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Title: Samantha in Europe
Author: Mariettta Holley
Release Date: December 19, 2021 [eBook #66972]
Language: English
Produced by: hekula03, sf2001, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA IN EUROPE ***
_Samantha in Europe_
[Illustration: “He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the
nightcap.” (See page 641.)]
_Samantha in Europe_
_by_
_Josiah Allen’s Wife_
(Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
C DeGrimm
_Printed in the United States_
_New York · Funk and Wagnalls Company 1896_
_London and Toronto_
Copyright, 1895, by
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
Registered at Stationers’ Hall
London, England
Dedication.
TO THE WEARY TRAVELLER WHO YEARNS TO SEE UNDER STRANGE SKIES
THE LIGHT OF THE OLD HOME FIRE,
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY
Samantha and Josiah.
PREFACE.
Sez Josiah, as he see me writin’ this preface:
“Seems to me, Samantha, you’ve writ enough prefaces.”
(He wanted me to start the supper; but, good land! it wuzn’t only half
past five, and I had a spring chicken all ready to fry, and my cream
biscuit wuz all ready for the oven, on the kitchen table.)
Sez he, “It seems to me you’ve writ enough on em.”
And I sez, “Wall, Josiah, I’d hate to sadden the world by sayin’ I
wouldn’t write any more.”
And he sez, “How do you know it would sadden the world--how do you know
it would?” And he continued: “Samantha, I hain’t wanted to dampen you,
but I have always considered your writin’s weak; naterally they would
be, bein’ writ by a woman; and,” sez he, as he looked longin’ly towards
the buttery door and the plump chicken, “a woman’s spear lays in a
different direction.”
And I sez, “I thought I’d write some of our adventures in our trip
abroad--that happy time,” sez I, lookin’ inquirin’ly at him.
“Happy time!” sez he, a-kinder ’nashin’ his teeth--“happy! gracious
Heavens! Do you want to bring up my sufferin’s agin, when I jest lived
through ’em?”
“Wall,” sez I, a-gittin’ up and approachin’ the buttery, and takin’
down the tea-kettle and fryin’-pan and coffee-pot, “I have writ other
things in the book that I am more interested in myself.”
He sot kinder still and demute as I put the chicken on to fry in
butter, and put the cream biscuit in the oven, and poured the bilein’
water on the fragrant coffee; his mean seemed to grow softer, and he
sez:
“Mebby I wuz too hash a-sayin’ what I did about your writin’s,
Samantha; I guess you write as well as you know how to; I guess you
_mean_ well;” and as he see me a-spreadin’ the snowy table-cloth on the
little round table, and a-puttin’ on some cream cheese and some peach
sass, he sez further:
“Nobody is to blame for what they don’t know, Samantha.”
I looked down affectionately and pityin’ly on his old bald head and
then further off--way off into mysterious spaces no mortal feet has
ever trod, and I sez:
“That is so, Josiah.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Chapter PAGE
Preface vii
List of Illustrations xi
I. Trains of Retrospection 1
II. A Heathen Missionary 32
III. Off into Side Paths 57
IV. Samantha’s Sword of Truth and Justice 85
V. A Heathen’s Standard of Morality 105
VI. A Little Fun and its Price 119
VII. The Embarkation 135
VIII. Landing in the Emerald Isle 153
IX. A Visit to Blarney Castle 173
X. Killarney, Dublin, and a Wake 183
XI. Josiah as a Banshee 197
XII. Robert Burns and Highland Mary 223
XIII. Edinburgh and Mary Queen of Scots 241
XIV. Memories of Sir Walter Scott 262
XV. Old York and its Cathedral 281
XVI. Edensor and the Duke of Devonshire 300
XVII. Josiah has an Adventure 322
XVIII. Shottery and Warwick Castle 354
XIX. The Lake District and its Poets 374
XX. The Arrival in London 389
XXI. Westminster and Parliament Houses 400
XXII. Samantha Sees a Doctor 418
XXIII. St. Paul’s and the Duke of Wellington 433
XXIV. “The Widder Albert” 445
XXV. A Visit to the British Museum 464
XXVI. Paris and its Beauties 486
XXVII. Napoleon and other Great Frenchmen 510
XXVIII. Germany and Belgium 525
XXIX. Samantha Climbs the Righi 548
XXX. Milan, Genoa, Venice 574
XXXI. Colosseum and Catacombs 602
XXXII. Fashionable Watering-Places 616
XXXIII. Cathedrals and Castles in Spain 627
XXXIV. Josiah’s Devotion 640
XXXV. The Queen, Ulaley, and a Bull-Fight 651
XXXVI. A Spanish Funeral and a Jonesville One 664
XXXVII. Al Faizi Says Good-Bye 674
XXXVIII. Home again, from a Foreign Shore 683
XXXIX. Martin’s Terrible Lesson 693
XL. Good-Night, Little Pardner 707
Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife. 715
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
“He riz right up and shook his fist at the man with the
nightcap” _Frontispiece_
Twilight on the broad ocean 1
Asleep in his narrer bunk 4
Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two 9
“Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?” 12
He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you,
throw me a board!” 16
“It depends on whose lives they be” 18
Josiah and me put on our strongest specks 27
It wuz very dressy when it wuz done 31
A dark figger that riz up like a strange picter aginst the sunset 34
“I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad” 39
“‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’
‘Because he is drunk’” 45
“Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints” 49
The game of Bulls and Bears 52
Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor 55
Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out” 61
She met me with a sweet smile 68
Finally, he got to be quarrelsome 75
Ellick lay drunk in the office 80
It wuz Ellick Gurley 87
“Yes, it _wuz_ sunthin’ else; it wuz _you_” 97
“Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer” 102
With one of his low, reverential bows 112
As the elder took it he turned pale 125
I took down my old Atlas 131
In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’ 139
Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears 142
Then took his umbrell and started for the door 147
We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers 151
The lord with a pink paper suit on 157
With a stern look, calculated to wither him 166
We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car” 171
Three beautiful lakes 184
Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out 189
Drippin’ wet when he come back 201
Alice stood there, white and tremblin’ 206
A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock 209
I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject 217
Samantha and Ellen Douglas 219
This immortal pair of lovers 230
The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam 238
Edinburgh Castle 250
The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland 254
When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted 259
“I could sing to you,” sez he 263
“When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em off” 268
“I never should think of usin’ it” 274
Josiah wuz dretful took with it 281
“What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!” 285
That sentinul twelve or fourteen hundred years ago 289
“With the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down” 294
Robin Hood 299
“It don’t pay to tussel with ’em” 301
Martin sent his card in 307
Josiah’s home-made waterfall 313
Her common-sense shoe 319
A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern 322
Says he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty” 328
Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the walls of his
house 337
A great many portraits of Shakespeare 344
The font in which Shakespeare was baptized 350
The supper that man eat wuz enormous 353
“You couldn’t eat that full of porridge” 359
“The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to have one
round our house” 362
“I am going to work for the poor” 370
My tone chilled him to the veins 379
Martin with his patronizin’ ways 384
A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body 386
Them letters wuz a stroke of genius 391
A hull soap-box full 395
We stood long and silently by the graves of the great dead 401
An immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals 407
“When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat the hull
time” 415
That little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass 421
“I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you to
look at it” 424
Samantha’s faith cure 427
“Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his hands full with
her” 442
“Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found the
greatest want and wretchedness” 455
Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own eyes as
many as five teams and two open buggies 459
“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?” 468
Napoleon’s tooth 472
Josiah at the London “Zoo” 477
“Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted 486
“How stylish I would look” 489
“I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is” 492
Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for Jonesvillian
out-door dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha foresees
the result 500
There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over that
restless, ambitious heart 505
With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his
inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights 512
A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels 518
“I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in,
if he could git a few cents for ’em” 523
“No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns” 526
“A woman jest dressin’ herself--she seems all broke up” 537
I thought more’n likely I should be melted into tears 540
A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a
whistle 543
A hogsit as big as the Jonesville tarvern 553
We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove
on the summit 556
“They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t be
out-travelled” 561
Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--the melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds 563
Listening to the organ’s grand, melancholy voice 566
I thought considerable about William Tell and his exploits with
Gessler, apples, etc. 568
Divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by his heavenly vision 579
“If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on a-bitin’,
one man will ‘see Venice and die’” 581
“Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’ on” 588
The Tower of Pisa 599
The Colosseum 602
“The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights” 607
Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals 616
“I have faith that it aches like the old Harry” 623
I see one of the officials take up my sheep’s-head nightcap 628
A smile of admiration swep’ over his dark visage 628
Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed together
by ropes wound round their horns 631
At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the back 647
She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty lips 653
The Matador 661
His victim 661
How cold his feet must have been cold mornin’s 666
“I go back to my own country--I have many things to teach my
people--to avoid” 675
They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front doorstep
to meet us 684
His looks wuz so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a path-master 687
Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting
complaints” 698
He fell down jest like a log at my feet 701
A faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by stimulants,
I believe 704
He busted out into tears and buried his face in his hands 709
Finis 714
SAMANTHA IN EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
TRAINS OF RETROSPECTION.
[Illustration]
Twilight on the broad ocean! Smooth, wild waste of blue-gray waters
stretchin’ out as fur as the eye could reach on every side.
In the east a silvery moon hangin’ low and a shinin’ path leadin’ up
to it. In the west Mars a-dazzlin’ bright over a pale pink sky, with
streaks of yeller and crimson a-layin’ stretched acrost it, like bars
put up by angel hands a-fencin’ in their world from ourn.
Now in a sunset in Jonesville it might seem as if you could put on your
sun-bunnet and stride off over hills and valleys and at las’ reach the
Sunset Land, and peek over the bars and ketch a glimpse of what wuz
beyend.
It would seem amongst the possibles.
But here--oh! how fur-off, illimitable, unaproachable, duz that fur-off
glory look!
And Mars seemed to wink that red eye of hisen at me mockin’ly as I
strained my eyes over the long watery plain, as if to say--“The time
has been when you wuz free to roam round, a-walkin’ off afoot; you may
have gloated over me in your free thoughts and said--
“You are fixed and sot up there, while I am free to soar and sail. Now,
haughty female mortal, your wings are clipped--the time has come when
your walkin’ afoot and roamin’ round is stopped.”
To think that I myself, Josiah Allen’s Wife, should find myself on
the Atlantic a-hangin’ onto the gunwale of the ship with one hand,
and a-lookin’ off over the endless waters below and all round me,
and a-thinkin’ if I should trust myself to step out onto its heavey,
treacherous surface where should I go to, and when, and why! I,
Samantha, who had ever been ust to slippin’ on my sun-bunnet and
runnin’ into Miss Bobbettses, or out into the garden, or out to the
hen-house for eggs, or down into the orchard, or the wood paster for
recreation or cowslips.
To think that I wuz thus caged up as it were, my restless wings
(speakin’ in metafor) folded in such clost quarters, with no chance (to
foller up the metafor) of floppin’ ’em to any extent.
Oh! where wuz I? The thought wuz full of or. Why wuz I? This thought
brung on trains of retrospection.
As I sot in my contracted corner of the aft fore-castle deck, and Night
wuz lettin’ down, gradual, her starry mantilly over me and the seen,
as erst it did over me as I sot in the sweet, restful door-yard at
Jonesville. (Dear seen, shall I ever see thee agin?)
I will rehearse the facts that led to my takin’ this onpresidented step.
My pardner is asleep in his narrer bunk, or ruther on one of the
shelves in our cell, that are cushioned, and on which our two forms
nightly repose.
[Illustration: Asleep in his narrer bunk.]
He is at rest. The waves are asleep, or pretty nigh asleep, the night
winds are hushed, and all Nater seems to draw in her breath and wait
for me as I tell the tale.
I will begin, as most fashionable novelists do, with a verse of
poetry----
“Backward, turn backward (as fur as Jonesville), Oh Time,
in thy flight--
Make me (a trusty, short-winded, female historian) jest
for to-night.”
It wuz now goin’ on three years sence Uncle Philander Smith’s son,
Philander Martin, named after his Pa and his Uncle Martin, writ a
line to me announcin’ his advent into Jonesville. And in speakin’ of
Philander I shall have to go back, kinder sideways, some distance into
the past to describe him.
Yes, I will have to lead the horse fur back to hitch it on properly to
the wagon of my history, or mebby it would be more proper, under the
circumstances, to say how fur I must row my little personal life-boat
back to hitch it onto the great steamer of my statement, in order that
there shall be direct smooth sailin’ and no meanderin’.
Wall, with the first paddle of my verbal row-boat, I would state--
(And into how many little still side coves and seemin’ly wind-locked
ways my little life-boat must sail on her way back to be jined to the
great steamer, and how I must stay in ’em for some time! It can’t be
helped.)
Yes, it must have been pretty nigh three years ago that we had our
first letter from P. Martyn Smythe.
He is my second cousin on my own side. And he sot out from Spoonville
(a neighborin’ hamlet) years ago with lots of ambition and pluck and
energy, and about one dollar and seventy-five cents in money.
Uncle Philander, his father, had a big family, and died leavin’ him
nothin’ but his good example and some old spectacles and a cane.
He wuz brung up by his Uncle Martin, a good-natered creeter, but
onfaculized and shiftless.
Young Martin never loved to be hampered, and after he got old enough
to help his uncle, he didn’t want to be hampered with him, so he
packed up his little knapsack and sot out to seek his fortune, and he
prospered beyend any tellin’, bought some mines, and railroads, and
things, and at last come back East and settled down in a neighborin’
city, and then got rid of several things that he found hamperin’ to
him. Amongst ’em wuz his old name--now he calls it “Smythe.”
Yes, he got rid of the good, reliable old Smith name, that has stood
by so many human bein’s even unto the end. And he got rid, too, of his
conscience, the biggest heft of it, and his poor relations.
For why, indeed, should a Bill or a Tom Smith claim relationship with a
P. Martyn Smythe?
Why, indeed! He got rid of ’em all in a heap, as it were, a-ignorin’
“the hull kit and bilein’ of ’em,” as Aunt Debby said.
“Never seen hide nor hair of any of ’em, from one year’s end to the
other,” sez Aunt Debby.
As to his conscience, he got rid of that, I spoze, kinder gradual, a
little at a time, till to all human appearance he hadn’t a speck left,
of which more anon.
But there wuz a little of it left, enough to leven his hull nater and
raise it up, some like hop yeast, only stronger and more spiritual (as
will also be seen anon).
Wall, he never seemed to know where his cousin, she that wuz Samantha
Smith, lived, and his neck seemed to be made in that way--kinder held
up by his stiff white collar mebby--that it held his head up firm and
immovable, so’s he didn’t see me nor my Josiah when he’d meet him once
in a great while at some quarterly meetin’ or conferences and sech.
I guess that neck of hisen carried him so straight that he couldn’t
seem to turn it towards the old Smith pew at all.
And then he wuz dretful near-sighted, too; his eyes wuz affected
dretful curous.
Uncle Mart Smith, the one P. Martin wuz named after, atted him about
it, for he wuz his own uncle, and dretful shiftless and poor, but a
Christian as fur as he could be with his nateral laziness on him.
As I say, he partly brung Martin up. A good-natered creeter he wuz.
And one day he walked right up and atted P. Martyn Smythe as to why he
never could see him.
And P. Martyn sed that it wuz his eyesight; sez he, “I’m dretful
near-sighted.”
It made it all right with Uncle Martin, but his wife, Aunt Debby, she
sed, “Why can he see bishops and elders so plain?”
“Wall,” sez Uncle Mart, “it is a curous complaint.” And she sez--
“’Tain’t curous a mite; it’s as nateral as ingratitude, and as old as
Pharo.”
And she and Uncle Mart had some words about it.
Wall, his eyesight seemed to grow worse and worse so fur as old friends
and relations wuz concerned, till all of a sudden--it wuz after my
third book had shook the world, or I spoze it did; it kinder jarred it
anyway, I guess--wall, what should that man, P. Martyn, do, but write
to me and invite me to the big city where he lived.
Sez he, “Relations ort to cling closter to each other;” sez he, “Come
and stay a week.”
I answered his note, cool but friendly.
And then he writ agin, and asked me to come and stay a month. Agin my
answer wuz Christian, but about as cool as well water.
And then he writ agin and asked me to come and stay a year with ’em.
And he would be glad, he said, he and his two motherless children, if I
would come and live with ’em always.
This allusion to the motherless melted me down some, and my reply wuz,
I spoze, about the temperture of milk jest from the cow.
But I said that Duty and Josiah binded me to my home and Jonesville.
Wall, the next summer what should P. Martyn do but to write to me that
he and Alice and Adrian, his two children, wuz a-comin’ to Jonesville,
and would we take ’em in for a week? He thought his children needed
fresh air and a little cossetin’.
Wall, to me, Josiah Allen’s wife, who has brung up almost numberless
lambs and chickens by hand as cossets, this allusion to “cossetin’”
melted me so and warmed up my nater, that my reply wuz about the
temperture of skim milk het for the calves.
So they come.
And indeed I said then what I say now, and I’ll defy anybody to dispute
me, that two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them two
children.
[Illustration: Two prettier, winnin’er creeters never lived than them
two.]
Alice wuz about sixteen then, and Adrian wuz about five, and wuzn’t
they happy! My hull heart went out to ’em, and mebby it wuz that love
atmosphere that wropped ’em completely round that made ’em grow so
bright and cheerful and healthy.
There hain’t no atmosphere that is at the same time so inspirin’ and so
restful as the heart atmosphere of love.
You can always tell ’em that breathe its rare, fine atmosphere by the
radiance in their faces and the lightness of their step.
I loved them two children dearly. They wuz both as handsome as picters,
Alice fair and slender and sweet as a white day lily, with big, happy
blue eyes, and hair of the same gold color that her mother had had.
Adrian had long curls of that same wonderful golden hair, and his eyes
wuz big, inspirin’, blue gray, and his lips always seemed to hold a
happy secret. He had that look some way.
Though what it could be we couldn’t tell, for he talked pretty much all
the time.
And the questions he asked would more’n fill our old family Bible,
I’m sure, and I thought some of the time that the overflow would fill
Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.”
Why, one day we got old Uncle Smedley to mow our lawn while Adrian
wuz there, and I felt sorry that I didn’t put down the questions that
Adrian asked that perfectly deaf man as he trotted along in his little
velvet suit by the side of the lawn mower.
But then I d’no as I’m sorry, after all, for paper is sometimes skurce,
and I don’t believe in extravagance.
And how he did love poseys, most of all the English violets! We had
a big bed of ’em, and he always had a bunch of ’em in his little
buttonhole, and be a-pinnin’ ’em to my waist and Alice’s. And he would
have a big bunch in his hand, and jest bury his face in ’em, as if he
wuz tryin’ to take in their deep, sweet perfume through his pores as it
wuz. And always a little, low vase that stood before his plate on the
table would be full of ’em.
I wondered at it some, but found out that before he wuz born his sweet
Ma had jest sech a passion for ’em, and always had her room full of
’em. And I kinder wondered if, in some occult way, she wuz a-keepin’
up the acquaintance with her boy by means of that sweet and delicate
language that we can’t spell yet, let alone talkin’.
I d’no, nor Josiah don’t, but anyway Adrian jest seemed to live on ’em
in a certain way, as if they satisfied some deep hunger and need in his
inmost nater.
And he would sometimes make the old-fashionedest remarks I ever
hearn, and praise himself up jest as though he wuz somebody else. Not
conceited at all, but jest sincere and honest.
One day after family prayers, Josiah had been readin’ about the New
Jerusalem, and I spoze Adrian’s curosity wuz rousted up, and sez he,
“Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky, or where is it?”
[Illustration: “Aunt Samantha, where is Heaven? Is it up in the sky?”]
And I sez, “Sometimes I have thought, Adrian, it wuz right here all
round us, if we could only see it.”
“I wonder if I could find it?” sez he, and he peered all round him in
the old-fashionedest way I ever see.
Sez he, “I spoze my pretty Mamma is there; I guess she wants me
dreadfully sometimes; I am a very bright little boy--I am very
agreeable.”
“But,” I sez, “that hain’t pretty for you to talk so.”
“Why, Papa sez I am, and he sez I am his wise little partner, and my
Papa knows everything that wuz ever known--he knows more than any other
man in the world.”
And I sez to myself, “No, he don’t. He don’t know enough to be jest,
from all I’ve hearn of his doin’s.”
But I didn’t wonder that Adrian thought as he did, or Alice either, for
if there wuz ever a indulgent and lovin’ father on earth, it wuz Martin
Smith.
Nothin’ wuz too good for his children. He adored ’em, and tried to be
father and mother both to his motherless boy and girl. And money, so
fur as they wuz concerned, flowed as free as water.
P. Martyn didn’t stay but a few days this time, but left the children
two weeks and come back for ’em.
He stayed right to our house, and his eyesight, so fur as the other
relations wuz concerned, wuz jest the same. He rode round considerable
with his children, and writ about five thousand letters, and sent off
and received about the same number of letters and telegrams, and said
and assured us at the end of the three days he wuz there, that “it wuz
so sweet for him to have sech a perfect rest.”
He didn’t tell us much about what wuz in the letters, though the last
day that he wuz there he got sech a enormous batch of ’em that he daned
to explain the meanin’ of ’em to Josiah and me, for we both had helped
him to carry ’em in. Sez he, “There is no such thing as satisfying the
masses.
“Now,” sez he, “I’ve built a line of trolley cars, that are the means
of saving no end of time, for my drivers, if they don’t come up to the
swift schedule time I have marked down for them, I discharge them at
once.
“They are economical, much cleaner and swifter than horses, an
invaluable saving of time. They are convenient, rapid, and cheap. Now
you would think that would satisfy them, but no; because they run
through the most populous streets of the city, and because once in
awhile an accident takes place, what do they want? They want me to add
further to the enormous expense I have already been subjected to, and
buy some fenders to prevent accidents.”
“Wall, hain’t you goin’ to?” sez I.
“No,” sez he, “I am not. If I do, they will probably want some sashay
bags to hang up in the cars, and some automatic fans to fan them with
as they ride.” But I had been a-readin’ a sight about the deaths them
swift monsters had caused, and I sez--
“Martin, life is dear, and it seems as if every safeguard possible ort
to be throwed round the great public, between ’em and death.”
“But,” sez he, “it is impudent in them to demand anything further than
what I’ve already done. Horses were always causing accidents.”
“Wall,” sez I, “when folks are in danger of death, it makes ’em
impudent. Why, Deacon Garvin sassed the minister when he fell into the
pond at a Sunday School picnic, and the minister told him to call on
the Lord in his extremity.”
He sassed him and yelled out to him, “You dum fool, you, throw me a
board!”
[Illustration: He sassed him and yelled out, “You dum fool, you, throw
me a board!”]
Sez I, “Dretful danger makes folks sassy.”
“Well, I won’t be to the expense of getting them,” sez he.
Sez I mildly, “You told Josiah Allen and me yesterday that you’d laid
up two millions of dollars sence you had gone into this enterprise.
Now, as a matter of justice, don’t you think that the public who have
paid you two millions of their money have a right to demand these
safeguards to life and limb?”
He waived off the question.
“Why,” sez he, “in all the last year there have not been more than
fifty lives lost in our city from these cars, and considering the hosts
that have been carried, considering the convenience, the swiftness, the
rapidity, and etcetera--what is fifty lives?”
[Illustration: “It depends on whose lives they be.”]
“Wall,” sez I, “it depends on whose lives they be. Now I know,” sez I,
a-glancin’ at my pardner’s shinin’ bald head a-risin’ up like a full
harvest moon from behind the pages of _The World_--
“I know one life that if it went down in darkness under them wheels,
it would make the hull world black and empty. It would take all the
happiness and hope and meanin’ out of this world, and change it into a
funeral gloom.”
Sez I, “It would darken the world for all who love him.” And sez I,
“Every one of them fifty that have gone down under them death chariots
have left ’em who loved ’em. Hearts have ached and broken as they have
looked at the mangled bodies and the emptiness of life faced ’em.” Sez
I, “Them rollin’ billows of blackness have swept over the livin’ and
the lovin’ every time them cruel wheels have ground a bright human life
to death.
“They have mostly been children,” sez I, “and think of the anguish
mother hearts have endured, and father love and pride--how it has been
crushed down under the rollin’ wheels of death.
“Sometimes a father, who wuz the only prop of a family, has gone down.
How cold the world is to ’em when the love that wropped ’em round
has been tore from ’em! Sometimes a mother--what can take the place
of mother love to the little ones left to suffer from hunger, and
nakedness, and ignorance?”
“You’re imaginative, Cousin Samantha,” said he; but I kep’ right on
onbeknown to me.
“Who will care for the destitute children left alone in the cold world
with no one to care for ’em and help ’em?”
“I’ll give ’em some money,” said little Adrian, who’d been leanin’ up
aginst my knee and listenin’ to our talk, with his big, earnest eyes
fixed on our faces.
“I’ll give ’em the gold piece that papa gave me yesterday.”
He had gin him a twenty dollar gold piece, for I see it.
“I’ll give ’em all I’ve got--I’ll work for that poor woman who lost her
little boy--I’ll work for her and help her.”
“Who’ll work for me?” sez Martin. “You’re to be my partner, my boy;
remember that. You’re my little partner now--half of all I own belongs
to you.”
“And I will give it all to them,” sez Adrian.
But Martin went right on--“You are to be president of this company when
I am an old man; you’re to work for me.”
“But I’ll work for those poor people, papa,” sez Adrian, and as he said
this he looked way off through his father’s face, as he sot by the open
window, to some distance beyend him. And his eyes, jest the color of
that June sky, looked big and luminous.
“I’ll work for them, papa,” and as he spoke a sudden thrill, some like
electricity, only more riz up like, shot through my soul, a sudden and
deep conviction that he would work for ’em--that he would in some way
redeem the old Smith name from the ojium attachin’ to it now as a owner
of them Herod’s Chariots and a Massacreer of Innocents. But to resoom.
All the next day Adrian kep’ talkin’ about it, how he wuz goin’ to be
his papa’s pardner, and how he wuz a-goin’ to work for poor folks who
had lost their little children, and wanted so many things.
And the questions he asked me about ’em, and about poor folks, though
wearisome to the flesh, wuz agreeable to the sperit.
Wall, Martin called him so much from day to day--“My little partner,”
that we all got into the habit on’t, and called him so through the day.
And every evenin’ he would come to me and say--“Good-night, Aunt
Samantha, good-bye till mornin’.”
And I would kiss him earnest and sweet, and say back to him,
“Good-night, little pardner, till mornin’.”
And after he went home, Josiah and I would talk about him a sight, and
wonder what the little pardner wuz doin’, and how he wuz lookin’ from
day to day. And I would often go into the parlor, where his picter
stood on the top shelf of the what-not, and stand and look dreamily at
it. There he wuz in his little black velvet suit and a big bunch of
English violets pinned on one side. The earnest eyes would look back
at me dretful tender like and good. The mouth that held that wonderful
sweet and sort o’ curous expression, as if he wuz thinkin’ of sunthin’
beautiful that we didn’t know anything about, would sort o’ smile back
at me.
And he seemed to be a-sayin’ to me, as he said that day a-lookin’ out
into the clear sky--
“I’ll work for them poor people!”
And I answered back to him out loud once or twice onbeknown to me, and
sez I, “I believe you will, little pardner.”
And Josiah asked me who I wuz a-talkin’ to. He hollered out from the
kitchen.
And I sez, “Ahem--ahem,” and kinder coughed. I couldn’t explain to my
pardner jest how I felt, for I didn’t know myself hardly.
Wall, it run along for some time--Martin a-writin’ to me quite often,
always a-talkin’ about his little pardner and Alice, and how they wuz
a-gittin’ along, and a-invitin’ us to visit ’em.
And at last there came sech a pressin’ invitation from Alice to come
and see ’em that I had to succumb.
But little, little did I ever think in my early youth, when I ust
to read about Solomon’s Temple and Sheba’s Splendor, and sing about
Pleasures and Palaces, that I should ever enter in and partake of ’em.
Why, the house that Martin lived in wuz a sight, a sight--big as the
meetin’-housen at Jonesville and Loontown both put together, and
ornamented with jest so many cubits of glory one way, and jest so many
cubits of grandeur another. Wall, it wuz sunthin’ I never expected
to see on earth, and in another sphere I never sot my mind on seein’
carpets that your feet sunk down into as they would in a bed of moss
in a cedar swamp, and lofty rooms with stained-glass winders and sech
gildin’s and ornaments overhead, and furniture sech as I never see, and
statutes a-lookin’ pale with joy, to see the lovely picters that wuz
acrost the room from ’em; and more’n twenty servants of different sorts
and grades.
Why, actually, Josiah and I seemed as much out of place in that seen
of grandeur as two hemlock logs with the bark on ’em at a fashionable
church weddin’.
And nothin’ but the pure love I felt for them children, and their pure
love for me, made me willin’ to stay there a minute.
Martin wuz good to us, and dretful glad to have us there to all human
appearance; but Alice and Adrian loved us.
And I hadn’t been there more’n a few days before I see one reason why
Alice had writ me so earnest to come--she wuz in deep trouble, she
wuz in love, deep in love with a young lawyer, one who writ for the
newspapers, too--
A man who had the courage of his convictions, and had writ several
articles about the sufferin’s of the poor and the onjustice of rich
men. And amongst the rest he had writ some cuttin’ but jest articles
about the massacreein’ of children by them trolley cars, and so had got
Martin’s everlastin’ displeasure and hatred.
The young man, I found out, wuz as good as they make anywhere; a
noble-lookin’ young feller, too, so I hearn.
Even Martin couldn’t say a word aginst him, for, in the cause of Duty
and Alice, I tackled him on the subject. Sez I, “Hain’t he honest and
manly and upright?”
And he had to admit that he wuz, that he hadn’t a vice or bad habit,
and wuz smart and enterprisin’.
I held him right there with my eye till I got an answer.
“But he is a fool,” sez he.
Sez I, “Fools don’t generally write sech good sense, Martin.”
Sez he wrathfully, “I knew your opinions--I expected you’d uphold him
in his ungrateful folly.
“But he has lost Alice by it,” sez he; “for I never will give my
consent to have him marry her.”
Sez I, “Then you had never ort to let him come here and have the chance
to win her heart, and now break it, for,” sez I, “you encouraged him at
first, Martin.”
“I know I did,” sez he--“I thought I had found one honest man, and I
had decided on giving all my business into his hands. It would have
been the making of him,” sez he; “but he has only himself to blame, for
if he had kept still he would have married Alice, but now he shall not.”
Sez I, “Alice thinks jest as he duz.”
“What do women know about business?” he snapped out, enough to take my
head off.
“If wimmen don’t know anything about bizness, Martin, I should think
you’d be glad to know, in case you left Alice, that she and her immense
fortune wuz in the hands of an honest man.
“And I want you to consent to this marriage,” sez I, “in a suitable
time--when Alice gits old enough.”
“I won’t consent to it!” sez he--“the writer of them confounded papers
never shall marry my daughter.”
“Why,” sez I, “there’s nothin’ harsh in the articles.” Sez I, “They’re
only a strong appeal to the pity and justice of ’em who are responsible
for all this danger and horrow!”
“Well,” sez he, “I’ve made up mind, and I never change it.”
Sez I, “I d’no whether you will or not.” Sez I, “This is a strange
world, Martin, and folks are made to change their minds sometimes
onbeknown to ’em.”
Wall, I didn’t stay more’n several days after this, when I returned
to the peaceful precincts of Jonesville and my (sometimes) devoted
pardner, and things resoomed their usual course.
But every few days I got communications from Martin’s folks. Alice writ
to me sweet letters of affection, wherein I could read between the
lines a sad background of Hope deferred and a achin’ heart.
And Adrian writ long letters to me, where the spellin’ left much to be
desired, but the good feelin’ and love and confidence in ’em wuz all
the most exactin’ could ask for.
And occasionally Martin would write a short line of a sort of hurried,
patronizin’ affection, and the writin’ looked so much like ducks’
tracts that it seemed as if our old drake would have owned up to ’em in
a law suit.
But Josiah and me would put on our strongest specks, and take the
letter between us, and hold it in every light, and make out the heft on
it.
[Illustration: Josiah and me put on our strongest specks.]
Till at last, one notable day, long to be remembered, there come a
letter in Martin’s awful chirography. And when we had studied out its
contents, we looked at each other in a astounded astonishment and a
sort of or.
“Would I go to Europe with him and his children as his guest?” He
thought Alice seemed to be a little delicate, and mebby the trip would
do her good, and he also thought she needed the company of some good,
practical woman to see to her, and mother her a little.
That last sentence tugged at my heart strings.
But my answer went back by next mail--
“I wuz afraid of the ocean, and couldn’t leave Josiah.”
The answer come back by telegraph--
“The ocean wuz safer than land, and take Josiah along, too. He
expected he would go.”
Then I writ back--“I never had been drownded on dry land, and didn’t
believe I should be, and Josiah didn’t feel as though he could leave
the farm.”
Then Martin telegrafted to Thomas J.--
“Arrange matters for father and mother to take trip. Send bill to me.
Alice needs their care. Her health and happiness depend on it.”
So he got Thomas Jefferson on his side. Thomas J. and Maggie loved
Alice like a sister. But there wuzn’t any bill to send to Martin, for
Thomas J. pinted out the facts that Ury could move right into the house
and take care of everything. And sez he, “The trip and the rest will do
you both good.”
“But the danger,” sez I.
And he said, jest like Martin--“Less danger than the land, better rates
of insurance given,” etc., etc., etc.
And Maggie put in too, and Josiah begun to kinder want to go.
And we wavered back and forth, until a long letter from Alice, beggin’
me and her Uncle Josiah to go with her to take care of her, tottled the
balance over on the side of Europe.
And Josiah and I began to make preperations for a trip abroad.
Oh my heart! think on’t!
I announced our decision to Martin in a letter of 9 pages of
foolscap--Josiah writ half of it--describin’ our doubts and delays and
our final reasons for decision.
And he telegrafted back--
“All right--start 14th. Send bill of expense to me.”
But there wuzn’t no bill sent, as I said--no, indeed!
I guess we didn’t want nobody to buy clothes for us--no, indeed!
As for the travellin’ expenses of the trip, seein’ they thought we wuz
necessaries to their comfort, and seein’ he’d invited us, and seein’
his income wuz about ten thousand dollars an hour, why we laid out to
let him have his way in that.
It wuzn’t nothin’ that we’d ever thought on, and then, as I told
Josiah, we could even it up some by invitin’ the children to stay all
summer with us next year.
So the die wuz cast down, and the cloth wuz soon bought for Josiah’s
new European shirts, and my own foreign nightcap and nightgown.
As for my clothes, by Maggie’s advice and assistance, aided by our two
practical common senses, the work wuz soon completed.
Maggie said that I must dress better than I usually did on my towers,
for the sake of pleasin’ Martin and Alice. And she and Thomas J. made
me a present of a good black silk dress, and she see to makin’ it, with
one plain waist for common wear, and one dressy waist, very handsome,
with black jet trimmin’ on it for my best.
A good gray alpacky travellin’ dress, some the color of dust, with
a bunnet of the same color, and a good brown lawn for hot days wuz
enough, and didn’t take up much room. Plenty of good underclothes and a
wool wrapper for the steamer completed my trossow.
Thomas J. see to it that his Pa had a good-lookin’ suit of black
clothes for his best, and a suit of pepper and salt for every day.
I also made him 2 new flannel nightcaps. And I myself had two new
nightcaps made. In makin’ ’em, I departed from my usual fashion of
sheep’s-head nightcaps, thinkin’ in case of a panick at sea, and the
glare of publicity a-bein’ throwed onto ’em, a modified sheep’s head
would appear better than clear sheep.
They wuz gathered slightly in the crown, and had some very nice egin’
on ’em--7 cents per yard at hullsail--7 and ½ retail.
It wuz good lace.
They wuz very becomin’ to my style.
[Illustration: It wuz very dressy when it wuz done.]
I also made Josiah a handsome dressin’-gown out of a piece of rep goods
I had in the house. I had laid out to cover a lounge with it, but I
thought under these peculiar circumstances Josiah needed it more’n the
lounge did, and so I made it up for him. I made a cord with two tossels
to tie it with. I twisted the cord out of good red and black woosted
and made the tossels of the same.
It wuz very dressy when it wuz done. And he would have worn it out
visitin’ if I had encouraged him in it. He wuz highly delighted and
tickled with it.
But I tutored him that it wuz only to wear in his state-room, and in
case of a panick on deck.
CHAPTER II.
A HEATHEN MISSIONARY.
Wall, I wuz a-settin’ in my clean settin’-room on a calm twilight,
engaged in completin’ my preperations--in fact, I wuz jest a-puttin’
the finishin’ touches on one of Josiah’s nightcaps and mine.
I put cat stitch round the front of hisen, a sort of a dark red cat.
When all to once I hearn a knock at the west door. I had thought as I
wuz a-settin’ a-sewin’ what a beautiful sunset it wuz. The west jest
glowed with light that streamed over and lit up the hull sky. All wuz
calm in the east, and a big moon wuz jest risin’ from the back of
Balcom’s Hill. It wuz shaped a good deal like a boat, and I laid down
my sheep’s-head nightcap and set still and watched it, as it seemed
moored off behind the evergreens that stood tall and silent and dark,
as if to guard Jonesville and the world aginst the gold boat that wuz
a-sailin’ in from some onknown harbor. But it come on stiddy, and as if
it had to come.
I felt queer.
And jest at that minute I hearn the knock at the west door.
[Illustration: A dark figger that riz up like a strange picter aginst
the sunset.]
And I went and opened it, and as I did the west wuz flamin’ so with
light that it most blinded me at first; but when I got my eyesight agin
I see a-standin’ between me and that light a dark figger that riz up
like a strange picter aginst the sunset.
His back wuz to the light, and his face wuz in the shadder, but I could
see that it wuz dark and eager, with glowin’ eyes that seemed to light
up his dark features, some as the stars light up the sky.
And he wuz dressed in a strange garb, sech as I never see before, only
to the World’s Fair. Yes, in that singular moment I see the value of
travel. It give me sech a turn that if I hadn’t had the advantage of
seein’ jest such costooms at that place, I should most probble have
swooned away right on my own doorstep.
He wuz dressed in a long, loose gown of some dark material, and had
a white turban on his head. Who he wuz or where he come from was a
mystery to me.
But I felt it wuz safe anyway to say, “Good-evenin’,” whoever he wuz or
wherever he came from; he couldn’t object to that.
So consequently I said it--not a-knowin’ but he would address me back
in Hindoo, or Sanskrit, or Greek, or sunthin’ else paganish and queer.
But he didn’t; he spoke jest as well as my Thomas Jefferson could,
and when I say that, I say enough, full enough for anybody, only his
voice had a little bit of a foreign axent to it, that put me in mind
some of the strange odor of Maggie’s sandal-wood fan, sunthin’ that
is inherient and stays in it, though it is owned in America, and has
Jonesville wind in it--good, strong wind, as good as my turkey feather
fan ever had.
Sez he, “Good-evening, madam. Do I address Josiah Allen’s wife?”
Sez I, “You do.”
Sez he, “Pardon this intrusion. I come on particular business.”
Whereupon I asked him to come in, and sot a chair for him.
I didn’t know whether to ask him to lay off his things or not, not
a-seein’ anything only the dress he had on, and not knowin’ what the
state of his clothes wuz.
And after a minute’s reflection on it, I dassent venter.
So I simply sot him a chair and asked him to set.
He bowed dretful polite, and thanked me, and sot.
Then there wuz a slight pause ensued and follered on. I wuz some
embarrassed, not knowin’ what subject to introduce.
Deacon Bobbett had lost his best heifer that day, and most all
Jonesville wuz a-lookin’ for it, but I didn’t know whether it would
interest him or not.
And Sally Garvin had a young babe. A paper of catnip even then reposed
on the kitchen table a-waitin’ until her husband come back to send it,
but I didn’t know whether that subject would be proper to branch out on
to a man.
So I sot demute for as much as half a minute.
And before I could collect myself together and break out in
conversation, he sez in that deep, soft, musical voice of hisen--
“Madam, I have come on a strange errand.”
“Wall,” sez I, in a encouragin’ voice, “I am used to strange
errents--yes, indeed, I am! Why,” sez I, “this very day a woman writ to
me from Minnesota for money to fence in a door-yard, and,” sez I, “Sime
Bentley wuz over bright and early this mornin’ to borrer a settin’ hen.
He had plenty of eggs, but no setters.”
Sez I in a encouragin’ axent, for I couldn’t help likin’ the creeter,
“I am used to ’em--don’t be afraid.”
I didn’t know but he wuz after my nightgown pattern, and I looked
clost at his garb; but I see that it wuz fur fuller than mine and sot
different. The long folds hung with a dignity and grace that my best
mull nightgown never had, and if it wuz so, I wuz a-goin’ to tell him
honorable that his pattern went fur ahead of mine in grandeur.
And then, thinks I, mebby he is a-goin’ to beg for money for a
meetin’-house steeple or sunthin’ in Hindoostan, and I wuz jest
a-makin’ up my mind to tell him that we hadn’t yet quite paid for the
paint that ornamented ourn. And I wuz a-layin’ out to bring in some
Bible and say, “Charity begun on our own steeple.”
But jest as I wuz a-thinkin’ this he spoke up in that melodious
voice, that somehow put me in mind of palm trees a-risin’ up aginst a
blue-black sky, and pagodas, and oasises, and things. Sez he, “Will you
allow me to tell you a little of my history?”
I sez, “Yes, indeed! I am jest through with my work.” Sez I frankly, “I
have been finishin’ some nightcaps for my pardner, and I sot the last
stitch to ’em as you come in. I’d love to set still and hear you tell
it.”
So I sot down in the big arm-chair and folded my arms in a almost
luxurious foldin’, and listened.
Sez he, “My name is Al Faizi, and I am come from a country far away.”
And he waved his hand towards the east.
Instinctively I follered his gester, and his eyes, and I see that the
gold boat of the moon had come round the pint, and wuz a-sailin’ up
swift into the clear sky. But a big star shone there, it stood there
motionless, as he went on.
Sez he, “I have always been a learner, a seeker after truth. When a
small boy I lived with my uncle, who was a learned man, and his wife,
who was an Englishwoman. From her I learned your language. I loved to
study; she had many books. She was the daughter of a missionary, who
died and left her alone in that strange land. My uncle was a convert
to her faith. She married him and was happy. She had many books that
belonged to her father; he was a good man and very learned; he did my
people much good while he lived with them.
“I learned from those books many things that our own wise men never
taught me, and from them I got a great craving to see this land. I
learned from these books and my aunt’s teachings taught me when I was
so young that truth permeated my being and filled my heart, that this
land was the country favored by God--this land so holy, that it sent
missionaries to teach my people. Then I went to a school taught by
English teachers, but always I searched for truth--I search for God in
mosque and in temple. These books said God is here in this land. So I
come. Many of my people come to this great Fair, I come also with them.
“But always I seek the great spirit of God I came here to find. I
thought truth and justice would fill your temples, and your homes, and
all your great cities.
“I come, I watch for this Great Light--I listened for the Great Voice,
I see strange things, but I say nothing, I only think, but I get more
and more perplexed. I ask many people to show me the temple where God
is, to show me the great mosque where Truth and Right dwell, and the
people are blessed by their white shining light, for I thought He
would be in all the customs and ways of this wise people, so good that
they instruct all the rest of the world. I come to learn, to worship,
but I see such strange things, such strange customs. I see cruelties
practised, such as my own people would not think of doing. I keep
silent, I only think--think much. But more and more I wonder, and grow
sad.
[Illustration: “I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad.”]
“I ask many men, preachers, teachers, to show me the place where God
is, the great palace where truth dwells. They take me to many places,
but I do not find the great spirit of Love I seek for. I find in your
big temples altars built up to strange gods.”
Sez I mildly, “I don’t love to hear that; that sounds bad. I can take
you to one meetin’-house,” sez I, “where we don’t have no Dagon nor
snub-nosed idols to worship,” sez I.
But even as I spoke my conscience reproved me; for wuz there not
settin’ in the highest place in that meetin’-house a rich man who got
all his money by sellin’ stuff that made brutes of his neighbors?
What wuz we all a-lookin’ up to, minister and people, but a gold beast!
What wuz that man’s idol but Mammon!
And then didn’t I remember how the hull meetin’-house had turned aginst
Irene Filkins, who went astray when she wuz nothin’ but a little girl,
a motherless little girl, too?
Where wuz the great sperit of Love and Charity that said--“Neither do I
condemn thee; go and sin no more”? Wuz God there?
Didn’t I remember that in this very meetin’-house they got up a fair
to help raise money for some charity connected with it, and one of the
little girls kicked higher than any Bowery girl? Wuz it a-startin’ that
child on the broad road that takes hold on death? Wuz we worshippin’ a
idol of Expediency--doing evil that good might come?
There wuz poor ones in that very meetin’-house, achin’ hearts sufferin’
for food and clothin’ almost, and rich, comfortable ones who went by on
the other side and sot in their places and prayed for the poor, with
their cold forms and hungry eyes watchin’ ’em vainly as they prayed,
hopin’ for the help they did not get.
Wuz we hyppocrites? Did we bow at the altar of selfishness?
Truly no Eastern idol wuz any more snub-nosed and ugly than this one.
I wuz overcome with horrow when I thought it all over, and sez I--“I
guess I won’t take you there right away; we’ll think on’t a spell
first.”
For I happened to think, too, that our good, plain old preacher, Elder
Minkley, wuzn’t a-goin’ to preach there Sunday, anyway, but a famous
sensational preacher, that some of the rich members wanted to call.
Yes, many hed turned away from the good gospel sermons of that man of
God, Elder Minkley, and wanted a change.
Wuz it a windy, sensational God set up in our pulpit? I felt guilty as
a dog, for I too had criticised that good old Elder’s plain speakin’.
Al Faizi had sot me to thinkin’, and while I wuz a-meditatin’ his calm
voice went on--
“I came to a city not far away; there I saw some words you had
written. I felt that you, too, desired the truth. I have come to ask
you if you have found it--if you have found in this land the place
where Love and Justice reign, and to ask you where it is, that I, too,
may worship there, and teach the truth to my people.”
I wuz overcome by his simple words, and I bust out onbeknown to me--
“I hain’t found it.” Sez I, and onconsciously I used the words of
another--“‘We are all poor creeters,’ but we try to worship the true
God--we try to follow the teachin’s of Him who loved us, and give His
life to us.”
“The wise man who lived in Galilee and taught the people?” sez he.
“No,” sez I, “not the wise man, but the Divine One--the God who left
His throne and dwelt with us awhile in the form of the human. We try to
foller His teachings--a good deal of the time we do,” sez I, honestly
and sadly.
For more and more this strange creeter’s words sunk into my heart, and
made me feel queer--queer as a dog.
“I have read His words. I loved Him when a boy, I love Him still. I go
into your great churches sacred to His name. I find in one grand church
they say He is there alone, and not in any other. I go into another,
just as great, and they say He is there, and not in the one I first
visited; and then I go to another, and another, and yet another.
“All have different ways and beliefs. All say God is here within the
narrow walls of this church, and not in the others. Oh! I get so
confused, I know not what to do. How can I, a poor stranger, trace His
footsteps through all these conflicting creeds? I grow sad, and my
heart fills with doubt and darkness. Well I remember His words that I
had pondered in my heart when a boy--‘That they who loved Him should
bear the cross and follow Him,’ and love and care for His poor. In all
these great, beautiful churches I hear sweet music. In some I see grand
pictures, and note the incense floating up toward the Heavens; in some
I see high vaulted roofs, and the light in many glowing colors falls
on the bowed forms of the worshippers. I hear holy words, the voice of
prayer, but I see no crosses borne, and all are rich and grand. I go
down in the low places. I see the poor toiling on unpitied and uncared
for. I see these rich people worship in the churches one day, and
pray--‘Grant us mercy as we are merciful to others.’
“And then the next day they put burdens on the poor, so hard that they
can hardly bear them, the poor, starving, dying, herded together like
animals, in wretched places unfit for dumb creatures.
“And ever the rich despise the poor, and the poor curse the rich--both
bitter against each other, even unto death.
“I find no God of Love in this.
“I go into your great halls where laws are made--I see the wise men
making laws to bind the weak and tempted with iron chains--laws to help
bad men lead lives of impurity--laws to make legal crimes that your
Holy Book says renders one forever unfit for Heaven. I find no God of
Justice in this.”
“No,” sez I, “He hain’t nigh ’em, and never wuz!”
“Well then,” sez he, “why do they not find out the way of truth
themselves before they try to teach other people?”
“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t.”
“Some of your teachers do much good,” sez he; “they are good, and teach
some of my people good doctrines. But why ever are they permitted by
your government to bring ways and habits into our land that cover it
with ruin?
“I was walking once with my own relation, Hadijah, unconverted, and we
found one of our people lying drunken by the wayside, with bottles of
American whiskey lying by his side. ‘Boston’ was marked on them, a
city, I find, that considers itself the centre of goodness and lofty
thought. The bottles were empty. Hadijah says to me--‘That man is a
Christian.’
[Illustration: “‘That man is a Christian.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because
he is drunk.’”]
“I said--‘No, I think not.’
“‘Yes he is,’ said he.
“‘How do you know it?’ said I.
“‘Because he is drunk.’ Hadijah, not being yet converted, and judging
from appearances and from the evidences of his eyesight, associated
the ideas and thought that in some way drunkenness was an evidence of
Christianity. That belief is largely shared by all heathen people.
“And then I open your Holy Book and find it written, ‘No drunkard shall
inherit eternal life,’ and I say to myself, What does it mean that
these holy people over the seas, who try so hard to convert us, should
send whiskey, and Bibles, and missionaries to us all packed in one
great ship?”
Sez I--“The nation don’t mean to do it.” Sez I, “It don’t want to do
any sech harm.”
“But I hear of the great power of this nation, could it not prevent it?
If it could not prevent it, it must be a weak government indeed. And
if truly this great country is so weak and so wicked as to set snares
for the heathens--trying to lead them into paths that end in eternal
ruin--I think why not keep their missionaries in their own land? They
must need them even more than we do.”
Sez I--“Don’t talk so, poor creeter, don’t talk so. Missionaries go out
to your land fired with the deathless zeal to save souls--to bring the
knowledge of the Christ to all the world.”
“But if they bring the knowledge in the way I speak of, so the heathen
honestly believes drunkenness is the sign of Christianity, is it not
making a mockery of what they profess to teach?”
I wuz dumbfoundered. I didn’t know how to frame a reply, and so I sot
onframed, as you may say.
“I heard the missionaries say, and I read it in your Holy Book, that
the liar shall have his portion in the lake that burns forever. The
same curses are on them that steal and on them that commit adultery.
“I thought the country that sends these missionaries, rebuking these
sins so sharply--I thought their country must be pure and peaceable and
holy in its ways. I come here, as I say, seeking the Great Light to
guide me. I come here to hear the Great Voice, so I could go back and
carry its teachings to our own people. For I thought there must be some
mistake, and that the lessons failed in some way to carry the idea of
your great government. So I come, I study; and I find that not only
was your great government willing to have my poor people enslaved by
the drink habit, but it was a partaker in it. It sent over the accursed
whiskey and brandy and took a portion of the pay--a portion of the
money spent by my poor people for making themselves unfit for earth,
and shutting them forever out of Heaven.
“Again, this law that ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ that stands out
so plain in the Holy Book, that divorce is only permitted for this one
cause, I find this great government, which by its laws breaks even the
holy marriage bonds by the committing of this sin--I find that this
government makes this sin easy and convenient to commit. It grants
licenses to make it lawful and right.
“When I get here and study I see such strange things. Forevermore I
wonder, and forevermore I say--Why are not missionaries sent to this
people, who do such things?
“And I, even I, so weak as I am and so ignorant, but fired as I am by
the love of Christ Jesus--I say to myself, ‘I will tell this people of
their sins. I will try to bring them to a knowledge of the pure and
holy religion of Christ.’”
“You come as a missionary, then?” sez I, a-bustin’ out onbeknown to
me. “Often and often I have wanted a heathen to come over and try to
convert Uncle Sam--poor old creeter, a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee
jints and over ’em,” sez I.
[Illustration: “Uncle Sam a-wadin’ in sin up to his old knee jints.”]
“Uncle Sam?” sez he; “I know him not. I meant your great people; I do
not speak of one alone.”
“I know,” sez I; “that is what we call our Goverment when we are on
intimate terms with it.”
“And,” sez I, “you little know what that old man has been through. He
wants to do right--he honestly duz; but you know jest how it is--how
mistaken counsellors darken wisdom and confound jedgment.”
But the sweet, melodious voice went on--
“Your missionaries preach loud to my people against the sins of
stealing and gambling.
“But I find that in this country great places are fitted up for
gambling and theft.”
Truly he spoke plain, but then I d’no as I could blame him.
“In these places of theft and gambling, called your stock exchanges, I
find that you have people called brokers, and some wild animals called
bulls and bears, though for what purpose they are kept I know not,
unless it is that they are trained for the Arena. I know not yet all
your customs.
“But this I know, that your brokers gamble and steal from the
people--sometimes millions in one day. Which money, taken from the
common people all over this country, is divided by these brokers
amongst a few rich men. Perhaps then the game of bulls and bears,
fighting each other for their amusement, begins. I know not yet all
your ways.
[Illustration: THE GAME OF BULLS AND BEARS.]
“But I know that in one day five million bushels of wheat were bought
and sold when there was no wheat in sight--when even during that whole
year the crop amounted to only two hundred and eighty millions. There
were more than two million, two hundred thousand bushels of wheat
bought and paid for that never grew--that were not ever in the world.
“As I saw this, oh! how my heart burned to teach this poor sinful
people the morality that our own people enjoy.
“For never were there such sins committed in our country.
“I find your rich men controlling the market--holding back the bread
that the poor hungered and starved for, putting burdens on them more
grievous than they could bear. These rich men, sitting with their soft,
white hands, and forms that never ached with labor, putting such high
prices on grain and corn that the poor could not buy to eat--these
rich men prayed in the morning (for they often go through the forms of
the holy religion)--they prayed, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’
and then made it their first business to keep people from having that
prayer answered to them.
“They prayed, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and then deliberately
made circumstances that they knew would lead countless poor into
temptation--temptation of theft--temptation of selling Purity and
Morality for bread to sustain life.”
Sez I, a-groanin’ out loud and a-sithin’ frequent--
“I can’t bear to hear sech talk, it kills me almost; and,” sez I
honestly, “there is so much truth in it that it cuts me like a knife.”
Sez he, a-goin’ on, not mindin’ my words--“I felt that I must warn this
people of its sins. I must tell them of what was done once in one of
our own countries,” sez he, a-wavin’ his hand in a impressive gester
towards our east door--
“In one of our countries the authorities learned that stock exchanges
were being formed at Osaka, Yokohama, and Koba.
“The police, all wearing disguises, went at once to the exchanges
and mingled with the crowd. When all was ready a sign was given, the
police took possession of the exchanges and all the books and papers,
the doors were locked and the prisoners secured. Over seven hundred
were put in prison, the offence being put down--‘Speculation in
margins.’
“I yearn to tell this great people of the way of our countries, so that
they may follow them.”
“A heathen a-comin’ here as a missionary!” sez I, a-thinkin’ out loud,
onbeknown to me. “Wall, it is all right.” Sez I, “It’s jest what the
country needs.”
But before I could say anythin’ further, at that very minute my beloved
pardner come in.
He paused with a look of utter amazement. He stood motionless and held
complete silence and two pails of milk.
But I advanced onwards and relieved him of his embarrassment and one
pail of milk, and introduced Al Faizi. Al Faizi riz up to once and made
a deep bow, almost to the floor; but my poor Josiah, with a look of
bewilderment pitiful to witness, and after standin’ for a brief time
and not speakin’ a word, sez he--
[Illustration: Al Faizi made a deep bow, almost to the floor.]
“I guess, Samantha, I will go out to the sink and wash my hands.”
Truly, it wuz enough to surprise any man, to leave a pardner with no
companion but a sheep’s-head nightcap, partly finished, and come back
in a few minutes and see her a-keepin’ company with a heathen, clothed
in a long robe and turban.
Wall, Josiah asked me out into the kitchen for a explanation, which I
gin to him with a few words and a clean towel, and then sez I--“We must
ask him to stay all night.”
And he sez, “I d’no what we want of that strange-lookin’ creeter
a-hangin’ round here.”
And I sez, “I believe he is sent by Heaven to instruct us heathens.”
And Josiah said that if he wuz sent from Heaven he would most probble
have wings.
He didn’t want him to stay, I could see that, and he spoke as if he wuz
on intimate terms with angels, a perfect conoozer in ’em.
But I sez, “Not all of Heaven’s angels have wings, Josiah Allen, not
yet; but,” sez I, “they are probble a-growin’ the snowy feathers on ’em
onbeknown to ’em.”
CHAPTER III.
OFF INTO SIDE PATHS.
Wall, the upshot of the matter wuz Al Faizi stayed right there for
weeks. He seemed to have plenty of money, and I d’no what arrangement
he and Josiah did make about his board, but I know that Josiah acted
after that interview with him in the back yard real clever to him, and
didn’t say a word more aginst the idee of his not bein’ there.
(Josiah is clost.)
As for me, I would have scorned to have took a cent from him, feelin’
that I got more’n my pay out of his noble but strange conversation.
But Josiah is the head of the family (or he calls himself so).
And mebby he is some of the time.
But suffice it to say, Al Faizi jest stayed and made it his home with
us, and peered round, and took journeys, and tried to find out things
about our laws and customs.
Thomas Jefferson loved to talk with him the best that ever wuz. And
Al Faizi would make excursions to different places round, a-walkin’
mostly, a-seein’ how the people lived, and a-watchin’ their manners
and customs, and in writin’ down lots of things in some books he had
with him, takin’ notes, I spozed, and learnin’ all he could. One book
that he used to carry round with him and make notes in wuz as queer a
lookin’ book as I ever see.
With sunthin’ on the cover that looked some like a cross and some like
a star.
There wuz some precious stuns on it that flashed. If it wuz held up
in some lights it looked like a cross, and then agin the light would
fall on’t and make it look like a star. And the gleamin’ stuns would
sparkle and flash out sometimes like a sharp sword, and anon soft, like
a lambient light.
It wuz a queer-lookin’ book; and he said, when I atted him about it,
that he brought it from a country fur away.
And agin he made that gester towards the East, that might mean
Loontown, and might mean Ingy and Hindoosten--and sech.
After that first talk with me, in which he seemed to open his heart,
and tell what wuz in his mind, as you may say, about our country, he
didn’t seem to talk so very much.
He seemed to be one of the kind who do up their talkin’ all to one
time, as it were, and git through with it.
Of course he asked questions a sight, for he seemed to want to find out
all he could. And he would anon or oftener make a remark, but to talk
diffuse and at length, he hardly ever did. But he took down lots of
notes in that little book, for I see him.
I enjoyed havin’ him there dretful well, and done well by him in
cookin’, etcetery and etcetery.
But the excitement when he first walked into the Jonesville
meetin’-house with Josiah and me wuz nearly rampant. I felt queer and
kinder sheepish, to be walkin’ out with a man with a long dress, and
turban on, and sandals. And I kinder meached along, and wuz glad to git
to our pew and set down as quick as I could. But Josiah looked round
him with a dignified and almost supercilious mean. He felt hauty, and
acted so, to think that we had a heathen with us and that the other
members of the meetin’-house didn’t have one.
But if I felt meachin’ over one heathen, or, that is, if I felt
embarrassed a-showin’ him off before the bretheren and sistern, what
would I felt if Josiah had had his way about comin’ to meetin’ that day?
Little did them bretheren and sistern know what I’d been through that
mornin’.
Josiah wore his gay dressin’-gown down to breakfast, which I bore
well, although it wuz strange--strange to have two men with dresses on
a-settin’ on each side of me to the table--I who had always been ust to
plain vests and pantaloons and coats on the more opposite sex.
But I bore up under it well, and didn’t say nothin’ aginst it, and
poured out the coffee and passed the buckwheat cakes and briled chicken
and etc. with a calm face.
But when church-time come, and Ury brought the mair and democrat up
to the door, and I got up on to the back seat, when I turned and see
Josiah Allen come out with that rep dressin’-gown on, trimmed with
bright red, and them bright tossels a-hangin’ down in front, and a plug
hat on, you could have knocked me down with a pin feather.
And sez I sternly, “What duz this mean, Josiah Allen?”
Sez he, “I am a-goin’ to wear this to meetin’, Samantha.”
“To meetin’?” sez I almost mekanically.
“Yes,” sez he; “I am a-doin’ it out of compliments to Fazer; he would
feel queer to be the only man there with a dress on, and so I thought I
would keep him company; and,” sez he, a-fingerin’ the tossels lovin’ly,
“this costoom is very dressy and becomin’ to me, and I’d jest as leave
as not let old Bobbett and Deacon Garvin see me appearin’ in it,” sez
he.
“Do you go and take that off this minute, Josiah Allen! Why, they’d
call you a idiot and as crazy as a loon!”
Sez he, a-puttin’ his right foot forward and standin’ braced up on it,
sez he, “I shall wear this dress to meetin’ to-day!”
Sez I, “You won’t wear it, Josiah Allen!”
Sez he, “You know you are always lecturin’ me on bein’ polite. You know
you told me a story about a woman who broke a china teacup a purpose
because one of her visitors happened to break hern. You praised her up
to me; and now I am actin’ out of almost pure politeness, and you want
to break it up, but you can’t,” sez he, and he proceeded to git into
the democrat.
Ury wuz a-standin’ with his hands on his sides, convulsed with
laughter, and even the mair seemed to recognize sunthin’ strange, for
she whinnered loudly.
Sez I in frigid axents, “Even the old mair is a whinnerin’, she is so
disgusted with your doin’s, Josiah Allen.”
“The old mair is whinnerin’ for the colt!” sez he, and agin he put his
foot on the lowest step.
[Illustration: Sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, “I’ll git out.”]
“Wall,” sez I, a-risin’ up in the democrat, with dignity, “I’ll git out
and stay to home. I will not go to church and see my pardner took up
for wearin’ female’s clothin’.”
He paused with his foot on the step, and a shade of doubt swept over
his liniment.
“Do you spoze they would?” sez he.
“Of course they would!” sez I; “twilight would see you a-moulderin’ in
a cell in Loontown.”
“I couldn’t moulder much in half a day!” sez he.
But I see that I wuz about to conquer. He paused a minute in deep
thought, and then he turned away; but as he went up the steps slowly,
I hearn him say--“Dum it all, I never try to show off in politeness or
anything but what sunthin’ breaks it up!”
But anon he come down clothed in his good honorable black kerseymeer
suit, and Al Faizi soon follered him in his Oriental garb, and we
proceeded to meetin’.
As I say, the excitement wuz nearly rampant as we went in. And I spoze
nothin’ hendered the female wimmen and men from bein’ fairly prostrated
and overcome by their feelin’s, only this fact, that the winter
before a Hindoo in full costoom had lectured before the Jonesville
meetin’-house, so that memory kinder broke the blow some. And then some
on ’em had been to the World’s Fair, and seen quantities of heathens
and sech there.
So no casuality wuz reported, though feather fans wuz waved wildly, and
more caraway wuz consoomed, I dare presoom to say, than would have been
in a month of Sundays in ordinary times.
But while the wonder and curosity waxed rampant all round, Al Faizi sot
silent and motionless as the dead, with his soft, brilliant eyes fixed
on the minister’s face, eager to ketch every word that fell from his
lips--a-tryin’ to hear the echo of the Great Voice speak to him through
the minister’s words, so I honestly believe.
For I think that a honester, sincerer, well-meanin’er creeter never
lived and breathed than he wuz; and as days went on I see nothin’ to
break up my opinion of him.
Politer he wuz than any female, or minister, I ever see fur or near.
Afraid of makin’ trouble to a marked extent, eager and anxious to learn
everything he could about everything--all our laws, and customs, and
habits, and ways of thinkin’--and tellin’ his views in a simple way of
honest frankness, that almost took my breath away--anxious to learn,
and anxious to teach what he knew of the truth.
Though, as I said, after that first bust of talk with me he seemed
inclined to not talk so much, but learn all he could. It wuz as if he
had his say out in that first interview. Dretful interestin’ creeter to
have round, he wuz--sech a contrast to the inhabitants of Jonesville,
Deacon Garvin and the Dankses, etc.
He didn’t stay to our house all the time, as I said, but would take
pilgrimages round and come back, and make it his home there.
Wall, it wuz jest about this time that a contoggler come to our
house to contoggle a little for me. I wanted some skirts, and some
underwaists, and some of Josiah’s old clothes contoggled.
You know, it stood to reason that we couldn’t have all new things for
our voyage, and so I had to have some of our old clothes fixed up. You
see, things will git kinder run down once in awhile--holes and rips in
dresses, trimmin’ offen mantillys, tabs to new line, and pantaloons to
hem over round the bottom, and vests to line new, and backs to put into
’em, and etcetery and etcetery.
And, then, you’ll outgrow some of your things, and have to let ’em
out; or else they’ll outgrow you, and you’ll have to take ’em in, or
sunthin’.
Sech cases as these don’t call for a dressmaker or a tailoress. No, at
sech times a contoggler is needed. And I’ve made a stiddy practice for
years of hirin’ a woman to come to the house every little while for a
day or two at a time, and have my clothes and Josiah’s all contoggled
up good.
This contoggler I had now wuz a old friend of mine, who had made it her
home with me for some time in the past, and now bein’ a-keepin’ house
happy not fur away, had sech a warm feelin’ for me in her heart, that
she always come and contoggled for me when I needed a contoggler.
She had a dretful interestin’ story. Mebby you’d like to hear it?
I hate to have a woman meander off into side paths too much, but if the
public are real sot and determined on hearin’ me rehearse her history,
why I will do it. For it is ever my desire to please.
It must be now about three years sence I had my first interview with
my contoggler. And I see about the first minute that she wuz a likely
creeter--I could see it in her face.
She wuz a perfect stranger to me, though she had lived in Jonesville
some five months prior and before I see her.
