of "coloured gentleman" was never used. The men of his time and
stamp called themselves "niggers;" and ladies and gentlemen of that age
took them at their word, and called them "niggers" too; a term that no
one of the race ever uses now, except in the way of reproach, and which,
by one of the singular workings of our very wayward and common nature,
he is more apt to use than any other, when reproach is intended.

My uncle paused a moment to reflect before he continued a discourse that
had not appeared to commence under very flattering auspices.

"Who might lif in dat big stone house?" asked uncle Ro, as soon as he
thought the negro had had time to cool a little.

"Anybody can see you no Yorker, by dat werry speech," answered Yop, not
at all mollified by such a question. "Who _should_ lib dere but Gin'ral
Littlepage?"

"Vell, I dought he wast dead, long ago."

"What if he be? It's his house, and he lib in it; and ole _young_ missus
lib dere too."

Now, there had been three generations of generals among the Littlepages,
counting from father to son. First, there had been Brigadier General
Evans Littlepage, who held that rank in the militia, and died in service
during the revolution. The next was Brigadier General Cornelius
Littlepage, who got his rank by brevet, at the close of the same war, in
which he had actually figured as a colonel of the New York line. Third,
and last, was my own grandfather, Major General Mordaunt Littlepage: he
had been a captain in his father's regiment at the close of the same
struggle, got the brevet of major at its termination, and rose to be a
Major General of the militia, the station he held for many years before
he died. As soon as the privates had the power to elect their own
officers, the position of a Major General in the militia ceased to be
respectable, and few gentlemen could be induced to serve. As might have
been foreseen, the militia itself fell into general contempt, where it
now is, and where it will ever remain until a different class of
officers shall be chosen. The people can do a great deal, no doubt, but
they cannot make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear." As soon as officers
from the old classes shall be appointed, the militia will come up; for
in no interest in life is it so material to have men of certain habits,
and notions, and education, in authority, as in those connected with the
military service. A great many fine speeches may be made, and much
patriotic eulogy expended on the intrinsic virtue and intelligence of
the people, and divers projects entertained to make "citizen-soldiers,"
as they are called; but citizens never can be, and never will be turned
into soldiers at all, good or bad, until proper officers are placed over
them. To return to Yop--

"Bray vhat might be der age of das laty dat you callet _olt_ young
missus?" asked my uncle.

"Gosh! she nutten but gal--born sometime just a'ter ole French war.
Remember her well 'nough when she Miss Dus Malbone. Young masser
Mordaunt take fancy to her, and make her he wife."

"Vell, I hopes you hafn't any objection to der match?"

"Not I; she clebber young lady den, and she werry clebber young lady
now."

And this of my venerable grandmother, who had fairly seen her four-score
years!

"Who might be der master of das big house now?"

"Gin'ral Littlepage, doesn't I tell ye! Masser Mordaunt's name, _my_
young master. Sus, dere, only Injin; he nebber so lucky as hab a good
master. Niggers gettin' scarce, dey tells me, now-a-days, in dis world!"

"Injins, too, I dinks; dere ist no more redskins might be blenty."

The manner in which the Onondago raised his figure, and the look he
fastened on my uncle, were both fine and startling. As yet he had said
nothing beyond the salutation; but I could see he now intended to
speak.

"New tribe," he said, after regarding us for half a minute intently;
"what you call him--where he come from?"

"Ja, ja--das ist der anti-rent redskins. Haf you seen 'em, Trackless?"

"Sartain; come to see me--face in bag--behave like squaw; poor
Injin--poor warrior!"

"Yees, I believes dat ist true enough. I can't bear soch Injin!--might
not be soch Injin in world. Vhat you call 'em, eh?"

Susquesus shook his head slowly, and with dignity. Then he gazed
intently at my uncle; after which he fastened his eyes, in a similar
manner on me. In this manner his looks turned from one to the other for
some little time, when he again dropped them to the earth, calmly and in
silence. I took out the hurdy-gurdy, and began to play a lively air--one
that was very popular among the American blacks, and which, I am sorry
to say, is getting to be not less so among the whites. No visible effect
was produced on Susquesus, unless a slight shade of contempt was visible
on his dark features. With Jaaf, however, it was very different. Old as
he was, I could see a certain nervous twitching of the lower limbs,
which indicated that the old fellow actually felt some disposition to
dance. It soon passed away, though his grim, hard, wrinkled, dusky, grey
countenance continued to gleam with a sort of dull pleasure for some
time. There was nothing surprising in this, the indifference of the
Indian to melody being almost as marked as the negro's sensitiveness to
its power.

It was not to be expected that men so aged would be disposed to talk
much. The Onondago had ever been a silent man; dignity and gravity of
character uniting with prudence to render him so. But Jaaf was
constitutionally garrulous, though length of days had necessarily much
diminished the propensity. At that moment a fit of thoughtful and
melancholy silence came over my uncle, too, and all four of us continued
brooding on our own reflections for two or three minutes after I had
ceased to play. Presently the even, smooth approach of carriage-wheels
was heard, and a light, summer vehicle that was an old acquaintance,
came whirling round the stable, and drew up within ten feet of the spot
where we were all seated.

My heart was in my mouth, at this unexpected interruption, and I could
perceive that my uncle was scarcely less affected. Amid the flowing and
pretty drapery of summer shawls, and the other ornaments of the female
toilet, were four youthful and sunny faces, and one venerable with
years. In a word, my grandmother, my sister, and my uncle's two other
wards, and Mary Warren, were in the carriage; yes, the pretty, gentle,
timid, yet spirited and intelligent daughter of the rector was of the
party, and seemingly quite at home and at her ease, as one among
friends. She was the first to speak even, though it was in a low, quiet
voice, addressed to my sister, and in words that appeared extorted by
surprise.

"There are the very two pedlars of whom I told you, Martha," she said,
"and now you may hear the flute well played."

"I doubt if he can play better than Hugh," was my dear sister's answer.
"But we'll have some of his music, if it be only to remind us of him who
is so far away."

"The music we can and will have, my child," cried my grandmother,
cheerfully; "though _that_ is not wanted to remind us of our absent boy.
Good morrow, Susquesus; I hope this fine day agrees with you."

"Sago," returned the Indian, making a dignified and even graceful
forward gesture with one arm, though he did not rise. "Weadder
good--Great Spirit good, dat reason. How squaws do?"

"We are all well, I thank you, Trackless. Good morrow, Jaaf; how do
_you_ do, this fine morning?"

Yop, or Jaap, or Jaaf, rose tottering, made a low obeisance, and then
answered in the semi-respectful, semi-familiar manner of an old,
confidential family servant, as the last existed among our fathers:

"T'ank 'ee, Miss Dus, wid all my heart," he answered. "Pretty well
to-day; but ole Sus, he fail, and grow ol'er and ol'er desp'ate fast!"

Now, of the two, the Indian was much the finest relic of human powers,
though he was less uneasy and more stationary than the black. But the
propensity to see the mote in the eye of his friend, while he forgot the
beam in his own, was a long-established and well-known weakness of
Jaaf, and its present exhibition caused everybody to smile. I was
delighted with the beaming, laughing eyes of Mary Warren in particular,
though she said nothing.

"I cannot say I agree with you, Jaaf," returned my smiling grandmother.
"The Trackless bears his years surprisingly; and I think I have not seen
him look better this many a day than he is looking this morning. We are
none of us as young as we were when we first became acquainted,
Jaaf--which is now near, if not quite, three-score years ago."

"You nuttin' but gal, nudder," growled the negro. "Ole Sus be raal ole
fellow; but Miss Dus and Masser Mordaunt, dey get married only tudder
day. Why _dat_ was a'ter de revylooshen!"

"It was, indeed," replied the venerable woman, with a touch of
melancholy in her tones; "but the revolution took place many, many a
long year since!"

"Well, now, I be surprise, Miss Dus! How you call _dat_ so long, when he
only be tudder day?" retorted the pertinacious negro, who began to grow
crusty, and to speak in a short, spiteful way, as if displeased by
hearing that to which he could not assent. "Masser Corny was little ole,
p'r'aps, if he lib, but all de rest ob you nuttin' but children. Tell me
one t'ing, Miss Dus, be it true dey's got a town at Satanstoe?"

"An attempt was made, a few years since, to turn the whole country into
towns, and, among other places, the Neck; but I believe it will never be
anything more than a capital farm."

"So besser. _Dat_ good land, I tell you! One acre down dere wort' more
dan twenty acre up here."

"My grandson would not be pleased to hear you say that, Jaaf."

"Who your grandson, Miss Dus. Remember you hab little baby tudder day;
but baby can't hab baby."

"Ah, Jaaf, my old friend, my babies have long since been men and women,
and are drawing on to old age. One, and he was my first born, is gone
before us to a better world, and _his_ boy is now your young master.
This young lady, that is seated opposite to me, is the sister of that
young master, and she would be grieved to think you have forgotten her."

Jaaf laboured under the difficulty so common to old age; he was
forgetful of things of more recent date, while he remembered those which
had occurred a century ago! The memory is a tablet that partakes of the
peculiarity of all our opinions and habits. In youth it is easily
impressed, and the images then engraved on it are distinct, deep and
lasting, while those that succeed become crowded, and take less root,
from the circumstance of finding the ground already occupied. In the
present instance, the age was so great that the change was really
startling, the old negro's recollections occasionally coming on the mind
like a voice from the grave. As for the Indian, as I afterwards
ascertained, he was better preserved in all respects than the black; his
great temperance in youth, freedom from labour, exercise in the open
air, united to the comforts and abundance of semi-civilized habits, that
had now lasted for near a century, contributing to preserve both mind
and body. As I now looked at him, I remembered what I had heard in
boyhood of his history.

There had ever been a mystery about the life of the Onondago. If any one
of our set had ever been acquainted with the facts, it was Andries
Coejemans, a half-uncle of my dear grandmother, a person who has been
known among us by the _sobriquet_ of the Chainbearer. My grandmother had
told me that "uncle Chainbearer," as we all called the old relative,
_did_ know all about Susquesus, in his time--the reason why he had left
his tribe, and become a hunter, and warrior, and runner among the
pale-faces--and that he had always said the particulars did his red
friend great credit, but that he would reveal it no further. So great,
however, was uncle Chainbearer's reputation for integrity, that such an
opinion was sufficient to procure for the Onondago the fullest
confidence of the whole connection, and the experience of four-score
years and ten had proved that this confidence was well placed. Some
imputed the sort of exile in which the old man had so long lived to
love; others to war; and others, again, to the consequences of those
fierce personal feuds that are known to occur among men in the savage
state. But all was just as much a mystery and matter of conjecture, now
we were drawing near to the middle of the nineteenth century, as it had
been when our forefathers were receding from the middle of the
eighteenth! To return to the negro.

Although Jaaf had momentarily forgotten me, and quite forgotten my
parents, he remembered my sister, who was in the habit of seeing him so
often. In what manner he connected her with the family, it is not easy
to say; but he knew her not only by sight, but by name, and, as one
might say, by blood.

"Yes, yes," cried the old fellow, a little eagerly, '_champing_' his
thick lips together, somewhat as an alligator snaps his jaws, "yes, I
knows Miss Patty, of course. Miss Patty is werry han'some, and grows
han'somer and han'somer ebbery time I sees her--yah, yah, yah!" The
laugh of that old negro sounded startling and unnatural, yet there was
something of the joyous in it, after all, like every negro's laugh.
"Yah, yah, yah! Yes, Miss Patty won'erful han'some, and werry like Miss
Dus. I s'pose, now, Miss Patty wast born about 'e time dat Gin'ral
Washington die."

As this was a good deal more than doubling my sister's age, it produced
a common laugh among the light-hearted girls in the carriage. A gleam of
intelligence that almost amounted to a smile also shot athwart the
countenance of the Onondago, while the muscles of his face worked, but
he said nothing. I had reason to know afterwards that the tablet of his
memory retained its records better.

"What friends have you with you to-day, Jaaf," inquired my grandmother,
inclining her head towards us pedlars graciously, at the same time; a
salutation that my uncle Ro and myself rose hastily to acknowledge.

As for myself, I own honestly that I could have jumped into the vehicle
and kissed my dear grandmother's still good-looking but colourless
cheeks, and hugged Patt, and possibly some of the others, to my heart.
Uncle Ro had more command of himself; though I could see that the sound
of his venerable parent's voice, in which the tremour was barely
perceptible, was near overcoming him.

"Dese be pedlar, ma'am, I do s'pose," answered the black. "Dey's got
box wid somet'in' in him, and dey's got new kind of fiddle. Come, young
man, gib Miss Dus a tune--a libely one; sich as make an ole nigger
dance."

I drew round the hurdy-gurdy, and was beginning to flourish away, when a
gentle, sweet voice, raised a little louder than usual by eagerness,
interrupted me.

"Oh! not that thing, not that; the flute, the flute!" exclaimed Mary
Warren, blushing to the eyes at her own boldness, the instant she saw
that she was heard, and that I was about to comply.

It is hardly necessary to say that I bowed respectfully, laid down the
hurdy-gurdy, drew the flute from my pocket, and, after a few flourishes,
commenced playing one of the newest airs, or melodies, from a favourite
opera. I saw the colour rush into Martha's cheeks the moment I had got
through a bar or two, and the start she gave satisfied me that the dear
girl remembered her brother's flute. I had played on that very
instrument ever since I was sixteen, but I had made an immense progress
in the art during the five years just passed in Europe. Masters at
Naples, Paris, Vienna and London had done a great deal for me; and I
trust I shall not be thought vain if I add, that nature had done
something, too. My excellent grandmother listened in profound attention,
and all four of the girls were enchanted.

"That music is worthy of being heard in a room," observed the former, as
soon as I concluded the air; "and we shall hope to hear it this evening,
at the Nest House, if you remain anywhere near us. In the mean time, we
must pursue our airing."

As my grandmother spoke she leaned forward, and extended her hand to me,
with a benevolent smile. I advanced, received the dollar that was
offered, and, unable to command my feelings, raised the hand to my lips,
respectfully but with fervour. Had Martha's face been near me, it would
have suffered also. I suppose there was nothing in this respectful
salutation that struck the spectators as very much out of the way,
foreigners having foreign customs, but I saw a flush in my venerable
grandmother's cheek, as the carriage moved off. _She_ had noted the
warmth of the manner. My uncle had turned away, I dare say to conceal
the tears that started to his eyes, and Jaaf followed towards the door
of the hut, whither my uncle moved, in order to do the honours of the
place. This left me quite alone with the Indian.

"Why no kiss _face_ of grandmodder?" asked the Onondago, coolly and
quietly.

Had a clap of thunder broken over my head, I could not have been more
astonished! The disguise that had deceived my nearest relations--that
had baffled Seneca Newcome, and had set at naught even his sister
Opportunity--had failed to conceal me from that Indian, whose faculties
might be supposed to have been numbed with age!

"Is it possible that you know me, Susquesus!" I exclaimed, signing
towards the negro at the same time, by way of caution; "that you
remember me, at all! I should have thought this wig, these clothes,
would have concealed me."

"Sartain," answered the aged Indian, calmly. "Know young chief
soon as see him; know fader--know mudder; know gran'fader,
gran'mudder--great-gran'fader; _his_ fader, too; know all. Why
forget young chief?"

"Did you know me before I kissed my grandmother's hand, or only by that
act?"

"Know as soon as see him. What eyes good for, if don't know? Know uncle,
dere, sartain; welcome home!"

"But you will not let others know us, too, Trackless? We have always
been friends, I hope?"

"Be sure, friends. Why ole eagle, wid white head, strike young pigeon?
Nebber hatchet in 'e path between Susquesus and any of de tribe of
Ravensnest. Too ole to dig him up now."

"There are good reasons why my uncle and myself should not be known for
a few days. Perhaps you have heard something of the trouble that has
grown up between the landlords and the tenants, in the land?"

"What dat trouble?"

"The tenants are tired of paying rent, and wish to make a new bargain,
by which they can become owners of the farms on which they live."

A grim light played upon the swarthy countenance of the Indian: his lips
moved, but he uttered nothing aloud.

"Have you heard anything of this, Susquesus?"

"Little bird sing sich song in my ear--didn't like to hear it."

"And of Indians who are moving up and down the country, armed with
rifles and dressed in calico?"

"What tribe, dem Injin," asked the Trackless, with a quickness and a
fire I did not think it possible for him to retain. "What 'ey do,
marchin' 'bout?--on war-path, eh?"

"In one sense they may be said to be so. They belong to the anti-rent
tribe; do you know such a nation?"

"Poor Injin dat, b'lieve. Why come so late?--why no come when 'e foot of
Susquesus light as feather of bird?--why stay away till pale-faces
plentier dan leaf on tree, or snow in air? Hundred year ago, when dat
oak little, sich Injin might be good; now, he good for nuttin'."

"But you will keep our secret, Sus?--will not even tell the negro who we
are?"

The Trackless simply nodded his head in assent. After this he seemed to
me to sink back in a sort of brooding lethargy, as if indisposed to
pursue the subject. I left him to go to my uncle, in order to relate
what had just passed. Mr. Roger Littlepage was as much astonished as I
had been myself, at hearing that one so aged should have detected us
through disguises that had deceived our nearest of kin. But the quiet
penetration and close observation of the man had long been remarkable.
As his good faith was of proof, however, neither felt any serious
apprehension of being betrayed, as soon as he had a moment for
reflection.




CHAPTER IX.

    "He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
    A cottage of gentility;
    And the devil did grin, for his darling sin
    Is the pride that apes humility."

    _Devil's Thoughts._


It was now necessary to determine what course we ought next to pursue.
It might appear presuming in men of our pursuits to go to the Nest
before the appointed time; and did we proceed on to the village, we
should have the distance between the two places to walk over twice,
carrying our instruments and jewel-box. After a short consultation, it
was decided to visit the nearest dwellings, and to remain as near my own
house as was practicable, making an arrangement to sleep somewhere in
its immediate vicinity. Could we trust any one with our secret, our fare
would probably be all the better; but my uncle thought it most prudent
to maintain a strict incognito until he had ascertained the true state
of things in the town.

We took leave of the Indian and the negro, therefore, promising to visit
them again in the course of that or the succeeding day, and followed the
path that led to the farm-house. It was our opinion that we might, at
least, expect to meet with friends in the occupants of the home farm.
The same family had been retained in possession there for three
generations, and being hired to manage the husbandry and to take care of
the dairy, there was not the same reason for the disaffection, that was
said so generally to exist among the tenantry, prevailing among them.
The name of this family was Miller, and it consisted of the two heads
and some six or seven children, most of the latter being still quite
young.

"Tom Miller was a trusty lad, when I knew much of him," said my uncle,
as we drew near to the barn, in which we saw the party mentioned, at
work; "and he is said to have behaved well in one or two alarms they
have had at the Nest, this summer; still, it may be wiser not to let
even him into our secret as yet."

"I am quite of your mind, sir," I answered; "for who knows that he has
not just as strong a desire as any of them to own the farm on which he
lives? He is the grandson of the man who cleared it from the forest, and
has much the same title as the rest of them."

"Very true; and why should not that give him just as good a right to
claim an interest in the farm, beyond that he has got under his contract
to work it, as if he held a lease? He who holds a lease gets no right
beyond his bargain; nor does this man. The one is paid for his labour by
the excess of his receipts over the amount of his annual rent, while the
other is paid partly in what he raises, and partly in wages. In
principle there is no difference whatever, not a particle; yet I
question if the veriest demagogue in the State would venture to say that
the man, or the family, which works a farm for hire, even for a hundred
years, gets the smallest right to say he shall not quit it, if its owner
please, as soon as his term of service is up!"

"'The love of money is the root of all evil;' and when that feeling is
uppermost, one can never tell what a man will do. The bribe of a good
farm, obtained for nothing, or for an insignificant price, is sufficient
to upset the morality of even Tom Miller."

"You are right, Hugh; and here is one of the points in which our
political men betray the cloven foot. They write, and proclaim, and make
speeches, as if the anti-rent troubles grew out of the durable lease
system solely, whereas we all know that it is extended to all
descriptions of obligations given for the occupancy of land--life
leases, leases for a term of years, articles for deeds, and bonds and
mortgages. It is a wide-spread, though not yet universal attempt of
those who have the least claim to the possession of real estate, to
obtain the entire right, and that by agencies that neither the law nor
good morals will justify. It is no new expedient for partizans to place
_en evidence_ no more of their principles and intentions than suits
their purposes. But, here we are within ear-shot, and must resort to the
High Dutch. _Guten tag, guten tag_," continued uncle Ro, dropping
easily into the broken English of our masquerade, as we walked into the
barn, where Miller, two of his older boys, and a couple of hired men
were at work, grinding scythes and preparing for the approaching
hay-harvest. "It might be warm day, dis fine mornin'."

"Good day, good day," cried Miller, hastily, and glancing his eye a
little curiously at our equipments. "What have you got in your
box--essences?"

"Nein; vatches and drinkets;" setting down the box and opening it at
once, for the inspection of all present. "Von't you burchase a goot
vatch, dis bleasant mornin'?"

"Be they ra-al gold?" asked Miller, a little doubtingly. "And all them
chains and rings, be they gold too?"

"Not true golt; nein, nein, I might not say dat. But goot enough golt
for blain folks, like you and me."

"Them things would never do for the grand quality over at the big
house!" cried one of the labourers who was unknown to me, but whose name
I soon ascertained was Joshua Brigham, and who spoke with a sort of
malicious sneer that at once betrayed _he_ was no friend. "You mean 'em
for poor folks, I s'pose?"

"I means dem for any bodies dat will pay deir money for 'em," answered
my uncle. "Vould you like a vatch?"

"That would I; and a farm, too, if I could get 'em cheap," answered
Brigham, with a sneer he did not attempt to conceal. "How do you sell
farms to-day?"

"I haf got no farms; I sells drinkets and vatches, but I doesn't sell
farms. Vhat I haf got I vill sell, but I cannot sells vhat I haf not
got."

"Oh! you'll get all you want if you'll stay long enough in this country!
This is a free land, and just the place for a poor man; or it will be,
as soon as we get all the lords and aristocrats out of it."

This was the first time I had ever heard this political blarney with my
own ears, though I had understood it was often used by those who wish to
give to their own particular envy and covetousness a grand and sounding
air.

"Vell, I haf heards dat in America dere might not be any noples ant
aristocrats," put in my uncle, with an appearance of beautiful
simplicity; "and dat dere ist not ein graaf in der whole coontry."

"Oh! there's all sorts of folks here, just as they are to be found
elsewhere," cried Miller, seating himself coolly on the end of the
grindstone-frame, to open and look into the mysteries of one of the
watches. "Now, Josh Brigham, here, calls all that's above him in the
world aristocrats, but he doesn't call all that's below him his equals."

I liked that speech; and I liked the cool, decided way in which it was
uttered. It denoted, in its spirit, a man who saw things as they are,
and who was not afraid to say what he thought about them. My uncle Ro
was surprised, and that agreeably, too, and he turned to Miller to
pursue the discourse.

"Den dere might not be any nopility in America, after all?" he asked,
inquiringly.

"Yes, there's plenty of such lords as Josh here, who want to be
uppermost so plaguily that they don't stop to touch all the rounds of
the ladder. I tell him, friend, he wants to get on too fast, and that he
mustn't set up for a gentleman before he knows how to behave himself."

Josh looked a little abashed at a rebuke that came from one of his own
class, and which he must have felt, in secret, was merited. But the
demon was at work in him, and he had persuaded himself that he was the
champion of a quality as sacred as liberty, when, in fact, he was simply
and obviously doing neither more nor less than breaking the tenth
commandment. He did not like to give up, while he skirmished with
Miller, as the dog that has been beaten already two or three times
growls over a bone at the approach of his conqueror.

"Well, thank heaven," he cried, "_I_ have got some spirit in my body."

"That's very true, Joshua," answered Miller, laying down one watch and
taking up another; "but it happens to be an evil spirit."

"Now, here's them Littlepages; what makes them better than other folks?"

"You had better let the Littlepages alone, Joshua, seein' they're a
family that you know nothing at all about."

"I don't want to know them; though I _do_ happen to know all I want to
know. I despise 'em."

"No you don't, Joshy, my boy; nobody despises folks they talk so
spitefully about. What's the price of this here watch, friend?"

"Four dollars," said my uncle, eagerly, falling lower than was prudent,
in his desire to reward Miller for his good feeling and sound
sentiments. "Ja, ja--you might haf das vatch for four dollars."

"I'm afraid it isn't good for anything," returned Miller, feeling the
distrust that was natural at hearing a price so low. "Let's have another
look at its inside."