And Maggie, my son’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, wife, hearn of her through
her mother’s second cousin’s wife’s sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey. And Miss
Ikey said that she seemed to be one of the best wimmen she ever laid
eyes on, and that it would be a real charity to give her work, as she
wuz a stranger in the place, without much of anything to git along
with, and seemed to be a deep mourner about sunthin’. Though what it
wuz she didn’t know, for ever sence she had come to Jonesville she had
made a stiddy practice of mindin’ her own bizness and workin’ when she
got work.
She had come to Jonesville kinder sudden like, and she had hired her
board to Miss Lemuel Ikey’s son’s widow, who kep’ a small--a very small
boardin’-house, bein’ put to it for things herself though, likely.
I told Maggie to ask her mother to ask her second cousin’s wife to ask
her sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey, to ask her son’s wife what the young
woman could do.
And the word come back to me straight, or as straight as could be
expected, comin’ through five wimmen who lived on different roads.
“That she wuzn’t a dressmaker, or a mantilly maker, or a tailoress. But
she stood ready to do what she could, and needed work dretfully, and
would be awful thankful for it.”
Then feelin’ deeply sorry for her, and wantin’ to befriend her, I sent
word back in the same way--“To know if she could wash, or iron, or do
fancy cookin’. Or could she make hard or soft soap? Or feather flowers?
Or knit striped mittens? Or pick geese? Or paint on plaks? Or do
paperin’?”
And the answer come back, meanderin’ along through the five--“That she
wuzn’t strong enough, or didn’t know how to do any one of these, but
she stood ready to do all she could do, and needed work the worst kind.”
Then I tackled the matter myself, as I might better have done in the
first place, and went over to see her, bein’ willin’ to give her
help in the best way any one can give it, by helpin’ folks to help
themselves.
I went over quite early in the mornin’, bein’ on my way for a all-day’s
visit to Tirzah Ann’s.
But I found the woman up and dressed up slick, or as slick as she could
be with sech old clothes on.
And I liked her the minute I laid eyes on her.
Her face, though not over than above handsome, wuz sweet-lookin’, the
sweetness a-shinin’ out through her big, sad eyes, like the light in
the western skies a-shinin’ out through a rift in heavy clouds.
Very pale complected she wuz, though I couldn’t tell whether the
paleness wuz caused by trouble, or whether she wuz made so. And the
same with her delicate little figger. I didn’t know whether that
frajile appearance wuz nateral, or whether Grief had tackled her with
his cold, heavy chisel, and had wasted the little figger until it
looked more like a child’s than a woman’s.
And in her pretty brown hair, that kinder waved round her white
forward, wuz a good many white threads.
Of course I couldn’t tell but what white hair run through her
family--it duz in some. And I had hearn it said that white hair in
the young wuz a sign of early piety, and of course I couldn’t set up
aginst that idee in my mind.
But them white hairs over her pale young face looked to me as if they
wuz made by Sorrow’s frosty hand, that had rested down too heavy on her
young head.
She met me with a sweet smile, but a dretful sad one, too, when Miss
Ikey introduced me.
[Illustration: She met me with a sweet smile.]
But when I told my errent she brightened up some. But after settin’
down with her for more’n a quarter of a hour, a-questionin’ her in as
delicate a way as I could and get at the truth, I found that every
single thing that she could do wuz to contoggle.
So I hired her as a contoggler, and took her home with me that night on
my way home from Tirzah Ann’s as sech, and kep’ her there three weeks
right along.
I see plain that she could do that sort of work by the first look that
I cast onto her dress, which wuz black, and old and rusty, but all
contoggled up good, mended neat and smooth, and so I see, when she got
ready to go with me, wuz her mantilly, and her bunnet; both on ’em wuz
old and worn, but both on ’em showed plain signs of contogglin’.
She wuz a pitiful-lookin’ little creeter under her black bunnet, and
pitiful-lookin’ when the bunnet wuz hung up in our front bedroom, and
she kep’ on bein’ so from day to day, as pale and delicate-lookin’ as a
posey that has growed in the shade--the deep shade.
And though she kep’ to work good, and didn’t complain, I see from day
to day the mark that Sufferin’ writes on the forwards of them that
pass through the valleys and dark places where She dwells. (I don’t
know whether Sufferin’ ort to be depictered as a male or a female, but
kinder think that it is a She.)
But to resoom. I didn’t say nothin’ to make her think I pitied her, or
anything, only kep’ a cheerful face and nourishin’ provisions before
her from day to day, and not too much hard work.
I thought I’d love to see her little peekéd face git a little mite of
color in it, and her sad blue eyes a brighter, happier look.
But I couldn’t. She would work faithful--contoggle as I have never seen
any livin’ woman contoggle, much as I have witnessed contogglin’.
And I don’t mean any disrespect to other contogglers I have had when
I say this--no, they did the best they could. But Miss Clark (that
wuz the name she gin--Annie Clark), she had a nateral gift in this
direction.
She worked as stiddy as a clock, and as patient, and patienter, for
that will bust out and strike every now and then. But she sot resigned,
and meek, and still over rents and jagged holes in garments, and rainy
days and everything.
Calm in thunder storms, and calm in sunshine, and sad, sad as death
through ’em all, and most as still.
And I sot demute and see it go on as long as I could, a-feelin’ that
yearnin’ sort of pity for her that we can’t help feelin’ for all dumb
creeters when they are in pain, deeper than we feel for talkative
agony--yes, I always feel a deeper pity and a more pitiful one for
sech, and can’t help it.
And so one day, when I wuz a-settin’ at my knittin’ in the
settin’-room, and she a-settin’ by me sad and still, a-contogglin’ on a
summer coat of my Josiah’s, I watched the patient, white face and the
slim, patient, white fingers a-workin’ on patiently, and I stood it as
long as I could; and then I spoke out kinder sudden, being took, as it
were, by the side of myself, and almost spoke my thoughts out loud,
onbeknown to me, and sez I:
“My dear!” (She wuzn’t more’n twenty-two at the outside.)
“My dear! I wish you would tell me what makes you so unhappy; I’d love
to help you if I could.”
She dropped her work, looked up in my face sort o’ wonderin’, yet
searchin’.
I guess that she see that I wuz sincere, and that I pitied her
dretfully. Her lips begun to tremble. She dropped her work down onto
the floor, and come and knelt right down by me and put her head in my
lap and busted out a-cryin’.
You know the deeper the water is, and the thicker the ice closes over
it, the greater the upheaval and overflow when the ice breaks up.
She sobbed and she sobbed; and I smoothed back her hair, and kinder
patted her head, and babied her, and let her cry all she wanted to.
My gingham apron wuz new, but it wuz fast color and would wash, and I
felt that the tears would do her good.
I myself didn’t cry, though the tears run down my face some. But I
thought I wouldn’t give way and cry.
And this, the follerin’, is the story, told short by me, and terse,
terser than she told it, fur. For her sobs and tears and her anguished
looks all punctuated it, and lengthened it out, and my little groans
and sithes, which I groaned and sithed entirely onbeknown to myself.
But anyway it wuz a pitiful story.
She had at a early age fell in love voyalent with a young man, and he
visey versey and the same. They wuz dretful in love with each other, as
fur as I could make out, and both on ’em likely and well meanin’, and
well behaved with one exception.
He drinked some. But she thought, as so many female wimmen do, that he
would stop it when they wuz married.
Oh! that high rock that looms up in front of prospective brides, and on
which they hit their heads and their hearts, and are so oft destroyed.
They imagine that the marriage ceremony is a-goin’ in some strange way
to strike in and make over all the faults and vices of their young
pardners and turn ’em into virtues.
Curous, curous, that they should think so, but they do, and I spoze
they will keep on a-thinkin’ so. Mebby it is some of the visions that
come in the first delerium of love, and they are kinder crazy like for
a spell. But tenny rate they most always have this idee, specially if
love, like the measles, breaks out in ’em hard, and they have it in the
old-fashioned way.
Wall, as I wuz a-sayin’, and to resoom and proceed.
Annie thought he would stop drinkin’ after they wuz married. He said
he would. And he did for quite a spell. And they wuz as happy as if
they had rented a part of the Garden of Eden, and wuz a-workin’ it on
shares.
Then his brother-in-law moved into the place, and opened a cider-mill
and a saloon--manafactered and sold cider brandy, furnished all the
saloons round him with it, took it off by the load on Saturdays, and
kep’ his saloon wide open, so’s all the boys and men in the vicinity
could have the hull of Sunday to git crazy drunk in, while he wuz
a-passin’ round the contribution-box in the meetin’-house.
For he wuz a strict church-goer, the brother-in-law wuz, and felt that
he wuz a sample to foller.
Wall, Ellick Gurley follered him--follered him to his sorrer. The
brother-in-law employed him in his soul slaughter-house--for so I can’t
help callin’ the bizness of drunkard-makin’. I can’t help it, and I
don’t want to help it.
And so, under his influence, Ellick Gurley wuz led down the soft,
slippery pathway of cider drunkenness, with the holler images of Safety
and old Custom a-standin’ up on the stairway a-lightin’ him down it.
Ellick first neglected his work, while his face turned first a pink,
and then a bloated, purplish red.
Then he begun to be cross to his wife and abusive to little Rob, the
beautiful little angel that had flown to them out of the sweet shadows
of Eden, where they had dwelt the first married years of their life.
Finally, he got to be quarrelsome. Annie wuz afraid of him. And all
of his money and all of hern went to buy that cider brandy (it makes
the ugliest, most dangerous kind of a drunk, they say, of any kind of
liquor, and I believe it from what I have seen myself, and from what
Annie told me of her husband’s treatment of her and little Rob).
[Illustration: Finally, he got to be quarrelsome.]
And at last she begun to suffer for food and clothin’ for herself and
the child.
And as the drink demon riz up in Ellick’s crazy brain, and grew more
clamorous in its demands, and he weaker to contend aginst it, Ellick
sold all of the household stuff he could git holt of to appease this
dretful power that had got holt of him, body and soul.
Annie took in all the work she could do, did washin’ for the neighbors,
who ust to envy her her happiness and prosperity--rubbed and hung out
the heavy garments with tremblin’ fingers--sewed with her achin’ head
a-bendin’ over the long seams, and her tear-filled eyes dimmed with the
pain of unavailin’ agony.
But heartaches and abuse made her weak form weaker and weaker, and then
there wuz but little work to do, if she had been as strong as Sampson;
so, bein’ fairly drove to it by Agony, and Fear, and Starvation, them
three furies a-drivin’ her, as you may say, harnessed up three abreast
behind her, a-goadin’ her weak, cowerin’ form with their fire-tipped
lashes, she appealed to the brother-in-law.
She told him, what he knew before, that she and little Robbie were
starvin’, and she wuz afraid of her life, and she urged him to not sell
Ellick any more of the poison that wuz a-destroyin’ him.
He wuz to meetin’ when she went. He wuz dretful particular about his
religious observances.
No Hindoos wuz ever stricter about burnin’ their widders on the funeral
pyre of the departed than he wuz a-follerin’ up what he called his
religion.
(Religion, sweet, pure sperit, how could she stand it, to have him
a-burnin’ his incense in front of her? But, then, she has had to stand
a good deal in this old world, and has to yet.)
But, as I wuz a-sayin’, there never wuz a Pharisee in old or modern
times that went ahead of him in cleanin’ the outside of his platters
and religious deep dishes, and makin’ broad the border of his
phylakricy. Why, his phylakricy wuz broader and deeper than you have
any idee on.
But inside of his platters and deep dishes wuz dead men’s bones!
More’n one quarrel, riz up out of his accursed brandy, had led to
bloodshed, besides achin’ and broken hearts without number, and ruined
souls and lives.
And his phylakricy ort to be broad, for it had to be used as a pall
time and agin, and it covered, so he thought, a multitude of sins.
Yes, indeed!
Wall, as I say, he wuz to a church meetin’. There wuz a-goin’ to be a
Association of Religious Bodies for the Amelioration of Human Woe. And
he wuz anxious to be sent as a delegate, so he hung on to the last, and
wuz appinted.
But finally he got home, and Annie tackled him on the subject nearest
her heart, talked to him with tears in her eyes and a voice tremblin’
with the anguished beatin’s of her poor, achin’ heart.
She begged him to not sell her husband any more drink, begged him for
her sake and for the sake of little Rob. For she knew that if the man
had a tender place in his heart it wuz for his little nephew. He did
love him deeply, or as deep as a man like this could love anything
above his money and his reputation as a religious leader.
But he wouldn’t promise, and he acted dretful high-headed and hateful
to her to cover up his meanness, for he felt that if he should refuse
to sell his stuff, it would not only stop his money-makin’, but it
would be like ownin’ up that he had been in the wrong.
And he plumed himself, and carried the idee that cider wuz a healthful
beverage, and very strengthenin’ in janders and sech. Why, he carried
the idee to the world, and mebby in the first place he did to his own
soul, so blindin’ is the spectacles of selfishness that he wore, that
he wuz a-doin’ a charitable work a-keepin’ that old cider-mill and
saloon a-goin’.
So he wouldn’t pay no attention to her pleadin’s, only acted hateful
and cross to her, his guilty conscience makin’ him so, I spoze.
And then, too, he wuz in a hurry, for his church duties wuz a-waitin’
for him, and his barrels of cider wanted doctorin’ with alcohol and
sech.
So he turned onto his heel and left her.
And Annie went home more broken-hearted than ever, for his cold, cruel
sneers and scorn hurt her on the poor heart made sore by her husband’s
brutality.
And Ellick went on worse than ever. And it wuz on that very day that
his brother-in-law (and to make it shorter we will call him B. I.
L.)--it wuz on the very day that the B. I. L. went to New York on his
great Amelioratin’ Human Misery errent, that Ellick, crazy drunk with
cider shampain, struck little Rob sech a blow that it knocked the child
down, and he laid stunted for more’n a hour. And he threatened Annie
that he would take her life, because she interfered between him and the
boy.
He raved round, like the maniac that he wuz. He said that he would
throw her out doors if she didn’t git a good dinner, when there wuzn’t
a mite of food in the house to cook. He raved about the house bein’ so
freezin’ cold, when there wuzn’t a stick of wood nor a lump of coal.
[Illustration: Ellick lay drunk in the office.]
And finally he reeled off to his usual place of resort. And while the
B. I. L. wuz a-raisin’ up in the great meetin’-house, and a-smoothin’
out his phylakricy, and a-layin’ the border of it careful, so’s it
would show off well, and then bustin’ out into sech a speech, on the
duties of church-members to the sinful and the sorrowin’ round ’em--a
speech that riz him up powerful in religious circles--Ellick lay drunk
in the office of his cider-mill.
Little Rob lay like a dead child in a cold, bare room, and a
white-faced, half-starved mother bent over him with big, despairin’,
anxious eyes--bent over him till life come back to his poor, bruised
body; and then as darkness crept over the earth she stole away,
a-carryin’ him in her arms.
She got a ride with a passin’ teamster, got carried fur off, then got
another ride, wuz fed and warmed by pityin’ hearts on the way; so she
come to a place nigh Jonesville, onbeknown to anybody.
When Ellick rousted up out of his drunken sleep he went back to a
desolate, empty house. His surprise, his grief, sobered him. He flew to
the B. I. L., woke him out of a sound sleep filled with visions of his
triumphs.
The B. I. L. wuz in a tryin’ place. He wuz about to be riz up to a
high position in the meetin’-house. If this story got out, it might
and probble would hurt him. Annie must be found and brought back. They
jined forces to try to find her. They sot out that very day, but the
quest wuz a long one.
Annie stayed a spell with the family who took her in first out of the
cold and the darkness.
The man of the house, and the woman, too, wuz relations on the soul
side to the good old Samaritan mentioned in Skripter. They did well by
her.
But little Rob never got over the effects of the cruel blow, and the
fall on the hard floor, and the awful journey through the coldness
of the midnight escape. They all sort o’ underminded his little
constitution, and he wuz took sick a bed.
And bein’ too tired out and hardly dealt with here on earth, he wuz
promoted up to that higher home, where we may be sure that his True
Father, the Helper of all the oppressed and burdened, accepted him
right into His great heart of Love, and wuz good to the little, patient
soul.
Wall, Annie couldn’t tell me much about that time, when she had to let
the child, a part of her own life, go out of her arms, and she wuz left
alone--alone amongst strangers, helpless, despairin’, and poor.
No, she couldn’t talk much about it, not in words, but I understood the
language of her tremblin’ lips and her fallin’ tears.
Wall, when little Rob wuz laid away under the dead grasses and the bare
shade trees of that little country church-yard, Annie couldn’t stay
long in the house where he had been and now wuz not.
His little figger hanted every room, and her agonized Remembrance wuz
a-walkin’ up and down with her. So she heard of a place in Jonesville
where mebby she could git work, and she come there.
But lately news had come to her that her husband and B. I. L. wuz
huntin’ for her.
Ellick really and truly loved his wife and child, so it wuz spozed,
and hunted for Love’s and Anxiety’s sakes.
The B. I. L. hunted ’em so’s to hush up the story; it wuz a-hurtin’ him
dretfully in the eyes of the meetin’-house. And Anger and Selfishness
and Hypocrocy wuz a-holdin’ up their blue-flamed torches to light him
on his hunt.
Wall, Annie wuz in deathly fear that they would find her. She had took
another name--her mother’s maiden name--but she wuz afraid they would
find it out.
She said that she could not live to go through agin what she had gone
through with. And yet when I pinned her right down on the subject (a
calm, religious pinnin’) she owned up that she did love her husband
yet. She cried when she said it.
And I thought to myself that I would cry if I wuz in her place, if I
loved such a thing as that.
But she said, and mebby it wuz so, that he would have been all right if
it hadn’t been for the influence of the B. I. L. and his bein’ gradual
led back into drinkin’ agin by sunthin’ that he thought wouldn’t hurt
him. She said that he never would have touched whiskey agin, havin’
promised and broke off.
But he thought, somehow, that the liquid sech a highly religious man
wuz a-sellin’ under the name of cider must be sort o’ soothin’ to his
insides; but instead of that it set fire to ’em, and his morals and
all, and burnt ’em right up.
Annie showed me Ellick’s picter, and it wuz a good-lookin’ face, or
kinder good; it would have been handsome if it hadn’t been for a sort
of a weak look onto it.
But weak or strong, she loved him. And so I didn’t really know how she
wuz a-comin’ out so fur as her own happiness wuz concerned. Wimmen are
so queer.
But I chirked her up all I could, told her to keep jest as calm as she
could conveniently, and I would take care of her for the present.
CHAPTER IV.
SAMANTHA’S SWORD OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE.
Wall, if you’ll believe it, it wuz the very next day I had a occasion
to go to Jonesville for some necessaries; and Josiah wuz busy a-makin’
a new stanchil in the barn, so I sot off alone after breakfast with a
large pail of good butter, and a cross-cut saw that Josiah had sent
down to be filed, and the mair.
Wall, jest about a mild from our house is a old tarvern that has
been fixed up and is used now as a sort of a half-way house between
Jonesville and Loontown. Teamsters and sech stop there a sight to git
“Refreshments for man and beast,” as the sign reads.
Wall, I had got most there when I see a man approachin’ me a-walkin’
afoot. And I knew him the first minute I sot my eyes on him.
It wuz Ellick Gurley.
[Illustration: It wuz Ellick Gurley.]
And the very minute I sot my eyes onto his face Duty and Principle both
hunched me up hard to tackle him in this matter.
Wall, most probble he had been hangin’ round for some time, for he knew
me the first thing, and he come up to the side of the democrat wagon I
wuz a-ridin’ in, bold as brass, and he sez:
“Is this Josiah Allen’s wife?” sez he.
“Yes, sir,” sez I, up clear and decided.
“Is a woman calling herself Anna Clark at your house?”
I wuzn’t a-goin’ to fight for Annie with any pewter weepons of untruth.
No, I wuz a-goin’ to fight with the two-edged sword of Eternal Truth
and Jestice, and I took ’em out and whetted ’em (as it were), and sez
I, sharp and keen--
“Yes, sir!”
“Well,” sez he, lookin’ dretful defiant and mad at me, “she is my wife,
and I hereby forbid you harboring her, for I will pay no debts of her
contracting.”
“Like as not,” sez I coolly, “as you never paid any of your own.”
He kinder blushed up some, but he went on some as if he wuz
a-rehearsin’ a piece he had learnt:
“She has left my bed and board!”
Then I waved that sword of Truth agin that I had been a-whettin’, and
sez I--
“It wuz her bed. Her mother gin it to her for her settin’ out, and
picked every feather in it from her own geese and ganders. I got it
from Annie’s own lips, and you sold it for drink. As for the boards,”
sez I candidly, for even in the midst of the fiercest battle with the
forces of wrong I must be jest to my foe, and so sez I--
“As for the piece of board you speak of, I d’no whose it wuz, but I
believe it wuz hern. Anyway, I know she earnt every mite of food and
drink you took into your miserable body.”
And the remembrance of Annie’s wrongs and woes so overmastered me, that
I sez right out--
“You drunken, low-lived snipe, you! how dast you be comin’ round that
good little creeter, and tryin’ to git her back into her starvation and
slavery, and peril of life and limb? How dast you, you drunken coot,
you?” sez I, a-lookin’ two or three daggers at him and some simeters.
He quailed. I d’no as I ever see signs of quail any plainer than I see
it in him.
But he muttered sunthin’ about--“A man’s having a right to his wife and
child.”
“A right?” sez I; “do you dast to look anybody in the face and talk
of your right to wife and child, when it wuz your poor, abused,
half-starved wife’s weak arms and mighty love that riz up between you
and your child and murder? Riz up between you and the gallows?”
He quailed deeper, fur deeper than he had quailed, and his lips
trembled.
And I see under the quail, come to look clost at him, that there wuz a
kinder good-hearted look under all the weakness and dissipated look of
his face. I see, or thought I see, that it wuz bad influences that had
led him astray, and if he had kep’ under good influence and away from
bad ones (the B. I. L. and his hard cider, etc.), I thought like as
not, from the generous lay of his features, that he might have been a
tolerable good-lookin’ feller and behaved middlin’ well.
And that is why I spozed that Annie looked so heart-broken, that wuz
why, I spoze, that, in spite of all she had underwent, my contoggler
loved him.
But anon he sprunted up some and said sunthin’ about bein’ bound to
have his wife.
And I waved my sword of Jestice agin (mentally) and sez--
“Wall, I am bound that you shan’t have her, and you’ll see,” sez I,
“who’ll carry the day!”
And then he sez, “What right have you to interfere? What relation are
you to her?”
And sez I, a-liftin’ up my head in a very noble way--“The same relation
that the Samaritan wuz to the man by the wayside. She’s my relation
on the heart’s side, the Pity and Sympathy’s side. Closter ties than
the false, shaky ones that bound her to a life of slavery and danger
with you--bound her to you, who promised to protect her, and then
half-murdered her. And you’ll find out so!” sez I, a-lookin’ as bold
as brass, but in my heart I quaked considerable, not knowin’ but I wuz
a-goin’ agin the hull statute and constitution and by-laws of the U. S.
of America.
But I spoze my mean skairt him. It had sech determination and courage
into it, and he sez--
“I will go and call my brother-in-law. He is a rich and respectable man
and very religious. I will bring him to talk with you.”
“Wall, do so!” sez I, bold as a lioness on the outside. “I’d love to
set my eyes onto that creeter, jest out of curosity, jest as I would
look at a menagerie of wild beasts and man-eaters.”
So he went back into the tarvern and brung him.
He wuz a mean-lookin’ creeter in his face, and he wuz short in statter,
and his figger looked sort o’ sneakin’ under the weight of guilt he wuz
a-carryin’ round under the cloak of religion.
And his little black eyes looked guilty, and his hull face, under
some kinder red hair, looked withered and hardened, as if his doin’
for years what he knew wuz wicked had hardened his face into a cruel
meanness. He looked mean as mean could be.
But he tried to hold his head up, and he bust out the first thing
about takin’ the law to me!
“_You_ take the law to me! _you!_”
And oh! how my simeter of Truth and Jestice jest flashed round that
man’s short, meachin’ figger.
“You take the law on anybody, you mean creeter you! who have brung all
this sin and misery to pass for your own selfishness. You, who took the
good-tempered, weak boy and poured your poison down his throat till you
flooded out all his moral sense and husbandly and fatherly affection,
and filled up the empty space with the demons of Hatred and Brutality
and crazy quarrelin’s!
“You talk of law, who stole away every mite of that poor girl’s
happiness and every cent of her money for your cursed drink!
“You, who drove out of their home the sweet angel of Happiness, who
used to board with ’em stiddy, and drove in your beasts of prey!
“You ruined her happiness, you starved her, you broke her heart, and
now you want her back to torment her agin!
“Wall, you won’t have her, unless you take her over my prostrate form!”
The B. I. L. wuz half skairt to death, and he stood demute.
But Ellick broke in with tremblin’ lips. He stopped talkin’ about Annie
for a spell, bein’, I spoze, perfectly overcome by my eloquence. And
he begun on another tack, and sez he in tremblin’ axents--
“I want my boy,” sez he, “I will have my child!”
And I see that he did have a deathly longin’ and hungry look in his
eyes. I could see that he did love his wife and child, deep and
earnest. And I felt a little mite tenderer towards him, not much, for I
kep’ a-thinkin’ of how Annie’s face had looked as she come and throwed
herself at my feet.
The memory of that white face and them big, anguished eyes riz my heart
up and kep’ it from meltin’ right down under the agony of that man’s
look.
The B. I. L., whose selfishness had done the hull work, he too looked a
heartfelt anxiety about the boy. I see that he loved him too, and wuz
proud of him.
But, as I say, the memory of the Giant Wrong that had struck down Annie
and the boy stood right by me and nerved me up, and I sez--
“You can’t have the child!”
Then Ellick flared right up, and sez he--
“I will have the child, and I’ll let you know that I will! I am his
natural guardian, and I’ll let you know that the law is on my side, and
I can take him, and I will take him!”
“No,” sez I, “you can’t take him!”
“He can!” sez the B. I. L., speakin’ up sharp as a meat-axe--“he can;
nobody loves the child as well as we do; and he is the child’s natural
guardian, and we can take him away from any place you have put him in.”
And agin I sez, “No you can’t, not from the place he is in now. The boy
has got another gardeen now, a better one.”
“Another guardian!” sez the father; “well, I will tear him right out of
his hands; I will make him give him up!”
He wuz jealous as a dog, I could see, of the gardeen.
“No you won’t!” sez I.
“Yes he will!” sez the B. I. L.; “we’ll teach him what the law is, and
that a father can get his boy every time!”
“Not this time!” sez I; “this gardeen is powerful and kind, too; and he
has got him in a safe place. He wuz misused and kicked and beaten and
half starved; but he has enough now; he has got a home of plenty and
rest and happiness. He is safe,” sez I.
“No matter how safe it is we will have him right out of it!” sez the B.
I. L.
“He is my child, and I _will_ have him!” says Ellick Gurley.
“No,” sez I, “you can’t have him. You can’t pull that tender little
body out of the grave to misuse it agin. You can’t draw the sweet
little sperit out of God’s happy home to torment it agin. The Lord is
his father and his gardeen now, and He will keep the boy!”
“Dead!” cried the B. I. L., and he staggered back like a drunken man,
and his face turned white as a bleached white cotton shirt.
“Dead! my baby dead!” sez Ellick Gurley. “Then I am his murderer!”
And he threw up his arms as if he had received a pistol shot right in
his heart, and then he fell jest like a log right down in the road.
Wall, I disembarked from my democrat, and by the time the B. I. L. had
got him up in a more settin’ poster on a log by the side of the road, I
wuz by him a-holdin’ his head and a-chafin’ his hands and his forward.
When he come to and riz up and sot upright, his first words wuz--
“Oh! poor Annie! poor girl! how did she bear it, all alone with our
dead boy! Oh! my boy! my boy that I killed!”
I see plain that there wuz good in the man, after all.
But the B. I. L. had by this time sprunted up, and wuz a-thinkin’ of
his phylakricy, and a-pullin’ it over himself and Ellick, and seemed
anxious to sort o’ hush him up, and sez he--
“It wasn’t your doings, it wasn’t the accident that killed the boy, it
was probably something else.”
“Yes,” sez I, lookin’ at the B. I. L. straight in the face--“yes,
it _wuz_ sunthin’ else, it wuz _you_! You smooth-faced, selfish
hyppocrite, you; it wuz your doin’s that killed the boy! If you had
left his Pa alone, and not led him into a condition fit to murder, jest
to put a few cents into your own pocket, the boy would have been alive
and happy to-day, and so would Ellick and Annie.” Sez I, “It wuz your
doin’s, and you don’t want to forgit it!” sez I.
[Illustration: “Yes, it _wuz_ sunthin’ else; it wuz _you_.”]
He quailed, he quailed hard, and sez he--
“You talk like a fool!”
“No,” sez I; “you are the fool, for it is the fool that hath said that
there is no God, and you see there is,” sez I--“a God that punishes
sin, who is even now a-punishin’ you; a God who said, “Cursed is he who
putteth the cup to his neighbor’s lips.” Sez I, “You have prospered
and grown rich in your bizness of beast-makin’, and you didn’t believe
there wuz Eternal Jestice a-watchin’ over your sinful deeds, and you
find now that you wuz a fool to believe it. For you find now that there
is a God. You find now that you _are_ cursed for your sin in makin’
murderers and assassins and wife-beaters and child-killers!”
Sez I, “You loved little Rob; your bad heart is achin’ now this minute
to think it wuz your hand that dealt out the poison that reached him
through his father’s weakness and miserable vice!”
He wuz demute. He didn’t say a word, but a look come over his face that
I don’t want to see agin. He didn’t want to give up and own up his
guilt and repent, and he wuz jest crushed right down about little Rob.
He wuz jest tosted both ways, between agony and selfishness. He didn’t
want to give up his profitable bizness of beast-makin’, and he wuz
horrow struck to think that his own little idol had fell a victim.
His face looked like a humbly fallen angel’s, or how I spoze they look.
I never see one fall.
He didn’t say another word, but turned on his heel and walked off.
The last word he said to me, as I stated heretofore, wuz callin’ me “a
fool.”
But I didn’t care for that. I knew I wuzn’t.
But still that broken-hearted father, that wretched, lonesome husband
sot there by the side of the road. Finally he spoke----
“Can I see Annie?”
“No, sir!” sez I plain and square--jest as plain and jest as square
as if my own heart wuzn’t a-achin’, and a-achin’ hard, too, for the
miserable, broken-hearted man.
My tears, if they fell, and I spoze they did from my feelin’s, fell
inside of my head; for I wouldn’t let him have a chance to misuse and
torment that good little creeter agin, not if I could help it.
He trembled like a popple leaf. He wuz paler than any dish-cloth I
ever see, and I see my advantage, and I hardened my heart, some like
Pharo’s, only a more pious hardenin’, for it wuz done on principle.
“You talk of wantin’ that poor girl to go back to your cold, naked
home, to hardship, to starvation, to wretchedness--bodily wretchedness
and heart wretchedness. For she loves you still, you poor snipe, you;
she loves you, fool that she is, but wimmen are weak.”
I see his face grow brighter for a minute, and then turn pale as death
agin.
“Will she forgive me?” sez he in axents weak as a cat, and weaker, too,
and fur hopelesser than any cat I ever see.
“Not if I can help it!” sez I heartlessly (on the outside) and boldly.
“I’ll do better. I’ll promise her to not drink another drop!”
“Promises are cheap,” sez I in a lofty way, a-lookin’ up into a tree,
for his pale face weakened me, and I felt that I must be strong. So I
looked up into the tree overhead. It wuz a slippery ellum, but I held
firm.
“Promises are cheap and slippery,” sez I. I spoze it wuz that tree that
put me in mind of that simely. “She shan’t be led away by ’em agin, by
my consent.”
“If I don’t drink for a year will you help me to have my wife back
again?”
His voice trembled.
“That is beginnin’ to talk like a human creeter,” sez I, and I looked
down from the ellum sort o’ benignantly. And I sez in a more warmer
axent, but not too warm--jest about milk warm--
“You stop drinkin’ for a year. You git another home for her as good as
you took her to at first, and I’ll advise her to talk with you about
goin’ back, and not one minute before!” sez I.
“Can I see her one minute?” sez he.
Annie wuz to home. Josiah wuz away. All devolved on me, and I riz up to
the occasion.
“No!” sez I, “you can’t; you can’t see her to-day for a minute, or a
secont!”
(I knew putty wuz hard in comparison to her heart, and I wouldn’t run
the resk.)
“You stop drinkin’ for six months,” sez I, “and you may see her for
one-half hour in my presence, and not a minute longer,” sez I, as
resolute as iron. “I’ll take care of her, and when you’ve earnt the
right to have her agin with you, I’ll give her up to you and not a
minute before,” sez I--“not a minute!”
He riz right up, the tears runnin’ down his face, and he ketched holt
of my hand and kissed it. I d’no when I’ve been so kinder took back.
But I knew that Josiah wouldn’t care on sech a occasion as this, there
wuzn’t anything immoral in it, and I couldn’t hender it anyway, it wuz
done so quick. And then he started right off, fast as he could go.
And as sure as the world, that man went to work at his trade. Got two
dollars a day. He didn’t drink a drop. He rented a little house with
five acres of grass land round it and a paster. He kep’ two cows,
milked ’em nights and mornin’s, sold his milk and laid up money.
Workin’ with all his heart and soul to be worthy of his wife and home.
And I writ to that man stiddy, jest as stiddy as though I wuz a-keepin’
company with him, every week of my life.
Josiah didn’t care. Good land! I writ on duty. I sent him good letters,
all about how Annie wuz, and how she looked, and what she said, and
a-holdin’ up his arms like Arun and Hur (specially Hur, it sounds some
like a woman).
She made it her home with me, but went out to contoggle here and there,
and laid up money, bought sheets and piller-cases and sech. And I
helped her to two comforters and a bed-spread.
But she didn’t go back to him till the year wuz up.
No, I see to that.
And when that year had gone by, he wuz a sober man all the time,
completely out from under the influences of the B. I. L. and cider and
whiskey and saloons, and completely under ourn, Annie’s and mine and
Temperance. And we a-doin’ our very best for him, and a-believin’ in
him, and a-helpin’ him, all three on us.
Why, then I ventered to let her go and live with him agin. And I even
made a party for ’em on the occasion. Some like a weddin’ party, for
we all brung presents to ’em. And the children and a few sincere
well-wishers that she had contoggled for and Josiah and me all jinin’
hearty in the prayer Elder Minkley put up after supper for the peace
and prosperity of the new home.
And they’ve prospered first-rate.
Their sweet, cozy home is pleasant, as a home where Love is always
must be. But it is a-settin’ down under a shadder, and always will set
there. It can’t be helped.
The shadder stands up behind it, some like a mountain; but the peace
and happiness of the present is gradually a-makin’ a meller, tender
haze in front on’t; some as the blue, luminous sky of Injun Summer
floats in and softens the truth of the year’s decay.
It is there, all the same, but time and that soft, tender mist wears
off the sharp edges on’t, and sometimes the shadders fall some in the
shape of a cross. The sun hits it in jest the right way.
Annie and Ellick jined the meetin’-house the year after they come
together agin, and the Elder and several of us bretheren and sistern
gathered round ’em, and held up their courage and helped ’em along all
we could.
And though some are kinder mean and throw out hints, for human nater
can’t be helped, and mean and small souls have got to act out what is
inherient in ’em, and some, specially the B. I. L. and his family, made
lots of talk about him and her, and poked fun at ’em, and acted. But
Ellick is a-learnin’ to be patient and bear what he says he knows is
“The Wages of Sin.”
But, as naterally follers, he is now in the employ of another Master,
and his wages is a-comin’ in better and better every day.
And wuzn’t he happy when he held another little boy on his knee? Little
Tom Josiah, named after my two best-beloved males.
And Annie wanted to add “Sam” to it for me, but I demurred, sayin’,
“They didn’t seem to go together smooth. Tom Josiah Sam didn’t seem to
have the flow and rythm to suit my melodious idees.
Sez I, “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer.”
[Illustration: “Save the Sam, it may come in handy in the futer.”]
But the dimpled hands of that child seemed to draw Annie and Ellick
nigher together than they’d ever been, and pull ’em both along,
onbeknown to ’em, into the sunshiny fields of happiness.
Thomas J. gin little Tom Josiah ten dollars to put in the Savin’s Bank
at compounded interest, and Josiah gin him two lambs, which are a-goin’
to be put out to double to the very best advantage for him.
By the time he is twenty-one he will have considerable money, and a big
flock of sheep to drive on before him down the path of the futer.
But I might talk for hours and hours and not exhaust the fascinatin’
subject of the peace and prosperity of the one who has left the paths
of sin and hard cider and whiskey, etc., and is walkin’ in the paths of
sobriety and success.
But to them not interested so much in this cause, so dear to the heart
of her whose name wuz once Smith, the subject may grow monotunous and
tejus, so I will resoom and take up the thread of my discourse over my
finger agin, and let it purr along on the spool of History.
CHAPTER V.
A HEATHEN’S STANDARD OF MORALITY.
Wall, Al Faizi hearn this story about the contoggler’s sufferin’s
and the doin’s of the B. I. L., and I never see him so riz up about
anything as he wuz with that.
Sez he--“This man who loved the child sold stuff to his father that he
knew would make him liable to murder him? I cannot believe it possible
that such a crime can be permitted.
“To one coming from a heathen land it seems incredible.”
“Yes,” sez I, “I’ve always said that it wuz a worse practice than any
savages ever dremp of.”
Said Al Faizi--
“This is probably the one solitary instance that ever occurred where
the death of a person much beloved was caused by a man for a few cents’
gain.”
“One instance!” sez I; “why, all over this broad country, day after
day, and year after year, murders are brought about almost solely by
this cause!”
He sithed deep and seemed to be turnin’ in his mind some possible
remedy for this dretful state of things.
“Could not these men be persuaded to stop this trade that kills men in
this world, and destroys their hopes of Heaven?”
“No,” sez I, “they can’t be persuaded; it has been tried by good
men and good wimmen for years and years; they will keep on, driv by
Selfishness and Ignorance, that span of bloody beasts!”
“Could not the law interfere?” sez he; “could not your great police
force step in and punish these dreadful doings?”
Sez I, “It could, if it wuzn’t spendin’ its hull strength on devisin’
ways to protect the liquor traffic.
“The police might bring some on ’em up if it wuzn’t a-sneakin’ into
side-doors a-partakin’ on the sly of the poison!”
Sez I, “It gits braced up in this way, so’s it’s ready to drag off to
jail the poor, weak drunkards, made so by the saloons, and by the men
who supply the saloons, and by the voters who make this thing possible,
and by the goverment that sustains it.”
“Why does not your great nation interfere and compel them to stop it?”
sez he.
“Because this great nation is in company with ’em,” sez I--“partakers
in this iniquity, and takin’ part of the bloody gain.”
And my feathers drooped and my face wuz as red as blood to have to own
up these things to a heathen, that wuz a-contrastin’ our ways with his
own, which wuz so much more superior and riz up on the liquor question.
“Your holy church,” sez he, “why does not that, so great and powerful
a force in this land, why does it not interfere and frown down these
wicked ways? Why does it not pronounce its anathema on all those who
commit this sin--this B.I.L., as I have heard him called, and men like
him, who own saloons and supply the stuff that makes murderers?”
“This B.I.L.,” sez I, “is a piller in his meetin’-house. He sets in the
highest place,” sez I.
“One of your holy men who take charge of the sacred things, permitted
by your customs to carry on such iniquity? I cannot understand it,” sez
he.
Sez I--“Nobody ort to understand it!” Sez I, “It is a shame and a
disgrace, anyway!”
“Why,” sez he, “in my own country our men who take part in holy
observances have to lead pure lives--to fast and pray continually.
I cannot understand that one would be permitted to carry on an evil
business six days during the week and touch the sacred things of your
religion the seventh day.”
Agin I sez--“Nobody ort to understand it; it would be a shame to
heathen countries!” sez I.
Sez he--“This very man who was the cause of all this wretchedness and
crime and murder--he prays for the heathen, does he not?”
“I spoze so,” sez I.
“He carries round the vessel in which you gather the money to send to
the heathen for charity and instruction?”
“Yes,” sez I; “but we call it the contribution plate.”
“Well,” sez he, “we refuse to accept his money; we refuse to take the
money that man desecrates by touching.
“And,” sez he, “I will tell him so.”
And so I spoze he did--good, simple-minded creeter. He didn’t seem to
have but two idees in his head--one to learn the will of God, and the
other to do it.
And from what I’ve hearn sence I guess he did impress the B.I.L.
The idee of havin’ a heathen from heathen lands come to labor with him
on religion kinder shook him up, from all I can hear.
I shouldn’t wonder if he did leave off his dretful trade, and come
part way up to a heathen’s standard of morality.
But if he duz, no thanks are due to our own law or to our own gospel.
They wuz both weighed in the balances and found wantin’.
If things are ever put on a more religious and noble and riz up footin’
it will all be caused by the missionary efforts of a heathen.
But to resoom.
Another thing about our contoggler interested Al Faizi dretfully. It
wuz some talks he had with her about wimmen’s dress.
Annie wuz sensible, and hated the tight girtin’s indulged in by some
of our females. And Al Faizi expressed the greatest wonder at the
ignorance and folly showed by civilized wimmen.
The pressin’ in and destroyin’ all the vital organs by lacin’ in the
waist. He expressed great wonder that a civilized people could commit
this crime aginst the laws of health and the solemn laws of heredity.
He said when he contrasted the loose, comfortable robes of his own
wimmen with the deformities caused by tight lacin’, more and more he
wondered at the strange sights of civilization.
And then he said that in hospitals (for this strange creeter had peered
round everywhere in search of knowledge), he had seen some of the
terrible effects of tight lacin’ and high-heeled shoes.
He said that he had seen cases of blindness, caused by the last, and a
destruction of the nerves.
In lacin’, he had seen dretful cases of internal diseases, incurable,
and had seen terrible diseases in infants, caused alone by this
destructive custom of the mothers--young infants who, if they lived,
must carry a maimed body through life with ’em, caused alone by this
habit.
Sez he, “Compare these high-heeled shoes with the loose, comfortable
sandals that our own women wear. And these painful steel waists, that
compress the lungs and heart, with our own women’s loose, flowing
garments,” and he wuz astounded at our ways.
Wall, I agreed with him from the bottom of my heart, but sech is poor
human nater that it kinder galded me to have my sect so sot down on
and despised by a heathen. And I, kinder onbeknown to me, brung up
their own veiled wimmen. “And,” sez I, “every country has its own
shortcomin’s; I don’t like the idee of your wimmen havin’ their faces
all covered up with veils.”
My tone wuz kinder het up and agitated.
But his voice wuz as sweet and calm as the evenin’ breeze a-blowin’
over a bed of Japanese lilies.
“Yes,” sez he, “perhaps we err in that direction, in veiling our women
too much from the public gaze.
“But,” sez he, “I went to a grand party once in your great city
Chicago, and to one also in Washington, and I see the women’s forms
almost entirely disrobed and nude, while great folds of cloth trailed
after them down on the floor. I knew not where to look for shame, for
even when I was a nursing babe in my mother’s arms, I could not have
witnessed such sights.
“And while we Eastern people may err in the direction of veiling the
charms of our women-kind, methinks you Western people err still further
in the opposite direction. At these public parties I saw the naked
forms of the women, displayed with far more than the freedom of the
courtesans in my own country, and my heart sank down with shrinking and
wonder at the strange customs of civilization.”
I felt meachin’. I felt small enough to have gone to bed through my
bedroom key-hole. But I thought I wouldn’t. I only sez--“Wall, I guess
it is about bed-time.”
Josiah had already sought repose in our bedroom.
And Al Faizi got up at once and took his night-lamp, and bid me
good-night with one of his low, reverential bows.
[Illustration: WITH ONE OF HIS LOW, REVERENTIAL BOWS.]
I knew what he said wuz the truth. I had meditated on it. And in my
own way I had tried to break it up--the tight-lacin’, train-dragglin’,
high-heeled doin’s.
But, as I say, it galded me deeply to hear these truths discanted on by
a heathen.
I love my sect, and wish her dretful well, and I can’t bear to see
heathens a-lookin’ down on her.
And then Al Faizi hearn about how little children are put to work at a
tender age down in the damp, dark mines, shet away from Heaven’s light,
through long, long days, until their youth is gone and old age dims
their eyes.
And he sot off for a distant part of the country to see the owners of
the mines, and see for himself, and use his influence to have this evil
abolished.
And then he hearn about how young children are bought in the great
stores of the big citys.
He hearn all the tales of sin and woe connected with sech doin’s--worse
than the Masacreein’ of the Innocents.
He sot out to once to investigate, and to warn, and to rebuke.
And he hearn with wonder and unbelief, at first, the story how children
could sell their honor and all their hopes of the futer at a tender age.
And how this great nation permits this iniquity, and makes laws to
perpetuate it, and shield the guilty men who indulge in this sin.
And all the horrows that gathers round them infamous words--
“The Age of Consent.”
As he talked with me about it, I could see by the deep fire that wuz
lit up in his usually soft eyes his burnin’ indignation aginst this
idee that had jest been promulgated to him.
Sez he--“You Christians talk a sight about the car of Juggernaut that
rolls on over living victims and crushes them down, but,” sez he,
“death leaves the soul free to fly home to its paradise; but your
Christian country has found the way to ruin the _souls_ of children, as
well as their bodies. How can you sit down calmly and know that such a
law is in existence? How can mothers happily watch their sweet little
baby girls at play, and know that such a horrible danger lurks in the
path their ignorant little feet have got to tread, such a snare is set
for them?”
“They don’t set calm and happy--mothers don’t!” I bust out; “their
hearts and souls are full. They cry to God in their anguish and fear,
but they can’t do nothin’ else, wimmen can’t; men made this law, made
it for men. Men say they don’t want to put wimmen to the trouble of
votin’, and so they hender ’em from the hardship of droppin’ a little
scrap of paper in a small box once a year, and give ’em this corrodin’,
constant fear and anguish to carry with ’em day and night, like a load
of swords and simeters, every one of ’em a-stabbin’ their hearts.”
“But how can men, fathers of young girls, make this law, or allow it to
go on? Don’t they think of their own young daughters, who may be ruined
by it?”
“They don’t make this law and vote for this law for their own girls--it
is to ruin other men’s girls that it is made.”
“Don’t they know that the sword of retribution is two-sided--that it is
liable to cut down their own beloved?”
“No, they don’t think at all; their vile passions clog up their ears
and blind their eyes.”
“But your ministers, your holy men, what are they doing? I supposed
their mission was to preach to sinners, and try to make the world
better. I have heard them speak of many things in the high places where
they stand to warn the people of their sins, and the judgment to come,
but I never heard them allude to this. Why do they let this enormous
crime go on unrebuked?”
“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t; they go on year in and year out,
a-preachin’ about Job’s sufferin’s, and Pharo’s hardness of heart, and
the Deluge, and other ancient sins and sufferin’s all healed up and
done away with centuries ago.
“Why, it is six thousand years sence Pharo’s heart hardened or Job’s
biles ached, and the green grass of centuries has riz up over the
sweepin’ swash of the Deluge, but they will calmly go on Sunday after
Sunday for years a-preachin’ on that agony and that wickedness and that
overflow, and not one word do they say about the hardness of heart of
the men who make and permit this law, which makes Pharo’s hardness seem
like putty in comparison, or the agony and dread this law brings to
mothers’ hearts in the night watches, a-thinkin’ on’t, and thinkin’ of
their own helplessness to protect the ones who they would give their
life for. And the depths of wretchedness that overwhelms the souls this
law wuz made to ruin! What are biles compared to these pains?
“But the clergymen, the most on ’em, go calmly on a-pintin’ these
old sins and pains out, and the overflow of the Deluge, and drawin’
tenthlies and twentiethlies from ’em, and not one word about this
cryin’ iniquity, so great that it seems as if it would open the very
sluce-ways of Heaven and let a new flood down onto this guilty age that
will allow sech crime to go on unrebuked.
“And philosophers will moralize on old laws and new ones, and their
cause and effects; on Heaven and earth, and not seemin’ly cast a eye
of their spectacles on this law of sin and shame that rises up right
before their eyes. And scientists rack their brains to discover new
laws and utilize old ones, but don’t make a effort towards discoverin’
a way to avert this enormous cause of woe and guilt, this fur-reachin’
and ever-increasin’ anguish and crime. And law-makers, instead of
tryin’ to overcome it, try their best to perpetuate it and make it
permanent; bend all their powers of intellect, band together, and use
the cunnin’ of serpents and the wisdom of old Lucifer to git their
laws passed and git Uncle Sam to jine in with ’em. Poor misguided old
creeter, a-bein’ led off by his old nose, and made to consent to this
crime and help it along!”
Al Faizi had been listenin’ in deep thought, and now he sez: “This
uncle of yours I know him not; but your great Government, could it not
interfere and stop this iniquity?”
“It could” (sez I, mad as a hen)--“it could, if it wuzn’t jined right
in with them law-makers and helpin’ ’em along; and,” sez I, “now
they’re tryin’ to git the poor old creeter to consent to a new idee.
Some big clergymen and other wise men are a-tryin’ to have these
wimmen, ruined by the evil passions of men, shet up in a certain pen
to keep ’em from doin’ harm to innocent folks, and not one word said
about shettin’ up the men who have made these wimmen what they are. Why
don’t they shet them up? There they be foot loose. If they have ruined
one pen full of wimmen, what henders ’em from spilin’ another pen full?
But there they be a-runnin’ loose and even a-votin’ on how firm and
strong the pen should be made to confine these victims of theirn. And
how big salaries the men who keep these pens in order shall have--good
big salaries, I’ll warrant you. Wise men and ministers advocate this
onjestice, and laymen are glad to practise what they preach.
“There hain’t nothin’ reasonable in it; if a pen has got to be made for
bad wimmen, why not have another pen, jest like it, only a great deal
bigger, made for the bad man?
“Why, this seems so reasonable and right I should think that Jestice
would lift the bandage offen her eyes and holler out and say it must
he done! But no, there hain’t no move made towards pennin’ bad men
up--not a move.”
Al Faizi sez--“I cannot understand these strange things.”
And I sez--“Nobody can, unless it is old Belzibub; I guess he gits the
run on it.”
Wall, he took out that book of hisen and writ for pretty nigh an hour.
And that is jest the way he went on and acted from day to day.
CHAPTER VI.
A LITTLE FUN AND ITS PRICE.
Al Faizi got acquainted with the Baptist minister at Jonesville, and
Elder Dean took to that noble heathen in a remarkable way. He wuz
a truly Christian man and deep learnt, and he and Al Faizi talked
together right in my presence in languages, a good many of them dead, I
spoze, and some on ’em, jedgin’ from the sound, in a sickly and dyin’
state.
Elder Dean wuz English, college bred. Been abroad as a missionary,
broke down, and come to Jonesville with a weak voice and lungs, but
a full head and a noble heart, for six hundred dollars a year and
parsonage found.
They’d always had a hard time, bein’ put to it for things and kinder
sickly. But he and his heroic wife had one flower in their life that
wuz a-bustin’ into full bloom, and a-sweetenin’ their hard present and
their wearisome past, and the promise and beauty on’t a-throwin’ a
bright, clear light clear acrost their futer--even down the steep banks
where the swift stream rushes through the dark, and clear over onto the
other side.
This brightness and blessin’ that lightened up their hard and toilsome
way wuz their only child, a youth of such manly beauty and gentle
goodness that his love made up to ’em, so they said to me, for all they
had suffered and all they had lost through their lives.
He had been brought up on clear love mostly. His Pa and Ma had
literally carried him in their hearts from the time his sweet, baby
face had smiled up to ’em from his cradle.
Nobody could tell the tenderness and love that had been lavished on
him. His Ma jest lived in him and his Pa, too, but their devotion
hadn’t spilte him, not at all--not mentally nor morally.
Though there wuz them that did think that his Ma, bein’ so dretful
tender of him and lookin’ out so for his health in every way, had
kinder weakened his constitution and he would have been stronger if he
had roughed it more.
Bein’ watched over so lovin’ly all his days, he wuz jest about as
delicate and couldn’t stand any more hardship than a girl; but he wuz
stiddy and industrious, a good Christian, and dretful ambitious. And
they looked forrered to him as bein’ an honor as well as a blessin’ to
’em in the futer.
The minister had learnt him all he knew, so he said, and for years
back they’d been savin’ every penny they could, deprivin’ themselves
of even necessaries to git the money to send Harry to college. From
his babyhood they’d worked for this. And jest before Al Faizi come to
Jonesville, the long looked-for and worked-for end had come--Harry had
gone to college, a-carryin’ with him all his parents’ love and hope for
the futer, and a small trunk full of necessaries, some Balsam of Fir
for his lungs, and some plasters and things his Ma had put in.
Wall, as I said, Elder Dean had took dretfully to Al Faizi, and he to
him. So one day I invited the elder and his wife over to dinner. I went
myself to gin ’em the invitation.
I found the elder a carefully coverin’ a old book of poems he had
bought, which wuz very rare, so he said, and jest what Harry had
wanted. He had took the money he had been savin’ for a winter coat, so
I hearn afterwards, to buy it.
And she wuz knittin’ a african to put over the couch in his room. She
had ravelled out a good shawl of her own to git the red for it, so I
hearn.
“But,” she sez, “when he comes into his room a little chilly, it will
be so nice to throw over his feet, and he always liked that soft,
crimson color. He gits cold real easy,” sez she, a-holdin’ up the
african and lookin’ real affectionate at it. It wuz a good african.
I asked ’em to come to dinner the next day, and they both demurred at
first, sayin’ that it wuz the day for Harry’s long letter to come. He
writ ’em long letters twice a week, and they both felt that they wanted
to be right there by the post-office so’s to git it the minute it
arrove.
Wall, it wuz compromised in this way--I promisin’ that Ury should be
at the post-office when the afternoon mail come in and bring it to ’em
right to our house. And I mentioned that the old mair could go pretty
fast when Ury and Necessity wuz a-drivin’ her; so they consented to
come.
And I cooked up dretful good vittles. I don’t think they’re ever than
above well fed to home, and I did enjoy a-cookin’ up good, nourishin’
food for ’em with Philury’s help.
I had some good beef soup, two roast chickens, with garden sass of all
kinds, cream biscuit, strawberry shortcake and jell, and rich, yellow
coffee with cream and loaf sugar in it.
I did well by ’em.
And I had a real good visit with ’em; for I jest as lives spend my time
a-hearin’ about Harry as not. I wuz a-knittin’, and of course could
hear and knit. And Josiah and Al Faizi (good creeters both on ’em) had
jest as lives hear the elder praise up his boy in dead languages as in
live ones.
And so they enjoyed themselves real well.
As I say, when the elder would git tired of praisin’ him up in English
he would try it in Greek, and when that language got tired out and
kinder dead, he would try a healthier, stronger one, so I spoze. He and
Al Faizi sot out in the porch some of the time, but I could hear ’em.
Miss Dean and I got along first-rate in our own native tongues, though
once in awhile I felt that, visitor or no visitor, I had to sprunt up a
little and tell my mind about Thomas J., and what a remarkable boy he
always wuz, and what a man he’d made.
But I see they wuz so oneasy when they wuzn’t a-praisin’ Harry that
I switched off the track as polite as I could and gin ’em a clear
sweep. And from that time Happiness and Harry rained supreme in our
settin’-room and piazza. And reminescenes wuz brung up and plans laid
on and prophecies foretold, and all wuz Harry, Harry, Harry.
Wall, I see Miss Dean kep’ a-lookin’ at the clock, though I told her it
lacked three hours of train time. But in the same cause of politeness I
had held up through the day I sent Ury off a hour before it wuz time,
and in due time he come back bearin’ a letter.
He brung it up to the stoop and handed it to the elder.
[Illustration: As the Elder took it he turned pale.]
As the elder took it he turned pale--white as a piece of white cotton
shirt, and sez he--
“This is not Harry’s hand!”
Miss Dean jest leaped forward and ketched holt of his hand.
“What is it? Not Harry’s writin’, what does it mean?”
Wall, when the letter wuz opened, we found what it meant.
Dead! dead! That bright young life, full of hope and beauty and
promise, had been cut down like a worthless weed by the infamous
practice of Hazin’.
Gentlemen’s sons, young men who had had every means of civilization at
their command, had committed the brutality of a savage. Young men of
riches, education, culture, position, they had committed this murder
jest for wanton fun. They had called him out of his bed at midnight on
a false errent, locked him out of his room for hours, poured a lot of
icy water on him; he, shiverin’ with his almost naked limbs, had plead
in vain for help.
Where wuz his Ma and Pa at this time? Asleep and dreamin’ of him,
mebby.
A congestive chill had attackted the weak lungs, and in two days he wuz
dead.
One of the pupils not engaged in it, in deep sympathy and pity, writ
the hull thing out to the bereaved parents.
We carried ’em home and helped ’em out of the democrat--helped ’em to
walk into the house, for they couldn’t walk alone. We sot him down
under a picter of Harry that had fresh flowers under it--laid her on a
couch covered with the woosted work she wuz a-makin’ for him, and took
care on ’em as well as we could while they waited for Harry to come
home.
Oh dear me! Oh dear suz!!!
I can’t tell nothin’ about that time. My pen trembles, jest as my heart
duz, when I try to write about it.
I’m a-goin’ to hang up a black bumbazeen curtain between the reader and
that seen for the next few days. Reader, it is best for you that I do
it--you couldn’t stand it if I didn’t.
The curtain ort to be crape, but crape, though all right in the line of
mournin’, is pretty thin for the purpose--you might see through it.
But I will jest lift up a corner on’t a few days later to show you
another coffin, with the broken-hearted mother a-layin’ in it, with a
broken-down old man bendin’ over it alone, waitin’ for the summons to
jine ’em in another country.
One victim buried, another victim layin’ in the coffin, another victim,
most to be pitied of all, a-stayin’ on here alone in a dark world
a-waitin’ for the end.
Gay, light-hearted young man, havin’ a good time at college--sowin’
your wild oats--havin’ royal good fun, what do you think of the end of
that night’s jollity?
Al Faizi couldn’t understand it. Sez he to me--
“His murderers will be hanged, will they not?”
“Hung!” sez I in astonishment; “oh, no! this is merely Hazin’--college
fun for young gentlemen.”
“Gentlemen!” sez he. “Do gentlemen murder in your country? Why, your
missionaries tell our people that if they murder they must be hanged in
this world and eternally punished in the next.”
“But,” sez I, “these young gentlemen were simply havin’ a little fun!”
My tone wuz as bitter as wormwood and gaul, and he see it.
“Has such a thing ever been done before in this country?” sez he.
“Oh, yes!” sez I (wormwood and gaul still saturating my axents); “it
is very common--it is always practised. Sometimes the victims are
only frightened to death and maimed and made idiots and invalids of;
sometimes they don’t die so soon; but then, agin,” sez I, “they die fur
quicker--sometimes, when the young gentlemen want to be extra funny,
and use some deadly gas, their victim dies to once, right under their
hands.”
“But don’t the Government interfere to punish such dreadful deeds?”
“Oh, no!” sez I; “the Government has its hands too full a-grantin’
licenses and sech, sellin’ the stuff that helps to make these
disgraceful seens.”
“Well, do not men and women rise and punish such deeds themselves?”
“Oh, no!” sez I; “wimmen are considered too feeble-minded to pass any
jedgment on sech doin’s--they’re considered by the college professors
and presidents, as a general thing, as too weak-minded and volatile to
take in a college education, and men are kep’ pretty busy a-bringin’ up
arguments to keep wimmen in their place.
“Of course, no sech doin’s ever took place in a woman’s college. They
generally spend their time in learnin’, and don’t riot round and act,
and that itself is considered, I believe, an evidence that wimmen are
inheriently weak and not really fitted for the higher education. It is,
I believe, considered a damagin’ evidence agin her powers of mind to
think she don’t have no hankerin’ to spend her college days a-gittin’
up the reputation of a prizefighter and a boat-swain, and had ruther
spend her time a-bringin’ out the strength of her mind and soul instead
of her muscles.”
Sez I, “Take that with her refusal to kill and maim and torture her
fellow students by Hazin’, and her dislike to cigarettes, drinkin’,
etc.--take ’em all together, though she carries off prizes right and
left for learnin’ and good behavior, yet these weaknesses of hern in
refusin’ to jine in such upliftin’ exercises, tells agin her dretfully
in the eyes of the male world!”
Oh! how the wormword showed in my axent as I spoke.
“Of all the strange things which I have seen in your strange country,”
sez Al Faizi, “this is one of the strangest--a civilized nation
practising such barbarities!”
And he took out that little book with the cross on’t and writ for a
quarter of an hour, and I d’no but more.
Wall, the days went along, one after another, as days will, droppin’
off, droppin’ off the rosary Time counts its beads on, and the time
pretty near elapsted for us to embark on our trip to Europe.
The tickets wuz bought, the nightcaps wuz packed, and the time drawed
near.
But as the time aproached, the thought of the deepness of the water in
the Atlantic growed more and more apparient to me.
[Illustration: I took down my old Atlas.]
I took down my old Atlas and Gography from the cupboard over the suller
way and poured over ’em, and sithed, and sithed and poured.
The distance looked fearful between shore and shore, and my reason told
me, also experience, that the reality wuz jest as much worse as black
water is worse than yeller paper.
The ocean wuz painted on this old Atlas bright yeller.
And the last time Al Faizi came back from quite a long trip he had took
to Washington and New York he found me a-pourin’ over the old Atlas;
while the nightcaps and dressin’-gown, all done up, lay on a stand by
my side.
As I mentioned more formally, I’d made a nice flannel dressin’-gown
for myself, and it satisfied my desires for comfort and also my pride;
though I didn’t act over it as my pardner did over hisen. No; a sense
of dignity and propriety restrained me.
I cut it out by my nightgown pattern and made it fuller--it looked
well. It wuz a brown and red stripe, tied down in front with lute
string ribbin, that I paid as high as 14 cents a yard for, and thought
it none too good for the occasion; I thought in case of a panick at
sea, and I had to appear in it, I wouldn’t begrech the outlay for the
ribbin.
And then, agin, seein’ we wuzn’t to any extra expense for the voyage,
I thought it wuzn’t extravagant in us to lanch out in clothes, or that
is, lanch out some in ’em, not too fur.
For I didn’t believe in goin’ through Europe follered by a dray full of
trunks.
No; I felt that two large satchels, that we could carry ourselves, wuz
what the occasion demanded.
That wuz our first thought, though we afterwards decided to take a
trunk.
Of course I took my mantilly, with tabs. It wuz jest as good as it ever
wuz, and a big woollen shawl to wear when it wuz cold on the steamer.
And my good, honorable bunnet, with my usual green baize veil to drape
it gracefully on the left side.
My umbrell, it is needless to say, occupied its usual place in my
outfit--protection from storms and tramps and other dangers, and it
could also be used for a cane.
Noble utensil! I would have felt lost indeed to have missed it from
its accustomed place at my right hand.
As I say, Al Faizi come back and found us engrossed in preperations and
study.
I with my Atlas, and Josiah carefully brushin’ his dressin’-gown,
though there wuzn’t a speck of dust on it, and a-smoothin’ out them
tossels.
We wuz a-makin’ our last preperations, for it only lacked about six
weeks of the time when we wuz to embark. Our satchels stood all
unlocked, with the keys fastened to ’em with good strong weltin’ cord,
so’s we wouldn’t have to hunt for the keys at the last minute. Some
long letters for the relations on both sides lay on Josiah’s desk, to
be sent after our departure; they wuz dretful affectin’ letters; we
thought more’n as like as not they would bring tears.
And as Al Faizi come in and witnessed our hasty preperations, he
announced in that calm way of hisen that he would go with us.
For a minute I wuz dumfoundered, and knew not whether I wuz tickled to
death at the proposal, or felt sorry and meachin’ over it.
I felt queer.
Sez Al Faizi, “I come to your land expecting I hardly know what.
“My heart had been touched by learning of your holy religion. I had
accepted the teachings of the blessed Lord Christ with all my heart
and soul; warmed by His love, I come to your country to learn what
that Divine religion would be amongst the people who had followed His
teachings eighteen hundred years, and had no false religion to paralyze
its power----and now--”
“Wall,” sez I, for Al Faizi paused for a good while, not a-lookin’ mad,
nor pert, nor anythin’, but jest earnest and some sad, and very quiet.
“Now what?” sez I.
He didn’t say nothin’. He looked as if he wuz afraid of hurtin’
somebody’s feelin’s; but at last he said in that soft, melodious voice
of hisen--
“Now, I should like to go to other lands.”
I felt fearful meachin’, and showed it, I spoze, to have a Hindoo come
here and git disgusted with our ways, for I mistrusted that he wuz,
though he didn’t say so out plain. And there wuzn’t a shadder of blame
on his face; jest calm and earnest, jest as he always had been, and
always would be, so fur as I could tell.
He couldn’t find Truth and Jestice here, and so he wuz for follerin’
off on their trail over the Atlantic.
I felt queer as a dog, but Josiah hailed the idee with joy. He seemed
highly tickled to have one more ingregient of curosity added to our
cavalcade.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EMBARKATION.
And so it wuz settled, and Martin bein’ writ to to git another ticket,
he got it, and sent it in a letter to us. But what he would say when he
see the passenger who wuz goin’ to use it I knew not, but I knew that
Alice and Adrian wuz good-natered, and would feel as I did about usin’
folks well. And then I remembered that complaint in Martin’s eyes, and
felt that if he didn’t take to Al Faizi, he would most probble be so
near-sighted that he couldn’t see him much, if any.
And so it turned out (to go ahead of the wagon a spell, or, ruther, to
paddle backwards a few furlongs), after the first conversation Martin
held with him, and see what his bizness wuz over here in America and
wuz a-goin’ to be in Europe--Martin’s eyes wuz so bad that he couldn’t
see him hardly ever.
But Alice wuz sweet and courteous to him, and Adrian liked him
dretfully from the first. And Al Faizi, when he first see Alice’s sweet
face, he stood stun still for more’n quite a spell.
And on his dark, handsome face dawned a look sech as a man might have
who had been walkin’ a considerable time through a underground way,
who had come out full in view of the mornin’ sun a-risin’ up on a June
world.