No man, probably, ever bought a watch without looking into its works
with an air of great intelligence, though none but a mechanician is any
wiser for his survey. Tom Miller acted on this principle, for the good
looks of the machine he held in his hand, and the four dollars, tempted
him sorely. It had its effect, too, on the turbulent and envious Joshua,
who seemed to understand himself very well in a bargain. Neither of the
men had supposed the watches to be of gold, for though the metal that is
in a watch does not amount to a great deal, it is usually of more value
than all that was asked for the "article" now under examination. In
point of fact, my uncle had this very watch "invoiced to him" at twice
the price he now put it at.

"And what do you ask for this?" demanded Joshua, taking up another watch
of very similar looks and of equal value to the one that Miller still
retained open in his hand. "Won't you let this go for three dollars?"

"No; der brice of dat is effery cent of forty dollars," answered uncle
Ro, stubbornly.

The two men now looked at the pedlar in surprise. Miller took the watch
from his hired man, examined it attentively, compared it with the other,
and then demanded its price anew.

"_You_ might haf eider of dem vatches for four dollars," returned my
uncle, as I thought, incautiously.

This occasioned a new surprise, though Brigham fortunately referred the
difference to a mistake.

"Oh!" he said, "I understood you to say _forty_ dollars. Four dollars is
a different matter."

"Josh," interrupted the more observant and cooler-headed Miller, "it is
high time, now, you and Peter go and look a'ter them sheep. The conch
will soon be blowing for dinner. If you want a trade, you can have one
when you get back."

Notwithstanding the plainness of his appearance and language, Tom Miller
was captain of his own company. He gave this order quietly, and in his
usual familiar way, but it was obviously to be obeyed without a
remonstrance. In a minute the two hired men were off in company, leaving
no one behind in the barn but Miller, his sons, and us two. I could see
there was a motive for all this, but did not understand it.

"Now _he's_ gone," continued Tom quietly, but laying an emphasis that
sufficiently explained his meaning, "perhaps you'll let me know the true
price of this watch. I've a mind for it, and may be we can agree."

"Four dollars," answered my uncle, distinctly. "I haf said you might haf
it for dat money, and vhat I haf said once might always be."

"I will take it, then. I almost wish you had asked eight, though four
dollars saved is suthin' for a poor man. It's so plaguy cheap I'm a
little afraid on 't; but I'll ventur'. There; there's your money, and in
hard cash."

"Dank you, sir. Won't das ladies choose to look at my drinkets?"

"Oh! if you want to deal with ladies who buy chains and rings, the Nest
House is the place. My woman wouldn't know what to do with sich things,
and don't set herself up for a fine lady at all. That chap who has just
gone for the sheep is the only great man we have about this farm."

"Ja, ja; he ist a nople in a dirty shirt: ja, ja; why hast he dem pig
feelin's?"

"I believe you have named them just as they ought to be, _pig's_
feelin's. It's because he wishes to thrust his own snout all over the
trough, and is mad when he finds anybody else's in the way. We're
getting to have plenty of such fellows up and down the country, and an
uncomfortable time they give us. Boys, I _do_ believe it will turn out,
a'ter all, that Josh is an Injin!"

"I _know_ he is," answered the oldest of the two sons, a lad of
nineteen; "where else should he be so much of nights and Sundays, but
at their trainin's?--and what was the meanin' of the calico bundle I saw
under his arm a month ago, as I told you on at the time?"

"If I find it out to be as you say, Harry, he shall tramp off of this
farm. I'll have no Injins here!"

"Vell I dought I dit see an olt Injin in a hut up yonder ast by der
woots!" put in my uncle, innocently.

"Oh! that is Susquesus, an Onondago; he is a true Injin, and a
gentleman; but we have a parcel of the mock gentry about, who are a pest
and an eye-sore to every honest man in the country. Half on 'em are
nothing but thieves in mock Injin dresses. The law is ag'in 'em, right
is ag'in 'em, and every true friend of liberty in the country ought to
be ag'in 'em."

"Vhat ist der matter in dis coontry? I hear in Europe how America ist a
free lant, ant how efery man hast his rights; but since I got here dey
do nothin' but talk of barons, and noples, and tenants, and arisdograts,
and all der bat dings I might leaf behint me, in der olt worlt."

"The plain matter is, friend, that they who have got little, en_vy_ them
that's got much; and the struggle is to see which is the strongest. On
the one side is the law, and right, and bargains, and contracts; and on
the other thousands--not of dollars, but of men. Thousands of voters;
d'ye understand?"

"Ja, ja--I oonderstands; dat ist easy enough. But vhy do dey dalk so
much of noples and arisdograts?--ist der noples and arisdograts in
America?"

"Well, I don't much understand the natur' of sich things; there
sartainly is a difference in men, and a difference in their fortun's,
and edications, and such sort of things."

"Und der law, den, favours der rich man at der cost of der poor, in
America, too, does it? Und you haf arisdograts who might not pay taxes,
and who holt all der offices, and get all der pooblic money, and who ist
petter pefore de law, in all dings, dan ast dem dat be not arisdograts?
Is it so?"

Miller laughed outright, and shook his head at this question, continuing
to examine the trinkets the whole time.

"No, no, my friend, we've not much of _that_, in this part of the world,
either. Rich men get very few offices, to begin with; for it's an
argooment in favour of a man for an office, that he's poor, and _wants_
it. Folks don't so much ask who the office wants, as who wants the
office. Then, as for taxes, there isn't much respect paid to the rich,
on that score. Young 'Squire Littlepage pays the tax on this farm
directly himself, and it's assessed half as high ag'in, all things
considered, as any other farm on his estate."

"But dat ist not right."

"Right! Who says it is?--or who thinks there is anything right about
assessments, anywhere? I have heard assessors, with my own ears, use
such words as these:--'Sich a man is rich, and can afford to pay,' and
'sich a man is poor, and it will come hard on him.' Oh! they kiver up
dishonesty, now-a-days, under all sorts of argooments."

"But der law; der rich might haf der law on deir side, surely?"

"In what way, I should like to know? Juries be everything, and juries
will go accordin' to their feelin's, as well as other men. I've seen the
things with my own eyes. The county pays just enough a-day to make poor
men like to be on juries, and they never fail to attend, while them that
can pay their fines stay away, and so leave the law pretty much in the
hands of one party. No rich man gains his cause, unless his case is so
strong it can't be helped."

I had heard this before, there being a very general complaint throughout
the country of the practical abuses connected with the jury system. I
have heard intelligent lawyers complain, that whenever a cause of any
interest is to be tried, the first question asked is not "what are the
merits?" "which has the law and the facts on his side?" but "who is
likely to be on the jury?"--thus obviously placing the composition of
the jury before either law or evidence. Systems may have a very fair
appearance on paper and as theories, that are execrable in practice. As
for juries, I believe the better opinion of the intelligent of all
countries is, that while they are a capital contrivance to resist the
abuse of power in narrow governments, in governments of a broad
constituency they have the effect, which might easily be seen, of
placing the control of the law in the hands of those who would be most
apt to abuse it; since it is adding to, instead of withstanding and
resisting the controlling authority of the State, from which, in a
popular government, most of the abuses must unavoidably proceed.

As for my uncle Ro, he was disposed to pursue the subject with Miller,
who turned out to be a discreet and conscientious man. After a very
short pause, as if to reflect on what had been said, he resumed the
discourse.

"Vhat, den, makes arisdograts in dis coontry?" asked my uncle.

"Wa-a-l"--no man but an American of New England descent, as was the case
with Miller, can give this word its attic sound--"Wa-a-l, it's hard to
say. I hear a great deal about aristocrats, and I read a great deal
about aristocrats, in this country, and I know that most folks look upon
them as hateful, but I'm by no means sartain I know what an aristocrat
is. Do you happen to know anything about it, friend?"

"Ja, ja; an arisdograt ist one of a few men dat hast all de power of de
government in deir own hands."

"King! That isn't what we think an aristocrat in this part of the world.
Why, we call them critturs here DIMIGOGUES! Now, young 'Squire
Littlepage, who owns the Nest House, over yonder, and who is owner of
all this estate, far and near, is what _we_ call an aristocrat, and he
hasn't power enough to be named town clerk, much less to anything
considerable, or what is worth having."

"How can he be an arisdograt, den?"

"How, sure enough, if your account be true! I tell you 'tis the
dimigogues that be the aristocrats of America. Why, Josh Brigham, who
has just gone for the sheep, can get more votes for any office in the
country than young Littlepage!"

"Berhaps dis young Littlebage ist a pat yoong man?"

"Not he; he's as good as any on 'em, and better than most. Besides, if
he was as wicked as Lucifer, the folks of the country don't know
anything about it, sin' he's be'n away ever sin' he has be'n a man."

"Vhy, den, gan't he haf as many votes as dat poor, ignorant fellow might
haf?--das ist ott."

"It is odd, but it's true as gospel. _Why_, it may not be so easy to
tell. Many men, many minds, you know. Some folks don't like him because
he lives in a big house; some hate him because they think he is better
off than they are themselves; others mistrust him because he wears a
fine coat; and some pretend to laugh at him because he got his property
from his father, and grand'ther, and so on, and didn't make it himself.
Accordin' to some folks' notions, now-a-days, a man ought to enj'y only
the property he heaps together himself."

"If dis be so, your Herr Littlebage ist no arisdograt."

"Wa-a-l, that isn't the idee, hereaway. We have had a great many
meetin's, latterly, about the right of the people to their farms; and
there has been a good deal of talk at them meetin's consarnin'
aristocracy and feudal tenors; do you know what a feudal tenor is, too?"

"Ja; dere ist moch of dat in Teutchland--in mine coontry. It ist not
ferry easy to explain it in a few vords, but der brincipal ding ist dat
der vassal owes a serfice to hist lort. In de olten dimes dis serfice
vast military, und dere ist someding of dat now. It ist de noples who
owe der feudal serfice, brincipally, in mine coontry, and dey owes it to
de kings and brinces."

"And don't you call giving a chicken for rent feudal service, in
Germany?"

Uncle Ro and I laughed, in spite of our efforts to the contrary, there
being a pathos in this question that was supremely ridiculous. Curbing
his merriment, however, as soon as he could, my uncle answered the
question.

"If der landlordt hast a right to coome and dake as many chickens as he
bleases, und ast often ast he bleases, den dat wouldt look like a feudal
right; but if de lease says dat so many chickens moost be paid a-year,
for der rent, vhy dat ist all der same as baying so much moneys; und it
might be easier for der tenant to bay in chicken ast it might be to bay
in der silver. Vhen a man canst bay his debts in vhat he makes himself,
he ist ferry interpentent."

"It does seem so, I vow! Yet there's folks about here, and some at
Albany, that call it feudal for a man to have to carry a pair of fowls
to the landlord's office, and the landlord an aristocrat for asking it!"

"But der man canst sent a poy, or a gal, or a nigger, wid his fowls, if
he bleases?"

"Sartain; all that is asked is that the fowls should come."

"Und vhen der batroon might owe hist tailor, or hist shoemaker, must he
not go to hist shop, or find him and bay him vhat he owes, or be suet
for der debt?"

"That's true, too; boys, put me in mind of telling that to Josh, this
evening. Yes, the greatest landlord in the land must hunt up his
creditor, or be sued, all the same as the lowest tenant."

"Und he most bay in a partic'lar ding; he most bay in golt or silver?"

"True; lawful tender is as good for one as 'tis for t'other."

"Und if your Herr Littlebage signs a baper agreein' to gif der apples
from dat orchart to somebody on his landts, most he send or carry der
apples, too?"

"To be sure; that would be the bargain."

"Und he most carry der ferry apples dat grows on dem ferry drees, might
it not be so?"

"All true as gospel. If a man contracts to sell the apples of one
orchard, he can't put off the purchaser with the apples of another."

"Und der law ist der same for one ast for anudder, in dese t'ings?"

"There is no difference; and there should be none."

"Und der batroons und der landlordts wants to haf der law changet, so
dat dey may be excuset from baying der debts accordin' to der bargains,
und to gif dem atfantages over der poor tenants?"

"I never heard anything of the sort, and don't believe they want any
such change."

"Of vhat, den, dost der beople complain?"

"Of having to pay rent at all; they think the landlords ought to be made
to sell their farms, or give them away. Some stand out for the last."

"But der landlordts don't vant to sell deir farms; und dey might not be
made to sell vhat ist deir own, and vhat dey don't vant to sell, any
more dan der tenants might be made to sell deir hogs and deir sheep,
vhen dey don't vant to sell dem."

"It does seem so, boys, as I've told the neighbours, all along. But
I'll tell this Dutchman all about it. Some folks want the State to look
a'ter the title of young Littlepage, pretending he has no title."

"But der State wilt do dat widout asking for it particularly, vill it
not?"

"I never heard that it would."

"If anybody hast a claim to der broperty, vilt not der courts try it?"

"Yes, yes--in that way; but a tenant can't set up a title ag'in his
landlord."

"Vhy should he? He canst haf no title but his landlort's, and it vould
be roguery and cheatery to let a man get into der bossession of a farm
under der pretence of hiring it, und den coome out und claim it as
owner. If any tenant dinks he hast a better right dan his landlort, he
can put der farm vhere it vast before he might be a tenant, und den der
State wilt examine into der title, I fancys."

"Yes, yes--in that way; but these men want it another way. What they
want is for the State to set up a legal examination, and turn the
landlords off altogether, if they can, and then let themselves have the
farms in their stead."

"But dat would not be honest to dem dat hafen't nothing to do wid der
farms. If der State owns der farms, it ought to get as moch as it can
for dem, and so safe _all_ der people from baying taxes. It looks like
roguery, all roundt."

"I believe it is that, and nothing else! As you say, the State will
examine into the title as it is, and there is no need of any laws about
it."

"Would der State, dink you, pass a law dat might inquire into de
demandts dat are made against der batroons, vhen der tratesmen sent in
deir bills?"

"I should like to see any patroon ask sich a thing! He would be laughed
at, from York to Buffalo."

"Und he would desarf it. By vhat I see, frient, your denants be der
arisdograts, und der landlordts der vassals."

"Why you see--what may your name be?--as we're likely to become
acquainted, I should like to know your name."

"My name is Greisenbach, und I comes from Preussen."

"Well, Mr. Greisenbach, the difficulty about aristocracy is this. Hugh
Littlepage is rich, and his money gives him advantages that other men
can't enj'y. Now, that sticks in some folks' crops."

"Oh! den it ist meant to divite broperty in dis coontry; und to say no
man might haf more ast anudder?"

"Folks don't go quite as far as that, yet; though some of their talk
does squint that-a-way, I must own. Now, there are folks about here that
complain that old Madam Littlepage and her young ladies don't visit the
poor."

"Vell, if deys be hard-hearted, und hast no feelin's for der poor and
miseraple----"

"No, no; that is not what I mean, neither. As for that sort of poor,
everybody allows they do more for _them_ than anybody else about here.
But they don't visit the poor that isn't in want."

"Vell, it ist a ferry coomfortable sort of poor dat ist not in any vant.
Berhaps you mean dey don't associate wid 'em, as equals?"

"That's it. Now, on that head, I must say there is some truth in the
charge, for the gals over at the Nest never come here to visit my gal,
and Kitty is as nice a young thing as there is about."

"Und Gitty goes to visit the gal of the man who lives over yonter, in de
house on der hill?" pointing to a residence of a man of the very
humblest class in the town.

"Hardly! Kitty's by no means proud, but I shouldn't like her to be too
thick there."

"Oh! you're an arisdograt, den, after all; else might your daughter
visit dat man's daughter."

"I tell you, Grunzebach, or whatever your name may be," returned Miller,
a little angrily, though a particularly good-natured man in the main,
"that _my_ gal shall _not_ visit old Steven's da'ghters."

"Vell, I'm sure she might do as she bleases; but I dinks der
Mademoiselles Littlepage might do ast dey pleases, too."

"There is but one Littlepage gal; if you saw them out this morning in
the carriage, you saw two York gals and parson Warren's da'ghter with
her."

"Und dis parson Warren might be rich, too?"

"Not he; he hasn't a sixpence on 'arth but what he gets from the parish.
Why he is so poor his friends had to edicate his da'ghter, I have heern
say, over and over!"

"Und das Littlepage gal und de Warren gal might be goot friends?"

"They are the thickest together of any two young women in this part of
the world. I've never seen two gals more intimate. Now, there's a young
lady in the town, one Opportunity Newcome, who, one might think, would
stand before Mary Warren at the big house, any day in the week, but she
doesn't! Mary takes all the shine out on her."

"Which ist der richest, Obbordunity or Mary?"

"By all accounts Mary Warren has nothing, while Opportunity is thought
to come next to Matty herself, as to property, of all the young gals
about here. But Opportunity is no favourite at the Nest."

"Den it would seem, after all, dat dis Miss Littlebage does not choose
her friends on account of riches. She likes Mary Warren, who ist boor,
und she does not like Obbordunity, who ist vell to do in de vorlt.
Berhaps der Littlepages be not as big arisdograts as you supposes."

Miller was bothered, while I felt a disposition to laugh. One of the
commonest errors of those who, from position and habits, are unable to
appreciate the links which connect cultivated society together, is to
refer everything to riches. Riches, in a certain sense, as a means and
through their consequences, may be a principal agent in dividing society
into classes; but, long after riches have taken wings, their fruits
remain, when good use has been made of their presence. So untrue is the
vulgar opinion--or it might be better to say the opinion of the
vulgar--that money is the one tie which unites polished society, that it
is a fact which all must know who have access to the better circles of
even our own commercial towns, that those circles, loosely and
accidentally constructed as they are, receive with reluctance, nay,
often sternly exclude, vulgar wealth from their associations, while the
door is open to the cultivated who have nothing. The young, in
particular, seldom think much of money, while family connections, early
communications, similarity of opinions, and, most of all, of tastes,
bring sets together, and often keep them together long after the golden
band has been broken.

But men have great difficulty in comprehending things that lie beyond
their reach; and money being apparent to the senses, while refinement,
through its infinite gradations, is visible principally, and, in some
cases, exclusively to its possessors, it is not surprising that common
minds should refer a tie that, to them, would otherwise be mysterious,
to the more glittering influence, and not to the less obvious. Infinite,
indeed, are the gradations of cultivated habits; nor are as many of them
the fruits of caprice and self-indulgence as men usually suppose. There
is a common sense, nay, a certain degree of wisdom, in the laws of even
etiquette, while they are confined to equals, that bespeak the respect
of those who understand them. As for the influence of associations on
men's manners, on their exteriors, and even on their opinions, my uncle
Ro has long maintained that it is so apparent that one of his time of
life could detect the man of the world, at such a place as Saratoga
even, by an intercourse of five minutes; and what is more, that he could
tell the class in life from which he originally emerged. He tried it,
the last summer, on our return from Ravensnest, and I was amused with
his success, though he made a few mistakes, it must be admitted.

"That young man comes from the better circles, but he has never
travelled," he said, alluding to one of a group which still remained at
table; "while he who is next him _has_ travelled, but commenced badly."
This may seem a very nice distinction, but I think it is easily made.
"There are two brothers, of an excellent family in Pennsylvania," he
continued, "as one might know from the name; the eldest has travelled,
the youngest has not." This was a still harder distinction to make, but
one who knew the world as well as my uncle Ro could do it. He went on
amusing me by his decisions--all of which were respectable, and some
surprisingly accurate--in this way for several minutes. Now, like has an
affinity to like, and in this natural attraction is to be found the
secret of the ordinary construction of society. You shall put two men of
superior minds in a room full of company, and they will find each other
out directly, and enjoy the accident. The same is true as to the mere
modes of thinking that characterize social castes; and it is truer in
this country, perhaps, than most others, from the mixed character of
our associations. Of the two, I am really of opinion that the man of
high intellect, who meets with one of moderate capacity, but of manners
and social opinions on a level with his own, has more pleasure in the
communication than with one of equal mind, but of inferior habits.

That Patt should cling to one like Mary Warren seemed to me quite as
natural as that she should be averse to much association with
Opportunity Newcome. The money of the latter, had my sister been in the
least liable to such an influence, was so much below what she had been
accustomed, all her life, to consider affluence, that it would have had
no effect, even had she been subject to so low a consideration in
regulating her intercourse with others. But this poor Tom Miller could
not understand. He could "only reason from what he knew," and he knew
little of the comparative notions of wealth, and less of the powers of
cultivation on the mind and manners. He was struck, however, with a fact
that did come completely within the circle of his own knowledge, and
that was the circumstance that Mary Warren, while admitted to be poor,
was the bosom friend of her whom he was pleased to call, sometimes, the
"Littlepage gal." It was easy to see he felt the force of this
circumstance; and it is to be hoped that, as he was certainly a wiser,
he also became a better man, on one of the most common of the weaknesses
of human frailty.

"Wa-a-l," he replied to my uncle's last remark, after fully a minute of
silent reflection, "I don't know! It would seem so, I vow; and yet it
hasn't been my wife's notion, nor is it Kitty's. You're quite upsetting
my idees about aristocrats; for though I like the Littlepages, I've
always set 'em down as desp'rate aristocrats."

"Nein, nein; dem as vat you calls dimigogues be der American
arisdograts. Dey gets all der money of der pooblic, and haf all der
power, but dey gets a little mads because dey might not force demselves
on der gentlemen and laties of der coontry, as vell as on der lands und
der offices!"

"I swan! I don't know but this may be true! A'ter all, I don't know what
right anybody has to complain of the Littlepages."

"Does dey dreat beoples vell, as might coome to see dem?"

"Yes, indeed! if folks treat _them_ well, as sometimes doesn't happen.
I've seen hogs here"--Tom was a little Saxon in his figures, but their
nature will prove their justification--"I've seen hogs about here, bolt
right in before old Madam Littlepage, and draw their chairs up to her
fire, and squirt about the tobacco, and never think of even taking off
their hats. Them folks be always huffy about their own importance,
though they never think of other people's feelin's."

We were interrupted by the sound of wheels, and looking round, we
perceived that the carriage of my grandmother had driven up to the
farm-house door, on its return home. Miller conceived it to be no more
than proper to go and see if he were wanted, and we followed him slowly,
it being the intention of my uncle to offer his mother a watch, by way
of ascertaining if she could penetrate his disguise.




CHAPTER X.

    "Will you buy any tape,
    Or lace for your cape?--
    Come to the pedlar,
    Money's a medler
    That doth utter all men's ware-a."

    _Winter's Tale._


There they sat, those four young creatures, a perfect galaxy of bright
and beaming eyes. There was not a plain face among them; and I was
struck with the circumstance of how rare it was to meet with a youthful
and positively ugly American female. Kitty, too, was at the door by the
time we reached the carriage, and she also was a blooming and
attractive-looking girl. It was a thousand pities that she spoke,
however; the vulgarity of her utterance, tone of voice, cadences, and
accent, the latter a sort of singing whine, being in striking contrast
to a sort of healthful and vigorous delicacy that marked her
appearance. All the bright eyes grew brighter as I drew nearer, carrying
the flute in my hand; but neither of the young ladies spoke.

"Buy a vatch, ma'ams," said uncle Ro, approaching his mother, cap in
hand, with his box open.

"I thank you, friend; but I believe all here are provided with watches
already."

"Mine ist ferry sheaps."

"I dare say they may be," returned dear grandmother, smiling; "though
cheap watches are not usually the best. Is that very pretty pencil
gold?"

"Yes, ma'ams; it ist of _goot_ gold. If it might not be, I might not say
so."

I saw suppressed smiles among the girls; all of whom, however, were too
well-bred to betray to common observers the sense of the ridiculous that
each felt at the equivoque that suggested itself in my uncle's words.

"What is the price of this pencil," asked my grandmother.

Uncle Roger had too much tact to think of inducing his mother to make a
purchase as he had influenced Miller, and he mentioned something near
the true value of the "article," which was fifteen dollars.

"I will take it," returned my grandmother, dropping three half eagles
into the box; when, turning to Mary Warren, she begged her acceptance of
the pencil, with as much respect in her manner as if she solicited
instead of conferred a favour.

Mary Warren's handsome face was covered with blushes; she looked
pleased, and she accepted the offering, though I thought she hesitated
one moment about the propriety of so doing, most probably on account of
its value. My sister asked to look at this little present, and after
admiring it, it passed from hand to hand, each praising its shape and
ornaments. All my uncle's wares, indeed, were in perfect good taste, the
purchase having been made of an importer of character, and paid for at
some cost. The watches, it is true, were, with one or two exceptions,
cheap, as were most of the trinkets; but my uncle had about his person a
watch, or two, and some fine jewelry, that he had brought from Europe
himself, expressly to bestow in presents, among which had been the
pencil in question, and which he had dropped into the box but a moment
before it was sold.

"Wa-a-l, Madam Littlepage," cried Miller, who used the familiarity of
one born on the estate, "this is the queerest watch-pedlar I've met
with, yet. He asks fifteen dollars for that pencil, and only four for
this watch!" showing his own purchase as he concluded.

My grandmother took the watch in her hand, and examined it attentively.

"It strikes me as singularly cheap!" she remarked, glancing a little
distrustfully, as I fancied, at her son, as if she thought he might be
selling his brushes cheaper than those who only stole the materials,
because he stole them ready made. "I know that these watches are made
for very little in the cheap countries of Europe, but one can hardly see
how this machinery was put together for so small a sum."

"I has 'em, matam, at all brices," put in my uncle.

"I have a strong desire to purchase a _good_ lady's watch, but should a
little fear buying of any but a known and regular dealer."

"You needn't fear us, ma'am," I ventured to say. "If we might sheat
anypodies, we shouldn't sheat so goot a laty."

I do not know whether my voice struck Patt's ear pleasantly, or a wish
to see the project of her grandmother carried out at once, induced my
sister to interfere; but interfere she did, and that by urging her aged
parent to put confidence in us. Years had taught my grandmother caution,
and she hesitated.

"But all these watches are of base metal, and I want one of good gold
and handsome finish," observed my grandmother.

My uncle immediately produced a watch that he had bought of Blondel, in
Paris, for five hundred francs, and which was a beautiful little
ornament for a lady's belt. He gave it to my grandmother, who read the
name of the manufacturer with some little surprise. The watch itself was
then examined attentively, and was applauded by all.

"And what may be the price of this?" demanded my grandmother.

"One hoondred dollars, matam; and sheaps at dat."

Tom Miller looked at the bit of tinsel in his own hand, and at the
smaller, but exquisitely-shaped "article" that my grandmother held up to
look at, suspended by its bit of ribbon, and was quite as much puzzled
as he had evidently been a little while before, in his distinctions
between the rich and the poor. Tom was not able to distinguish the base
from the true; that was all.

My grandmother did not appear at all alarmed at the price, though she
cast another distrustful glance or two, over her spectacles, at the
imaginary pedlar. At length the beauty of the watch overcame her.

"If you will bring this watch to yonder large dwelling, I will pay you
the hundred dollars for it," she said; "I have not as much money with me
here."

"Ja, ja--ferry goot; you might keep das vatch, laty, and I will coome
for der money after I haf got some dinners of somebodys."

My grandmother had no scruple about accepting of the credit, of course,
and she was about to put the watch in her pocket, when Patt laid her
little gloved hand on it, and cried--

"Now, dearest grandmother, let it be done at once--there is no one but
us three present, you know!"

"Such is the impatience of a child!" exclaimed the elder lady, laughing.
"Well, you shall be indulged. I gave you that pencil for a keep-sake,
Mary, only _en attendant_, it having been my intention to offer a watch,
as soon as a suitable one could be found, as a memorial of the sense I
entertain of the spirit you showed during that dark week in which the
anti-renters were so menacing. Here, then, is such a watch as I might
presume to ask you to have the goodness to accept."

Mary Warren seemed astounded! The colour mounted to her temples; then
she became suddenly pale. I had never seen so pretty a picture of gentle
female distress--a distress that arose from conflicting, but creditable
feelings.

"Oh! Mrs. Littlepage!" she exclaimed, after looking in astonishment at
the offering for a moment, and in silence. "You cannot have intended
that beautiful watch for me!"

"For you, my dear; the beautiful watch is not a whit too good for my
beautiful Mary."

"But, dear, _dear_ Mrs. Littlepage, it is altogether too handsome for my
station--for my means."

"A lady can very well wear such a watch; and you are a lady in every
sense of the word, and so you need have no scruples on that account. As
for the means, you will not misunderstand me if I remind you that it
will be bought with my means, and there can be no extravagance in the
purchase."

"But we are so poor, and that watch has so rich an appearance! It
scarcely seems right."

"I respect your feelings and sentiments, my dear girl, and can
appreciate them. I suppose you know I was once as poor, nay, much poorer
than you are, yourself."

"You, Mrs. Littlepage! No, that can hardly be. You are of an affluent
and very respectable family, I know."

"It is quite true, nevertheless, my dear. I shall not affect extreme
humility, and deny that the Malbones did and do belong to the gentry of
the land, but my brother and myself were once so much reduced as to toil
with the surveyors, in the woods, quite near this property. We had then
no claim superior to yours, and in many respects were reduced much
lower. Besides, the daughter of an educated and well-connected clergyman
has claims that, in a worldly point of view alone, entitle her to a
certain consideration. You will do me the favour to accept my offering?"

"Dear Mrs. Littlepage! I do not know how to refuse _you_, or how to
accept so rich a gift! You will let me consult my father, first?"

"That will be no more than proper, my dear," returned my beloved
grandmother, quietly putting the watch into her own pocket; "Mr. Warren,
luckily, dines with us, and the matter can be settled before we sit down
to table."

This ended the discussion, which had commenced under an impulse of
feeling that left us all its auditors. As for my uncle and myself, it is
scarcely necessary to say we were delighted with the little scene. The
benevolent wish to gratify, on the one side, with the natural scruples
on the other, about receiving, made a perfect picture for our
contemplation. The three girls, who were witnesses of what passed, too
much respected Mary's feelings to interfere, though Patt restrained
herself with difficulty. As to Tom Miller and Kitty, they doubtless
wondered why "Warren's gal" was such a fool as to hesitate about
accepting a watch that was worth a hundred dollars. This was another
point they did not understand.

"You spoke of dinner," continued my grandmother, looking at my uncle.
"If you and your companion will follow us to the house, I will pay you
for the watch, and order you a dinner in the bargain."

We were right down glad to accept this offer, making our bows and
expressing our thanks, as the carriage whirled off. We remained a
moment, to take our leave of Miller.

"When you've got through at the Nest," said that semi-worthy fellow,
"give us another call here. I should like my woman and Kitty to have a
look at your finery, before you go down to the village with it."

With a promise to return to the farm-house, we proceeded on our way to
the building which, in the familiar parlance of the country, was called
the Nest, or the Nest House, from Ravensnest, its true name, and which
Tom Miller, in his country dialect, called the "Neest." The distance
between the two buildings was less than half a mile, the grounds of the
family residence lying partly between them. Many persons would have
called the extensive lawns which surrounded my paternal abode a park,
but it never bore that name with us. They were too large for a paddock,
and might very well have come under the former appellation; but, as
deer, or animals of any sort, except those that are domestic, had never
been kept within it, the name had not been used. We called them the
grounds--a term which applies equally to large and small enclosures of
this nature--while the broad expanse of verdure which lies directly
under the windows goes by the name of the lawn. Notwithstanding the
cheapness of land among us, there has been very little progress made in
the art of landscape gardening; and if we have anything like park
scenery, it is far more owing to the gifts of a bountiful nature than to
any of the suggestions of art. Thanks to the cultivated taste of
Downing, as well as to his well-directed labours, this reproach is
likely to be soon removed, and country life will acquire this pleasure,
among the many others that are so peculiarly its own. After lying for
more than twenty years--a stigma on the national taste--disfigured by
ravines or gullies, and otherwise in a rude and discreditable condition,
the grounds of the White House have been brought into a condition to
denote that they are the property of a civilized country. The Americans
are as apt at imitation as the Chinese, with a far greater disposition
to admit of change; and little beyond good models are required to set
them on the right track. But it is certain that, as a nation, we have
yet to acquire nearly all that belongs to the art I have mentioned that
lies beyond avenues of trees, with an occasional tuft of shrubbery. The
abundance of the latter, that forms the wilderness of sweets, the
_masses_ of flowers that spot the surface of Europe, the beauty of
curved lines, and the whole finesse of surprises, reliefs, back-grounds
and vistas, are things so little known among us as to be almost
"arisdogratic," as my uncle Ro would call the word.

Little else had been done at Ravensnest than to profit by the native
growth of the trees, and to take advantage of the favourable
circumstances in the formation of the grounds. Most travellers imagine
that it might be an easy thing to lay out a park in the virgin forest,
as the axe might spare the thickets, and copses, and woods, that
elsewhere are the fruits of time and planting. This is all a mistake,
however, as the rule; though modified exceptions may and do exist. The
tree of the American forest shoots upward toward the light, growing so
tall and slender as to be unsightly; and even when time has given its
trunk is due size, the top is rarely of a breadth to ornament a park or
a lawn, while its roots, seeking their nourishment in the rich alluvium
formed by the decayed leaves of a thousand years, lie too near the
surface to afford sufficient support after losing the shelter of its
neighbours. It is owing to reasons like these that the ornamental
grounds of an American country-house have usually to be commenced _ab
origine_, and that natural causes so little aid in finishing them.

My predecessors had done a little towards assisting nature, at the Nest,
and what was of almost equal importance, in the state of knowledge on
this subject as it existed in the country sixty years since, they had
done little to mar her efforts. The results were, that the grounds of
Ravensnest possess a breadth that is the fruit of the breadth of our
lands, and a rural beauty which, without being much aided by art, was
still attractive. The herbage was kept short by sheep, of which one
thousand, of the fine wool, were feeding on the lawns, along the slopes,
and particularly on the distant heights, as we crossed the grounds on
our way to the doors.

The Nest House was a respectable New York country dwelling, as such
buildings were constructed among us in the last quarter of the past
century, a little improved and enlarged by the second and third
generations of its owners. The material was of stone, the low cliff on
which it stood supplying enough of an excellent quality; and the shape
of the main _corps de batiment_ as near a square as might be. Each face
of this part of the constructions offered five windows to view, this
being almost the prescribed number for a country residence in that day,
as three have since got to be in towns. These windows, however, had some
size, the main building being just sixty feet square, which was about
ten feet in each direction larger than was common so soon after the
revolution. But wings had been added to the original building, and that
on a plan which conformed to the shape of a structure in square logs,
that had been its predecessor on its immediate site. These wings were
only of a story and a half each, and doubling on each side of the main
edifice just far enough to form a sufficient communication, they ran
back to the very verge of a cliff some forty feet in height,
overlooking, at their respective ends, a meandering rivulet, and a wide
expanse of very productive flats, that annually filled my barns with hay
and my cribs with corn. Of this level and fertile bottom-land there was
near a thousand acres, stretching in three directions, of which two
hundred belonged to what was called the Nest Farm. The remainder was
divided among the farms of the adjacent tenantry. This little
circumstance, among the thousand-and-one other atrocities that were
charged upon me, had been made a ground of accusation, to which I shall
presently have occasion to advert. I shall do this the more readily,
because the fact has not yet reached the ears and set in motion the
tongues of legislators--Heaven bless us, how words do get corrupted by
too much use!--in their enumeration of the griefs of the tenants of the
State.

Everything about the Nest was kept in perfect order, and in a condition
to do credit to the energy and taste of my grandmother, who had ordered
all these things for the last few years, or since the death of my
grandfather. This circumstance, connected with the fact that the
building was larger and more costly than those of most of the other
citizens of the country, had, of late years, caused Ravensnest to be
termed an "aristocratic residence." This word "aristocratic," I find
since my return home, has got to be a term of expansive signification,
its meaning depending on the particular habits and opinions of the
person who happens to use it. Thus, he who chews tobacco thinks it
aristocratic in him who deems the practice nasty not to do the same; the
man who stoops accuses him who is straight in the back of having
aristocratic shoulders; and I have actually met with one individual who
maintained that it was excessively aristocratic to pretend not to blow
one's nose with his fingers. It will soon be aristocratic to maintain
the truth of the familiar Latin axiom of "_de gustibus non disputandum
est_."

As we approached the door of the Nest House, which opened on the piazza
that stretched along three sides of the main building, and the outer
ends of both wings, the coachman was walking his horses away from it, on
the road that led to the stables. The party of ladies had made a
considerable circuit after quitting the farm, and had arrived but a
minute before us. All the girls but Mary Warren had entered the house,
careless on the subject of the approach of two pedlars; she remained,
however, at the side of my grandmother, to receive us.

"I believe in my soul," whispered uncle Ro, "that my dear old mother has
a secret presentiment who we are, by her manifesting so much
respect.--T'ousand t'anks, matam, t'ousand t'anks," he continued,
dropping into his half-accurate half-blundering broken English, "for dis
great honour, such as we might not expect das laty of das house to wait
for us at her door."

"This young lady tells me that she has seen you before, and that she
understands you are both persons of education and good manners, who have
been driven from your native country by political troubles. Such being
the case, I cannot regard you as common pedlars. I have known what it
was to be reduced in fortune,"--my dear grandmother's voice trembled a
little--"and can feel for those who thus suffer."

"Matam, dere might be moch trut' in some of dis," answered my uncle,
taking off his cap, and bowing very much like a gentleman, an act in
which I imitated him immediately. "We _haf_ seen petter tays; and my
son, dere, hast peen edicatet at an university. But we are now poor
pedlars of vatches, und dem dat might make moosic in der streets."

My grandmother looked as a lady would look under such circumstances,
neither too free to forget present appearances, nor coldly neglectful of
the past. She knew that something was due to her own household, and to
the example she ought to set it, while she felt that far more was due to
the sentiment that unites the cultivated. We were asked into the house,
were told a table was preparing for us, and were treated with a generous
and considerate hospitality that involved no descent from her own
character, or that of the sex; the last being committed to the keeping
of every lady.

In the mean time, business proceeded with my uncle. He was paid his
hundred dollars; and all his stores of value, including rings, brooches,
ear-rings, chains, bracelets, and other trinkets that he had intended as
presents to his wards, were produced from his pockets, and laid before
the bright eyes of the three girls--Mary Warren keeping in the back
ground, as one who ought not to look on things unsuited to her fortune.
Her father had arrived, however, had been consulted, and the pretty
watch was already attached to the girdle of the prettier waist. I
fancied the tear of gratitude that still floated in her serene eyes was
a jewel of far higher price than any my uncle could exhibit.

We had been shown into the library, a room that was in the front of the
house, and of which the windows all opened on the piazza. I was at first
a little overcome, at thus finding myself, and unrecognized, under the
paternal roof, and in a dwelling that was my own, after so many years of
absence. Shall I confess it! Everything appeared diminutive and mean,
after the buildings to which I had been accustomed in the old world. I
am not now drawing comparisons with the palaces of princes, and the
abodes of the great, as the American is apt to fancy, whenever anything
is named that is superior to the things to which he is accustomed; but
to the style, dwellings, and appliances of domestic life that pertain to
those of other countries who have not a claim in anything to be
accounted my superiors--scarcely my equals. In a word, American
aristocracy, or that which it is getting to be the fashion to stigmatize
as aristocratic, would be deemed very democratic in most of the nations
of Europe. Our Swiss brethren have their chateaux and their habits that
are a hundred times more aristocratic than anything about Ravensnest,
without giving offence to liberty; and I feel persuaded, were the
proudest establishment in all America pointed out to a European as an
aristocratic abode, he would be very apt to laugh at it, in his sleeve.
The secret of this charge among ourselves is the innate dislike which is
growing up in the country to see any man distinguished from the mass
around him in anything, even though it should be in merit. It is nothing
but the expansion of the principle which gave rise to the traditionary
feud between the "plebeians and patricians" of Albany, at the
commencement of this century, and which has now descended so much
farther than was then contemplated by the _soi-disant_ "plebeians" of
that day, as to become quite disagreeable to their own descendants. But
to return to myself--

I will own that, so far from finding any grounds of exultation in my own
aristocratical splendour, when I came to view my possessions at home, I
felt mortified and disappointed. The things that I had fancied really
respectable, and even fine, from recollection, now appeared very
common-place, and in many particulars mean. "Really," I found myself
saying _sotto voce_, "all this is scarcely worthy of being the cause of
deserting the right, setting sound principles at defiance, and of
forgetting God and his commandments!" Perhaps I was too inexperienced to
comprehend how capacious is the maw of the covetous man, and how
microscopic the eye of envy.

"You are welcome to Ravensnest," said Mr. Warren, approaching and
offering his hand in a friendly way, much as he would address any other
young friend; "we arrived a little before you, and I have had my ears
and eyes open ever since, in the hope of hearing your flute, and of
seeing your form in the highway, near the parsonage, where you promised
to visit me."

Mary was standing at her father's elbow, as when I first saw her, and
she gazed wistfully at my flute, as she would not have done had she seen
me in my proper attire, assuming my proper character.

"I danks you, sir," was my answer. "We might haf plenty of times for a
little moosic, vhen das laties shall be pleaset to say so. I canst blay
Yankee Doodle, Hail Coloombias, and der 'Star Spangled Banner,' und all
dem airs, as dey so moch likes at der taverns and on der road."

Mr. Warren laughed, and he took the flute from my hand, and began to
examine it. I now trembled for the incognito! The instrument had been
mine for many years, and was a very capital one, with silver keys,
stops, and ornaments. What if Patt--what if my dear grandmother should
recognise it! I would have given the handsomest trinket in my uncle's
collection to get the flute back again into my own hands; but, before an
opportunity offered for that, it went from hand to hand, as the
instrument that had produced the charming sounds heard that morning,
until it reached those of Martha. The dear girl was thinking of the
jewelry, which, it will be remembered, was rich, and intended in part
for herself, and she passed the instrument on, saying, hurriedly,--

"See, dear grandmother, this is the flute which you pronounced the
sweetest toned of any you had ever heard!"

My grandmother took the flute, started, put her spectacles closer to her
eyes, examined the instrument, turned pale--for her cheeks still
retained a little of the colour of their youth--and then cast a glance
hurriedly and anxiously at me. I could see that she was pondering on
something profoundly in her most secret mind, for a minute or two.
Luckily the others were too much occupied with the box of the pedlar to
heed her movements. She walked slowly out of the door, almost brushing
me as she passed, and went into the hall. Here she turned, and, catching
my eye, she signed for me to join her. Obeying this signal, I followed,
until I was led into a little room, in one of the wings, that I well
remembered as a sort of private parlour attached to my grandmother's own
bed-room. To call it a _boudoir_ would be to caricature things, its
furniture being just that of the sort of room I have mentioned, or of a
plain, neat, comfortable, country parlour. Here my grandmother took her
seat on a sofa, for she trembled so she could not stand, and then she
turned to gaze at me wistfully, and with an anxiety it would be
difficult for me to describe.

"Do not keep me in suspense!" she said, almost awfully in tone and
manner, "am I right in my conjecture?"

"Dearest grandmother, you are!" I answered, in my natural voice.

No more was needed: we hung on each other's necks, as had been my wont
in boyhood.

"But who is that pedlar, Hugh?" demanded my grandmother, after a time.
"Can it possibly be Roger, my son?"

"It is no other; we have come to visit you, incog."

"And why this disguise?--Is it connected with the troubles?"

"Certainly; we have wished to take a near view with our own eyes, and
supposed it might be unwise to come openly, in our proper characters."

"In this you have done well; yet I hardly know how to welcome you, in
your present characters. On no account must your real names be revealed.
The demons of tar and feathers, the sons of liberty and equality, who
illustrate their principles as they do their courage, by attacking the
few with the many, would be stirring, fancying themselves heroes and
martyrs in the cause of justice, did they learn you were here. Ten armed
and resolute men might drive a hundred of them, I do believe; for they
have all the cowardice of thieves, but they are heroes with the unarmed
and feeble. Are you safe, yourselves, appearing thus disguised, under
the new law?"

"We are not armed, not having so much as a pistol; and that will protect
us."

"I am sorry to say, Hugh, that this country is no longer what I once
knew it. Its justice, if not wholly departed, is taking to itself wings,
and its blindness, not in a disregard of persons, but in a faculty of
seeing only the stronger side. A landlord, in my opinion, would have but
little hope, with jury, judge, or executive, for doing that which
thousands of the tenants have done, still do, and will continue to do,
with perfect impunity, unless some dire catastrophe stimulates the
public functionaries to their duties, by awakening public indignation."

"This is a miserable state of things, dearest grandmother; and what
makes it worse, is the cool indifference with which most persons regard
it. A better illustration of the utter selfishness of human nature
cannot be given, than in the manner in which the body of the people look
on, and see wrong thus done to a few of their number."

"Such persons as Mr. Seneca Newcome would answer, that the public
sympathises with the poor, who are oppressed by the rich, because the
last do not wish to let the first rob them of their estates! We hear a
great deal of the strong robbing the weak, all over the world, but few
among ourselves, I am afraid, are sufficiently clear-sighted to see how
vivid an instance of the truth now exists among ourselves."

"Calling the tenants the strong, and the landlords the weak?"

"Certainly; numbers make strength, in this country, in which all power
in practice, and most of it in theory, rests with the majority. Were
there as many landlords as there are tenants, my life on it, no one
would see the least injustice in the present state of things."

"So says my uncle: but I hear the light steps of the girls--we must be
on our guard."

At that instant Martha entered, followed by all three of the girls,
holding in her hand a very beautiful Manilla chain that my uncle had
picked up in his travels, and had purchased as a present to my future
wife, whomsoever she might turn out to be, and which he had had the
indiscretion to show to his ward. A look of surprise was cast by each
girl in succession, as she entered the room, on me, but neither said,
and I fancy neither thought much of my being shut up there with an old
lady of eighty, after the first moment. Other thoughts were uppermost at
the moment.

"Look at this, dearest grandmamma!" cried Patt, holding up the chain as
she entered the room. "Here is just the most exquisite chain that was
ever wrought, and of the purest gold; but the pedlar refuses to part
with it!"

"Perhaps you do not offer enough, my child; it is, indeed, very, very
beautiful; pray what does he say is its value?"

"One hundred dollars, he says; and I can readily believe it, for its
weight is near half the money. I do wish Hugh were at home; I am certain
he would contrive to get it, and make it a present to me!"

"Nein, nein, young lady," put in the pedlar, who, a little
unceremoniously, had followed the girls into the room, though he knew,
of course, precisely where he was coming; "dat might not be. Dat chain
is der broperty of my son, t'ere, und I haf sworn it shalt only be gifen
to his wife."

Patt coloured a little, and she pouted a good deal; then she laughed
outright.

"If it is only to be had on those conditions, I am afraid I shall never
own it," she said, saucily, though it was intended to be uttered so low
as not to reach my ears. "I will pay the hundred dollars out of my own
pocket-money, however, if that will buy it. Do say a good word for me,
grandmamma!"

How prettily the hussy uttered that word of endearment, so different
from the "paw" and "maw" one hears among the dirty-noses that are to be
found in the mud-puddles! But our grand-parent was puzzled, for she knew
with whom she had to deal, and of course saw that money would do
nothing. Nevertheless, the state of the game rendered it necessary to
say and do something that might have an appearance of complying with
Patty's request.

"Can I have more success in persuading you to change your mind, sir?"
she said, looking at her son in a way that let him know at once, or at
least made him suspect at once, that she was in his secret. "It would
give me great pleasure to be able to gratify my grand-daughter, by
making her a present of so beautiful a chain."

My uncle Ro advanced to his mother, took the hand she had extended with
the chain in it, in order the better to admire the trinket, and he
kissed it with a profound respect, but in such a manner as to make it
seem to the lookers-on an act of European usage, rather than what it
was, the tempered salute of a child to his parent.

"Laty," he then said, with emphasis, "if anyboty might make me change a
resolution long since made, it would be one as fenerable, und gracious,
und goot as I am sartain you most be. But I haf vowet to gif dat chain
to das wife of mine son, vhen he might marry, one day, some bretty young
American; und it might not be."

Dear grandmother smiled; but now she understood that it was really
intended the chain was to be an offering to my wife, she no longer
wished to change its destination. She examined the bauble a few moments,
and said to me--

"Do you wish this, as well as your un--father, I should say? It is a
rich present for a poor man to make."

"Ja, ja, laty, it ist so; but vhen der heart goes, golt might be t'ought
sheap to go wid it."

The old lady was half ready to laugh in my face, at hearing this attempt
at Germanic English; but the kindness, and delight, and benevolent
tenderness of her still fine eyes, made me wish to throw myself in her
arms again, and kiss her. Patt continued to _bouder_ for a moment or two
longer, but her excellent nature soon gave in, and the smiles returned
to her countenance, as the sun issues from behind a cloud in May.

"Well, the disappointment may and must be borne," she said,
good-naturedly; "though it is much the most lovely chain I have ever
seen."

"I dare say the right person will one day find one quite as lovely to
present to you!" said Henrietta Coldbrook, a little pointedly.

I did not like this speech. It was an allusion that a well-bred young
woman ought not to have made, at least before others, even pedlars; and
it was one that a young woman of a proper tone of feeling would not be
apt to make. I determined from that instant the chain should never
belong to Miss Henrietta, though she was a fine, showy girl, and though
such a decision would disappoint my uncle sadly. I was a little
surprised to see a slight blush on Patt's cheek, and then I remembered
something of the name of the traveller, Beekman. Turning towards Mary
Warren, I saw plain enough that she was disappointed because my sister
was disappointed, and for no other reason in the world.