I d’no as anybody noticed that look but jest me; I don’t believe they
did, for Martin wuz talkin’ to Josiah in a dretful kind and patronizin’
way, and Alice wuz all took up a-lookin’ with her heart’s eye on the
land where her prince reigned.
And Adrian wuz, as I say, dretful took up with Al Faizi, and see
nothin’ in his dark, expressive face only what he looked for, and what
he found in it from day to day all through our tower--the good nater
of a patient comrade, who loved him for his own bright, winnin’ little
self, and loved him more for the sake of another, whose heart’s joy
Adrian wuz.
Martin’s eye complaint seemed to be real bad so fur as the noble
heathen wuz concerned.
I guess Al Faizi, in the first conversation he had with him, tackled
him in the everlastin’ cause of jestice, and pity, and mercy--subjects
that Martin hain’t “_o fay_” in (that is French. I seldom use foreign
languages, but I’ve hearn Maggie use it considerable, and know it is
lawful).
No; Martin and Al Faizi looked on this earth and the things of life
with sech different pairs of eyes that I d’no as they could be said to
look on this old planet on the same side.
Al Faizi looked on the deep side of subjects. He looked fur down under
the outside current to try to discern the hidden springs, from whence
these clear and turbid torrents flowed.
If he found a spring that yielded black water, his first thought wuz to
give warnin’ and try to dam it up.
Martin would try to keep it a-humpin’, so’s to utilize it--sell the mud
that flowed from it, mebby.
Al Faizi’s gaze pierced through the clouds of earth, and rested on the
gold pinnacles of Heaven.
Martin clutched handfuls of the gold ore of earth and held it clost to
his eyes, and so shet out the sight of the Heavenly City.
One wuz honestly a-tryin’ to sweep away utterly the vile sperits of
ignorance, evil, and want, etc., etc. Martin wuz for catchin’ ’em and
hitchin’ ’em to his lawn-mower, to keep the lawn smooth round the house
of his earthly tabernacle.
Curous extremes as ever met, I believe, and as interestin’ to witness
from day to day as the most costly and curous menagerie of wild animals
would be.
But, as I said, Martin’s eyes bein’ formed in jest that way, he wuzn’t
able to hardly see the noble heathen after that first interview.
Wall, to go back to the wagon agin and proceed onwards with my history,
or paddle back to the steamer.
At last the last minute come--Ury and Philury had took us to the cars
and been shooken by the hands, and amidst fervent good-byes had been
adjured over and over about the necessity of keepin’ the cat out of the
milk room, and the gate shet between the garden and paster, etc., etc.,
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
And they had promised faithfully to adhere to our wishes, and to advise
us of the results in weekly letters.
We let ’em move right in and have half of everything--butter, cheese,
eggs, wool, black caps, etc. And they wuz highly tickled as well as we.
Thomas Jefferson and Maggie had gone with us to the station, where
Whitfield and Tirzah Ann put in a late appearance, on account of
Tirzah’s bein’ ondecided whether to wear a thick or a thin dress; the
day bein’ one of them curous ones when you don’t really know whether it
will be hazy or warm.
And they’d come in time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’.
[Illustration: In time to kiss us and clasp our hands in partin’.]
The girls both brought bokays with ’em, and Babe, the darlin’, brought
a bunch of English violets to send to Adrian, knowin’ that he jest
worshipped that posy--and it’s one of my favorites, too. Wall, the
last words wuz said to us, Al Faizi had made his last low bow to the
children, and said the last polite, melodious adieu, and we embarked on
to the cars.
But I looked back, and I see Tirzah Ann a-wrestlin’ with her polynay,
that had got ketched into her parasol, and Whitfield a-helpin’ her to
ondo herself.
And I see Maggie’s sweet, upward look to the car winder, and met the
clear, affectionate, comprehendin’ look of my boy, Thomas Jefferson.
It is curous how well acquainted our sperits be with each other, hisen
and mine, and always has been, from the time when he sot on my lap as a
child. Our souls are clost friends, and would be if he wuzn’t no kin to
me.
He is a young man of a thousand, and he understands my mind without my
speakin’, and I do hisen.
But to resoom. It had been arranged that we should proceed directly to
a hotel that wuz nigh to the Atlantic, and Martin should call for us
there, his own residence bein’ in a opposite direction.
We did so, and after a good meal--and we all did jestice to it, bein’
hungry--a big carriage driv up, and Martin alighted from it and come
in.
Anon we embarked in it, and after a seen of almost indescribable
tumult, owin’ to the screamin’ of drivers, the conflict of passin’
wagons and carriages and dray carts, etc., etc., etc., etc.
And after numerous givin’s up on my part that now indeed wuz the time I
wuz to “likewise perish,” we found ourselves on the big steamer’s deck
that wuz to bear us away from our own native land.
Lots of folks wuz there a-takin’ leave of friends. Some wuz weepin’,
some wuz laughin’, some wuz talkin’, and that las’ some wuz multiplied
by hundreds and thousands, seemin’ly.
And piles of flowers lay round, offerin’s to and from fond hearts that
must sever.
Adrian had his bunch of sweet blue violets, and the violets wuzn’t any
sweeter than his eyes. And I, even at the resk of losin’ my umbrell,
clutched my precious bokays--the frail links that seemed to connect me
with my own native Jonesville and my loved ones there.
Josiah seemed to be lookin’ round for somebody he could scrape
acquaintance with.
And Al Faizi stood in that silent way of hisen, with his dark, ardent
face seemin’ly on the lookout for sunthin’ or other he could learn, and
a-seein’ every move that Alice made, as I could see, though nobody else
noticed it.
Martin wuz a-flyin’ round, busy a-seein’ to everything. Alice wuz a
little apart a-bendin’ over the side of the great ship. She seemed to
be lookin’ intently on sunthin’ or somebody on the pier, and as we
sailed off I see her snowy handkerchief wave out, and where she’d been
a-lookin’ I see an arm lifted up and another white handkerchief wave
out a farewell.
[Illustration: Her big blue eyes wuz full of tears.]
When I looked clost at her, I see that her big blue eyes wuz full of
tears.
As for me, I wuz tryin’ my best to keep my equilibrum, for the boat
tosted some, and my equilibrum hain’t what it would be if it hadn’t had
the rheumatiz so much.
But my umbrell helped me some; I planted it down and leaned heavy on
it, and in its faithful companionship and support I found some relief
as I see the land sail swift away from me, seemin’ to be in a hurry to
go somewhere.
And I sez in my heart--“Good-bye, dear old Land! you no need to be in
sech a hurry to go back and dissapear in the distance; no truer lover
did you ever have than she who now witnesses your swift departure,” and
even in my reverie wantin’ to be exact, I added--“she whose name wuz
once Smith.”
Quite a while did I stand there until Reason and also Josiah told me
that I had better seek my state-room.
I don’t find no fault with that room, it probble wuzn’t its fault that
the narrer walls riz up so many times, and seemed to hit me in my head
and stomach, specially the stomach, and then anon turn round with me,
and teeter, and bow down, and hump up, and act.
No; the little room wuzn’t to blame, and my sufferin’s with Josiah
Allen for the three days when he lay, as he said, in a dyin’ state,
right over my head--
I a-sufferin’ twice over--once in myself and agin in my other and more
fraxious and worrisome self.
The wild demeanors, the groans, the frenzied exclamations, and anon the
faint and die-away actions of that man can’t never be described upon,
and if it could, it would make readin’ that no man would want to read,
nor no woman neither.
But after a long interval, in which, while I wuz a-layin’, a-tryin’ in
a agonized way to think how I wanted my effects distributed amongst the
survivors--I would be called away from that contemplation to receive
my pardner’s last wills and testaments, and I heard anon or oftener,
spoke in solemn axents--
“Bury me in the dressin’-gown, Samantha.”
He clung to that idee, even in his lowest and most sinkin’est moments.
I reached up, or tried to, and took holt of his limp hand that dangled
down over my head, and I sez--
“You will live, Josiah, to wear it out.”
And as feeble as he wuz, and as much as he had wanted to die, them
words would seem to sooth him some, and be a paneky to him.
I repeated ’em often, for they seemed to impress him where more
affectionate and moral arguments failed.
But I may as well hang up a double rep curtain between my hearers and
the fearful seens that wuz enacted in our state-rooms for nearly three
days and nights.
I hang a rep curtain, so’s it would shelter the seens more; cretonne is
too thin.
But some of the seens are so agonizin’ and sharp pinted that they seem
to pierce even through that envelopin’ drapery.
One of them dagger-like episodes wuz of the fog horns.
If Josiah’s testementary idees and our united wretchedness would have
let me doze off some in rare intervals, the tootin’ of them horns would
be sure to roust me up.
Yes, they made the night dretful--ringin’ of bells, tootin’ of horns,
etc.
And once, it wuz along in the latter part of the night, I guess, I
heard a loud cry a-risin’ above the fog horn. It seemed to be a female
in distress.
And Josiah wuz all rousted up in a minute.
And sez he--“Some female is in distress, Samantha! Where is my
dressin’-gown?” Sez he, “I will go to her rescue!” And he rung the bell
wildly for the stewardess, and acted.
Sez I--“Josiah Allen, come back to bed! no woman ever yelled so loud
as that and lived! If it is a female she’s beyend your help now.” And
I curdled down in bed agin, though I felt queer and felt dretful sorry
for her; but felt that indeed that yell must have been her last, and
that she wuz now at rest.
But he wuz still wildly arrangin’ his gown, and hollerin’ for the
tossels--they’d slipped off from it.
“Where is them dum tossels?” he yelled; “must I hear a female yell like
that and not fly to her rescue? Where is the tossels?” he yelled agin.
“You don’t seem to have no heart, Samantha, or you’d be rousted up!”
“I am rousted up!” sez I; “yes, indeed, I have been rousted up ever
sence I laid my head onto my piller; but if you wuz so anxious to help
and save, Josiah, you wouldn’t wait for tossels!”
But at that minute, simultaneous and to once, the chambermaid come to
the door, and he found his tossels.
“Who is that female a-screamin’?” sez Josiah, a-tyin’ the cord in a big
bow-knot.
“That is the Syren,” sez she. And she slammed the door and went back;
she wuz mad to be waked up for that.
“The Syren!” sez Josiah; “what did I tell you, Samantha?” And sez he,
a-smoothin’ out the tossels, “I wouldn’t have missed the sight for a
dollar bill! How lucky I found my tossels!” sez he.
“Yes, dretful lucky,” sez I faintly, for I wuz wore completely out by
my long night watches, and I felt fraxious.
“Yes,” sez he, “I wouldn’t have appeared before a Syren without them
red tossels for no money. I always wanted to see a Syren!” sez he,
a-smoothin’ out the few hairs on each side of his cranium.
Sez he, “She wuz probble a-screamin’ for her lookin’-glass and comb;
I’ll go to once on deck. It is a bad night; if she has missed her comb,
I might lend her my pocket-comb,” sez he.
“You let Syrens alone, Josiah Allen!” sez I, gittin’ rousted up; “you
don’t want to meddle with ’em at all! and do you come back to bed.”
“Not at all,” sez he; “here is the chance of my lifetime. I’ve always
wanted to see a Syren, and now I’m a-goin’ to!”
And he reached up to a peg and took down his tall plug hat, and put it
on kinder to the side of his head in as rakish a lookin’ way as you
ever see a deacon’s hat in the world; he then took his umbrell and
started for the door.
[Illustration: Then took his umbrell and started for the door.]
Agin come that loud and fearful yell; it did, indeed, seem to be a
female in direst agony.
“But,” I sez, “I don’t believe that’s any Syren, Josiah Allen; we read
that her voice lures sailors to foller her; no sailor would be lured by
that voice, it is enough to scare anybody and drive ’em back, instead
of forrered.
“What occasion would a Syren have to yell in sech a blood-curdlin’ way,
Josiah Allen?”
“Wall,” sez he, put to his wits’ end, “mebby her hair is all snarled up
by the wind and salt water, and in yankin’ out the snarls, it hurts her
so that she yells.”
I see the common sense of this, for the first night I had used soap
and salt water my hair stood out like quills on my head, and it almost
killed me to comb it out. “But,” sez I, “Syrens are used to wind storms
and salt water. I don’t spoze their hair is like other folkses.”
Agin come that fearful, agonizin’ yell.
Agin Josiah sez--“While we are a-bandyin’ words back and forth, I am
losin’ the sight,” and agin he made for the door.
But I follered him and ketched holt of the tossels.
He paused to once. He feared they would be injured.
Sez I, “Come back to bed; how it would look in the Jonesville paper to
hear that Josiah Allen had been lured overboard by a Syren, for they
always try to drown men, Josiah!” sez I.
“Oh, shaw!” sez he; “they never had me to deal with. I should stand
still and argy with her--I always convince the more opposite sect,” sez
he, lookin’ vain.
But I see the allusion to drowndin’ made him hesitate, and sez he--
“You don’t spoze there is any danger of that, do you, Samantha? I would
give a dollar bill to tell old Gowdey and Uncle Sime Bentley that I’d
interviewed a Syren!” sez he. “It would make me a lion, Samantha, and
you a lioness.”
“I shan’t be made any animal whatsoever, Josiah Allen, by follerin’ up
a Syren at this time of night. They never did anything but harm, from
their grandmothers’ days down, and men have always been fooled and
drownded by ’em!” sez I; “you let Syrens alone and come to bed,” sez I;
“you’re a perfessor and a grandfather, Josiah Allen, and I’d try to act
becomin’ to both on em,” sez I.
He fingered the red tossels lovin’ly.
“Sech a chance,” sez he, “mebby I never shall have agin. I don’t spoze
any man who ever parlied with ’em wuz ever so dressy in his appearance,
and so stylish--no knowin’ what would come of it!” sez he. He hated to
give up the idee.
“Wall,” sez I, “it’s rainin’ as hard as it can; them tossels never
would come out flossy and beautiful agin, they would all be limped and
squashed down and spilte.”
“Do you think so?” sez he anxiously.
He took off his hat and put down his umbrell, and sez he--“It may be as
well to not foller the investigation to-night; there will probble be a
chance in fairer weather.”
But the next day we found out that the Syren wuz a thing they fixed
onto the fog horn for certain signals, and Josiah felt glad enough that
he hadn’t made no moves to talk with her.
I wuz glad on the side of common sense. He on the account of them
tossels.
But after we found out what it wuz, and all about it, that fog horn
made us feel dretful lonesome and queer when we heard it, half
asleep and half awake. It would seem as if one half of our life wuz
a-hollerin’ out to the other half.
Youth and middle age a-callin’ out to each other----
“Loss! loss!” and “Gain! gain!” as the case might be.
Jonesville and London, “Yell! yell!”
Love! peace! death! danger! “Shriek! shriek!”
Them you love who wuz here on earth, and them who’d gone over the Great
Flood, “Shout! shout!”
“Ship ahoy! What hail!”
Queer sounds as I ever hearn floated in on them high yells, borne by
the winds and the washin’ waves of ocean depths and the misty billows
from Sleep Land, broken up some as they drifted and mixed with the
billows of our own realm.
But daylight would always seem to calm down this tumult and bring more
lusid and practical idees.
Wall, the time come when we tottered up on deck, two pale, thin
figgers, to be confronted by other faces that wuz as wan, and some that
wuz wanner.
[Illustration: We tottered up on deck, two pale, thin figgers.]
But after these days we begun to feel first-rate. Alice and Adrian had
had a hard time of it, so I had learned before from the stewardess. And
I’d sent ’em lovin’ messages time and agin, and they me.
Martin, I don’t believe, had a minute’s sickness, nor Al Faizi. They
both seemed to be real chipper; though they both seemed to be perfect
strangers to each other; and I spoze they wuz and will be to all
eternity--even if they wuz settin’ on the same seat on high.
Their two souls hain’t made right to ever be intimate with each other.
CHAPTER VIII.
LANDING IN THE EMERALD ISLE.
Wall, after all, as much as I wuz afraid of the deepness and length and
breadth of the ocean, I had a pretty good time, after all.
Somehow, I got to feelin’ that the ship wuz a big city, and I got to
feelin’ as if it wuz about as safe as the land.
We d’no what is a-goin’ on under us on land--no, indeed, we don’t, and
if we git to forgittin’ it, we often git a shake-up and a hunch from
old Mom Nater to let us know that we are entirely ignorant of what
she’s a-doin’ down in the depths of the earth.
Yes, we git shook up with earthquakes, or cyclones lift us up and sweep
us off, and hurricanes and water-spouts are abroad, and cars break
down, and horses throw us out of wagons, etc., etc.
I’d bring up these consolin’ thoughts a sight when I’d be a-layin’ on
my narrer piller and a-thinkin’ that only a few boards wuz between me
and--what? And I’d kinder shudder and turn over, and try to forgit it.
How cold the water wuz and how deep, and how lonesome it would be
a-sinkin’ down, and down, and down, and how big the shark’s mouth wuz,
and how the cold, bitter, chokin’ waves would wash anythin’ to and fro
like a piece of weed, and sweep one so fur off and so fur down that it
didn’t seem as if the Angel of the Resurrection could ever find us!
But I spoze he could.
It stands to reason that we could as well be found in a shark as in
some poseys that grow up from the dust of our body, and whose perfume
exhale in the mornin’ dew goin’ up to the clouds, fallin’ in rain, and
goin’ through countless forms before the resurrection.
Oh! did I not bring up all these thoughts anon or oftener? And did I
not say to myself, time and agin, for my comfort and consolation, “The
One who formed me out of nothin’ is able to reform me.” Yes, my best
comfort wuz to ask the One who careth for ’em who go down to the sea in
ships to care for me, and to rest in that thought.
To lay down in the depths of that wide love and care and repose myself
in it.
Wall, we had a pretty good time on board. There wuz lots of different
kinds of folks there, jest as there always is on land.
I had hearn that there wuz a live English Lord on board, and Josiah
picked him out the first time we went on deck.
Yes, there he wuz, as we spozed, a tall, slim, supercilious-actin’ and
lookin’ feller, who ordered round the ship’s crew, and wuz dissatisfied
with his food, and snubbed the ocean, and felt that it hadn’t no need
to breathe so loud, and looked askance at the Heavens if the day wuz
dull.
Yes, he looked down on everybody and everything. And Josiah sez--“He
can’t help it, he wuz brung up that way; he is a Lord.”
“Wall,” sez I, “Lord or not, he acts like a fool!” Sez I, “He might
lower his nose once in awhile to rest it.”
Truly, he held it right up in the air the hull of the time.
But come to find out, that feller wuz a Grocer’s clerk, who wuz
a-makin’ his first trip, and felt as if Heaven and earth wuz a-watchin’
and admirin’ his move.
And the Lord we found out wuz a short, square-built man, dressed in
rough tweed, so jolly and full of fun that his wife had to hold him
back all the time.
She would have been glad to had him put on some dignity and things, but
he wouldn’t.
[Illustration: The lord with a pink paper suit on.]
One night some pretty American girls give a dance, and they handed
round some little favors that looked like big nuts, and when you opened
’em a hull tissue-paper suit come out on ’em, and that Lord come out
with a pink paper suit on, and went round through the dance half bent,
for the skirt wuz but short, with a woman’s ruffled cap on, and a dress.
His wife seemed to suffer agonies. Her pride ached, I spozed. But his
didn’t; he wuz as happy as a lark, and didn’t put on any more airs than
any common medder lark would.
I liked him first-rate, but that clerk wuz austere and exclusive to the
last. He wouldn’t mingle with us.
He wuz a-travellin’ abroad. And, to use a common adage, usually applied
to horses--“He felt his oats.”
Wall, they got up a paper on board and printed it on a typewriter--the
Lord furnishin’ most of the jokes for it.
And then they had a peanut-party, and the Lord carried the most of
anybody on the back of his hand and got the prize--3 long strings of
glass beads, and he wore ’em all the evenin’, to his wife’s horrow.
But the clerk, whose father kep’ a peanut-stand, and who had dwelt with
’em all the days of his youth, he thought it wuz a vulgar party, and
he looked at peanuts as if he knew ’em not.
There wuz times when the sea wuz rough, and Josiah and I retired to the
cabin, and for hours bemoaned our fate and wondered if we should ever
agin see the cliffs of Jonesville.
And on one heavey day, when the floor of our cell seemed to rise up and
smite us in the pits of our stumicks, Josiah made his will, and handed
it to me, with a face on which love and agony and fear appeared, about
a third of each on ’em.
Sez he, in a voice tremblin’ with emotion--“Take my last tribute of
love, and,” sez he, “have it recorded, or it may be broke.”
“But,” sez I, “dear Josiah”--for his love awoke my own; it had been
havin’ a nap while I wuz a-wrestlin’ with the elements, and furniture
that wuz a-tryin’ to upset me.
Sez I--“If you die, I, too, shall perish. So what avails a will?”
He hadn’t thought of that, and sez he, a-speakin’ out feebly from his
bunk with his eyes shet--
“You’re fat; you may float,” sez he; “my prize shoat did that slipped
out of the wagon fordin’ the creek.”
Sez I, in the same faint axents--truly our two voices wuz as feeble as
a pair of feeble cats, and weaker--sez I, “I always said you would twit
me of my heft on your death-bed if the subject come up, and you had
your conscientiousness.”
Sez he, “I’ve showed my love to you--I have left you everything
onconditional. You can marry agin.” Sez he, “This is no time for
selfishness and jealousy.”
“Marry agin!” sez I feebly; “what do I want of another pardner? Heaven
knows, I don’t know!”
“Wall,” says he tenderly, for my words touched him--“you may feel
different when you hain’t so sick to your stumick.”
“Yes,” sez I, “and you may, too!”
He had never made a will before that left me onhampered, and I felt
that when his legs wuz firmer under him, and his stumick and head wuz
steadier, that he, too, might undergo a change.
And he did.
It wuz a bright, calm day. He felt well, and I see him the next mornin’
a furtively tearin’ up that will and a-strewin’ the torn bits out of
the port-hole winder.
As he did so his hands got entangled in a cord I’d made out of weltin’
cord.
And sez he, a-lookin’ down onto it--“In the name of the gracious Peter!
what is this?”
He thought in a minute of rope ladders and troubadors--he acted jealous.
Sez I, “It is some handkerchiefs that I am a-washin’ in the Atlantic
Ocean, Josiah.”
He didn’t know I wuz awake, and it startled him. And sez he--
“How did you ever come to think on’t?”
“I d’no,” sez I; “but I thought it would be sunthin’ to think on, to
say I had used the Atlantic for a washtub.”
Sez he--“Wash one of mine, Samantha. I’d love to tell Deacon Garvin
on’t.”
Sez I--“Your second best bandanna is on the line.”
He looked down onto the heavin’ billows with content, and sez he--“I’m
as hungry as a bear.”
That mornin’ the sea lay calm and beautiful. The sun riz up on it and
flooded it with delicious waves of color; the east wuz a flame of
color, and the crest of the heavin’ billows wuz aflame with gold and
crimson and amethyst, and fur off some tall icebergs loomed up like
cold, pale ghosts, a-hantin’ us with a vague sense of danger, like the
undertone of sadness that underlays all things the most beautiful and
grand.
Then there wuz moonlight evenin’s, when the moon shone down full and
clear, and the glorified sky and the glorified water seemed to be a
part of each other, and the long and deep rythm of the waves seemed to
bear us up with ’em in a grand hymn that all creation wuz a-chantin’.
And then there wuz misty days, when clouds of fog settled down round
us like gray, mysterious wings, a-holdin’ us clost in their folds of
mystery, when we knew not what wuz a yard in front of us; when we
sailed on, blind creeters, not a-knowin’ what we wuz a-comin’ bunt up
aginst--a iceberg, or another ship, or jest the open space ahead. When
the cries of the fog-horn seemed to be a-hollerin’ out--
“Git out of the way, we’re a-comin’!”
But how could a iceberg hear and wheel round? No, it hadn’t come down
from the pole for no sech a purpose, it wuz a-goin’ straight ahead.
Them wuz solemn times, and we would think that we couldn’t never forgit
’em.
But we did. When the sun shone bright agin, we wuz ready to forgit the
sorrer and danger of the night and be happy agin. And at times, fur off
on the fur, watery plain--fur off ahead, we would see a sail.
Nearer and nearer it would come, and then go by us and dissapear in
the horizen back of us--meetin’ and partin’ at some distance without a
word; some like human bein’s goin’ by each other on the ocean of Life.
Separate worlds full of human life and interest meetin’ and partin’,
floatin’ by onbeknown.
I took a strange and a mysterious comfort sometimes a-bendin’ over the
sides of the ship and lookin’ fur down into the depths of the water and
a-seein’ huge forms a-playin’ down in their strange, green depths, or
imaginin’ I could. And I took a kind of dretful enjoyment a-ponderin’
on what would foller on and ensue if I should fall off and plunge down
into the liquid depths. But them thoughts wuz too full of or to indulge
in long. They driv me back to the side of my beloved pardner, or the
society of little Adrian and Alice.
Adrian knew everybody on board, and everybody loved him. But, above
all, he liked a sailor called Mike. From all I could learn, that seaman
racked his brain to tell all sorts of wild sea stories to the child.
I d’no as I’ve told about Josiah’s appetite durin’ that voyage.
My pardner’s appetite wuz always a strong subject, but now it wuz
exceedingly queer.
After he got over his seasickness, most the first words he said, and
they come right after his “good-by” and partin’ words to me, though
some time after--he waked up out of a deep sleep, and the first words
he said to me wuz, in middlin’ feeble axents--
“Do you spoze, Samantha, I could git a little biled beef and cabbage,
and some pork and beans?”
He had been a-livin’ on water gruel, and the words almost startled
me. But I obtained the ingregients with some trouble, and as I bore
them in, a large platter full of each, he looked up dretful feeble and
languishin’, and sez he--
“Set ’em down by the bed, Samantha, and mebby I could eat a bean, or
part of one.”
“Part of one bean” didn’t sound very encouragin’, but I set ’em down,
and the next time I see them platters, about ten minutes afterwards,
they wuz both clean as though they had been swept and garnished.
And from that minute he gained on’t. My own first hankerin’ after I got
better wuz for a biled dinner. Of course, I couldn’t git that, but I
exchanged milk porridge for roast pork, and sassige, and cabbage hot
slaw the first thing, and felt satisfied and happy with the change.
Curous, hain’t it? If I’d been on land I believe they would a-killed
me, but I thrived on the diet.
Wall, I never shall forgit how good the land looked to me as I looked
fur forrerds over the heavin’ billows of blue, and see the beautiful
green shores of Queenstown a-risin’ up ahead.
Adrian said, “Auntie, is that the Emerald Isle, and are the hills all
covered with emeralds, like Alice’s ring?” Sez he, “Mike told me they
were.”
Sez I, “Don’t you pay any attention to what Mike sez. The hills are
jest covered with soft, green grass that would look enough sight better
to me than any jewelled stuns would.”
Al Faizi stood motionless, lookin’ on the fair seen ahead, as if he wuz
a-lookin’ over the Swellin’s of Jordan into the Promised Land; part of
the time that riz up look rested on Alice’s sweet face.
Alice and Martin wuz a-walkin’ arm-in-arm up and down the deck, as much
took up with the sight as we wuz, only Martin thought it looked more
wise to not act tickled and enthuastick about it.
That is the first rule in etiket with some folks, to not act tickled
and glad about anything, but to look as stunny and onmoved at a
masterpiece of Art, or a towerin’ Alp, as at a plate of cold ham.
Josiah, he wuz a-worryin’ about the tug that wuz to take us on shore.
“A tug!” sez he; “I don’t like that name, it don’t sound reliable. If
it is a good convenience, why is it sech a tug to it to carry us?”
Sez I, “Be calm, Josiah, everything will come out right.”
And sez he, “One of the passengers called it a ‘tender.’ If it is so
tender, I don’t believe it is safe. Tenderness means weakness,” says he.
“Not always,” sez I, “quite the reverse.” But I see that it wuz no time
to plunge into metaphysicks and prove to him what I knew well, that
“the bravest are the tenderest--the lovin’ are the darin’.”
Then sez he, “If we ever live to git into that tug, we have got to have
our baggage all overhauled by the Custom House Officers.”
“Wall,” sez I, “what of it? We hain’t nothin’ to conceal or cover up.”
“Wall,” sez he, “that dressin’-gown of mine will jest as likely as not
be all throwed round and mussed up. It worries me!” sez he.
Sez I, “Don’t worry, Josiah Allen; it is good rep, and it will stand a
good overhaulin’ and not hurt it.”
“Wall,” sez he, “them tossels can’t be handled over by all Ireland and
come out hull and sound. It is nothin’ but dum foolishness to have to
go through all them performances.”
But his worryin’ wuz worse than the reality. For anon we sailed into
Cork harbor, and got into the tug that come out to meet us. The
officers jest give our things the lightest examination possible. They
didn’t throw things around at all, and they wuz real polite, only in
one thing--they asked us if we had tobacco or sperits.
[Illustration: With a stern look, calculated to wither him.]
Josiah never took his eyes offen that dressin’-gown through the hull of
the ordeal, and he wuz foldin’ them tossels lovin’ly as soon as they
dropped his satchel, when I wuz lookin’ back and a-wonderin’ at the
size of the steamer that loomed up above us some like a cliff.
As I say, the man with the officers asked me if I had sperits or
tobacco in my luggage.
I confronted him with a stern look, calculated to wither him, and sez
I--
“Do I look like it, sir?”
“Look like what?” sez he.
“Like a old toper who carrys round whiskey and a pipe?” Sez I, “I never
drink a drop stronger than coffee, half cream, and I never smoked a
pipe in my life, only once I smoked a little mullen for asthma.”
He felt ashamed, jest as I wanted him to. He see the power of
principle, and he didn’t hardly touch my things.
Wall, it wuz no wonder that Josiah worried some. These things were new
to us. He and I wuz, as you may say, the only students and novices in
travellin’ in the hull party, for Al Faizi had been everywhere, his
conversation wuz enriched by allusions to every land.
And Alice had been to Paris to school for three years. And Martin had
took her over and went after her. He often spoke of his familiarity
with foreign life and the exhaustive study he had made in foreign
fields. “There wuz little left for him to see,” he claimed.
He had took Alice over and went after her, but went with lightnin’
speed only when he wuz bed-sick. So Alice told me with her own lips.
He boasted a sight of his intimacy with foreign ways and customs.
Wall, did it not seem good to set our feet on land once more! But I wuz
almost ashamed to see the way my pardner reeled round, for he acted
for all the world as if he had been a-drinkin’. I wuz jest a-goin’ to
mention it to him when he whispered to me--
“Hang on to me, Samantha,” sez he; “I will never tell on’t in the
world.”
“Tell of what?” sez I, as I made a effort to stand up straight and
strong.
“Why,” sez he, “if you took a little too much sling for that cold of
yourn, I hain’t one to throw it in your face.”
Sez he, “That Stewardess wuz always a-recomendin’ it.”
“Sling!” sez I coldly; “I hain’t took a drop of anything stronger than
tea, and,” sez I, “knowin’ my principles as you do, I should think
you’d be ashamed of yourself to misuse a pardner in this shameful way!”
“Wall,” sez he, “you can’t walk straight to save your life! and,” sez
he, “you grew so indignant on the tug at that man, that one would
almost mistrust you.”
I see that there wuz some reason in his talk, for too much indignation
looks like guilt, lots of times.
Sez I, “You talk about my reelin’ round; what are you doin’?” sez I, as
his knees crooked and he crumpled down like one intoxicated.
Wall, he gin up that it wuz the effects of the ship, and erelong we
were in a good, clean tarvern and had breakfast.
After breakfast we wuz indeed glad to lay down and rest for a little
while, and then, as the rest of the party had all sallied out, my
Josiah and me took a walk all to ourselves, or that is what we had
lotted on.
But of all the droves of beggars that follered us, I never see the
beat--nasty and shiftless and talkin’ and teasin’ the very life out on
us.
I gin ’em a few cents in order to git rid on ’em.
But the more I gin the more they follered on. So I jest shet up my
portmoney and put it into my pocket.
Josiah poohed at ’em and didn’t give a cent, and didn’t approve of the
three cents I’d expended.
Till one old woman whispered to him, and I hearn her say--
“I see, young man, that you are good to your old mother; won’t you for
her sake give me a shilling?”
He wavered--he almost gin it to her. Sez she--“I will pray for
blessin’s on your handsome young head.”
He handed her the shillin’ with a happy, foolish look, which lasted
till she come round to my side, and she whispered to me--
“My pretty young lady, give me a sixpence. Your poor old father has
give me a gift, and do not let your own young heart be harder nor his.”
His liniment darkened rapidly, and he hurried me through the narrer
streets, full of shops and tarverns; and he did not console himself
as I did by lookin’ up on the steep hill and seein’ the handsome
residences--no, he seemed cut to the heart.
Wall, Martin said when we got back that we would go up to Cork at once,
as he wuz anxious to see all he could in Ireland as rapidly as possible.
He said that in a week at the outside he thought we could exhaust
all the sight-seein’ in Ireland and git to the bottom of the “Irish
Question.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll do well if you do that.”
And I didn’t make no moves to break it up, and we wuz soon a-ridin’
through the beautiful green country. And we seen on each side on us
“sweet fields arrayed in livin’ green.”
Never wuz there sech velvety grass, and the roads wuz as smooth and as
hard as a pavement.
Stun walls run along, with their soft, gray color, and anon a hedge,
birds, and flowers would break the seen. And little, low cottages
covered with vines dotted the landscape here and there; and now and
then a chapel would point its spire up into the blue overhead.
Once in awhile a queer rig with seats rigged out back to back, drawed
by horses, and full of folks, and once in awhile a smaller cart drawed
by a donkey, and once in awhile a woman with a red or blue cloak and a
white cap, and a man with short pantaloons and coat.
And so we rid on, green underneath, blue overhead, until we arrived in
Cork.
Wall, we put up at the Imperial Hotel. Everything wuz clean and sweet
about the house, and we had plenty to eat, and that wuz good. It wuz
indeed a comfort. And the waiters wuz dretful civil and eager to please.
It beats all, the difference in their actions here and in Jonesville.
I’ve had Irish wimmen work for me who seemed to look down on me, and
accepted their dollar a day hautily; but here they would thankfully
receive their sixpence a day, and treat you like a lady, too, which is
more ’n half the battle.
Queer, hain’t it? But human nater is human nater, and even a little
child, if she has been tyranized over by her Ma, will misuse her dolly
or the cat. I spoze that trait in nater can’t be helped from caperin’
when it gits a chance.
Wall, the next day Martin said he “wanted to go to Blarney Castle for
several reasons.”
He didn’t say what they wuz, but I spoze one of ’em wuz that old reason
of hisen about wantin’ to do what other folks did. And then, mebby, he
wanted to try to palaver better than he had palavered. Tenny rate, we
all set out for the castle next mornin’ after breakfast.
We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.” The passengers sot back to
back, but as my Josiah wuz placed by my side I did not mind it.
[Illustration: We went in what they call a “jauntin’ car.”]
On one side sot we two, and Al Faizi, on the other Martin and his
children.
Wall, the view wuz enchantin’ beyend description. The road wuz as
smooth and level as smooth glass, bordered by hedges full of pure white
and other colored poseys, a-fillin’ the air full of perfume, and the
cottages and every old tower and ruin wuz covered with the glossy green
of the ivy.
It wuz a fair seen--a fair seen!
Nater duz her best in Ireland, anyway. She seems to delight to
cover the meanest things--old straw-thatched cabins, and stuns, and
everything--with a robe of the richest, brightest green; mebby she
wants to kinder make up to the Irish for what they hain’t got, Jestice
and comfort and sech, and mebby, agin, it is the moist climate.
CHAPTER IX.
A VISIT TO BLARNEY CASTLE.
Anon we reached the old castle, for when anything gits to be six
hundred years old you can well call it old. Why, I should call Josiah
dretful old if he wuz over six hundred years old.
It towers up considerable high--a hundred feet, anyway. Some of its
walls are eight or ten feet thick. Al Faizi asked what they had sech
thick walls for.
And Martin told him it wuz built so to keep enemies from breakin’ in
and killin’ the inhabitants of the castle.
He looked dretful thoughtful, and then he asked what made them big
holes in the walls.
Martin said that Cromwell made ’em 200 years ago. Sez Martin, “Cromwell
made the land red with blood.”
“Was he not a great religious leader among your people?” said Al
Faizi--“a Reformer?”
“Yes.”
“Did he not preach the doctrine of peace, love to your enemies, good
will?”
“Yes, of course he did,” sez Martin.
“Why did he kill so many men, then?” sez Al Faizi.
“To make the other men behave themselves,” sez Martin.
“Kill them to make them act better?”
“The Catholics and the Protestants both fought in the name of their
religion, and tortured and killed and slaughtered thousands and
thousands of men and women.”
“For the sake of religion?” sez Al Faizi. And he took out his book and
wrote rapidly for awhile, but he didn’t say nothin’.
“It was a case of killing or being killed,” sez Martin. “It was a
religious war.”
“A religious war?” sez Al Faizi dreamily. “Where was His teaching, the
divine Christ, ‘Love your enemies, do good to them that persecute you’?”
“That won’t work,” sez Martin; “those words are good in peace, but in
danger they don’t work worth a cent.”
Al Faizi looked up slowly to Martin’s face; in his eyes wuz a shinin’
light, a softness, a tenderness sech as made his face shine, and
underneath it all wuz a sort of a innocent, wonderin’ look, which I
spoze would be called primitive and oncivilized.
Martin’s face looked commercial and successful, sharp and shrewd, and
what he called civilized.
I had quite a number of thoughts as I looked on the two men, over a
dozen and a half, anyway.
Alice and Adrian wuz pickin’ some of the green ivy sprays, and they
brung ’em to me and wanted me to look at ’em.
Sez Alice, “Some of this ivy that grows here so wild and
luxuriant--acres of it, it seems to me--is just the kind that we see
little slips of in our green-houses at home; do you see how beautiful
it is?”
And she held up a few of the glossy leaves to Al Faizi.
He glanced at it, and then beyend into her sweet, uplifted face.
“Yes, I see how beautiful it is,” he sez softly, and he ended his words
with a deep sithe.
And a shadder settled down over his face, and he turned to his writin’
agin.
As for Alice, she see nothin’, but kep’ a-gatherin’ her ivy sprays and
a-singin’ to herself in her low, sweet voice--
“I give thee an ivy leaf,
Only an ivy leaf,
Oh, wear it forever, love, nearest thy heart.”
I knew very well who she wuz aposthrofizin’ in her own heart entirely
onbeknown to her as she wuz hummin’ over little snatches of the song
and a-pickin’ the glowin’ green sprays. And I knew that the affection
and constancy that dwelt in her soul wuz as deathless as that ivy and
fur more clingin’ and beautiful.
Martin had climbed up to the elevation where the Blarney Stun hung
suspended two feet below the surface, fastened by iron clamps.
But he wouldn’t resk his neck by bein’ lowered down to that place, but
he kissed a little chunk that layed on the ground inside the castle,
for I see him.
And so did Josiah, though I didn’t advise him to.
Josiah, a-lookin’ up from below, had been makin’ calculations on how he
could be lowered down to the big Blarney Stun on the ruff.
Sez he, “It wuz a oversight in me not takin’ a rope; but,” sez he, all
rousted up, as his ardent, impulsive way is, sez he, “I might take that
mantilly you’ve got on.”
It bein’ a cool day I’d worn it.
“And you, and Martin, and Fazer could hang holt of one end, and tie the
other end round my waist. I could be lowered down and kiss it and not
git a hair of my head hurt.”
I glanced pityin’ly at his bald head, and sez I coldly--
“How would it be with the tabs?”
“Oh,” sez he, “it might stretch ’em a little, but if a pardner wouldn’t
be willin’ to resk a tab for her husband, she can’t think much on him.”
And he prepared to mount the steep, a-holdin’ out his hand for the
mantilly.
I stood still, foldin’ my tabs round me more clost.
Sez he, “You talk a sight about your feelin’s for me, and now you put
a mantilly ahead of ’em. I hain’t equal in your mind to a tab,” sez he
bitterly.
A thought struck aginst me. “No, Josiah,” sez I, “you use my mantilly
to-day, and to-morrer we will come back, and I will use the tossels on
your dressin’-gown.” (They wuz stout ones--stout as a rope almost.)
He looked dumbfoundered. “Use them tossels?” sez he.
“Yes,” sez I; “you can’t think much of me if you put them tossels ahead
of me.”
Sez he, “Them tossels hain’t a-goin’ to be used to lift a ton’s weight.
I might as well give ’em up to once as to misuse ’em so.”
“Then I hain’t as much importance in your mind as a tossel?” sez I; and
he admitted that I wuzn’t half so good lookin’.
“Wall,” sez I, “less gin up the idee, both on us.”
Sez he, “Didn’t you bring sunthin’ to eat with you? I’m as hungry as a
bear.”
So I gladly led him away from the stairs leadin’ to Danger and Blarney,
and we found a good, clean spot, and spread out our refreshin’ lunch
that we had brung with us to refresh ourselves with, and Josiah did
indeed do jestice to it; but that dear man always duz do that, at home
or in more foreign climes.
Yes, indeed!
Wall, the day passed away with no particular coincedences.
We went home by another road that led through the valley, by
meetin’-housen and horsepitals, jails, etc., and amongst the rest we
see Father Mathew’s statute.
And if you’ll believe it--but I don’t spoze you will--all round
the statute of that man, who spent his hull life a-fightin’ aginst
intemperance, is a hull lot of drinkin’ places. As if they calculate to
keep right on a-tormentin’ even his statute.
But they’ve no need to try it, good old creeter! He himself has
got beyend the toil and the heart-aches caused by others’ sin and
weaknesses.
He has got to the place where he is not plagued and heart-broken by the
sight of that sin and folly, for what duz it say--
“There are no drunkards there.”
Good old soul!
Keep on a-sellin’ your accursed stuff right under the marble nose of
his statute if you want to, or pour whiskey over it, you can’t git nigh
to him, this hero, this martyr, who give his life, and has now found it
in glory.
But to resoom.
Wall, the next mornin’ we sot off in a carriage for Killarney.
There wuz some sort of a meetin’ that day, and the bells wuz a-ringin’
as we rode along.
Mebby amongst ’em wuz the Bells of Shandon.
I shouldn’t wonder; I sort o’ listened to the sound of ’em with my
soul, but I d’no as I could recognize ’em so’s to tell ’em from the
other bells.
Our souls hain’t learnt our mortal ears yet, as it would love to, as it
will in the futer.
But it seemed as though I could hear as we rode along the Bells of
Shandon.
And thoughts of what I’d seen in a face the day before kinder chimed in
with the sweet, melancholy sounds.
As it happened, Al Faizi sot by me, and I, a-feelin’ that I had a duty
to do, and a-layin’ out to do it if I got a chance, I kinder brung the
conversation round to Alice; and as I spoke of her sweetness and charm,
the strangest look come into his eyes you ever see, and he sez to me,
jest as though I wuz a-beholdin’ his secret thoughts onbeknown to
him--“I have a vow--I am wedded to the cause of truth.”
He said it with a deep shadder settlin’ down over his glowin’ eyes. And
then with Duty and Pity a-bolsterin’ me up on both sides, I sez--
“Alice is engaged to another feller.”
He looked full at me as curous a look as I ever see in my life--what
did I see in his eyes, or ruther what didn’t I see? I see Religion,
Devotion, Deathless Human Love, warm, glowin’, eager Renunciation, Pity
for himself (I could see plain that he wuz sorry for himself--sorry as
a dog), Eager Zeal, Pity for the hull world layin’ in wickedness.
It wuz a strange look.
And I never said anythin’ to him, only the look I gin him in answer,
where deep pity and admiration and respect blended about half and half.
And a motherly look of full comprehension and sympathy a-shinin’ out
a-tellin’ him that I knew all, and pitied all, and would never tell
anybody what I knew.
We had volumes of conversation in jest them two looks, and no one wuz
the wiser--I told nobody.
But, indeed, this secret knowledge added a ingregient of as deep
curosity as wuz ever carried round by a menagerie as a side show, for
me to transport round from place to place, or wherever we pitched our
tent on our tower.
Yes, truly, things wuz in as curous a state as I ever see, so fur as
the affections and sech wuz concerned.
Alice a-bein’ wropped up in the thoughts of her feller, and her father
a-bein’ determined to not let her so much as think on him.
Al Faizi wropped up in Alice, speakin’ to nobody only in the soul
language of the eye, anon or oftener, and nobody but me a-knowin’ it,
but I a-knowin’ it for certain.
Alice a-bein’ adored by a heathen!
Queer feelin’s it gin me and queerer still to read in that heathen’s
eyes the knowledge that she had nothin’ to fear from him--she would
never have even an appeal to her pity in futer days.
As she sot by her husband’s side a-holdin’ a baby’s head on her bosom,
she would never look down into its sweet eyes and think with pity of
lonely, despairin’ eyes that wuz facin’ a lonely, empty futer.
No; that heroic soul kep’ its own secrets. Why, you can be a hero in
anything--even boots and galluses, and sech, if you bear pinchin’ from
’em without complaint (Josiah never could, he groaned audibly and
frequent unless his galluses wuz jest right).
And Adrian, a happy little soul, pleased with everything, and
a-praisin’ himself up jest as calm as he did castles and cathedrals,
and jest as innocent.
And Martin a-bearin’ himself up with dignity, near-sighted as ever when
it come to recognizin’ American bores and curous tourists.
And Josiah and I in our usual attitude of rapt devotion to each other,
which is our two most striking traits (a good deal of the time they be).
CHAPTER X.
KILLARNEY, DUBLIN, AND A WAKE.
Martin said that he wouldn’t for the world have folks ask him if he had
visited the Lakes of Killarney, and have to say no.
And I believe that thought kep’ him up through all the long day’s
journey and the two nights and one day we spent there.
I don’t believe he had any deeper feelin’s and more riz up ones when he
looked at them three beautiful lakes, with the mountains a-standin’ up
all round ’em with bare heads.
Yes, you’d think them old mountains had took their green caps off and
wuz lookin’ down on ’em with deep reverence and respect. They wuz so
exquisitely beautiful.
[Illustration: Three beautiful lakes.]
But Martin, mebby, can’t be expected to be as riz up and as elevated as
them peaks; anyway, he acted out his nater, which wuz to see everything
he could see, to stand round with his hands in his pockets if he felt
like it, or if he wuz kinder tired, to lean back and shet up his eyes
and rest and have his body dragged along through the places, so’s he
could say he had been in ’em.
And Al Faizi acted out his nater, which wuz to stand like a devotee
before a shrine as the beauty of them seens busted onto him.
And in noticin’ that the rich, highly cultivated lower lands layin’
about the lakes wuz all fenced in with high walls, and that one or two
men owned hundreds and thousands of acres, sacred to the use of some
animals they wanted to hunt down for pleasure once or twice durin’ the
year, while hundreds and thousands of poor human bein’s wuz starvin’
all round the borders of these immense estates.
Livin’ in miserable, rotten cabins, so poor that one of these rich men
would not think of lettin’ one of his beasts stay in ’em for a night.
Immortal souls for whom Christ died hungry, starvin’ for a crust and
dyin’ for a bit of the luxury that wuz wasted upon dumb brutes.
In noticin’ this, Martin sithed to think that them men wuzn’t to home,
so that he could call on ’em.
He said that he would love to say that he had met ’em.
But Al Faizi, after askin’ all he could about the estates of the two or
three wealthy men and the thousands of starvin’ ones round ’em, looked
dretful thoughtful, and took out his little book with the cross and
star on’t and writ a lot in it.
And Martin spoke of its bein’ jest as bad in the north of Scotland,
where the Crofters can hardly git enough food to keep from starvin’.
And they live in sech huts as no man would keep his animals in.
Big families of boys and girls huddled together like pigs in one small
room, with a open fireplace in the middle, with no chimney and no ruff,
nothin’ but rotten straw; the smoke blindin’ their eyes, and nothin’ to
eat hardly.
And as miserable as this hovel is, the landlord is liable to turn
’em out at any time to make room for happier and better cared-for
animals--sheep, deer, etc., etc.
As Al Faizi hearn this his face looked sad and thoughtful, and he wrote
down quick a good deal in that little book of hisen.
I think Martin liked it. He thought he wuz takin’ notes of his
conversation, and he felt big over it, but I don’t believe it wuz
anything personal that Al Faizi writ. I believe it wuz sunthin’ as deep
as jestice and as pure as love and pity that he wuz a-writin’ about;
anyhow, his face wuz a study as I watched it. There wuz indignation in
it and pity and love, and another look, that I felt instinctively wuz
a-lookin’ forrered to jedgment.
Lookin’ forrered not many years to the time when things would be
different.
Wall, we stayed there and went round part of the way in boats, and part
of the way in wagons all of the next day, a-lookin’ at the beautiful
gems of lakes in their settin’s of richest emerald, and in little walks
about the country, and in comparin’ the heights of luxury to the depths
of squalor and misery.
Not fur from here wuz the cottage where Kate Kearney used to live. You
know who she wuz, I spoze.
“For did you not hear of Kate Kearney?
She lives on the banks of Killarney;
From the glance of her eye
Shun peril and fly,
For fatal’s the glance of Kate Kearney.”
Whether he flew from her I d’no, but presoom he didn’t, men are so sot
in these things.
Peril and danger hain’t a-goin’ to make ’em fly from a pretty
woman--no, indeed!
In the lower lake, on an island, wuz the ruins of a big castle,
picturesque and ivy-covered. It wuz owned by the O’Donohues. And the
boatman said that every seven years the chief of the O’Donohues come
back for a night to see his castle.
I thought to myself, mebby he come oftener than that, but didn’t say
a word, not wantin’ to do anything to either make or break a legend
hundreds of years old.
Wall, we wuz a-layin’ out to leave there the next mornin’, but Martin,
by his pryin’ round, found that there wuz a-goin’ to be a wake that
night in a cabin not fur from the tarvern where we wuz a-stayin’, and
by payin’ some money--I d’no how much--he got a chance to attend to it,
and he said that Josiah and I could go if we wanted to. He told me he
didn’t spoze that Al Faizi would care about goin’, and he wanted Alice
and Adrian to rest, for the next mornin’ early we wuz to set out for
Dublin.
But I thanked him real polite, and told him that “I would stay with the
children.”
And afterwards, seein’ that Al Faizi wanted to go, them three men sot
off.
A old man had passed away, and they wuz a-makin’ a great wake for him.
They didn’t stay long, for they said that the whiskey and drinkin’ and
tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove ’em out.
[Illustration: Drinkin’ and tobacco-smokin’ in the little hovel drove
’em out.]
But Martin observed complacently that he would be glad to say that he
had been to a real Irish Wake.
Al Faizi spoke of the old wimmen wailers, and said that they had
jest sech professional mourners in Egypt and parts of Africa, and he
wondered quite a good deal how that custom come way off here in this
fur-off Ireland, but he spozed that it wuz in some way brought here
from the East. Mebby it come down from them old days nobody knows
anything about, of which relics remains in them old round towers, etc.
So old nobody knows who built ’em, or what for.
He wondered a good deal, but didn’t take out that book of hisen with
the star and cross on’t. No, he writ in another book with a plain
Russia leather cover on’t.
My pardner restrained himself until the others had departed to their
couches, but I see that he wuz fearful agitated and excited.
And sez he, the minute they went out--
“I tell you, Samantha, it wuz a excitin’ seen, and,” sez he, “what a
excitement it would make in Jonesville if we should have one!” Sez he
dreamily--
“Uncle Nate Bentley is over ninety; there might be one arranged easy.”
Sez I, “Josiah Allen, don’t you go to lookin’ forrered to any sech
doin’s!”
“Why?” sez he; “if I should leave you, you could probble git the Widder
Lummis up to Zoar and Drusilla Bentley to wail for a little or nothin’.”
Sez I, “Josiah Allen, no widder or old maid is a-goin’ to wail over you
by my hirin’ ’em to; if they wail, it will be at their own expense.
“You will have one true mourner, Josiah Allen, whose grief will be
too deep and heartfelt to display it before a crowd, with whiskey and
tobacco as accessories.”
“Oh! I didn’t expect you’d have any drinkin’ or smokin’. I knew your
principles too well. They might smoke a little catnip, or sunthin’ of
that sort, or pass round some lemonade.”
Sez I, “There will be nothin’ of the kind done, Josiah Allen.”
But he sprunted up and sez, “You seem to be settlin’ things all your
own way. I should think that I ort to have some say in it. Whose
funeral is it, I’d like to know, we’re talkin’ about?”
But I sez, “I don’t want to hear another word of sech talk, and I
won’t.” And I riz up and sallied off to bed, and in sweet slumber that
man soon forgot all his stylish ambitions.
Wall, the next day we sot off to Dublin, and havin’ arrived there
with no casualities worth mentionin’, we settled down in a good-sized
tarvern, and after a little rest we meandered around to see the sights
of the place.
Martin said that he wanted to visit the great manafacturys where Irish
Poplin is made, as he had some friends who wuz interested in that
trade, and that it would be expected of him.
And I then mentioned to Josiah, seein’ that he wuz right here at the
headquarters, perhaps it would be best for me to buy a gray poplin
dress. I knew it would last like iron.
But Josiah said with deep earnestness, that if I only knew how much
better he liked my old gray parmetty dress to home I never would speak
on’t. Sez he, “You look perfectly beautiful in it, and there is so
many associations connected with it.”
Sez I, “I should think there would be, seein’ I’ve worn it stiddy for
upwards of eighteen years without alterin’ it.”
“Wall,” sez he, “it is a perfect beauty, and you look lovely in it.”
He hadn’t been so complimentary to me for upwards of fourteen years,
and I wuz touched by it, and gin up the thought of gittin’ a new dress.
Oh! how many, many wimmen have done the same thing under the same
circumstances.
But the numerous shops wuz full of the loveliest goods of all kinds,
and politer creeters than them clerks I don’t want to see.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral wuz of course one of the first places we
visited. They say that this wuz built, in the first place, by St.
Patrick himself about fourteen hundred years ago, but if that wuz so,
I thought St. Patrick would feel sorry for the filth and wretchedness
that surrounded the meetin’-house up to the very door.
There wuz a magnificent carved marble sarcophagus of Archbishop
Whateley, with his own marble figger stretched out on top of it.
And a monument to that kinder queer, kinder mean, smart chap, Swift,
and a tablet to poor Stella, who would a-done better if she had
married some other feller, mebby not so smart, but better natered and
a better provider.
Poor creeter, I’m sorry for her!
There wuz lots of other interestin’ monuments and memorials, but Time
and Martin wuz in a hurry, so we did not delay.
We visited Trinity College, the castle, the beautiful part of the city
where the rich folks lived, and the Liberties, where it seemed as if
all the liberty the poor creeters had wuz the liberty to be jest as
poor and degraded and nasty as they could be.
There wuz beautiful parks, one on ’em over eighteen hundred acres in
it, full of beauty, and we see lots of statutes, erected to the great
men who had been born in Dublin--the Duke of Wellington, the great
orator, Daniel O’Connell, etc.
The monument to Nelson, the hero of the Nile, is one hundred and ten
feet high before he stands up on it, and he is 11 feet high.
He is in a sightly place.
If his sperit comes back in some still moonlight night, and looks
over the world with him, I wonder if it ever looks over the mistakes
he made? I wonder if the beautiful Lady Hamilton ever comes into its
thoughts?
She hain’t got any monument.
I wonder if he’s sorry for it, that he stands up so high and she so low
in the opinion of people--so low, when once he felt it his greatest
glory and happiness to kneel at her feet?
But such surmises are futile, futiler than there’s any need on.
To resoom.
Charles Lever, the novelist, wuz born in Dublin, and so wuz Tom Moore.
We went to the birthplace of Moore.
It wuz a common-lookin’ buildin’, though it had a bust of the poet in
front up between the winders.
The lower part of the house wuz used as a grocery store, and Josiah
himself proposed that we should buy here some little souvenir of the
poet.
I wuz dumbfoundered. I never knew him to propose any outlay of the kind
before, and I sez as much.
“Wall,” sez he, “I knew you wuz always wantin’ to buy sunthin’ to
remember sech romantic places by, and I thought here would be a good
chance.”
I wuz so touched by his thoughtfulness that I sez--“Dear Josiah, what
had you got it into your head to buy?”
And he said that he thought a few crackers and a little cheese and a
herrin’ or two would be as good as anything.
“Did you mean to keep ’em, Josiah?” sez I, for a dark suspicion swept
over me.
And he owned up that he layed out to nibble on ’em a little on the way
back to the hotel.
I see right through it, and I didn’t fall in with his overtoor.
Somehow, herrin’s and cheese seemed incongrous with Lally Rooks, and
Peris, and Paradises, and I told him so.
And he sez, “Dum it all, they had to eat in Paradise if they kep’
alive, and,” sez he, “a Peri, if she knew anything, wouldn’t object to
a slice of good cheese and some soda crackers.”
So I told him that if he wanted sunthin’ to eat to buy it; but, sez
I, “never veneer a selfish thought with the fine gold of romance and
tender memories.”
And he said that he didn’t want nothin’ to do with varnish of any kind,
he wanted some cheese and crackers. So he bought a few, I guess; I
didn’t watch him.
I myself wuz quite took up with lookin’ round the place, sanctified by
genius of a certain kind, and I murmured almost onbeknown to myself the
words I had hearn Tirzah Ann repeat. She always loved Moore fur better
than Thomas J. did. Though Thomas J. thought well enough on him, but
Tirzah Ann used to rehearse and sing him by the hour, so in spite of
myself I had learnt lots of his poetry by heart.
And as I looked round the room I found myself entirely onbeknown to
myself a-hummin’ over the “Last Rose of Summer,” and the “Meetin’ of
the Waters,” and the “Harp that once through Tara’s Halls.”
That last one Tirzah Ann ust to sing a sight, and I always liked to
hear it, though I never got it into my head jest who Mr. Tara wuz, or
what line of business he wuz in.
Wall, knowin’ that Tirzah Ann would prize it so high, I bought some
choclate drops of candy to take home to her.
They wuz as sweet as Moore’s poetry, and softer, some.
CHAPTER XI.
JOSIAH AS A BANSHEE.
Wall, Martin said that he should probble be asked if he had visited the
Giant’s Causeway, so he thought we had better proceed to it to once. So
we went directly from Dublin to Port Rush. We stayed there all night,
and the next day we all went out on the electric car, for Martin said
that he wanted Adrian to go, for in futer years he would probble be
asked if he had been there. Adrian wuz tired out and didn’t want to
go--he wuz real cross about it.
Alice told her Pa that Adrian said that he wouldn’t look at anything if
he went, but Martin said that it would be better for him to go, even if
he didn’t see anything, for then he could say that he had been there.
So we all sot off--the way we went wuz a perfect sight and wonder in
itself, for what power do you spoze it wuz that rolled the wheels that
took us onwards?
It wuz all done by a waterfall at Bush Mills, a few milds away. The
water that poured down from the hills is harnessed, as you may say, and
made to carry us along.
Queer, hain’t it? And shows that you never can tell what will happen to
you in the futer.
Why, if anybody had told them little free, sparklin’ rivulets that leap
along up in the hills, foamin’ and chatterin’ of liberty and freedom,
and sech--if anybody had throwed it into their bright, sparklin’ faces
that they wuz a-goin’ to be ketched and tackled up with some kind of
riggin’ and carry Josiah Allen’s Wife and her pardner, and the world at
large, them rivulets would have resented it--they would have laughed
and gurgled and swept on indifferent and onbelievin’.
But so it wuz, they had to come to it.
And after they got broke in they didn’t seem to mind it, for they bore
us on so smooth and easy and noiseless, that it wuz a perfect treat.
No steamin’, no smokin’--they learnt that up in the hills. It wuz a
comfort to ride after ’em.
And we had nothin’ to hender us from thinkin’ of the Giants and talkin’
about ’em.
Josiah said that he had always approved of giants, and that he would
love to see one or two of ’em.
Adrian didn’t git real reconciled to goin’ till after we got started,
then he got real excited, and got the idee that we wuz goin’ to see
Jack the Giant Killer, and asked me quite a number of questions about
it.
Runnin’ sunthin’ like this--How big wuz the Giants, and where did they
come from, and what wuz their names, and how long did it take ’em to
build the Causeway, and--
“What is the Causeway made of?”
“Of rocks.”
“What are the rocks made of, and who made the rocks, and when were they
made, and how, and what for?”
Good land! I wuz tuckered out, and told him I guessed I would look out
of the winder a spell and take the air.
And then he wanted to know what air wuz made of, and who made it, and
if there wuzn’t any air out of the winder if I could make some air.
He didn’t ask so many questions as a general thing--he seemed to be
kinder fractious that day. Poor little creeter, he wuz tired out, and I
knew it, and I encouraged him to kinder lean up aginst me and take all
the rest and comfort he could.
Alice wuz real happy. She’d got some letters that mornin’, and two big
ones wuz in one handwritin’--I knew it. She read ’em over two or three
times in the train.
Al Faizi looked at her as she read ’em, and his face looked queer--he
see the glow on her face, and I see that, like the sun, that bright
light could cast a shadder. Sunshine and shadder, how they chase across
the landscape of life! How clost they foller each other! What strange
picters they make! What thoughts they give!
But to resoom--we got to the Causeway in pretty good season, and we
found it wuz a sight, a sight.
It is made of high round columns, or pillows, and you can walk on it
jest as you could on the walk Josiah made out to the hen-house out of
bricks sot long end up.
But this Giants’ walk is fur, fur immenser than Josiah’s. It is so
extremely big that they say the Giants built it. It runs out into the
sea in a kind of a curous shape, and is a sight to behold.
I thought I wouldn’t go and see the caves that wuz nigh there. You had
to go to ’em in a boat--and as I looked on that boat, and considered
the size on’t, and then subtracted the size of it from the bigness of
the Atlantic Ocean, I gin up that I wouldn’t tackle it.
I had done some of my multiplyin’ and subtractin’ out loud, onbeknown
to me, and Josiah hearn me, and said he guessed he wouldn’t go. He
looked round the Heavens and earth as if to find a suitable excuse, and
finally he sez--
“It seems so kinder muggy to-day, I guess I won’t go, though I should
enjoy the trip immensely if it wuzn’t for the clost atmosphere.”
Wall, I wuz glad to have him gin it up on any account.
Al Faizi didn’t seem to care about goin’, nor Alice, nor Adrian.
But Martin said that he wouldn’t want it to be said that he hadn’t
visited the caves.
So he sot off with a couple of boatmen.
There wuz a dretful sort of a heavey look to the Atlantic, and I wuz
glad that I didn’t venter, for I felt truly that the Giants, if they
ever heard on’t, would make allowances for my feelin’s in not dastin’
to venter out on the Atlantic in a boat.
As it turned out, glad enough wuz I that there didn’t none of the rest
on us go, for there come up a sudden squall right when Martin wuz in
the cave, and they had to hurry out for their lives. The rough waves
wuz a-washin’ the boat up aginst them hard pillows of stun, and they
wuz in sech danger of their lives that the boatmen had to jump out on
the rocks the best way they could, and haul Martin, more dead than
alive, up over the rocks.
[Illustration: Drippin’ wet when he come back.]
He wuz drippin’ wet when he come back to the hotel, and I sez, “Martin,
how sorry I am you ventered out there!”
And he sez, with his teeth a-chatterin’ and the water a-drippin’ off of
him, that he wasn’t sorry, for a friend of hisen, a very rich and very
influential man, had been caught in jest the same way.
And he gin me to understand that he anticipated a great treat in
talkin’ over the experience with him.
Wall, there is sunthin’ in that--there is comfort in talkin’ over past
troubles and dangers, and I couldn’t dispute it.
But I sez: “For mercy sakes! do change your clothes and git dried off.”
But he hadn’t any other clothes with him, and the upshot of it wuz, he
had to go to bed while his clothes wuz dryin’.
But Josiah wuz sorry for him, and blamed himself for not thinkin’ to
bring along his dressin’-gown. Sez he, “I wouldn’t think of lendin’ it
on a common occasion, but,” sez he, lookin’ round on sech big work as
the Giants had done there, sez he, “I wouldn’t want to act small, and
refuse to let Martin put it on for an hour or two.”
Wall, as soon as Martin wuz dried off, we sot sail back to Port Rush,
and it wuz there that night that I had a severe trial and fright.
We had had a good supper, and Josiah had eat more than wuz good for
him, I believe, and drinked too much coffee.
He is used to tea at night, but bein’ so wore out and kinder chilly,
Martin ordered strong coffee.
And I believe that coffee wuz to the bottom of our trials that night.
Bein’ kinder fagged out, Martin had gone to his room early, and the
rest had follered his example, and my pardner and I had also sought the
seclusion of our quiet bedroom.
And I immegiately and to once begun my preperations for slumber.
I onfolded my nightgown and laid it over a chair and ondone my
sheepshead night-cap, and mekanically went to sort of flutin’ the
border between my fingers, as I sot there, and I begun to feel real
drowsy.
But Josiah didn’t seem to be sleepy a mite. He had donned that
dressin’-gown of hisen and tied the strings in a large bow-knot, that
showed off the red tossels to the best advantage, and walked 2 and fro
several times, and seemed to look and act real sentimental. He has sech
spells--I guess all men do at times. And finally he leaned back in a
big arm-chair and kinder hummed over some tunes--not sech tunes as I
would approve of his singin’, but some songs--such as “Ben Bolt,” and
“Lorena,” and “She’s all my Fancy painted Her.”
And finally he broke out quite loud a-singin’--
“‘I’ll chase the antelope over the plains,
The tiger’s cub I’ll’--
“What is it, Samantha, that he said he’d do to the tiger’s cub--‘with a
chain’?”
Sez I, “Choke it, mebby--I presoom he’d be skairt enough to want to.”
“No; it wuz sunthin’ like harnessin’, Samantha. Do you know what it is?
It comes right in the turn of the tune, and it hampers me to forgit it.”
And then he begun agin--
“‘The tiger’s cub I’ll _tie_ with a chain--
I’ll tackle with a chain’--
“No, that hain’t it--‘tie’ hain’t the word--
“‘The tiger’s cub I’ll, folderol, with a chain.’”
He made the turn and went on to the next line--
“‘And the wild gazelle, with its silvery feet,
I’ll get thee for a playmate, sweet.’”