"Your grandmother will meet with another chain, when she goes to town,
that will make you forget this," she whispered, affectionately, close
at my sister's ear.

Patt smiled, and kissed her friend with a warmth of manner that
satisfied me these two charming young creatures loved each other
sincerely. But my dear old grandmother's curiosity had been awakened,
and she felt a necessity for having it appeased. She still held the
chain, and as she returned it to me, who happened to be nearest to her,
she said--

"And so, sir, your mind is sincerely made up to offer this chain to your
future wife?"

"Yes, laty; or what might be better, to das yoong frau, before we might
be marriet."

"And is your choice made?" glancing round at the girls, who were grouped
together, looking at some other trinkets of my uncle's. "Have you chosen
the young woman who is to possess so handsome a chain?"

"Nein, nein," I answered, returning the smile, and glancing also at the
group; "dere ist so many peautiful laties in America, one needn't be in
a hurry. In goot time I shalt find her dat ist intended for me."

"Well, grandmamma," interrupted Patt, "since nobody can have the chain,
unless on certain conditions, here are the three other things that we
have chosen for Ann, Henrietta, and myself, and they are a ring, a pair
of bracelets, and a pair of ear-rings. The cost, altogether, will be two
hundred dollars; can you approve of that?"

My grandmother, now she knew who was the pedlar, understood the whole
matter, and had no scruples. The bargain was soon made, when she sent us
all out of the room, under the pretence we should disturb her while
settling with the watch-seller. Her real object, however, was to be
alone with her son, not a dollar passing between them, of course.




CHAPTER XI.

    "Our life was changed. Another love
        In its lone woof began to twine;
    But oh! the golden thread was wove
        Between my sister's heart and mine."

    WILLIS.


Half an hour later, uncle Ro and myself were seated at table, eating our
dinners as quietly as if we were in an inn. The footman who had set the
table was an old family servant, one who had performed the same sort of
duty in that very house for a quarter of a century. Of course he was not
an American, no _man_ of American birth ever remaining so long a time in
an inferior station, or in any station so low as that of a
house-servant. If he has good qualities enough to render it desirable to
keep him, he is almost certain to go up in the world; if not, one does
not care particularly about having him. But Europeans are less elastic
and less ambitious, and it is no uncommon thing to find one of such an
origin remaining a long time in the same service. Such had been the fact
with this man, who had followed my own parents from Europe, when they
returned from their marriage tour, and had been in the house on the
occasion of my birth. From that time he had continued at the Nest, never
marrying, nor ever manifesting the smallest wish for any change. He was
an Englishman by birth; and what is very unusual in a servant of that
country, when transferred to America, the "letting-up," which is certain
to attend such a change from the depression of the original condition to
that in which he is so suddenly placed, had not made him saucy. An
American is seldom what is called impudent, under any circumstances; he
is careless, nay ignorant of forms; pays little or no purely
conventional respect; does not understand half the social distinctions
which exist among the higher classes of even his own countrymen, and
fancies there are equalities in things about which, in truth, there is
great inequality between himself and others, merely because he has been
taught that all men are equal in rights; but he is so unconscious of any
pressure as seldom to feel a disposition to revenge himself by
impudence.

But, while John was not impudent either, he had a footman's feeling
towards those whom he fancied no better than himself. He had set the
table with his customary neatness and method, and he served the soup
with as much regularity as he would have done had we sat there in our
proper characters, but then he withdrew. He probably remembered that the
landlord, or upper servant of an English hotel, is apt to make his
appearance with the soup, and to disappear as that disappears. So it was
with John; after removing the soup, he put a dumb-waiter near my uncle,
touched a carving-knife or two, as much as to say "help yourselves," and
quitted the room. As a matter of course, our dinner was not a very
elaborate one, it wanting two or three hours to the regular time of
dining, though my grandmother had ordered, in my hearing, one or two
delicacies to be placed on the table, that had surprised Patt. Among the
extraordinary things for such guests was wine. The singularity, however,
was a little explained by the quality commanded, which was Rhenish.

My uncle Ro was a little surprised at the disappearance of John; for,
seated in that room, he was so accustomed to his face, that it appeared
as if he were not half at home without him.

"Let the fellow go," he said, withdrawing his hand from the bell-cord,
which he had already touched to order him back again; "we can talk more
freely without him. Well, Hugh, here you are, under your own roof,
eating a charitable dinner, and treated as hospitably as if you did not
own all you can see for a circle of five miles around you. It was a
lucky idea of the old lady's, by the way, to think of ordering this
Rudesheimer, in our character of Dutchmen! How amazingly well she is
looking, boy!"

"Indeed she is; and I am delighted to see it. I do not know why my
grandmother may not live these twenty years; for even that would not
make her near as old as Sus, who, I have often heard her say, was a
middle-aged man when she was born."

"True; she seems like an elder sister to me, rather than as a mother,
and is altogether a most delightful old woman. But, if we had so
charming an old woman to receive us, so are there also some very
charming _young_ women--hey, Hugh?"

"I am quite of your way of thinking, sir; and must say I have not, in
many a day, seen two as charming creatures as I have met with here."

"_Two_!--umph; a body would think _one_ might suffice. Pray, which may
be the two, Master Padishah?"

"Patt and Mary Warren, of course. The other two are well enough, but
these two are excellent."

My uncle Ro looked grum, but he said nothing for some time. Eating is
always an excuse for a broken conversation, and he ate away as if
resolute not to betray his disappointment. But it is a hard matter for a
gentleman to do nothing but eat at table, and so was obliged to talk.

"Everything looks well here, after all, Hugh," observed my uncle. "These
anti-renters may have done an infinite deal of harm in the way of
abusing principles, but they do not seem to have yet destroyed any
material things."

"It is not their cue, sir. The crops are their own; and as they hope to
own the farms, it would be scarcely wise to injure what, no doubt, they
begin to look on as their own property, too. As for the Nest House,
grounds, farm, &c., I dare say they will be very willing to leave me
them for a while longer, provided they can get everything else away from
me."

"For a time longer, at least; though that is the folly of those who
expect to get along by concessions; as if men were ever satisfied with
the yielding of a part, when they ask that which is wrong in itself,
without sooner or later expecting to get the whole. As well might one
expect the pickpocket who had abstracted a dollar, to put back
two-and-sixpence change. But things really look well, around the place."

"So much the better for us. Though, to my judgment and taste, Miss Mary
Warren looks better than anything else I have yet seen in America."

Another "umph" expressed my uncle's dissatisfaction--displeasure would
be too strong a word--and he continued eating.

"You have really some good Rhenish in your cellar, Hugh," resumed uncle
Ro, after tossing off one of the knowing green glasses full--though I
never could understand why any man should wish to drink his wine out of
green, when he might do it out of crystal. "It must have been a purchase
of mine, made when we were last in Germany, and for the use of my
mother."

"As you please, sir; it neither adds nor subtracts from the beauty of
Martha and her friend."

"Since you are disposed to make these boyish allusions, be frank with
me, and say, at once, how you like my wards."

"Meaning, of course, sir, my own sister exclusively. I will be as
sincere as possible, and say that, as to Miss Marston, I have no opinion
at all; and as to Miss Coldbrook, she is what, in Europe, would be
called a 'fine' woman."

"You can say nothing as to her mind, Hugh, for you have had no
opportunity for forming an opinion."

"Not much of a one, I will own. Nevertheless, I should have liked her
better had she spared the allusion to the 'proper person' who is one day
to forge a chain for my sister, to begin with."

"Poh, poh; that is the mere squeamishness of a boy. I do not think her
in the least pert or forward, and your construction would be _tant soit
peu_ vulgar."

"Put your own construction on it, _mon oncle_; _I_ do not like it."

"I do not wonder young men remain unmarried; they are getting to be so
ultra in their tastes and notions."

A stranger might have retorted on an old bachelor, for such a speech, by
some allusion to his own example; but I well knew that my uncle Ro had
once been engaged, and that he lost the object of his passion by death,
and too much respected his constancy and true sentiments ever to joke on
such subjects. I believe he felt the delicacy of my forbearance rather
more than common, for he immediately manifested a disposition to relent,
and to prove it by changing the subject.

"We can never stay here to-night," he said. "It would be at once to
proclaim our names--our name, I might say--a name that was once so
honoured and beloved in this town, and which is now so hated!"

"No, no; not as bad as that. We have done nothing to merit hatred."

"_Raison de plus_ for hating us so much the more heartily. When men are
wronged, who have done nothing to deserve it, the evil-doer seeks to
justify his wickedness to himself by striving all he can to calumniate
the injured party; and the more difficulty he finds in doing that to his
mind, the more profound is his hatred. Rely on it, we are most sincerely
disliked here, on the spot where we were once both much beloved. Such is
human nature."

At that moment John returned to the room, to see how we were getting on,
and to count his forks and spoons, for I saw the fellow actually doing
it. My uncle, somewhat indiscreetly, I fancied, but by merely following
the chain of thought then uppermost in his mind, detained him in
conversation.

"Dis broperty," he said, inquiringly, "is de broperty of one Yeneral
Littlepage, I hears say?"

"Not of the General, who was Madam Littlepage's husband, and who has
long been dead, but of his grandson, Mr. Hugh."

"Und vhere might he be, dis Mr. Hugh?--might he be at hand, or might he
not?"

"No; he's in Europe; that is to say, in Hengland." John thought England
covered most of Europe, though he had long gotten over his wish to
return. "Mr. Hugh and Mr. Roger be both habsent from the country, just
now."

"Dat ist unfortunate, for dey dells me dere might be moch troobles here
abouts, and Injin-acting."

"There is, indeed; and a wicked thing it is, that there should be
anything of the sort."

"Und vhat might be der reason of so moch troobles?--and vhere ist der
blame?"

"Well, that is pretty plain, I fancy," returned John, who, in
consequence of being a favoured servant at head-quarters, fancied
himself a sort of cabinet minister, and had much pleasure in letting his
knowledge be seen. "The tenants on this estate wants to be landlords;
and as they can't be so, so long as Mr. Hugh lives and won't let 'em,
why they just tries all sorts of schemes and plans to frighten people
out of their property. I never go down to the village but I has a talk
with some of them, and that in a way that might do them some good, if
anything can."

"Und vhat dost you say?--und vid whom dost you talk, as might do dem
moch goot?"

"Why, you see, I talks more with one 'Squire Newcome, as they calls him,
though he's no more of a real 'squire than you be--only a sort of an
attorney, like, such as they has in this country. You come from the old
countries, I believe?"

"Ja, ja--dat ist, yes--we comes from Charmany; so you can say vhat you
bleases."

"They has queer 'squires in this part of the world, if truth must be
said. But that's neither here nor there, though I give this Mr. Seneca
Newcome as good as he sends. What is it you wants, I says to him?--you
can't all be landlords--somebody must be tenants; and if you didn't want
to be tenants, how come you to be so? Land is plenty in this country,
and cheap too; and why didn't you buy your land at first, instead of
coming to rent of Mr. Hugh; and now when you _have_ rented, to be
quarrelling about the very thing you did of your own accord?"

"Dere you didst dell 'em a goot t'ing; and vhat might der 'Squire say to
dat?"

"Oh! he was quite dumb-founded, at first; then he said that in old
times, when people first rented these lands, they didn't _know_ as much
as they do now, or they never would have done it."

"Und you could answer dat; or vast it your durn to be dum-founded?"

"I pitched it into him, as they says; I did. Says I, how's this, says
I--you are for ever boasting how much you Americans know--and how the
people knows everything that ought to be done, about politics and
religion--and you proclaim far and near that your yeomen are the salt of
the earth--and yet you don't know how to bargain for your leases! A
pretty sort of wisdom is this, says I! I had him there; for the people
round about here is only too sharp at a trade."

"Did he own dat you vast right, and dat he vast wrong, dis Herr 'Squire
Newcome?"

"Not he; he will never own anything that makes against his own doctrine,
unless he does it ignorantly. But I haven't told you half of it. I told
him, says I, how is it you talk of one of the Littlepage family cheating
you, when, as you knows yourselves, you had rather have the word of one
of that family than have each other's bonds, says I. You know, sir, it
must be a poor landlord that a tenant can't and won't take his word: and
this they all know to be true; for a gentleman as has a fine estate is
raised above temptation, like, and has a pride in him to do what is
honourable and fair; and, in my opinion, it is good to have a few such
people in a country, if it be only to keep the wicked one from getting
it altogether in his own keeping."

"Und did you say dat moch to der 'Squire?"

"No; that I just says to you two, seeing that we are here, talking
together in a friendly way; but a man needn't be ashamed to say it
anywhere, for it's a religious truth. But I says to him, Newcome, says
I, you, who has been living so long on the property of the Littlepages,
ought to be ashamed to wish to strip them of it; but you're not
satisfied with keeping gentlemen down quite as much out of sight as you
can, by holding all the offices yourselves, and taking all the money of
the public you can lay your hands on for your own use, but you wants to
trample them under your feet, I says, and so take your revenge for being
what you be, says I."

"Vell, my friend," said my uncle, "you vast a bolt man to dell all dis
to der beoples of dis coontry, vhere, I have heard, a man may say just
vhat he hast a mind to say, so dat he dost not sbeak too moch trut!"

"That's it--that's it; you have been a quick scholar, I find. I told
this Mr. Newcome, says I, you're bold enough in railing at kings and
nobles, for you very well know, says I, that they are three thousand
miles away from you, and can do you no harm; but you would no more dare
get up before your masters, the people, here, and say what you really
think about 'em, and what I have heard you say of them in private, than
you would dare put your head before a cannon, as the gunner touched it
off. Oh! I gave him a lesson, you may be sure!"

Although there was a good deal of the English footman in John's logic
and feeling, there was also a good deal of truth in what he said. The
part where he accused Newcome of holding one set of opinions in private,
concerning _his_ masters, and another in public, is true to the life.
There is not, at this moment, within the wide reach of the American
borders, one demagogue to be found who might not, with justice, be
accused of precisely the same deception. There is not one demagogue in
the whole country, who, if he lived in a monarchy, would not be the
humblest advocate of men in power, ready to kneel at the feet of those
who stood in the sovereign's presence. There is not, at this instant, a
man in power among us a senator or a legislator, who is now the seeming
advocate of what he wishes to call the rights of the tenants, and who is
for overlooking principles and destroying law and right, in order to
pacify the anti-renters by extraordinary concessions, that would not be
among the foremost, under a monarchial system, to recommend and support
the freest application of the sword and the bayonet to suppress what
would then be viewed, ay, and be termed, "the rapacious longings of the
disaffected to enjoy the property of others without paying for it." All
this is certain; for it depends on a law of morals that is infallible.
Any one who wishes to obtain a clear index to the true characters of the
public men he is required to support, or oppose, has now the
opportunity; for each stands before a mirror that reflects him in his
just proportions, and in which the dullest eye has only to cast a
glance, in order to view him from head to foot.

The entrance of my grandmother put a stop to John's discourse. He was
sent out of the room on a message, and then I learned the object of this
visit. My sister had been let into the secret of our true characters,
and was dying to embrace me. My dear grandmother, rightly enough, had
decided it would be to the last degree unkind to keep her in ignorance
of our presence; and, the fact known, nature had longings which must be
appeased. I had myself been tempted twenty times, that morning, to
snatch Patt to my heart and kiss her, as I used to do just after my
beard began to grow, and she was so much of a child as to complain. The
principal thing to be arranged, then, was to obtain an interview for me
without awakening suspicion in the observers. My grandmother's plan was
arranged, however, and she now communicated it to us.

There was a neat little dressing-room annexed to Martha's bed-room; in
that the meeting was to take place.

"She and Mary Warren are now there, waiting for your appearance,
Hugh----"

"Mary Warren!--Does she, then, know who I am?"

"Not in the least; she has no other idea than that you are a young
German, of good connections and well educated, who has been driven from
his own country by political troubles, and who is reduced to turn his
musical taste and acquisitions to account, in the way you seem to do,
until he can find some better employment. All this she had told us
before we met you, and you are not to be vain, Hugh, if I add, that your
supposed misfortunes, and great skill with the flute, and good
behaviour, have made a friend of one of the best and most true-hearted
girls I ever had the good fortune to know. I say good _behaviour_, for
little, just now, can be ascribed to good _looks_."

"I hope I am not in the least revolting in appearance, in this disguise.
For my sister's sake----"

The hearty laugh of my dear old grandmother brought me up, and I said no
more; colouring, I believe, a little, at my own folly. Even uncle Ro
joined in the mirth, though I could see he wished Mary Warren even
safely translated along with her father, and that the latter was
Archbishop of Canterbury. I must acknowledge that I felt a good deal
ashamed of the weakness I had betrayed.

"You are very well, Hugh, darling," continued my grandmother; "though I
must think you would be more interesting in your own hair, which is
curling, than in that lank wig. Still, one can see enough of your face
to recognise it, if one has the clue; and I told Martha, at the first,
that I was struck with a certain expression of the eyes and smile that
reminded me of her brother. But, there they are, Mary and Martha, in the
drawing-room, waiting for your appearance. The first is so fond of
music, and, indeed, is so practised in it, as to have been delighted
with your flute; and she has talked so much of your skill as to justify
us in seeming to wish for a further exhibition of your skill. Henrietta
and Ann, having less taste that way, have gone together to select
bouquets, in the green-house, and there is now an excellent opportunity
to gratify your sister. I am to draw Mary out of the room, after a
little while, when you and Martha may say a word to each other in your
proper characters. As for you, Roger, you are to open your box again,
and I will answer for it _that_ will serve to amuse your other wards,
should they return too soon from their visit to the gardener."

Everything being thus explained, and our dinner ended, all parties
proceeded to the execution of the plan, each in his or her designated
mode. When my grandmother and I reached the dressing-room, however,
Martha was not there, though Mary Warren was, her bright but serene eyes
full of happiness and expectation. Martha had retired to the inner room
for a moment, whither my grandmother, suspecting the truth, followed
her. As I afterwards ascertained, my sister, fearful of not being able
to suppress her tears on my entrance, had withdrawn, in order to
struggle for self-command without betraying our secret. I was told to
commence an air, without waiting for the absent young lady, as the
strain could easily be heard through the open door.

I might have played ten minutes before my sister and grandmother came
out again. Both had been in tears, though the intense manner in which
Mary Warren was occupied with the harmony of my flute, probably
prevented her from observing it. To me, however, it was plain enough;
and glad was I to find that my sister had succeeded in commanding her
feelings. In a minute or two my grandmother profited by a pause to rise
and carry away with her Mary Warren, though the last left the room with
a reluctance that was very manifest. The pretence was a promise to meet
the divine in the library, on some business connected with the
Sunday-schools.

"You can keep the young man for another air, Martha," observed my
grandmother, "and I will send Jane to you, as I pass her room."

Jane was my sister's own maid, and her room was close at hand, and I
dare say dear grandmother gave her the order, in Mary Warren's presence,
as soon as she quitted the room, else might Mary Warren well be
surprised at the singularity of the whole procedure; but Jane did not
make her appearance, nevertheless. As for myself, I continued to play as
long as I thought any ear was near enough to hear me; then I laid aside
my flute. In the next instant Patt was in my arms, where she lay some
time weeping, but looking inexpressibly happy.

"Oh! Hugh, what a disguise was this to visit your own house in!" she
said, as soon as composed enough to speak.

"Would it have done to come here otherwise? You know the state of the
country, and the precious fruits our boasted tree of liberty is bringing
forth. The owner of the land can only visit his property at the risk of
his life!"

Martha pressed me in her arms in a way to show how conscious she was of
the danger I incurred in even thus visiting her; after which we seated
ourselves, side by side, on a little divan, and began to speak of those
things that were most natural to a brother and sister who so much loved
each other, and who had not met for five years. My grandmother had
managed so well as to prevent all interruption for an hour, if we saw
fit to remain together, while to others it should seem as if Patt had
dismissed me in a few minutes.

"Not one of the other girls suspect, in the least, who you are," said
Martha, smiling, when we had got through with the questions and answers
so natural to our situation. "I am surprised that Henrietta has not, for
_she_ prides herself on her penetration. She is as much in the dark as
the others, however."

"And Miss Mary Warren--the young lady who has just left the room--has
she not some _small_ notion that I am not a common Dutch music-grinder?"

Patt laughed, and that so merrily as to cause the tones of her sweet
voice to fill me with delight, as I remembered what she had been in
childhood and girlhood five years before, and she shook her bright
tresses off her cheeks ere she would answer.

"No, Hugh," she replied, "she fancies you an _uncommon_ Dutch
music-grinder; an _artiste_ that not only grinds, but who dresses up his
harmonies in such a way as to be palatable to the most refined taste.
How came Mary to think you and my uncle two reduced German gentlemen?"

"And does the dear girl believe--that is, does Miss Mary Warren do us so
much honour, as to imagine that?"

"Indeed she does, for she told us as much as soon as she got home; and
Henrietta and Ann have made themselves very merry with their
speculations on the subject of Miss Warren's great incognito. They call
you Herzog von Geige."

"Thank them for that." I am afraid I answered a little too pointedly,
for I saw that Patt seemed surprised. "But your American towns are just
such half-way things as to spoil young women; making them neither
refined and polished as they might be in real capitals, while they are
not left the simplicity and nature of the country."

"Well, Master Hugh, this is being very cross about a very little, and
not particularly complimentary to your own sister. And why not _your_
American towns, as well as _ours_?--are you no longer one of us?"

"Certainly; one of _yours_, always, my dearest Patt, though not one of
every chattering girl who may set up for a _belle_, with her Dukes of
Fiddle! But, enough of this;--you like the Warrens?"

"Very much so; father and daughter. The first is just what a clergyman
should be; of a cultivation and intelligence to fit him to be any man's
companion, and a simplicity like that of a child. You remember his
predecessor--so dissatisfied, so selfish, so lazy, so censorious, so
unjust to every person and thing around him, and yet so exacting; and,
at the same time, so----"

"What? Thus far you have drawn his character well; I should like to hear
the remainder."

"I have said more than I ought already; for one has an idea that, by
bringing a clergyman into disrepute, it brings religion and the church
into discredit, too. A priest must be a _very_ bad man to have injurious
things said of him, in this country, Hugh."

"That is, perhaps, true. But you like Mr. Warren better than him who has
left you?"

"A thousand times, and in all things. In addition to having a most pious
and sincere pastor, _we_ have an agreeable and well-bred neighbour, from
whose mouth, in the five years that he has dwelt here, I have not heard
a syllable at the expense of a single fellow-creature. You know how it
is apt to be with the other clergy and ours, in the country--for ever at
swords' points; and if not actually quarrelling, keeping up a hollow
peace."

"That is only too true--or used to be true, before I went abroad."

"And it is so now, elsewhere, I'll answer for it, though it be so no
longer here. Mr. Warren and Mr. Peck seem to live on perfectly amicable
terms, though as little alike at bottom as fire and water."

"By the way, how do the clergy of the different sects, up and down the
country, behave on the subject of anti-rent?"

"I can answer only from what I hear, with the exception of Mr. Warren's
course. _He_ has preached two or three plain and severe sermons on the
duty of honesty in our worldly transactions, one of which was from the
tenth commandment. Of course he said nothing of the particular trouble,
but everybody must have made the necessary application of the
home-truths he uttered. I question if another voice has been raised, far
and near, on the subject, although I have heard Mr. Warren say the
movement threatens more to demoralize New York than anything that has
happened in his time."

"And the man down at the village?"

"Oh, he goes, of course, with the majority. When was one of that set
ever known to oppose his parish, in anything?"

"And Mary is as sound and as high-principled as her father?"

"Quite so; though there has been a good deal said about the necessity of
Mr. Warren's removing, and giving up St. Andrew's, since he preached
against covetousness. All the anti-renters say, I hear, that they know
he meant _them_; and that they won't put up with it."

"I dare say; each one fancying he was almost called out by name: that is
the way, when conscience works."

"I should be very, very sorry to part with Mary; and almost as much so
to part with her father. There is one thing, however, that Mr. Warren
himself thinks we had better have done, Hugh; and that is to take down
the canopy from over our pew. You can have no notion of the noise that
foolish canopy is making up and down the country."

"I shall _not_ take it down. It is my property, and there it shall
remain. As for the canopy, it was a wrong distinction to place in a
church, I am willing to allow; but it never gave offence until it has
been thought that a cry against it would help to rob me of my lands at
half price, or at no price at all, as it may happen."

"All that may be true; but if improper for a church, why keep it?"

"Because I do not choose to be bullied out of what is my own, even
though I care nothing about it. There might have been a time when the
canopy was unsuited to the house of God, and that was when those who saw
it might fancy it canopied the head of a fellow-creature who had higher
claims than themselves to divine favour; but, in times like these, when
men estimate merit by beginning at the other end of the social scale,
there is little danger of any one's falling into the mistake. The canopy
shall stand, little as I care about it: now, I would actually prefer it
should come down, as I can fully see the impropriety of making any
distinctions in the temple; but it shall stand until concessions cease
to be dangerous. It is a right of property, and as such I will maintain
it. If others dislike it, let them put canopies over their pews, too.
The best test, in such a matter, is to see who could bear it. A pretty
figure Seneca Newcome would cut, for instance, seated in a canopied pew!
Even his own set would laugh at him; which, I fancy, is more than they
yet do at me."

Martha was disappointed; but she changed the subject. We next talked of
our own little private affairs, as they were connected with smaller
matters.

"For whom is that beautiful chain intended, Hugh?" asked Patt,
laughingly. "I can now believe the pedlar when he says it is reserved
for your future wife. But who is that wife to be? Will her name be
Henrietta or Ann?"

"Why not ask, also, if it will be Mary?--why exclude one of your
companions, while you include the other two?"

Patt started--seemed surprised; her cheeks flushed, and then I saw that
pleasure was the feeling predominant.

"Am I too late to secure that jewel, as a pendant to my chain?" I asked,
half in jest, half seriously.

"Too soon, at least, to attract it by the richness and beauty of the
bauble. A more natural and disinterested girl than Mary Warren does not
exist in the country."

"Be frank with me, Martha, and say at once; has she a favoured suitor?"

"Why, this seems really serious!" exclaimed my sister, laughing. "But,
to put you out of your pain, I will answer, I know of but one. One she
has certainly, or female sagacity is at fault."

"But is he one that is favoured? 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 me 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 afterwards 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 towards 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 halfpenny 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 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 back-ground. 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
coelum_,' 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 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
defense 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 is 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 pedlars 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 favoured with a
straw bed under my own roof, the decent Mrs. Miller making many
apologies for not having a feather-smotherer, in 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.[3]

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 idéal 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.
Pedlin' 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 ast 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 coontry, effery body 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 bye, when _that_ is done, the law can let up again."

"But ist dat right? Der law should be joost, and not hold down and 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 der 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 bankroopt 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 20 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 endeavoured 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_ any thing 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 most 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, and 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
bat 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 ist soobortin'
religion? Coomes dat vrom Melanchton and 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 divert the
thoughts."

"I might not oonderstand. But nefer mindt der religion, and 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 neighbours--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 neighbours 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 county that make 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 favourable 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 Renssalaers, 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!"

"Und who might own dese farms, all oop and down der coontry, dat I
sees?"

"As the law now stands, Littlepage owns 'em; but if we alter the law
enough, he wun't. If we can only work the Legislature up to the stickin'
p'int, we shall get all we want. Would you believe it, the man wun't
sell a single farm, they say; but wishes to keep every one on 'em for
himself! Is that to be borne in a free country? They'd hardly stand that
in Jarmany, I'm thinkin'. A man that is such an aristocrat us to refuse
to sell anything, I despise."

"Veil, dey stand to der laws in Charmany, and broperty is respected in
most coontries. You vouldn't do away wid der rights of broperty, if you
mights, I hopes?"

"Not I. If a man owns a watch, or a horse, or a cow, I'm for having the
law such that a poor man can keep 'em, even ag'in execution. We're
getting the laws pretty straight on them p'ints, in old York, I can tell
you; a poor man, let him be ever so much in debt, can hold on to a
mighty smart lot of things, now-a-days, and laugh at the law right in
its face! I've known chaps that owed as much as $200, hold on to as good
as $300; though most of their debts was for the very things they held on
to!"

What a picture is this, yet is it not true? A state of society in which
a man can contract a debt for a cow, or his household goods, and laugh
at his creditor when he seeks his pay, on the one hand; and on the
other, legislators and executives lending themselves to the chicanery of
another set, that are striving to deprive a particular class of its
rights of property, directly in the face of written contracts! This is
straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel, with a vengeance; and
all for votes! Does any one really expect a community can long exist,
favoured by a wise and justice-dispensing Providence, in which such
things are coolly attempted--ay, and coolly done? It is time that the
American began to see things as they are, and not as they are _said_ to
be, in the speeches of governors, fourth of July orations, and
electioneering addresses. I write warmly, I know, but I feel warmly; and
I write like a man who sees that a most flagitious attempt to rob him is
tampered with by some in power, instead of being met, as the boasted
morals and intelligence of the country would require, by the stern
opposition of all in authority. Curses--deep, deep curses--ere long,
will fall on all who shrink from their duty in such a crisis. Even the
very men who succeed, if succeed they should, will, in the end, curse
the instruments of their own success.[4]

"A first-rate lecturer on feudal tenors," (Joshua was not in the least
particular in his language, but, in the substance, he knew what he was
talking about as well as some who are in high places,) "chickens and
days' works. We expect a great deal from this man, who is paid well for
coming."

"Und who might bay him?--der State?"

"No--we haven't got to that _yet_; though some think the State will
_have_ to do it, in the long run. At present the tenants are taxed so
much on the dollar, accordin' to rent, or so much an acre, and that way
the needful money is raised. But one of our lecturers told us, a time
back, that it was money put out at use, and every man ought to keep an
account of what he give, for the time was not far off when he would get
it back, with double interest. 'It is paid now for a reform,' he said,
'and when the reform is obtained, no doubt the State would feel itself
so much indebted to us all, that it would tax the late landlords until
we got all our money back again, and more too."

"Dat vould pe a bretty speculation; ja, dat might be most bootiful!"

"Why, yes; it wouldn't be a bad operation, living on the inimy, as a
body might say. But you'll not catch our folks livin' on themselves, I
can tell you. That they might do without societies. No, we've an object;
and when folks has an object, they commonly look sharp a'ter it. We
don't let on all we want and mean openly: and you'll find folks among us
that'll deny stoutly that anti-renters has anything to do with the Injin
system; but folks an't obliged to believe the moon is _all_ cheese,
unless they've a mind to. Some among us maintain that no man ought to
hold more than a thousand acres of land, while others think natur' has
laid down the law on that p'int, and that a man shouldn't hold more
than he has need on."

"Und vich side dost you favour?--vich of dese obinions might not be
yours?"

"I'm not partic'lar, so I get a good farm. I should like one with
comfortable buildin's on 't, and one that hasn't been worked to death.
For them two principles I think I'd stand out; but, whether there be
four hundred acres, or four hundred and fifty, or even five hundred, I'm
no way onaccomadatin'. I expect there'll be trouble in the eend, when we
come to the division, but I'm not the man to make it. I s'pose I shall
get my turn at the town offices, and other chances, and, givin' me my
rights in them, I'll take up with almost any farm young Littlepage has,
though I should rather have one in the main valley here, than one more
out of the way; still, I don't set myself down as at all partic'lar."

"Und vhat do you expect to bay Mr. Littlepage for der farm, ast you
might choose?"

"That depends on sarcumstances. The Injins mainly expect to come in
cheap. Some folks think it's best to pay suthin', as it might stand
ag'in' law better, should it come to that; while other some see no great
use in paying anything. Them that's willing to pay, mainly hold out for
paying the principal of the first rents."

"I doesn't oonderstandt vhat you means py der brincipal of der first
rents."

"It's plain enough, when you get the lay on 't. You see, these lands
were let pretty low, when they were first taken up from the forest, in
order to get folks to live here. That's the way we're obliged to do in
America, or people won't come. Many tenants paid no rent at all for six,
eight, or ten years; and a'ter that, until their three lives run out, as
it is called, they paid only sixpence an acre, or six dollars and a
quarter on the hundred acres. That was done, you see, to buy men to come
here at all; and you can see by the price that was paid, how hard a time
they must have had on 't. Now, some of our folks hold that the whull
time ought to be counted--that which was rent free, and that which was
not--in a way that I'll explain to you; for I'd have you to know I
haven't entered into this business without looking to the right and the
wrong on't."

"Exblain, exblain; I might hear you exblain, and you most exblain."

"Why, you're in a hurry, friend Griezenbach, or whatever your name be.
But I'll explain, if you wish it. S'pose, now, a lease run thirty
years--ten on nothin', and twenty on sixpences. Well, a hundred
sixpences make fifty shillings, and twenty times fifty make a thousand,
as all the rent paid in thirty years. If you divide a thousand by
thirty, it leaves thirty-three shillings and a fraction"--Joshua
calculated like an American of his class, accurately and with
rapidity--"for the average rent of the thirty years. Calling
thirty-three shillings four dollars, and it's plaguy little more, we
have that for the interest, which, at 7 per cent., will make a principal
of rather more than fifty dollars, though not as much as sixty. As sich
matters ought to be done on liberal principles, they say that Littlepage
ought to take fifty dollars, and give a deed for the hundred acres."

"Und vhat might be der rent of a hoondred acres now?--he might get more
dan sixpence to-day?"

"That he does. Most all of the farms are running out on second, and some
on third leases. Four shillings an acre is about the average of the
rents, accordin' to circumstances."

"Den you dinks der landtlort ought to accept one year's rent for der
farms?"

"I don't look on it in that light. He ought to take fifty dollars for a
hundred acres. You forget the tenants have paid for their farms, over
and over again, in rent. They _feel_ as if they have paid enough, and
that it was time to stop."

Extraordinary as this reasoning may seem in most men's minds, I have
since found it is a very favourite sentiment among anti-renters. "Are we
to go on, and pay rent for ever?" they ask, with logical and virtuous
indignation!

"Und vhat may be der aferage value of a hoondred acre farm, in dis part
of de coontry?" I inquired.

"From two thousand five hundred to three thousand dollars. It would be
more, but tenants won't put good buildings on farms, you know, seein'
that they don't own them. I heard one of our leaders lamentin' that he
didn't foresee what times was comin' to, when he repaired his old house,
or he would have built a new one. But a man can't foretell everything. I
dare say many has the same feelin's, now."

"Den you dinks Herr Littlebage ought to accept $50 for vhat is worth
$2500? Das seem ferry little."

"You forget the back rent that has been paid, and the work the tenant
has done. What would the farm be good for without the work that has been
done on it?"

"Ja, ja--I oonderstandst; and vhat vould der work be goot for vidout der
landt on vhich it vast done?"

This was rather an incautious question to put to a man as distrustful
and rogueish as Joshua Brigham. The fellow cast a lowering and
distrustful look at me; but ere there was time to answer, Miller, of
whom he stood in healthful awe, called him away to look after the cows.

Here, then, I had enjoyed an opportunity of hearing the opinions of one
of my own hirelings on the interesting subject of my right to my own
estate. I have since ascertained that, while these sentiments are
sedulously kept out of view in the proceedings of the government, which
deals with the whole matter as if the tenants were nothing but martyrs
to hard bargains, and the landlords their task-masters, of greater or
less lenity, they are extensively circulated in the "infected
districts," and are held to be very sound doctrines by a large number of
the "bone and sinew of the land." Of course the reasoning is varied a
little, to suit circumstances, and to make it meet the facts. But of
this school is a great deal, and a very great deal, of the reasoning
that circulates on the leased property; and, from what I have seen and
heard already, I make no doubt that there are _quasi_ legislators among
us who, instead of holding the manly and only safe doctrine which ought
to be held on such a subject, and saying that these deluded men should
be taught better, are ready to cite the very fact that such notions do
exist as a reason for the necessity of making concessions, in order to
keep the peace at the cheapest rate. That profound principle of
legislation, which concedes the right in order to maintain quiet, is
admirably adapted to forming sinners; and, if carried out in favour of
all who may happen to covet their neighbour's goods, would, in a short
time, render this community the very paradise of knaves.

As for Joshua Brigham, I saw no more of him that night; for he quitted
the farm on leave, just as it got to be dark. Where he went I do not
know; but the errand on which he left us could no longer be a secret to
me. As the family retired early, and we ourselves were a good deal
fatigued, everybody was in bed by nine o'clock, and, judging from
myself, soon asleep. Previously to saying "good night," however, Miller
told us of the meeting of the next day, and of his intention to attend
it.




CHAPTER XIII.

    "He knows the game; how true he keeps the wind!"
    "Silence."

    _King Henry VI._


After an early breakfast, next morning, the signs of preparation for a
start became very apparent in the family. Not only Miller, but his wife
and daughter, intended to go down to "Little Neest," as the hamlet was
almost invariably called in that fragment of the universe, in
contradistinction to the "Neest" proper. I found afterwards that this
very circumstance was cited against me in the controversy, it being
thought _lèse majesté_ for a private residence to monopolize the major
of the proposition, while a hamlet had to put up with the minor; the
latter, moreover, including two taverns, which are exclusively the
property of the public, there being exclusiveness with the public as
well as with aristocrats--more especially in all things that pertain to
power or profit. As to the two last, even Joshua Brigham was much more
of an aristocrat than I was myself. It must be admitted that the
Americans are a humane population, for they are the only people who deem
that bankruptcy gives a claim to public favour.[5]

As respects the two "Nests," had not so much more serious matter been in
agitation, the precedence of the names might actually have been taken up
as a question of moment. I have heard of a lawsuit in France, touching a
name that has been illustrious in that country for a period so long as
to extend beyond the reach of man--as, indeed, was apparent by the
matter in controversy--and which name has obtained for itself a high
place in the annals of even our own republic. I allude to the House of
Grasse, which was seated, prior to the revolution, and may be still, at
a place called Grasse, in the southern part of the kingdom, the town
being almost as famous for the manufacture of pleasant things as the
family for its exploits in arms. About a century since, the Marquis de
Grasse is said to have had a _procés_ with his neighbours of the place,
to establish the fact whether the family gave its name to the town, or
the town gave its name to the family. The Marquis prevailed in the
struggle, but greatly impaired his fortune in achieving that new
victory. As my house, or its predecessor, was certainly erected and
named while the site of Little Nest was still in the virgin forest, one
would think its claims to the priority of possession beyond dispute; but
such might not prove to be the case on a trial. There are two histories
among us, as relates to both public and private things; the one being as
nearly true as is usual, while the other is invariably the fruits of the
human imagination. Everything depending so much on majorities, that soon
gets to be the most authentic tradition which has the most believers;
for, under the system of numbers, little regard is paid to superior
advantages, knowledge, or investigation, all depending on 3 as against
2, which makes 1 majority. I find a great deal of this spurious history
is getting to be mixed up with the anti-rent controversy, facts coming
out daily that long have lain dormant in the graves of the past. These
facts affect the whole structure of the historical picture of the State
and colony, leaving touches of black where the pencil had originally put
in white, and placing the high lights where the shadows have before
always been understood to be. In a word, men are telling the stories as
best agrees with their present views, and not at all as they agree with
fact.

It was the intention of Tom Miller to give my uncle Ro and me a dearborn
to ourselves, while he drove his wife, Kitty and a _help_, as far as the
"Little Neest," in a two-horse vehicle that was better adapted to such a
freight. Thus disposed of, then, we all left the place in company, just
as the clock in the farm-house entry struck nine. I drove our horse
myself; and _mine_ he was, in fact, every hoof, vehicle and farming
utensil on the Nest farm, being as much my property, under the _old_
laws, as the hat on my head. It is true, the Millers had now been fifty
years or more, nay, nearly sixty, in possession, and by the _new_ mode
of construction it is possible some may fancy that we had paid them
wages so long for working the land, and for using the cattle and
utensils, that the title, in a moral sense, had passed out of me, in
order to pass into Tom Miller. If use begets a right, why not to a wagon
and horse, as well as to a farm.

As we left the place I gazed wistfully towards the Nest House, in the
hope of seeing the form of some one that I loved, at a window, on the
lawn, or in the piazza. Not a soul appeared, however, and we trotted
down the road a short distance in the rear of the other wagon,
conversing on such things as came uppermost in our minds. The distance
we had to go was about four miles, and the hour named for the
commencement of the lecture, which was to be the great affair of the
day, had been named at eleven. This caused us to be in no hurry, and I
rather preferred to coincide with the animal I drove, and move very
slowly, than hurry on, and arrive an hour or two sooner than was
required. In consequence of this feeling on our part, Miller and his
family were soon out of sight, it being their wish to obtain as much of
the marvels of the day as was possible.

The road, of course, was perfectly well known to my uncle and myself;
but, had it not been, there was no danger of missing our way, as we had
only to follow the general direction of the broad valley through which
it ran. Then Miller had considerately told us that we must pass two
churches, or a church and a "meetin'-'us'," the spires of both of which
were visible most of the way, answering for beacons. Referring to this
term of "meeting-house," does it not furnish conclusive evidence, of
itself, of the inconsistent folly of that wisest of all earthly beings,
man? It was adopted in contradistinction from, and in direct opposition
to, the supposed idolatrous association connected with the use of the
word "church," at a time when certain sects would feel offended at
hearing their places of worship thus styled; whereas, at the present
day, those very sectarians are a little disposed to resent this
exclusive appropriation of the proscribed word by the sects who have
always adhered to it as offensively presuming, and, in a slight degree,
"arisdogradic!" I am a little afraid that your out-and-outers in
politics, religion, love of liberty, and other human excellences, are
somewhat apt to make these circuits in their eccentric orbits, and to
come out somewhere quite near the places from which they started.

The road between the Nest House and Little Nest, the hamlet, is rural,
and quite as agreeable as is usually found in a part of the country that
is without water-views or mountain scenery. Our New York landscapes are
rarely, nay, never grand, as compared with the noble views one finds in
Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the finer parts of Europe; but we have a
vast many that want nothing but a finish to their artificial accessories
to render them singularly agreeable. Such is the case with the principal
vale of Ravensnest, which, at the very moment we were driving through
it, struck my uncle and myself as presenting a picture of rural
abundance, mingled with rural comfort, that one seldom sees in the old
world, where the absence of enclosures, and the concentration of the
dwellings in villages, leave the fields naked and with a desolate
appearance, in spite of their high tillage and crops.

"This is an estate worth contending for, now," said my uncle, as we
trotted slowly on, "although it has not hitherto been very productive to
its owner. The first half century of an American property of this sort
rarely brings much to its proprietor beyond trouble and vexation."

"And after that time the tenant is to have it, pretty much at his own
price, as a reward for his own labour!"

"What evidences are to be found, wherever the eye rests, of the
selfishness of man, and his unfitness to be left to the unlimited
control of his own affairs! In England they are quarrelling with the
landlords, who _do_ compose a real aristocracy, and make the laws, about
the manner in which they protect themselves and the products of their
estates; while here the true owner of the soil is struggling against the
power of numbers, with the people, who are the only aristocrats we
possess, in order to maintain his right of property in the simplest and
most naked form! A common vice is at the bottom of both wrongs, and that
is the vice of selfishness."

"But how are abuses like those of which we complain here--abuses of the
most formidable character of any that can exist, since the oppressors
are so many, and so totally irresponsible by their numbers--to be
avoided, if you give the people the right of self-government?"

"God help the nation where self-government, in its literal sense,
exists, Hugh! The term is conventional, and, properly viewed, means a
government in which the source of authority is the body of the nation,
and does not come from any other sovereign. When a people that has been
properly educated by experience calmly selects its agents, and coolly
sets to work to adopt a set of principles to form its fundamental law or
constitution, the machine is on the right track, and will work well
enough so long as it is kept there; but this running off, and altering
the fundamental principles every time a political faction has need of
recruits, is introducing tyranny in its worst form--a tyranny that is
just as dangerous to real liberty as hypocrisy is to religion!"

We were now approaching St. Andrew's church and the rectory, with its
glebe, the latter lying contiguous to the church-yard, or, as it is an
Americanism to say, the "graveyard." There had been an evident
improvement around the rectory since I had last seen it. Shrubbery had
been planted, care was taken of the fences, the garden was neatly and
well worked, the fields looked smooth, and everything denoted that it
was "new lords and new laws." The last incumbent had been a whining,
complaining, narrow-minded, selfish and lazy priest, the least estimable
of all human characters, short of the commission of the actual and
higher crimes; but his successor had the reputation of being a devout
and real Christian--one who took delight in the duties of his holy
office, and who served God because he loved him. I am fully aware how
laborious is the life of a country priest, and how contracted and mean
is the pittance he in common receives, and how much more he merits than
he gets, if his reward were to be graduated by things here. But this
picture, like every other, has its different sides, and occasionally men
do certainly enter the church from motives as little as possible
connected with those that ought to influence them.

"There is the wagon of Mr. Warren, at his door," observed my uncle, as
we passed the rectory. "Can it be that he intends visiting the village
also, on an occasion like this?"

"Nothing more probable, sir, if the character Patt has given of him be
true," I answered. "She tells me he has been active in endeavouring to
put down the covetous spirit that is getting uppermost in the town, and
has even preached boldly, though generally, against the principles
involved in the question. The other man, they say, goes for popularity,
and preaches and prays with the anti-renters."

No more was said, but on we went, soon entering a large bit of wood, a
part of the virgin forest. This wood, exceeding a thousand acres in
extent, stretched down from the hills along some broken and otherwise
little valuable land, and had been reserved from the axe to meet the
wants of some future day. It was mine, therefore, in the fullest sense
of the word; and, singular as it may seem, one of the grounds of
accusation brought against me and my predecessors was that we had
_declined leasing it_! Thus, on the one hand, we were abused for having
leased our land, and, on the other, for not having leased it. The fact
is, we, in common with other extensive landlords, are expected to use
our property as much as possible for the particular benefit of other
people, while those other people are expected to use _their_ property as
much as possible for their own particular benefit.

There was near a mile of forest to pass before we came out again in the
open country, at about a mile and a half's distance from the hamlet. On
our left this little forest did not extend more than a hundred rods,
terminating at the edge of the rivulet--or _creek_, as the stream is
erroneously called, and for no visible reason but the fact that it was
only a hundred feet wide--which swept close under the broken ground
mentioned at this point. On our right, however, the forest stretched
away for more than a mile, until, indeed, it became lost and confounded
with other portions of wood that had been reserved for the farms on
which they grew. As is very usual in America, in cases where roads pass
through a forest, a second growth had shot up on each side of this
highway, which was fringed for the whole distance with large bushes of
pine, hemlock, chestnut and maple. In some places these bushes almost
touched the track, while in others a large space was given. We were
winding our way through this wood, and had nearly reached its centre, at
a point where no house was visible--and no house, indeed, stood within
half a mile of us--with the view in front and in rear limited to some
six or eight rods in each direction by the young trees, when our ears
were startled by a low, shrill, banditti-like whistle. I must confess
that my feelings were anything but comfortable at that interruption, for
I remembered the conversation of the previous night. I thought by the
sudden jump of my uncle, and the manner he instinctively felt where he
ought to have had a pistol, to meet such a crisis, that he believed
himself already in the hands of the Philistines.

A half minute sufficed to tell us the truth. I had hardly stopped the
horse, in order to look around me, when a line of men, all armed and
disguised, issued in single file from the bushes, and drew up in the
road, at right angles to its course. There were six of these "Injins,"
as they are called, and, indeed, call themselves, each carrying a rifle,
horn and pouch, and otherwise equipped for the field. The disguises were
very simple, consisting of a sort of loose calico hunting-shirt and
trowsers that completely concealed the person. The head was covered by a
species of hood, or mask, equally of calico, that was fitted with holes
for the eyes, nose and mouth, and which completed the disguise. There
were no means of recognizing a man thus equipped, unless it might be by
the stature, in cases in which the party was either unusually tall or
unusually short. A middle-sized man was perfectly safe from recognition,
so long as he did not speak and could keep his equipments. Those who did
speak altered their voices, as we soon found, using a jargon that was
intended to imitate the imperfect English of the native owners of the
soil. Although neither of us had ever seen one of the gang before, we
knew these disturbers of the public peace to be what in truth they were,
the instant our eyes fell on them. One could not well be mistaken,
indeed, under the circumstances in which we were placed; but the
tomahawks that one or two carried, the manner of their march, and other
pieces of mummery that they exhibited, would have told us the fact, had
we met them even in another place.

My first impulse was to turn the wagon, and to endeavour to lash the
lazy beast I drove into a run. Fortunately, before the attempt was made,
I turned my head to see if there was room for such an exploit, and saw
six others of these "Injins" drawn across the road behind us. It was now
so obviously the wisest course to put the best face on the matter, that
we walked the horse boldly up to the party in front, until he was
stopped by one of the gang taking him by the bridle.

"Sago, sago," cried one who seemed to act as a chief, and whom I shall
thus designate, speaking in his natural voice, though affecting an
Indian pronunciation. "How do, how do?--where come from, eh?--where go,
eh?--What you say, too--up rent or down rent, eh?"