Sez he, “I’ve got it all but that one word, and that--that will come to
me,” sez he.
Sez he, “I feel like singin’ to-night, Samantha.”
“Sing!” sez I in icy axents; “I’d call it singin’, if I wuz you.”
“Wall,” sez he, “if I dast to let my voice out, you’d hear singin’,
but it would wake ’em all up. My voice is powerful, and I feel in full
voice to-night.”
“Wall,” sez I, “I’m glad that sunthin’ holds you back.
“And,” sez I, “I am beat out and I am goin’ to bed.”
And so I got ready and went to bed.
The rest wuz all asleep, so I spozed.
Wall, I fell asleep most the first thing, and I d’no how long I’d
slept, when I hearn a knockin’ at my door, and I got up, and Alice
stood there, white and tremblin’.
[Illustration: Alice stood there, white and tremblin’.]
“The Banshee!” sez she in tremblin’ tones; “I saw it myself, and heard
it.”
Sez she, “You know this is the very part of Ireland where they have
them.”
Sez I, “You’d been a-thinkin’ of ’em and imagined it.”
“No, indeed!” sez she; “I was just falling asleep when I heard those
awful wails of distress, and I got up and went to father’s room, which
is next to mine, and he got up and looked out of the window, and he saw
it and heard it too.” Sez she, “You know the Banshee always appears
before some dreadful trouble comes to a family, and it seems as if
it is meant for us, for it is only a little ways off.” Sez she, “You
and Uncle Josiah get up and come into my room, and you can see it for
yourselves.”
At them words there seemed to come to me a realizin’ sense of my
surroundin’s; bein’ jest waked up with news of a ghost, I’d overlooked
the fact of my companion’s absence.
But I sez, “I will come, Alice. Your Uncle Josiah has probble heard it,
and gone out to investigate.”
So I throwed on my flannel wrapper and slipped on my shoes and put my
breakfast shawl round me and went into Alice’s room. There we found
Martin wrapped in his Pegama, or whatever they call it.
Alice’s winder commanded a better view than hisen, and he stood
motionless by the winder.
Al Faizi and Adrian wuz in the other side of the house, and so wuz the
rest of the folks. These two rooms wuz kinder built out on the side by
themselves.
Sez I, “Martin, you don’t believe anythin’ of this kind, do you?”
But Alice spoke up before he could answer, “Why, at Dunluce Castle that
we saw to-day there is a Banshee that always foretells death to the
family, and they have them all over Ireland.”
Sez I, advancin’ towards the winder, “You don’t believe anythin’ of
this kind, do you, Martin?”
He answered evasively, “There is something dreadful queer-looking down
there across the road--it is standing still now, but it has been giving
the most blood-curdling sounds and wails that I ever heard.”
“Yes,” sez Alice, “the Banshee always gives those same terrific
screeches and harrowing yells. I know it is a Banshee, and it is for
us, father, for it appeared to us.”
And she commenced to cry. I guess her first thought was of somebody
that wuz in her mind the hull of the time.
Sez I, “Hush up, Alice--I don’t believe anything of the kind.”
But as I looked out, follerin’ Martin’s solemn and silent pint, I did
see a sight that made the cold chills run down my back in spite of
myself, and goose pimples gathered freely down my shoulder blades.
I see a dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock that riz up there
above the rest of the ground; it stood motionless, and, indeed, it
looked skairful. And onbeknown to myself I sez--“For the land’s sake!
what is it?”
[Illustration: A dark figger a-standin’ up on a little rock.]
My own voice wuz tremolous with fear, and Alice see it, and cried
harder than ever. And Martin sez--
“You ought to have heard the terrific screams the thing gave if you
want to be scared--seeing it isn’t nothing at all to hearing it.
“And,” sez he, “I’ll go and call up the hotel-keeper and find out what
it is. Maybe it is a lunatic broken out of some asylum. I am going to
know something about who and what it is.”
But jest at this minute the creeter broke out in one of its wild cries,
and Martin and Alice shuddered, and sez he, “Did you ever in your life
hear anything so awful?”
And Alice sez, “I cannot bear it, Aunt Samantha. It is too terrible.”
But there wuz to me sunthin’ familiar in the sound, and I lifted the
sash, and the words come in plain--
“Bind with a chain!
The tiger’s cub I’ll _bind_ with a chain
And the wild gazelle”--etc., etc.
Sez I, “It is my own pardner with his dressin’-gown on, and a-singin’.”
The words Martin said then I won’t never tell--no, indeed! besides the
wickedness on ’em, it wuz too humiliatin’ to hear ’em applied to my own
pardner. “Fool” wuz the last one of the three, and “The” wuz the first
one, but I will not tell the middle word--you can’t make me.
Alice went to laughin’ (partly hysterics); she felt dretful relieved,
and as the figger seemed now to be aproachin’ the house, I went back
into my room, into which it soon entered in a gay and jaunty manner.
He had been enjoyin’ himself first-rate, and sez he--
“Wall, Samantha, I’ve found the word, and I’ve been a-singin’;” sez he,
“I sung the verse all over, and it sounded beautiful, and then I stood
still a spell, and all of a sudden the right word come to me. It wuz
‘bind,’” sez he.
Sez I coldly, “You’ve skairt a woman almost into fits and made a
church-member and a relation swear like a pirate.” Sez I, “I’ve seen
you took for lots of things, Josiah Allen, from first to last, but I
never thought I should ever live to see the day to see you took for a
ghost--a Banshee. A common ghost would sound as good agin as that.”
And I went on and related the facts. He acted mad and puggilistic like,
and sez he--“I can’t help folks from makin’ dum fools of themselves.”
Sez I, “I wish you’d kep’ yourself from it.”
Sez he, “It is a pity if a man can’t sing a little durin’ the evenin’
without his folks actin’ like perfect fools!”
“Sing!” sez I; “I wonder how many more episodes you’ll have to go
through without your learnin’ the truth about what you call your
singin’.” Sez I, “You can’t sing, Josiah Allen, any more than a cow
can play on the melodian, and I’ve told you so often enough for you to
believe it.”
“Wall, wall,” sez he, “it’s time to go to bed. When a man is
a-travellin’ with a hull crew of loonaticks and fools, it stands him in
hand to git what little rest he can, nights.”
That man wuz ashamed of his conduct, and I knew it.
Mortification works out sometimes in jest that way. It gaulded him to
be took for a Banshee, for I hearn him mutter the word two or three
times scornfully, as he wuz a-ondressin’.
Sez he, “A Banshee!!! Dum fools!!! I’d love to be one a spell--I’d show
’em some screechin’!”
He didn’t mean me to overhear him, but I did, and I sez calmly from my
piller--
“You needn’t blame yourself, Josiah Allen; there hain’t a Banshee in
Ireland but what would be proud to mate with you after hearin’ you
to-night--there hain’t one on ’em that could outdo you.”
“Keep on your aggravatin’,” sez he, and he didn’t say another word for
as much as three minutes, when he begun to complain of bein’ chilly.
And I took alarm to once, and made him some hot lemonade--I had the
ingregiences, and a alcohol lamp with me.
And I folded up my woollen shawl, and tucked him all up in it, and
spoke real soothin’ to him, and affectionate. For sech is the mystery
of human love, though pardners may mortify you, or anger you, yet
their sufferin’ or danger shows how strong are the ties that bind two
lovin’ hearts--nothin’ can break it. He answered me back in the same
affectionate way, though terse, but showin’ the tender regard he had
for my welfare. Sez he--
“For mercy sake, do come to bed! your feet will be as cold as ice
suckles.”
And so sweet peace havin’ descended down onto us, we wuz both soon
wropped in slumber.
Wall, Martin concluded that we would go as soon as we could to
Glasgow, “For,” sez he, “I feel that we have seen everything that there
is to see in Ireland, and gone to the bottom, as you may say, of the
‘Irish Question.’ So we might just as well go to Scotland as soon as
might be.”
So we proceeded to Glasgow, partly by train and partly by steamboat.
Martin talked comfortably agin, on the train, of havin’ seen everything
in Ireland, and of havin’ gone to the bottom of the “Irish Question.”
“For,” sez he, “the land is governed admirably--splendid standing
army, admirable police force, and as for the people,” sez he, “in good
seasons, statistics show that there is half a ton of potatoes to each
person. More than I consume,” sez he complacently, leanin’ back with
his fingers in his vest pockets.
Sez I, “Mebby you’d consume more potatoes if you didn’t consume nothin’
else.” Sez I, “You take out your fowls, and fish, and beef, and lamb,
and puddin’s, and pastry, etc., etc., etc., and eat nothin’ but clear
potatoes, and how many do you spoze you’d consume, and how much comfort
do you spoze you’d take consumin’ ’em?”
He looked lofty, and sez he: “That isn’t a parallel case.”
“And,” sez I, “when the potato crop failed, what then?”
Agin he sez, “That isn’t a parallel case.”
Sez I, “Parallel to what?”
And he said, “Don’t you want the window shut awhile? Let me put your
shawl round you; it is a little chilly.”
And then he went on talkin’ to Alice as fast as he could about the
seenery, and I wuz too well bread to say anything more.
But I see that Al Faizi had took out his little book with the jewelled
cross on it, and he wuz writin’ in it.
And from the way the light from above fell on it as he held it, the
rays streamed out from the jewelled cross some like the flashin’ rays
from a sword.
He had spoke to me before about the wretchedness and beggary of the
people, and expressed wonder that one or two men should own hundreds
of thousands of acres and keep it for idle pleasure grounds, while all
round were men who couldn’t, no matter how sober and industrious they
might be, buy enough land to build a shed on.
He had looked dreamy and strange while he talked it over, but, as
his usual way wuz, he didn’t blame nothin’ nor nobody--that wuz the
difference between me and him.
He would seem to ask about and find out about things, and then jest
write ’em down in that book of hisen. His face a-lookin’ calm a most
all the time, but dretful earnest and deep and sorrowful, a good part
of the time. His writin’ wuzn’t nothin’ hard, I don’t believe, but
comparin’ the doin’s here with the things in his own land, I spoze.
I had noticed that he had wrote down quite a good deal after he had
hearn this conversation on Home Rule, and how for hundreds of years a
brave people had tried to git the rule of their own land. Not always
makin’ wise efforts, I spoze, but brave ones every time, and how the
grand old man in England had stood up for ’em aginst his own folks.
I see Al Faizi had writ down quite a considerable, a-praisin’
Gladstone, for all I know. He never told what he writ down or drawed
our attention to it, no more than the sun duz as it photographs the
pictures of the bendin’ trees and the flowers on the earth beneath.
Jest duz it, and that’s all.
The sun and Al Faizi did. That’s where I differed some--I talked
more. Wimmen do have to talk once in a while--they’re made so, I
guess, onbeknown to ’em. And I said quite a good deal aloud and found
considerable fault, though I meant not to be too hard on either side.
There’s always two sides to every story. Ireland hain’t always right, I
don’t spoze, no more’n England. When two men git to fightin’ back and
forth, there must be some fault on both sides before they git through,
anyway, sech as swearin’, kickin’, etc., etc., etc.
I hain’t got nothin’ agin Queen Victoria, and she knows I hain’t. The
Widder Albert is a good woman and a good calculator, and has brung up
her children well, and has laid up for ’em.
And if ever any woman wuz a mourner for a pardner, she’s been and is
now.
But I can’t think she duz jest right in this case, not to let the Irish
people rule their own country. It stands to reason that Josiah and I
wouldn’t want Deacon Gowdy to rule our house and farm, though he’s a
real likely man and a brother in the same meetin’ house, and a good
calculator.
But even if we didn’t do quite so well, we would ruther tend to our own
house and affairs--everybody would. And I laid out to talk to Victoria
on the subject the first time I had a real set-down visit with her.
[Illustration: I laid out to talk to Victoria on the subject.]
And then if Deacon Gowdy took all the money he could rake and scrape
out of us, and spent it all on his own place, that would mad us, too.
And like as not if he kep’ Josiah and me down so poor that we wuz most
starved, and he should try to turn us out of our own house, and use
that dear place, sacred to us, and the door-yard and orchard, for a
home for his dogs and fightin’ roosters and sech, why, I d’no if Josiah
see me barefooted and hungry, a-beggin’ Deacon Gowdy not to turn me out
of the house I wuz born in, and on an empty stumick, too, I d’no but
he’d knock him down and jump on him.
And that would make trouble--Miss Gowdy wouldn’t like that, but if she
should come to me with it, I should say to her, “Let him tend to his
own business, then, and let us alone.”
And if she should uphold him and say we hadn’t no jedgment, and wuz
shiftless, and we couldn’t take care of our land, and they had to do
it because we wuz too indolent, and slack, and sech--I’d tell her agin
that it wuz none of her business. Sez I, “If we run through with our
own property we can go to our own poor-house, can’t we?
“But,” I’d say, “you needn’t worry; what encouragement do we have to
work and git things ahead when we know you’d take all the profits of
our labor? You go off and tend to your own business, and we’ll work
hard enough, and lay up.”
And then, after freein’ my mind to her, if old Gowdy wuz too bad off, I
dare presoom to say I should offer him some wormwood to make a poultice
of to show him that I didn’t have no malice towards him, only jest
wantin’ to have my rights and be let alone. But to resoom.
We arrove in Glasgow with no fatal results a-flowin’ from our voyage,
and we put up at a good sizable tarvern, where we had plenty of things
for our comfort and luxury.
Amongst the things of luxury, I counted the water that I drinked from
day to day, for I found that it wuz water brung from Loch Katrine.
And when you remember Ellen’s Isle, as described by Sir Walter Scott,
is right there in Loch Katrine--you may perhaps imagine the height and
depth of my emotions.
Why, the very water I sipped, and wet my front hair with mornings
before my lookin’-glass, may have gurgled and murmured round the very
isle where Ellen Douglas dwelt in her father’s hidden lodge, covered
with ivy and Idien vines.
[Illustration: Samantha and Ellen Douglas.]
“The rocky isle with copsewood bound,
Where weeping birch and willow round
With their long fibres swept the ground.”
Where she dwelt and roamed, dreaming of Malcolm Graeme, and where she
met the King of Scotland, onbeknown to her.
Poor feller, poor young king! he thought more of Ellen than wuz good
for him, but he acted like a perfect gentleman through it all, and that
is better than bein’ a king.
Or ruther it _is_ bein’ a king.
He forgive her Pa, who had been rambellous, and with that gold chain of
hisen, that he might have hung him with, he bound the girl he loved to
another man forever. Good, generous creeter!
But we are wanderin’ too fur back into the realm of poesy, accompanied
by noble Warriors and Ladys of the Lake, and to come out into the
hard-beat track of reality agin, and to resoom.
Martin sot a great deal of store on visitin’ the great public buildin’s
and the Cathedral, which is nine hundred years old, and the University,
big enough for over a thousand scholars--I guess a thousand and a half.
But I myself took more interest in visitin’ the Necropolous, as they
call their buryin’ ground, and seein’ the monument riz up to John Knox.
It towers up towards the sky dretful high; but not so high as John’s
principles loomed up--not nigh.
And I wuz dretful interested while in the city in lookin’ at the
statutes of Sir Walter Scott, and James Watts, and David Livingstone,
and Robert Burns.
And seein’ the place where Sir John Moore wuz born.
It wuzn’t any better place than Elder Minkley wuz born in, to
Jonesville, or Deacon Blodgett up in Zoar.
And as I looked onto the onpretentious walls I methought how it wuzn’t
likely at all when he wuz a baby, his Pa a-puttin’ up pills and powders
at the time, his Ma a-holdin’ his little helpless, dimpled form to her
bosom, that he would grow up to be sech a hero and die fur from her,
over in Spain, and “be buried darkly at dead of night.”
And be left there cold and still, fur from kindred and loved
ones--“Alone in his glory.”
Wall, here in this city I had a great and welcome surprise--Martin made
me a present of a Paisley shawl; they wuz manafectered in a place nigh
here, and Martin got me and Alice one.
Men don’t realize sech things, but I knew, and Alice knew, that she
wouldn’t be old enough to wear hern for twenty years yet. But then, as
I told her, she would grow up to it in time.
But she kinder laid out, as I could see, on coverin’ a lounge with it
in her _boodore_, which means her private settin’-room.
I seldom use foreign languages, but when I do, I don’t think it is any
more ’n right to translate it for the benefit of ’em who hain’t had my
advantages. What would Philury, or she that wuz Submit Tewksbury, know
about a _boodore_? They’d probble think it wuz jewelry or some kind of
agin’.
CHAPTER XII.
ROBERT BURNS AND HIGHLAND MARY.
Wall, from here we took some excursions to places of interest in the
vicinity. One of heart-thrillin’ interest wuz to Ayr, and lasted two
days, for Martin said he wanted to see every spot connected in any way
with Robert Burns. He said he didn’t care about readin’ his historys
and sermons, but it seemed to be the stylish and proper thing to do, so
he wouldn’t fail of doin’ it for anything. So we sot off one mornin’
with great anticipations, and each on us a satchel, for the forty milds
trip.
Josiah wuz riz up in his mind about Sir William Wallace--more so than
he wuz with Burns.
For the “Scottish Chiefs” had been read by him with avidity in his
boyhood, and permeated his fancy, and he still thought it wuz the most
thrillin’ book that wuz ever wrote, exceptin’ “Alonzo and Melissa.”
“_That_,” he said, “never will be equalled for heart-breakin’ interest.”
So as we journeyed along he talked a sight about Wallace and that
claymore of hisen. “Why,” sez he, “it must have weighed 4 hundred or 5
hundred pounds. What a man he wuz to wield it as he did and cut down
his enemies with it!
“Why,” sez he, “it would take two common men to lift it, they say, and
what a sight it must have been to see him swingin’ that round his head
and mowin’ down his enemies jest as Ury would mow down oats!”
Sez I, “Josiah, I hope you are too good to enjoy sech a blood-curdlin’
sight, if it ever took place, but you must be careful about believin’
everything you hear about Wallace. I suppose that, like King Arthur, an
old Illiad that Thomas J. ust to read about so much, lots of things has
been told about him that never took place.”
“Take care, Samantha; I can stand a good deal from a pardner, but when
you go to doubtin’ William Wallace, then is the time for a man to take
a stand.
“Why, you’ll be a-doubtin’ ‘Thaddeus of Warsaw’ next. I wuz brung up on
them books,” sez he, “and on them books I take my stand. If I’d hefted
that claymore myself, I couldn’t believe in it any more ’n I do.”
Sez I, a-tryin’ to bring him back into the plains of megumness and
reason--
“You know history sez that Wallace wuz a sheep-stealer, in the first
place. Don’t pin your faith onto him too much, Josiah Allen.”
“A sheep-stealer!”
Wall, I will pin up a heavy shawl between Josiah Allen and the public
for the next few minutes. I guess I’ll hang up my Paisley shawl, that’s
pretty thick, and I too will withdraw myself behind it.
Suffice it to say when we emerged from behind it, I wuz a-sayin’--
“Wall, wall, I spoze like as not he did own a claymore, Josiah Allen,
and I dare say it wuz a pretty hefty one.” And then I turned the
subject off onto Robert Burns, and bagpipes, and sech.
Truly there is a time for pardners to stand their ground, and a time
for ’em to gin in. When they see blood-vessels are on the pint of
bustin’ and pardners are chokin’ with rage--gin in to ’em if you can,
and keep your principles.
I allers foller this receipt, and it has bore me on triumphant.
Truly great is the mystery of pardners.
Wall, Josiah got real sentimental a-talkin’ about Wallace’s first wife,
Marion, and his second wife, Helen Mar. “You know,” sez Josiah, “Helen
said in them last hours--‘My life must expire with his.’”
And I sez, “Wall, it did at jest about the same time--she died of a
broken heart,” sez I, bein’ willin’ to talk kind o’ sentimental with
him, and soothe him down.
“Yes,” sez Josiah, “and don’t you remember what Bothwell said ‘as he
raised her clay-cold face from Wallace’s coffin’--
“‘They loved in their lives, and in their deaths they shall not be
divided’?”
Josiah was dretful sentimental at them reminescences, but he gradually
chirked up agin, and by the time we come in sight of that tower of
William Wallace’s, in Ayr, more’n a hundred feet high, Josiah’s sperits
riz up almost as high as that tower.
Ayr is the seen of some of the most thrillin’ events of Wallace’s life.
Here he would sally out aginst his enemies--here he wuz took by ’em and
imprisoned. Here Robert Bruce and his troops made it their headquarters
for a spell, and so did Cromwell and his army.
It is a dretful interestin’ spot on lots of accounts, but on none of
’em so much as bein’ the birthplace of Robert Burns.
The humble cottage where the immortal flower of Genius sprung up like a
tall white lily out of the dust of the wayside--
This cottage is on the banks of Bonny Doon--
There Simmer first unfaulds her robes,
And there she langest tarries,
And there he took his last farewell
Of his sweet Highland Mary.
The immortal tenderness and sweetness of that love meetin’ and partin’
has made the waters of Bonny Doon ripple along full of the melodies of
the past.
In Nater there is a universal tendency to retain the good and
beautiful, and forgit the commonplace and dreary. We forgit the
steamin’ vats and big cheeses Mary must have had to turn and lift at
her place of service, Gavin Hamilton’s, or, as Burns called it--“The
Castle of Montgomerie.”
We forgit all the toilsome labor that must have turned Mary’s pretty
hands brown and hard, and made her slim back ache.
We forgit the achin’ “Ploughman shanks” the laborer Burns must have
carried sometimes to their trystin’ place beside the Bonny Doon.
For though you may lighten the labor of ploughin’ by religious poems,
like the “Cotter’s Saturday Night,” or brave, heroic ones, like “Scots
wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” or verses to “A Mouse” and “A Mountain
Daisy”--
“Wee sleekit, cowerin’, tim’rous beastie,”
and
“Wee modest, crimson-tippéd flower,”
and “Brigs” and “Glens” and “Water-fowls--”
And though he may have added a flavor to it by sarcastic verses to
“Holy Willie,” and “The Deil,” and “The Unco Guid”--
Yet to hold the heavy plough as it tore its long furrows in the flinty
soil wuz weary work, and the back and arms of the poet must have ached
as sorely as any other ploughman’s.
But you forgit all that; they dwell here forever care free, serene in
glowin’ youth and beauty.
How near they seemed to me, these immortal lovers, as I stood there
lost in thought by the ripplin’ waters of the Bonny Doon!
The white clouds floated along in the same blue bendin’ Heavens; the
bright waters dimpled and laughed along jest as gayly and crystal
clear, and their memory dominated all things above and below.
Here they stood, happy youth and maiden, beside the overrunnin’ Doon,
that carries ’em on, and will carry ’em on forever, through the land of
Love and of Fame.
She is a-lookin’ up with blue, love-lit eyes into his eager, ardent
face. He is sayin’ to her, as he did a hundred years ago--
“Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave auld Scotia’s shore?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across the Atlantic’s roar?
Oh, sweet grow the lime and the orange,
And the apple on the pine;
But a’ the charms o’ the Indies
Can never equal thine.”
And agin he is sayin’, as we imagine, with a smile and a tear in his
half sad, half humorous way--
“Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
I wad wear thee in my bosom,
Lest my jewel I should tine.
Wishfully I look and languish
In that bonnie face o’ thine;
And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish,
Lest my wee thing be na mine.”
Wall, his forebodin’ wuz correct; Death, a more triumphant and constant
lover than poor Burns would have been, bore off the bonny lassie into
his icy but secure realm--mebby beyend the star her bereft lover
apostrophized so long afterwards a-talkin’ to her “dear departed
shade--”
“Thou ling’ring star, with less’ning ray,
That lovest to greet the early morn;
Again thou usher’st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.”
[Illustration: This immortal pair of lovers.]
But though Death bore her off in her first sweet youth, and him long
years after, a sad, middle-aged man, with a big family of children, who
called another woman mother--still they stand there by the Bonny Doon.
The blue eyes and the brown eyes (that have been dust for a century)
are still lookin’ love to each other.
Warm, clingin’ hands, that can hardly be torn apart, love so great that
it fills the universe--love! constancy! despair! heartache! flowin’ out
from the rapt atmosphere that surrounds this immortal pair of lovers;
it is a power that enfolds all feelin’ hearts.
The deep emotions that sanctified that spot live on still in the heart
of the world.
Devotion! heart-breakin’ grief! death! eternity! they are all brought
nearer as we stand by these sparklin’ waters that flow on forever,
whisperin’ the names of Robert Burns and his Highland Mary.
Other thoughts come to us anon, or a little later--thoughts of the
labors and struggles of the poet to make a home and respectable livin’
for his family.
The warm poet nater, endowed, as all true poet souls are, with the
fiery “love of love, and hate of hate, and scorn of scorn,” tryin’ to
make its way in a practical, money-lovin’ age.
It wuz some like takin’ an eagle down from the heights, and trainin’ it
to become a barn-yard fowl, or breakin’ in a wild gazelle to churn in
a treadle machine.
It wuz hard work!
And the fashionable world, that took him up with the interest it would
give to a new toy of a novel design, soon grew weary of him, and turned
away coldly from the strugglin’ poet, in his unequal conflict with poor
land, high rents, misaprehension, poverty, and hardships.
No wonder he turned away from the world at last and said to poor Jean
(she that wuz Jean Armour), the wife who had been constant to him in
evil and good report--
“I am wearin’ awa’, Jean;
Like snow in a thaw, Jean,
I am wearin’ awa’
To the Land o’ the Leal.
“And there I would be fain
In the Land o’ the Leal.”
No wonder he said it, poor creeter!
I spoze the gay world apoligized for its neglect and coldness by sayin’
that Burns drinked and cut up.
Wall, I spoze he did--some; but he wuz a good-hearted creeter.
And anyway they overlooked it in the first place, and ’em who worship
his memory now look calmly over them faults as if they were mere specks
on a blazin’ sun.
Why didn’t they do so then? Why didn’t they take a few of the posies
they scatter on his cold tomb to-day (one hundred years too late) and
lay ’em in the tired, hard-workin’ hands, toilin’ on at Nithsdale?
Why didn’t they take a few bits from the banquets they spread now
to his memory (one hundred years too late) and give it to the
half-starvin’ poet and his wife and little ones, while it would have
done some good?
Why didn’t they take a little of the immense sums they spend in marble
blocks and shafts to rear monuments to him all over the world, to buy a
few comforts for himself and his loved ones?
For what did almost his last letter state, he had writ to a friend
askin’ some relief, for without it, he sez--
“If I die not of disease, I must perish of hunger.”
Heart-sick with the tyrrany of his employers, the little minds about
him, who mebby rejoiced to tyrranize over and torment a soul so much
above their own. Heart-sick with the neglect of the world, he fell
asleep July 21st, 1795.
About a month before his death he writ to a friend--
“As to my individual self I am tranquil, but Burns’ poor widow and half
a dozen of his dear little ones, helpless orphans. Here I am weak as a
woman’s tear, ’tis half of my disease,” etc.
I should think Scotland would be ashamed of herself. I honestly should,
to let her greatest pride and glory die of a broken heart, caused by
her neglect and heartlessness, and then praise him up so and spend sech
sums of money on his tombstones, and things (one hundred years too
late).
But, then, it’s a trait in human nater. Scotland hain’t the only
country that duz it.
It is nateral to torment and torture the soarin’ bird of Genius, and
pluck out the plumage from its quiverin’ flesh one at a time--cut its
feathers down, hang weights to its wings, and act.
And then when the agonized and heart-broken soul has took its flight
out of the tortured body, to stuff that soulless effigy with the
softest and warmest stuffin’ of praise and appreciation, put jewels in
the blind eye sockets, cover the cold breast with diamond bright stars
of praise, and lift it up on high, up on top of the soarinest monuments
they can raise to its honor.
Too late, _too late_!
But I am indeed a-eppisodin’; and to resoom.
Everybody in the village had sunthin’ to say of Burns. Everybody wuz
proud of livin’ in the place his feet had once trod.
Them who looked the coldest on him when livin’, or descendents of them
who had wrung his sensitive soul while warm and beatin’, and achin’ for
sympathy--
Descendents of the big man of the village, “Holy Willie” himself, who
once would not have spoken to his humble neighbor, or if he’d spoken at
all, they’d been words of insult that would have rankled in the soul of
the poet, now considered it their greatest pride and honor to live in
the country that gave him birth.
The cottage is a low, long buildin’ only one story high. And jest think
of it, how many are born in five-story houses that nobody hears from
afterwards. The roof is thatched, the floors are stun, clean and white.
A cupboard full of dishes stood on one side of the room.
There wuz some letters that Burns writ with his own hand. I thought
more of seein’ ’em than any of the other relicks. Letters that his
own hand rested on--his own ardent, handsome face had bent over. What
emotions they gin me; I never can tell the heft and number on ’em.
Yes, the thought of Burns filled the place, jest as some strong, rich
perfume fills the hull room where it has been spilt.
I didn’t hear much of anything said about Miss Burns (she that wuz Jean
Armour), but I took quite a considerable spell of time and devoted it
to jest thinkin’ about her. I didn’t think it wuz no more’n right that
I should.
I spoze she felt real proud to be the wife of sech a great man, and
it wuz a great thing. But, then, she had her troubles. Poor thing!
patient, hard-workin’ creeter! Washin’ dishes, mendin’ clothes, takin’
care of the children, takin’ all the care she could of her husband. And
then when she got him all mended up for the week, and as good vittles
for him as she could with what she had to do with--then to have him
a-writin’ verses to other wimmen!
A-takin’ the strength her own pot-pies and puddin’s had gin him, and
a-spendin’ it all on writin’ verses to other females.
His heart a-beatin’ voyalent aginst the vest she had newly vamped for
some other “Chloris” or “Clorinda” or etc., etc., etc., etc.
A-walkin’ off in the stockin’s she had new heeled to catch a glimpse of
some “lassie wi’ lint white locks,” so’s he could put her rustic beauty
into rhyme.
A-throwin’ himself down in a good coat that she’d jest washed and
fixed up, to look up into the sky and apostrofize some other female up
in Heaven.
It must have been tough on Jean--fearful gauldin’ to her!
But, then, mebby she wuz willin’ to have the fire of his genius catch a
brightness and glow from any object. And woman’s beauty wuz always, to
Robert Burns, what the very best kindlin’ wood is to me when vittles are
to be produced in a hurry.
Mebby she looked on it with a lenitent eye--most likely she did, or she
couldn’t thought so much on him as she did.
I guess he wuz a good, tender husband to her, and a good provider, so
fur as his means went.
But thinks I, here is another sample of the devotion and constancy of
my own sect. I thought on her about 17 minutes.
Other tourists may foller my example or not, jest as they think best,
but I done it, and am glad on’t. But to resoom.
We then went to see the old Bridge of Ayr, whose single arch connects
each green shore. It wuz over this bridge that Tam o’ Shanter rode on
the old mair Maggie, pursued by witches, “Wi’ mony an eldritch screech
and hollow.”
And I eppisoded some. I have to in the strangest places. I methought
that the same furies that pursued the drunken Tam is still sold in the
same old inn, and even in the very birthplace of the poet.
[Illustration: The same furies that pursued the drunken Tam.]
The same sperits of delerious fear, and senseless terror, are bought
and sold at so much a glass. Poets live and poets die--empires rise
and empires fall, but whiskey has to be sold jest the same. Drunkards
race through their sottish lives, hag rid by the furies of drink and
debauch. And mairs have to be rid to death, and have their tails cut
off.
Sez Josiah, “It wuz probble a witch that cut off the mair’s tail.”
Till he answered me, I hadn’t mistrusted that I wuz a-eppisodin’ out
loud.
Sez I, “That is to tippify how drunkards abuse their animals, most
likely,” sez I, “and to show that these foul sperits don’t have no
power where pure water is in full sway.
“The drink demon hates water,” sez I.
But Josiah sez--“Wall, wall! I didn’t walk out here to hold a
Temperance Meetin’!” Sez he sarcastickally, “This hain’t a Total
Abstinence Society!”
Sez I, “It’s a pity there wuzn’t one here a hundred years ago!” Sez I,
“Probble it would have saved poor Burns from a good deal that he went
through, and,” sez I, “it would be a-settin’ a different sample before
young folks from the one that wuz sot, and is still a-settin’--a sample
his genius, and noble qualities, and his light-hearted good nater tempt
’em to foller.”
Sez Josiah, “Hain’t you got a Temperance Pledge round you, Samantha, or
some badges, or some banners, or white ribbins, or sunthin’?”
Sez he ironacly, “I could carry a banner with ‘Temperance’ or ‘W. C.
T. U.’ on it jest as well as not, and I’d ruther lug it round and be
done with it than to have to everlastin’ly hear on’t.”
“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “we will go back now and have a good lunch.”
And as we wended along, I meditated that mebby I hadn’t gin enough
thought to my pardner’s feelin’s. For truly mortals have not now any
more than in the time of Burns the “gift to see oursels as ithers see
us.”
But I wuz upheld by thinkin’ I’d talked on principle, and that is a
dretful upholdin’ thought.
CHAPTER XIII.
EDINBURGH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
Wall, from Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, and we found that that wuz a
beautiful city, beautiful, with the ancient castle perched up on the
rocks four hundred feet above, and old Edinburgh a-lyin’ at its feet,
like old Vassals that gathers round their Chieftan; all on ’em aged,
but loth to part.
The streets of old Edinburgh are so narrer that you can almost reach to
both sides of ’em and touch the houses.
The houses, with pinted ruffs and gabriel ends, are quaint and
picturesque in the extreme, and interestin’.
Between the new and the old is a gulf, as there often is, but partly
filled up with a R. R. Station, and statutes and gardens and handsome
bridges are throwed acrost it.
New Edinburgh is laid out dretful handsome, with broad, wide streets
and handsome buildin’s, and statutes and fountains and parks and
everything else that it needs for its comfort; and it might have got
along with less on ’em, it seemed to me. I rode through ’em, for Martin
always said he wanted to view every city exhaustively.
And we did it every time we rid out with him; I come home perfectly
exhausted. He wanted to see so much, so much, in sech a short, sech a
very short time.
Yes, indeed!
Oh, dear me suz!
When Josiah and me went alone by ourselves we took as much agin
comfort, for though mebby I didn’t see so many things, I see ’em much
better. My brain didn’t reel nigh so much, nor my spectacles wobble so.
Why, with Martin I would no sooner git them specs sot on anything,
a steeple or anything, but them poor specs would have to do as poor
little Joe did, that Dickens wrote about, “move along,” and move
lively, too.
I wuz sorry for ’em and for the eyes under ’em.
Yes, indeed, I wuz!
Half of the time Martin wouldn’t look at the different things at all.
But he said that he had never visited Edinburgh before, and that he
wanted to take in all the sights.
And I believe my soul wuz raced through every solitary street that day
we wuz out together.
He seemed to feel well when we got back to the hotel, he seemed to sort
o’ wake up or roust up. I d’no as he had been sound asleep, mebby he’d
been in a deep study about sunthin’--about his money-makin’, I guess.
But his eyes wuz shet a good deal of the time.
But he said, with a happy look, that we had accomplished a great deal.
I knew he’d accomplished one thing, he had jest about killed one female.
And my poor pardner! poor creeter! wuz not his looks pitiful? He bore
up in Martin’s sight (that man is kinder deceitful, but I wouldn’t want
him to hear that I said it).
But when we wuz alone, he would take on, and limp, more’n I believe wuz
neccessary.
Sez I--“You’ve no need to limp, Josiah; you rid most all the way.”
“Rid! I should think I had rid! I’m bed rid, that’s what ails me! I
never shall be good for nothin’ agin. We’ve been four hundred milds
sence we sot out, if we’ve been a step!”
And he sunk down onto the bed and groaned loud, so’s you could hear him
quite a good ways.
“Wall,” sez I, “let’s bear up under it the best we can--it’s all paid
for.”
“What good duz payin’ for a thing do that kills you?” Sez he, “When
you’re killed, payin’ for things hain’t a-goin’ to help you! Oh! if I
ever set foot on my farm agin,” sez he, “I’ll never leave it to go to
meetin’, or anywhere.”
No megumness here, as I could see, but I pitied him and sympathized
with him deeply.
Sez I, “It would seem dretful good, wouldn’t it, Josiah, to see you
a-comin’ in with two pails of milk? It would be jest about this time
you’d want the milk scum for the calves.”
“Don’t mention it!” he groaned, “them happy times wuz too happy to
last; we didn’t appreciate ’em.”
“No,” sez I; “don’t you remember how you ust to dum the calves, and
barn chores?”
“I praised ’em always,” sez he stoutly, “and I’d ruther milk my hull
herd of Jerseys now this minute than to eat!”
Sez I, “I don’t believe I appreciated how happy I wuz a-standin’ by
the buttery winder, calm and peaceful, a-washin’ dishes, or a-skimmin’
milk, and a-seein’ the red sun a-sinkin’ low beneath Balcom’s hill;
and the sweet south wind a-wavin’ the mornin’-glory vines, and my
snow-white strainer spread on the blossomin’ rose-bush under the
winder. And the sight of the barns lookin’ so good, and sort o’ settled
down and at rest, and the hen-house, and the ash-house, and the
garden--”
“And how I ust to ketch the old mair,” sez Josiah, “and we’d ride over
and see the children after the chores wuz done. Oh! happy days,” sez
he, “we never shall see you agin!”
“Yes you will, Josiah Allen,” sez I; “bear up, and we will anon be back
in our own peaceful home.”
And wantin’ to roust him up still further out of his despondency, I
sez, “You will enjoy that home better than ever now, for how you will
enjoy tellin’ Uncle Smedley all about what you see to-day, Josiah
Allen.”
He brightened up; “Yes, Samantha, if I ever live to get home, it will
be a treat to tell what we went through, and,” sez he, “won’t Uncle
Smedley open his eyes when I tell him of----”
Alas! alas! I had done what I sot out to do. I had lightened my
pardner’s gloom, but wearisome wuz the hours I spent a-hearin’ him
rehearse what he wuz a-goin’ to tell the Jonesvillians.
Oh, the peticulars, oh, the peticulars! It wuz hard to tread the ground
over under the rain of a Martin, but it wuz harder still to hear ’em
rehearsed by the voice of a Josiah.
But of course I lived through it, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the
tale.
Martin always done the fair thing, so fur as gittin’ good places to
stay wuz concerned, and we had a plenty of everything for our comfort,
only jest that one thing--rest.
But my onusual common sense learnt me that I mustn’t expect to be to
home and on a tower at the same time.
And I felt quite grateful to Martin for invitin’ us to go with him--a
good deal of the time I did; and I tried to do my part as well as I
could. I kep’ a eye on Adrian, and see that his clothes and feet wuz
dry, and see that he learnt his Sunday-school lesson, and see that
Alice took her cough medicine every day; and when Martin took it into
his head to go off for a day or two, he felt easy about the children,
knowin’ my love and care for ’em couldn’t be excelled and gone beyend
by anybody. He said it wuz a great care offen his mind, and made him
feel at liberty to go and come.
He had to see certain men on business in these different countries
where we went, and I presoom he did feel better to know that the
children had some one with ’em that loved ’em while he was off milds
away for days at a time.
And Alice kep’ a-sayin’ every day that she couldn’t have got along
without me anyway. And I presoom I wuz some company for her; anyway, I
loved her, and she knew it. You can’t hide sech feelin’s under a bushel.
And lots of times I gladly, _gladly_ stayed to home with Adrian while
Alice went out with her Pa. She would say so sweetly that it wuz too
bad to deprive me of the pleasure of goin’ out with her Pa.
And I would say, “Don’t mention it, Alice; I am perfectly willin’ to
stay to home with Adrian.” And Heaven knows I spoke the truth!
She would come home, the horses covered with sweat, and Martin and
herself all fagged out; but the fagness of 20 hain’t like the fagness
of----more maturer and older years.
And in the mornin’ she’d be ready for another start.
Of course some of the excursions I gladly jined in. I wuz glad enough
to go to see Holyrood Palace, once the home of Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scots--Miss Darnley, she that wuz Stuart.
The most interestin’ queen that ever walked down the pages of history.
A-walkin’ along with her big, soft eyes bent kinder downwards under
that cap of hern, and her sweet face a-drawin’ men’s hearts out of
their bodies to foller her to the throne, or the scaffold, as she trod
onwards. Heaven pity her for her sorrow! If she wuz true or false, she
atoned for her sin, poor thing! by the hardness of her fate.
Poor Mary! poor Miss Stuart that wuz! I wuz always sorry for her, and
I always believed her cousin Lizabeth wuz jealous of her.
You know Lib wuzn’t very good-lookin’, and she wuz as vain as a
pea-hen, and it gaulded her to have her cousin praised up so to her.
Relations are dretful mean sometimes, they’re dretful jealous of
each other--cousins specially; and though they don’t make a practice
of beheadin’ the ones they are jealous of, yet they stab ’em with
the sharp, pizened daggers of detraction, lies, hatred, envy, mean
insinuations, total incomprehension of their motives, etc., etc., etc.
So if you have to live nigh ’em, you might jest about as well have your
head cut off, and done with it.
But to resoom. We see the rooms, not very big either, that poor Mary,
Queen of Scots, ust to live in.
It made me feel real bad to see in what a condition her rooms wuz kep’.
Poor thing! it seems as if she went through with enough while she wuz
alive to have some respect paid to her memory now, and her rooms kep’
clean.
But they wuz dusty and dingy lookin’. The curtains round the bed where
that pretty head ust to lay a-dreamin’--what?--wuz all ragged.
I wouldn’t have sech ragged things in my back chamber. But, poor thing!
I didn’t lay anything to her; my rooms git out of order if I leave ’em
for three days. And if I wuz away for three hundred years, mine would
look jest as bad, and mebby worse.
Josiah wuz dretful took up in lookin’ at them blood spots in the
anty-room, but I wouldn’t look at ’em. Sez I--
“If them stains are made new every few days from beef creeters, hens,
or etcetery, I certainly don’t want to see ’em. And if they’re made by
the blood of that Italian Rizzio, I wouldn’t give a cent to see ’em.”
Sez I, “I’m sorry for him, but I don’t believe he wuz what he ort to
be. Anyway, he ort to known he wuz a-makin’ trouble in a family; men
ortn’t to make pardners jealous of ’em if they can help it. But,” sez
I, after thinkin’ a minute, “I d’no as he could help it. That fatal
power Mary wielded held him, poor creeter! and drawed him on to his
fate, jest as it did the jealous pardner, when the time come.”
Wall, I had sights of emotions in that palace and in the chapel
adjoinin’, where we trod over the graves of so many kings and queens
once so high and mighty, now nothin’ but dust.
[Illustration]
Curous, curous, hain’t it? Wall, I went with ’em to visit the castle
of Edinburgh. And the view from them rampants wuz so wide and extended
that Josiah vowed he could see clear over to Jonesville. I disputed
him, but he said and stuck to it, that he recognized the steeple.
I knew better, but it wuz a grand and sweepin’ view as I ever see, or
ever expect to see. All Scotland lay spread out before us, some as our
old map would if it wuz spread on the kitchen floor, and I looked down
on it from the top of the kitchen table.
We see the room here where poor Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to
a prince, James VI., afterwards James 1st of England. What she went
through in this room! For when her baby wuz only eight days old it wuz
let down in a basket from the cliff. Jest think on’t, sech a little
baby let down four hundred feet; but it wuz to save his life, and she
stood it.
Here we see the crown that they said rested on the head of Robert
Bruce. And we see the place where so many, so many politicians had
their heads cut off.
I didn’t like to hear sech talk, and I showed that I didn’t by my
mean. But I proposed that we should jine Martin. He wuz a-settin’ down
in front of them rampants a-addin’ up a row of figgers in a account
book.
He said that it wuz some home business that had to be attended to. As
he put the book back in his pocket, and proposed that we should start
for somewhere else, I sez, “The view is enchantin’ from here, hain’t
it, Martin?”
“Yes,” sez he in a absent-minded way, without turnin’ his head--
“Yes; there! I forgot to add that last five thousand dollars to the
balance,” and he wrote it down as we walked onwards.
But my remark wuz evidently a-hangin’ round in some by-place in his
mind, for he presently remarked as he went down the path--
“Yes, as you say, the view is perfectly enchanting.”
And he gazed dreamily at the rocks that riz up before us and shet out
every mite of view from that place.
Al Faizi stood on the lofty eminence a-lookin’ off in silence, and it
seemed as though he couldn’t hardly be tore from the seen; and the
grandeur and beauty wuz reflected in his eyes, some as you can see
your own face in a pardner’s orbs if you look clost and lovin’ into ’em.
Alice and Adrian wuz a-walkin’ along, and seemed to be enjoyin’
themselves first-rate.
Adrian wuz a-askin’ her quite a number of questions about Robert Bruce
and King James, etc., etc., and she wuz a-answerin’ him quite lusid;
bein’ so late at school made her quite a adept in history, adepter than
any of the rest of us wuz, by fur.
Wall, we went to the Church of St. Giles, and we see the Heart of Mid
Lothian. I had heard Thomas J. read the story, and I wuz interested in
it.
In the northwest corner of the church there is a heart cut in the
pavement, and here the old Tolbooth, the city prison, first stood. In
St. Giles Churchyard John Knox wuz buried.
The grave-stun has nothin’ but his initial and the date of his death.
As I looked at it, I thought what long epitaphs--and in poetry, too,
some on ’em--failed to git any attention from posterity. But as long
as posterity lives--and I spoze that will be a good while yet--this
unasumin’ grave will be visited, for a Man lies buried here--a hero who
wuzn’t afraid to speak his mind, and who follered the right, so fur as
he see it, through good and evil report.
Wall, in the Parliament House we see a copy of the first Bible that wuz
ever printed. That gin me a sight of emotions--a sight; and I had quite
a number of emotions a-seein’ the manuscript of the Waverley Novels,
and in meditatin’ that Walter’s own hand rested on these pages.
Kinder tired hands some of the time, no doubt, and the eyes above heavy
from study and toil. And he (Walter) not a-dreamin’ how so many years
after she who wuz once Smith would stand and look on ’em with respect
and almost veneration.
No; he didn’t have this to encourage him and make him happy, poor
creeter!
But how well he did; how much happiness he has gin, and how much
valuable information has been took onbeknown from the pages of his
stories, like powders of smartweed in a spunful of honey.
Old Gray Friar’s Church and churchyard wuz dretful interestin’ to us on
account of a good many things.
Alice and I wuz extremely interested to learn that here wuz where
Walter Scott ust to come to meetin’ in his young days. And to see the
graves of his Pa and his Ma, and some of the rest of his folks in the
old churchyard.
In this meetin’-house the National Covenant wuz signed in 1638. After
listenin’ to a heart-searchin’ sermon by Alexander Henderson this
paper wuz signed by the Earl of Sutherland, and all the rest of the
folks who wuz to meetin’ that day. It wuz then took out into the
buryin’-ground outside, and spread out on a flat tombstone--a fittin’
spot, jedgin’ from what come afterwards--and signed by crowds and
crowds of the people. Some writ their names in blood, showin’ their
willingness to die for the Faith.
[Illustration: The National Covenant signed by the Earl of Sutherland.]
This wuz the Confession of Faith of 1580, drawed up by the principal
Presbyterian ministers of Edinburgh. Them that signed it agreed to
protect and preserve their religion even to the death.
And these Covenanters wuz persecuted and killed for their faith,
and then, when they wuz in power, they wuz jest as cruel to their
persecutors.
And all in the name of Religion. Sweet sperit, how can she stand it?
But I spoze she made allowances for ’em, a-thinkin’ they wuz mistook.
Al Faizi looked down in silence on the stun with a railin’ round it
where the Covenant wuz written. And finally he took out that book of
hisen with a cross on it, and he writ quite a lot in it. What it wuz I
d’no.
And as he stood in front of that monument, riz up there to the memory
of the martyrs put to death for their religion, he writ a hull lot more.
I myself got a piece of paper from Josiah’s account book, and I had a
pencil with me, and I copied this inscription, so’s to let Thomas J.
see it.
It wuz dretful readin’. As History held up her torch to light me as I
writ it down, mournin’ weeds seemed to wrop her round and droop over
her forward, and her face looked cold and pale and awful out from under
them weeds. It read as follers--
And I thought, I can tell you, as I read it of how Miss Argyll felt
and Miss Renwick and the children, for though it is a good ways back,
it hurt jest as bad to have your head cut off then as it duz now, and
hearts of loved ones who wuz left ached jest as bad.
It read as follers--
“From May 27, 1661, that the most noble Marquise of Argyll was
beheaded, to the 17th of February, 1668, that Mr. James Renwick
suffered, were one way or other murdered or destroyed for the same
cause about 18,000, of whom were executed in Edinburgh about 100 of
noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, and other noble martyrs for Jesus
Christ.”
Al Faizi’s face wuz a deep study as he stood there.
And he sez to Martin, who had sauntered up and wuz a-lookin’ round,
with his hands in his pantaloons pockets--
Sez Al Faizi--“This war was between Presbyterians and Catholics?”
“Yes,” sez Martin.
“Both of these religious sects thought they were right?”
“Yes,” sez Martin; “I suppose so.”
“They both send missionaries to my people?”
“Yes,” sez Martin; “quite likely; of course they do.”
Al Faizi didn’t say nothin’, but he writ down quite a lot more; what it
wuz I d’no.
But his face looked very thoughtful, and the light struck that jewelled
cross on the back of his little book, and its rays streamed out as red
as blood.
But he kinder shifted it a little after awhile, and a pure and lambient
light gleamed from it.
Queer! I’d like to know what them stuns wuz.
I d’no what Josiah did think as he looked at that monument, but I had a
sight of emotions, and of great size. And I sez to my pardner--
“One thing I am impressed by as I read of these dretful things done by
men who thought they wuz doin’ right,” sez I, “it learns me to not be
too set in my own way, even when I think I am right.”
Sez Josiah, “I always knew you wuz too sot!”
Somehow the words grated on my nerve. It is so much easier to run
yourself down than to be run.
But right here in front of so many martyrs I wuzn’t goin’ to be
overcome by a muskeeter, for truly my sufferin’s wuzn’t bigger than
that, compared to theirn.
And I wuz jest a-goin’ to complete my self-conquest by speakin’ soft to
him, when he whispered to me--
“I’m as hungry as a bear, Samantha. Not a bear in a circus,” sez he,
“but a Rocky Mountain bear.
“I wonder if Martin hain’t about ready to go?”
Wall, Martin wuz ready by that time; but I see lots of other things
whilst we wuz there. Alice and Martin went to the Queen’s Drive. I d’no
who the Queen wuz, nor who she driv, nor how fur.
And they went to the ruins of St. Anthony’s Chapel, and Alice raved
over the beautiful view from Arthur’s Seat. I d’no what kind of a seat
it wuz, nor how long Arthur sot in it, but she said that the view from
there wuz enchantin’. And we all went to the Antiquarian Museum, and
see sights and sights of relicks. Autograph letters from Charles 2nd,
Cromwell, Mary, Queen of Scots, and we see the old Scotch Covenant with
the names of Montrose, Lothair, etc., signed to it. And one of the
banners them Covenanters had bore in their battles.
Here wuz the very glass that Prince Charlie drank from before the
battle of Culloden. And then the pulpit of John Knox; out of which that
man three hundred years ago thundered out sech burnin’ words agin the
Church of Rome.
Here is a piece of the last garments put on to Robert Bruce, and in
which he was laid in his last sleep--a sound sleep. Poor creeter!
disturbed not by the warlike bugles and sounds of fray.
And here is the blue ribbin of the Knight of the Garter, wore by Prince
Charlie, and the ring gin to him by Flora Macdonald as they parted.
[Illustration: When Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald parted.]
And then there wuz sights and sights of weepons, coins, medallions,
seals, old implements, etc., etc.
But one thing I see there madded me more’n considerable; it wuz a kind
of a gullotine rigged up with a axe, that wuz held up between two
posts, and let down on the necks of ’em they wanted to kill. This very
thing took the life of the Earl of Argyll, Sir John Gordon, and lots of
others.
But what madded me most wuz the name of the creeter.
“The Maiden.”
It is a wonder they didn’t call it the “Old Maiden,” if they’d wanted
to be a little meaner.
It rousted me up fearfully to think a lot of men should rig up such a
horrid, death-dealin’ thing to carry out their bloody and brutal idees
and then call it--“Maiden.”
Why didn’t they call it after their own selves, and call it--the “Old
Man,” or “the Feller,” or sunthin’ like that?
“The Maiden!!!”
No woman would countenance sech cuttin’ off the heads of folks, and
they knew it. They named it so to be mean.
And Martin, sayin’ that it would be expected of him, and he should have
questions asked him by influential parties which he should want to
answer, went to see lots of Horsepitals, and Schools, and Universities.
Josiah went with him one day, and come home and said Heriot’s
Horsepital beat anything he ever see for architecture, and, sez he, “it
wuz designed by Indigo Jones.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe any woman ever named her babe ‘Indigo’ in this
world.” And I inquired, and found out that it wuz “Inigo.”
Josiah said I hadn’t made out much. It wuzn’t any better name. But it
wuz.
Indigo! the idee!!
A little ways out of the town is the home where Doctor Guthrie lived,
and one of the most beautiful and interestin’ houses I see in Scotland
or anywhere else. It wuz the one his brother, Mr. Thomas Nelson, built.
Every American who goes to Scotland ort to walk by it and meditate out
a spell, anyway, if they don’t go in.
Durin’ our late war, when foreign nations thought our great republic
wuz a-totterin’ over to ruin, this man had faith in us, and invested
thousands of pounds in goverment bonds.
And the rise in them bonds paid every cent this palace of hisen cost. I
didn’t begrech it to him, not at all.
Them in England who invested so largely in Confederate bonds, and lost
every cent, wouldn’t be so happy in ridin’ by that noble structure and
lookin’ at it, mebby.
CHAPTER XIV.
MEMORIES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
And one excursion I took part in with the greatest delight and one
small satchel--for we wuz to stay one night--wuz to Melrose Abbey and
Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott.
[Illustration: “I could sing to you,” sez he.]
Josiah said he wanted to see Melrose Abbey by moonlight. He said it
would be so romantic, and, sez he, “I wish I could have a guitar. How
stylish and romantic it would be for you and me, Samantha, to visit it
by moonlight, and I could sing to you,” sez he.
But I sez, “A old couple a-viewin’ that seen by moonlight, with thick
blanket shawls on, and heavy overshues--and I should wear ’em, Josiah,”
sez I, “and make you wear ’em, for our rumatizes is bad, and lookin’ up
at the moon through spectacles hain’t what it would be in younger and
less bundled-up days.”
“Throw a blanket onto it!” sez he; “wet a blanket wet as sop, and throw
it onto my plan. I never can git you to foller up any idees of mine
that are stylish and romantic.”
“I’ll foller ’em,” sez I, “but I’ve got to foller ’em with an eye on
azmy and rumatiz. And as for your singin’,” sez I, “it don’t seem as if
I can bear it.” And I shuddered imperceptibly; I thought of the near
past.
But the rubber strings that men’s memories and consciences are strung
on a good deal of the time had sprung back, and he wuz jest as ready
to be sentimental and bust out in song as if he hadn’t been took for a
Banshee.
But we visited the Abbey in broad daylight, which wuz better for our
two healths at our age. We went to the Abbey Hotel, close by the Abbey,
and after a comfortable dinner we went through the little iron gate
that leads into the grand and wonderful ruin.
It must have been a sight, a sight, in its early days. But bein’ built
in the first place in 1136, it hadn’t ort to be expected to be in the
order it would have been if it had been built in 1836, and we’d call
that bein’ pretty old in our young country.
Wall, we walked all round amongst the ruins, and the waves of the past
swashed up aginst me in a powerful manner.
Here, sez I to myself, is the place where the heart of Robert Bruce
is buried. That eager, restless heart that dared so much, and endured
so much. Strange, passing strange that that great heart lays dumb and
mute, and Samantha Allen and her pardner are a-walkin’ over it.
Here is the grave of the wizard that bold Deloraine visited, as I told
Josiah, and he looked down with scornful mean, and sez he--
“He has stopped his wizardin’ now!”
Josiah has no veneration for the occult.
And here lies the Earl of Douglas, and here is the tomb of King
Alexander 2nd.
Hero, king, and wizard, all dust, and through the tall, ruined arches
the blue sky smiles down on all on ’em alike, and sweet Nater drops
on their restin’-places; on grave and monuments the same posies, and
flowers, and long sprays of ivy.
Nater is the true democrat; she treats all alike.
But what richness of carvin’ and design is to be seen on every side;
every ornament that wuz ever carved, it seems to me, wuz here on the
tall pillows and arches. And that east winder--wall, I wake up in
the night now, and think on’t, the perfect wonder and symetry of its
design, and the marvels of its stun sculptur.
But how different folks look at things! Al Faizi, as he looked up and
around him, took in the beauty and majesty of the seen in every pore,
as you may say--you could see that in his liniment.
Alice wuz took up with some of the marvellous statutes and sculpturs
of wreath and blossom. And Adrian wuz a-pickin’ some flowers. It
beat all what a case that child wuz for flowers. And Josiah wuz took
up, I guess, with musin’ on the failure of his romantic idees, as he
sauntered about. But Martin, when he’d been there about an hour, he
come up to me, and sez he--
“Now, having seen everything there is to see here, I think we had
better go. I expect some letters and telegrams,” sez he, “and I’ve seen
sufficient to reply to any inquiries that could be made of me at home.”
Everything we could see! Why, I could have hung right round there for a
week and discovered some new wonder and beauty every hour.
But it wuz compromised in this way: Martin went back to the hotel, and
Josiah and Adrian went with him. And Al Faizi and Alice and I stayed
till night wuz a-drawin’ down her mantilly previous to puttin’ it on.
The soft linin’ on’t of crimson and gold wuz turned over in the west as
we walked back to the little hotel.
Wall, the next mornin’, bright and early, Martin got a carriage, and
we drove three miles to Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott.
By Martin’s advice (that man has good practical idees) we took our
waterproofs and umbrells. And glad enough wuz we that we did; why, in
all our trips almost waterproofs wuz neccessary companions; for short,
quick showers would descend upon us at any time seemin’ly, and then
pass away jest as quick.
Three showers come up that very day, but two on ’em took place when we
wuz inside, and the third jest before we got home at night, so umbrells
and waterproofs saved us from damage.
Wall, we found it wuz a beautiful place, castle and mansion, about half
and half. It stands in well-kep’, handsome grounds and sets down in a
sort of a valley amongst the hills which stands round it, as if proud
on’t and glad to shelter and protect it all they could.
Home of industrious talent, so hard-workin’ and constant as to be as
good if not better than genius.
The mansion and all round it is full of relicks of the past.
The big entrance hall is panelled with dark wood, and all along the
cornice the different Coats of Arms of the Border is painted in rich
colors and shields, on which is this inscription--
“These be the coat armories of the clans and chief men of name wha
keepit the marchys of Scotland in the auld tyme for the kynge. True men
were they, in their defence. God them defendyt.”
Here you see battle-axes and breastplates and weepons of all kinds.
Most all on ’em with a tragic history. Here wuz several suits of armor:
one on ’em holdin’ a big sword in its hand, captured at Bosworth’s
Field. Another holds a immense claymore took from the battlefield of
Culloden.
Josiah wuz took up with the looks of that, and he said he wished he
owned one, and, sez he, “how nice it would be if I only had a coat of
armor!
“Why, Samantha,” sez he, “how economical! When a man got one suit, he
never would have to be measured for another suit of clothes--never be
cheated by tailors or pinched by ’em. Cool in the summer,” sez he--“how
cool and good they would feel in dog-days, when broadcloth jest clings
to you; and warm in winter. The cold wind couldn’t blow through them
collars,” sez he, alludin’ to the helmets.
“And then,” sez he, “when your clothes got dirty, jest wet a towel and
clean ’em off--you could do it in half an hour, and then they’d be good
for another twenty years. I wonder,” sez he, “if I could dicker with
the Widder Scott for one of them suits? Scott’ll never wear ’em agin,”
sez he.
[Illustration: “When they got dirty, jest wet a towel and clean ’em
off.”]
But I hastened to set him right, and, sez I, “Scott never wore one of
’em. He knew too much. How do you spoze,” sez I, “you could git round
and do your spring’s work a-luggin’ round a ton of old iron?” Sez I,
“You couldn’t lift one of the legs on’t with both your hands, and how
could you plough with one on ’em on?”
Sez Josiah dreamily--he wuzn’t hearin’ a word I said--
“If I could git it cheaper without that head-piece, I might use our
coal scuttle.” Sez he, “I believe its shape is more stylish. Oh!” sez
he, “what a excitement I would make a-walkin’ into the Jonesville
meetin’-house with the hull thing on! how stylish and uneek it would be!
“Where is the Widder Scott?” sez he; “I’ll tackle her about it.”
Sez I, “She’s with her noble husband in a land where style and folly
have no home.”
And then with deep argument I made him see that a suit of armor was not
suitable for farm work or meetin’-house duties.
But he gin it up reluctant, and at the last he sez--“How it would clank
and rattle as I passed round the contribution plate--how all the other
deacons would open their eyes!”
But I silently led him away to where there wuz a suit of Scott’s
clothes, the last ones he wore.
And I had a very large variety of emotions as I looked on the clothes
that had wropped round the magician who had the power to charm the
hull world with his magic pen. My emotions drownded out the talk of
the guide and the remarks of Martin and Josiah. And on one side of the
fireplace stood the famous mistletoe trunk, as it’s called, that poor
Genevra hid herself in on her weddin’ night. The Baron’s daughter, you
know, the one that her Pa called “The star of that goodly company,”
meanin’, I spoze, that she looked better than any of the rest of the
young folks that he’d invited in to the weddin’. Poor, pretty, young
creeter! I wuz always dretful sorry for her.
You know what she said to Lovell, the young feller she wuz married to
(he worshipped the very ground she walked on).
“I am weary of dancing now, she cried;
Here tarry a moment, I’ll hide, I’ll hide;
And, Lovell, be sure thou’rt the first to trace
The clue to my secret hiding-place.”
And you probble remember how the crazed young bridegroom, and the old
Baron, and all the rest of the weddin’ guests hunted for the pretty,
young creeter all night and all day, and for weeks and months and
years--all in vain, in vain.
Till at last, when Lovell (poor, broken-hearted creeter!) wuz a old
white-headed man, a old chest wuz found in the castle, and they see, on
liftin’ up the led--
“A skeleton form lay mouldering there
In the bridal robes of the lady fair.
Oh, sad was her fate! In sportive jest
She hid from her lord in the old oak chest;
It closed with a spring, and her bridal bloom
Lay withering there in a living tomb.
Oh, the mistletoe bough!
Oh, the mistletoe bough!”
But I don’t have any idee that it wuz the mistletoe that caused the
trouble. I spoze that it would have been jest the same if it had been
red cedar hung up there, or dog-wood.
It wuz more likely a lack of common sense and lookin’ ahead. Genevra
ort to tried the lock and see how tight the led shet down, and had a
little forethought afore she got into it.
But poor, young creeter! I don’t spoze she thought of anything, only
jest her light-hearted happiness and gayety, and wuz carried away by
the thought of foolin’ Lovell a little and havin’ a good time.
Poor, pretty young thing, how she must have felt when the realizin’
sense come to her that she wuz trapped in a death-trap, and should
never see the light of day agin, and, what wuz worse, should never see
the light of love a-shinin’ in her Lovell’s eyes!
Oh, dear me! I wiped my eyes as this heart-searchin’ thought come to
me--what if it had been my Tirzah Ann. And I couldn’t help thinkin’
that it would be jest like Tirzah to be ketched in that way. Maggie, my
son’s wife, would have looked at the ketch before she let the led down,
and she’d never wrinkled up a long white dress in that contracted place.
But I am indeed a-eppisodin’ and to resoom.
The entrance hall and the rooms leadin’ out of it are jest as Mr. Scott
left ’em, and that made me feel curous as a dog to look round me, and I
meditated and eppisoded to extreme lengths, to myself mostly.
The library is a large and handsome room, lined with books, twenty
thousand in all. And underneath its deep, big winders runs the river
Tweed.
How many times, when he got tired of writin’ down his rushin’ thoughts,
did Walter stand and lean up aginst the winder, and look down into the
rushin’ river!
I leaned up aginst the side of the winder where he had leaned, and on
lookin’ down, I see that the river wuz still a-flowin’ along jest the
same. But the eager, active mind wuz--where?
The dead water, with no soul, rushed and flowed on; the rocks couldn’t
stop it--no, it made a leap downward and flowed on more free and
placider.
And I sez to myself--“Death’s rocky portals is jest the same; after
the leap down into the oncertainty--the darkness, it goes on in the
Certainty and the Light, fuller and freer than ever.”
I didn’t say anything of these thoughts to my pardner. He wuz a-lookin’
round at one thing and another, and not havin’ the deep feelin’s that I
had, as I could see.
But Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ down into the water or at the beautiful
landscape from another winder. And I’ll bet if I’d atted him about it
his idees would have been congenial to mine and inspirin’. I jedged so
from the looks of his liniment.
But I knew he didn’t care about talkin’ much, so I restrained my tongue.
The rest on ’em wuz a-prowlin’ round and a-lookin’ at
relicks--priceless ones, some on ’em--and I methought to myself volumes
as I looked on ’em.
The clock of Marie Antoinette wuz there--what hours, what hours that
clock ticked off for Marie!
And then there wuz the inkstand of Lord Byron--and what black, gloomy
ink and sometimes kinder nasty, that poor creeter dipped his pen in a
good deal of the time--but lofty and riz up, too, at times, very.
And then there wuz two gold bees took from Napoleon’s carriage--what
bees buzzed and hummed in his ambitious brain as the carriage whirled
him on! Then there wuz a crucifix that belonged to Mary, Queen of
Scots; most probble held clost to her poor, frightened heart as the
pretty creeter walked away to have her head cut off.
A miniature portrait of Prince Charlie, a box from Miss Edgeworth, a
purse made by Joanna Baillie, a little case from Miss Martineau, a
snuff-box of George IV., and lots, and lots, and lots of relicks from
Egypt and Italy and everywhere else. But I d’no as I see any from
Jonesville. But oversights will take place, and _contrarytemps_ will
occur.
Wall, in the armory we see bows, and arrers, and spears, and muskets,
and rifles. A musket that belonged to Rob Roy, a sword gin by Charles
1st to the Marquis of Montrose, a pair of pistols that belonged to the
1st Napoleon, found after the battle of Waterloo. Poor creeter, how he
must have felt! No wonder he lost ’em! James VI. hunting flask, the key
of old Tolbooth prison. And then we see thumb-screws, and a gag for
scoldin’ wives--I looked on that with scorn.
But Josiah jest peered and squinted at it, and walked all round it, and
took out a piece of string out of his pocket and tried to measure it,
and I sez, “What on earth are you a-doin’?”
“Wall,” sez he, “I believe I could make one of ’em after I got home,
with a little of Ury’s help.”
“What do you want of one, Josiah Allen?” sez I coldly.
[Illustration: “I never should think of usin’ it.”]
“Oh, nothin’, nothin’ in the world, only I thought it would be uneek to
own one. I never should think of usin’ it,” sez he, as I looked still
more stonily at him.
“I should think not!” sez I, and my axents wuz about the temperture of
five ice suckles.
But after we’d all turned away and wuz a-lookin’ at other relicks, I
see him furtively apply that string to it, and mark down the dimensions
on’t in his account book.
I d’no what under the sun the man wuz a-thinkin’ on, and I don’t
believe he did.
Wall, we wandered round through the rooms for a long time, I with
memories a-walkin’ tight to my side--what a host of ’em wuz a-follerin’
me of them shadow shapes--
Sweet Ellen Douglas, and Ivanhoe, and Rebecca, Marmion, Rob Roy, Guy
Mannering, Rosamond, Nigel, the Wild Huntsman, Meg Merrilies, etc.,
etc., etc.
Oh, what a crowd of phantoms, and what different lookin’ creeters they
wuz that wuz a-walkin’ up and down that room with me, onbeknown to
Josiah and the rest!
And what curous words they wuz a-pourin’ out into my ears--words that I
only could hear--some on ’em wuz in poetry--
“Charge, Chester, charge--
On, Stanley, on”--
or--
“Oh, mother, mother, what is bliss,
Oh, mother, what is bale--
Without my lover, what is Heaven?
And with him, what were Hell?”
And noble, practical idees, and solemn, historical ones wuz a-soundin’
in my ears. And figgers of noble knights and heroes and fair ladies wuz
by my side, up and down the room they walked with me and in and out.
Some of the picters on the walls of the different rooms wuz dretful
interestin’--dretful. The one on ’em that gin my heart and mind the
deepest shock wuz the head of poor Mary, Queen of Scots, said to have
been took a few hours after her execution. The mournful, noble beauty
of that white, still face gin me feelin’s I couldn’t express, and I
didn’t try to.
It seemed as if the home where her soul had so lately sojourned had a
dignity and peace gin it, a-flowin’ out from the seens that soul wuz
a-beholdin’ after it had cast off the tribulations and persecutions of
earth.
It wuz a dretful interestin’ picter to me.
Then there wuz Charles XII. of Sweden, Charles II. and Cromwell, and
lots of picters by Turner and other great artists.
The house from top to bottom wuz full to over-flowin’ with objects of
interest. I could have stayed there for days and not seen half, but
Time and Martin wuz a-hastenin’.
And we went from there to Dryburgh Abbey, to see the spot where Scott
wuz buried.
We see his tomb and the place where his ancestors are buried. His
son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, who wrote Scott’s biography, is buried here.
In Dryburgh Abbey we see the winder where the White Maid of Avenal ust
to appear.
But she didn’t appear to us, much as I’d loved to seen her (right there
in broad daylight, with my pardner with me).
The Abbey is said to be hanted, mebby by them who have been imprisoned
and tortured in the dungeons onderneath.
There are holes in the walls where the hands of prisoners were held by
heavy wedges.
It don’t seem right to have a meetin’-house used to torture folks in,
and so I told Josiah.
But he said that he didn’t know about it; he thought once in awhile it
would do good to jest pinch Deacon Garvin’s thumb a little, to make
him do right, or to make Deacon Bobbett come to terms, when he got too
rambunktious to business meetin’s and wanted his own way.
“Yes,” sez I, “or to make Deacon Josiah Allen more willin’ to give to
charitable objects.”
His liniment fell.
“Oh, the Charitable Object has more done for him than I do, they’re
always raisin’ money for him.”
That wuz his favorite mode of puttin’ off from givin’ to charity.
“And,” sez I, “you see from Loyola and Cromwell down to Josiah Allen
the carnal mind wants to punish somebody else for doin’ suthin’
different from what you want ’em to do.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I wonder if Martin hain’t a-goin’ back? I believe it’s
a-goin’ to rain, and you ort to have sunthin’ to eat, Samantha. It
worries me to have you see so much on an empty stumick.”
“Wall,” sez I, for his thoughtfulness touched me, “some dinner would
taste good.”
Sez he, in a low, thrillin’ voice--“Samantha,” and tears wuz almost in
his eyes as he spoke, “imagine I am in the barn door, and the smell
of roast chicken, and baked potatoes, and lemon puddin’, and cream
biscuit floats out, a-wroppin’ you all round, as you are a-standin’ in
the back door a-callin’ me in to dinner. As you stand there a-lookin’
perfectly beautiful,” sez he.
Agin my heart wuz touched, and sez I, “And roses under the winders,
and voyalets, and the blossomin’ trees, and the new-mown grass in
the orchard a-smellin’ sweet as the scent comes in on the warm south
breeze.”
“Yes,” sez he, “and the good, rich coffee, and cream cheese, and honey,
and things.”
“Yes,” sez I, “and after dinner we could set down, and set there as
long as we wanted to.”
“I wouldn’t stir in over three days!” sez he, “not an inch from my good
old rockin’-chair.
“But,” sez he, with a deep sithe, “them days wuz too happy to last.”
“No,” sez I, “Providence permittin’, we will see agin the cliffs of
Jonesville; and home never seemed so sweet as it will when troubles and
toil and foreign travel is all past, and our two barks are moored once
more in our own peaceful door-yard.”
“Never to be _on_moored!” sez he, with a almost fierce mean. And my own
longin’ heart and achin’ back and tired-out eyeballs gin a deep assent
to his remarks.
Sweet, sweet is the fruits of foreign travel, but lofty and precipitus
are the thorny branches it hangs on, and wearin’ in the extreme is the
job of pickin’ ’em offen foreign fields and bringin’ ’em home in our
mind basket.
And happy are they who carry ’em back fresh and hull and sound--some
folks carry ’em home in a sort of a jell or a jam--dretful mixed up and
promiscus like.
CHAPTER XV.
OLD YORK AND ITS CATHEDRAL.
Wall, as we got back to Edinburgh it was on the first edge of the
evenin’, and I had the chance of hearin’ a real Scotch ministrel; not
one of them bagpipes of theirn, which sounds perfectly awful to me, but
which Josiah wuz dretful took with (of which more anon), but this man
had a violin, or fiddle, and sung in a sweet, high voice some of the
best ballads of the country.
[Illustration: Josiah wuz dretful took with it.]
I shed tears and wept to hear some on ’em.
“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”
And “Auld Joe Nickleson’s Bonnie Nannie.”
My heart sort o’ listened as I hearn the words. I had hearn our
Tirzah Ann sing ’em in the melancholy stillness of a June evenin’,
when through the open winder the distant sounds of the frogs and
the tree-tuds would come in from the cedar swamp, fur off, and the
moonlight throw all over her and the organ the long shadders of the
mornin’-glories.
This is one of the verses--
“There is mony a joy in this world below,
But sweet are the hopes that to sing were uncanny;
But of all the joys I aer hae known,
There is nane like the love of my Bonnie Nannie;
Oh my Nannie, my sweet little Nannie,
My dear little niddlesome, noddlesome Nannie.
There naer was a flower,
In garden or bower,
Like auld Joe Nickleson’s bonnie Nannie.”
And then he sung “John Anderson, my Jo, John,” and my mind
onconsciously reverted to my beloved pardner, as he sung words tellin’
how he looked--
“When they were first acquent.”
And then--
“John Anderson, my Jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my Jo.”
There wuzn’t hardly a dry eye in my head as I heard it, and I looked
round to see how my Josiah wuz a-takin’ it.
But right behind that sweet singer wuz a man with a bagpipe, and after
the melodious warbler had moved away he piped up, right under our
winder, that screechin’, awful sound; and Josiah’s attention wuz all
took up with him.
And there wuz a distant, dreamy look to my pardner’s eyes as he gazed
onto him, of which I did not git the full meanin’ till bime-by--of
which more anon.
After we had had our supper and had gone to our room Adrian come
a-runnin’ in and told us that a company of Scotch soldiers wuz marchin’
through the place on their way to Sterling.
So we quickly made our way out onto a balcony, where we could git
a good view of ’em, with their short kilt skirts, bare legs, plaid
stockin’s, and feathers. If it hadn’t been for their whiskers and
mustaches, you’d most thought they wuz wimmen.
Sez Alice, “Oh, how picturesque they look! don’t they?”
And I sez, “More picturesque than comfortable!” Sez I, “What clothes
them must be to wear into a battle-field, or to pick rosberrys in! What
would hender thorns and bullets from stickin’ right into them bare
legs?”
Sez I, “They don’t use no reason; we see to-day that they ust to dress
in iron all over, when they ust to go into battle, but now they go half
naked.”
Sez I, “Oh, the beauty of megumness! They wore too much in old times,
and now not enough, which, I’ll bet, their cold legs would testify to,
if they could speak up.”
As I said of the bagpipes--but more anon.
It wuz that night, jest as I wuz preparin’ my body for rest, that
Josiah’s dreamy study a-lookin’ at the bagpipes become manifest. I see
my companion foldin’ up two handkerchiefs kinder queer and a-measurin’
’em by his arm, and anon kinder layin’ his jack-knife between ’em, and
actin’.
And I sez, “What are you a-doin’, Josiah Allen?”
“Why,” sez he, “I wuz a-thinkin’ of makin’ a bagpipe.”
“Out of two handkerchiefs!” sez I mockin’ly.
“No; I wuz jest a-layin’ out the work and gittin’ a view of its nater;”
sez he, “I wuz a-layin’ out to use two bags.”
“Bags?” sez I.
“Yes, meal bags,” sez he; “take them bags, and dip ’em into starch
to stiffen ’em, and then paint and varnish ’em, and there you are as
fur as the wind is concerned; the music,” sez he, “I believe could be
rigged up some way with a mouth-organ or sunthin’, or mebbe our old
accordeun; fix the bags onto both ends on’t and then draw ’em out, or
shet ’em up, with wind accordin’.
“What a sensation it would create in Jonesville! How it would stir the
people up!” sez he.
[Illustration: “What a sensation it would create in Jonesville!”]
“And I might on occasions, on 4th of July and sech, wear the Tarten
costume. I could take that old plaid overskirt of yours, Samantha, it’s
dressy, you know--red and green--cut it off a little above my knees,
and my own red stockin’s would look all right. And the old rooster
would furnish very stylish feathers--I should look beautiful! And of
course,” sez he, “I should sing with it.”
“Yes,” sez I, “your rumatic old knees would look beautiful bare naked,
and them bags and accordeun, and your singin’ would empty Jonesville as
soon as a cyclone would, or a water-spout.” And, in the name of duty,
I said further, “Your singin’ is like thumb-screws and gullotines, and
with that bagpipe added, it would cry to Heaven!”
“There it is! there it is!” sez he! “throw cold water on it.”
“Better that,” sez I, “than the hot water you would be deluged with if
you should try it in public. Nobody would stand it, and you’d find it
out they wouldn’t without scaldin’ you.”
Wall, from Edinburgh Martin said that we would start for London, and so
we took the train goin’ south and sot off in the early mornin’ and in
pretty good sperits.
We only made one stop on our way to London, and that wuz at York--the
quaint, old, walled city, in which Americans take an interest on
account of their own New York bein’ named after it.
Our New York is some younger--about seventeen hundred years younger,
and that is a good deal of difference between a Ma and a young child.
But, then, it hain’t common to have the youngster about twenty times
bigger than its Ma.
Wall, we went to a good tarvern and recooperated a little durin’ the
night from the fatigues of travel, and the next mornin’ bright and
early we sot out to see the sights of the city, knowin’ that our stay
there wuz to be but short.
Martin engaged a guide, though he didn’t often want one, sayin’, as he
did, that he felt that he wuz so familar with history and all those
places that a guide was “an unnecessary outlay and a drug.”
But bein’ in a hurry to git on to-day, we went first to see the great
wall that has stood for centuries, and seems able to stand quite a
number more of ’em. I got out of the carriage and laid my hand on the
wall, feelin’ that it would be a satisfaction to put my hand on the
stun.
Josiah said, “That looks foolish, Samantha; you have never tried once
to put your hand on to the stun wall between our paster and Deacon
Gowdy’s.”
“But,” sez I, “that wall has never been looked upon by Adrian and
Constantine the Great; it has never been trod by Britons, Picts, Danes,
and Saxons, each on ’em a-warrin’ for and defendin’ their native land.”
“Wall,” sez he, “our wall is a crackin’ good one.” Josiah looked kinder
scorfin’ at me for my enthoosiasm, but I didn’t mind it any.
And Martin, seein’ my enthoosiasm, and though he didn’t share it, not
at all, he asked me if I didn’t want to go up and walk on the great
wall--which I did. So we had the carriage stopped at one of the gates,
and he and I and Alice and Al Faizi went up and walked on the parapets.
And I probble had as many as 70 or 80 emotions as I felt that
eight-foot wall under my feet and looked up at the solid, round
watch-towers, with narrer slits in the stun, for arrers to be shot out
of onto the enemies, and way up above ’em the little turrets for the
sentinuls to look out.
I wonder how that sentinul felt there on cool moonlight nights twelve
or fourteen hundred years ago--I wonder what century old grief or pain
hanted his lonely heart through the night-watches--Love, Hope, mebby
they lightened his lonely watch jest as they do in 1900.
Tenny rate, the same sun and moon looked down on him, and Love and Hope
is as old as they be--as old as the world.
Al Faizi, I believe, had a sight of emotions, too. He stood still and
looked off with a dreamy look on his face.
Martin thought the stun wuz good and solid, and might be utilized for
buildin’ depots and grain elevators and sech.
Alice looked good-natered and didn’t say much.
Josiah wuz a-makin’ a cat’s cradle with Adrian when we went back to
the buggy. And I told him I didn’t see how he could be a-playin’ with
weltin’ cord at sech a time as this, when he could see this wall.
And he sez, “Dum it all! mebby you wouldn’t take so to stun walls
if you had broke your back, and got so many stun bruises as I have
a-layin’ ’em.”
“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “do jest as you feel, Josiah. But I wouldn’t
have missed the sight for a dollar bill.”
Yes, it rousted up sights of emotions in me.
Another thing that endeared York to me: here in this city wuz Christmas
celebrated for the first time by King Arthur, fourteen hundred years
ago.
[Illustration: That sentinul twelve or fourteen hundred years ago.]
I don’t spoze he ever gin a thought at that time of what a train of
turkeys, Christmas presents, trees, plum puddin’s, bells, stockin’s,
Santa Clauses, etc., etc., etc., would foller on his wake. But it
wuz a good idee, and he wuz quite a likely creeter--buildin’ up the
meetin’-housen the Saxons had destroyed.
Wall, we thought we would leave the Cathedral, or Minster, as they call
it for the last. And anon we see a almost endless procession of anteek
gate-ways, and housen, museums, churches, the ruined cloisters of St.
Leonard founded by Athelstane the Saxon, and the ruins of St. Mary’s
Abbey, with its old Norman arch and shattered walls.
But from most every part of the city where we might be we could see
the Cathedral towerin’ up above us, some like a mountain of sculptured
turrets and towers. And anon we found ourselves within its walls, and
its magnificent and grand beauty almost struck us dumb with or.
The guide said that it wuz the most gorgeous and beautiful in the
world. But I considered it safe to add a word to his description, which
made it _one_ of the most gorgeous and magnificent cathedrals in the
world--and that I spoze is true.
It wuz about two hundred years a-buildin’, and I don’t believe there is
a carpenter in Jonesville that could have done it a day sooner. Seth
Widrick is a swift worker on housen, but I believe Seth would have been
a week or two over that time at the job.
The guide said that it wuz 500 and 24 feet long, and 250 feet broad--24
feet longer than St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and 145 feet longer
than Westminster Abbey, and the most magnificent minster in the world.
The greatest beauty of the hull interior is, I spoze, the immense
east winder. Imagine a great arched winder 75 feet high and 30 feet
broad all aglow and ablaze with the most magnificent stained-glass. A
multitude of saints, angels, priests, etc., all wrought in glass, the
colors of which are so soft and glowin’, so harmonious, that they can’t
be reproduced in this day by the most cunnin’ workmen; the secret is
lost.
This winder is known as The Five Sisters; the pattern bein’ took, it is
said, from embroideries these maiden wimmen made.
Josiah said, when the guide mentioned it, “Good for the old maids! they
done well.”
But as I looked upon that marvellous poem of glowin’ color, I felt
beyend words, but I could still think. And I thought proudly of the
exquisite work my sect had wrought, and I wuz glad for the moment
that I too wuz a woman; and though seven hundred years lay between
them noble sisters and myself, yet I felt that our hearts, our souls,
touched each other in that pleasant day of 1895.
Wall, Passin’ Time and Josiah tore me away from the contemplation of
that glory, that wonder, that delight--unequalled, I believe, in the
hull world.
And at Martin’s request, for he said that he should be asked about it
probble, and would wish to be prepared with answers, we went out on a
little stun platform or bridge outside, from which we had a view of the
hull glowin’ interior--a vista of leafy gothic arches, and sculptered
columns, more’n five hundred feet in length, and at the end the great
west winder, with the figgers of the eight earliest Archbishops of
York, and to keep ’em company, eight saints and other figgers.
All seemin’ly a-standin’ in the glowin’ light took from the most
gorgeous western sunset. They wuz put up about five hundred years ago,
and I can’t begin to describe the beauty and richness of colorin’, and
design, nor Josiah can’t.
There wuz lots of other winders, too, that would be remarkable anywhere
else. And among ’em wuz one over the entrance that they called the
Marygold winder, circles of small arches in the form of a wheel, the
color of which makes it look some like that flower.
Though, as Josiah well said--“Nobody ever hearn before of a marygool
thirty feet acrost.”
In the vestries we see some historical relicks. One of the oldest is
the great Saxon Drinkin’ Horn, by which the church holds valuable
estate near York.
The old chieftain, Ulphus, knelt at the altar and drinked out of the
horn, and by this act gave to the church all his land, housen, etc.,
etc., givin’ to the fathers this horn as a title-deed.
Josiah wuz dretful took up with it, and vowed that he would save the
horns from the next beef creeter he killed and make out his next deed
with it.
“So strong and safe,” sez he; “no ‘whereasis’ and ‘to wits’ and
‘namelys,’ and runnin’ up to a stake, and back agin, to wit.”
Sez he, “It would be a boon to git rid of all that nonsense. That
would use up one horn, and then I might make my will with the other.
I could will you all my property with it, Samantha, and then we could
both drink root-beer, or sunthin’, and you could jest keep the horn,
and there would be no way to break the will. 2d. Wives have lots of
trouble, but how could anybody break it, Samantha, when you had the
horn locked up in the tin chest?”
It wuz thoughtful in him, and showed a deep kindness to me, but I felt
dubersome about it.
Then there wuz another drinkin’ cup presented by Archbishop Scrope. But
it wuz bigger than I love to see--I am afraid that Mr. Scrope drinked
too much. But as he had his head cut off in 1405, I couldn’t labor with
him about it.
Then there wuz the chair in which the Saxon kings wuz crowned. And a
old Bible presented by King Charles II., and one gin by Charles 1st. A
old communion plate 500 years old and oak chests, etc., etc., etc.
[Illustration: “With the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down.”]
When we looked at the communion plate Josiah nudged me, and sez he,
“Don’t that make you think of she that wuz Sally Ann Plenty?” Sez he,
“You know she bought a old communion service once because she could git
it for a little or nothin’.” Sez he, “That wuz the same day that she
bought a crosscut saw, and a box of gloves 4 sizes too big for her,
and wore ’em with the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down, jest as if
they wuz onjointed.”
Sez I, “Hush! This is no place to bring up sech worldly and foolish
eppisodes.”
Wall, Martin clim up into the Lantern Tower, two hundred and thirteen
feet high, for he said that he would wish to say that he had been there.
But Al Faizi wuz the most took up with lookin’ at the monuments in
the Cathedral. They wuz beautiful in the extreme, and some on ’em wuz
saints, some on ’em Archbishops, but the most on ’em wuz riz up to men
who had made themselves famous by killin’ lots and lots of folks--some
in England, some in Russia, and in India, and in Burmah, etc., etc.,
etc.
As I stood in front of them bloody records, and meditated that a common
murderer, who had only killed one or two men, couldn’t never git a
statute, but it wuz those that killed hundreds and thousands who had
’em built through foreign lands, and my own native country--as I wuz
a-meditatin’ on this and a-considerin’ on how the more a man killed the
higher his monument wuz riz up, and the nigher he wuz buried to saints,
I see Al Faizi take out that little book with the cross on’t and
write down quite a lot--what it wuz I d’no, but I presoom it wuz good
writin’. His idees are congenial to mine, very.
And then another place where I see Al Faizi a-writin’ down quite a lot
in that book of hisen wuz at Clifford’s Tower, in the castle enclosure,
where two hundred Jews were masicreed in 1490. From what the guide
said, I made out as follows: When the Crusaders got back from fightin’
the Infidels they wuz kinder mad to see that the Jews wuz better off
than they wuz--had better clothes, more money, etc.--so they begun to
kill ’em off.
There wuz so many fightin’ Christians the Jews couldn’t defend
themselves, so they come to the castle with their wives and children.
And all the soldiers in York come to help the Crusaders kill the Jews.
And when the poor Jews found that they couldn’t stand it any longer,
they did jest as the Rabbi told ’em.
They killed the wives and children that wuz left, to keep ’em from
fallin’ into the hands of their persecutors, and sot fire to the
castle, and then killed themselves, so’s they shouldn’t burn to death.
This massicre of these onoffending Jews by Christians wuz one of the
most barbarous acts that ever took place on earth. Lots of folks now
have their souls massicreed in the same way--out of envy and jealousy.
I d’no what Al Faizi writ in his book as he looked at this place where
this dretful deed wuz done in the name of Religion. But his face wuz
a sight to see as he writ--solemn and awful; not mad, but sunthin’
of the expression of the Avengin’ Angel, or as I mistrust he would
look--dretful sorry, but sot, awful sot.
Wall, we went back to the tarvern and got a good dinner, and I laid
down for a nap--I wuz clean used up.
When I waked up it wuz sunset, and Josiah sot by the little casement
with the panes of glass about four inches big, a-readin’.
And I asked him if Martin laid out to go to London in the mornin’, and
he said that he guessed he did. “But,” sez he with a tone of regret--
“I did want to visit Scarborough; there’s no need hurryin’ so to
London,” sez he.
“Who and what is Scarborough?” sez I in a weary axent as I got up and
wadded up my back hair.
“Why, it is the fashionable waterin’-place of England,” sez he; “it
is only a little more than forty milds away,” sez he; “we could go
jest as well as not, and it would be so genteel. I would,” sez he,
a-smoothin’ out the folds of his dressin’-gown, and bringin’ the
tossels forred in a more sightly place--“I would love to mingle in
fashionable circles once more, Samantha.”
I looked down at his old bald head in silent disaprobation. He wuz too
old to hanker after fashion and display, and too bald, and I knew it.
But I knew that I could not make him over, after he had been made
so long--no, I should have to bear up the best I could under his
shortcomin’s.
But I sez mekanically, and to git his idees off--“I would kinder love
to visit Whitby, Josiah; that hain’t much further away, and that is
where all the most beautiful jet is made. I thought like as not that
you would want to buy me a handkerchief pin, Josiah Allen.”
He looked injured, and sez he, “Where is the black pin you mourned in
for Father Smith?” His tone wuz sour and snappish in the extreme.
Sez I, “That pin wuz broke over twenty years ago.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I can glue it together with Ury’s help, or we could
tie it up, so’s it would be jest as good as a new one. It don’t come to
any strain on your collar,” sez he anxiously.
“No, Josiah; but I shouldn’t like to wear a pin that you and Ury had
contoggled up. But let it pass,” sez I; “I can do without it, if my
companion don’t think enough of me right here in the headquarters of
black breastpins and beads to buy me anything.”
My tone touched him. He sez--“I’d look round and see about it, but I
hain’t no time, for we’ve got to be a-pushin’ right on to London; if we
ever lay out to git home agin we’ve got to be on the move.”
I didn’t say nothin’ only what my liniment spoke, and anon he sez--
“If worst come to worst, Ury and I could make you a crackin’ good
one out of coal. All of this jet in Whitby is made out of coal. And
how much less it would cost--we could make you a hull set in one
evenin’--earrings and all.”
I gin him one look, and that wuz all the argument that I would dane to
waste on the subject.
Alice kinder wanted to go to Robin Hood Bay, which wuz not far from
Scarborough. She said that she would love to see the place where the
hero of Sherwood Forest had lived once--the bold outlaw who took from
the rich with one hand and gave to the poor with the other.
But her Pa laughed at her for believin’ that there ever wuz sech a man,
or if there wuz, he wuz nothin’ but a common robber, who deserved
hangin’.
[Illustration: Robin Hood.]
I believe Martin would favor drivin’ Santa Claus out of the country and
killin’ his reindeers. His imagination hain’t, I really believe, not
much bigger than a pea--not a marrowfat one, but a common field pea.
So Martin decided at first that we would go direct to London, but
finally he concluded to go a little out of our way to visit the estate
of the Duke of Devonshire--the grandest home in England. And he wanted
to stop a little while at Sheffield on business--property matters, I
spoze, or mebby he wanted to buy a jack-knife--I d’no what his business
wuz.
I knew he could git a good jack-knife here, for they’ve been makin’
knives and sech right here for five or six hundred years.
CHAPTER XVI.
EDENSOR AND THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.
So anon we found ourselves in the smoky, grimy, dirty city. A heavy
black cloud seemed to hang overhead, seemin’ to shade the hull spot;
but then I didn’t want to lay it up agin ’em, for I knew we had our
own cities, that had to set down under a cloud of smoke jest as they
did--Pittsburg, and others, etcetery.
I can’t say that I took sech a sight of comfort here in Sheffield, but
Josiah and Martin seemed to enjoy themselves a-goin’ round and seein’
all they could.
Martin said it wuz a sight to see how perfectly each workman did his
work, and how faithful they wuz to their employers; he said he wished
he had sech men to work for him.
And it wuz curous to think on. As nigh as I could make out, generations
of one family would work on and on, a-workin’ at one part of a
jack-knife, for instance, a-keepin’ right on--a grandpa, and his son,
and his son’s son, and etcetery--all contented and industrious and
awful handy, as they would naterally be, a-workin’ on at one thing
year after year, year after year; mebby a-makin’ a rivet to put into a
handle of a knife.
It stands to reason that they would learn to do it well after workin’
at the same thing over and over for hundreds of years. And these
workmen seemed to be sot on doin’ jest the best work that they could,
and stay right on in the same place.
“And,” sez Josiah, “I wonder if Ury’s boy and grandson and
great-grandson will be willin’ to keep right on workin’ for me?”
Sez I, “Do you expect to outlive Ury’s grandson, Josiah Allen?”
Sez he, “They did in Bible times.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t be nigh so old
then as Methusler,” and he went on--“I use my help as good agin as they
do here. If I should put Ury to work in sech a dark, dirty, onhandy
place as these workmen have, he’d kick in a minute and leave me; but
here they work, generations of ’em, all in one place.”
[Illustration: “It don’t pay to tussel with ’em.”]
Sez I feelin’ly, “I wish I could git sech a generation of hired girls;
but no sooner duz an American housekeeper git a hired girl broke in, so
she can bile a potato decent, or make a batch of bread, than off she
trapes somewhere else to better herself. It don’t pay to tussel with
’em,” sez I.
“Wall,” sez Josiah, “you ort to go into some of these factories; it is
a sight to see how perfect everything is done. One part of a knife, for
instance, done in one house, and then another house doin’ another part,
and then another another, and every part done jest as well as it can
possibly be.”
And then Josiah went on about that wonderful knife they make here, with
a new blade added for every year.
And bein’ we wuz alone, and I hadn’t nothin’ else on my mind, I
moralized some, and sez I--
“Old Fate is makin’ her knife pretty stiddy, and seems to add a new
blade every year for us to cut our feelin’s on, and jab ourselves with.”
And sez I, “They don’t hurt any the less because we dig the metal
ourselves and shape the sharp blades with our ignorant hands, not
knowin’ what we’re a-workin’ on, and some on ’em,” sez I, “handed down
from foolish, ignorant workmen who have gone before--queer!” sez I,
“passin’ queer!”
“Yes,” sez Josiah, “it wuz quite a sight; Martin and I enjoyed it.
“But the drinkin’ here in Sheffield,” sez Josiah, “is sunthin’ dretful
to witness.” Sez he, “I thought we had drinkin’ habits in America, but
I never see nothin’, nor I don’t believe anybody else did, to compare
with some of the places we visited to-day. Why,” sez he, “it would do a
W. C. T. U. good to jest look at ’em.”
“Good?” sez I sternly.
“Wall, yes,” sez he; “it would set ’em to kinder soarin’ and wavin’
them banners of theirn and talkin’--you know jest how they love to
talk,” sez he.
Sez I, “You better stop right where you are.” Sez I, “Do you realize
that you are talkin’ about your pardner?”
“Wall, yes,” sez he; “that’s what I wuz kinder figgerin’ on--Heaven
knows you love to talk, you can’t dispute that.”
I wouldn’t dane to argy with him.
But, indeed, it wuz a sight to walk through some of the low, dingy,
filthy streets, with saloons on every side flauntin’ their brazen
signs, and men and wimmen with bloated, sodden faces, that strong drink
had almost changed into the faces of animals.
The same sin--the same useless, needless sin, parent of _all_ other
vices--jest as bad on this side of the Atlantic as in Jonesville and
America, and worse.
I left it there a-performin’ and cuttin’ up, and I found it here actin’
jest the same. You’d think after crossin’ the Atlantic it would git
sobered up a little--seein’ so much water and everything.
But it hadn’t. It wuz jest the same reelin’, disgraceful, foolish,
leerin’, bloated Shame--
Jest as bad in Sheffield as it wuz in Jonesville and Chicago, and worse.
It wuz enough to melt a stun with pity, and make hard eyes weep
with sorrer and flash with a righteous indignation, at the Nations
that don’t devise some means of wipin’ out this gigantic cause of
wickedness, woe, and want.
They can connect worlds together with chains of lightnin’, they can
make roads through the earth and on top of it, and in all ways; then
why can’t they keep a man from drinkin’ a tumbler full of whiskey? They
could if they wanted to, and all put in together.
Wall, wuzn’t it a change to leave this smoky, grimy city and find
ourselves in the open, beautiful English country, and in the most
beautiful part of it, too?
We went by railroad to Matlock Bath, and from there went in a carriage
to the little village of Edensor, the loveliest little village I ever
sot eyes on. Its housen are all built in some quaint, beautiful style
of architecture, and it looks like a picter, and a great deal handsomer
than lots of picters I’ve seen--chromos and sech.
This village belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, and is on his estate,
which is the finest in England, and I guess on this hull earth.
And I d’no whether they’ve got any on any other planet that goes ahead
on’t. Mebby Jupiter has, but I don’t really believe it.
Why, jest its pleasure park--the door-yard, as you may say--has two
thousand acres in it.
This estate, known as Chatsworth, is twelve milds from Edensor, and
nobody could describe the beauty of the landscape all about us as we
passed onwards.
As we went acrost a corner of this immense door-yard, through the most
beautiful pieces of woodland, and the verdant slopes covered with
velvety sward, great, beautiful pheasants and herds of deer would
look round at us and then walk off, not a mite afraid, fearless as
they will be if they’re used well. Anon we would ketch a glimpse of
some enchantin’ vista, with herds of contented cattle, makin’ picters
of themselves aginst the background of green grass and noble trees
centuries old.
From a little hill top we could see twelve milds in every direction,
and not a foot of land that this man didn’t own.
Twelve milds! the idee! It seems more’n he ort to have on his mind.
Anon we reached a beautiful stun bridge, designed by Michael Angelo,
and crossin’ the little river, went up to the great iron and gilt
entrance gates.
[Illustration: Martin sent his card in.]
Martin sent his card in to somebody that takes care of the premises,
I guess (and how he dast to ask any favors of this gorgeous-dressed
creeter in knee-breeches, I d’no, but he did, bold as brass), and word
come back that we could look over the place, and one of the hired men
wuz sent to go with us and show us round. It wuz well he come; we
should have got lost, sure as the world. But lost in sech a place--sech
a place! Why, I’d read the Arabian Nights quite a good deal, and a
considerable number of fairy stories about enchanted castles, and sech.
But never did I ever hear, in a book, or out on’t, of sech magnificence
as I see here.
First we went through a great courtyard into the splendid entrance
hall, seventy feet long if it wuz a inch; the wall and ceilin’s
ornamented with frescoes, all representin’ the life and death of Cæsar.
We went up a majestic staircase, with all the richly ornamented columns
and statutes it needed for its comfort, and more, too, it seemed,
though they wuz beautiful beyend tellin’; and here we went into the
State Apartments of the house.
I spoze they are called State Apartments because in every room there’s
enough of beauty and grandeur to supply a hull State, if it wuz
scattered even, and I don’t mean Rhode Island either, but New York and
Maine and sech sizable ones.
Why, every one of these lofty ceilin’s is painted with picters
handsome enough for the very handsomest handkerchief pin, if they
wuz the right size. The hired man told us what some of the picters
represented--Aurora (and, oh, how beautiful Aurora wuz!), and one wuz
the “Judgment of Paris.”
I hadn’t no idee before that Paris jedgment wuz so perfectly beautiful;
I spozed it wuz kinder triflin’. They seemed, as fur as I could make
out, to be a-samplin’ apples--lovely creeters they wuz that wuz
standin’ round.
And then there wuz “Phaeton in the Chariot of the Sun.”
It didn’t look a mite like our phaeton--fur more magnificent.
Room after room opened into each other, all different as stars differ
from each other, but every one full of glory; all full of the treasures
of every land--Persia, Egypt, and every other.
The hired man drawed our attention to the presents of kings and
princes, and all the rare objects of art and virtue.
But I sez, “As fur as virtues is concerned, I d’no as kings would be
any more apt to git hold of ’em than common men, or so apt, but,” sez
I, “call ’em perfectly beautiful, and I agree with you.”
In them magnificent and immense rooms are picters by Landseer, Holbein,
Salvator Rosa, Raphael, Rubens, Claude Lorraine, Correggio, Hogarth,
Titian, Michael Angelo, etc. A great many with the autographs of the
painters--priceless, absolutely beyend price, are these works of art.
And if I should talk a week, I couldn’t describe all the beautiful
objects we see there, so valuable that one on ’em would make a man rich.
In one room wuz a clock of gold and malachite--a present from the
Emperor Nicholas, worth a thousand guineas, and a broad, shinin’ table
of one clear sheet of transclucent spar, and a great table of clear
malachite. I’d be glad to git enough of it for an earring for Tirzah
Ann.
In one room we see a picter by Holbein of Henry VIII., and a rosary
belongin’ to him. I wondered as I looked on’t what that poor, misguided
creeter ust to pray about as he handled them beads. He couldn’t want
any more wives than he had, it seemed to me. Mebby he wuz a-wishin’
some of the time that he wuz back with Katharine, that noble creeter
who said--
“Weep, thou, for me in France, I for thee here;
Go count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.”
And when they had that lawsuit of theirn (he gittin’ after another
woman, and wantin’ to git rid of her), after he’d bought off the jedge,
Katharine sez to Henry--liftin’ her right arm up towards Heaven--
“_There_ sits a Jedge no king can corrupt.”
Noble, misused creeter! I’ll bet if them beads could have told what
wuz said over ’em, they would have said that Henry thought of her, his
lawful wife, when his memory wuz sick of recallin’ Anne Boleyn, Anne of
Cleves, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. But to resoom.
We see the bed that George II. died in. The chairs and footstools
used by George III. and his queen. And the two chairs used by William
IV. and Queen Adelaide at their coronation. And then we see the most
beautiful tapestry that ever wuz made, and busts and statutes. Richly
colored, priceless old china filled the splendid cabinets inlaid with
finest mosaic work--in fact, the hull length of these rooms, openin’
into each other so that you could see their hull length of 550 feet,
wuz full of the most costly and beautiful objects man ever made.
The oak floor wuz polished, and shone like a mirror.
The library wuz one hundred feet long of itself, with columns risin’
from floor to ceilin’ and a gallery runnin’ round it, and two more
openin’ out of it, with alcoves of Spanish mahogany, these full of
picters by Landseer and others, and medallions, etc., etc., etc., and
full of the choicest literature of every land.
And then there wuz a private chapel that went ahead of any
meetin’-house I ever see or ever expect to, all marble and spar and
wonderful wood-carvin’s, and picters from the old masters filled it
full of beauty and glory. Faith and Hope wuz there all carved out
beautiful, so’s you could see ’em right before you, as well as feel ’em
in your heart.
In the sculpter gallery is the most wonderful treasures, busts and
statutes and mosaics, relicks from every land and age, and beautiful
figgers, almost alive, by Canova, Powers, Thorwaldsen, Gibson,
Bartolini, etc., etc. Some wuz presented by emperors and kings,
and some on ’em bought by the Duke and his folks. The hull room,
one hundred feet long, is full of the rarest treasures that can be
collected; it made my brain fairly reel beneath my best bunnet to see
the wealth of glory and beauty, and Al Faizi turned away from it a
spell and looked thoughtfully out of the winder.
But I see that here, too, wuz a picter that no artist could reproduce,
and so it wuz in every winder that you could look out of. A green,
velvety lawn a hundred feet wide and over five hundred long, bordered
by most beautiful colored flowers, and out of another winder you
could see the velvety slopes, with walks and river and bridge, and
way off the noble trees and terraces, one risin’ above another, all
full of beautiful plants and shrubs. And in the centre from the top
down, hundreds of feet, wuz a great flight of stun steps, thirty feet
wide, down which flows and sparkles a sheet of water, reflectin’ in
its mirror-like surface all the white statutes on its margin, till it
reaches the edge of the broad gravel walk, when it disapears right
down into the earth and flows off in some curous, underground way to
the river.
Josiah wuz all rousted up when he see this, and, as is the way of my
dear, ardent-souled companion, he tore a page out of his account-book,
and begun to make calculations on’t.
And I sez with a sithe--“What are you a-figgerin’ on now, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh! I’m plottin’ out a lovely addition to the beauty of our home,
Samantha--I’m a-plannin’ sunthin’ so uneek and fascinatin’ that it will
make the Jonesvillians open their eyes in astonishment and or.”
“What is it?” sez I.
“I’m a-plannin’ on how we can have a waterfall on our back doorsteps.”
Sez he, “I hain’t seen anything so perfectly beautiful and strikin’ as
this sence I come to the Old Country, and we can have one jest as well
as not. You know our back steps are quite high, and how beautiful they
would look with the sparklin’ water flowin’ down ’em--how refreshin’
it would be in hot weather to have a waterfall right on your own
doorsteps, and set in the open back door, right on its banks, as it
were, and hear the murmur of the water, and see it a-glidin’ down
towards the smoke-house. We might have it dissapear,” sez he, “between
the smoke-house and the ash-barrel.”
[Illustration: Josiah’s home-made waterfall.]
“Where would you git your water?” sez I coldly.
“Wall,” sez he, a-holdin’ up the paper with quite a lot of figgers and
marks on it, “I figgered it out that we might have a pipe go from the
kitchen pump, cut a little hole in the thrasholt to let it go in, and
there you would be.”
“And did you lay out,” sez I in frigid axents, “to have me stan’ there
a-pumpin’ all day to supply your waterfall?”
His mean begun to fall a little--it had been triumphant--and he sez
kinder meachin’--“You have to throw out your dish-water anyway, and you
might’s well throw it on the steps as to throw it in the dreen.”
“Wall,” sez I, “a fountain a-runnin’ dish-water would be a beautiful
spectacle, wouldn’t it, Josiah Allen?
“I guess it would astonish the eyes of the Jonesvillians, and their
noses, too!”
“I didn’t mean that!” he hollered quite loud.
“What did you mean, then?” sez I.
He agin murmured sunthin’ about the pump, the cistern, and the old mair.
And I sez, “That poor old mair agin!” Sez I, “If I hadn’t broke it up,
that mair wouldn’t live three days after we got home, with all you’d
put on her, a-apein’ foreign idees, Josiah.”
“I hain’t been a-apein’, and you know it!”
But I went right on--“Even if you could make it work, how could we git
into the house if the doorstep wuz turned into a waterfall?”
“Wall,” sez he, a-lookin’ up kinder cross, “I’ve hearn lots of times of
havin’ the bottom sash of a winder hung on hinges, and goin’ in and out
by ’em.”
“Wall,” sez I, “after you’d clumb up through the buttery winder onct
or twict with a pail of milk in both hands, I guess you’d git sick of
doorstep waterfalls!”
He see by the light of my calm, practical reasonin’ that his idee
wuz visionary and couldn’t be carried out, but he wouldn’t own up to
it--not he.
He jest jammed the paper down into his vest pocket, and snapped me up
real sharp the next words I said to him.
He acted awful growety; but I didn’t care, I knew I wuz in the right
on’t.
Wall, after goin’ through the brightest and most lovely garden you can
imagine, you come into a place with huge rocks and cliffs, romantic
shrubbery, massive ledges, and a waterfall fallin’ into a deep, dark
basin, caverns, etc., and as you go round a corner, you come face to
face with a huge rock that you think must have fell there. You think
you will have to go back; but no! Do you think you will have to turn
back for anything in this enchanted place? The hired man touches the
rock, and it turns right away and lets you pass, and then you see that
not only is the enchantin’ beauty of the place made, but the rough
wildness of this spot.
One of the curous things in this place wuz a tree with kinder
queer-lookin’ branches, and the hired man touched it somewhere, and
water flowed out of every leaf and twig, turnin’ it into a fountain.
The conservatory is from one end to the other two hundred and
seventy-six feet long, and broad enough to drive through it with a
carriage and four horses, so you can imagine the wealth of beauty in
it--orange-trees full of their glossy fruit, lemon-trees, feathery
palm-trees fifty feet high, bamboos, cactuses, bananas, queer, broad,
velvety leaves of every shape and color, and all of the flowers that
ever wuz hearn on, and never wuz hearn on, it seems to me.
There are thirty other greenhousen, all runnin’ over with beauty of
various kinds. Graperies seven hundred feet long, with the rich white
and purple clusters hangin’ down in every direction. Peach housen,
strawberry housen, apricot, mushroom, vegetable housen, in which every
kind of vegetable is raised. Why, the kitchen-garden and greenhousen
covers twenty acres. But there is no use of talkin’ any more--like
Niagara, and the World’s Fair, you have got to see it to understand its
vastness and its perfect beauty.
I wuz glad I’d seen it. I believe that even Martin wuz kinder took down
off from the Mount of Self Esteem he always sets on, as he wandered
through it.
He’d always prided himself quite a good deal of his home in the city,
and it is palatial and grand. But what comparison would it bear to
this? Not even--
“Like moonshine unto sunshine,
Or like water unto wine.”
No; it wuz like a small kerosene lamp unto sunshine. And he felt it,
Martin did. He didn’t patronize anybody for as much as three quarters
of an hour after he left there. He give the hired man a good-sized
piece of money, for I see him. It wuz so big that the man turned fairly
pale, and called Martin “Your Highness.” He sez--
“When will Your Highness return again?”
So we come off with flyin’ colors, after all.
Wall, seein’ that we wuz so near, Martin thought we’d ride over to
Haddon Hall, only a few milds away. This is one of the fine old
buildin’s of the Middle Ages. It stands on a rocky eminence above the
River Wye; over the great arched entrance is the arms of the Vernon
family, who occupied it for three hundred and fifty years.
[Illustration: Her common-sense shoe.]
As we passed in through a little door, cut in one of the broad sides
of the gates, we see, on the rough stun thrasholt, the impression of a
human foot, wore there by the innumerable feet of warriors, pilgrims,
ladies, troubadors, children, kings, and queens, for all I know.
Anyhow, she who wuz once Smith put her own common-sense shoe right into
the worn footprint, and stood there, kinder on one foot, and had more’n
eighty-seven emotions as she did so, and I d’no but eighty-nine or
ninety.
I had a sight, anyway, as we went into the stun courtyard, ornamented
with stun carvin’, into the interior.
Josiah didn’t take to it at all.
But, then, as I told him, what could you expect of a house where the
folks had been away for several hundred years--any place would look
kinder dreary.
But he sez, “Dum it all! when it wuz new, who’d like to have sech rough
stun floors? And look at that fireplace in the kitchen, big enough to
roast a hull ox. How could a man cut wood enough to keep that fire
a-goin’?”
Sez I, “The man of the house didn’t have to do it at all, his vassals
did it, Josiah.”
“Wall, he had to tend to it, and I’d ruther do the work any time than
to keep a vassal a-goin’, that is, any vassal that I ever hired by the
month, or day.”
But in the great banquettin’ hall, with its oak rafters and long table,
where they feasted, at one end a little higher--for the quality, I
spoze--he ketched sight of the minstrels’ gallery at one end. And sez
he, his face lightin’ up, “The man of the house could git up there and
sing while the rest wuz eatin’, if he wanted to, and nothin’ said about
it.”
“Yes,” sez I pintedly, “if he _could_ sing; but,” sez I, wantin’ to git
his mind offen this unpleasant theme, sez I--
“I’d love dearly to see this table set out as it ust to be, and the
noble and beautiful a-settin’ round it, with boars’ heads on the table,
and great sides of beef, and gilded peacocks.”
“And jugs of ale and wine,” sez Josiah.
But I waved off that idee, but couldn’t wave it fur, for the beer
cellars wuz a sight to behold. They must have been drunk a good deal of
the time, jedgin’ from the accommodations for drinkin’.
Up the massive stun stairway we went into another big room, used as a
dinin’-room by the later occupants of the Hall.
Here over the fireplace are the royal arms, and under them, in old
English letters, the motto--
“Drede God, and honor the king.”
Goin’ up six heavey, oak, semicircular steps, we go into the ball-room,
over a hundred feet long, with great bay-winders, out of which you
see picters more beautiful than any that could be painted by the hand
of man--perfect landscape of quiet country, silvery stream, rustic
bridges, grand old parks, and the spire of the church from the distant
village pintin’ up to the blue sky.
Then through other rooms with Gobelin tapestry on the walls, still
holdin’ skripteral stories in its ancient folds.
Then through other rooms that are modern compared with the others, and
have been used in the present century. Here, agin, in one of ’em we see
Gobelin tapestry drapin’ the State bed.
Follerin’ the guide through a anty-room we come out into the garden on
Dorothy Vernon’s Walk.
Under the tapestry is concealed doors and passages, as the guide
showed us by pushin’ the folds aside, through which many a man or
woman, drove by Fear or Love, or some other creeter, had rushed for
refuge or secret meetin’.
The garden of Haddon Hall is picturesque and beautiful in the extreme.
Dorothy’s Walk, shaded by noble old trees, leads to the massive flights
of marble steps, down which she hurried with beatin’ heart and flyin’
steps to meet her lover, Sir John Manners, while her friends were
merry-makin’ in another part of the Hall, and never dreamed of her
flight.
Haddon Hall by this means passed into the family of Rutland, who lived
here till the first of this century. The Duke of Rutland keeps the
place in its ancient form, much to the delight of those who love the
old ways.
CHAPTER XVII.
JOSIAH HAS AN ADVENTURE.
Wall, Martin, who sometimes changes his mind, but don’t think he duz,
always a-sayin’ that it shows weak-mindedness and is a trait belongin’
to wimmen (which I never feel like disputin’, knowin’ that my sect has
in time past been known to be whifflin’; but so have men, too)--so
it didn’t surprise me much when he said that instead of proceedin’
directly to the Lake District from here he thought we would go first to
the home of Shakespeare. Sez he:
“I may be called to London any minute on business, and I feel that it
will be expected of me to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace anyway.”
Sez Martin, with a thumb in both vest pockets, and a benine,
patronizin’ look on his liniment--
“Shakespeare wrote a number of very creditable productions, and though
I never had the time to spare from more important things to peruse his
works--poems, I believe, mostly--yet I always love to encourage talent.
I think it is becoming for solid men, for progressive, practical men,
to encourage writers to a certain extent; and Shakespeare, as I am
aware, has been very much talked of. I would be sorry to miss the
chance of saying to those who inquire of me that I had been there, so I
believe we will proceed there at once.”
“Wall,” I sez, “I shall be glad enough to go;” and Al Faizi looked
tickled, too. He had read him, he said, in his own country.
And sez he to me, with his dark eyes all lit up, “To read Shakespeare
is like looking into clear water and seeing your own face reflected in
it, and earth, and mountain top, and over all the Heavens. And it is
more than that,” sez he, “it is looking into the human mind and reading
all its secrets--all the wonder and mystery of the soul; it is like
looking at life, and death, and eternity.”
He wuz dretful riz up in his mind a-talkin’ about it, and he quoted
Shakespeare quite often on our way to Stratford, and always in the
right place, and he is generally so still, that I see, indeed, how he
felt about him. Alice talked, too, quite a good deal about Shakespeare.
And Al Faizi listened. Yes, he listened to Alice--poor creeter! And
everybody blind as a bat but jest me.
Wall, we got there anon or a little before, and put up to the Red Horse
Inn, a quaint, old-fashioned tarvern, but where we had everything for
our comfort, and wuz waited on by as pretty a red-cheeked girl as I
want to see.
[Illustration: A quaint, old-fashioned tarvern.]
A sight of emotions wuz rousted up in me as I sot in that tarvern, or
walked through its old-fashioned, low-ceiled rooms and meditated on who
had been under its ruff.
When rare Ben Jonson, and Drayton, and Garrick, and all of
Shakespeare’s friends come down from London to visit him, of course
they stopped here, and of course Shakespeare himself often and often
come here--mebby too often for Miss Shakespeare’s feelin’s.
Much as I honor Shakespeare, I have to admit that he did stimulate
a little too much--but, then, who hain’t got their failin’s? Why,
Solomon, the very wisest man, had more wives than he ort to had.
Seein’, I spoze, that we wuz Americans, our supper that first night
wuz served in Washington Irving’s room, as they call the room that he
occupied, our own genial wit and poet. Mebby his words didn’t come in
rhyme, but they had the soul of poetry, and quaint, sly wit, and good
sense and good manners and everything.
I always sot store by Washington Irving. (I had got acquainted with him
through Thomas J.)
Alice quoted a lot from Irving, and a lot from Shakespeare, while we
wuz to the table, and I felt their presence in my heart.
Wall, I wuz so kinder beat out that night, that, as poets say, “I
sought my couch” to once, a good-lookin’ oak bedstead, with a teester
cloth overhead, and some curtains hangin’ down on each side.
The weariness I had gone through with that day, mixed in with the
powders Mr. Morpheus keeps by him, brung on a sleep almost imegiately
and to once. And I wuz sweetly a-dreamin’ of seein’ the Jonesville
steeple a-pintin’ up through a ile paintin’ of cows and calves. Philury
wuz a-peacefully milkin’ one of the cows, while Ury, a-settin’ on the
steeple with a pail of skim milk, wuz a-tryin’ to bagon one of the
calves to him, but a Madonna with a long beard poked at the calf with a
sceptre and made it kick.
It wuz a sweet, tender dream of home, tinged slightly with the
surroundin’s we had been surrounded by on our tower.
But anon as the Madonna and Philury changed into two gorgeous altar
pieces, and Ury leaned near the calf and fed it out of a stained-glass
winder--
Even at that very minute a sharp scream cut through the silence of
night, like the ragged thrust of a bread knife through a loaf of light
bread.
Once, twice, three times, did that cry ring out, and then I heard
the sounds of rapid footsteps, and anon the door busted open, and my
pardner rushed in and slammed it shet and clicked the bolt to.
And then he sunk down in his chair and almost buried his face in his
hands.
I riz up on my piller, and sez I in agitated axents--
“What is the matter, Josiah?”
Sez he from out from under his hand, “I’ve done it now!”
“Done what?” sez I.
“Don’t ask me!” sez he, a-shudderin’ visibly; “it is nothin’ you want
to know.”
But his words made me more and more determined to know the worst, as
wuz nateral they should. And finally he said in a surly, cross way--
“Wall, if you must know, I’ve been into a woman’s room.”
“Been into a woman’s room!” sez I coldly; “what did you want in a
woman’s room?”
“I didn’t want nothin’--Heaven knows I didn’t, only to git out agin.”
“Who wuz it?” sez I in stern axents.
“I d’no--she wuz a perfect stranger to me,” sez he, with his face still
hid in his hand.
“Wuz she good-lookin’?” sez I in the same stern tones. I hain’t a mite
jealous, as is well known, but I felt that I wanted to know the worst.
“Don’t ask me,” sez he; and he continued fiercely, “What business has a
woman to be up a-ondressin’ herself at this time of night? Why wuzn’t
she to bed and covered up?”
Sez he, a-growin’ more and more excited and fierce actin’--“I’m a-goin’
back and tell that woman that it is a shame and a disgrace to be up and
ondressed at this time of night. Why wuzn’t her door locked, if she had
to ondress?”
“What business wuz it of yours?” sez I. “Do you spoze she expected you
to be a-prowlin’ round her room and a-prancin’ in, onbeknown to her?”
“Gracious Peter!” sez he in pitiful axents; “duz she think I wanted to
be there?”
“Why did you go in, then?” sez I.
“Because I made a mistake!” he thundered out. “I thought it wuz our
room. How should I know that there wuz a dum, red-headed fool there
a-ondressin’ herself at this time of night? Why wuzn’t she abed--up,
and skairin’ a man half to death?”
“If you’d kep’ out, Josiah, you’d have escaped,” sez I more softer
like, for I see by his axents that he wuz a-sufferin’ from fear and the
effects of the shock.
Sez I, “Be calm; accidents will happen, Josiah. Come to bed, and try to
forgit it.”
[Illustration: Sez he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty.”]
“I won’t try!” sez he. “I’m a-goin’ back and give that dum fool and
loonatick a piece of my mind. What henders some other man from walkin’
in?” Sez he, “I’m a-goin’ back--it is my duty!”
I riz up and laid holt of him, and sez I, “Do you stay where you be,
Josiah Allen. I should think you’d done enough for one night.”
Sez he, “What henders Martin and Fazer from walkin’ in jest as I did,
and bein’ skairt to death?”
Sez I, “Martin and Al Faizi know enough to take care of themselves, and
it is your place to go to bed and behave yourself.”
“A-ondressin’ herself at this time of night!” he kep’ a-mutterin’ as he
put his vest down on a chair.
“What are you a-doin’?” sez I.
“Wall, there hain’t a lot of strange wimmen round, is there?”
I see it wuz vain to dispute the pint. He acted deeply injured, and as
if the woman had made a plot to skair him, and I had to gin up the idee
of wringin’ any jestice out of his words and demeanors in the case.
But the next mornin’ he felt calmer, and didn’t seem to blame her so
much, and admitted that she had to ondress, and said of his own accord
that mebby he had been too hard on her.
But he wuzn’t quite reconciled, I could see, and felt deeply that he
might have escaped the shock if she hadn’t ondressed.
Wall, our first visit wuz to Shakespeare’s birth-place. We sot out
bright and early.
It is a long, old-fashioned-lookin’ house, with three gabriel ends in
the ruff on front, and kinder criss-cross-lookin’, some like a big
checker-board, the cross pieces of oak filled in with plaster, I should
jedge.
We first went into the kitchen, with its wide, open fireplace, and how
I felt when I thought that here, right here, in this spot, the immortal
Shakespeare had often sot, with his feet and face burnin’ hot, and his
back a-freezin’, as is the way with them old fireplaces!
But no matter how his body felt or didn’t feel, think of that mind,
that soul that wuz caged in here between these narrer and queer-lookin’
walls. What visions them eager, bright eyes ust to see in the burnin’
flames! What shadders and shapes the clouds of smoke took as they
floated up and away! How his soul follered ’em! How he sailed off into
strange heights and depths, sech as no other writer ever did, or can,
foller and explore! How the mind of the Infinite must have brooded over
that little sleeper that lay over three hundred years ago in that low,
shabby room upstairs--a small, dreary-lookin’ apartment, with the walls
covered with the names of visitors and verses, etc.
We went up to it on a steep, narrer stairway. Martin had to take off
his tall hat or he couldn’t have got in--I d’no whether he would or not
if he hadn’t had to. I wuz proud to see that my pardner took off his
hat the minute we got inside; I wuz proud of the reverence he showed
for genius, and told him so.
But he said he forgot that it wuzn’t meetin’, it seemed some like
it, he said, all dressed up at ten in the mornin’, and goin’ off all
together.
After I spoke he wuz a-goin’ to put his hat on agin, but I sez--
“If you’ve blundered into reverential and noble ways, Josiah Allen,
don’t, for pity sake, break it up.”
Of course my pardner always takes off his hat when goin’ into housen,
visitin’, or callin’, or sech, or in our own residence. But on our
travels, goin’ through big, cold buildin’s, dungeons, etc., he’s made a
practice of keepin’ it on, bein’ bald, and sufferin’ in his scalp from
cold.
But here, in this place, this hant of genius, I felt for about the
first time sence I had been huntin’ antiquities, that I’d love to take
off my own bunnet and dress-cap, but I spozed that the move would draw
attention and call forth remarks, so I kep’ ’em on.
But my sperit knelt bareheaded and bowed itself down before this shrine
of Wisdom and Genius, this earthly abode of one who showed what a grand
and divine thing the human mind may be; who held the secret of all
things common and transcendent--all things “that are dreamed of in our
philosophy” and more--
This magician, who showed “what fools we mortals be,” and showed to
what heights of wisdom men may attain--
Who held up his wonderful microscope and let mortals look through it
into the inside of their own hearts and feelin’s and emotions. And who
held up a lookin’-glass to Mom Nater, so she could see her old face in
it, every beauty and every deformity--
Who plunged us into the depths of sorrerful and heart-breakin’
experience, bewitched us with his wit, and brung us up so clost to the
divine good that we almost feel the beatin’ of the great heart of love.
Wonderful magician, indeed, and havin’ sech feelin’s for him for years
and years (ketched a good deal from Thomas J., who admires him beyend
any tellin’), I felt that it wuz strange indeed that she who wuz once
Smith should stand right here in the place where he had once lived.
Al Faizi felt jest as I did, only more so--jest as still waters run
deepest. I could talk with my companion yet, and the others, but he
stood reverent and silent, and walked through the rooms like one in a
dream, in which sech visions come that it “give us pause.”
But, as I say, I could still talk some--I seem to be made that way that
conversation is hard to smother in my breast. Lots of wimmen are made
jest so, and men too.
Martin wuz talkin’ fluently to Alice and Adrian as they went from spot
to spot in the old house, and Martin wuz, I spozed, a-layin’ up a fount
of memories that the public could tap, and valuable information would
flow for their refreshin’.
But anon I missed my pardner; but even as my Thought wuz a-reachin’
after him, as it always must while it is yoked to my constant Heart, he
come up to me with joy in his mean and a piece of paper in his hand,
and sez he, with a glad and joyous axent, in which, too, pride wuz
blendin’, about a third of each ingregient a-makin’ up his hull mean.
Sez he, “I have been a-writin’ a poem in the visitors’ book, Samantha,
and I copied it off for you on a leaf out of my account book--I knew
that you would want to see it, and then I shall keep the copy in my tin
trunk with my money and deeds.”
I groaned instinctively, but suppressed it all I could as I sez--
“Let me know the worst to once! What have you writ?”
He proudly ondid the paper, and I read--
“I, Josiah,
Am settin’ by the fire,
Am right on the spot
Where Shakespeare sot;
I’m proud to be there,
Though I spoze, from what Samantha sez,
that it hain’t the same chair.”
“There,” sez he proudly, as he folded up the paper, and put it into his
portmoney. “There hain’t a verse here on these hull walls or on the
visitors’ book that will compare with that.”
“No,” sez I coldly, “there hain’t--Heaven knows there hain’t.”
Sez he proudly, “It has three great qualities, Samantha--it is terse,
melodious, and truthful. Shakespeare’s chair wuz sold two hundred years
ago to a Russian princess, and they’ve kep’ on a-sellin’ the original
chair several times sence, so how could it be here? If I’d been writin’
in prose, I should a said that it wuz a dum humbug!”
And here he paused reflectively and dreamily.
“I might have said sunthin’ strong and strikin’ here--
“‘It makes me mad as a June bug
To see ’em try to humbug.
‘Josiah.’
“You know that June bugs hum,” and he murmured dreamily, “humbug, and
bughum; it would have been very ingenious, and I might say sunthin’
strong about ‘tire,’ to rhyme with ‘Josiah,’ about relicks bein’ made
to order. ‘It makes me tired,’ you know, only have it come all in
poetry,” sez he; “it would be dretful appro_poss_.”
Sez I coldly, “What you mean by that, I don’t have any idee.”
“Why,” sez he, “I see it in _The World_; it is French, and it means to
have anything come in appropriate--appro_poss_, you know. I should have
used it in my poem, but I couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with it
but hoss.”
Sez I, “_Tire_ is a good word to use in connection with your poetry.
Everybody would appreciate it, and hail it with effusion.”
“But,” sez he with a wise air, “you have to be so careful in poetry.
You can’t use strong phrases much, if any. And then, knowin’ that I
wuz writin’ in the same book with kings, etc., I felt that it must be
genteel and stylish. And I knew you always loved to be remembered, and
so I brung your name in, Samantha.”
“Yes,” sez I, “you brung it in in sech a way as to hurt his folkses
feelin’s as long as they make them chairs of hisen.”
“Wall,” sez he, “it looks well for pardners to remember each other, and
it’s a rare quality, too.”
I felt that he wuz right, and didn’t dispute him, and sez he--
“Samantha, I wanted you to be jined with me on the pillow of fame. I
don’t want to be anywhere where you hain’t, Samantha.”
His tenderness touched my heart, and I kep’ still and let him go on,
only I merely remarked--
“As for its bein’ melodious, Josiah, your first line has got 2 words
in it, and your last one seventeen.”
“Wall,” sez he, “that’s the way with great writers--they warm with
their subject as they go on, and git all het up with inspiration. Jest
think of Browning and Walt Whitman.”
Sez I, “Don’t go to comparin’ that verse of yourn with Browning. Why,
folks know what you wuz a-writin’ about! Don’t compare yourself with
Robert Browning.”
He see in a minute his deep mistake--he see that folks could find out
what he’d undertook to write about.
“Wall, Walt Whitman,” sez he, “he writ jest as long and short lines.
I’ve seen ’em to home in that ‘Leaves of Grass’ Thomas J. owns.”
“Wall, I wish your grass wuz to home, too,” sez I; “but,” sez I,
a-sithin’ hard, “I’ve got to stand it, I spoze. But,” sez I warmly,
“there hain’t a spot, from Egypt to Jonesville, but what I’d ruther had
you broke out into poetry in than in this house.”
And I turned onto my heel and left him, feelin’ cheap as dirt about it,
though I comforted myself with the thought that his poetry wuzn’t the
only foolish lines writ there.
[Illustration: Shakespeare’s ghost reading the effusions on the walls
of his house.]
I believe that if Shakespeare’s ghost comes back and hants this old
spot--as it seems likely to spoze it duz--about the hardest thing it
has to bear is to read the effusions writ all over the walls and in
the visitors’ book, though some on ’em are quite good.
Prince Lucian writ a very good verse. But, then, he writ in it that--
“He shed jest _one_ tear.”
How under the sun anybody can make calculations ahead on sheddin’ jest
_one_ tear, no more, no less, is a mystery to me, and it must have been
jest out of one eye, and not the other.
But bein’ a Prince, I spoze he done it; but I never could. I couldn’t
calculate closter than a dozen or twenty before I begun to cry, and I
couldn’t cry with one eye and keep the other dry to save my life.
Our own Washington Irving writ quite a good verse, and so did the
American Hackett--the best actor of some of Shakespeare’s characters.
Lots of actors have left their names in the room where the poet wuz
born--Edmund Kean, Charles Kean, and a great many others. And in the
visitors’ book you see writin’s from kings to chore-boys, and lines
in every language--English, German, French, Chinese, Hebrew, Persian,
Turkish, etc., etc., etc.
The Poet of the World has the world come to do honor to his memory.
Next to the thought that I wuz under the ruff that bent over the head
of Shakespeare wuz to see the writin’ of some who had writ their names
on the low walls.
Charles Dickens! Why, jest to look on that one name, writ by his own
hand, would have been enough, if I had been to home, to furnished me
with deep emotions for ten days. Nobody knows what my feelin’s have
always been for that man.
It hain’t quite so fashionable to love Dickens now as it ust to be. The
world has grown older and more genteel, and seems to prize more the
writin’s it can’t understand--the vaguer ones and more cross like, and
morbid, “Is Life Worth Living”--“No, it hain’t.”
“How to be Happy though Married.”
Ibsen, Tolstoi, etc., etc., etc., and so forth and so on.
But I lay out to like Dickens till, like Barkis, the high water comes,
and--“I go out with the tide.”
So his name, the Master, I laid my hand on’t, and had ninety-seven
emotions durin’ that time, and I presoom more, though truly I didn’t
count ’em.
And Thackeray, who laughs with us over the weaknesses of humanity, yet
once in a great while strikes sech a hard and onexpected blow onto our
hearts and feelin’s, that we look right under that cynical veil he
chose to wear, and see the great, tender heart of the man. His name,
writ by his own hand, gin me powerful emotions, and sights on ’em.
Lord Byron’s name rousted me up some. Poor, onhappy, restless creeter!
I wuz always sorry for him--sorry he wuz so mean and grand too--dretful
grand. I spoze he wuz so onhappy that he couldn’t help lettin’ it run
off the ends of his fingers sometimes onto the paper.