"Ve ist two Charmans," returned uncle Ro, in his most desperate dialect,
the absurdity of men who spoke the same language resorting to such
similar means of deception tempting me sorely to laugh in the fellows'
faces; "Ve ist two Charmans dat ist goin' to hear a man's sbeak about
bayin' rent, und to sell vatches. Might you buy a vatch, goot
shentlemans."

Although the fellows doubtless knew who we were, so far as our assumed
characters went, and had probably been advised of our approach, this
bait took, and there was a general jumping up and down, and a common
pow-wowing among them, indicative of the pleasure such a proposal gave.
In a minute the whole party were around us, with some eight or ten more
who appeared from the nearest bushes. We were helped out of the wagon
with a gentle violence that denoted their impatience. As a matter of
course, I expected that all the trinkets and watches, which were of
little value, fortunately, would immediately disappear; for who could
doubt that men engaged in attempting to rob on so large a scale as these
fellows were engaged in, would hesitate about doing a job on one a
little more diminutive. I was mistaken, however; some sort of
imperceptible discipline keeping those who were thus disposed, of whom
there must have been some in such a party, in temporary order. The horse
was left standing in the middle of the highway, right glad to take his
rest, while we were shown the trunk of a fallen tree, near by, on which
to place our box of wares. A dozen watches were presently in the hands
of as many of these seeming savages, who manifested a good deal of
admiration at their shining appearance. While this scene, which was half
mummery and half nature, was in the course of enactment, the chief
beckoned me to a seat on the further end of the tree, and, attended by
one or two of his companions, he began to question me as follows:

"Mind tell truth," he said, making no very expert actor in the way of
imitation. "Dis 'Streak o' Lightning,'" laying his hand on his own
breast, that I might not misconceive the person of the warrior who bore
so eminent a title; "no good lie to him--know ebbery t'ing afore he ask,
only ask for fun--what do here, eh?"

"Ve coomes to see der Injins and der beoples at der village, dat ve
might sell our vatches."

"Dat all; sartain?--can call 'down rent,' eh?"

"Dat ist ferry easy; 'down rent, eh?'"

"Sartain Jarman, eh?--you no spy?--you no sent here by gubbernor,
eh?--landlord no pay you, eh?"

"Vhat might I spy? Dere ist nothin' do spy, but mans vid calico faces.
Vhy been you afraid of der governor?--I dinks der governors be ferry
goot frients of der anti-rents."

"Not when we act this way. Send horse, send foot a'ter us, den. T'ink
good friend, too, when he dare."

"He be d----d!" bawled out one of the tribe, in as good, homely, rustic
English as ever came out of the mouth of a clown. "If he's our friend,
why did he send the artillery and horse down to Hudson?--and why has he
had Big Thunder up afore his infarnal courts? He be d----d!"

There was no mistaking this outpouring of the feelings; and so "Streak
o' Lightning" seemed to think too, for he whispered one of the tribe,
who took the plain-speaking Injin by the arm and led him away, grumbling
and growling, as the thunder mutters in the horizon after the storm has
passed on. For myself, I made several profitable reflections concerning
the inevitable fate of those who attempt to "serve God and Mammon." This
anti-rentism is a question in which, so far as a governor is concerned,
there is but one course to pursue, and that is to enforce the laws by
suppressing violence, and leaving the parties to the covenants of leases
to settle their differences in the courts, like the parties to any other
contracts. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways. Many a
landlord has made a hard bargain for himself; and I happen to know of
one case in particular, in which a family has long been, and is still,
kept out of the enjoyment of a very valuable estate, as to any benefit
of importance, purely by the circumstance that a weak-minded possessor
of the property fancied he was securing souls for paradise by letting
his farms on leases for ninety-nine years, at nominal rents, with a
covenant that the tenant should go twice to a particular church! Now,
nothing is plainer than that it is a greater hardship to the citizen who
is the owner of many farms so situated, than to the citizen who is the
lessee of only one with a hard covenant; and, on general principles, the
landlord in question would be most entitled to relief, since one man who
suffers a good deal is more an object of true commiseration than many
who suffer each a little. What would a governor be apt to say if my
landlord should go with his complaints to the foot of the executive
chair, and tell him that the very covenant which had led his predecessor
into the mistake of thus wasting his means was openly disregarded; that
farms worth many thousands of dollars had now been enjoyed by the
tenants for near a century for mere nominal rents, and that the owner
of the land in fee had occasion for his property, &c. &c. Would the
governor recommend legislative action in that case? Would the _length_
of _such_ leases induce him to recommend that no lease should exceed
five years in duration? Would the landlords who should get up a corps of
Injins to worry their tenants into an abandonment of their farms be the
objects of commiseration?--and would the law slumber for years over
_their_ rebellions and depredations, until two or three murders aroused
public indignation? Let them answer that know. As a landlord, I should
be sorry to incur the ridicule that would attend even a public complaint
of the hardships of such a case. A common sneer would send me to the
courts for my remedy, if I had one, and the whole difference between the
"if and ifs" of the two cases would be that a landlord gives but one
vote, while his tenants may be legion.[6]

"He be d----d," muttered the plain-speaking Injin, as long as I could
hear him. As soon as released from his presence, Streak of Lightning
continued his examination, though a little vexed at the undramatical
character of the interruption.

"Sartain no spy, eh?--sartain gubbernor no send him, eh?--sartain come
to sell watch, eh?"

"I coomes, as I tell ye, to see if vatches might be solt, und not for
der gubbernor; I neffer might see der mans."

As all this was true, my conscience felt pretty easy on the score of
whatever there might be equivocal about it.

"What folks think of Injin down below, eh?--what folks say of anti-rent,
eh?--hear him talk about much?"

"Vell, soome does dink anti-rent ist goot, und soome does dink anti-rent
ist bad. Dey dinks as dey wishes."

Here a low whistle came down the road, or rather down the bushes, when
every Injin started up; each man very fairly gave back the watch he was
examining, and in less than half a minute we were alone on the log. This
movement was so sudden that it left us in a little doubt as to the
proper mode of proceeding. My uncle, however, coolly set about
replacing his treasures in their box, while I went to the horse, which
had shaken off his head-stall, and was quietly grazing along the
road-side. A minute or two might have been thus occupied, when the
trotting of a horse and the sound of wheels announced the near approach
of one of those vehicles which have got to be almost national; a
dearborn, or a one-horse wagon. As it came out from behind a screen of
bushes formed by a curvature in the road, I saw that it contained the
Rev. Mr. Warren and his sweet daughter.

The road being narrow, and our vehicle in its centre, it was not
possible for the newcomers to proceed until we got out of the way, and
the divine pulled up as soon as he reached the spot where we stood.

"Good morning, _gentlemen_," said Mr. Warren, cordially, and using a word
that, in _his_ mouth, I felt meant all it expressed. "Good morning,
_gentlemen_. Are you playing Handel to the wood-nymphs, or reciting
eclogues?"

"Neider, neider, Herr Pastor; we meet wid coostomers here, und dey has
joost left us," answered uncle Ro, who certainly enacted his part with
perfect _àplomb_, and the most admirable mimicry as to manner. "_Guten
tag, guten tag_. Might der Herr Pastor been going to der village?"

"We are. I understand there is to be a meeting there of the misguided
men called anti-renters, and that several of my parishioners are likely
to be present. On such an occasion I conceive it to be my duty to go
among my own particular people, and whisper a word of advice. Nothing
can be farther from my notions of propriety than for a clergyman to be
mingling and mixing himself up with political concerns in general, but
this is a matter that touches morality, and the minister of God is
neglectful of his duty who keeps aloof when a word of admonition might
aid in preventing some wavering brother from the commission of a
grievous sin. This last consideration has brought me out to a scene I
could otherwise most heartily avoid."

This might be well enough, I said to myself, but what has your daughter
to do in such a scene? Is the mind of Mary Warren, then, after all, no
better than vulgar minds in general?--and can she find a pleasure in the
excitement of lectures of this cast, and in that of public meetings? No
surer test can be found of cultivation, than the manner in which it
almost intuitively shrinks from communion unnecessarily with tastes and
principles below its own level; yet here was the girl with whom I was
already half in love--and that was saying as little as could be said,
too--actually going down to the "Little Neest" to hear an itinerant
lecturer on political economy utter his crudities, and to see and be
seen! I was grievously disappointed, and would at the moment have
cheerfully yielded the best farm on my estate to have had the thing
otherwise. My uncle must have had some similar notion, by the remark he
made.

"Und doost das _jung frau_ go to see der Injins, too; to bersuade 'em
dey ist fery vicked?"

Mary's face had been a little pale for her, I thought, as the wagon drew
up; but it immediately became scarlet. She even suffered her head to
droop a little, and then I perceived that she cast an anxious and tender
glance at her father. I cannot say whether this look were or were not
intended for a silent appeal, unconsciously made; but the father,
without even seeing it, acted as if he fancied it might be.

"No, no," he said, hurriedly; "this dear girl is doing violence to all
her feelings but one, in venturing to such a place. Her filial piety has
proved stronger than her fears and her tastes, and when she found that
go I would, no argument of mine could persuade her to remain at home. I
hope she will not repent it."

The colour did not quit Mary's face, but she looked grateful at finding
her true motives appreciated; and she even smiled, though she said
nothing. My own feelings underwent another sudden revulsion. There was
no want of those tastes and inclinations that can alone render a young
woman attractive to any man of sentiment, but there was high moral
feeling and natural affection enough to overcome them in a case in which
she thought duty demanded the sacrifice! It was very little probable
that anything would or could occur that day to render the presence of
Mary Warren in the least necessary or useful; but it was very pleasant
to me and very lovely in her to think otherwise, under the strong
impulses of her filial attachment.

Another idea, however, and one far less pleasant, suggested itself to
the minds of my uncle and myself, and almost at the same instant; it
was this: the conversation was carried on in a high key, or loud enough
to be heard at some little distance, the horse and part of the wagon
interposing between the speakers; and there was the physical certainty
that some of those whom we knew to be close at hand, in the bushes, must
hear all that was said, and might take serious offence at it. Under this
apprehension, therefore, my uncle directed me to remove our own vehicle
as fast as possible, in order that the clergyman might pass. Mr. Warren,
however, was in no hurry to do this, for he was utterly ignorant of the
audience he had, and entertained that feeling towards us that men of
liberal acquirements are apt to feel when they see others of similar
educations reduced by fortune below their proper level. He was
consequently desirous of manifesting his sympathy with us, and would not
proceed, even after I had opened the way for him.

"It is a painful thing," continued Mr. Warren, "to find men mistaking
their own cupidity for the workings of a love of liberty. To me nothing
is more palpable than that this anti-rent movement is covetousness
incited by the father of evil; yet you will find men among us who fancy
they are aiding the cause of free institutions by joining in it, when,
in truth, they are doing all they can to bring them into discredit, and
to insure their certain downfall, in the end."

This was sufficiently awkward; for, by going near enough to give a
warning in a low voice, and have that warning followed by a change in
the discourse, we should be betraying ourselves, and might fall into
serious danger. At the very moment the clergyman was thus speaking I saw
the masked head of Streak o' Lightning appearing through an opening in
some small pines that grew a little in the rear of the wagon, a position
that enabled him to hear every syllable that was uttered. I was afraid
to act myself, and trusted to the greater experience of my uncle.
Whether the last also saw the pretended chief was more than I knew, but
he decided to let the conversation go on, rather leaning to the
anti-rent side of the question, as the course that could do no serious
evil, while it might secure our own safety. It is scarcely necessary to
say all these considerations glanced through our minds so swiftly as to
cause no very awkward or suspicious pause in the discourse.

"B'rhaps dey doosn't like to bay rent?" put in my uncle, with a
roughness of manner that was in accordance with the roughness of the
sentiment. "Beoples might radder haf deir landts for nuttin', dan bay
rents for dem."

"In that case, then, let them go and buy lands for themselves; if they
do not wish to pay rent, why did they agree to pay rent?"

"May be dey changes deir minds. Vhat is goot to-day doosn't always seem
goot to-morrow."

"That may be true; but we have no right to make others suffer for our
own fickleness. I dare say, now, that it might be better for the whole
community that so large a tract of land as that included in the Manor of
Rensselaerwyck, for instance, and lying as it does in the very heart of
the State, should be altogether in the hands of the occupants, than have
it subject to the divided interest that actually exists; but it does not
follow that a change is to be made by violence, or by fraudulent means.
In either of the latter cases the injury done the community would be
greater than if the present tenures were to exist a thousand years. I
dare say much the larger portion of those farms can be bought off at a
moderate advance on their actual money-value; and that is the way to get
rid of the difficulty; not by bullying owners out of their property. If
the State finds a political consideration of so much importance for
getting rid of the tenures, let the State tax itself to do so, and make
a liberal offer, in addition to what the tenants will offer, and I'll
answer for it the landlords will not stand so much in their own way as
to decline good prices."

"But, maybes dey won't sell all der landts; dey may wants to keep some
of dem."

"They have a right to say yes or no, while we have no right to juggle or
legislate them out of their property. The Legislature of this State has
quite lately been exhibiting one of the most pitiable sights the world
has seen in my day. It has been struggling for months to find a way to
get round the positive provisions of laws and constitutions, in order
to make a sacrifice of the rights of a few, to secure the votes of the
many."

"Votes ist a goot ding, at election dime--haw, haw, haw!" exclaimed my
uncle.

Mr. Warren looked both surprised and offended. The coarseness of manner
that my uncle had assumed effected its object with the Injins, but it
almost destroyed the divine's previous good opinion of our characters,
and quite upset his notions of our refinement and principles. There was
no time for explanations, however; for, just as my uncle's broad and
well-acted "haw, haw, haw" was ended, a shrill whistle was heard in the
bushes, and some forty or fifty of the Injins came whooping and leaping
out from their cover, filling the road in all directions, immediately
around the wagons.

Mary Warren uttered a little scream at this startling scene, and I saw
her arm clinging to that of her father, by a sort of involuntary
movement, as if she would protect him at all hazards. Then she seemed to
rally, and from that instant her character assumed an energy, an
earnestness, a spirit and an intrepidity that I had least expected in
one so mild in aspect, and so really sweet in disposition.

All this was unnoticed by the Injins. They had their impulses, too, and
the first thing they did was to assist Mr. Warren and his daughter to
alight from their wagon. This was done, not without decorum of manner,
and certainly not without some regard to the holy office of one of the
parties, and to the sex of the other. Nevertheless, it was done neatly
and expeditiously, leaving us all, Mr. Warren and Mary, my uncle and
myself, with a cluster of some fifty Injins around us, standing in the
centre of the highway.




CHAPTER XIV.

    "No toil in despair,
        No tyrant, no slave,
    No bread-tax is there,
        With a maw like the grave."


All this was so suddenly done as scarce to leave us time to think. There
was one instant, notwithstanding, while two Injins were assisting Mary
Warren to jump from the wagon, when my incognito was in great danger.
Perceiving that the young lady was treated with no particular
disrespect, I so far overcame the feeling as to remain quiet, though I
silently changed my position sufficiently to get near her elbow, where I
could and did whisper a word or two of encouragement. But Mary thought
only of her father, and had no fears for herself. She saw none but him,
trembled only for him, dreaded and hoped for him alone.

As for Mr. Warren himself, he betrayed no discomposure. Had he been
about to enter the desk, his manner could not have been more calm. He
gazed around him, to ascertain if it were possible to recognise any of
his captors, but suddenly turned his head away, as if struck with the
expediency of not learning their names, even though it had been
possible. He might be put on the stand as a witness against some
misguided neighbour, did he know his person. All this was so apparent in
his benevolent countenance, that I think it struck some among the
Injins, and still believe it may have had a little influence on their
treatment of him. A pot of tar and a bag of feathers had been brought
into the road when the gang poured out of the bushes, but whether this
were merely accidental, or it had originally been intended to use them
on Mr. Warren, I cannot say. The offensive materials soon and silently
disappeared, and with them every sign of any intention to offer personal
injury.

"What have I done that I am thus arrested in the public highway, by men
armed and disguised, contrary to law?" demanded the divine, as soon as
the general pause which succeeded the first movement invited him to
speak. "This is a rash and illegal step, that may yet bring repentance."

"No preachee now," answered Streak o' Lightning; "preachee for meetin',
no good for road."

Mr. Warren afterwards admitted to me that he was much relieved by this
reply, the substitution of the word "meeting" for "church" giving him
the grateful assurance that _this_ individual, at least, was not one of
his own people.

"Admonition and remonstrance may always be useful when crime is
meditated. You are now committing a felony, for which the State's prison
is the punishment prescribed by the laws of the land, and the duties of
my holy office direct me to warn you of the consequences. The earth
itself is but one of God's temples, and his ministers need never
hesitate to proclaim his laws on any part of it."

It was evident that the calm severity of the divine, aided, no doubt, by
his known character, produced an impression on the gang, for the two who
had still hold of his arms released them, and a little circle was now
formed, in the centre of which he stood.

"If you will enlarge this circle, my friends," continued Mr. Warren,
"and give room, I will address you here, where we stand, and let you
know my reasons why I think your conduct ought to be----"

"No, no--no preachee here," suddenly interrupted Streak o' Lightning;
"go to village, go to meetin'-'us'--preachee there.--Two preacher,
den.--Bring wagon and put him in. March, march; path open."

Although this was but an "Injin" imitation of "Indian" sententiousness,
and somewhat of a caricature, everybody understood well enough what was
meant. Mr. Warren offered no resistance, but suffered himself to be
placed in Miller's wagon, with my uncle at his side, without opposition.
Then it was, however, that he bethought himself of his daughter, though
his daughter had never ceased to think of him. I had some little
difficulty in keeping her from rushing into the crowd, and clinging to
his side. Mr. Warren rose, and, giving her an encouraging smile, bade
her be calm, told her he had nothing to fear, and requested that she
would enter his own wagon again and return home, promising to rejoin her
as soon as his duties at the village were discharged.

"Here is no one to drive the horse, my child, but our young German
acquaintance. The distance is very short, and if he will thus oblige me,
he can come down to the village with the wagon, as soon as he has seen
you safe at our own door."

Mary Warren was accustomed to defer to her father's opinions, and she so
far submitted, now, as to permit me to assist her into the wagon, and to
place myself at her side, whip in hand, proud of and pleased with the
precious charge thus committed to my care. These arrangements made, the
Injins commenced their march, about half of them preceding, and the
remainder following the wagon that contained their prisoner. Four,
however, walked on each side of the vehicle, thus preventing the
possibility of escape. No noise was made, and little was said; the
orders being given by signs and signals, rather than by words.

Our wagon continued stationary until the party had got at least a
hundred yards from us, no one giving any heed to our movements. I had
waited thus long for the double purpose of noting the manner of the
proceedings among the Injins, and to obtain room to turn at a spot in
the road a short distance in advance of us, and which was wider than
common. To this spot I now walked the horse, and was in the act of
turning the animal's head in the required direction, when I saw Mary
Warren's little gloved hand laid hurriedly on the reins. She endeavoured
to keep the head of the horse in the road.

"No, no," said the charming girl, speaking earnestly, as if she would
not be denied, "we will follow my father to the village. I may not, must
not, _cannot_ quit him!"

The time and place were every way propitious, and I determined to let
Mary Warren know who I was. By doing it I might give her confidence in
me at a moment when she was in distress, and encourage her with the hope
that I might also befriend her father. At any rate, I was determined to
pass for an itinerant Dutch music-grinder with _her_ no longer.

"Miss Mary, Miss Warren," I commenced, cautiously, and with quite as
much hesitation and diffidence of feeling as of manner, "I am not what I
seem--that is, I am no music-grinder."

The start, the look, and the alarm of my companion, were all eloquent
and natural. Her hand was still on the reins, and she now drew on them
so hard as actually to stop the horse. I thought she intended to jump
out of the vehicle, as a place no longer fit for her.

"Be not alarmed, Miss Warren," I said, eagerly, and, I trust, so
earnestly as to inspire a little confidence. "You will not think the
worse of me at finding I am your countryman instead of a foreigner, and
a gentleman instead of a music-grinder. I shall do all you ask, and will
protect you with my life."

"This is so extraordinary!--so unusual!--The whole country appears
unsettled! Pray, sir, if you are not the person whom you have
represented yourself to be, who are you?"

"One who admires your filial love and courage--who honours you for them
both. I am the brother of your friend, Martha--I am Hugh Littlepage!"

The little hand now abandoned the reins, and the dear girl turned half
round on the cushion of the seat, gazing at me in mute astonishment! I
had been cursing in my heart the lank locks of the miserable wig I was
compelled to wear, ever since I had met with Mary Warren, as
unnecessarily deforming and ugly, for one might have as well a becoming
as a horridly unbecoming disguise. Off went my cap, therefore, and off
went the wig after it, leaving my own shaggy curls for the sole setting
of my face.

Mary made a slight exclamation as she gazed at me, and the deadly
paleness of her countenance was succeeded by a slight blush. A smile,
too, parted her lips, and I fancied she was less alarmed.

"Am I forgiven, Miss Warren?" I asked; "and will you recognise me for
the brother of your friend?"

"Does Martha--does Mrs. Littlepage know of this?" the charming girl at
length asked.

"Both; I have had the happiness of being embraced by both my
grandmother and my sister. You were taken out of the room, yesterday, by
the first, that I might be left alone with the last, for that very
purpose!"

"I see it all, now; yes, I thought it singular then, though I felt there
could be no impropriety in any of Mrs. Littlepages' acts. Dearest
Martha! how well she played her part, and how admirably she has kept
your secret!"

"It is very necessary. You see the condition of the country, and will
understand that it would be imprudent in me to appear openly, even on my
own estate. I have a written covenant authorizing me to visit every farm
near us, to look after my own interests; yet, it may be questioned if it
would be safe to visit one among them all, now that the spirits of
misrule and covetousness are up and doing."

"Replace your disguise at once, Mr. Littlepage," said Mary, eagerly;
"do--do not delay an instant."

I did as desired, Mary watching the process with interested, and, at the
same time, amused eyes. I thought she looked as sorry as I felt myself
when that lank, villanous wig was again performing its office.

"Am I as well arranged as when we first met, Miss Warren? Do I appear
again the music-grinder?"

"I see no difference," returned the dear girl, laughing. How musical and
cheering to me were the sounds of her voice in that little burst of
sweet, feminine merriment. "Indeed, indeed, I do not think even Martha
could know you now, for the person you the moment before seemed."

"My disguise is, then, perfect. I was in hopes it left a little that my
friends might recognise, while it effectually concealed me from my
enemies."

"It does--oh! it does. Now I know who you are, I find no difficulty in
tracing in your features the resemblance to your portrait in the family
gallery, at the Nest. The eyes, too, cannot be altered without
artificial brows, and those you have not."

This was consoling; but all that time Mr. Warren and the party in front
had been forgotten. Perhaps it was excusable in two young persons thus
situated, and who had now known each other a week, to think more of what
was just then passing in the wagon, than to recollect the tribe that
was marching down the road, and the errand they were on. I felt the
necessity, however, of next consulting my companion as to our future
movements. Mary heard me in evident anxiety, and her purpose seemed
unsettled, for she changed colour under each new impulse of her
feelings.

"If it were not for one thing," she answered, after a thoughtful pause,
"I should insist on following my father."

"And what may be the reason of this change of purpose?"

"Would it be altogether safe for _you_, Mr. Littlepage, to venture again
among those misguided men?"

"Never think of me, Miss Warren. You see I have been among them already
undetected, and it is my intention to join them again, even should I
first have to take you home. Decide for yourself."

"I will, then, follow my father. My presence may be the means of saving
him from some indignity."

I was rejoiced at this decision, on two accounts; of which one might
have been creditable enough to me, while the other, I am sorry to say,
was rather selfish. I delighted in the dear girl's devotion to her
parent, and I was glad to have her company as long as possible that
morning. Without entering into a very close analysis of motives,
however, I drove down the road, keeping the horse on a very slow gait,
being in no particular hurry to quit my present fair companion.

Mary and I had now a free, and, in some tense, a confidential dialogue.
Her manner towards me had entirely changed; for, while it maintained the
modesty and _retenue_ of her sex and station, it displayed much of that
frankness which was the natural consequence of her great intimacy at the
Nest, and; as I have since ascertained, of her own ingenuous nature. The
circumstance, too, that she now felt she was with one of her own class,
who had opinions, habits, tastes and thoughts like her own, removed a
mountain of restraint, and made her communications natural and easy. I
was near an hour, I do believe, in driving the two miles that lay
between the point where the Injins had been met and the village, and in
that hour Mary Warren and I became better acquainted than would have
been the case, under ordinary circumstances, in a year.