Some of his poetry uplifts you, like bein’ on a mountain-top in a
storm, and some is like a calm moonlight night in the tropics, and
still there is some on’t that I never felt willin’ that Josiah Allen
should read--I felt that it would be resky to allow it. As I looked
at his signature I instinctively sez over to myself a verse of
hisen, that always seemed to be kinder open-hearted, and ownin’ up,
and had a good deal of human nater in it. Some despair and some plain
curosity--they always seem to touch a chord in everybody’s nater--I
guess that most everybody sometimes feels jest about so, jest so kinder
curous to know what is comin’ next--
“My whole life was a contest since the day
That gave me being--
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay;
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive!”
Wall, he see the last thing arrive that we know anything about here.
What come next, after he shet his eyes in Greece (dyin’ nobly, anyway)
we can’t tell. But probble the one who formed that strange soul knew
jest what it needed the most, and deserved.
Probble that was the--“The next thing that arrived.”
But I am indeed a-eppisodin’, and to resoom--
Then there wuz Sir Walter Scott, and Tennyson, and Longfellow, and
everybody else, as you may say, who have distinguished themselves in
literature and art, and lots of Lords and Ladies, but them I didn’t
mind so much, knowin’ that for the most part that they had been born
into their lofty places onbeknown to ’em, but the others had made the
high pinnacles for themselves, and then stood up on ’em.
In another room we see lots of relicks of the past. Josiah nudged me
once or twict a-lookin’ at ’em, I spoze to call attention to his poetry
and his doubts. But I declined to be nudged, and never looked up at him
at all, but kep’ my eye on the relicks.
One is a seal ring of Shakespeare’s, with his initials, W. S., tied
together with a true lover’s knot. It wuz found near Stratford
meetin’-house, twenty years ago and over, and is spozed to be really
his ring, as he said sunthin’ in his will that shows that he had lost
his seal ring.
Then there is a letter writ to Shakespeare by Richard Quincy, askin’
the loan of some money.
I sez to Josiah, “Whether he got it or not, if he could come back now
he could sell that letter of hisen for enough to make him comfortable.”
“Yes,” sez Josiah; “I would give fifty cents for it myself, or
seventy-five, if he would take it in provisions.”
“Hush!” sez I, “you couldn’t git it for that, for this letter, I feel,
is genuine. It seems so nateral, borrowin’ money of a writer. Why,” sez
I, “truth is stomped onto it.”
Then there wuz the desk that Shakespeare sot at when a boy. A rough,
battered desk it wuz, with the lid lifted by leather hinges.
I sot down to it and leaned my head onto my hand and
thought--thought--of how he felt when he wuz a-settin’ at it, and
wondered if he had boyish joys or boyish sorrers jest like the rest of
children. And if he scribbled poetry when he ort to be studyin’ his
rithmetic, and whether old Miss Shakespeare, his ma, sent him off to
school happy, with fond words and a kiss, or kinder mad from a spankin’.
To spank Shakespeare! My soul revolted from the thought.
Or whether, while he sot here, he studied his schoolmates and teachers
with eyes that must have held some fur-seein’ wisdom in ’em even at
that age, or whether his mind wuz all took up with goin’ in a-swimmin’
in the clear waters of Avon, or a-goin’ a huntin’, or a-nuttin’ in
his rich neighbor’s woods, Sir Thomas Lucy, who looked down with sech
disdain on William when a boy and a young man, and now whose only
earthly chance of bein’ held in any remembrance is the fact that he
misused Shakespeare.
But then mebby William wuz tryin’, boys are sometimes.
I wondered if while he wuz a-settin’ here where I sot any dreams of
Anne Hathaway begun to come into his brain. She must have been about
eighteen, allowin’ that William wuz ten; mebby some dreams of the
pretty young girl hanted the boy’s vision, edgin’ themselves in between
thoughts of play and study. But before long them little dreams wuz
a-goin’ to rise up and push every other vision out of his mind.
And then there wuz Shakespeare’s jug, and the old sign of the Falcon--I
hated to see ’em.
And some old deeds and documents relatin’ to his father’s property,
from John Shackspere and Mary his wyffe, and a deed with Gilbert
Shakspere’s autograph on it.
And lots of engravin’s of different places about Stratford, and a great
many portraits of Shakespeare.
[Illustration: A great many portraits of Shakespeare.]
Poor creeter! if he and Columbus have got acquainted with each other
where they be now, as I spoze it is nateral to think they have, how
they must sympathize with each other over the numerous faces they wuz
said to have had on this planet! Noble creeters, it wuz too bad, when
they only had one apiece, and good, noble-lookin’ ones, I most know,
or they wuz, anyway, when they got older, for Time, the sculptor, must
have sculped some of their noble traits into their faces.
Martin and Alice bought quite a number of steroscopic views, and I
bought a few, and would, though Josiah looked askance at me as I did
it, and we left the cottage. But I laid my hand on the doorway as I
went out, as though it wuz a shrine, as indeed it wuz.
Wall, havin’ seen the place where he wuz born, we naterally wanted to
see the place where he is a-layin’, where “After life’s fitful fever
he sleeps well,” havin’ “Ended the heartache, and all the natural ills
that flesh is heir to.”
So we sot out for Holy Trinity Church. New Place, as it wuz called,
where Shakespeare spent the last days of his life, and where his girl
entertained Queen Henriette, wuz torn down in 1757 by its owner, who
had moved away, and didn’t want to pay the heavey taxes levied on it.
While livin’ there, he had cut down the mulberry-tree Shakespeare
planted, because folks thronged into his garden so, and cut off twigs,
etc., for relicks; so he cut it down.
It seems mean in him, and then, on the other hand, it would be hard for
us to be broke in on any hour of the day, sometimes when we had a hard
headache, and wanted to set quiet under our own vine and mulberry-tree,
to have a gang of enthusiastick tourists come, and not only break up
your quiet, but break off your branches over your achin’ head, and
mebby recite Shakespeare right there in broad daylight, and declaim,
and elocute, and act.
It would be tuff--tuff both ways. But the young folks of Stratford
wuzn’t megum--they didn’t try to see on all sides, as she who wuz once
Smith tries to do, so they used to pelt his winder with stuns and
things, so he moved out. And much as I honor and revere Shakespeare,
I feel kinder sorry for the man, mebby because nobody else seems to
say a decent word for him. But I believe he see trouble, with taxes,
tourists, elocution, and sech. And because our eyes are sot on a
blazin’ sun that is shinin’ high in the Heavens, it hain’t no sign that
we ort to kick over every kerosene lamp and candle that we come acrost.
No; less be jest to all, and respect what is respectable in ’em, and be
sorry for humble trials, as well as proud of lofty glories.
But to resoom--The house that stands on the spot now is owned by the
town, and is a museum of Shakespeare’s relicks and souvneirs. It is
needless to say how many emotions I had as I walked onwards towards the
tomb of the greatest writer who has ever appeared on our planet--in
fact, I couldn’t count ’em or begin to, if there wuz any need on’t.
Nor nobody couldn’t see the crowd that walked with me--King
Lear, with sweet Cordelia a kinder holdin’ him up; eloquent
Portia, Lady Macbeth--the Henrys and Richards--the bright-faced
Shrew that wuz tamed--Prince Hamlet--Ophelia a-babblin’ her love
ditties--Imogene--poor Desdemona, and her folks, and etc., etc., etc.,
etc., etc. How they pressed round me!--a great deal nigher to me than
Adrian wuz, though I wuz a-leadin’ him by the hand.
The church stands near the banks of the sweet Avon. And we went up to
it by a avenue of trees, and through a great Gothic door, into a porch
that led into the church itself. The old sexton, who had onlocked the
door for us, at our request led us right up to the monument, which is
in a niche in the chancel, and is spozed to be a perfect likeness, as
it wuz made by a sculptor who wuz acquainted with Shakespeare, and who
had a death mask to work from.
There he stands or sets, as the case may be, for a sort of a marble
cushion comes up in front of him, and you can’t see quite to the bottom
of his vest.
He stands (or sets) with that high, noble forward and good-lookin’
featers, and eyes that look clear through your soul, and that deep
collar of hisen on, under a arch that has some cupids up on each side
on top, and coats-of-arms, and skulls, and things.
And there he has stood (or sot) through the centuries, jest as I spoze
he would wanted to, with a paper in one hand and a pen in the other, to
all appearance a-writin’, and the hull world a-readin’ it.
In front of the altar rails are the marble slabs over the graves of the
Shakespeare family, among them his wife, Anne Hathaway; it reads as
follers--
“Here lyeth interred the body of Anne,
Wife of William Shakspere, who depted this life the
6 day of Aug. 1623, being of the age of 67 years.”
Another slab marks the grave of Susanna, the poet’s daughter.
But, of course, the slab that gin me the biggest sized emotions, and
the greatest number on ’em, wuz the one over the poet, which has these
mysterious and immortal lines on’t--
“Good friend, for Jesu’s sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare;
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And cursed be he yt moves my bones.”
I had a immense emotions of or as I read these words, and dassent
hardly lay my hand on’t. But made up my mind that as I didn’t have no
idee of movin’ his bones, and laid out to spare the stuns, I might
venter.
There are them that think that some great secret wuz buried with
Shakespeare--them are the ones that are so sot on thinkin’ that Bacon
wuz the one who writ the great plays, and they say in this very
inscription is hid in cypher a confession that Bacon writ ’em.
But I didn’t seem to think so, nor Josiah didn’t, though he wuz all
took up with the idee of the cypher, as Martin broached it.
Sez he, “How beautiful it would be, and how stylish, to write to you
when you’re off on your towers with a cypher! I could write it in
poetry, and it would be so uneek, and if I wanted to complain to you
about the children, or Ury, or anything, how handy it would be!”
“But,” I sez, “in answer to that idee of yourn, I can quote to you the
first line of Shakespeare’s epitaph, and I feel it, too,” sez I.
He went back and read it over agin, and come back lookin’ real puggicky.
But I see that other folks had felt jest as I did about disturbin’ the
slab, for it looked fresh and new, while the other ones near it wuz all
worn with the footprints of time and the tourists; and when the poet’s
wife and daughter died, they wanted dretful to be laid by William, but
they dassent open the grave. The curse he threatened held ’em back.
Queer! I wish I knew what he meant by it, but can’t; the silence of
three hundred years can’t be broke by one small woman’s voice, or
ruther one woman’s small voice. No answer comes to our deep wonder and
curosity.
In this church is the font where Shakespeare wuz baptized--this wuz
in the church at the time of his birth, but wuz took out in the
seventeenth century, and replaced by a new one; this old one lay for
years in a heap of rubbish, and wuz used for a pump trough for a
spell--jest think on’t!
[Illustration: The font in which Shakespeare was baptized.]
There is other interestin’ things in the church, but we didn’t wait to
see ’em. We went out and wandered for a spell around the quaint streets
of Stratford. Every shop almost has souvneirs to sell of the great
man--busts and medallions and picters of him and his home, and his
tomb, and carvin’s, engravin’s, etc., etc. I _would_ buy a plate with
his birthplace on’t, though Josiah demurred.
Sez he, “I always thought you wuz so peticular, Samantha, what you
eat on, and the idee of eatin’ on Shakespeare--cow-slop greens, for
instance, or pork and beans.”
I sez, “It hain’t Shakespeare’s face.”
“Wall, eatin’ cabbage and onions on a meetin’-house.”
“It is _his_ house,” sez I.
“Wall,” sez he, “custard and Shakespeare’s birthplace.”
“Wall,” sez I, “what of it--what of custard and Shakespeare?” My tone
wuz cold--cold as ice, and it danted him, and he sez--“Oh, wall, if you
can reconcile ’em, and bring ’em together, buy it.”
It wuz the money he begreched, though you could git ’em from a sixpence
up. I gin a shillin’ for mine. It wuz a good plate.
Wall, we went acrost the old bridge, over the clear waters of the Avon.
And we visited the Memorial Hall, a big buildin’ built in honor of
the poet’s three hundredth anniversary. It has a theatre to act out
Shakespeare’s plays on Memorial days, and a library filled with the
volumes that have been writ about him, and the picter gallery is filled
with picters, some on ’em different faces of hisen, and them relatin’
to his life and writin’s. It wuz a interestin’ spot, and I would have
loved to lingered in it longer, and so would Alice and Al Faizi, but
Josiah wuz tired out, and he sed to me aside--
“It is most night and I am starved to death!” Sez he, “I hain’t most
starved, but starved.”
“Wall,” sez I, “we shall have to do what Martin sez.”
“Martin!” he whispered enough to take my head off--“Martin! Can he
suffer and die for me, do you think?”
And then he reviled me for not havin’ some cookies and cheese with me.
And I asked him if I could be expected to make a restoraunt of myself,
and lug round cookies and cheese for him all over Europe. And we had
some words.
But the expression of his face wuz pitiful in the extreme when Martin
come up, and sez he--
“Without doubt it would be expected of me to visit Shottery and see
Anne Hathaway’s cottage. And as my time is limited, and I have already
wasted nearly a day of my valuable time in noticing Shakespeare, I
think that we had better do up the whole of this weary job to-night; so
I propose that we go at once from here to Shottery.” And he hurried out
to the carriage.
Josiah whispered to me in a feeble voice, “He needn’t use any Shottery
on me or stabbery or any other killery, I shall fall dead without ’em.
I cannot stand it, Samantha!” sez he.
He did indeed look wan; weariness and hunger had made sad inroads on
his mean, and my heart melted, and I hurried out to see if I could
gain Martin’s consent to wait till mornin’ before we went. But no! He
said he knew that he should be asked if he had seen the cottage, and
he could not waste another day on a writer of books and the girl he
married.
Alice come out jest then a-lookin’ considerable pale, and I sez, “It is
goin’ to be pretty hard on Alice and Adrian; they are pretty tired now.”
“Are they?” sez he. That man would have jumped into the Avon if it
would have pleased either of ’em. He worships ’em. And then he sez, “I
suppose I can stay over another day.” Sez he, “They are of the _first_
importance.”
[Illustration: The supper that man eat wuz enormous.]
Josiah sez to me aside--“Dear Samantha, you have saved my life!”
And the supper that man eat wuz so enormous that I whispered--
“Have I saved you, Josiah, to lose you now? saved you on the road and
relicks, to lose you on a plate and deep dish?” And he didn’t like it.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SHOTTERY AND WARWICK CASTLE.
Wall, the next mornin’ we sot out bright and early for Shottery, Josiah
feelin’ as peart as you please, and the two children’s faces lookin’
like roses. Al Faizi’s eyes wuz bent on the biggest and sweetest rose,
as you may say, with a worshippin’ look, that nobody noticed but she
who wuz once Smith.
We found the cottage a long, low buildin’, lookin’ as old as the hills,
though, like ’em, there didn’t seem to be no signs of fallin’ down and
decayin’.
They say it is in jest the condition it wuz when gentle Anne Hathaway
lived here, and drawed William over here so often by the strong
magnetism of love.
The walls wuz kinder criss-crossed, lookin’ some like Shakespeare’s
cottage, and the ruff wuz kinder histed up in places, down towards the
eaves, into gabriel ends. And some birds wuz playin’ and wheelin’ round
the chimblys. They might have been to all appearance the very same
birds that sang round the latticed winders of Anne’s room, and waked
her up on summer mornin’s, a-sayin’ to her, as they wheeled round and
round it, in the rosy dawn--
“Will is coming to-day to see you! Will loves you! Will loves you!”
I presoom the birds wuz relations to them very ones--grandchildren,
“removed” a great number of times.
If birds keep a family tree and plume themselves on their ancestors
(and trees and plumes comes nateral to ’em), I presoom they talk this
over amongst themselves; mebby that wuz jest what they wuz a-talkin’
about that day, a-twitterin’ about legends a-flyin’ down from the past--
How the happy, eager-faced lover ust to come to see their pretty Anne,
and how her heart wuz won, and she went out of the old house a happy
bride with the man of her heart, who wuz not an illustrious man to her
at all, but only Will, Will Shakespeare, the man she loved, and who
loved her.
How they did chirp and talk sunthin’ over! I d’no what it wuz.
Inside wuz some old-fashioned furniture, amongst the rest a bed that
ust to belong to Miss Shakespeare, she that wuz Anne Hathaway. Mebby it
wuz the same bedstead that her pardner left her in his will.
“His second-best bed and bed furniture.”
It seems as if he hadn’t ort to done it; it seems as if she ort to had
the best one. Howsumever, there might be reasons that I don’t know
nothin’ of that influenced him. Mebby they’d had words over it; mebby
she’d told him that she wouldn’t take it as a gift, and that he needn’t
give it to her; mebby she thought it wuz extravagant in him to buy
it, and throwed it in his face that as much as he paid for it, it wuz
nothin’ but hens’ feathers, and the second-best bed, the one her ma had
gin her, wuz as good agin and softer layin’.
I d’no, nor nobody don’t. Anyway, he willed it to her, and I presoom it
wuz on this very bedstead it wuz put; it gin me queer emotions to look
on’t, and a sight on ’em.
Wall, Martin sed that as the day wuz partially wasted, we might jest as
well drive over and see Warwick Castle; it wuz only eight milds’ drive.
The old town of Warwick is about eighteen hundred years old, and dates
back to the time of the Romans.
But, as Martin well sed, “Think of a town over eighteen hundred years
old with only ten thousand inhabitants, and then,” sez he, a-leanin’
back in the carriage and puttin’ his thumbs in his vest pockets
a-pityin’ and a-patronizin’ the Old World dretfully--
“Think of Chicago, about fifty years old and with a population of
about forty hundred thousand”--he spread out the population a purpose.
He owns lots of real estate in Chicago, and is always a-puffin’ it up.
Sez he, “They haven’t got public enterprise and push over here, as we
have.”
But his tone kinder grated on my nerve somehow, and I spoke up and sez--
“They don’t base their reputation on a mob of folks, and beef and pork;
they have sunthin’ more solider and more riz up like.”
But I’ll be hanged if I didn’t have to change my mind a little
afterwards, of which more anon.
You see I had heard Thomas J. read a sight about the old Saxon earls
of Warwick, and specially Guy Warwick in the time of Alfred the Great
(you know the man that fried them pancakes and burnt ’em, and had other
great reverses, but come out right in the end, as men always do who are
willin’ to help wimmen in their housework).
I always bore strong on this great moral when Thomas J. would be
a-readin’ these deeds to me (I thought he might jest as well wipe a
few dishes for me once in a while as well as not). And he’d read “how
Guy killed a Saxon giant nine feet tall, and a wild boar, and a green
dragon, and killed an enormous cow.”
At the porter’s lodge we see the rib of that cow, and Josiah said, “You
sed that they didn’t date back any of their greatness to beef; what do
you call this? Why,” sez he, “Ury and I kill a cow almost every fall;
nothin’ is said in history of it; you don’t set any more store by me.”
I see that I had done the man onjestice, and I sez tenderly, “You
are a good provider of beef, Josiah, and always have been; but,” sez
I, “this cow wuz probble twice the size of one of your Jerseys. You
couldn’t wear that breastplate, or swing that great tiltin’-pole, or
the enormous sword that hangs up there,” sez I, “you couldn’t move ’em
hardly with both hands, and,” sez I, “look at that immense porridge-pot
of hisen; you couldn’t eat that full of porridge, as he probble did.”
[Illustration: “You couldn’t eat that full of porridge.”]
“Try me!” sez he, earnestly--“jest try me, that’s all.” Sez he, “I
could eat every spunful and ask for more.”
And there it wuzn’t much after noon. That man’s appetite is a wonder
to me and has been ever sence I took it in charge. And foreign travel,
which I thought mebby would kind o’ quell it down, only seems to whet
it up to a sharper edge.
The way to the castle is through a large gateway, and then we go
through a roadway which is cut through solid rock for more’n a hundred
feet, and then when you come out, you suddenly git a full view of the
grand old castle, with its strong walls and noble old Round towers.
The first is Guy’s Tower, one hundred and twenty-eight feet high, and
has walls ten feet thick--jest think on’t! the walls further acrost
than our best bedroom.
Then there is Cæsar’s Tower, eight hundred years old and one hundred
and fifty feet high, and between these towers the gray, strong old
castle walls, with slits in ’em for the bowmen to shoot their arrers
out of, and portcullises and old moat, showin’ that the castle in its
young days had everything for its comfort and defence. Enterin’ one of
the arched gateways in the wall, you find yourself on the velvet grass
and amongst the stately old trees of a spacious courtyard, with the
ivy-covered walls and towers and battlements risin’ on every side of it.
We walked round up on them walls--clumb up into Guy’s Tower and looked
off on a glorious landscape, as beautiful as any picter, and went down
below Cæsar’s Tower into some dungeons; gloomy places of sorrer, filled
even now with the atmosphere of pain and agonized memories.
The great hall, sixty-two feet by forty, with oak ceilin’ and walls
darkened by time and covered with carvin’s, has firearms of all kinds,
and splendid armor of all ages--English crossbows, wicked-lookin’
Italian rapiers, weepons of all kinds inlaid with gold and silver in
the most elegant workmanship.
We see Prince Rupert’s armor, Cromwell’s helmet, a gun from the
battlefield of Marston Moor. And, in fact, all round you you see the
most elegant and curous curosities, and can look down the hull length
of the grand apartments that open into each other, a length of three
hundred and thirty feet--the red drawin’-room, the gilt drawin’-room,
the cedar drawin’-room, etc., etc.
At the end of a little hall leadin’ from the great hall I see the noted
picter of Charles 1st on horseback, with one hand on his side.
I declare, it actually seemed as if he wuz a-goin’ to ride right
in here amongst us, it wuz so perfectly nateral. It wuz painted by
Vandyke. I don’t see how Vandyke ever done it--I couldn’t.
The apartments are all furnished beautiful--beautiful. Cabinets,
bronzes, exquisite old china, magnificent anteek furniture, and the
most rare and beautiful picters are on every side--by Rubens, Sir
Peter Lely, Hans Holbein, Salvator Rosa, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Guido,
Andrea del Sarto, Teniers, Murillo, Paul Veronese. And beautiful marble
busts by Chantrey, Powers, etc. There wuz a lovely table that once wuz
owned by Marie Antoinette. And others had rarest vases on ’em, and
wonderful enamelled work of glass and china, with raised figgers on
’em, made by floatin’ the metals in glass; nobody in the world knows
now how to make ’em. One dish we see wuz worth one thousand pounds.
As I see this I nudged Josiah, and sez I, “When you think of what this
dish is worth, hain’t you ashamed of standin’ out about that plate?”
And he said--
“It wuz the sperit of the thing I looked at, mixin’ Shakespeare up with
vittles; though,” sez he, “I would gladly eat now offen a angel or a
seraphin; why,” sez he, “St. Peter himself wouldn’t dant me.”
“Wall,” sez I, “we’ll be havin’ dinner before long.” We laid out to eat
at Warwick before we went back.
Sez I, “Look round you and let your soul grow by takin’ in these noble
sights.” Sez I, “Look at them bronzes and tortoise-shell and ivory and
mosaic.”
Sez he, “I’d swop the hull lot of ’em, if they belonged to me, for
a plate of nut cakes or a bologna sassige. And I’d ruther see a good
platter of pork and beans than the hull on ’em!”
I knew he wouldn’t complain so much alone, so I left him and sauntered
round to look at the beautiful objects on every side.
In the state bedroom is the bed that belonged to Queen Anne, and the
table and trunks that she used, also her picter.
In the grand dinin’ hall is a great sideboard, made from a oak that
grew on the Kenilworth estate, so old that they spoze it wuz standin’
when Queen Elizabeth come here to the castle a-visitin’.
The carvin’s on it show the comin’ of Queen Elizabeth and her train,
her meetin’ with sweet Amy Robsart in the grotto, the queen’s meetin’
with Leicester, etc., etc.
Jest as I wuz a-lookin’ at this and a-standin’ before it in deep
thought, Martin come on out of the drawin’-room, and sez he--
“A wonderful display of art and virtu!” sez he.
My eye wuz bent on that sideboard, and I sez--
“I d’no as I’d call it a display of virtue--I don’t believe I would.”
I wuz sorry for Miss Leicester--sorry as a dog.
Though when I see the epitaph she put above that handsome, fascinatin’
mean creeter (her husband), put it over him her own self, when he
wuzn’t by her to skair her and make her stand up for him as pardners
will sometimes--I d’no as I wuz very sorry for her. Thinkses I, She
either didn’t know enough to know what her pardner wuz up to, or else
she wuz sech a fool she didn’t care about it. In either case I felt
that my sympathy wuz wasted--of which epitaph more anon.
Wall, we went through a place in the wall they called a portcullis, and
over a bridge called a moat.
[Illustration: “The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to
have one round our house.”]
And Josiah nudged me here, and sez he, “The more I see of moats, the
more determined I be to have one round our house.” Sez he, “How stylish
it would be and how handy! When you see company comin’ you didn’t want,
or peddlers or agents or anything, jest pull back your drawbridge, and
there you’d be safe and sound.” Sez he, “I’ve wanted one for years, and
now I’m bound on havin’ one.” Sez he, “Ury and I will start one the
minute I git home.”
Sez I, “You won’t do any sech thing.”
“Why,” sez he, a-arguin’, “it would be a boon to you, Samantha; hain’t
I hearn you groan when onexpected company driv up, and you wuz out
of cookin’ or cleanin’ house or anything? All you’d have to do would
be jest to speak to Ury or me, and jest as they wuz a-comin’ along,
a-thinkin’ of dinner mebby, a-wonderin’ what you’d have--bang! would go
the drawbridge, and they’d jest have to back up, and turn round and go
home.”
“Yes,” sez I; “how could I face ’em the next Sunday in meetin’? It
hain’t feasible,” sez I.
“Face ’em?” sez he; “if they said anything, tell ’em to start a moat of
their own; tell ’em you couldn’t keep house without one.”
“Oh, shaw!” sez I; “come and look at this vase.”
And, indeed, we had entered a greenhouse full of the most beautiful
flowers and rare plants, and wuz even then in front of the famous
Warwick vase. It is a huge, round, white marble vase that holds one
hundred and thirty-six gallons, with clusters of grapes and leaves and
tendrils; and vine branches, exquisitely wrought, run round the top
and form the two large handles, with other designs full of grace and
beauty all wrought in it. How old this vase is nobody knows, but it wuz
used by somebody probbly centuries before old Warwick Castle wuz ever
thought on.
Who wuz it that drinked out of it? How did they look? How come it sunk
in the bottom of the lake? I d’no, nor Josiah don’t.
It wuz found at the bottom of a lake near Tivoli by Sir William
Hamilton, Ambassador then at the court of Naples.
I gazed pensively on the vine-clad spear of Mr. Bacchus carved on it,
and sez I to Josiah--
“How true it is that that sharp spear that Mr. Bacchus brandishes is
covered with beautiful vines and flowers at first; but it stabs,” sez
I--“it stabs hard, and,” sez I, “who knows but somebody that had been
pierced to the heart by that spear of hisen, a-reachin’ ’em mebby
through the ruined life of some loved one--who knows but what he got so
sick of seein’ them symbols of drinkin’ revels that he jest pitched it
into the lake?”
“Keep on!” sez Josiah, “keep on! I believe you’d keep up your dum
temperance talk if you wuz on the way to the scaffold.”
“That would be the time to preach it,” sez I; “scaffolds is jest what
drinkin’ revels lead to, and if it wuz my last words, mebby folks would
pay some attention to what I said.”
“Wall, wait till then,” sez he. “I have got to have a little rest. I am
dyin’ for a little food, and if I git through this day alive I have got
to be careful, and let my _ears_ rest anyway.”
He did indeed look quite bad, and I sez soothin’ly--
“Wall, Martin will be for goin’ back before long now. He is gittin’
hungry himself; I heard him say so.”
We didn’t stop to but one more place on our way back to the tarvern
where we had dinner, and that wuz to that old horsepital founded by
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1571. It wuz meant in the first
place for one Master and twelve bretheren, the bretheren to be of
the Earl’s servants, or his soldiers who had been injured in battle.
But now they are appointed from Warwick and Gloucester, and have a
comfortable livin’.
It wuz quite likely in Robert to build this horsepital--a
old-fashioned-lookin’ place enough in 1895. But sech likely deeds as
this couldn’t cover up his black performances.
The chapel is an elegant buildin’, built for a memorial to the great
Earl of Warwick, the first in the Norman line, and his elaborate tomb
is here.
But it wuz in this chapel where I see the epitaph of which I spoke
more formerly. It is over the tomb of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
the one Queen Elizabeth thought so much on. There I see the epitaph I
despised.
On the tomb are the recumbent figgers of Leicester and his pardner, the
Countess Lettice. Probbly about the only time they wuz ever so nigh to
each other without quarrellin’, and this epitaph sez, after givin’ all
his titles--more’n enough of ’em--
“His most sorrowful wife Letitia, through a sense of conjugal love
and fidelity, has put up this monument to the _best_ and _dearest_ of
husbands.”
She must have been a _fool_, for besides his goin’s on with the
queen--which would made me as jealous as a dog--a learned writer says--
“According to every appearance of probability, he poisoned his first
wife, disowned his second, dishonored his third before he married her,
and in order to marry her, murdered her first husband, while his only
surviving son was a natural child by Lady Sheffield.”
“The _best_ of husbands!” What wuz Lettice a-thinkin’ on? She’d no need
to put his actin’s and cuttin’s up on a tombstun. I wouldn’t advised
her to; but I should say to her--“Now, Lettice, you jest put onto
that gravestun a good, plain Bible verse--‘The Lord be merciful to me,
a sinner,’ or, ‘Now the weary are at rest,’” or sunthin’ like that--I
should have convinced her. But, then, I wuzn’t there--I wuz born a few
hundred years too late, and so it had to be; but it made me feel bad to
see it. I want my sect to have a little self-respect.
Al Faizi is dretful well-read in history, and he took out that
little book of hisen, and copied off the hull of the inscription on
Leicester’s tomb, all the glowin’ eulogy of his glorious deeds, which
he knew wuz false. He didn’t say nothin’, as usual, but looked quite a
good deal as he writ.
I didn’t say nothin’ to him, but Josiah will att him once in a while
about his writin’, and he sez now--
“What are you a-writin’ about, Fazer?”
He turned his dreamy, pleasant eyes onto us, and seemed to be lookin’
some distance through us and beyend us, and the light from the East
winder fell warm on his face as he sez evasively--
“Your missionaries tell our people to always tell the truth--that we
will be lost if we do not.”
“Wall,” sez Josiah, “that is true.”
Al Faizi didn’t reply to him, but kep’ on a-writin’.
Wall, a happy man wuz my pardner as we returned to the tarvern, and a
good, refreshin’ meal of vittles wuz spread before him. He done jestice
to it--full jestice--yes, indeed!
Wall, the next mornin’ we sot out for the Lake Deestrict, accordin’ to
Martin’s first plan, which he’d changed some. Sez Martin, as we wuz
talkin’ it over that evenin’--
“It would, perhaps, be expected of me to go on and visit Oxford.”
“Yes,” sez I warmly, “Thomas J. has read so much to me about Tom Brown
at Oxford, it would be highly interestin’ to see the places Tom thought
so much on.”
“Yes,” sez Alice with enthoosiasm, “and where Richard the Lion-hearted
was born, and where Alfred the Great lived.”
Sez Josiah, “I wouldn’t give a cent to see where he lived. I despise
fryin’ flap-jacks, and always did, and if a man undertakes to fry ’em,
he ort to tend to ’em and not let ’em burn.”
But Alice went right on, “And think of being in the place which William
the Conqueror invaded!”
“And,” sez Al Faizi, “where Latimer, and Ridley, and Cranmer were
burned at the stake for their religion by Bloody Mary.”
It beat all how well-read that heathen is--he knows more than the
schoolmaster at Jonesville, enough sight.
But sez Martin, with his thumbs inside of them armholes of hisen--
“It is not for any such trifling reasons that I would visit Oxford,
but, as I say, it undoubtedly would be expected of me, if it was known
at Oxford that I was so near, that I would give a little of my valuable
time to them; for there, I have thought hard of sending my son to
finish his education.
“For as you know, Cousin Samantha, my boy is to have the best and
costliest education that money can give. His future is in the hands of
one who will look out sharply for the very best and most valuable means
of education. It is not as if he were a common child. But he is my
little Partner--are you not, Adrian?” sez he fondly to the little boy,
who wuz lookin’ dreamily out of the winder.
Adrian turned, and the gold of the settin’ sun wuz on his sweet face.
“Your father will look out for your future, little Partner; we will
work together for your good, will we not, my boy?”
Mebby it wuz because I sot there so nigh--mebby it wuz the perfume of
the English voyalets Alice had pinned into the front of my bask, jest
like ’em I wore that day, but, anyway, some recollection seemed to take
him back to that time at Jonesville, for he sez, jest as he did then--
“I am going to work for the poor.”
[Illustration: “I am going to work for the poor.”]
“Ah, indeed!” sez Martin, smilin’, “and how will you do it, little
Partner?”
Agin he turned his sweet face towards us, and agin the big, earnest
eyes and sweet, serious mouth wuz gilded by the glowin’, yet sad smile
of the sinkin’ sun.
And he sez simply, “I don’t quite know how, Father, but I know I shall
work for them, and help them in some way.”
Wall, Martin dismissed the matter with a laugh, but I kep’ the words in
my heart, and believed ’em. I believed truly that the Lord would lead
him, and make him do His work.
Wall, I kinder wanted to visit Mugby Junction, as Dickens named Rugby
Junction. It wuzn’t fur from Warwick, and I’d loved to seen it, and eat
one of them sandwitches, and been glared at by the female in charge
there, and her help, and seen her poor, browbeat husband and the _Boy_,
but didn’t know as they wuz all alive.
And if they wuz, as Josiah well sed, sez he, “My stumick is bad enough
now, without eatin’ leather sandwitches.”
And I sez, “I’d love to give ’em my recipe for good yeast bread, and
I’d willin’ly tell ’em how to make delicious sandwitches, and not ask a
cent for it.”
Sez I, “Take good minced chicken, or lamb, and a little mustard and
sweet butter, and a pinch of minced onions and--”
But Josiah interrupted me, “They’d only look stunily at you if you
offered your services; why,” sez he, “they always look as if they feel
so much above you at our railroad stations to home, that you want to
crawl into your hand-bag and git out of their way. They’d despise your
overtoors.”
“Wall,” sez I, “my conscience would be clear, and travellers’
nightmairs wouldn’t be so frequent.”
But a bystander observed that they had good sandwitches there now.
Havin’ been turned round in their stuny and leather course, by
Dickens, I spoze.
So we packed up our things and started in pretty good sperits for the
Lake Deestrict.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAKE DISTRICT AND ITS POETS.
We went to Windermere, and from there took the omnibus for Bowness--
One of the charmin’est little villages I ever sot my eyes on, as clean
as my kitchen is when I git it all swept out. The housen are all built
of stun, and some on ’em have little porches built out on ’em, but all
on ’em overrun with ivy. And flowers and pretty climbin’ plants make
every house attractive, and not a mite of dust or dirt--I wonder what
they do with it?
The little tarvern where we stayed wuz so clean and comfortable that
I wondered what the tarvern-keeper and his wife would say if they wuz
sot down in some of our own small hotels. It wuz a lesson in perfect
neatness and order, the hull place wuz.
And the landscapes all round the little village wuz pretty enough to
frame, and we see ’em more or less all the while we stayed there; we
made our headquarters there, and sallied out for excursions, a-lookin’
on picters on every side on us--green grass and foliage, high,
tree-covered hills, little, lovely, clean, picturesque villages like
them I have described, magnificent country seats, with grand entrances
and porters’ lodges, and stately green parks, and fountains, and deers,
and sleek herds of cattle walkin’ through on the velvet grass and
green tree aisles, and cottages, and quaint old bridges, and dark stun
churches half covered with ivy.
Bowness is on the shores of the lake. As I say, we put up at a good
tarvern, and the next day we sot out on our sight-seein’.
The waiter at the tarvern told us as we sot out on our first excursion
that we had better take our waterproofs and umbrells.
It is needless to say that I had my faithful umbrell in my hand, but
the rest hadn’t, so they got theirn, and I went back for my waterproof,
and glad enough we wuz, for before night we wuz ketched out in four
different showers--good drivin’ ones, but short.
Martin, who had been ust to fur bigger lakes--Michigan, Ontario,
Superior, and sech--wuz bitterly dissapinted in ’em, and sez he--
“A trout out of Lake Superior would die of thirst in one of these
lakes.”
And Josiah, who had been up on our lakes on a tower, sed that those
lakes would make a pretty good waterin’ trough for American cattle; sez
he, “There would be in each one of ’em as much as an ordinary Yankee
cow would want to drink.”
I see the driver a-lookin’ on in deep surprise, and sez I, “Josiah
Allen, remember you are a deacon; let it be known to once that you are
talkin’ in parables.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I would want to be took in that way, but they’re dum
small potatoes compared to our lakes.”
“But they’re beautiful,” sez I, “and are full of tender associations.”
Sez I, “Look at the poets that have hallowed these sacred
spots--Coleridge, and Southey, and Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans, and--”
“Wall,” sez Josiah, interruptin’ me, “on our lakes there is me, and--”
But I turned away in silent scorn, and looked out on the beauty of the
seen. Lovely picters lay round us on every side--wooded shores, lovely
islands, glowin’ waters--a paneramy of beauty never to be forgot.
Dove’s Nest, which wuz once the home of Mrs. Hemans, I looked on with
a deep interest, for though Felishy and I didn’t think alike about
little Casey Bianky, who “stood on the burnin’ deck,” and I should have
approved of his runnin’ away before he got burnt up, still I respected
her for quite a number of things, and as I meditated on the poets who
had loved this beautiful place, and lived here and wrote their songs,
I instinctively thought, in the words of Felishy--
“Where are these dreamers now?”
The biggest of these lakes are Windermere, Ullswater, Conoston and
Durwentwater, but there are a good many others. And they are all, like
our Niagara Falls and Thousand Islands, been turned into money-makin’
shows.
Wall, of course we wanted to see--
“How the waters come down to Lodore.”
But we wuz dretful dissapinted, for the water didn’t come a-sweepin’
down with the force and fury Mr. Southey described--not at all. Josiah,
who had hearn Thomas J. read the poem, wuz mad to think it wuzn’t so.
“And,” sez he, in a threatenin’ way--
“I could tell Mr. Southey that we didn’t know none the better for _his_
tellin’ ‘How the waters come down to Lodore.’
“Why,” sez he, “the mill-dam to our buzz-saw mill in Jonesville is
furious agin as this, and more noble and impressin’ lookin’ by fur,
and,” sez he, gettin’ all het up, “I’d love to tell Mr. Southey so.”
Sez I, “Josiah, don’t git nerved up and talk about jawin’ a man who
has been dead for more’n fifty years.” Sez I, “It don’t sound decent in
you--he meant well.”
Sez I, “He wuz good to his own family, and then think of how dretful
good he wuz to Coleridge’s wife and children; though, to be sure,” sez
I, “they wuz relations on _Her_ side.”
“I understand that,” sez Josiah; “he could do _that_ and not deserve
any particular thanks to _himself_. I know how _that_ is.”
I see he wuz insinuatin’ sunthin’ or ruther, but I wuzn’t browbeat, nor
wuzn’t led off by him. Sez I--
“He writ first-rate prose, and wuz Poet Lauerate.
“That wuz what might be expected,” sez Josiah.
I don’t exactly know what he did mean by that, and I don’t believe he
did.
“Then,” sez I, “he wuz the greatest talker that ever talked. He would
talk for hours and hours, without gittin’ up, or those gittin’ up that
heard him.”
“I know what that is,” sez Josiah; “that don’t raise him in my
estimation; no, Heaven knows it don’t!”
I hain’t the _least_ idee what he meant by _that_, but he found
immegiately that I wouldn’t multiply any more words with him.
But, as I sez, it wuz a comfort to visit this hant of Southey, and I
wuzn’t goin’ to see him run down too much for enlargin’ a little mite
about the power of that waterfall; as I sez to Josiah--
“Sunthin’ ort to be allowed for a poet’s license.”
“Oh, yes, that is so; I didn’t think of it,” sez he. “I thought it wuz
a barefaced lie. I see,” sez he; “I make use of one of them poet’s
licenses myself sometimes; I forgot.”
Wall, the waters did meander down in a very languishin’ and thin sort
of a way, and I couldn’t deny it, but the surroundin’s wuz beautiful
and the associations hantin’ and powerful in the extreme.
Wall, while we wuz in that neighborhood I see everything I could of the
remains of the Lake School of Poets. I told Josiah I wanted to, and he
sez--
“Wall, I d’no as I’m a-goin’ to make much of a effort to see their
hants.” Sez he, “Probble they got that name, Lake Poet, because their
poetry hain’t no bigger accordin’ than the lakes be, and if that is so,
I don’t want to patronize ’em.”
“Patronize!” sez I, lookin’ several icy cold daggers through him. “I
have to stand Martin’s demeanors and acts, though they are harrowin’ to
my soul and sickenin’ to the stumick, but I _won’t_ stand by and have
my own pardner talk about patronizin’ Coleridge and Wordsworth.” Sez I,
“Talk about patronizin’ the man that wrote ‘The Ancient Mariner.’”
[Illustration: My tone chilled him to the veins.]
My tone chilled him to the veins, and he walked off some distance away.
And my mind roamed on that weird and matchless poem I had heard Thomas
J. read so much, that I wuz as familiar with as I wuz with the Almanac.
How the Ancient Mariner--
“Held the wedding guests with his glittering eye.”
And how that belated guest “beat his breast” as he heard the weddin’
guests pass in, and he havin’ to set out on a stun by the side of the
road, and _had_ to hear this “gray beard loon” tell his story. For the
old Mariner knew the one he had to tell it to when the fit come on, and
so that weddin’ guest had to set and hear that most weird and wonderful
story ever told.
And at last, jest as he released that poor, tuckered-out guest (when
the weddin’ wuz all over, poor dissapinted creeter!), how he ended with
these lines, so noble they must have mollified that poor, belated
creeter--
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things, both great and small,
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
And then there is the poem of Christabel, another one of my very
primest favorites. How many times the truth of some of them lines have
been brung up to me in my own native land of Jonesville!
“Alas! they had been friends in youth,
But whispering tongues can poison truth.”
Alas! for the whisperin’ tongues that carry the poison of asps with
them. Alas! for the hearts and lives that through their malice and
whisperin’s are torn apart, and nothin’ can atone for their evil
effects--nothin’, _nothin’_
“Can free the hollow hearts from paining,
They stand aloof, the stars remaining.
Like cliffs that have been rent asunder,
A dreary sea now flows between.”
Yes; my mind jest dwelt on Mr. Coleridge all the time while I wuz in
the Lake Deestrict. But we see while we wuz there lots of other places
of great interest to me. Though, as I sed, the Falls of Lodore didn’t
fall quite so much as he had depictered ’em, yet Rydal Falls wuz a seen
of beauty and enchantment, with the water flowin’ down through the
rocks and overhangin’ trees. It wuz a picter to always remember, to
frame round with admiration and hang up in your memory.
And then there wuz a promontory called Storr’s Point, which had a
observatory built on it. Here wuz where Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth,
Southey, and Conway met in 1825 to see a regatta gin in Scott’s honor.
It must have been a pretty sight, the scenery around it wuz so
beautiful.
And then we see Miss Martineau’s handsome residence, called the Knolls.
I spoze on account of its being built on quite a rise of ground.
I spoze she wuz quite a likely poetess, and wrote most probble twenty
books on every subject, from religion and politics to mesmerism and
handicraft. But Thomas Jefferson couldn’t never git over sunthin’ she
said to Charlotte Brontë in a kind of a fault-findin’ way; it jest
gaulded Charlotte dretfully. Poor little creeter! with the mind of a
giant and the body of a child--a glowin’ soul of fire and the shrinkin’
weakness and tenderness of heart of a young child.
Harriet hadn’t ort to said it--she ort to known that God don’t send a
genius any too often onto this dull earth, and folks ort to prize ’em
and guard ’em when He duz; but folks don’t; they pick at ’em, and they
have to stan’ it, and build up a stun wall of endurance and constant
anguish of patience between these tormentors and their own souls and
sensitive feelin’s. And then set behind that barricade and try to
write. And folks only see the stun work, and don’t see what it wuz
raised for, and they call ’em cold, and cross, and unfeelin’, and etc.,
etc., etc.
But they hain’t cold, nor etc., etc., etc.--no sech thing.
But I am a-eppisodin’, and to resoom.
I presoom that one thing that made Harriet sour and kinder hard
sometimes wuz she wuz so deef; not a-knowin’ any of the time what other
wimmen wuz a-sayin’ about her--behind her back, or to her face either;
it’s enough to sour any disposition, only the very sweetest ones.
Wall, we went to Hawkeshead, where Wordsworth went to school, Martin
sayin’ he should probble be asked if he had seen the old school-house.
It wuz a old schoolhouse a hundred years ago, when Wordsworth went to
school there.
It is a little, old-fashioned place, and Martin put his fingers in his
vest pockets, and leaned back, and looked round him some as if he wuz
a-patronizin’ them old memories with which the place wuz filled.
Good land! he’d no need to; them memories towered up and filled the
hull place, and floated off round it into the serene, beautiful English
landscape, and up towards the blue heavens above.
[Illustration: Martin with his patronizin’ ways.]
Martin couldn’t quell ’em down with his leanin’s back, and thumbs in
his armholes, and patronizin’ ways.
I sot down to the poor, shabby old bench to which he had sot, and
see the very spot where the boy Billy had cut his name in the rough
old desk. Mebby he got licked for it--I shouldn’t wonder a mite. The
teacher not knowin’ that though he might be slapped in youth, and
laughed at by Reviewers in early manhood, yet a great man--a man of
simple manners, and a soul of genius sot there at that desk, jest as
the great oak wuz hid in the heart of the acorn in Billy’s pocket,
mebby, at the time.
I had quite a large number of emotions as I sot there--probble upwards
of seventy-five.
Wall, of course we went to Rydal Mount, the home where he lived and
worked, and to Grass-mere, where he lays asleep with his kindred.
The south wind waved the branches of the trees that stood jest a little
ways from the simple slabs.
Not fur off wuz the grave of Hartley Coleridge, son of Wordsworth’s
friend--a son who inherited all the splendor and weakness of his
father’s nater.
He drinked!
But some of his sonnets are upliftin’ in the extreme.
“Poor creeter! what he could have been if he had left stimulants
alone,” I sez to my pardner, as we looked down on his quiet grave.
And he sez, “There you be agin--meetin’-housen and castles can’t stop
you, nor buryin’-grounds skair you out; I’m sick of your dum W. C. T.
U. talk!”
I felt too riz up to argy with him, but I felt deeply the truth of
what whiskey had done in his case. And as to his pa, I said to myself,
“Weakness of will, and opium, mebby, stood in the way of the world’s
seein’ another Shakespeare--not _jest_ like him, but a new and uneek
type of poet; jest as great and dazzlin’, but different as one big star
differs from another--all on ’em a-flashin’ out light onto a dark, dull
world.
Alice felt deeply the sweet sadness of the spot--the quiet beauty of
the landscape round us, the bird’s song in the green branches overhead,
and the low, sweet song of the little stream, the south wind amongst
the trees.
She stood under a tree lookin’ up through it into the sky overhead,
followin’ the flight of a bird. Her face looked so sweet--so sweet that
I thought if Wordsworth was here he would be reminded of his own lines,
and think that--
“Beauty born of murmuring sound
Had passed into her face.”
Her face had a good look to it, too, that made me think that she wuz
a-goin’ to make--
“A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command,
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel’s light.”
Al Faizi felt this, I see--I could see that by his face. But _I_ knew,
havin’ seen her tired out and kinder fraxious when her shoes hurt her
feet or a hairpin pierced her, or her cosset pinched her, etc., I knew
she wuz a creeter--
“Not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”
But he see her only as a “lovely apparition,” a “phantom of delight.”
I felt that as he stood there in that rapt moment he see all the beauty
of nater through her--he see rock and plain, earth and Heaven, glade
and bower. I methought he wuz sayin’ to himself as he looked at her--
“The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see,
Even in the motions of the storm,
Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form
By silent sympathy.
“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place,
When rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face.”
[Illustration: A livin’ poem bound up in a girl’s sweet body.]
And I felt, too, in view of what I knew, that all that would be left
of Al Faizi in the futer would be the memory of what had been and never
more would be. Yes, all took up as he wuz with the poets of the western
world, he wuz more heart interested in the livin’ poem bound up in a
girl’s sweet body. And he turned away from the hants of poets to look
in her sweet face.
Poor creeter! I see what he didn’t spoze I did, and all the rest wuz
deef and dum--deef as posts and dum as adders.
But I am a-eppisodin’ and to resoom.
We sot out for London the next day.
CHAPTER XX.
THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
Martin, who owned, or pretty nigh owned, several railroads, wuz dretful
talkative about the superior merits of our cars, etc. And, to tell the
truth, these English cars did seem quite a good deal like ridin’ in
a wagon, or a old-fashioned coach, where you set facin’ each other,
and they wuz pretty low, made so as to not bump our heads when goin’
through covered bridges, I guess.
Of course, Martin paid for the best there wuz, and we had a hull car to
ourselves, all cushioned and fixed off in the nicest manner, and after
we all got in we felt very comfortable all alone by ourselves if we’d
wanted to. And ever and anon a basket of good refreshments to refresh
ourselves would be handed in to us. But it filled me with horrow to
see bottles of beer, wine, etc., in every one of ’em, and I sez to
myself--“Who and what did they spoze I wuz?”
I wuz indignant to think that they should dast to offer she that wuz
once Samantha Smith bottles of intoxicants.
Josiah kinder hefted the bottle in our basket, and said dreamily
sunthin’ about when you wuz in Rome of doin’ as the Romans did. But I
sez to him coldly--
“Be you a deacon or be you not? Are you a member of the Temperance
Society in Jonesville, or are you not?”
And he kinder wriggled round oneasy in his seat and laid the bottle
down. If it hadn’t been for me, I tremble to think what would have been
the result to Jonesville and the world at large.
Ever and anon the guide would walk along sideways by our winder and go
the hull length of the train, for all I know a-seein’ to us. I don’t
see what hendered him from fallin’ off. It wuz sunthin’ I wouldn’t have
done for a dollar bill. I never wuz any hand to walk sideways, even on
the ground.
But, howsumever, there wuzn’t any casualties reported.
Another thing that did seem strange to us wuz that we didn’t have any
checks for our baggage to take care on. That seems dretful queer to
Americans to have to go out and hunt round and find our own trunks.
Though we had no trouble with ourn, for it wuz a very valuable one, and
easy to be recognized with the naked eye. It wuz a trunk that belonged
to Father Allen, and made on honor, and it lasted him through his life,
and then descended onto Josiah--and will, we think, descend, as good
as new, onto Thomas Jefferson.
One reason it has wore so well is, I spoze, that Father Allen never
took but one trip in his life with it, and that wuz up to Canada. That
journey lasted him for a story all his days; he wuz looked upon with
considerable or as a highly travelled man.
The trunk is covered with hair of a good gray color and trimmed off
handsome with brass nails. And Josiah, to make sure of its not bein’
stole, writ our names in bright, brass-headed tacks. It took him quite
a spell. He sed he believed in doin’ the fair thing by me, so it reads--
“Josiah and Samantha Allen.
Jonesville,
U. S.”
[Illustration: Them letters wuz a stroke of genius.]
Them last letters he sed wuz a stroke of genius. He sed the English
people would be so tickled when they see it, for they would see in
a minute that he and me had really come over! We wuz there! “us!”
Samantha and Josiah! and then, too, it would stand for the United
States.
He made them two letters of a little bigger nails, but they wuz all
good sized, and a very bright brass color.
And truly it did seem as if England wuz glad to have us there, for I
don’t remember of seein’ a single Englishman that looked at that trunk
that didn’t laugh when he see it, or smile warmly. Yes, they wuz glad
enough to have us there.
Martin didn’t see the trunk until we arrove at the steamer, and it
affected him different. He looked fairly stunted and browbeat when he
sot his eyes on it; evidently he thought it wuz a pity to run the resk
of jammin’ it, or gittin’ the nails rusty, for sez he:
“Good Heavens! let me get you a new trunk! It isn’t too late!” And he
rushed off like a man half distracted.
But it wuz too late, for the bell rung in a minute, and we sot sail.
But Martin never see it durin’ that hull trip but he looked on it with
that same look of or--a kind of a dark, questionin’ or.
Alice jest laughed when she see it. She liked its looks, we could see,
though she didn’t come right out and say so.
But Adrian sed it wuz the most beautiful thing he ever saw in his life.
And he beset Josiah to put his name on one of their trunks with the
same kind of nails.
And Josiah, who had took a few along to repair damages in ourn, in case
we should lose some of the nails, or some envious Englishman should
steal ’em out, stood ready to do it.
But Martin broke it up. I guess he thought that Adrian wuz too young
to go into sech extravagances. They had four trunks between ’em, but
not so much luggage as the English carry round with ’em. They beat all,
baskets, bundles, portmantys--as they call their trunks--and hat-boxes
and rugs and bath-tubs.
The idee! What would we be thought on in America if we lugged round
sech things. Josiah, who always hankers after style, sed he was most
sorry we didn’t take our enamelled wash-dish. Sez he, “It would have
looked dretful genteel;” sez he, “We could have lashed it to our trunk
with some red cord, and it would have looked so stylish.”
“Oh, shaw!” sez I.
“Wall,” sez he, “when you’re in Rome, do as the Romans do, and,” sez
he, “I’d love to let the English that carry round their bath-tubs see
that ‘U. S.,’ the ones that own that trunk, know what gentility is and
what style is.”
But I wouldn’t gin in to the idee, though he as good as sed that he
stood ready to buy a new wash-dish for the venter.
But economy prevailed, not common sense, but jest closeness. I see in
his mean that he wuz givin’ up the idee, as I told him that with the
care I would give it the wash-dish we had would last for years and
years.
Wall, we got to London in what ort to be the daytime, but it wuz as
dark as pitch with fog, and how we wuz ever goin’ to git through them
streets, full of blackness and roar, roar and blackness, wuz more’n I
could tell.
I leaned back in that omnibus time and agin durin’ that trip, truly
feelin’ that my hour had come.
As Josiah told me afterwards, in talkin’ it over--I wuz a-dwellin’ on
my feelin’s durin’ the epock, and he wanted to outdo me, I guess, and
sez he--
“I know jest how you felt, Samantha; I too felt, in the words of
another, as if ‘every breath I drawed would be my next.’”
Sez I, “You meant your last.”
“Yes,” sez he, “my last; it wuz a dretful time.”
“Wall,” sez I, “I put my trust in Providence--a good deal of the time I
did.”
“Yes,” sez he, “so did I. I wuz jest ground down to it that I had to.”
“Wall,” sez I, “less be thankful that we got out alive--out of that
black, movin’, rumblin’ roar.”
We wuz talkin’ it over in our room that night, a good, comfortable
room, with all the modern improvements. It wuz a hotel for Americans
that Martin had gone to, and it wuz jest like the best of our American
tarverns.
Josiah sez, when he see the bright lights in our room, “Thank Heaven, I
won’t have to use my candles!”
He had hearn that folks had to furnish their own lights in England, so
he’d lugged round a couple of taller candles, run in our own candle
moulds to home.
[Illustration: A hull soap-box full.]
I told him not to, but he sed he wuzn’t goin’ to pay no high price for
lights when we had a hull soap-box full under the suller stairs. So he
had took ’em at the resk of spilin’ his dressin’-gown, as I told him.
“No, I don’t resk that,” sez he; “that is to the top of the trunk. The
candles are packed down with my Sunday suit to the bottom of the trunk.”
I changed their position.
But his feelin’s for that dressin’-gown are simply idolatrous, as I
tell him--specially the tossels.
And he said he “never thought of makin’ idols of ’em--worshippin’ a
tossel!” sez he, scorfin’ly. But he duz think too much on’t.
Wall, the next mornin’ the fog seemed to be lowered a little. I could
see the sun, or pretty nigh see it, which I felt wuz indeed a blessin’;
and after a good breakfast we sot off on a excursion.
I had sed from the first minute London wuz talked on, that Westminster
Abbey wuz my first gole, and the rest seemed to feel a good deal as I
did. Al Faizi and Alice wuz dretful anxious to see it, and Martin sed--
He thought it wuz probble what would be expected of him, and if he wuz
summoned home on account of his business, he said he _must_ be able to
say that he had been to Westminster Abbey, anyway.
So he engaged a big carriage, and we sot off, Josiah kinder laggin’
back and actin’ onwillin’. He had found a New York _World_ in the
readin’-room for the first time sence he left home, and he sed openly--
That he had ruther stay to home with his dressin’-gown on and read that
paper than to see any Abbey that ever wuz born.
He thought it wuz some noted woman, and I wuz deeply touched by his
preference, and cast-iron principle; but I explained, and would make
him go. So we sot off.
Wall, the first view I got of that imposin’ edifice looked jest as
nateral as could be; for Thomas J. has got a big photograph of it
framed in his office, with the two great, high towers, 225 feet high,
and the big Gothic winder between ’em, and the great Gothic door below.
The buildin’ is a immense one; it is built in the form of a cross, and
is more’n five hundred feet long.
I can tell you, I had a sight--a sight of emotions, and about as large
sized ones as I ever had, as I stood inside, under them lofty arches,
full of the mellow light of the stained-glass winders, and looked off
down, down that long colonnade of pillows, at the end of which, fur
off, is the chapel of Edward the Confessor.
This chapel is full of the tombs of kings and queens--Henry III., in
brass, lyin’ on top of a huge porphery tomb; Edward I. and his queen,
Eleanor, who sucked the poison from her husband’s wound in Palestine;
and Queen Philippi, who put down a insurrection in Scotland, while her
pardner, Edward III., wuz away from home.
Noble creeters! I wuz proud on ’em as I thought over their likely,
riz-up deeds. I couldn’t have done more for my Josiah, and I felt it as
I looked on ’em.
Wall, I said that the very first place I wanted to see wuz the place
sacred to the Great Dead. So I went off kinder by myself, as I spozed,
led by a guide, but the rest follered on after me.
Martin said that if a telegram should recall him home sudden, he spozed
it would be expected of him, anyway, to say that he had stood by the
monuments to Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, etc., in Westminster
Abbey. Sez he, “I have never read the poems of the last two gentlemen,
but I hear that they are very creditable; so much so, that I have heard
their names mentioned often, and I would like to say that I have stood
by their remains.”
I didn’t say nothin’ to Martin, but the feelin’s as I stood right by
the side of that man made a deep gulf that swep’ him fur off away from
me, and swep’ me back into a life that seemed more real, almost, than
my own.
Little fingers plucked at my gown, as it were, and, lookin’ down, I
see the brave, patient face of Little Nell, and Tiny Tim, and David
Copperfield, and the old-fashioned looks of little Paul Dombey, and
Little Rowdey, Becky Sharp’s neglected boy; and little Clive Newcome’s
sturdy figger wuz pushed away anon by the tall, slender figger that
walked by his cousin Ethel Newcome’s side with a achin’ heart. I
seemed to hear the Old Colonel saying “adsum” to the Heavenly roll-call.
Mrs. Gummidge’s melancholy voice, recallin’ the “old un’,” mingled with
Peggotty’s comfortin’ talk and tender words to “Little Em’ly;” Mrs.
Micawber, bearin’ the twins, passed on before me; Micawber, Dombey,
Pecksniff, Little Dorrit’s patient form, Bella Wilfer’s handsome,
wilful face went by me, a-lookin’ up, coquettish, but lovin’, into the
sad, reasonable eyes of “Our Mutual Friend.”
CHAPTER XXI.
WESTMINSTER AND PARLIAMENT HOUSES.
I see Captain Cuttle and Bunsby fleein’ from Mrs. McStinger, and Wall’r
Boy and his uncle, and Susan Nipper and Toots, and Mrs. Pipchin, and
sweet Florence a-walkin’ by the Little Brother where the wild waves
were talkin’ to him and the silver sails a-beckonin’ him over into a
fur country--David Copperfield; Dora, the child wife; Agnes Wickfield,
with her finger on her lips, and a-pintin’ upwards; dear Aunt Betsy
Trotwood, and Oliver and Nicholas Nickleby; Mrs. Jellaby, with her
dress onhooked and droppin’ papers with absent eyes, and Esther and
Guardy, and Skimpole and the little Pardiggles--
How the crowd swep’ by me! It wuz a sight.
Ophelia passed by with her apron full of flowers, and she said to me,
with a sad look out of her sweet dark eyes--
“Here is rosemary, I pray you, love, remember.”
Truly, I didn’t need her reminder--my soul wuz all rousted up and
a-rememberin’.
I remembered the young feller she kep’ company with--yes, indeed!
Hamlet, “the expectancy and rose of the fair state.” His shadder
follered her clost, and I almost said to him with Horatio, “Good-night,
sweet prince.”
But he looked kinder curous--he wuz a little off and acted, and, poor
creeter! so wuz she, too; I felt to pity ’em both, and anon she seemed
to be singin’ the song that Hamlet ust to sing to her when he wuz
a-waitin’ on her:
“Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Believe that truth is a liar,
But never doubt that I love.”
She believed still in his constancy. She wuz a good deal out of her
head.
Then Rosalind and Queen Catharine’s stately figger glided by; and
eloquent Portia and Lady Macbeth a-holdin’ up her lamp, a-lightin’ her
on to crime--the light a-shinin’ back into her dark, evil face--
And old King Lear, with faithful Cordelia a-holdin’ his tremblin’ old
arms, and a-helpin’ him along.
Then, feelin’ pensive--Il Penseroso, I seemed to see John Milton’s
blind eyes lookin’ into Paradise, and the Fairy Queen seemed to look
down on us from the tablet of Spenser, and “Rare Ben Jonson,” Chaucer,
John Dryden, Thomas Gray--
I wuz a-walkin’ back with him in the old church-yard--“Where the rude
forefathers of the hamlet sleep”--
When Martin interrupted me, and sez he--“Gray, Thomas Gray, I suppose
that is the father of Lady Jane Gray.”
I didn’t dispute him, but as I looked at him a-leanin’ back and
a-feelin’ big, I allegored to myself--
“We don’t need to remember Micawber or Dombey; we’ve got a livin’
curosity with us.”
Al Faizi wuz deeply interested in the Poet’s Corner. He stood long
and silently by the graves of the great dead, and his face wuz a deep
mirror of his thoughts.
[Illustration: We stood long and silently by the graves of the great
dead.]
Alice wuz very much interested in ’em, too.
But as I stood by Goldsmith’s grave--a-seein’, with my mind’s eye, Mrs.
Primrose and Olivia and the good Vicar a-moralizin’ at em--
I hearn Josiah say to Adrian--
“Oliver, goldsmith.” Sez he--“I spoze Mr. Oliver wuz the best goldsmith
in England, or he wouldn’t be layin’ here. He probble made the crowns
and septers they all have to wear in these monarkiel countries.”
I turned round, and sez I, “The metal that Goldsmith used wuz purer
gold than that--it wuz the rare wealth of a faultless style.”
“That’s what I said,” sez Josiah--“stylish jewelry, and septers, and
sech.”
But I explained it all out to Adrian, and kep’ him by me all I could.
Alice drawed my attention to the bust of Longfellow, our own poet, and
my emotions swep’ me off quite a long ways, clear from this old Abbey
to--
“Where descends from the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm winds of the equinox.”
Yes, he seemed to bear me clear to the musical murmurs of Minnehaha,
Laughing Water, and from Acadia to Spain. I travelled fur and wide.
And then there wuz the tomb of Thomas Campbell and Matthew Prior and
James Watt and Mrs. Siddons. Not all in one place are these tablets and
busts and monuments, but my mind seems to kinder gather ’em in together
as I look back.
The most elegant chapel in the Abbey is that of Henry VII. Its noble
arched ceilin’ is exquisitely ornamented and carved--flowers, vines,
armorial designs, etc., etc., in almost bewilderin’ richness and
profusion. Henry and his wife Elizabeth the last to rain of the House
of York.
In this chapel is also the tomb of poor Mary, Queen of Scots, with her
figger in alabaster on top of it.
If it wuzn’t in alabaster--if she wuz alive, and if the kings and
queens wuz also alive and actin’--what a time there would be in that
old Abbey!
If that exquisite body had agin that rare gift of magnetism--or, I d’no
what it wuz, anyway, it wuz sunthin’ that drawed men to her despite
their own will, and, it is needless to say, aginst their pardners’
wishes--what a time, what a time there would be!
How the emperors and kings and princes that now stood so still and
demute would gather round her! How the wives would draw back and glare!
And mebby some on ’em, bein’ quick-tempered, would throw their septers
at her.
Poor creeter! mebby it’s jest as well that she is made of alabaster;
for not fur from her is the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, a-layin’ down
guarded by four lions.
She’d a-needed ’em, Lib would, if she’d a-expected to keep her lovers
from a-follerin’ after Mary. She wuz a jealous creeter, and vain,
although a middlin’ good calculator.
But Raleigh, and Leicester, etc., etc.--lions couldn’t a-kep’ ’em from
the prettiest woman--no, indeed!
In the same vault is Bloody Mary, who burnt up about seventy folks a
year durin’ her rain.
Al Faizi took out his little book with a cross on’t, and wrote quite a
lot here, and he also did before Mary, Queen of Scots. I d’no, mebby
he, too, bein’ a man, felt some of the subtle charm that surrounds her
memory, even to-day, and keeps men from ever doin’ plain jestice to
her, and always will, I spoze.
Not fur off is the restin’-place of the little princes murdered in the
Tower by Richard III.
Al Faizi writ sunthin’ here, too, in his book--quite a lot.
There are nine chapels in the Abbey, each one full of the tombs of ’em
whom the world has delighted to honor; and the guide told us that many
a king and prince lay here who had not any memorial to mark his last
sleep.
One of these wuz the “Merry Monarch,” Charles II. Among the great crowd
who surrounded him, like a swarm of hungry insects, feedin’ upon him,
and buzzin’ out their praise and compliments and loyalty to him, and
flatterin’ his vices and weaknesses, not one of ’em thought enough of
him to rare up the least little mark to his memory--
A deep lesson of the worthlessness of worldly praise or blame. A great
contrast to this is the monument to Charles and John Wesley. They
worked on all their lives, a-preachin’ and a-warnin’ aginst the vices
of the great, as well as the humble, and here they have their monument
amongst the royal dead.
Another thing that interested me in the Abbey wuz the Coronation Chair,
in which every sovereign in England, from Edward the Confessor down to
Queen Victoria, has been crowned.
[Illustration: An immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals.]
It is a immense chair, the four legs bein’ four animals--lions, I
guess, though they looked kinder queer. But mebby they wuz a-thinkin’
who and what they wuz a-holdin’ up that made their hair stan’ out so
kinder queer, and their tails curl up so.
Under the seat wuz a queer-lookin’ slab of stun, and they said it wuz
the very stun Jacob had his head pillered on. It wuz carried back and
forth by his descendants, and finally got to Ireland, where it wuz used
at the Coronation of the Irish Kings.
Some say that if the one who wuz a-bein’ crowned wuz unworthy royal
honors, the stun would groan, but kep’ still if it wuz the right one in
the right place.
I should have thought it would have done considerable groanin’ in the
centuries gone by--in the case of Henry VIII., for instance, etc., etc.
I don’t believe it groaned the last time it wuz used. No; as a female
a-thinkin’ of a female, I wuz proud to contemplate the fact that most
probble it never gin a single groan, or even a sithe, at that time.
Some say that wimmen can’t rule good, but hain’t Victoria rained well
and rained long?
Yes, indeed!
Wall, we lingered in this venerable and intensely interestin’ place
for a long time, and until the gnawin’s of hunger woke in my pardner’s
inside, and he gin pitiful expressions of his inward oneasiness.
But Martin sed he must visit the Housen of Parliament. He sed that it
would certainly be expected of him; so we went through Westminster Hall
to the new Palace of Westminster, as the buildin’ is called.
The laws made here ort to be noble and big-sized, indeed, to correspond
with the place they are made in. It covers eight acres of ground, has
eleven hundred rooms, one hundred stairways, and eleven courts. It cost
over fifteen millions, so they say.
But I d’no, I didn’t feel ashamed of our own Capitol at Washington when
I see it. That is a good sizable buildin’, and made on honor, good
enough and big enough to correspond with the laws made in it.
Yes, indeed!
Wall, Westminster Hall, that we went through to go to the House of
Parliament, wuz dretful interestin’.
The great Hall of William Rufus wuz built first in 1097. Rufus wanted
a great Hall, where he could hold banquets, and not feel crowded, and
feel that he had air enough, and wuzn’t in any danger of hittin’ his
head on the ceilin’, so he built this Hall.
It wuz partly burnt up once, but it has been repaired, so that it is
a room now good enough for anybody, and big enough so’s the World and
his wife and children could eat dinner here if they wanted to, or so it
seemed.
It is three hundred feet long, seventy feet wide, and ninety feet high.
The ruff overhead is carved into many beautiful forms, and is one of
the largest in the world that has no columns or supports from below.
Glorious seens have been enacted in this Hall, as well as dretful
ones. After the Hall wuz built over and beautified by Richard II., the
very first public meetin’ held in this Hall wuz to take away his crown
and septer and send him to prison.
Poor thing! after all he’d went through buildin’ it. I should thought
them old timbers and jices would have creaked and groaned to have seen
it go on.
I know well how I should have felt after we got our house altered over,
and I’d jest got the parlor papered and carpeted and new curtains up,
if I’d had to be dragged off and shet up, and let Sister Bobbett or
Sister Henzy move in and take the comfort of it.
And I spoze Richard had feelin’s as well as myself, and the splendor
of my parlor would mad me all the more to leave it, even if it shed a
glory over the seen.
Charles I. wuz tried in Westminster Hall and condemned to death, and a
few years later Oliver Cromwell was inaugerated in it Lord Protector of
England.
He sot in that Royal Chair, which wuz took out of Westminster Abbey for
the first and last time. The chair never groaned or took on any as I’ve
ever hearn on, but I should have thought it would, not for reproof,
but for sorrer. For only five years after that Cromwell died, and wuz
buried in Westminster Abbey amongst its royal dead, and then three
years later his body wuz took up and hanged on Tyburn by command of the
king, and his head wuz displayed on the pinnacles of Westminster Hall
with Bradshaw and Ireton.
Hangin’ a man who had been dead for three years, and for doin’ what he
thought wuz right!
Al Faizi wrote quite a lot in his book here. He looked queer as he
meditated on a civilized country committin’ sech barbarities.
They laid out to have the skulls remain up there on them pinnacles for
thirty years, and some say they did, and some say Cromwell’s blew down
durin’ a hard storm, and some of his descendants have got it to this
day, and several of his skulls are in other places, so we hearn.
Poor creeter! He seemed to have as many heads as Columbus had faces. It
beats all what them poor old fourfathers went through.
In this Hall Charles I. wuz condemned to die, and also Sir William
Wallace, that Josiah and I felt so well acquainted with, havin’ formed
his acquaintance and loved him through Thomas Jefferson and “The
Scottish Chiefs.”
And Sir Thomas More, that witty, smart creeter--philosopher, statesman,
and everything else--the favorite of Henry VIII., and who succeeded
Cardinal Wolsey as Lord High Chancellor, but who lost Henry’s favor
in his life, by not approvin’ of Henry’s stiddy practice of marryin’
wimmen and then cuttin’ their heads off, and marryin’ another and
another, and so on and so on. Here the poor creeter had his trial.
Robert, Earl of Essex, wuz tried here and condemned; and so wuz Guy
Fawkes, and the Earl of Stafford, and many, many, many others.
Wall, in the House of Parliament we see Parnell, the great helper for
Irish rights. And it did my soul good to look on Joseph Arch, who wuz
elected to Parliament as a representative of agricultural laborers.
He wuz a plough-boy, and his mother learnt him to read and write.
She wuz a earnest Christian. Later he become a local preacher in the
Methodist Meetin’-House. Afterwards, meditatin’ on their wrongs, he
organized a union of agricultural laborers, and finally wuz elected
to Parliament. He wuz sent from that deestrict where the Prince of
Wales lives. And you would have thought that some richer and more
aristocratic man would have been chose to stand for that place, so nigh
to the British throne.
But no, a good man, a man of the people, wuz chose. The Prince of
Wales never done a thing to break it up, so they say. He is quite a
sensible, good-hearted creeter, the Prince is. Though, like the rest of
the world, he has his failin’s.
Here we see Gladstone, that noble creeter. A man that will be revered
and beloved and held dear to grateful hearts when lots of contemporary
emperors and kings are forgot.
Yes, indeed!
The House of Lords is made up of lords temporal and lords
spiritual--twenty-six lords spiritual, which are the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York, and twenty-four Bishops, Dukes, Earls, Barons,
etc., make up the lords temporal--they come into their places by the
right of their titles, which fell onto ’em onbeknown to ’em. Here they
set makin’ laws with their hats on.
Josiah drawed my attention to it, and sez he, “You’ve always tutored
me so about takin’ off my hat everywhere and in every season. I’ve had
sun-strokes and froze my scalp a number of times in carryin’ out your
orders; but,” sez he, “I’ve made up my mind, Samantha, as to one thing,
and you can’t change me.”
I have a deadly fear of his plans, and can’t help it--in fact, I have
reason to, as dire experience has often showed me the dretful results
flowin’ from ’em anon or oftener; so I waited with breathless dread to
hear him expound his plan.
Sez he, “I’m bound on it. When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to
wear my hat the hull time I’m there; I hain’t a-goin’ to take it off
only to go to bed; I calculate to have a good warm head the rest of my
life.” Sez he, “If it’s proper for ’em, in their high station, it’s
proper for me, when I git there.”
[Illustration: “When I’m elected to Congress I’m goin’ to wear my hat
the hull time.”]
I thought a minute, and then sez I, “Wall, I guess I’m safe in not
objectin’ to it.”
Sez he, “You mean by that, that I won’t git there, but you’ll see,
mom. The minute I git home I’m a-goin’ to organize the farmers. I’ll
organize Ury the first one, and then I’ll organize old Gowdey. Uncle
Sime Bentley I can depend on.” Sez he, “If Arch and Burt and Macdonald,
all on ’em workin’ men, can git into Parliament, what is to hender
Josiah Allen from shinin’ in Congress?”
Sez I mildly, “Nater broke _that_ up from the start.”
Sez he, “Do you mean that I can’t git in?”
Sez I, still more tenderly, “I alluded to shinin’, Josiah; but,” sez
I soothin’ly, for I see that his liniment begun to darken--sez I, “I
won’t say a word agin your wearin’ your hat under them circumstances.”
Sez I in affectionate axents, “Mebby I’ve been too harsh with you
about takin’ it off in cold weather; mebby I hain’t made allowance as I
should for the weakness of the place exposed; mebby etiket has ruled me
too clost.”
Sez he, “You and etiket has been almost the death of me time and agin.”
One thing that is sure to strike the tourist and beholder with wonder
is the extreme smallness of the House of Commons.
How five hundred and sixty folks could ever git into that room is a
wonder to me, and the guide told us that there had been as many as that
a-standin’ there time and agin--a-standin’, of course, for there wuzn’t
no room for ’em to set.
It struck Josiah, too, though, as usual, our meditations wuz fur
different.
I methought, “No wonder laws hain’t what they ort to be, made in sech a
tight place, by folks jest crowded and squoze in together like sardeens
in a box.”
And Josiah methought out loud, “You thought, Samantha, that I didn’t
allow half room enough in my new hen-house, and my brood of fowls have
as much agin room accordin’ as these law-makers do.”
“Wall,” sez I, “there both on ’em kep’ in too clost quarters to do
well.”
But truly I couldn’t break it up, for time and Martin didn’t give me no
chance.
CHAPTER XXII.
SAMANTHA SEES A DOCTOR.
I hadn’t been in London for more’n a short time before I wuz attacked
with a queer feelin’ and pain in my back. It seemed to be the worst on
my right shoulder blade. It wuz a pain and a soreness all together, and
the surface indications pinted to more trouble if I didn’t tend to it.
Josiah rubbed it with assiduity and camphire, and in hours of solitude
bathed it in anarky.
But to no purpose--it grew worse and worse, and I feared it wuz a bile,
but didn’t know.
It kep’ me awake nights, and I spoze it made me fraxious and restless,
for Josiah urged me warmly to have a young man, who wuz a doctor in the
hotel, look at my back and see what ailed it.
And I sez, “I hain’t a-goin’ to have that young man foolin’ round my
shoulder blades.” Sez I, “It would make me feel queer as a dog to
think he wuz a-lookin’ at it through that eyeglass of hisen.” Sez I,
“Neuralgy hain’t to be fooled with.”
“I thought you said,” sez he, “it wuzn’t neuralgy; you said it wuz
sunthin’ mysteriouser.”
“Wall, so I do say,” sez I; “it is sunthin’ I d’no anything about. It
is sore as a bile, and anarky don’t seem to relieve it a mite. If I had
some good lobely and catnip,” sez I, “I believe I could make a poultice
that would relieve it; but where would I git lobely and catnip here?”
sez I.
“Wall,” sez he--willin’ creeter always when I am sick--“Martin and I
had made a agreement to ride to Hyde Park this mornin’, and I shouldn’t
wonder a mite if I could find some lobely and catnip growin’ there
idegenus. I will look for some, anyway.”
“Catnip in Hyde Park!” sez I mournfully; “you might as well look for a
angel at a dog fight, or a saloon in Paradise!”
“Wall,” sez he, “if I can’t find any myself, I’ll ask the policeman
if he knows of any little corner or shady place where I’d be apt to
find a few sprigs for you.” Sez he, “I’d go to Windsor Park for you in
a minute if I thought I could git sunthin’ to relieve your pain--I’d
go to Langly Marish.” (Marish is marsh writ long.) Josiah thought
that he would spell his old marsh in the beaver medder “marish,” for
style--Jonesville Marish--but I told him that that wuzn’t goin’ to
make him any nearer the royal family, or make him act any more royal. I
guess I broke it up.
But to resoom--
Sez I, “It is good of you to think on’t, but I wouldn’t want to tackle
Victoria the first thing for catnip. I d’no as she has put up any more
herbs than she wants to use herself--her family is big, and she has
frequent calls for catnip, anyway.”
Sez he, “I wuzn’t a-layin’ out to tackle Victoria for it. I wuz a-goin’
to hunt round myself for it in the park.”
Sez I, “You’d only tire yourself out for nothin’; you wouldn’t find a
sprig. And if you found any, I wouldn’t want you to pick it without
Victoria’s consent--it would like as not be some she had saved for the
children or grandchildren; no,” sez I, “I will suffer and be calm,” and
I sithed.
“Wall,” sez he, “I’m goin’ to be minded in this matter--I am goin’ to
have you see a doctor, and I hain’t a-goin’ to put it off another day.
You might put it off too long, and then what would the world be to me?
What would life be without Samantha?”
His tender tones touched my heart considerable, and I promised I would
see a doctor that very day; so he went away, quite contented, with
Martin.
[Illustration: That little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass.]
Wall, after he had went away, and I wuz left alone with my promise,
I rumineated in deep thought. And the more I thought on’t, the more I
hated to have that little dude doctor, with his cane and his eyeglass,
a-reconoiterin’ round my back and a-laughin’ at me, for all I knew--for
I felt instinctively that he wuz one that would laugh at a person’s
back, and I felt that in this case I should be the means of lurin’ him
into that wickedness and deceit.
He looked conceited and disagreeable in the extreme, anyway, and I
didn’t put any dependence at all on his jedgment.
But then my promise confronted me; what should I do? But as I mused
I happened to think--besides this little dandy doctor, with his case
of medicine, a-goin’ to and fro, I had noticed a tall, dignified,
good-lookin’, middle-aged man a-goin’ up and down the halls with his
case of medicine.
He usually went up the stairs as we wuz a-goin’ out--about 10
A.M.--and, thinkses I, here is a chance to keep my promise, and mebby
git relief. For it stood to reason that I had ruther display my right
shoulder blade to a middle-aged, sober man, with a wife and children
and grandchildren, and other things to stiddy him down, than to a
little snickerin’, supercilious young chap, who hadn’t any wife, or
children, or any other trouble.
So I left my door on a jar, and waited for his comin’. I got my dress
waist so’s I could slip it off in a minute, and throwed a breakfast
shawl gracefully round my figger, and waited calmly the result.
Anon I heard a step approachin’, and I looked out, and I see that it
wuz the young doctor. He had a posey in his buttonhole and he wuz
a-hummin’ a light tune and a-swingin’ his cane in his right hand, and I
felt more and more relieved to think it wuz not my fate to tackle him.
Anon a hall-boy went by slowly, a-bearin’ a pitcher of ice water; anon
a chambermaid, and then I recognized a messenger’s slow, haltin’ step.
And then I see the doctor’s benine face, framed in gray hair and
ornamented with whiskers of the same color, approachin’.
I folded my breakfast shawl closter around my form and advanced to the
door, and sez I--
“Can I speak to you for a moment, sir?”
“Yes,” sez he.
Sez I, “I would like to employ you for a few minutes.”
“Yes,” sez he, a-enterin’ the room willin’ly, as if it wuz the way of
his business, as doctors always do.
He looked round the room enquirin’ly as he entered, and as if mentally
in search of sunthin’. And I spozed mebby it wuz to see if he could see
signs of any other doctor’s medicine or sunthin’. And I spoke up, and
sez I:
“I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want you to look at
it and see what is the matter;” sez I, “I want to know whether it is
neuralgy or a bile.”
[Illustration: “I have had some trouble with my back lately, and I want
you to look at it.”]
He looked dretful surprised--I spozed he wuzn’t ust to havin’ a
complaint so queer and mysterious.
And I rapidly made my preperations, and presented my left shoulder
blade for his consideration.
And as I did so, I said anxiously--
“Is it a bile?”
I dreaded his answer. Neuralgy I felt I could face, but a bile seemed
dretful if met by me on foreign shores, far from catnip and a quiet
home.
Sez he, “I can’t tell what is the matter; if I were in your place I
would have a doctor.”
Mekanically, and like sheet lightnin’, I seized the breakfast shawl and
drawed its voluminous folds about my figger and faced him.
“Hain’t you a doctor?” sez I.
“No,” sez he; “I am a piano tuner. I thought you wanted me to tune an
instrument,” sez he.
I sunk into a chair and waved my hand towards the door.
He bowed and vanished.
And I, a not knowin’ whether to laugh or to cry, I did both at the
same time. I felt meachin’, and small, and provoked, and shamed, and
tickled, and mad, and everything.
But anon I thought I must not let this _contrarytemps_ (French)
vanquish me. So I called on all the common sense I had, and all the
rectitude I had, and I had a real lot of it when I got holt of all of
it.
For I realized that my motives wuz as pure as rain water in a new cedar
barrel, and so, bein’ dragged up to the tribunal of my own jedgment, I
could not find myself to blame; so I determined to keep calm and not
let the World or Josiah know what I had been through.
For it wuz a hard blow onto both my jedgment and pride, lookin’ on
it with a nateral eye, and I felt that Josiah and the World would
be apt to look at it through nateral eyes, and not through the rapt
vision of jestice that made me say and say calmly that Josiah wuz the
one to blame; for if he hadn’t extracted a promise from me, this
_contrarytemps_ would not have occurred.
These large-sized emotions lifted me up quite a good ways, and so I
spoze it made the next notch up come easier to me. For as I sot there I
moralized--I have been a-relyin’ on mortal ingregients to help me and
a-leanin’ on a pardner’s jedgment.
Ingregients have failed, pardner’s jedgment has proved futile--futiler
it did seem to me than anything ever had before sence the world begun,
as futile as I have found ’em anon and oftener.
So sez I to myself, “What if I should branch out and try the faith
cure--turn aside from doctors and pardners, reeds that have broke under
my weak grasp?”
I will! I will!
So I at once made my preperations for faith cure. I het some Pond’s
Extract in a little cup on the gas--I had brung a little contrivance
from home that fitted the burner.
I het that extract as hot as I could bear it, and bathed that shoulder
blade in the soothin’ mixture; I then wet a cloth in anarky, and rubbed
it for a quarter of a hour by the clock; I then put on a strong poreus
plaster I had by me, made from healin’ herbs; and then I het some more
Pond’s Extract, and put in some tincture of wormwood--I had a little in
a bottle--and I wet a woollen cloth in it and laid it over the blade.
I then filled my hot-water bag with water and laid myself down on the
bed, with the warm, soothin’ rubber bag pressed clost to the achin’
blade.
And then, havin’ completed these simple preleminaries, I leaned on
the Faith Cure--I leaned heavy, and anon I felt that I had hit on the
right plan. The pain grew lighter and lighter, my thoughts of the
_contrarytemps_ grew more peaceful and as if I could bear it. I felt
that I could forgive Josiah, and then I knew nothin’ further for a long
time.
[Illustration: Samantha’s Faith Cure.]
Anon I seemed to be back in Jonesville; Philury and I wuz down in our
back paster a-pickin’ rossberrys. The sun shone down warm as I stooped
over the pink, laden boughs.
The crick under the hill tinkled melogiously--somebody wuz tunin’ it,
I thought. It seemed to be playin’ melogious cords I had never hearn
before. A bird flew out of the deep, green depths of Balcom’s woods; it
flew up in front of me and lighted on my forward, and said--
“How do you feel, Samantha? Are you worse?”
I had layed there for five hours by the clock, and it wuz my own
pardner’s hand on my forward that rousted me up.
“No,” sez I, “Josiah; I am much better than I wuz.”
“Did you git the doctor?” sez he.
That wuz a tender subject to me, but I wuz able to meet it. I sez--
“I thought I would try the Faith Cure, Josiah, and,” sez I, “I truly
feel like a new creeter--the pain has almost all gone.” And it had, and
from that minute I gained on it fast.
At bedtime I tried the Faith Cure agin, after goin’ through with the
same simple preleminaries I had went through, and the next mornin’ the
cure wuz almost complete, which made the trials that begun as soon as I
opened my eyes some easier to bear.
I heard my pardner’s voice the first thing, out in the hall, through
the half open door. I hearn him a-sayin’--
“Dum it all, don’t you never have day here? Is it always night?”
“It is day now,” sez the voice of a agitated chambermaid; “it is
between 8 and 9 o’clock.”
“Pretty day!” sez Josiah. Sez he, “Look out of the winder and see if
you can see daylight; a pretty day this is--dark as a stack of black
cats, and darker, for you could see the cats if they wuz a inch from
your nose.” Sez he, “We have been here three days, and I hain’t seen
daylight yet.”
He had a air of blamin’ the girl, and I interfered and called him in;
but the girl wuz waywised, and she said, “It is very unusual weather,
sir--very unusual. We have never had such a fog before.”
They always say that, from Chicago and London to Egypt--they “never had
it before.”
It always happens dretful onfortunate jest whilst you are there.
Josiah wuz jest preparin’ to blame the girl agin, I dare presoom to
say, when I hearn another voice on the seen.
It wuz the voice of a Englishman that Josiah had got some acquainted
with, and who had disputed warm with him about their two different
countries, each one on ’em a-praisin’ up his own native land to the
skies.
And Josiah made a derisive remark to him right there in that untoward
place about his “dum climate.”
I wuz mortified, but couldn’t walk out and interfere, not bein’ dressed.
After passin’ a number of sentences back and forth, I hearn the
Englishman say--
“This is a great country, sir--the sun never sets on it.”
And Josiah sez in a real mean axent--
“Good reason for that! the sun never rises on’t--it can’t go down where
it hain’t riz! I hain’t seen a ray of sunshine sence I come to England!”
Thinkses I, “Dressed or ondressed, I’ve got to interfere,” and I
hollered out agin, “Josiah--Josiah Allen!” And he see in my axent a
need of haste.
And he come into the room, and I sez--
“Don’t run down a man’s country on a empty stumick, when it is as dark
as pitch.”
And he sez, “Then I can’t run it at all.” His axent wuz pitiful.
And it wuz indeed a fearful time.
The winder presented a black, murky appearance, the gas wuz lit in the
house and outside, and away from the light the streets wuz as dark as a
black broadcloth pocket in a blind man’s over-coat.
We felt gloomy at the breakfast-table, but Martin sed we must be
gittin’ round some. So we concluded to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. So
after awhile we ventered to sally out. We wuz about two hours a-goin’ a
distance that ort to took us about fifteen minutes--a-movin’ on through
the dense blackness, and not knowin’ what we wuz a-comin’ up aginst,
or who, or when, or what.
It wuz a fearful time, very.
We went in two handsomes (though their handsomeness didn’t do us any
good, for we couldn’t see a speck on’t). Josiah and I and Al Faizi went
in one, and Martin and Alice and Adrian in the other. A strange and
mysterious journey as I ever took, a-hearin’ anon or oftener a voice
up on top of our vehicle a-shoutin’ out replies to the frenzied cries
of cabmen on every side on him, and a not knowin’ who or what we wuz
a-goin’ to run into, or be run in by. And the faint glow of the street
lights a-shinin’ through the black mists like suns that wuz a-bein’
darkened, as the Skripters tell on.
It wuz a fearful seen; my Josiah wuz well-nigh prostrated by it, and
sez he--
“If I ever git where the sun shines in the daytime agin, I’ll stay
there.”
“So will I!” sez I, and I felt it, Heaven knows! I wuz fearful agitated.
Sez Josiah, as a loud, skairful cry from the top of our handsome wuz
answered from others all round us--
“Jest think on’t, Samantha, how bright and pleasant it is this minute
in our back yard to Jonesville; how plain you could see the side of the
barn; how the sun is a-shinin’ down on the smoke-house, and hen-park,
and leech barrel.
“Why did we ever leave them seens!” sez he.
“Why, indeed!” sez I.
Sez he, “Ury is mebby at this minute goin’ in to the house, happy
creeter!” Sez he, “A-walkin’ out a-seein’ every step he takes; and
Philury a-standin’ in the back door a-watchin’ him, and a-lookin’ at
the Loontown hills milds off, and the Jonesville steeple.
“And we a-gropin’ along in perfect blackness at 12 M., and can’t see
our noses. Why,” sez he bitterly, “my nose is a perfect stranger to me;
it might be changed to a Roman or a Greecy one, and I not know it.”
“You’d feel the change,” sez I.
“I d’no whether I would or not. I feel all lost and by the side of
myself,” sez he; “three more days of these carryin’s on would make my
brain tottle.”
“Wall, it couldn’t tottle fur,” sez I. I said it to comfort him, but it
wuzn’t took so--no, fur from it.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ST. PAUL’S AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
Wall, after a seen of almost inexpressible wretchedness we reached St.
Paul’s Cathedral.
Josiah a-gittin’ it into his head that it wuz fashionable to read up
about places of interest, had flooded his brain almost beyend its
strength to bear about the Cathedral. And that information oozed and
drizzled out of the instersises of his brain all the time we wuz there.
As for me, when we entered the great central western door I wuz almost
lost and by the side of myself as I ketched sight of the vast interior.
As I looked down the immense, soft gray yeller depths of distance, I
felt almost as though I wuz lookin’ down some of Nater’s isles, with
shadders of blue mist a-lurkin’ in the corners.
After my senses come back gradual I could pay some attention to the
rich, dark carvin’, the crimson cushions, the big organ towerin’
up, etc., etc. I felt lifted up considerable by the grandeur of the
spectacle.
But Josiah wanted to show off.
Sez he, a-wavin’ his hand down the long aisle--
“There is the place for knaves! See, Samantha, the beautiful
arrangement--they’re set apart from good folks. It sez the ‘knave runs
down that way.’ He is made to run so’s to separate him still more from
Christians that go slow.”
“Where did you git that information, Josiah Allen?” sez I.
“Right here,” sez he, and he took out his guide-book and pinted to the
words--
“The long nave runs down through the centre.”
Sez I, “How do you spell your vile person, Josiah?”
“N-a-v-e, nave,” sez he--“the easiest way.”
I groaned, and sez I, “I would shet up that book, Josiah Allen, and go
back to Webster’s old spellin’-book.”
He acted real pudgiky.
But Alice wanted to go into the North Chapel, where the short service
for business men wuz a-goin’ on, it bein’ almost noon when we got
there. It wuz a impressive sight to see these busy men takin’ a
breathin’ space from the hard labors of the day to give thought to the
Better Country and the best way to git there.
A beautiful sculptured head of the Christ looked down on these busy,
careworn men, as if He wuz sorry for ’em and wanted to give ’em a
breath of peace and love to go with ’em through the hot, feverish
toils of the rest of the day.
After lookin’ up into the ineffible beauty and love of that face, it
didn’t seem as if those grocers could put so much sand into their sugar
and pepper, or the merchants pay so little to the poor wimmen who make
the garments they sell.
But I d’no.
Wall, the chapel on the south side wuz meant to be a place to
administer jestice at different times, affectin’ meetin’-housen and
sech--what they call a Consistery Court.
And here Josiah agin tried to explain things to me.
Sez he, “This is called a Consistery Court--here is where they try to
be consistent when they attend to affairs of the meetin’-house.”
And sez I in a dry axent, about as dry as a corn-cob, sez I, “It’s a
pity they don’t have sech a court in American meetin’-housen.”
Sez I, “They’re needed there,” and my mind roamed over the pressin’
need of consistency in sech cases as Dr. Briggs, Parkhurst, Beecher,
Heber Newton, Felix Adler, Satolli, etc., etc., etc.
“And even in Jonesville,” I sez to myself, “is it not possible to even
now have one built in the precincts of the Jonesville meetin’-house,
where the members could go in half a day or so a week and try to be
consistent?”
Thinkses I, If they did honestly try to live up to the buildin’ they
wuz in, and be consistent, there wouldn’t be so much light talk aginst
religion as there is now, and more young folks brung into the church.
Howsumever, whether Josiah got it right or not, one thing I do know,
right in the midst of this court is a elaborate monument to the Duke of
Wellington, that almost fills it up, so jestice is fairly scrunched up
and squoze for want of room.
That noble old Duke wouldn’t wanted it so. But how little can we tell
what people will do with our memories when we have left ’em! But
probble most of us won’t have no sech immense memorial riz up to us
after we have passed away.
But my reflections wuz agin cut short, for Josiah wanted to agin
show off. Sez he, “The man that that wuz riz up to wuz made of iron
mostly--lost his legs and arms, I spoze, and had iron ones made to
replace ’em.”
“Iron legs!” sez I; “how could he git round?”
“By main strength.” Sez he, “He wuz a powerful man; he wuz called the
‘Iron Duke.’”
I gin him a pityin’ glance, but strangers wuz by, and I wouldn’t
humiliate him by disputin’ him. I merely sez, “If I wuz in your place I
would keep still for the rest of the day, Josiah Allen.”
But Adrian, who took it all in good part, and with immense interest,
sez--
“How funny it must be to shake hands with him, but how it would hurt to
have him strike you over the ear!”
Sez I, “Adrian, you keep with Alice and me.” Sez I, “We’re a-goin’ to
look at General Gordon’s statute.”
This noble life and noble death are kep’ in memory by a beautiful
statute, recumbient and a-layin’ down. The face, they say, is a good
likeness. And as I looked at it, the thought of that noble and manly
creeter almost brung tears to my eyes.
Wall, we proceeded on eastward to the dome. Here is the pulpit and the
place where the bigger part of the congregation sit.
Lookin’ up, we see glitterin’ spaces filled with beautiful mosiacs, and
up there are the benine figgers of the Evangelists, and the four great
Prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
Agin that thought of what would be done with our memories hanted me.
They wandered about in goats’ skins here--afflicted, persecuted; did
they think they would ever be throned in sech gorgeous places? No,
indeed.
Above Daniel, Isaiah, etc., is the whisperin’ gallery, where the lowest
whisper, clost to the wall, goes all round the entire distance--a
sight, hain’t it?
And way up in the dome we see paintin’s of the life of St. Paul and his
deeds.
Wall, down on the floor to the south are immense statutes to Lord
Nelson and Cornwallis. Good creeters, both on ’em, I believe, though
mistook in jedgment. And a great monument to Major-General Dundas.
There wuz lots of monuments to other eminent men. Most of the statutes,
as is nateral, as is done in our own country, wuz mostly riz up to
men who had been famous for fightin’--them who had been successful in
killin’ off thousands and thousands of men, leavin’ trails of agony
and blood behind ’em, clouds of black gloom, under which widders and
orphans groped, seekin’ for bread, and fallin’ down hopeless in the
quest.
Wall, it’s nateral; I couldn’t say a word--America duz it.
I also see, as in America, the skurcity of female statutes. We see
the absolute dearth on ’em. Why, if a inhabitant of Mars should light
down there some day and take a fancy to go through the cathedral, he
wouldn’t have a idee that there wuz ever sech a thing as a woman in the
world. He would go back to Jupiter and say: “One peculiarity of the
planet Earth wuz, there wuz no wimmen there--only a race of men.”
And if they questioned him too clost how they wuz born, he would say
that most probble they growed jest like trees.
And then the old Mars would gather round him and congratulate
themselves on bein’ on a planet where equal jestice wuz awarded to men
and wimmen both, and where there wuz no more war.
The red lights on the planet don’t mean war, I don’t believe; it means
the rosy glow of the strange foliage that the Mars gather for their
children, and the Pars, too, for all I know.
But I am indeed a-eppisodin’.
But a few centuries from now let that same visitor come down and look
into our great cathedrals, on both sides of the Atlantic, and he will
see statutes to wimmen risin’ up jest the same as to men. Under the
benine faces of some on ’em he will read--
“There is no more war, for the former things have passed away.”
The former things wuz what made war--injestice, intemperance, brutality,
licenses for prostitution, drunkenness, and infamy, etc., etc., etc.
But I am a-eppisodin’ too fur, too fur.
The stained-glass winders we see on every side wuz beautiful in the
extreme. But if you’ll believe it, this meetin’-house hain’t finished
yet. Seein’ there has been a meetin’-house here for thirteen hundred
years or so, you’d a-thought they’d ort to got it finished; but, then,
they’ve been burnt out several times.
I don’t want to brag over ’em, I didn’t feel like it at the time,
though I couldn’t help a-thinkin’ that we built the Jonesville
meetin’-house in three months. But, then, this one is bigger and has
more work on it.
Though the steeple on our meetin’-house is _very_ much admired.
Wall, we went down into the crypt. It is called one of the finest in
Europe. It is the same size as the cathedral.
Here are some more warriors buried--Lord Nelson, the Duke of
Wellington, etc. But to give credit to those who got up the
buryin’-ground, there are some ministers buried there--sech as Dr.
Liddon, Dean Milman, and eminent painters, sculpters, etc.
Here lies the great architect of the cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren.
Josiah read the tablet on his grave, and then went to explainin’ it to
us.
Sez he, “It tells the date of his birth and his death, and then it sez
sunthin’ about spice--allspice, I guess. Christopher wuz probble fond
of it.”
Sez I, for I knowed the words by heart--
“Reader, if you ask where is his monument, look about you.”
Sez Josiah, “You’re wrong, Samantha. There’s the word spice all writ
out.”
Sez I, “It’s a dead language, Josiah--I’ve translated it. And,” sez I,
“if you felt as I did a-lookin’ round on his matchless monument, sech
as no man ever had before, you wouldn’t talk about allspice.”
He acted real huffy, and moved on.
Here are many monuments to illustrious people who are buried somewhere
else.
Down here in the east end is a chapel where they have early service
every week day.
In the west end is kept the funeral car on which the body of the Duke
of Wellington wuz carried to the grave--
“To the sound of the people’s lamentation.”
It is a handsome structer of gun metal. One gun took at each of the
Duke’s victories bein’ melted to make it. Twelve horses wuz needed to
draw this car--it broke through the pavement in many places.
As I wuz a-explainin’ this to Alice, I hearn Josiah say to Adrian:
“On account of his legs and arms bein’ so heavey, I spoze, and his
bein’ so great.”
And then I had to explain to that child agin that his greatness wuz not
his heft by the steelyards, nor his bein’ called iron wuzn’t because he
wuz made of cast iron.
I guess Adrian understood it--I guess he did. But Josiah Allen wuz a
drawback to correct information--indeed, he wuz.
For as we wended on I hearn him explain how this cathedral wuz sot on
fire in 1590 by a woman called Anne Domono.
Sez Adrian, “She was a bad woman, wasn’t she?”
[Illustration: “Yes,” sez Josiah, “old Domono probble had his hands
full with her.”]
“Yes,” sez Josiah with a deep sithe, “old Domono probble had his hands
full with her--she wuz a fiery creeter.”
But here I interfered and explained it all out to Adrian, much as I
hated to go agin my pardner’s words.
Strange doin’s has been done in this old meetin’-house durin’ the long
centuries that it has stood here. It almost made my brain reel to think
on ’em.
Councils of the church wuz held here, the Bishop of Exeter sought
refuge here from a mob--wuz proclaimed a traitor and beheaded. Here
Wyckliffe wuz tried for his religious opinions. Here popes sent out
their legates. Here kings held their councils, and here men and wimmen
sold their goods. And some with stuns and arrers killed the pigeons who
made their nests in the ornaments of the walls. Here, too, they played
ball and other games. Queer doin’s for meetin’-housen, but it wuz true.
But what would the world say if my Josiah and Deacon Bobbett should
take to playin’ ball in the Jonesville meetin’-house, or Sister Gowdy
and I should play tag round the pulpit? Why, how foreign nations would
be all rousted up and sneer at us!
Here the leaders in the War of the Roses acted and carried on. Here
Richard, Duke of York, took a solemn oath to uphold Henry VI., and
then tried his best to shake him off the throne--lyin’ and actin’ in a
meetin’-house. Here the dead body of Henry lay in state.
After the Reformation had begun it wuz desecrated by the very meanest
kind of doin’s. All kinds of business wuz carried on, all kinds of
amusements. Busybodys and gossips made it their resort, and the Holy
Evelyn said--
“It was made a stable of horses and a den of thieves.”
Then, if you’ll believe it, some of the reformers, or them who called
themselves sech (queer creeters, I guess), stole the beautiful altar
clothes, communion plate, candleabra, etc.--jest carried ’em off under
the mantilly of religion they’d put on.
Curous! curous! but, then, that old mantilly covers up lots of stolen
things to-day, and meanness of all sorts.
After this the grand old meetin’-house wuz completely burnt down.
I should thought it would have expected lightnin’ to strike it, or
sunthin’. Anyway, it all burnt down to ashes. The present buildin’
hain’t been misused in that way--the services are carried on decently
and in order.
Wall, we hung round there for more’n a half day. Josiah had took the
precaution to eat a hearty lunch before we sot out, so he remained
considerable quiet till the nawin’s of hunger overtook him agin. And we
left at sunset.
CHAPTER XXIV.
“THE WIDDER ALBERT.”
I’d told Martin when we’d first come to London that I must see the
Widder Albert whilst I wuz there.
A few days had run by, and I sez to Martin--“Like as not Victoria will
be a-wonderin’ why I hain’t been to her house.”
Of course when I first arrove I had sent her word to once, and asked
her in a friendly way to come and see us jest as quick as she could,
knowin’ that it wuz etiket for me to do so, and it wuz nothin’ but
manners for her to make the first visit.
And a-takin’ it right to home, that if she had come over to Jonesville,
and wuz a-stoppin’ to the tarvern there, it would be my place to make
the first call. I hain’t over-peticular in sech matters, but still I
set quite a store by etiket, after all, and havin’ made the overtoor
and sent the word that I wuz here, I didn’t want to demean myself by
actin’ too over-anxious to make her acquaintance, though I did in my
heart want to neighbor with her, thinkin’ quite a lot of her as a
woman who had rained long and rained well.
It wuz Martin that I sent the word by. He argued quite a spell about
the onproperness of my sendin’ sech word to a Queen. But I argued back
so fluent about the dissapintment it would be to her if she didn’t know
I wuz here, and my onwillin’ness to hurt her feelin’s by my not makin’
myself known to her, that I spoze he wuz convinced, for he sez--
“Leave it right in my hands; don’t say a word to anybody else on the
subject, and I will tend to it in the right way.”
So I gin my promise, and as he hurried right out of the room, I spoze
he tended to it imegiately and to once. And I sot in my room the
rest of that day in my best waist and my shiniest collar and cuffs,
expectin’ some that she would be to see me before night.
And the next time I went out sight-seein’, though I didn’t say a word
about her, accordin’ to my promise, yet I expected to go back and see
the benine face, mebby a-lookin’ over the bannisters a-waitin’ for me.
I didn’t spoze she would have her crown on at this time--no, I expected
to see that good, likely face surrounded by a widder’s bunnet, or mebby
a crape veil throwed on kinder careless like.
I knew we should be very congenial. We both wished so well to our own
sect--we wuz both so attached to our pardners; and though hern had
passed on and mine wuz still with me, still I knew we had so many
affectin’ incidents of our early days of our wedded love, before our
perfectly adorin’ affection for Albert and Josiah wuz toned down by
time and walkin’ round in stockin’ feet, and throwin’ crowns and
bootjacks down in cross and fraxious hours, when meals wuz delayed, or
the nations riz up and kicked, or the geese got into the garden, or
slackness about kindlin’ wood, or the shortness of a septer, or etc.,
etc., etc.
Yes, I spozed we both had had our domestic trials. I spozed that
Albert had his ways jest as Josiah has. Every pardner has ’em--they’re
fraxious, touchy at times, over-good at others, and have mysterious
ways. Men are dretful mysterious creeters at times--dretful.
Yes, I felt that we could find perfect volumes to talk over on this
subject, for if ever there wuz two wimmen devoted to their pardners
with a devotion pure and cast iron, them two wimmen wuz Samantha and
Victoria.
And then, too, we wuz both Mas. I spozed she would tell me the good
pints of Albert Edward, and I laid out to tell her of the oncommon
smartness of Thomas Jefferson. And the more she would enlarge on
Bertie, the more I would spread myself on Tommy.
And then the girls; how she would tell me about Louise and Beatrice,
and how I would tell her about Tirzah Ann--how we’d praise ’em up and
compare notes about ’em.
I presoom her boys and girls didn’t always come up to her idees of
what girls and boys should do, and should not do. And if she told me
in confidence anything of this sort, I wuz a-layin’ out to confide in
her about Tirzah Ann, and how her efforts to be genteel wore on me, and
how she would love to flirt if it wuzn’t for religion and a lack of
material. And if she made any confidences to me about Bertie--anything
relatin’ to the fair sex, and playin’ games, etc., I wuz a-goin’ to
tell her, as much as I love Thomas Jefferson, I thought he did play
checkers too much; and sence he wuz riz up so as a lawyer, the wimmen
jest made fools of themselves and him, too, a-follerin’ him up and
a-makin’ of him; but, then, Maggie didn’t care a cent about it, and
that he wuz perfectly devoted to his wife and children, jest as her boy
wuz.
I wuz a-goin’ to say that I would never mention these things to a
single soul but her, anyway, but I knew she would keep it, for she wuz
jest like me--if her boy didn’t please her, she went right to him
with it, and that ended it. She stood up for him to his back, jest as I
stood up for Thomas J.
Yes, I spozed we should take solid comfort a-confidin’ in each other,
and mebby a-givin’ each other hints that would be helpful in the futer.
And then we wuz both grandmas. How happy we should be a-talkin’ over
the oncommon excellencies of our grandchildren!
For though we are both too sensible to act foolish in sech matters and
be partial, yet we both knew there never wuz and probble never would be
sech grandchildren as ourn wuz.
And then I had some very valuable receipts I laid out to gin her in
cases of croup and colic, sech as young people don’t pay much attention
to, but which I knew would jest suit her, and which might come handy
for her grandchildren or great-grandchildren. I laid out to write ’em
off for her. One or two of ’em wuz in poetry--
“A handful of catnip steeped with care,
With a little lobelia throwed in there,
Mixed with some honey more or less,
Will mitigate the croup’s distress.”
And this--
“Some mustard seed,
Some onion raw,
Applied to chests--
I never saw
A thing more strong
To draw, to draw.”
The grammar wuzn’t quite what I would have liked it to be in this last
verse of poetry, but I made it in a time of pain, and I knew that when
croup and colic wuz round, she nor I wuzn’t a-goin’ to stand on a verb
more or less.
And then I had another one:
“Some spignut roots
Steeped on the fire
Is always good
For my Josiah.
And a little Balm
Of Gilead flowers
Is good to calm
In fraxious hours.”
I laid out to gin her all these receipts, and offer to send her the
ingregients for makin’ the mixtures.
Of course her pardner had passed away, but the world is full of men and
wimmen, and sickness and fraxiousness are rampant, and good receipts
like these don’t grow on every gooseberry bush.
And then, I had a lot of other receipts I thought she’d like. And I
wuz a-goin’ to ask her for her receipt for makin’ milk emptin’s bread;
somehow, mine had seemed to run out and not be so good as usual. And I
had a receipt for corn bread that wuz perfectly beautiful--
“Two measures of meal and one of flour,
Two of sweet milk and one of sour,
And a little soda and molasses.”
Besides the literary treat of this poem, the excellence of the bread
wuz fenominal.
And then, how we both would love to talk about the interests of the
world at large! I wuz a-goin’ to compliment her by sayin’ that though
the sun never set on her property, while it sot every day on ourn, yet
she couldn’t welcome the blazin’ sun of Righteousness and Enlightenment
any more gladly than I did. And how first-rate I thought some of her
moves had been, and how highly glad and tickled I’d been over ’em; and
then I wuz layin’ out to draw her attention to some tangles in the mane
and tail of the old Lion of England, a-tellin’ her at the same time
that I realized only too well the dirt and onevenness in the feathers
of our American Eagle.
I wuz a-goin’ to talk it over with her about the opium trade, and the
dretful intemperance and horrible cuttin’s up and actin’s, and the
dretful crimes bein’ perpretated way out in Injy.
Dretful thing, indeed, takin’ a woman and ruinin’ her body and soul for
time and eternity, and then the goverment a-drawin’ money out of this
eternal shame and ruin. I spozed we should talk a sight about that
and draw lots of morals from it, too--draw ’em a good ways. And the
horrible doin’s in Armenia--I thought more’n as likely as not we should
both shed tears over it.
But, as I say, time had went on, and she hadn’t come to see me yet. I
asked Martin anxiously what he spozed wuz the reason, and he gin me
various and conflictin’ answers.
Once he sed she wuz sick a-bed; and the next hour, in answer to my
anxious inquiry, he told me she had gone on a visit to a fur country.
And when I reminded him of the descripency in his statements, he come
right out and sed she’d broke her legs--both on ’em.
“But,” sez he, “don’t make it public--it’s a State secret.”
Wall, then I worried considerable about her, and sed I ort to go and
see her, and carry her some Tincture of Wormwood.
And then Martin sed she wuz entirely well and comfortable and happy,
but couldn’t walk.
But I sez, “She might send me word.”
“She did,” sez he; “she tells you that the next time you visit England
she hopes to see you.”
“The next time!” sez I--“there won’t be no next time. If I ever git
acrost the ocean agin I shall stay there.”
“Yes,” sez my Josiah; “if we ever see home agin we shall probble never
step our feet outside the house agin, or the back door-yard.”
But I sez, “I shall probble walk round some in the front yard, and
mebby visit the children.”
Sez he, “Not for years, if ever.” Sez he, “I want to set down on our
back steps and set there for over a year without gittin’ up.”
I felt that along in January he would be willin’ to move round a little
and git into the house, but that dear man can’t be megum.
Wall, with deep dissapintment I realized that the Widder Albert and I
wuzn’t a-goin’ to meet. If she wuz in the state Martin said she wuz, of
course I knew she couldn’t take no comfort a-visitin’, and I hain’t no
hand to go and visit sick folks if I can’t help ’em.
And I spoze, as Martin sed, that she had good hired girls and
everything done for her comfort.
But I worried about her quite a good deal.
But it wuz a comfort to me to think of what a big house she had--it
wuz big enough to hold plenty of help, and it must have good air in
it--yes, indeed! The house itself is as big as from our house over to
Deacon Gowdey’s, and I d’no but bigger.
Martin made a great pint on goin’ to see the Bank of England. I believe
he jest loves to walk round the outside of buildin’s that has immense
wealth in ’em, if he don’t go inside. He and Josiah went and wuz gone
all the forenoon. I spozed it would take a week to go through all
the rooms. Why, there is nine different door-yards right inside the
buildin’; they call ’em courts, and the rooms open into ’em; so you can
form a idee of how big it is. But I didn’t seem to care so much about
goin’, so I stayed to home. I had quite a talk with Al Faizi about it.
He’d been a-huntin’ up facts and idees, as his way is.
He didn’t condemn the ways of England at all--he simply told the facts
and left ’em, jest as the ’postles did. He sed he found that in the
Bank of England wuz the greatest wealth heaped up in the smallest space
that the world had ever known sence the creation. And with the same air
of simply tellin’ a fact, and then leavin’ it, in the New Testament
way, sez he--
“Almost in the shadow of this building, holding the world’s wealth, I
find the greatest want and wretchedness and crime existing that I have
ever looked upon, and I believe the worst the world has ever seen.”
[Illustration: “Almost in the shadow of the Bank of England, I found
the greatest want and wretchedness.”]
He didn’t say that there must be a screw loose somewhere in the
great revolvin’ wheel of Humanity to make sech a state of things
possible. He jest writ down sunthin’ in that book of hisen--mebby
it wuz expressions of wonder about our boasted civilization havin’
accomplished so little in eighteen hundred years, when the richest
place on earth should have its dark shadder of the greatest want and
crime clost to its side. No; he jest stated the facts and let us draw
our own morals, and as fur as we wanted to. Martin didn’t notice his
remarks, nor see Al Faizi at all, so fur as I could observe. He went on
a-talkin’ with Josiah about the bank, and about Rotten Row; he sed he
wanted us to see that, and wanted us to set off to once.
And I told Alice out to one side, when we wuz gittin’ ready, that I
didn’t know as I wanted her to go into any sech a nasty place, or
Adrian either. I take good care of the children--yes, indeed I do!
But we found out when we got there that Rotten Row wuz a elegant place,
fixed off for ridin’ and drivin’. Beautiful ladies and grand-lookin’
gentlemen, and if there wuz anything Rotten about ’em, it wuz on
the inside of their phylackricies; the outside of ’em wuz clean and
brilliant.
Some say that the place where these great folks congregate is well
named, but I don’t believe everything that I hear.
Martin enjoyed the seen dretfully, though he sed, on commentin’ on the
ladies ridin’, that none on ’em could come up to an American woman in
grace, and he sed that the best ridin’ that he ever see wuz by cow-boys
on a Dakota ranch.
Wall, I couldn’t dispute him, never havin’ neighbored with cow-boys.
But let Martin alone for findin’ out all the attractions of U. S. A.
No; U. S. A. won’t suffer in Martin’s hands, not at all.
As I sed, Martin and Alice went round quite a good deal to see her
friends--Lords and Ladies some on ’em; she got acquainted with ’em to
school, when she wuz a-boardin’ with that Miss Ponsions, a good likely
school-teacher she wuz, so fur as I could make out.
But owin’ to the Widder Albert enjoyin’ sech poor health, and not bein’
able to git to see me, I didn’t seem to want to go round so much. I
didn’t want to go to parties--no, indeed!
Alice come home from one gin by Lady L----, and, if you’ll believe it,
her pretty dress wuz all crushed and torn, fairly spilte. Alice sed
there wuz sech a jam she couldn’t breathe hardly.
And I sez, “Sech doin’s don’t speak well for the woman of the
house--lady or no lady; and,” sez I, “I’d love to advise her; I’d tell
her that when I give a quiltin’ or a parin’-bee I never invite more’n
can git round the quilt and the parin’ machines handy and without
crowdin’.”
Sez I, “I could probble put idees into Lady L----’s head that would
help her all her life in futer parties.” But I didn’t happen to see
her, poor thing! and so I spoze she’ll keep on in the old way.
I have known ’em who lived in the country, fur back from the delights
and advantages of Jonesville--I have known them creeters, when they
come in on a saw log or on a load of calves to ship, I have seen ’em
look with perfect or at the commotion and life in the Jonesville
street, where, right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own
eyes as many as five teams and two open buggies, besides walkers on the
sidewalk. This sight to ’em, fresh from country wilds, where one wagon
along the road a day wuz a fair average, wuz as good as a circus to ’em.
[Illustration: Right in front of the tarvern, I have seen with my own
eyes as many as five teams and two open buggies.]
But the Jonesvillians wuz ust to the rush and bustle of them seven
teams, and acted calm and self-possessed and hauty through it all.
But I have seen the pride of them very Jonesvillians took down when
they visited New York. There I have seen ’em stand with or on lower
Broadway, when they see the rush, and jam, and push, and pull, and
I’ve hearn their remarks, full as wonderin’ and as agitated as the
backwooders from way behind Jonesville.
That makes two ors, as I figger on’t.
Wall, here is another one jest as big or bigger; set them New Yorkers,
them very Broadwayers, down in a London street, and you’ll have another
or jest as big to add as the two foregoin’ ones.
The crowd is jest as much immenser, the roar jest as much louder, the
jam, and push, and pull, and drive, and yell, and crash, and scramble,
and roar, and rattle jest as much more enormouser.
Why, imagine the slate stuns down to the Jonesville creek all springin’
up into men and wimmen, and horses and wagons, and carriages and drays,
etc., etc., etc., and you may have a faint idee of the countless number
on ’em; and then imagine over all that seen a deep, black curtain of
fog descended down sudden, and out of that roar the crowds of vehicles
of all kinds, the yells of drivers, and most probble the yells of
skairt-out females a-blendin’ in it--imagine it if you can; wall, that
is a London street.
I wuz considerable interested in the bridges of London that crossed the
Thames, and I meditated every time I crossed one on ’em on Old London
Bridge, and what a seen, what a seen that wuz for centuries; with
houses built on each side on’t, merchants and dealers in everything,
and artists and preachers, for all I know. I know, anyway, one on ’em
wuz a good preacher--the immortal Bunyan. How he must have meditated as
he see the throng surge past him--old and young, beggars and princes,
velvet and rags!
How he must have thought of the hard journey to the Celestial City, and
what a hard tussle it wuz to git there!
Hogarth lived here at one time, and mebby got the idee of his “Rake’s
Progress” from some of the endless crowd he see go past. Anyway, he
probble see rakes enough, if that wuz all, for they have permeated
every field of life, a-rakin’ up all that is vile, and leavin’ the
flowers and sweet blades of grass as they raked on.
Holbein lived here.
Life on that old bridge must have been a sight to contemplate, havin’
a good time on it some of the time, most probble, jest as we do in
America and Jonesville. But in times of highest prosperity a-knowin’
that under ’em wuz a deep, black current a-flowin’, jest as we know it
in Jonesville, only the current of Human Life is more mysteriouser and
vague.
Poor William Wallace had his head stuck up here--good creeter, it
wuz a shame after all he went through: a-losin’ his first wife and
a-fightin’ so for freedom. And Thomas More, and Bolingbroke, and lots
of others--middlin’ good creeters, all on ’em. And then there wuz
traitors, Jack Cade, etc., etc., etc. I d’no but their heads did less
trouble here than when they wuz on their bodies, so fur as the world
wuz concerned, but I spoze it come tough on ’em, a-seein’ these heads
wuz the only one they had.
And Martin took us to parks so beautiful and grand that they took down
Martin’s pride considerable, and us Jonesvillians, whose grassy acre in
front of the meetin’-house had looked spacious to us, laid out as it
wuz with young maples and slippery ellums--
But where wuz our pride, and where wuz Martin’s? Think of four hundred
acres all full of beauty: that is Hyde Park. And Windsor Park, Queen
Victoria’s door-yard, as you may say, has five hundred acres in it.
Jest think on’t.
And there we’ve called our door-yard big, specially sence we moved
the fence and took in the old gooseberry patch. I had boasted to
neighborin’ wimmen that it must be nigh upon a quarter of a acre--but
five hundred, the idee!
Wall, I’m glad I hain’t got to tend to it, and weed the poseys, and see
that the grass is cut. But, then, she’s forehanded; she can afford to
hire.
But, amongst all the parks we went to, Josiah and I seemed to like the
Kew Gardens about as well as any.
I had deep emotions, for wuz it not there that Clive Newcome walked
with Ethel? Her sweet form clost to him, but the dreary sea of Hopeless
Despair a-surgin’ through his heart, a-seemin’ to wash her milds away
from him, and she also, visey versey.
Poor young creeters! poor young hearts!
I seemed to see ’em a-walkin’ before me, with downcast heads and sad
eyes, all up and down them lovely walks, jest as in Windsor Park
I seemed to see the Merry Wives of Windsor, and poor old Falstaff
a-settin’ out to meet ’em.
I seemed to look out with my mind’s eye for that poor, foolish, vain
old creeter more’n I did for Victoria’s clothes, which I might have
expected would be hung out to dry that day--it bein’ a Monday, and she
sech a splendid housekeeper.
I have said what emotions rousted up in me as I went through Kew
Gardens; as for Josiah, he liked ’em because he could git provisions
here of all kinds--good ones, too, and cheap.
CHAPTER XXV.
A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Wall, we went to the British Museum.
To give any idee of what we see in that museum would take more time,
and foolscap paper, and eyesight, or wind and ears than I spoze I will
ever be able to command.
It is seven acres of land full of everything rich and rare and
beautiful from our time back to the year one, and further, for
all I know. The marbles, engravin’s, picters, coins, manuscripts,
curosities--if I had the wealth of ’em in money--if I could have the
worth of jest one article out of the innumerable multitude of ’em, I
could jest buy out the hull town of Lyme, and live on the interest of
my money.
The museum holds everything and more too. And the library, why, it
is most too much to believe what we see there. Now, I’ve always had
a Bible and a New Testament, and have never gin much thought whether
there wuz any other different ones; but I see with my own eyes
seventeen hundred different kinds of Bibles.
And good land! everything else accordin’--everything else a-swingin’
out jest as regardless of cost and space. The Egyptian Gallery wuz a
sight to see, and statutes and slabs older than the hills. Who writ
them words on ’em? Did the heads ache, and hearts, jest as they do now?
I spoze so.
Roman, Grecian, Assyrian galleries, galleries of all sorts, birds and
beasts and fishes enough to stock the world, it seemed to me.
But most of all the relicks; some on ’em filled my tired-out brain with
or and wonder and admiration.
Milton’s contract with his publishers for “Paradise Lost” (he got five
pounds down, and wuz goin’ to git five dollars more when the first
edition wuz sold, and so on).
They took the advantage on him; you know he wuz blind, and couldn’t
skirmish round and look into things; so Paradise or not, they got the
better of him.
And then his widder; why didn’t they try to do as they ort to by Miss
Milton? She sold out root and branch for eight dollars--the idee! Why,
how many copies have been sold of that book? Enough to build up a
mountain as high as the Catskills.
8 pounds for ’em--what a shame!
The publishers are dead, I spoze; yes, I spoze Samuel Symon passed
away years ago, but he left quite a big family, and they all seem to
foller the old gentleman’s plans, and are doin’ first-rate and layin’
up money real fast.
And I see Hogarth’s receipts for some of his picters. And there wuz the
very prayer-book used by Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold.
“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place for all generations,” and
“though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death” I will be
with thee. I wonder if she heard the words when the shadders lay so
dark on her pretty head?
Then there wuz letters writ in their own hands from Martin Luther,
Oliver Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great,
Dudley, Leicester, Francis Bacon. And there wuzn’t a word in Francises
letter, so fur as I see, as to whether he wuz Shakespeare or not, or
whether Shakespeare wuz him.
I wish I knew how it wuz!
And there wuz papers and letters from all the kings and emperors, and
George Washington right amongst ’em--it kinder tickled my pride to see
George there, but he deserved it.
Then there wuz the old bull that gin Henry the VIII. the name of
Defender of the Faith. What kind of faith did he act out--the faith
that he could marry more wimmen and chop their heads off than any
other old creeter this side of Blue Beard.
I should have been ashamed if I wuz him. If he had been a woman
a-marryin’ and a-killin’ and a-marryin’, and etc., etc., etc., they
wouldn’t have stood it half so long--they would have broke it up; it
wouldn’t have been any worse in a female for anything I know.
And then there wuz the message from Julius Cæsar a-sayin’ that he had
“Veni, vidi, vici.”
I spoze Thomas Jefferson would know jest what that meant. Josiah
thought it wuz sunthin’ about some wimmen--Nancy somebody, but I
d’no--I wouldn’t ask.
And then there wuz letters from good riz up creeters, sech as John
Knox, Sir Isaac Newton, Cardinal Wolsey, Cranmer, Erasmus, etc., etc.,
etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth.
Josiah wuz perfectly beat out when we got home that night, and so wuz I.
But we found letters from home, and they seemed to refresh us and take
our minds offen our four legs and our two dizzy and tired-out heads.
Babe, sweet little creeter, she writ that she prayed for me every
night, and for her grandpapa, too. I wonder if that is one reason why
our legs didn’t give out completely that day, as they threatened to
time and agin?
Thomas J. and Tirzah Ann writ affectionate letters--Thomas J. a-tellin’
us to be careful and not overdo, and Tirzah Ann sent a heart full of
love, and a request to git a yard and a half of lace with deep pints
on’t to trim a summer waist.
Ury and Philury wanted to know when we wuz a-comin’ home, and whether,
with deep respects, they should take up the parlor carpet, that seemed
threatened with carpet bugs, and whether it wuz best to break up the
8-acre lot.
Oh, sweet and tender missives, how near they seemed to bring the old
home to us--drag it right along over the glassy bridge of the Atlantic
and land it at our feet!
Wall, Martin sed he wouldn’t fail to see Madame Tussaud’s wax figgers.
He sed undoubtedly he would be asked if he’d seen ’em. And Adrian wuz
anxious to go, thinkin’ it wuz sunthin’ like a circus.
But we found it wuz a sight, a sight to see how nateral they wuz.
Why, some of the figgers almost breathed, and you can see ’em--some
machinery rigged up inside, I spoze. And then we see kings, and
queens, and princes, and warriors, and everybody else--we got fairly
light-headed a-seein’ ’em all, and I spoze Josiah got kinder excited
and wrought up, or he wouldn’t have done as he did.
There wuz a old man a-holdin’ a programme in his hand, and every little
while he would lift up his head and look round. He favored Deacon Henzy
quite a good deal, and Josiah sez to me--
“I believe that is Deacon Henzy’s cousin; you know he sed he had one
here in London. Don’t you see he has got the real Henzy nose? I believe
I’ll be neighborly and scrape acquaintance with him.”
“Wall,” sez I, “he duz favor the Henzys, but,” sez I, “don’t be too
forred; the Henzys are big feelin’.”
“Big feelin’!” sez Josiah; “don’t you spoze he will be glad to see
a neighbor of his own blood relation?” Sez he, “He will be glad to
neighbor with me.”
I felt dubersome, but he advanced onwards, and sez he in his most
polite axents--
“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”
[Illustration: “Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”]
The old man never moved, but read away, and occasionally lifted his
head and looked round, and Josiah spoke agin a little louder--
“Be you any relative of Bildad Henzy?”
He never noticed my pardner any more’n as if he wuz dirt under his
feet, and my pardner got his dander up, and he fairly yelled in the old
man’s ears--
“Be you a Henzy?” And bein’ mad, he added, “Dum you! I believe you can
hear if you want to.” And he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder to
draw his attention to him. And for all the world! if that man wuzn’t
wax! Josiah looked meachin’ for as much as four minutes, and I sez--
“I told you to look ahead.”
“You didn’t, nuther,” he snapped out.
“Wall,” sez I, “it wuz words to that effect, and I wouldn’t try to be
neighborly agin to-day.”
Sez he, “If I see a man afire I wouldn’t tell him on’t.”
“Wall,” sez I, “he would probble find it out himself; but now,” sez I,
“you’d better keep right by me.”
Wall, as I said, we see every noted woman from Queen Victoria back to
Eve, I guess; and from the Prince of Wales and his wife and children
back to little Cain and Abel--or I presoom Adam’s little boys wuz
there, though I don’t remember of seein’ ’em. But there wuz Knights,
Barons, Crusaders, Kings, and Emperors, all dressed up in royal robes;
the Black Prince, as good a lookin’ young man as I want to see, and
Kings Edward and Richard and Henry, and Queens Mary and Elizabeth,
and Mary, Queen of Scots, all ready to have her head cut off; and her
rosary, on which she had told her prayers those dretful days, slipped
through her fingers as much as to say, I am goin’ into a country where
I sha’n’t want you any more. And there wuz Marie Antonette--poor
creeter! and Anne Boleyn, poor thing! she’d better not married a
widdower. And Joan of Arc, noble creeter! I felt real riz up a-lookin’
at her--I always liked her.
And I wuz dretful interested in the Napoleon rooms, full of the relicks
of the great kingmaker.
There he lay, jest as nateral as life, on a bed, with his cloak wropped
round him--the very cloak he wore at the battle of Marengo, and which
he wropped round his body some like a pall when that heart had stopped
its ambitious throbbin’s; and the world breathed freer.
Then there wuz his coronation robe--and if you’ll believe it, the
coronation robe of poor Empress Josephine right by.
I’d a-gin ten cents cheerfully if I could have got a little piece of
both on ’em for my crazy quilt. But I didn’t spoze they’d be willin’ to
have me cut ’em off, so I didn’t tackle the guide about it.
And mebby it wuz jest as well, I d’no as I could have slept much
under them two robes and meditated on what they had covered up. Love,
triumph, doubt, jealousy, heartaches, despair would permeate the
Josephine crazy block, and wild passions, and burnin’ ambition, and
cold, remorseless neglect, and desertion would most likely surround the
Napoleon crazed block.
I d’no but I should have the nightmair every time I tried to sleep
under it.
Then there wuz his watch, stopped the minute he died, his ring,
camp knife and fork, coffee-pot, snuff-box--if I hadn’t seen it, I
wouldn’t believed he used snuff, the idee is somehow so incongrous of
the hero of the Nile, the conqueror of Europe a-takin’ snuff. Why,
all Jonesville kinder looks down on old Miss Moody because she takes
snuff--black snuff, too, scented high with bergamot.
[Illustration: Napoleon’s tooth.]
Wall, one of the most life-like relicks wuz one of his teeth; that wuz
a part of the great emperor, or wuz once, before it wuz pulled out.
I spoze it ached jest like anybody’s tooth, and I presoom he wuz hard
to git along with, and talked rough, jest as any ordinary man duz,
durin’ its worst twinges.
I presoom he sed “Dum it!” repeatedly before he made up his mind to
have it out.
I jedge him by Josiah, and I spoze that is a good way to jedge men.
Yes, I spoze you ketch any one man and study him clost, and you have a
good idee of the hull male race.
And then there wuz a lock of hair, took right from his scalp, so I
spoze. Oh, what burnin’ thoughts and plans and ambitions once permeated
the spot on which that grew!
My emotions wuz a perfect sight as I looked at it.
And we see clothes and relicks of every other great man, it seems to
me, that ever lived--Lord Nelson, Henry of Navarre, etc., etc., etc.
And we see figgers--lookin’ jest as nateral as if they could walk up
and shake hands with you, if they wuz a-mind to--of Shakespeare and
Macaulay and Scott and Byron, Calvin and Knox and Luther, Lincoln’s
homely, good face, and Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc., etc.
I wouldn’t give a cent to see all the figgers of criminals and
murderers, but Martin thought it advisable to walk through it, so he
could say he’d been there, I spoze.
And there wuz one thing among everything else that gin me more than
seventy emotions, and that wuz the very axe, the very old guillotine
that cut off the heads of twenty-two thousand folks durin’ the Rain of
Terror in Paris.
I looked at the piece of iron with feelin’s, as I say, beyend
description.
And I wondered out loud if the iron wuz now dug out of the sile that
would make jest sech a horrible instrument for America.
I groaned deep as I wondered it.
And Josiah sez, “You talk like a fool, Samantha!”
And I sez, “I hope I do, Josiah--I hope so!
“But what hammered this piece of iron out to its terrible use wuz the
fiery hammers of jealousy, and fury, and hunger, and want, and the gay
multitude went on in its gayety and extravagancies, and didn’t heed
the sullen hammerin’s onto that iron, and laughed at ’em that called
attention to it--jest as you are a-doin’ now, Josiah Allen.”