In the first place, I explained the reasons and manner of my early and
unexpected return home, and the motives by which I had been governed in
thus coming in disguise on my own property. Then I said a little of my
future intentions, and of my disposition to hold out to the last against
every attempt on my rights, whether they might come from the open
violence and unprincipled designs of those below, or the equally
unprincipled schemes of those above. A spurious liberty and political
cant were things that I despised, as every intelligent and independent
man must; and I did not intend to be persuaded I was an aristocrat,
merely because I had the habits of a gentleman, at the very moment when
I had less political influence than the hired labourers in my own
service.

Mary Warren manifested a spirit and an intelligence that surprised me.
She expressed her own belief that the proscribed classes of the country
had only to be true to themselves to be restored to their just rights,
and that on the very principle by which they were so fast losing them.
The opinions she thus expressed are worthy of being recorded.

"Everything that is done in that way," said this gentle, but admirable
creature, "has hitherto been done on a principle that is quite as false
and vicious as that by which they are now oppressed. We have had a great
deal written and said, lately, about uniting people of property, but it
has been so evidently with an intention to make money rule, and that in
its most vulgar and vicious manner, that persons of right feelings would
not unite in such an effort; but it does seem to me, Mr. Littlepage,
that if the gentlemen of New York could form themselves into an
association in defence of their rights, and for nothing else, and let it
be known that they would not be robbed with impunity, they are numerous
enough and powerful enough to put down this anti-rent project by the
mere force of numbers. Thousands would join them for the sake of
principles, and the country might be left to the enjoyment of the fruits
of liberty, without getting any of the fruits of its cant."

This is a capital idea, and might easily be carried out. It requires
nothing but a little self-denial, with the conviction of the necessity
of doing something, if the downward tendency is to be ever checked
short of civil war, and a revolution that is to let in despotism in its
more direct form; despotism, in the indirect, is fast appearing among
us, as it is.

"I have heard of a proposition for the Legislature to appoint special
commissioners, who are to settle all the difficulties between the
landlords and tenants," I remarked, "a scheme in the result of which
some people profess to have a faith. I regard it as only one of the many
projects that have been devised to evade the laws and institutions of
the country, as they now exist."

Mary Warren seemed thoughtful for a moment; then her eye and face
brightened, as if she were struck with some thought suddenly; after
which the colour deepened on her cheek, and she turned to me as if half
doubting, and yet half desirous of giving utterance to the idea that was
uppermost.

"You wish to say something, Miss Warren?"

"I dare say it will be very silly--and I hope you won't think it
pedantic in a girl, but really it does look so to me--what difference
would there be between such a commission and the Star-Chamber judges of
the Stuarts, Mr. Littlepage?"

"Not much in general principles, certainly, as both would be the
instruments of tyrants; but a very important one in a great essential.
The Star-Chamber courts were legal, whereas this commission would be
flagrantly illegal; the adoption of a special tribunal to effect certain
purposes that could exist only in the very teeth of the constitution,
both in its spirit and its letter. Yet this project comes from men who
prate about the 'spirit of the institutions,' which they clearly
understand to be their own spirit, let that be what it may."

"Providence, I trust, will not smile on such desperate efforts to do
wrong!" said Mary Warren, solemnly.

"One hardly dare look into the inscrutable ways of a Power that has its
motives so high beyond our reach. Providence permits much evil to be
done, and is very apt to be, as Frederic of Prussia expressed it, on the
side of strong battalions, so far as human vision can penetrate. Of one
thing, however, I feel certain, and that is that they who are now the
most eager to overturn everything to effect present purposes, will be
made to repent of it bitterly, either in their own persons, or in those
of their descendants."

"That is what is meant, my father says, by visiting 'the sins of the
fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations.' But
there is the party, with their prisoners, just entering the village. Who
is your companion, Mr. Littlepage?--One hired to act as an assistant?"

"It is my uncle, himself. You have often heard, I should think, of Mr.
Roger Littlepage?"

Mary gave a little exclamation at hearing this, and she almost laughed.
After a short pause she blushed brightly, and turned to me as she said--

"And my father and I have supposed you, the one a pedlar, and the other
a street-musician!"

"But bedlars and moosic-grinders of goot etications, as might be
panishet for deir bolitics."

Now, indeed, she laughed out, for the long and frank dialogue we had
held together made this change to broken English seem as if a third
person had joined us. I profited by the occasion to exhort the dear girl
to be calm, and not to feel any apprehension on the subject of her
father. I pointed out how little probable it was that violence would be
offered to a minister of the gospel, and showed her, by the number of
persons that had collected in the village, that it was impossible he
should not have many warm and devoted friends present. I also gave her
permission to, nay, requested she would, tell Mr. Warren the fact of my
uncle's and my own presence, and the reasons of our disguises, trusting
altogether to the very obvious interest the dear girl took in our
safety, that she would add, of her own accord, the necessary warning on
the subject of secresy. Just as this conversation ended we drove into
the hamlet, and I helped my fair companion to alight.

Mary Warren now hastened to seek her father, while I was left to take
care of the horse. This I did by fastening him to the rails of a fence,
that was lined for a long distance by horses and wagons drawn up by the
way-side. Surprisingly few persons in the country, at this day, are seen
on horseback. Notwithstanding the vast difference in the amount of the
population, ten horsemen were to be met with forty years ago, by all
accounts, on the highways of the State, for one to-day. The well-known
vehicle, called a dearborn, with its four light wheels and mere shell of
a box, is in such general use as to have superseded almost every other
species of conveyance. Coaches and chariots are no longer met with,
except in the towns; and even the coachee, the English sociable, which
was once so common, has very generally given way to a sort of
carriage-wagon, that seems a very general favourite. My grandmother, who
did use the stately-looking and elegant chariot in town, had nothing but
this carriage-wagon in the country; and I question if one-half of the
population of the State would know what to call the former vehicle, if
they should see it.

As a matter of course, the collection of people assembled at Little Nest
on this occasion had been brought together in dearborns, of which there
must have been between two and three hundred lining the fences and
crowding the horse-sheds of the two inns. The American countryman, in
the true sense of the word, is still quite rustic in many of his
notions; though, on the whole, less marked in this particular than his
European counterpart. As the rule, he has yet to learn that the little
liberties which are tolerated in a thinly-peopled district, and which
are of no great moment when put in practice under such circumstances,
become oppressive and offensive when reverted to in places of much
resort. The habits of popular control, too, come to aid in making them
fancy that what everybody does in their part of the country can have no
great harm in it. It was in conformity with this _tendency_ of the
institutions, perhaps, that very many of the vehicles I have named were
thrust into improper places, stopping up the footways, impeding the
entrances to doors, here and there letting down bars without permission,
and garnishing orchards and pastures with one-horse wagons. Nothing was
meant by all these liberties beyond a desire to dispose of the horses
and vehicles in the manner easiest to their owners. Nevertheless, there
was some connection between the institutions and these little liberties
which some statesmen might fancy existed in the _spirit_ of the former.
This, however, was a capital mistake, inasmuch as the _spirit_ of the
institutions is to be found in the laws, which prohibit and punish all
sorts of trespasses, and which are enacted expressly to curb the
_tendencies_ of human nature! No, no, as my uncle Ro says, nothing can
be less alike, sometimes, than the _spirit_ of institutions and their
_tendencies_.

I was surprised to find nearly as many females as men had collected at
the Little Nest on this occasion. As for the Injins, after escorting Mr.
Warren as far as the village, as if significantly to admonish him of
their presence, they had quietly released him, permitting him to go
where he pleased. Mary had no difficulty in finding him, and I saw her
at his side, apparently in conversation with Opportunity and her
brother, Seneca, as soon as I moved down the road, after securing the
horse. The Injins themselves kept a little aloof, having my uncle in
their very centre; not as a prisoner, for it was clear no one suspected
his character, but as a pedlar. The watches were out again, and near
half of the whole gang seemed busy in trading, though I thought that
some among them were anxious and distrustful.

It was a singular spectacle to see men who were raising the cry of
"aristocracy" against those who happened to be richer than themselves,
while they did not possess a single privilege or power that,
substantially, was not equally shared by every other man in the country,
thus openly arrayed in defiance of law, and thus violently trampling the
law under their feet. What made the spectacle more painful was the
certainty that was obtained by their very actions on the ground, that no
small portion of these Injins were mere boys, led on by artful and
knavish men, and who considered the whole thing as a joke. When the laws
fall so much into disrepute as to be the subjects of jokes of this sort,
it is time to inquire into their mode of administration. Does any one
believe that fifty landlords could have thus flown into the face of a
recent enactment, and committed felony openly, and under circumstances
that had rendered their intentions no secret, for a time long enough to
enable the authorities to collect a force sufficient to repress them? My
own opinion is, that had Mr. Stephen Rensselaer, and Mr. William
Rensselaer, and Mr. Harry Livingston, and Mr. John Hunter, and Mr.
Daniel Livingston, and Mr. Hugh Littlepage, and fifty more that I could
name, been caught armed and disguised, in order to _defend_ the rights
of property that are solemnly guarantied in these institutions, of
which it would seem to be the notion of some that it is the "spirit" to
dispossess them, we should all of us have been the inmates of States'
prisons, without legislators troubling themselves to pass laws for our
liberation! This is another of the extraordinary features of American
aristocracy, which almost deprives the noble of the every-day use and
benefit of the law. It would be worth our while to lose a moment in
inquiring into the process by which such strange results are brought
about, but it is fortunately rendered unnecessary by the circumstance
that the principle will be amply developed in the course of the
narrative.

A stranger could hardly have felt the real character of this meeting by
noting the air and manner of those who had come to attend it. The "armed
and disguised" kept themselves in a body, it is true, and maintained, in
a slight degree, the appearance of distinctness from "the people," but
many of the latter stopped to speak to these men, and were apparently on
good terms with them. Not a few of the gentler sex, even, appeared to
have acquaintances in the gang; and it would have struck a political
philosopher from the other hemisphere with some surprise, to have seen
the "people" thus tolerating fellows who were openly trampling on a law
that the "people" themselves had just enacted! A political philosopher
from among ourselves, however, might have explained the seeming
contradiction by referring it to the "spirit of the institutions." If
one were to ask Hugh Littlepage to solve the difficulty, he would have
been very apt to answer that the "people" of Ravensnest wanted to compel
him to sell lands which he did not wish to sell, and that not a few of
them were anxious to add to the compulsory bargains conditions as to
price that would rob him of about one-half of his estate; and that what
the Albany philosophers called the "spirit of the institutions," was, in
fact, a "spirit of the devil," which the institutions were expressly
designed to hold in subjection!

There was a good deal of out-door management going on, as might be seen
by the private discussions that were held between pairs, under what is
called the "horse-shedding" process. This "horse-shedding" process, I
understand, is well known among us, and extends not only to politics,
but to the administration of justice. Your regular "horse-shedder" is
employed to frequent taverns where jurors stay, and drops hints before
them touching the merits of causes known to be on the calendars;
possibly contrives to get into a room with six or eight beds, in which
there may accidentally be a juror, or even two, in a bed, when he drops
into a natural conversation on the merits of some matter at issue,
praises one of the parties, while he drops dark hints to the prejudice
of the other, and makes his own representations of the facts in a way to
scatter the seed where he is morally certain it will take root and grow.
All this time he is not conversing with a juror, not he; he is only
assuming the office of the judge by anticipation, and dissecting
evidence before it has been given, in the ear of a particular friend. It
is true there is a law against doing anything of the sort; it is true
there is law to punish the editor of a newspaper who shall publish
anything to prejudice the interests of litigants; it is true the
"horse-shedding process" is flagrantly wicked, and intended to destroy
most of the benefits of the jury-system; but, notwithstanding all this,
the "spirit of the institutions" carries everything before it, and men
regard all these laws and provisions, as well as the eternal principles
of right, precisely as if they had no existence at all, or as if a
freeman were above the law. He makes the law, and why should he not
break it? Here is another effect of the "spirit of the institutions."

At length the bell rang, and the crowd began to move towards the
"meetin'-us." This building was not that which had been originally
constructed, and at the raising of which, I have heard it said, my dear
old grandmother, then a lovely and spirited girl of nineteen, had been
conspicuous for her coolness and judgment, but a far more pretending
successor. The old building had been constructed on the true model of
the highest dissenting spirit--a spirit that induced its advocates to
quarrel with good taste as well as religious dogmas, in order to make
the chasm as wide as possible--while in this, some concessions had been
made to the temper of the times. I very well remember the old
"meetin'-us" at the "Little Nest," for it was pulled down to give place
to its more pretending successor after I had attained my sixteenth year.
A description of both may let the reader into the secret of our rural
church architecture.

The "old Neest meetin'-us," like its successor, was of a hemlock frame,
covered with pine clap-boards, and painted white. Of late years, the
paint had been of a most fleeting quality, the oil seeming to evaporate,
instead of striking in and setting, leaving the colouring matter in a
somewhat decomposed condition, to rub off by friction and wash away in
the rains. The house was a stiff, formal parallelogram, resembling a man
with high shoulders, appearing to be "stuck up." It had two rows of
formal, short and ungraceful windows, _that_ being a point in orthodoxy
at the period of its erection. It had a tower, uncouth, and in some
respects too large and others too small, if one can reconcile the
contradiction; but there are anomalies of this sort in art, as well as
in nature. On top of this tower stood a long-legged belfry, which had
got a very dangerous, though a very common, propensity in ecclesiastical
matters; in other words, it had begun to "cant." It was this diversion
from the perpendicular which had suggested the necessity of erecting a
new edifice, and the building in which the "lecture" on feudal tenures
and aristocracy was now to be delivered.

The new meeting-house at Little Nest was a much more pretending edifice
than its predecessor. It was also of wood, but a bold diverging from
"first principles" had been ventured on, not only in physical, but in
the moral church. The last was "new-school;" as, indeed, was the first.
What "new-school" means, in a spiritual sense, I do not exactly know,
but I suppose it to be some improvement on some other improvement of the
more ancient and venerable dogmas of the sect to which it belongs. These
improvements on improvements are rather common among us, and are
favourably viewed by a great number under the name of progress; though
he who stands at a little distance can, half the time, discover that the
parties in progress very often come out at the precise spot from which
they started.

For my part, I find so much wisdom in the bible--so profound a knowledge
of human nature, and of its tendencies--counsel so comprehensive and so
safe, and this solely in reference to the things of this life, that I do
not believe everything is progress in the right direction because it
sets us in motion on paths that are not two thousand years old! I
believe that we have quite as much that ought to be kept, as of that
which ought to be thrown away; and while I admit the vast number of
abuses that have grown up in the old world, under the "spirit of _their_
institutions," as our philosophers would say, I can see a goodly number
that are also growing up here, certainly not under the same "spirit,"
unless we refer them both, as a truly wise man would, to our common and
miserable nature.

The main departure from first principles, in the sense of material
things, was in the fact that the new meeting-house had only _one_ row of
windows, and that the windows of that row had the pointed arch. The time
has been when this circumstance would have created a schism in the
theological world; and I hope that my youth and inexperience will be
pardoned, if I respectfully suggest that a pointed arch, or any other
arch in _wood_, ought to create another in the world of taste.

But in we went, men, women and children; uncle Ro, Mr. Warren, Mary,
Seneca, Opportunity, and all, the Injins excepted. For some reason
connected with their policy, those savages remained outside, until the
whole audience had assembled in grave silence. The orator was in, or on
a sort of stage, which was made, under the new-light system in
architecture, to supersede the old, inconvenient, and ugly pulpit,
supported on each side by two divines, of what denomination I shall not
take on myself to say. It will be sufficient if I add Mr. Warren was not
one of them. He and Mary had taken their seats quite near the door, and
under the gallery. I saw that the rector was uneasy the moment the
lecturer and his two supporters entered the pulpit, and appeared on the
stage; and at length he arose, and followed by Mary, he suddenly left
the building. In an instant I was at their side, for it struck me
indisposition was the cause of so strange a movement. Fortunately, at
this moment, the whole audience rose in a body, and one of the ministers
commenced an extempore prayer.

At that instant, the Injins had drawn themselves up around the building,
close to its sides, and under the open windows, in a position that
enabled them to hear all that passed. As I afterwards learned, this
arrangement was made with an understanding with those within, one of
the ministers having positively refused to address the throne of Grace
so long as any of the tribe were present. Well has it been said, that
man often strains at a gnat, and swallows a camel!




CHAPTER XV.

    "I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier means to dress the commonwealth
    and turn it, and put a new nap upon it."

    _King Henry VI._


As I knew Mary must have communicated to her father my real name, I did
not hesitate, as I ought to have done in my actual dress and in my
assumed character, about following them, in order to inquire if I could
be of any service. I never saw distress more strongly painted in any
man's countenance than it was in that of Mr. Warren, when I approached.
So very obvious, indeed, was his emotion, that I did not venture to
obtrude myself on him, but followed in silence; and he and Mary slowly
walked, side by side, across the street to the stoop of a house, of
which all the usual inmates had probably gone in the other direction.
Here, Mr. Warren took a seat, Mary still at his side, while I drew near,
standing before him.

"I thank you, Mr. Littlepage," the divine at length said, with a smile
so painful it was almost haggard, "for, so Mary tells me you should be
called--I thank you for this attention, sir--but, it will be over in
another minute--I feel better now, and shall be able to command myself."

No more was then said, concerning the reason of this distress; but Mary
has since explained to me its cause. When her father went into the
meeting-house, he had not the smallest idea that anything like a
religious service would be dragged into the ceremonies of such a day.
The two ministers on the stage first gave him the alarm; when a most
painful struggle occurred in his mind, whether or not he should remain,
and be a party to the mockery of addressing God in prayer, in an
assembly collected to set at naught one of the plainest of his
laws--nay, with banded felons drawn up around the building, as principal
actors in the whole mummery. The alternative was for him, a minister, of
the altar, to seem to quit those who were about to join in prayer, and
to do this moreover under circumstances which might appear to others as
if he rejected all worship but that which was in accordance with his own
views of right, a notion that would be certain to spread far and near,
greatly to the prejudice of his own people. But the first, as he viewed
the matter, involved a species of blasphemy; and yielding to his
feelings, he took the decided step he had, intending to remain out of
the building, until the more regular business of the day commenced.

It is certain Mr. Warren, who acted under the best impulse of christian
feeling, a reverence for God, and a profound wish not to be a party in
offending him with the mockery of worship under such circumstances, has
lost much influence, and made many enemies, by the step he then took.
The very same feeling which has raised the cry of aristocracy against
every gentleman who dwells in sufficiently near contact with the masses
to distinguish his habits from those around him; which induces the
eastern emigrant, who comes from a state of society where there are no
landlords, to fancy those he finds here ought to be pulled down, because
he is not a landlord himself; which enables the legislator to stand up
in his place, and unblushingly talk about feudal usages, at the very
instant he is demonstrating that equal rights are denied to those he
would fain stigmatize as feudal lords, has extended to religion, and the
church of which Mr. Warren was a minister, is very generally accused of
being aristocratic, too! This charge is brought because it has claims
which other churches affect to renounce and reject as forming no part of
the faith; but the last cannot remain easy under their own decisions;
and while they shout, and sing that they have found "a church without a
bishop," they hate the church that has a bishop, because it has
something they do not possess themselves, instead of pitying its deluded
members, if they believe them wrong. This will not be admitted
generally, but it is nevertheless true; and betrays itself in a hundred
ways. It is seen in the attempt to _call_ their own priests bishops, in
the feeling so manifest whenever a cry can be raised against their
existence, and in the _general_ character of these theological rallies,
whenever they do occur.

For one, I see a close analogy between my own church, as it exists in
this country, and comparing it with that from which it sprung, and to
those which surround it, and the true political circumstances of the two
hemispheres. In discarding a vast amount of surplusage, in reducing the
orders of the ministry, in practice, as well as in theory, to their
primitive number ... three and in rejecting all connection with the
State, the American branch of the Episcopal Church has assumed the
position it was desirous to fill; restoring, as near as may be, the
simplicity of the apostolical ages, while it does not disregard the
precepts and practices of the apostles themselves. It has not set itself
above antiquity and authority, but merely endeavoured to sustain them,
without the encumbrances of more modern abuses. Thus, too, has it been
in political things. No attempt has been made to create new organic
social distinctions in this country, but solely to disencumber those
that are inseparable from the existence of all civilized society, of the
clumsy machinery with which the expedients of military oppressors had
invested them. The real sages of this country, in founding its
institutions, no more thought of getting rid of the landlords of the
country, than the Church thought of getting rid of its bishops. The
first knew that the gradations of property were an inevitable incident
of civilization; that it would not be wise, if it were possible, to
prevent the affluent from making large investments in the soil; and that
this could not be done in practice, without leaving the relation of
landlord and tenant. Because landlords, in other parts of the world,
possessed privileges that were not necessary to the natural or simple
existence of the character, was no reason for destroying the character
itself; any more than the fact that the bishops of England possess an
authority the apostles knew nothing of, rendered it proper for the
American branch of the church to do away with an office that came from
the apostles. But, envy and jealousy do not pause to reflect on such
things; it is enough for _them_, in the one case that you and yours
have estates, and occupy social positions, that I and mine do not, and
cannot easily, occupy and possess; _therefore_ I will oppose you, and
join my voice to the cry of those who wish to get their farms for
nothing; and in the other, that you have bishops when we can have none,
without abandoning our present organization and doctrines.

I dwell on these points at some little length, because the movements of
Mr. Warren and myself, at that moment, had a direct influence on the
circumstances that will soon be related. It is probable that fully
one-half of those collected in the Little Nest meeting-house, that
morning, as they stood up, and lent a sort of one-sided and listless
attention to the prayer, were thinking of the scandalous and
aristocratical conduct of Mr. Warren, in "goin' out o' meetin' just as
meetin' went to prayers!" Few, indeed, were they who would be likely to
ascribe any charitable motive for the act; and probably not one of those
present thought of the true and conscientious feeling that had induced
it. So the world wags! It is certain that a malignant and bitter feeling
was got up against the worthy rector on that occasion, and for that act,
which has not yet abated, and which will not abate in many hundreds,
until the near approach of death shall lay bare to them the true
character of so many of their own feelings.

It was some minutes before Mr. Warren entirely regained his composure.
At length he spoke to me, in his usual benevolent and mild way, saying a
few words that were complimentary, on the subject of my return, while he
expressed his fears that my uncle Ro and myself had been imprudent in
thus placing ourselves, as it might be, in the lion's jaws.

"You have certainly made your disguises so complete," he added, smiling,
"as to have escaped wonderfully well so far. That you should deceive
Mary and myself is no great matter, since neither of us ever saw you
before; but, the manner in which your nearest relatives have been
misled, is surprising. Nevertheless, you have every inducement to be
cautious, for hatred and jealousy have a penetration that does not
belong even to love."

"We think we are safe, sir," I answered, "for we are certainly within
the statute. We are too well aware of our miserable aristocratical
condition to place ourselves within the grasp of the law, for such are
our eminent privileges as a landed nobility, that we are morally certain
either of us would not only be sent to the state's prison were he to be
guilty of the felony those Injins are committing, and will commit, with
perfect impunity, but that he would be kept there, as long as a single
tear of anguish could be wrung from one of those who are classed with
the aristocracy. Democracy alone finds any sympathy in the ordinary
administration of American justice."

"I am afraid that your irony has only too much truth in it. But the
movement around the building would seem to say that the real business of
the day is about to commence, and we had better return to the church."

"Those men in disguise are watching us, in a most unpleasant and
alarming manner," said Mary Warren, delighting me far more by the
vigilance she thus manifested in my behalf, than alarming me by the
fact.

That we were watched, however, became obviously apparent, as we walked
towards the building, by the actions of some of the Injins. They had
left the side of the church where they had posted themselves during the
prayer, and head was going to head, among those nearest to us; or, it
would be nearer to appearances, were I to say bunch of calico was going
to bunch of calico, for nothing in the form of a head was visible among
them. Nothing was said to Mr. Warren and Mary, however, who were
permitted to go into the meeting-house, unmolested; but two of these
disguised gentry placed themselves before me, laying their rifles across
my path, and completely intercepting my advance.

"Who you?" abruptly demanded one of the two;--"where go--where come
from?"

The answer was ready, and I trust it was sufficiently steady.

"I coomes from Charmany, und I goes into der kerch, as dey say in mine
coontry; what might be callet meetin'-us, here."

What might have followed, it is not easy to say, had not the loud,
declamatory voice of the lecturer just then been heard, as he commenced
his address. This appeared to be a signal for the tribe to make some
movement, for the two fellows who had stopped me, walked silently away,
though bag of calico went to bag of calico, as they trotted off
together, seemingly communicating to each other their suspicions. I took
advantage of the opening, and passed into the church, where I worked my
way through the throng, and got a seat at my uncle's side.

I have neither time, room, nor inclination to give anything like an
analysis of the lecture. The speaker was fluent, inflated, and anything
but logical. Not only did he contradict himself, but he contradicted the
laws of nature. The intelligent reader will not require to be reminded
of the general character of a speech that was addressed to the passions
and interests of such an audience, rather than to their reason. He
commented, at first, on the particular covenants of the leases on the
old estates of the colony, alluding to the quarter-sales, chickens,
days' work, and durable tenures, in the customary way. The reservation
of the mines, too, was mentioned as a tyrannical covenant, precisely as
if a landlord were obliged to convey any more of the rights that were
vested in him, than he saw fit; or the tenant could justly claim more
than he had hired! This man treated all these branches of the subject,
as if the tenants had acquired certain mysterious interests by time and
occupation, overlooking the fact that the one party got just as good a
title as the other by this process; the lease being the instrument
between them, that was getting to be venerable. If one party grew old as
a tenant, so did the other as a landlord. I thought that this lecturer
would have been glad to confine himself to the Manor leases, that being
the particular branch of the subject he had been accustomed to treat;
but, such was not the precise nature of the job he was now employed to
execute. At Ravensnest, he could not flourish the feudal grievance of
the quarter-sales, the "four fat fowls," the "days' works," and the
_length_ of the leases. Here it was clearly his cue to say nothing of
the three first, and to complain of the _shortness_ of the leases, as
mine were about to fall in, in considerable numbers. Finding it was
necessary to take new ground, he determined it should be bold ground,
and such as would give him the least trouble to get along with.

As soon as the lecturer had got through with his general heads, and felt
the necessity of coming down to particulars, he opened upon the family
of Littlepage, in a very declamatory way. What had they ever done for
the country, he demanded, that _they_ should be lords in the land? By
some process known to himself, he had converted landlords into lords in
the land, and was now aiming to make the tenants occupy the latter
station--nay, both stations. Of course, some services of a public
character, of which the Littlepages might boast, were not touched upon
at all, everything of that nature being compressed into what the
lecturer and his audience deemed serving the people, by helping to
indulge them in all their desires, however rapacious or wicked. As
everybody who knows anything of the actual state of matters among us,
must be aware how rarely the "people" hear the truth, when their own
power and interests are in question, it is not surprising that a very
shallow reasoner was enabled to draw wool over the eyes of the audience
of Ravensnest on that particular subject.

But my interest was most awakened when this man came to speak of myself.
It is not often that a man enjoys the same opportunity as that I then
possessed to hear his own character delineated, and his most private
motives analyzed. In the first place, the audience were told that this
"young Hugh Littlepage had never done anything for the land that he
proudly, and like a great European noble, he calls his 'estate.' Most of
you, fellow-citizens, can show your hard hands, and recall the burning
suns under which you have opened the swarth, through those then lovely
meadows yonder, as _your_ titles to these farms. But, Hugh Littlepage
never did a day's work in his life"--ten minutes before he had been
complaining of the "days' work" in the Manor leases as indignities that
a freeman ought not to submit to--"no, fellow-citizens, he never had
that honour, and never will have it, until by a just division of his
property, or what he now _calls_ his property, you reduce him to the
necessity of labouring to raise the crops he wants to consume."

"Where is this Hugh Littlepage at this very moment? In Paris,
squandering _your_ hard earnings in riotous living, according to the
best standards of aristocracy. He lives in the midst of abundance,
dresses richly and fares richly, while _you_ and _yours_ are eating the
sweat of your brows. He is no man for a pewter spoon and two-pronged
fork! No, my countrymen! He must have a _gold_ spoon for some of his
dishes, and you will find it hard to believe--plain, unpretending,
republican farmers as you are, but it is not the less true--he must have
forks of _silver_! Fellow-citizens, Hugh Littlepage would not put his
knife into his mouth, as you and I do, in eating--as all plain,
unpretending republicans do--for the world. It would choke him; no, he
keeps _silver_ forks to touch his anointed lips!" Here there was an
attempt to get up something like applause, but it totally failed. The
men of Ravensnest had been accustomed all their lives to see the
Littlepages in the social station they occupied; and, after all, it did
not seem so very extraordinary that we should have silver forks, any
more than that others should have silver spoons. The lecturer had the
tact to see that he had failed on this point, and he turned to another.

The next onset was made against our title. Whence did it come? demanded
the lecturer. From the king of England; and the people had conquered the
country from that sovereign, and put themselves in his place. Now, is it
not a good principle in politics, that to the victors belong the spoils?
He believed it was; and that in conquering America, he was of opinion
that the people of America had conquered the land, and that they had a
right to take the land, and to keep it. Titles from kings he did not
respect much; and he believed the American people, generally, did not
think much of them. If Hugh Littlepage wished an "estate," as he called
it, let him come to the people and "sarve _them_," and see what sort of
an estate _they_ would give him.

But there was one portion of his speech which was so remarkable, that I
must attempt to give it, as it was uttered. It was while the lecturer
was expatiating on this subject of titles, that he broke out in the
following language:--"Don't talk to me," he bellowed--for by this time
his voice had risen to the pitch of a methodist's, in a
camp-meeting--"Don't talk to me of antiquity, and time, and length of
possession, as things to be respected. They're nawthin--jest nawthin'
at all. Possession's good in law, I'll admit; and I contind that's jest
what the tenants has. They've got the lawful possession of this very
property, that layeth (not eggs, but) up and down, far and near, and all
around; a rich and goodly heritage, when divided up among hard-working
and honest folks; but too much, by tens of thousands of acres, for a
young chap, who is wasting his substance in foreign lands, to hold. I
contind that the tenants has this very, precise, lawful possession, at
this blessed moment, only the law won't let 'em enj'y it. It's all owing
to that accursed law, that the tenant can't set up a title ag'in his
landlord. You see by this one fact, fellow-citizens, that they are a
privileged class, and ought to be brought down to the level of gin'ral
humanity. You can set up title ag'in anybody else, but you shan't set up
title ag'in a landlord. I know what is said in the primisis," shaking
his head, in derision of any arguments on the other side of this
particular point; "I know that circumstances alter cases. I can see the
hardship of one neighbour's coming to another, and asking to borrow or
hire his horse for a day, and then pretendin' to hold him on some other
ketch. But horses isn't land; you must all allow _that_. No, if horses
_was_ land, the case would be altered. Land is an element, and so is
fire, and so is water, and so is air. Now, who will say that a freeman
hasn't a right to air, hasn't a right to water, and, on the same
process, hasn't a right to land? He _has_, fellow-citizens--he _has_.
These are what are called in philosophy elementary rights; which is the
same thing as a right to the elements, of which land is one, and a
principal one. I say a principal one; for, if there was no land to stand
on, we should drop away from air, and couldn't enj'y _that_; we should
lose all our water in vapour, and couldn't put it to millin' and
manafacterin' purposes; and where could we build our fires? No; land is
the _first_ elementary right, and connected with it comes the first and
most sacred right to the elements.

"I do not altogether disregard antiquity, neither. No; I respect and
revere pre-emption rights; for they fortify and sustain the right to the
elements. Now, I do not condemn squattin', as some doos. It's actin'
accordin' to natur', and natur' is right. I respect and venerate a
squatter's possession; for it's held under the sacred principle of
usefulness. It says, 'go and make the wilderness blossom as the rose,'
and means 'progress.' That's an antiquity I respect. I respect the
antiquity of your possessions here, _as tenants_; for it is a
hard-working and useful antiquity--an antiquity that increases and
multiplies. If it be said that Hugh Littlepage's ancestors--your noble
has his 'ancestors,' while us 'common folks' are satisfied with
forefathers"--[this hit took with a great many present, raising a very
general laugh]--"but if this Hugh's ancestors did pay anything for the
land, if I was you, fellow-citizens, I'd be gin'rous, and let him have
it back ag'in. Perhaps his forefathers gave a cent an acre to the
king--may be, two; or say sixpence, if you will. I'd let him have his
sixpence an acre back again, by way of shutting his mouth. No; I'm for
nawthin' that's ungin'rous."

"Fellow-citizens, I profess to be what is called a Democrat. I know that
many of you be what is called Whigs--but I apprehend there is'nt much
difference between us on the subject of this system of leasing land. We
are all republicans, and leasing farms is anti-republican. Then, I wish
to be liberal even to them I commonly oppose at elections, and I will
freely admit, then, on the whull, the Whigs have rather out-done us
Democrats, on the subject of this anti-rentism. I am sorry to be obliged
to own in it, but it must be confessed that, while in the way of
governors, there hasn't been much difference--yes, put 'em in a bag, and
shake 'em up, and you'd hardly know which would come out first--which
has done himself the most immortal honour, which has shown himself the
most comprehensive, profound and safe statesman; I know that some of our
people complain of the governors for ordering out troops ag'in the
Injins, but they could not _help_ that--they wouldn't have done it, in
my judgment, had there been any way of getting round it; but the law was
too strong for them, so they druv' in the Injins, and now they join us
in putting down aristocracy, and in raising up gin'ral humanity. No; I
don't go ag'in the governors, though many doos."

"But I profess to be a Democrat, and I'll give an outline of my
principles, that all may see why they can't, and don't, and never will
agree with aristocracy or nobility, in any form or shape. I believe one
man is as good as another in all things. Neither birth, nor law, nor
edication, nor riches, nor poverty, nor anything else can ever make any
difference in this principle, which is sacred, and fundamental, and is
the chief stone of the corner in true Democracy. One man is as good as
another, I say, and has just the same right to the enj'yment of 'arth
and its privileges, as any other man. I think the majority ought to rule
in all things, and that it is the duty of the minority to submit. Now,
I've had this here sentiment thrown back upon me, in some places where I
have spoken, and been asked 'how is this--the majority must rule, and
the minority must submit--in that case, the minority is'nt as good as
the majority in practice, and hasn't the same right. They are made to
own what they think ought not to be done?' The answer to this is so
plain, I wonder a sensible man can ask the question, for all the
minority has to do, is to join the majority, to have things as they want
'em. The road is free, and it is this open road that makes true liberty.
Any man can fall in with the majority, and sensible folks commonly do,
when they can find it, and that makes a person not only a man, as the
saying is, but a FREEMAN, a still more honourable title."

"Fellow-citizens, a great movement is in progress, "Go ahead!" is the
cry, and the march is onward; our thoughts already fly about on the
wings of the lightning, and our bodies move but little slower, on the
vapour of steam--soon our principles will rush ahead of all, and let in
the radiance of a glorious day of universal reform, and loveliness, and
virtue and charity, when the odious sound of _rent_ will never be heard,
when every man will set down under his own apple, or cherry tree, if not
under his own fig tree.

"I am a Democrat,--yes, a Democrat. Glorious appellation! I delight in
it! It is my pride, my boast, my very virtue. Let but the people truly
rule, and all must come well. The people has no temptation to do wrong.
If they hurt the state, they hurt themselves, for they are the state. Is
a man likely to hurt himself? Equality is my axiom. Nor, by equality, do
I mean your narrow pitiful equality before the law, as it is sometimes
tarmed, for that may be no equality at all; but, I mean an equality that
is substantial, and which must be restored, when the working of the law
has de_ran_ged it. Fellow-citizens, do you know what leap-year means? I
dare say some of you don't, the ladies in partic'lar not giving much
attention to astronomy. Well, I have inquired, and it is this:--The
'arth revolves around the sun in a year, as we all know. And we count
three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, we all know. But, the 'arth
is a few hours longer than three hundred and sixty-five days, in making
its circuit--nearly six hours longer. Now, everybody knows that 4 times
6 makes 24, and so a twenty-ninth day is put into February, every fourth
year, to restore the lost time; another change being to be made a long
distance ahead to settle the fractions. Thus will it be with Democracy.
Human natur' can't devise laws yet, that will keep all things on an
exactly equal footing, and political leap-years must be introduced into
the political calendar, to restore the equilibrium. In astronomy, we
must divide up anew the hours and minutes; in humanity, we must, from
time to time, divide up the land."

But, I cannot follow this inflated fool any longer; for he was quite as
much of fool as of knave, though partaking largely of the latter
character. It was plain that he carried many of his notions much farther
than a good portion of his audience carried theirs; though, whenever he
touched upon anti-rentism, he hit a chord that vibrated through the
whole assembly. That the tenants ought to own their farms, and pay no
more rents, AND POCKET ALL THE BENEFITS OF THEIR OWN PREVIOUS LABOURS,
THOUGH THESE LABOURS HAD BEEN CONSIDERED IN THE EARLIER RENTS, AND WERE,
INDEED, STILL CONSIDERED, IN THE LOW RATES AT WHICH THE LANDS WERE LET,
was a doctrine all could understand; and few were they, I am sorry to
say, who did not betray how much self-love and self-interest had
obscured the sense of right.

The lecture, such as it was, lasted more than two hours; and when it was
done, an individual rose, in the character of a chairman--when did three
Americans ever get together to discuss anything, that they had not a
chairman and secretary, and all the parliamentary forms?--and invited
any one present, who might entertain views different from the speaker,
to give his opinion. Never before did I feel so tempted to speak in
public. My first impulse was to throw away the wig, and come out in my
own person, and expose the shallow trash that had just been uttered. I
believe even I, unaccustomed as I was to public speaking, could easily
have done this, and I whispered as much to my uncle, who was actually on
his feet, to perform the office for me, when the sound of "Mr.
Chairman," from a different part of the church, anticipated him. Looking
round, I recognised at once the face of the intelligent mechanic, named
Hall, whom we had met at Mooseridge, on our way to the Nest. I took my
seat, at once, perfectly satisfied that the subject was in good hands.

This speaker commenced with great moderation, both of manner and tone,
and, indeed, he preserved them throughout. His utterance, accent and
language, of course, were all tinctured by his habits and associations;
but his good sense and his good principles were equally gifts from
above. More of the "true image of his maker" was to be found in that one
individual than existed in fifty common men. He saw clearly, spoke
clearly, and demonstrated effectively. As he was well known in that
vicinity and generally respected, he was listened to with profound
attention, and spoke like a man who stood in no dread of tar and
feathers. Had the same sentiments been delivered by one in a fine coat,
and a stranger, or even by myself, who had so much at stake, very many
of them would have been incontinently set down as aristocratic, and not
to be tolerated, the most sublimated lover of equality occasionally
falling into these little contradictions.

Hall commenced by reminding the audience that they all knew him, and
knew he was no landlord. He was a mechanic, and a labouring man, like
most of themselves, and had no interest that could be separate from the
general good of society. This opening was a little homage to prejudice,
since reason is reason, and right right, let them come whence they will.
"I, too, am a democrat," he went on to say, "but I do not understand
democracy to mean anything like that which has been described by the
last speaker. I tell that gentleman plainly, that if he is a democrat, I
am none; and if I am a democrat, he is none. By democracy I understand a
government in which the sovereign power resides in the body of the
nation; and not in a few, or in one. But this principle no more gives
the body of the people authority to act wrong, than in a monarchy, in
which the sovereign power resides in one man, that one man has a right
to act wrong. By equality, I do not understand anything more than
equality before the law--now, if the law had said that when the late
Malbone Littlepage died, his farms should go not to his next of kin, or
to his devisee, but to his neighbours, then that would have been the law
to be obeyed, although it would be a law destructive of civilization,
since men would never accumulate property to go to the public. Something
nearer home is necessary to make men work, and deny themselves what they
like.

"The gentleman has told us of a sort of political leap-year that is to
regulate the social calender. I understand him to mean that when
property has got to be unequal, it must be divided up, in order that men
may make a new start. I fear he will have to dispense with leap years,
and come to leap months, or leap weeks, ay, or even to leap days; for,
was the property of this township divided up this very morning, and in
this meetin'-us, it would get to be unequal before night. Some folks
can't keep money when they have it; and others can't keep their hands
off it.

"Then, again, if Hugh Littlepage's property is to be divided, the
property of all of Hugh Littlepage's neighbours ought to be divided too,
to make even an _appearance_ of equality; though it would be but an
_appearance_ of equality, admitting that were done, since Hugh
Littlepage has more than all the rest of the town put together. Yes,
fellow-citizens, Hugh Littlepage pays, at this moment, one-twentieth of
the taxes of this whole county. That is about the proportion of
Ravensnest; and that tax, in reality, comes out of his pockets, as much
the greater part of the taxes of Rensselaer and Albany counties, if you
will except the cities they contain, are paid by the Rensselaers. It
won't do to tell me the tenants pay the taxes, for I know better. We all
know that the probable amount of the taxes is estimated in the original
bargain, and is so much deducted from the rent, and comes out of the
landlord if it come out of anybody. There is a good reason why the
tenant should pay it, and a reason that is altogether in his interest;
because the law would make his oxen, and horses, and carts liable for
the taxes, should the landlord neglect to pay the taxes. The collector
always sells personals for a tax if he can find them on the property;
and by deducting it from the rent, and paying it himself, the tenant
makes himself secure against that loss. To say that a tenant don't take
any account of the taxes he will be likely to pay, in making his
bargain, is as if one should say he is _non com_. and not fit to be
trusted with his own affairs. There are men, in this community, I am
sorry to say, who wish a law passed to tax the rents on durable leases,
or on all leases, in order to choke the landlords off from their claims,
but such men are true friends to neither justice nor their country. Such
a law would be a tax on the incomes of a particular class of society,
and on no other. It is a law that would justify the aggrieved parties in
taking up arms to resist it, unless the law would give 'em relief, as I
rather think it would. By removing into another State, however, they
would escape the tax completely, laugh at those who framed it, who would
incur the odium of doing an impotent wrong, and get laughed at as well
as despised, besides injuring the State by drawing away its money to be
spent out of its limits. Think, for one moment, of the impression that
would be made of New York justice, if a hundred citizens of note and
standing were to be found living in Philadelphia or Paris, and
circulating to the world the report that they were exiles to escape a
special taxation! The more the matter was inquired into, the worse it
must appear; for men may say what they please, to be ready ag'in
election time, as there is but one piece, or parcel of property to tax,
it is an income tax, and nothing else. What makes the matter still worse
is, that every man of sense will know that it is taxing the same person
twice, substantially for the same thing, since the landlord has the
direct land tax deducted from the rent in the original bargain.

"As for all this cry about aristocracy, I don't understand it. Hugh
Littlepage has just as good a right to his ways as I have to mine. The
gentleman says he needs gold spoons and silver forks to eat with. Well,
what of that? I dare say the gentleman himself finds a steel knife and
fork useful, and has no objection to a silver, or, at least, to a
pewter spoon. Now, there are folks that use wooden forks, or no forks,
and who are glad to get horn spoons; and _they_ might call that
gentleman himself an aristocrat. This setting of ourselves up as the
standard in all things is anything but liberty. If I don't like to eat
my dinner with a man who uses a silver fork, no man in this country can
compel me. On the other hand, if young Mr. Littlepage don't like a
companion who chews tobacco, as I do, he ought to be left to follow his
own inclination.

"Then, this doctrine that one man's as good as another has got two sides
to it. One man ought to have the same general rights as another, I am
ready to allow; but if one man is as _good_ as another, why do we have
the trouble and cost of elections? We might draw lots, as we do for
jurors, and save a good deal of time and money. We all know there is
ch'ice in men, and I think that so long as the people have their ch'ice
in sayin' who shall and who shall not be their agents, they've got all
they have any right to. So long as this is done, the rest of the world
may be left to follow their own ways, provided they obey the laws.

"Then, I am no great admirer of them that are always telling the people
they're parfect. I know this county pretty well, as well as most in it;
and if there be a parfect man in Washington county, I have not yet
fallen in with him. Ten millions of imparfect men won't make one parfect
man, and so I don't look for perfection in the people any more than I do
in princes. All I look for in democracy is to keep the reins in so many
hands as to prevent a few from turning everything to their own account;
still, we mustn't forget that, when a great many do go wrong, it is much
worse than when a few go wrong.

"If my son didn't inherit the property of Malbone Littlepage, neither
will Malbone Littlepage's son inherit mine. We are on a footing in that
respect. As to paying rent, which some persons think so hard, what would
they do if they had no house to live in, or farm to work? If folks wish
to purchase houses and farms, no one can prevent them if they have money
to do it with; and if they have not, is it expected other people are to
provide them with such things out of their own----"

Here the speaker was interrupted by a sudden whooping, and the Injins
came pressing into the house in a way to drive in all the aisles before
them. Men, women and children leaped from the windows, the distance
being trifling, while others made their escape by the two side-doors,
the Injins coming in only by the main entrance. In less time than it
takes to record the fact, the audience had nearly all dispersed.




END OF VOL. I.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Hugh Littlepage writes a little sharply, but there is
truth in all he says, at the bottom. His tone is probably produced by
the fact that there is so serious an attempt to deprive him of his old
paternal estate, an attempt which is receiving support in high quarters.
In addition to this provocation, the Littlepages, as the manuscript
shows farther on, are traduced, as one means of effecting the objects of
the anti-renters; no man, in any community in which it is necessary to
work on public sentiment in order to accomplish such a purpose, ever
being wronged without being calumniated. As respects the inns, truth
compels me, as an old traveller, to say that Mr. Littlepage has much
reason for what he says. I have met with a better bed in the lowest
French tavern I ever was compelled to use, and in one instance I slept
in an inn frequented by carters, than in the best purely country inn in
America. In the way of neatness, however, more is usually to be found in
our New York village taverns than in the public hotels of Paris itself.
As for the hit touching the intelligence of the people, it is merited;
for I have myself heard subtle distinctions drawn to show that the
"people" of a former generation were not as knowing as the "people" of
this, and imputing the covenants of the older leases to that
circumstance, instead of imputing them to their true cause, the opinions
and practices of the times. Half a century's experience would induce me
to say that the "people" were never particularly dull in making a
bargain.--EDITOR.

[2] The editor has often had occasion to explain the meaning of
terms of this nature. The colonists caught a great many words from the
Indians they first knew, and used them to all other Indians, though not
belonging to their languages; and these other tribes using them as
English, a sort of limited _lingua frança_ has grown up in the country
that everybody understands. It is believed that "moccasin," "squaw,"
"pappoose," "sago," "tomahawk," "wigwam," &c. &c. all belong to this
class of words. There can be little doubt that the _sobriquet_ of
"Yankees" is derived from "Yengeese," the manner in which the tribes
nearest to New England pronounced the word "English." It is to this hour
a provincialism of that part of the country to pronounce this word
"_Eng_-lish" instead of "_Ing_-lish," its conventional sound. The change
from "_Eng_-lish" to "_Yen-geese_" is very trifling.--EDITOR.

[3] As the "honourable gentleman from Albany" does not seem to
understand the precise signification of "provincial," I can tell him
that one sign of such a character is to admire a bed at an American
country inn.--EDITOR.

[4] That Mr. Hugh Littlepage does not feel or express himself
too strongly on the state of things that has now existed among us for
long, long years, the following case, but one that illustrates the
melancholy truth among many, will show. At a time when the tenants of an
extensive landlord, to whom tens of thousands were owing for rent, were
openly resisting the law, and defeating every attempt to distrain,
though two ordinary companies of even armed constables would have put
them down, the sheriff entered the house of that very landlord, and
levied on his furniture for debt. Had that gentleman, on the just and
pervading principle that he owed no allegiance to an authority that did
not protect him, resisted the sheriff's officer, _he_ would have gone to
the State's prison; and there he might have staid until his last hour of
service was expended.--EDITOR.

[5] Absurd as this may seem, it is nevertheless true, and for a
reason that is creditable, rather than the reverse--a wish to help along
the unfortunate. It is a great mistake, however, as a rule, to admit
of any other motive for selecting for public trusts, than
qualification.--EDITOR.

[6] This is no invented statement, but strictly one that is
true, the writer having himself a small interest in a property so
situated; though he has not yet bethought him of applying to the
Legislature for relief.--EDITOR.




Transcriber's Notes:
Misprints and punctuation errors corrected.

    Page 23, "fourscore" changed to "four-score".
    Page 83, Single quote changed to double quote.
    Page 94, Removed double quote.
    Page 113, Other versions of text read "good-natured" instead of
              "good-natural".
    Page 139, Removed open quotes.
    Page 144, "bathos" changed to "pathos".
    Page 178, "Pat" changed to "Patt".
    Page 195, "Ja" changed to "ja".
    Page 196, "eend" changed to "end".
    Page 212, "gobbernor" changed to "gubbernor".
    Page 233, Removed duplicate word "to".

Ligatures removed in ASCII Version: c[oe]lum to coelum.