Sez he, “You can talk about my extravagancies if you want to, Samantha
Allen, but I hain’t half the clothes you have, and they hain’t trimmed
off anywhere nigh as high as yourn are.”
But I went on, not heedin’ his triflin’ words.
Sez I, “The same furies are loose in the streets of our American
cities to-day--foolish suspicion driv by mistaken zeal, jealousy,
heartburnin’, honest want, and need on one side; injestice, wrong,
oppressions, extravagance, indifference, anger, contempt, etc., etc.,
etc., on the other side, all a-flamin’ up and a-holdin’ up a light
for jest sech a axe to be ground out. How long will I hear the sullen
thunderin’ of the silent hammerin’s on the forge of ignorant malice and
hatred and jest anger--how long?” And I sithed deep and heavey.
And Josiah sez, “What you hear is the thud of folks a-walkin’ through
the Chamber of Horrows.”
And sez he agin, “You talk like a fool! America is good to the poor.
Look at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so,” sez he, a-bringin’
my attention to some of the most shinin’ lights in the field of
philanthropy and jestice.
Sez I, a-drawin’ his attention to the good philanthropic works in
France--sez I, “Paris had also her So-and-so, and So-and-so, and
So-and-so before the Rain of Terror.”
And agin I gin several sithes and a few groans.
But my pardner looked cross as a bear, and dog tired.
So, as allegorin’ and eppisodin’ must yield to the powers of affection,
I mekanically follered him in silence through the halls, Martin and the
children bein’ in another part of the buildin’ and Al Faizi somewhere
a-lookin’ or a-takin’ notes in a noble way--I hain’t a doubt of it.
But we all rejoined each other, and sot off home to dinner amid
Josiah’s great rejoicin’.
Wall, Martin took us to the Zoological Garden, where we see all the
dumb creeters that ever wuz made, it seemed to me; and all used so
first-rate that it wuz a comfort to me to see ’em. Great big cages,
where they could roam round some and enjoy themselves.
[Illustration: Josiah at the London “Zoo.”]
And wuzn’t it a pleasure to see all the beautiful birds, of every color
and plume, from every country from Eden down, a-playin round in the
trees and in the ambient air? The cages as big as a door-yard, with
trees in ’em, where they can fly round in the branches. And water birds
with their own ponds to float in; and sea birds with real sea-shores
fixed up for ’em.
And so it wuz with every animal from a elephant down, wild or tame. And
I should have took a sight of comfort here if I had had a pair of iron
ear pans, or even gutty-perchy. But bein’ but flesh and blood, them
pans ached with the fearful noise the animals made.
Josiah wanted the worst way to go to the Parliament of Cogers, which
wuz established over two hundred years ago, and still meets in Fleet
Street.
Sez Josiah, “A public man in America naterly depends on cogers and sech
for his election.”
“Yes,” sez I; “Heaven knows that is so. Saloon-keepers and whiskey and
beer and cider manafacturers, and whiskey drinkers, and the raw foreign
element, and other cogers, elect more politicians to office, specially
in our big towns, than any other element; and pure men and Christian
wimmen have to stand back and be ruled by ’em.”
“Yes,” sez he, blandly; “and so it stands anybody in hand who has
political aspirations and wants to be popular with the masses to
ingrashiate himself with all the cogers he can. I would love to see
what means these men take to endear themselves to the cogers, besides
buyin’ ’em, and makin’ ’em drunk, and sech other ways as I’m familar
with.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll go alone for all of me; I see cogers enough in
my own country without huntin’ ’em up here, and I’d advise you to keep
away from ’em.” Sez I, “Your head hain’t strong enough, Josiah, to
hold only jest so much, and I’d advise you to fill it up with the noble
and grand objects we see here on every side, and let cogers alone.”
“But,” sez he, “my futer depends on ’em; I must keep up with other
statesmen if I’m ever to amount to anything.”
But I wouldn’t listen to any more of his arguments, and waved off the
subject almost hautily.
But I found out afterwards that the Parliament wuzn’t cogers as
Josiah looked on ’em, and they wuz particular to be called _co_gers,
with the emphasis on the _co_. I found they wuz a sort of mock
debates--patronized by lawyers, political men, newspaper men, clerks,
etc., where they debate on every subject, and drink beer and smoke
pipes and talk, talk, talk.
Daniel O’Connell and Curran and John Wilkes and many others eminent in
debate wuz members of this club.
I had always pictered the Tower of London as a tall tower a-shootin’
up, some like a steeple, only more of a size all the way up; more,
mebby, like a very tall pillow. But, anyway, I’d always depictered it
in my mind as steeple or pillow shaped.
But, to my surprise, I found that what is called the Tower of London
is a hull lot of buildin’s that cover nigh upon fourteen acres of
ground, though there are, of course, a number of towers throwed
in--thirteen of ’em in all--Bloody Tower, Bell Tower, Jewel Tower,
etc., etc. They date back to the time of Cæsar.
There wuz a Roman fortress on this spot when the Romans held London.
One tower is called Cæsar’s Tower now. William the Conqueror founded
the Tower of London as we see it. When he wuz alive it wuz a great
palace, with thick walls for safety or defence; it wuz used as a prison
for prisoners of state mostly, and now it is used as an arsenal. Piles
of rifles and cannons are kep’ here in some of the buildin’s.
The principal entrance is the Lion’s Gate, but there are three other
gates. The Traitor’s Gate wuz the one through which prisoners wuz took
into the Tower. I don’t spoze they recognized the way they wuz took
out. Then there is the Water Gate and the Iron Gate.
One of the most interestin’ sights there wuz the guards who had charge
of the place. They had on velvet hats, with a kind of a wreath on ’em,
some like Tirzah Ann’s last winter’s hat, and a deep ruffle round their
necks, and a blue sort of a polenay or overskirt, with a belt all
embroidered with roses and thistles and shamrocks and crowns, and,
etc., and short pantoloons, with stockin’s comin’ up to the knee, and
rosettes on their knees and rosettes on their shues.
Josiah sez to me, “Never before sence I wuz born have I seen a man
dressed up as he ort to be to carry out my idees. You can see for
yourself, Samantha, jest how perfectly beautiful, and how dressy and
stylish a man can be if he sets out; why,” sez he, “a dress like that
would take twenty years offen my age, and I d’no but twenty-one, and
I’m bound to have one jest exactly like it if I ever live to git home.
What a sensation it will create in Jonesville!” sez he dreamily.
I gin a deep sithe, but before I could reply the company started
on their rounds of observation, led by one of them gay-dressed
individuals. They go the rounds every half hour.
Wall, we got some guide-books, and payed our sixpence apiece for our
tickets, some as if we wuz goin’ into a menagerie, and follered the
guide over the moat bridge into the different towers.
Martin and Josiah wuz dretful interested in the place where the weepons
wuz kep’, bayonets and swords and rifles and pistols enough to equip
all the armies of the earth, it seemed to me.
But I wuz more interested, a dretful heart-sickenin’ interest in the
place where the wretched captives wuz imprisoned and wore the long
hours away (jest as long hours as we have now) in vain dreams of the
happy and brilliant past. A-lookin’ forred to the sure approach of a
awful death, or, perhaps, in ellusive hopes of escape and flight to
other shores.
But the shores they reached, poor things! wuz up a steep the livin’ has
never climbed.
We see on the walls of these prisons words they carved in the hours
they waited execution. Arthur Poole, who tried to help Mary up onto the
English throne, left these words--
“I. H. S. A passage perillus makethe a port pleasant--1568.--A. Poole.”
I wonder jest how he felt when he writ them words--jest what a
heartache and heartbreak spoke through ’em. I dare presoom to say he
thought too much of Mary, but I can’t help that now; it’s three hundred
years too late.
There wuz elaborate carvin’s of flowers, leaves, figgers, etc., and
the names of their unhappy designers, who seemin’ly tried to light up
their captivity by formin’ the shapes of the flowers they would never
see a-growin’ in freedom agin--poseys without perfume, cold stun rosys,
indeed.
And then in one room wuz jest that one word:
“Jane.”
That touched me more’n the more elaborate ones. That wuz spozed to mean
Lady Jane Grey, and wuz carved by her pardner, Lord Dudley. It seemed
as if Love wuz a-callin’ out to her--“Jane!” jest that one cry acrost
the silences of death and eternity.
Then there wuz the autograph of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who had
his head cut off in 1572 for wantin’ to marry Mary Queen of Scots.
What a havock that woman did make amongst the men!
Then in the White Tower we see the place where Essex wuz killed and the
rooms occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, and in the Brick Tower we see
the prison where Walter spent the last days of his life. I wondered if
through the long, dreary hours them real good words of hisen wuz any
comfort to him:
“Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staffe of faith to walk upon;
My scrip of joye--immortal diet--
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
--And thus I take my pilgrimage.
“Blood must be my body’s balmer,
While my soul, like peaceful palmer,
Travelleth toward the land of Heaven.
* * * * *
“There will I kiss
The bowle of blisse,
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken-hill;
My soul will be a-dry before;
But after that will thirst no more.”
Them lines ort to have been a comfort to him--mebby they wuz. But lines
writ in a pleasant room to home, with the door shet up, don’t mebby
sound jest the same on the scaffold or to the stake--dretful echoes
sound all round ’em, loud voices that mebby drown out the words.
I spoze he thought sometimes durin’ them long days of his friends
Shakespeare and Bacon. Mebby if there wuz any secrets between them two
about the plays, he knew it. I wish I knew what it wuz--I’d give fifty
cents freely if it could be made known to me.
I wonder what he thought of Elizabeth in them days. I wonder if he wuz
sorry he throwed his cloak down for her to walk over. He tried to keep
her from jest dampenin’ her feet a little, and she willin’ to cut his
head off.
I’ll bet if he’d had his way them last ten days here, he would have let
her sloshed right through the mud, and not offered to throw his cloak
down for her.
Poor, capricious, jealous creeter, Lib wuz; but I believe that big
collar she always wore choked her and kinder rasped her neck, and made
her ugly. It would make me cross as a bear, it seems to me.
But I d’no what his feelin’s wuz, nor what hern wuz, when she knew the
man who wuz once her lover, and beloved by her, wuz spendin’ the long
days alone with despair and death.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PARIS AND ITS BEAUTIES.
Wall, Martin felt and sed that France must be took in by him. He sed
that a full knowledge of the French character, the country and the
customs and habits of the people, wuz positively imperative to any one
who laid any claims to fashion, and so he laid out to go to France and
give it a exhaustive study. He laid out, he sed, to stay in the country
not less than three days, and he might possibly stay four.
Thinkses I, with a deep inward sithe, I guess it will be a exhaustive
study; it exhausted me even to think of bein’ raced so through a
country, whirled on by the influence of Fashion and Martin.
But he wuz the conductor of the enterprise, so to speak, and we had to
foller his rules blindly, as it wuz.
Wall, travellin’ at the rate of speed we did, my memories are apt
to run together, some like the colors of a calico dress after it is
washed--the blacks and reds are apt to mingle, dark eppisodes and
lighter complected ones--but some memories stand out vividly, too
deeply printed to fade out.
One is my Josiah’s feelin’s at not havin’ his breakfast till ’leven
o’clock.
In vain the waiter told him that at any time he could have his
“calf-o-lay” (French).
“Lay!” sez he; “that’s jest what I want to get rid on--lay! Do you
spoze that after gittin’ up at five o’clock all my life, I’m a-goin’ to
lay abed till noon?” And then the waiter murmured sunthin’ agin about
“calf-o-lay.”
[Illustration: “Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted.]
And that madded Josiah agin, and sez he, “What of it--what if calves do
lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted. “You think,” sez he, “that
because I come from the country that you can go on with your insultin’
talk about calves, and intimate that I’m a calf. But I’ll let you know
that you’ve got holt of the wrong individual to impose upon. Keep your
dum breakfast till noon if you want to and starve a man to death, but
you shall not call me a calf.”
I interrupted him and told him that he meant coffee with milk.
“Coffee and milk!” he hollered; “what is that to feed a starvin’ man?”
Sez he, “I want pork and beans and potaters and slap-jacks.”
Wall, the waiter wuz skairt most to death, but I quieted my pardner
down, and the next time I had a chance I bought two paper bags of
cookies and sech, to appease the worst cravin’s of hunger, and
administered ’em to him as I had need.
Another memory is seein’ the bathers goin’ in at Havre, and the trials
I had with my pardner a-keepin’ him out of the briny surf.
[Illustration: “How stylish I would look.”]
Sez he, “Samantha, I will go in a-bathin’; jest see,” sez he, “how
gayly they swim and float through the water, all dressed up in bright
colors; how stylish it would look, what a air it would gin us to see
you and me a-floatin’ and a-bobbin’ up and down in that element! It
would be sunthin’ so uneek to tell to Deacon Gowdey and Ury.
“And then,” sez he, “we could lead the fashion to home, we could turn
the buzz saw-mill dam into a perfect carnival of delight.”
I looked coldly at him, and sez I, “You’re not goin’ to make a fool of
yourself at your age by bathin’ and foolin’ round in the water.”
“Why,” sez he, “you’re always preachin’ up bathin’ to me; you’ve
lectered me more times than I’ve got fingers and toes about bathin’;
and now that I’m willin’ to foller it up, you draw me back.”
And agin he looked longin’ly at the dancin’ surf and the gay-robed
bathers and the funny bathin’ housen.
But I sez, “A big pail of water and some soap and towels and the
seclusion of your bedroom are very different from makin’ a spectacle of
yourself here in this hant of display.”
I broke it up.
And then at Trouville, though I spoze nobody would believe it, and he
denies it now, yet sech is the force of custom and fashion on the mind
of my beloved pardner that I d’no but that man would have played cards
and won money mebby up as high as 25 cents, if I’d allowed it.
He denies the awful charge, and mebby he’s right. But he talked
strange, strange for a deacon and a grandfather.
But while engaged in these purile thoughts while journeyin’ through
France his pardner wuz thinkin’ of what we owed the country, and how
it sent the flower of its youth and bravery to help us in our troublous
time.
I thought of the young Marquis De Lafayette leavin’ his fair France,
his ease, his luxury, and his sweetheart, to sail out fur away into
the midst of privations and dangers to help a strugglin’ colony to
independence.
And then I thought of how another Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, wuz the
first white man to navigate our king of rivers, the St. Lawrence. Why,
my thoughts soared and sailed along as I thought of them idees, most as
surgin’ and deep as that noble river at its widest pint, and my pride
and glory in my native land stood up above that sweepin’ current some
like its Thousand Islands, only mebby not ornamented off so much as
they be with palaces, bridges, cupalos, torchlights, etc., etc.
But I felt dretful riz up. And a-musin’ on Lafayette and the debt we
owed France, I wondered if they got in a tussel with England or Russia
or etc.--if Uncle Sam would lay to and help her in return.
But I d’no as there is any danger of our havin’ the job, seein’ she has
got about six millions of defenders in her army and navy; and we about
20 or 30 thousand.
Queer, hain’t it, when the United States is so much bigger than she is?
But the fact speaks well for our republic and all the law-makers, from
its President and Governors down to its Pathmasters and School Trustees.
In Havre, Alice wuz some interested in seein’ the birthplace of Sara
Bernhardt. She had seen her act, and they do say, though she is
considerable bony in figger and gittin’ along in years, she is a marvel
of grace, and acts out all sorts of lives, and dies so nateral that
you’d almost appint the day for her funeral and pick out her barriers.
I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as she is, and
Josiah don’t think I can; he wuz real sot on it when we talked it over.
[Illustration: I don’t spoze I could ever git to be nigh so graceful as
she is.]
Al Faizi wuz interested in seein’ the birthplace of Alphonse Karr--he
had read his works.
Wall, there wuz one place I wanted to see dretfully on our journey to
Paris, and Al Faizi and Alice wanted to see it too. And that wuz the
place where the Maid of Orleans wuz executed in 1431. I mentioned to
Martin our desires.
And he sez, “Joan of Ark? What Ark,” sez he, “is that? I am not
familiar with any such personage,” sez he.
Sez I, “You can call her that, or you can call her Jennie Dark; you can
call it either way.”
“I don’t know any Ark or Dark,” sez he. “Was she a woman of any note?
Was her calling a high one?” sez he.
“About as high as you git here below,” sez I. “She heard voices from
above; angels talked with her and guided her on her way.” And I went on
and related her history, brief though impressive, comin’ to me through
Thomas J.
Sez Martin, “I don’t approve of following up any such impostors; I
don’t believe in any such doings. Common sense don’t bear them out.”
Sez I mildly, “Mebby Oncommon Sense is needed to comprehend it, Martin.”
But he wuz obdurate, till Alice told him in her sweet way that she
would really love to go there.
And then he gin in to once.
And we did go to the Place De Pucelle, where she wuz burned to death
for bein’ more speritual and riz up than her burners.
I had a sight of emotions as I stood on that spot--sights on ’em.
You see, I had her story at my tongue’s end, Thomas J. had read it
to me so much. She wuz a common country girl, whose parents wuz day
laborers. She herself couldn’t read or write. Into this sile, prepared,
as you may say--speakin’ from the laws of heredity--for only coarse
labor, coarse thoughts, common desires and hopes--
In this sile sprung up the consummit flower of speritual communion.
Angels talked with her. She held communion with the Exalted One. From
her thirteenth year she heard voices speakin’ to her. They did not tell
her to go forth to labor like her brothers and sisters; no, they told
her to free France from the English, put her young king on the throne.
The onseen one that talked with her enabled her to know her troubled
young king, amidst a crowd of his own age and dressed jest as he wuz.
She had hard work to even see him to tell her mission, so sure wuz
the Common Sense about her that the Oncommon Sense she had wuz only
imposter.
But she headed the army, made that wicked, dissolute body of soldiers
some like Christian Endeavorers, so ardent and sincere wuz her piety.
She won the battle. Agin and agin she defeated the enemy. She saw
her young king crowned. Then she wanted to go back into her quiet
home--into the garden where in the cool of the evenin’ she heard the
heavenly message. She said her work wuz done. But they wouldn’t let her
go. And wuz it because she didn’t foller the Voice that told her to go
back to her old home--did a little personal pride, gratified ambition,
ozze in and flavor the human mandate to make her stay?
I d’no, nor Josiah don’t. But she begun to make mistakes after
this--lost battles, and at last her own countrymen, though allies of
the English, called her a sorceress. The Common Sense found her guilty;
the same C. S. burnt her up root and branch.
But the Oncommon Sense didn’t desert her. The heavenly influence that
the multitude wuz blind as a bat to, and as deef as a adder, made her
say in them last supreme moments--
“I _did_ hear the voices.”
Wall, the feelin’s I had as I stood in that spot couldn’t be
counted--no, not on a typewriter.
The Common Sense felt that a statute to her ort to be useful, as well
as ornamental, so they made it into a sort of a waterin’ trough. And
the statute hain’t what it ort to be, but my imagination filled out
the details, and I see as I look at it the rapt face of the little
maiden of thirteen a-lookin’ up with illumined eyes as she received the
message; I see her a noble conqueror, clad in armor, stand by her young
king as she see him crowned; I see her noble face uplifted to Heaven as
the flames mounted about her; I hearn her say--
“I _did_ hear the voices.”
But my reflections wuz cut short by the words:
“Well, I believe tourists usually make a short stay here; it is
comparatively uninteresting. This combination of trough and monument is
remarkably uninteresting, and not to be copied by Americans.
“Though considering the small water power France possesses, compared
with our own great water-courses, I can’t perhaps criticise their
methods so much.” This I heard on the right of me, then on the left of
me Josiah’s voice--
“This has put a crackin’ good idee into my head, Samantha. You know the
trough out east of the horse barn, Ury might kinder chop out a statute
of me and nail it on top of it; it would be highly esteemed by my
fellow-townsmen. He could put on it, you know, ”Deacon and salesman in
the cheese factory.“ They’d praise the trough highly, and I’ll have Ury
begin it jest as quick as I git home; I’ve got a good block of hickory
over to the saw-mill.”
I sithed deep and turned away, and I see Al Faizi’s rapt face a-lookin’
beyend the statute--fur beyend, on sunthin’ that Martin and Josiah
couldn’t see if they lived to be as old as Metheuseleah.
Alice looked real sweet and dreamy, too. Adrian wuz playin’ in the
water.
And so each one on us wuz pursuin’ our own peticular fantoms, some on
’em as thin shadders as the materials dreams are made of, and some on
’em as real and practical as horse-blocks and anvils.
Martin sed he should make only a brief visit to France, as he had
studied the country so exhaustively when he brung Alice over here to
school and went after her (in all, he wuz in France about 48 hours); he
sed he could spend but very little time there.
But he sed that he felt that the proper thing to do would be to visit
Paris, so he could say on our return that we had come straight from
Paris. I d’no why he felt so, but I spoze he did.
But we did, indeed, find Paris a beautiful city.
Martin put up at a first-class tarvern, as he always did. But I hearn
him tell Josiah that they cheated him on every side. It madded Martin,
for though he always duz things on a large, noble scale, and is willin’
to pay large, yet he don’t want to be cheated--nobody duz.
I found that they spoke English at the tarvern, so my worst fears wuz
squenched; for how I wuz goin’ to git along and feed Josiah in a land
where bread wuz “pain” and water wuz “oh” wuz more than I could tell.
Besides, other things accordin’, what wuz I to do? I wildly questioned
my soul.
How could I git my pardner dressed, and warmed, and git him from place
to place wuz more than I could tell; but my fears wuz vain, for though
jabberin’s wuz on every side on us, and rapid vocifiration in senseless
brogue wuz in voge, yet plenty wuz found who spoke our good, honest,
Jonesville tongue.
How clean Paris is! how gay and bright the streets look! what pretty
wimmen, and what neat, smart-lookin’ men, and pretty children, too,
with their smart nurse-maids! elegant carriages, splendid housen,
magnificent buildin’s, and arches, and towers, and monuments, and
meetin’-housen, and around everything and over everything the gay,
bright atmosphere of good feelin’ and politeness.
No wonder folks love to come here, and don’t want to go away. Why, I
enjoyed myself first-rate in Paris, and Paris enjoyed my bein’ there,
so fur as I know; they acted as if they did, anyway; most always
a-smilin’ at me and my pardner in a most agreeable manner.
Yes, they wuz glad we had lanched out and come, I hain’t a doubt on’t.
Alice had lots of school friends here, and wuz out a good deal a-seein’
’em, and Martin and Al Faizi wuz each on ’em a-pursuin’ their own
favorite fantoms--as different as any two fantoms ever wuz, from first
to last.
But Josiah and me shacked round quite a good deal, Adrian a-goin’
with us quite considerable. About the first thing that strikes you as
you venter out-doors is the wideness and beauty of the streets, with
their double row of trees and their elegant housen, lookin’ so sort o’
finished--not put in anyhow, like a palace and a hovel, but all kinder
of the same style and make, handsome as picters, and the sidewalk is
as wide as from our house to the barn, and I d’no but wider. They are
twice as wide as the main street in Zoar, some on ’em, where they have
the most gay and beautiful stores of different kinds; and, if you’ll
believe it, they have tables set out-doors in the most handsome style,
and folks a-eatin’ at ’em, all dressed up and a-jabberin’ away, and
a-laughin’, and havin’ a first-rate time.
Josiah wuz dretful impressed by it all.
Sez he, as if he wuz a-usin’ real big words, sez he--
“France is impressive and edifyin’ in many ways. What improvements
we can witness and inaugerate to home! One thing I shall immegiately
proceed to arrange; henceforth, Samantha, we shall always partake of
our food out by the side of the road.”
I looked real cold at the idee, and he went on--
[Illustration: Josiah, “cultered and travelled,” schemes for
Jonesvillian out-door dinner parties, à la Paris, and how Samantha
foresees the result.]
“Jest think of the gayety, the life it will bring to Jonesville to
have all the neighbors a-eatin’ out by the highway, for of course
they will foller the example of those who are cultered and travelled;
imagine,” sez he, a-wavin’ his hand and enjoyin’ himself first-rate in
futer retrospects ahead on him--
“Imagine Deacon Henzy and Drusilly, and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury
and her husband, Simon Slimpsey and Betsy, all on ’em a-eatin’
out-doors, a-minglin’ their voices with ourn as we set to our table;
I with my dressin’-gown on, and you, if you wanted to, a-playin’ on a
accordeon in a gay, light manner befittin’ the happy occasion.”
Sez I, “It would be a lot of fun to set down in a lot of burdocks and
mullin full of dirt; and what would happen when Deacon Small driv
his big herd of cows by? You know they always will go a-prancin’ and
a-kickin’ up the dust and a-actin’ because he wants ’em to eat the
grass along the side of the road.
“How would you like to have the table overturned by his critters, and
you prostrated by a kick in the stumick as you tried vainly to protect
the teapot? How would you like to have that Jersey entangle his huffs
in the tossels of your dressin’-gown, and drag you at his heels?” sez I.
“And who’d bring the food out there and bear it in agin? And if you
think I’m a-goin’ to learn the accordeon at my age and with my rumatiz,
you’re mistakened.”
He see it wuzn’t feasible, but he wouldn’t gin in.
He drawed my attention off by pintin’ down the magnificent vista of
broad avenues, three hundred feet wide, smooth as glass, and full of
gay vehicles, and beyend, risin’ up like a dream of beauty and grandeur
and strength, the great Arch d’Etoile.
This can never be described by Josiah or me; it must be seen to be
appreciated. It is the grandest monument Napoleon has left, and cost
over two millions of dollars.
But as you go on you see fountains and columns and gardens and arches
and booths and groves and singers and amusements of all kinds for the
people, and everything else that is beautiful and impressive and etc.,
etc., etc., etc.
The Place Vendôme, where memories of the great king-maker hover round
the tall columns that picters out his grand, melancholy career; the
Tuileries and the Louvre.
How be I a-goin’ to make the public and Betsy Slimpsey git any idee
of them palaces, adorned with all that is most beautiful in art and
sculpter, and that cover sixty acres of ground!
Mebby I could gin Drusilly Henzy a little idee on’t, for that is jest
the number of acres of solid ground that fell onto ’em from her father.
It jest about crushed ’em--the wealth seemed to ’em overwhelmin’.
Imagine a big farm all risin’ up into palaces, beautiful as you ever
see rise up into the cloudy Heavens.
The Gallery of the Louvre--wall, if Drusilly and I should undertake
to pick up every little grain of dirt that goes to make up them
sixty acres of hern, and have each separate one branch out into some
beautiful, be-a-u-tiful form, some delicate, exquisite fancy, or some
exalted figger of impressive beauty--why, wouldn’t we be tuckered out
before we got through? though at the same time so riz up and inspired,
that we wouldn’t know, some of the time, whether we wuz in the body or
out on’t.
Wall, that may gin the public and Betsy some idee of what everybody
must make up their mind to go through when they tackle the Louvre.
From the beginnin’ of time till now every land has contributed its
choicest treasures to this hallowed place, from Nineveh and Egypt to
Jonesville (for was not Jonesville’s choicest treasures of humanity
represented there when Josiah Allen and I stood there, some like
statutes, only more comfortably dressed, and lookin’ round us more?).
What poems in marble bust onto our visions, and what sights on ’em!
What marvels of ancient art!
What picters! what picters!
Oh, dear me! it lifts me up, and tuckers me out to think on ’em now.
Some of the galleries wuz a quarter of a mild long.
Jest think of it here, as fur as from our house over to Old Grout
Nickleson’s; and I never ust to think, when his mother-in-law was
bed-rid, that I could walk it; no, I always had Josiah hitch up. And
then think of that immense distance full on each side of the best of
the world.
Picters by Guido, Murillo, Titian, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Leonardo da
Vinci, Wouverman, etc., etc., etc.--picters that them immortal old
masters had their own hands on, and bent their own glowin’ inspired
eyes on.
My soul, jest think on’t!
Relicks of all the sovereigns--spurs of the old conquerors (and how
they did spur things up and make ’em fly!).
Relicks of kings without number--and queens, too, and princes.
Marie Antoinette’s shues--I’m glad I didn’t have to walk in ’em, for
though they trod through pleasant, luxurious places at first, they had
to climb up the scaffold.
Poor creeter!
[Illustration: There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over
that restless, ambitious heart.]
The Napoleon Room gin me a sight of emotions, and I didn’t care who see
’em. I jest about cried when I looked on that old flag he kissed in a
sad hour. There wuz the clothes he wore that he ust to button over that
restless, ambitious heart. Yes, and there wuz some of the hair that riz
up over that ambitious brain, that wuz the terror and admiration of all
Europe.
He used Josephine mean--mean as a dog, and he wuz too high-sperited
and ambitious; but yet what a man, what a man he wuz! Sunthin’
good and noble must have been in him to make his soldiers love him
so. How they totter up to-day to lay wreaths on the railin’ round
his statute--layin’ at his marble feet the poseys of their hearts’
devotion, their highest love, and their deepest sorrer. No man not
naterally noble could call forth sech affection in his dependents.
I have wished a hundred times I could have been there, and neighbored
with him and Josephine, and kinder kep’ ’em together, and quelled him
down some in his ambitious views--things would have been different, no
doubt; I presoom she wouldn’t have died of a broken heart--years in
dyin’, but so much the harder.
He wouldn’t have had to be shet up in a lonesome island a prisoner, and
all Europe would have fared better.
But it wuzn’t to be--it wuzn’t to be.
Pa Smith at that time wuzn’t married, and I wuz--wall, I don’t really
know where I wuz at that time, nor Josiah don’t know; it looked kinder
dubersome and vague about my ever bein’ born at all, and things had to
go on jest as they did.
Wall, as I have said heretofore, that gallery of the Louvre is full,
full to overflowin’ of the richest treasures of art, as my riz-up brain
and my four weary legs testify--my own two extremities and my Josiah’s
pair on ’em.
Hisen ached like the toothache, so he sed.
He didn’t bear his weariness silently and oncomplainin’ly, as I tried
to--no, with groanin’s that couldn’t be uttered hardly he kep’ by my
side through them interminable galleries.
Adrian asked a sight of questions--a sight of ’em. And when I proposed
to go to the Bois de Boulogne, my poor pardner asked me feelin’ly if in
the name of the gracious Peter I wanted another boy a-traipsin’ at our
heels a-askin’ enough questions to tire out a regiment of soldiers.
But I explained it all out to him, and we took considerable comfort
there.
The place wuz more beautiful than tongue could tell. Jest as a French
woman always looks better dressed up than an American or an English
woman, and their cities more brilliant and beautiful, jest so are these
woods fur more beautiful than Jonesville or New York woods.
Why, jest compare our sugar bush and the woods between Zoar and
Jonesville with these woods of Boulogne--where be they? Further off
than the golden sunset is to the vision of Josiah.
And the Elysian Fields--tongue would fail to give any idee of what we
see there.
Notre Dame, perfect indeed duz it look, a-risin’ up with its two towers
a-dwarfin’ the housen about it, though they are sizable ones.
The Egyptian Obelisk of Luxor, that rises up in the air one hundred
feet, all full of strange writin’, I wish it could speak and tell what
it had seen all through the past centuries--what its old red face must
have looked down on from first to last.
Curous to even think on. I presoom it must have looked down on
Cleopatra and seen her a-cuttin’ up and a-actin’, a-flirtin’ and
a-carryin’ matters altogether too fur with Antony, Cæsar, etc., etc.
I wonder if the old obelisk sees any sech doin’s now in Paris in 1894?
I dare presoom to say she duz. Human nater has always capered sence the
days of Adam and Eve.
It hain’t never talked on much, but I always blamed Antony jest as
much as I did Cleopatra and Cæsar too; they all ort to been ashamed of
themselves--and sech good wives as they had, too. Aurelia and Calpurnia
wuz real good wimmen, so fur as I ever hearn on.
Wall, the big fountain, which stood not fur off, are a sight to see and
are ornamented beautifully, besides havin’ immense water priveliges,
and they ort to have, for right here on this spot stood that dretful
thing, the guillotine.
Oh, what doin’s, what doin’s took place right here! Angels must have
veiled their faces with their feather wings as they flew over the spot
in them dretful days of the French Revolution. Twenty-eight hundred
wuz killed here--had their heads cut right off--trompled on by men
risin’ aginst tyrants, killin’ ’em off; and then they, too, turned into
tyrants, wuz overthrown and killed off like sheep.
Louis XVI., Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette, Danton,
Robespierre--oh, what dretful things to think on! But the murmur of the
water as it spouted up and fell back in murmurs whispered of happier,
more peaceful times.
In a place where stood the old prison of Bastille, a sile steeped with
the tears and blood of the thousand and thousands of prisoners and
victims, stands Liberty, a-standin’ upon a monument one hundred and
fifty feet high. She always had to wade through blood, and always will,
for all I know. She had a broken chain in one hand--the past is behind
her, the chains are broke. She lifts up a torch in the other hand, its
light streams into the futer. She don’t lay out to have any more sech
deeds of darkness done if she can possibly help it--you can see that by
the looks of her.
CHAPTER XXVII.
NAPOLEON AND OTHER GREAT FRENCHMEN.
One day I told Josiah that I must go to see the Invalides.
And he sez, “You better keep away, Samantha; you may ketch sunthin’.”
But I explained that I wanted to see the tomb of Napoleon, so he gin
in, and we went there and stayed some time.
The big gilded dome of this meetin’-house towers up three hundred and
fifty feet, and can be seen all over the city, and would be apt to
keep Napoleon in memory if France wuz inclined to forgit him, which it
hain’t. Here he lays, jest as he wanted to, by the banks of the waters
he thought so much on, and with the French people he loved.
As you go in, you see under a gold and white canopy the form of our
Lord upon the cross lookin’ down, down into a splendid tomb surrounded
by a great laurel crown and twelve giant statutes of Victories
a-towerin’ up all about it--you see the grave of the Great Conqueror.
My emotions wuz a sight to behold; I couldn’t count ’em, nor did
Josiah.
All the thoughts I had ever had about the Hero--and they’d been
soarin’ ones and a endless variety on ’em seemin’ly--all seemed to be
crystallized and run together as I stood in that spot. But how could
I tell my feelin’s? I couldn’t no more’n them twelve marble figgers
could, who lifted their grand colossial figgers all round his coffin;
their great noble faces expressed a sight, and so I spoze mine did, but
it would have been jest as vain for me to have told my emotions as it
would for them to open their marble lips and told theirn.
You might probble thought that they had their own idees about Napoleon,
and so had I.
He waded through seas of blood and sufferin’, personal sufferin’ as
well, up from obscurity to the topmost pinnacle of worldly glory. He
left achin’, bleedin’ hearts on all sides on him, from Josephine’s down
to the widders and sweethearts of dead soldiers, as he stalked along
with his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and his inscrutable
eyes fixed on the heights, so I spoze; but he loved his country, and
there wuz sunthin’ about the man that drew hearts to him, that turned
grizzled old soldiers into babies when they spoke on him, that made ’em
willin’ to live for him, to die for him.
[Illustration: With his arms folded, and that old hat of hisen on, and
his inscrutable eyes fixed on the heights.]
I d’no, I spoze some of that resistless charm rested on the sublime
magnificence of that place, and always will, so fur as I know.
I felt queer.
But Martin could not pause long even in this place, and for all I know
all the while we wuz there he wuz a-pricein’ in his mind the marble and
porphry and all the matchless splendor of the tomb, and a-calculatin’
on how much the money invested there would bring if he had the handlin’
of it. Anyway, we wuz probble milds and milds apart in our minds,
though the left tab of my mantilly brushed aginst him.
Josiah observed as we turned away that he wuz “hungry and dog tired.”
Al Faizi wuz deep in thought, and Alice and Adrian took up in lookin’
about ’em, and wonderin’ at the grand and solemn magnificence of the
interior.
One day we went to the cemetery of Père La Chaise. Alice and Al Faizi
and Adrian went with us that day; Martin had got to go to see some big
man or other, who owned a ranch in Montana, in the neighborhood of some
of Martin’s friends.
Wall, what a quiet, lovely spot that cemetery is, what a sweet place to
rest in when our little life here is rounded by a sleep!
Over two hundred acres of graves--what glowin’ hopes and joys, what
miseries and despairs found a rest here! Wealth and Poverty, Ambition
and Love, all asleep.
Rothschild a-droppin’ his money bags as the sleep come on, as well as
the baby who reposes under the simple stun marked--“Our Own Darling
Baby.”
Hearts ached when he dropped to sleep.
The Countess Demidoff rests under the costly Mausoleum built above
her. And Rachel, the great actress, wonderful creeter, how she moved
the hearts of the world! But at last the curtain fell and she retired.
No _encore_ from friend or lover can call her before the World’s
footlights agin--no, she has got through actin’; has gone from the
Make-Believe into the Real.
Talma, too, has gone to sleep in that quiet place, and Béranger and
Racine and Bernardin St. Pierre.
It seemed almost as though Paul and Virginia ort to be here by him.
And La Place and Arago. I wonder if they hain’t havin’ a good time
up amongst the stars; I presoom they have discovered lots of new
worlds--hosts of ’em. And General Massena, Marshal Davoust, and Marshal
Ney, the bravest soldier. And Chopin, what music that man must have
hearn by this time--more melogious than he ever dreamt on here!
And Alice wanted to visit the graves of Abelard and Heloise. They are
restin’ under a canopy, havin’ got past all the tribulations that beset
’em here below.
Alice wanted to see ’em for Love’s sake--so I spoze. Poor creeters
that thought so much of each other and seemed to be so clost to each
other that nothin’ earthly could separate ’em, and then he a-dyin’ in a
monastery and she a-passin’ away in a nunnery; separated in body, but
united in sperit--so I spoze.
Wall, their memories are close linked together, anyway, and will walk
down the ages together.
Al Faizi’s dark eyes dwelt on Alice, and the marble forms of the
lovers, at about the same time and for quite a long spell.
His look seemed to take ’em all in--Alice’s sweet young beauty and the
idee of the sad fate of the lovers.
The hull sad story seemed to be writ out in his melancholy, but glowin’
eyes.
Poor creeter!
Wall, Martin and Alice went to lots of places that I hadn’t no idee of
wantin’ to go to--receptions and parties and theatres and sech. And
Martin come home from the theatre with his big feelin’s kinder trompled
down for once, I guess.
They wouldn’t let him in.
He probble could have bought out the hull theatre, root and branch, and
not felt it a mite; and to home they would have strewed flowers in his
path up the aisle, if he had jest hinted at it.
But he wuz turned out here, neck and crop, because he hadn’t a
dress-suit on.
He felt meachin’ about it, I believe, though he wouldn’t say much. But
the next night they went agin. He put on a coat with pinted tails and
kinder low necked in front, and they let him in quick as a wink. Josiah
said, when I told him about it, that if he had known it he would have
gin Martin the loan of his dressin’-gown.
Sez he, “Of course that would’ve opened the doors to once.
“The French love beauty, and that dressin’-gown, when the tossels are
combed out and looped up as they ort to be, would set off any buildin’
and ornament it.” Sez he, “I wouldn’t lend it on any common occasion,
but Martin has done so much for us I would make the venter.”
It wouldn’t have been let in, but it showed Josiah’s good sperit,
anyway.
But, if you’ll believe it, Alice had to leave her bunnet out in the
anty-room and go in bare-headed.
I wouldn’t have done it for nothin’ in the world--no, you wouldn’t have
ketched me a-reskin’ my bunnet by leavin’ it out-doors. Why, the ribbin
on that bunnet cost twenty-five cents per yard, besides the bunnet
itself, and that wuz only four years old, a-goin’ on five.
When Alice told me on it I sez, “It is a shame to make wimmen go in
bareheaded, and,” sez I, “what would Paul say? He said it wuz a shame
for wimmen to appear in public without bunnets on.”
“But I thought,” sez Josiah, “that you always thought Paul wuz
a-meddlin’ with what didn’t concern him, and he’d better kep’ to morals
and let millinery business alone. You’d never let me bring up them
texts.”
“Wall,” sez I impressively, “there is a time to quote and a time not to
quote.
“I should have argued with that doorkeeper, anyway, and, if necessary,
brung up the Bible to him.”
And Alice bought lots of fine things while we were there--her Pa wanted
her to. He bought a lot, too.
He said that he could git the same things through a dealer he knew in
New York considerable cheaper, “but,” sez he, “it doesn’t have the same
name. Anything brought from Paris is so dreadful distinguished.”
And I spozed that he wuz in the right on’t, and I felt that I too would
love to branch out and buy sunthin’ that I could tell the neighbors
come right from Paris, France.
And I beset Josiah to buy me a summer shawl, but he said that he’d seen
my summer shawl for so many years wropped round the form he loved so,
that the idee of seein’ me in any other shawl wuz repugnant to him.
Wall, then I laid to and tried to git him to buy me a handkerchief pin;
but he said that old cameo that I had on looked so beautiful. He said
so many memories hung round that shell face on it that he couldn’t bear
to see me with any other on.
And so it wuz with my winter bunnet. Sez he, “Oh, the times I have seen
that bunnet a-frontin’ up to me when I’ve stood by the meetin’-house
door a-waitin’ for you, and it looked so perfectly lovely to me, as I
stood there with cold legs and I ketched sight on it a-hallowin’ your
face round as I see it a-comin’ towards me! No other bunnet could ever
look to me as that did.”
And so with my shues, and my gloves, and every other article; they wuz
all so dear to him, and he showed his affection to ’em and me so plain
that I couldn’t bear to hurt his feelin’s by gittin’ any new ones.
[Illustration: A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels.]
But I sez, “I need some towels, and have got to have ’em.” So he give a
reluctant consent, and I swung out and bought two new huckabuck towels,
and I spoze Miss Gowdey and Sister Ganzey will be surprised and sort
of envious to see me a-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels, brung
from sech a fashionable place, for I lay out to use ’em and not lay ’em
up--for, as the Sammist sez, slightly changed--
“You may lay up towels, but how do you know who shall gather ’em?”
Wall, when the time come for me to leave France I felt bad, for besides
all the reasons I have named, lots of thoughts hovered over the land
and made it dretful interestin’ to me.
Victor Hugo, brave old exile, trompled on, but like a rich flower, the
tromplin’ brought out their rarest odor.
Who knows whether we should ever had “Les Miserables” if he had stayed
to home and been made much on?
Mebby the sentences of that incomparable book, that stun our minds and
hearts, like the quick, sharp echoes of artillery at sea--mebby they
would have been longer drawed out, and less apt to strike the mark, if
he hadn’t been sent into exile.
And Josephine, and Napoleon, and Louis, and Eugenie, and the poor
young Prince Louis--memories of all on ’em jest walked up and down the
bright, beautiful streets with me, and cast a sort of a melancholy
shadder on the brightness, some like the soft, deep shadders of a
cypress-tree on a clean flower-bed.
Yes, I had emotions enough while I wuz in France, if that wuz all--I
didn’t suffer for _them_--not at all.
Martin, from the first to the last, through every country we visited,
drawed up comparisons between ’em and America--to the great advantage
to America.
He boasted over our country on our tower as eloquent as a Fourth of
July oriter ever did from the wilds back of Loontown.
I hated to hear him callin’ every other country all to nort, and told
him so. And in the cause of Duty I told him of several things these
countries went ahead of ourn in; but he waved ’em off, and sez he, with
a dignified sort of scorn:
“Bring up one, if you can.”
“Wall,” sez I, a-lookin’ round on the inside of my mind, and takin’
up the first idee that happened to be in sight--“look at that great
society, that seems like the mission of angels, to help relieve the
wants of the wounded and dyin’ on the battle-field--the Red Cross, the
gleam of which, a-fallin’ on the dyin’ soldier, lights up his face
with hope and courage. The foreign nations protect that insigna--they
keep it sacred to this sacred cause; while the Goverment of the United
States allows it to be used on liquor casks, and cigar boxes, and etc.,
etc., a-trailin’ its glorious beams in the mud and dirt for a little
money.
“Why, the noble woman who stands a-holdin’ up the Red Cross, a-tryin’
to have its pure rays fall only on the victims of war, pestilence,
famine, and other national calamities--she has to see it a-shinin’ jest
as bright on the causes of national crime and shame. How must she feel
to see it go on?
“Uncle Sam has been urged year after year to protect this insigna,
and I should think that he would feel a good deal as if somebody
wuz a-urgin’ him to not stun meetin’-housen, and whip grandmas
and babies--I should think that he would sink down with shame for
permittin’ sech things to go on.
“I declare I d’no what that old creeter will do next. I believe he’d
sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs things in, if he could git a
few cents for ’em; and I d’no but he’ll use that bandage of hern that
she wears over her eyes to stop up bung-holes in whiskey barrels; he
seems to be bendin’ his hull mind on helpin’ the liquor traffic.
[Illustration: “I believe he’d sell the steelyards that Jestice weighs
things in, if he could git a few cents for ’em.”]
“He tries me dretfully. But mebby he’ll brace up and do right in this
matter of the Red Cross. I mean to tackle him about it, anyway, when I
git a good chance.
“And then,” sez I, “our country is jest as much behind these European
countries in beauty and art as Josiah’s new wood lot is that he is
jest a-clearin’ off, with stumps and brushwood a-lyin’ on every side,
compared with what that lot would be after centuries of improvements
and culter had smoothed the ground off into velvet lawns, with posey
beds, like rainbows and fountains a-sparklin’ on it, etc., etc.
“America, to foller out the metafor, has only jest got her giant
trees chopped down--the stumps stand thick, the brushwood lays round
in fallers.” Sez I, “It will take years and years and years to give
America the beauty and perfection these countries have been growin’
gradual for centuries.
“We’ll do it, Martin,” sez I; “we’ll git even with ’em, and then go
ahead on ’em--as fur ahead as Lake Superior is bigger than their
inland lakes--”
“Lakes!” sez Martin scornfully--“ponds, you mean.”
But I went on in not mindin’ him.
“Or the St. Lawrence is bigger than the Rhine, but it will take a
long, long time. And then in a lot of other things these countries are
superior to ourn. They train their children better in some of these
countries. Their children have as much agin reverence and respect
for parents and gardeens, and them who are in authority, as American
children have. Why, a English or a German mother would faint away with
horrow to see a lot of American children behave, and boss round their
folks, and act. And then look at--”
I wuz jest on the pint of bringin’ up a lot more of things in which
these countries excelled ourn, when Martin looked at his watch, and
sed that he must be in a distant part of the city in ten minutes by
the clock; so he went out. I presoom he hated to lose my eloquent and
instructive remarks; but he had to go.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
GERMANY AND BELGIUM.
Martin sed he shouldn’t think of travellin’ in Germany, as he had made
a very exhaustive study of the country on a visit he’d paid it some
years before. I knew Alice had been there two years, a-stayin’ with a
Miss Ponsione, a music-teacher, as nigh as I could make out, a kind of
foreign creeter, I guess.
Sez he, “I gave more exhaustive attention to Germany than to any other
country in Europe, and I would not wish to make a needless expenditure
of time there.”
Sez I, “Martin, how long a time did you stay in Germany?”
“Over a week,” sez he.
Wall, thinkses I, accordin’ to his idees that is considerable of a
time. Alice, of course, didn’t care to stay there long, as she had
stayed there all durin’ her vacations, and took excursions all over the
country with that Miss Ponsione and her folks; there seemed to be a
hull lot of ’em, all girls, as nigh as I could make out.
And it wuz from her that I learnt that her Pa had fell and sprained
his ankle and hurt his head, and wuz bed-sick all the time he wuz in
Germany; he wuzn’t able to lift his head from the piller, and so I
guess it wuz ruther exhaustin’ study he gin to it. But I wanted to see
the Rhine--I wanted to see “Fair Bingen on the Rhine,” I wanted to like
a dog, and I told Alice so.
But she said Bingen looked jest about like any other city. And come to
think on’t, I spoze it wuz the homesick longin’ for his own country
that made the “Soldier of the Legion” want to see it so bad, and made
its seenery seem fairer and lovelier, and made its moonlight fairer
and brighter than that which looked down on that fur-off battle-field,
where his body lay, and his homesick sperit a-wanderin’ off to “Fair
Bingen on the Rhine.”
I eppisoded this to Josiah, and he sez with a sad look on his face--he
wuz awful beat out, and his corns ached fearful--“Yes, that is it, I
feel jest so; I could talk jest as melogious and affectin’ this minute
about ‘Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
Sez I, “You may feel jest as bad, Josiah, but you can’t write sech
poetry as that.”
“Whattle you bet?” sez he, a-settin’ the bottle of liniment on the
stand; he’d been tryin’ to irrigate them corns of hisen and quell ’em
down some. “Whattle you bet I can’t?”
Sez I mildly, “That Soldier of the Legion wuz dyin’ in Algiers.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I’m a-dyin’ in France; what’s the difference?”
Sez I, “His talk about his distant home is enough to make anybody weep.”
“Home!” sez he. “Can’t I talk about home? Why,” sez he, “if I should
swing right out into poetry and describe my feelin’s, nobody would look
at that soldier’s verses agin, if I should let myself out and tell the
beauties of Jonesville, and what we’ve been through sence we left its
blessed presinks; why that soldier didn’t begin to know what trouble
wuz. He wuz a single man,” sez he.
[Illustration: “No attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns.”]
I looked coldly at him, and he hastened to add with a deep groan, “Oh,
what hain’t we been through, in verse or out on’t--what hain’t we been
through! two old folks snaked through Europe by a Martin and Fashion;
no attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns, or anything, and
one of them dum old fools,” sez he impressively, and in a kind of a
rhymin’ axent, “wuz born in Jonesville--‘fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
I wuz born myself pretty nigh the town of Lyme, jest over the line, but
I wouldn’t contend.
Sez he, “I could make up hull books of poetry on our tower better than
hisen, enough sight.”
“No you can’t, Josiah,” sez I; “jest think of them beautiful messages
he sent back to them distant friends of hisen; it hain’t in you to
write like that.”
“Wall, it _is_ in me, mom; and messages! Gracious Peter! couldn’t I
send messages back? Couldn’t I send heart-breakin’ messages to the
children, and Ury, and Philury, and Deacon Henzy, and Uncle Sime
Bentley, and the rest of the meetin’-house bretheren--couldn’t I send
word to ’em--
“When they meet and crowd around
The horse-block by the meetin’-house, that dear old talkin’ ground?
“Couldn’t I warn the hull caboodle on ’em to stay where they be, in
that beautiful, beautiful place; to never traipse a million milds
from home on a tower? Let ’em hear my dyin’ words to stay where they
be. Oh, what volumes I could say to them companions and friends if
I could git holt of their ears once! I wouldn’t want ’em to think I
wuz rambelous and back slid--no, I would want ’em to know I felt like
sayin’ in these last hours that--
“‘I am a married man and not afraid to die.’”
I looked dretful cold at him; I hain’t no idee what he meant, if he
meant anything, and he hastened to add--
“If they hain’t dum loonaticks and crazy as loons they’ll stay where
they be,” sez he, in that same rhymin’ axent--
“They’ll stay right there in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
Sez I, “That hain’t poetry, Josiah.”
“Wall, it’s good solid horse sense, the hull of it, and the last line
is poetry.”
Sez I, “One line don’t make poetry.” I wuz sorry I said it, for he
turned his eyes up towards the ceilin’ in deep thought a minute, and
then he kinder recited out in blank verse, or considerable blank,
though it rhymed some--
“A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in--”
He hesitated for a minute, and seemed to be lookin’ round the room for
a word, and finally his eye fell onto his feet--he had jest drawed his
boot on agin, and I spoze the pain wuz fearful, but it seemed to gin
him an idee--and he begun agin--
“A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in his boots,
There wuz dearth of rest and intment, or food, or healin’ roots;
But his pardner sot beside him--”
Here he gin me a witherin’ look; I spoze I wuz a-smilin’ some. He can’t
write poetry, that man can’t, and mebby I showed my knowledge of the
fact in my mean.
“His pardner sot beside him, a-jeerin’ at his woe,
And unto her he faintly sed, in axents wan and low,
‘I’ve a message and a groan or two, to send most any time,
To distant friends in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
Yes, I wuz sorry enough I mentioned that poem, for before night that
man had a hull string of verses writ off, and he recited ’em to me
anon, or oftener. They went on a-recountin’ all the peace and beauty
of Jonesville, and the delights of stayin’ there and takin’ solid
comfort and happiness, and the tribulations two old folks went through
away from that blissful spot, with their bodies moved round from place
to place on a tower, and the verses most all on ’em ended with these
lines, some like the melancholy accompaniment of a trombone--
“And one old fool wuz born in Jonesville,
Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
And some on ’em wuz stronger--
“And one dum old fool wuz born in Jonesville,
Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
His axents on these last words wuz affectin’ in the extreme, and he
seemed to think I ort to shed tears when he said ’em, and I didn’t know
but I _had_ ort to, but I wuz in sunthin’ of a hurry a new bindin’ a
petticoat, and I thought I wouldn’t.
One verse wuz as follers, and I presoom his feelin’s about the delights
of our home wuz powerful as he writ it:
“Tell Ury and Philury to joyous wash the pan,
To worship all the barn chores, adore the milky can,
The Jerseys, oh, in happier hours I driv ’em through the crick,
Oh, angel calves, oh, did I e’er hit one on ’em with a stick?
The lovely, sweet young critters might kick me time and time,
If I wuz back in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
And there wuz one to Thomas J., and one to Tirzah--
“Tell Tirzah Ann that other Pars must comfort her young age,”
etc., etc., etc., all put down jest as if he wuz in a dyin’ state; no
regularity or symetry in the lines, but powerful in feelin’s. There wuz
more’n twenty-one on ’em. I didn’t hear all on ’em--I wouldn’t, and we
had some words.
Wall, Martin wuz sot on not goin’ to Germany, till Adrian sed he would
love to see the Rhine. That settled it--the Rhine wuz seen. That man
would go through fire and water if his little pardner jest motioned him
that way.
And that very fact, I felt, shed a perfect halo round Martin Smith. It
showed that deep down in the nater of the man, all covered up by layers
of pride, worldiness, fashion, ambition, etc., there wuz a fount of
pure water a-springin’; but few indeed could pierce down to it. Alice
can, and Adrian can, but nobody else, so fur as I know; but that love
permeates everything he sez and duz.
As wuz nateral on French sile, we got to talkin’ about poor young
Prince Louis, the pride of the third Napoleon--the very heart and soul
of his beautiful Ma. His sad fate seemed to impress Adrian dretfully.
He wuz dretful sorry for him, and sed he wuz. Good little creeter!
Any tale of sadness and sorrer found a ready sympathy in his tender,
generous young breast. But Martin seemed to draw a different moral from
it, and sez he, when I wuz a-tellin’ how sorry I wuz for his poor Ma,
sez he--
“She ought to have looked ahead, she never ought to have allowed him to
go into such danger, she ought to do as I do. I always surround my boy
with safeguards to keep him out of danger’s way entirely, and therefore
he is safe.”
But I sez, “Martin, in this world it is hard to tell always where
danger is, and who is really safe.”
“But I know,” sez he, “because I am right with him. If he was a child
of poor parentage, now, one of the masses, why, then, I grant you I
could not surround him with such safeguards, but as it is Adrian is
perfectly safe.”
I felt that here it wuz a good place to gin a little hint. Sez I,
“Speakin’ of safeguards, Martin, have you ever put them fenders on that
line of cars of yourn that they wanted you to?”
“No!” sez he, speakin’ up pretty sharp.
Sez I, “Don’t you feel that you ort to, for the sake of children whose
Mas and Pas love them jest as well as you do Adrian?”
But he waived off that idee, sayin’, as usual, that it wuzn’t expected
that he wuz a-goin to spend his life and fortune for the sake of the
children of the masses, who, two thirds on ’em, wuz better off dead
than alive.
I _hate_ sech talk.
But he went on to prove by statisticks how they grew up to be
criminals, and paupers, and Coxeyites, and the world wuz well rid on
’em if they died in childhood.
I _hate_ sech talk. He see my feelin’s, and he went on jest as if
nothin’ had been sed, and repeated that Adrian wuz perfectly safe, and
that his futer wuz assured.
“Wall,” sez I, “I hope so, for he is a dretful good little boy, and
smart, and I hope he will make a useful man.”
“There is no other child in the world like him,” sez Martin, “and he
will have a great and successful future. I shall attend to that.”
“Wall,” I sez agin, “I hope so,” and I truly did. But I felt dubersome
about thinkin’ that Martin had it all in his own hands--this is sech a
queer world, and so kinder surprisin’ and changeable.
Wall, Martin wuz as good as his word, we didn’t stay long in Germany,
but seein’ that Adrian wanted to see the Rhine, we sot out for it. We
went through Valenciennes on the night train, which Josiah sed wuz
indeed a blessin’, and he sed that Martin, in some things, did show
great tax.
Sez I, “What do you mean?”
“Why, you’d been a-wantin’ to git some of that lace of theirn for a
nightcap, or sunthin’, if you hadn’t been sound asleep and a-snorin’.”
I never snore, and he knows it. He is the one. I may sometimes breathe
a little hard, that’s all. And I sez, willin’ to give him a woond for
the onmerited snore eppisode, sez I--
“I can git some in Brussels; their lace wears like iron.”
He wuz earnest in a minute, deeply earnest. Sez he--
“If you knew, Samantha, how becomin’ your nightcaps are, and how
perfectly sweet you look with the plain muslin ruffles round your dear
face, you wouldn’t speak of lace.”
That “dear” touched my heart. He hadn’t used the adjective in some
time. But I wouldn’t promise not to git any. I think he worried all
the time we wuz in Brussels, but he needn’t. I am a good economizer, I
didn’t lay out to git any--I had above a yard of good Torchon to home.
I didn’t need any lace.
Godfrey D. Bouillon stood up in plain sight jest as he has been
a-standin’ for a number of years, a-holdin’ up the banner of the Cross.
Good, determined creeter he wuz.
Wall, we went to see public buildin’s and towers, from them one to
three or four hundred feet high to more megum ones, and galleries of
paintin’s, and parks and statutes; and one little statute rigged up
as a kind of a fountain, I won’t say nothin’ about--the least sed the
soonest mended. But it wuz a shame and a disgrace, and if I’d had my
way the poor little creeter would have had at least a shirt put onto
him, or I would know the reason why.
A perfect shame to behold!
In the Museum of Paintings Josiah got real skairt. He wuz kinder
prowlin’ round, and he happened to see a door partly open, and it wuz
nateral, so he sez, to kinder look in. But he shrunk back in extreme
perterbation, and sez he--
“By Jehoshaphat, what have I done?”
Sez I, “What is it, Josiah?”
Sez he, his face as red as anything, “A woman jest dressin’
herself--she seems all broke up.”
[Illustration: “A woman jest dressin’ herself--she seems all broke up.”]
“Wall,” sez I, “you keep out of there; you stay right by me.”
“Wall, I lay out to!” he snapped out.
Wall, I looked in myself. I had no curosity, but I felt that I had
better see if my pardner had done any harm. And I see a young woman all
kinder crouched together a-holdin’ her clothes round her, and I sez--
“Mom, you needn’t be afraid, my pardner wouldn’t hurt a hair of your
head.”
She didn’t move a mite, but jest held her clothes, what she had on,
round her, and looked at me kinder skairt. And I spoke up some louder,
thinkin’ mebby she wuz deef; sez I--
“He is a deacon in the Jonesville meetin’-house, mom, and though
fraxious a good deal of the time, a likely man.”
But jest at this junkter Martin come up behind me, and told me that it
wuz a picter. I wuz dumbfoundered, but so it wuz. The artist, Wiertz
by name, made quite a number considerable like it; dretful curous and
surprisin’, but it is a sight to see ’em.
The meetin’-house of St. Gudale, with its stained glass winders, wuz
extremely interestin’ to see; it is most a thousand years old, but no
one would mistrust it. It looks fur better than our meetin’-house, that
hain’t over fourteen years old, if it is that. But, then, it cost more.
Martin and Josiah and Al Faizi driv out to see the battlefield of
Waterloo, only about six milds away. They went in a English coach with
a half a dozen horses, and a bugle a-caracolin’ high and clear. I never
see Josiah in better sperits.
I would have gone, too, but Alice wuzn’t well, nor Adrian nuther, and I
stayed with ’em; and I wuz glad of a chance to rest my lower legs.
I spoze they had a number of emotions as they stood on that field
where the Star of Austerlitz sot. I did, where I wuz a-layin’ down or
a-settin’ to home. Truly to a feelin’ heart, who contemplates what
high ambitions tottled over that day, and what powerful interests
wuz involved, they may say truly that they carry the battlefield of
Waterloo in their hearts.
I thought on’t a sight. I had read what Victor Hugo said about that
battle, and Alfred Tennyson and others had said about the Duke of
Wellington, a-praisin’ him up, and I had numerous feelin’s and
emotions, very powerful ones, indeed, very; but I took good care of the
children all the same.
There wuz one place in Brussels that I wanted to see as much as
any other place I could look on offen my tower, and that wuz where
Charlotte Brontë had spent those years, those quiet but dretful tragic
years of her life.
So one day, when we wuz on our way home from some big palace or
monument--Martin wanted to show off before us--I persuaded him to
go a little out of our way to that quiet street, to the kinder
old-fashioned house where the Professor ust to teach school, and some
of his folks live now and keep a small school. They let us in when they
found out that we wuz Americans; truly that name opens all sorts of
foreign doors.
It wuz a half holiday, and they let us walk through the room where she
ust to set and study, and the old-fashioned garden where she ust to
walk and dream them strange dreams of hern, that afterwards charmed the
world.
Though the folks here didn’t seem to think of her as I did--no, indeed!
They seemed to kinder blame her for reflectin’ on ’em in her books.
Still they must respect to a certain degree the memory of one that
leads so many from distant lands to their out-of-the-way home, jest to
stand on the floor she trod on; jest to look on the walls that rared up
around that great soul.
What emotions Charlotte did have here! She had more to bear than most
folks knew of--yes, indeed!
What wuz that hantin’ grief that rung her soul so that year in
Brussels, that drove her, a devout Protestant, into a Catholic church,
to pour out her agony in confession? Longin’ to give vent to the sorrer
that without that relief wuz mebby a-urgin’ her to forgit it all in the
long quiet.
Why, a pint bottle full of sweet turned bitter, must have vent gin to
it or else bust.
Poor creeter! poor, little, lonesome creeter! with her intense power of
lovin’, and her intenser tenderness of conscience.
Gray old city, never did one tread your streets with more need of heart
pity than she who wuz swept along by her emotions that day into an
alien temple, a strange altar, and a strange worship, seekin’ for rest,
for help to live, which is so much harder than to die.
I know what the matter wuz--it come to me straight, but I sha’n’t tell
it, it has got to be kep’.
Wall, I had a large white handkerchief with me, I took it a purpose,
for I thought more’n as likely as not I should be melted into tears
a-meditatin’ on her life and all she had done to delight the world, and
how after her life-long struggles and her brief wedded happiness she
passed away.
[Illustration: I thought more’n likely I should be melted into tears.]
But no, this last thought kinder boyed me up--I wuz glad to know that
she lay asleep by the lonely moors of Haworth. Its long purple wastes
hanted by her shade forever, a sleep never to be distracted agin by
her brother Patrick’s actin’ and behavin’, or her pa’s morbid idees and
ways, or her own private heartache.
Little, small-boneded, great-minded creeter! how often I’ve pictered
her lonesome life in that little village, shet up in oncongenial
surroundin’s, her noble sperit beatin’ agin the bars of her
environment; a-settin’ on lonesome evenin’s in a bare, silent room,
a-pinin’ mebby for a word of sympathy, and the clasp of a comprehendin’
hand, and the great world a-praisin’ her fur off--_too fur_.
Or else a-walkin’ up and down in the twilight with her sisters
a-plannin’ them strange stories of theirn.
And then I come back to the bare walls of the school-room at Brussels,
and I presoomed that on these very bare walls we wuz a-lookin’ on
Charlotte had seen stand out vivid the strong, dark face of Rochester,
and the elfin figger of Jane, Shirley, Caroline, Louis and Robert
Moore, the Professor--yes, indeed, she see _him_, I hain’t a doubt
on’t--and all these wonderful characters of hern, who seemed more real
friends and neighbors to me than them who live under the chimblys I can
see from my own winders to home.
Good, little, bashful creeter! sech genius as you had the world will
seek a good while for before it finds agin.
While these thoughts wuz a-goin’ on under my best bunnet, Martin looked
round sort o’ indifferent, and sez he--
“Who wuz she, anyway--some kind of a writer?”
And I sez, “Yes.”
“Historical or poetical?” sez he.
And I sez, “Both.”
I couldn’t bring my emotions down in that place to explain, and I
told the truth, anyway. Historys she wrote that always will be true
as long as hearts beat and suffer. Poetry wuz in ’em, whose great
rythm hants the hearts of ’em whose ears are tuned to understand the
strange melodies. For no two people can ever find the same things in a
book--what inspires you, and thrills your heart almost to bustin’, will
slip over the head and heart of somebody else, and make no impression.
Curous, hain’t it?
[Illustration: A-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him
relatin’ to a whistle.]
Wall, we looked round for a long time--Josiah not enjoyin’ himself
a bit, so fur as I could see, but a-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’
sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a whistle he could make out of a stick.
Alice’s soft eyes held sweetness and compassion, but she owned that
she’d never read the books.
Al Faizi, too, wuz a stranger to ’em. But he would have enjoyed ’em if
he had--he’s made in jest the right way.
Wall, Martin wuz in haste, and we left the sacred spot, leavin’ a
little gift, too, in the hands of the old servant who showed us round.
Antwerp, Düsseldorf, Cologne, how they kinder swim along in my mind
as I think of ’em--picters, picters, church towers, bells, gardens,
steeples, music, stained-glass winders, quiet seenery, grand,
impressive ditto, big carriages, dorgs harnessed up as horses.
As we noticed the number of these latter, my companion begun to lay on
plans agin. Sez he--
“Take our brindle, and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury’s yeller dorg--and
she’d lend her in a minute--and what a team I could rig up with a
little of Ury’s help. I could take you to meetin’ to Jonesville as
easy as nothin’, and how uneek we would look drawed along by a brindle
and yeller dorg-team. It will, perchance, inaugerate a new era in
navigation in Jonesville, and dorg-teams will be in voge.
“What a sensation we will create amongst the Jonesvillians: you in your
parasol and I in my dressin’-gown, mebby. What a uneek spectacle!”
“Yes,” sez I, coldly, “when you ketch me a-ridin’ in that way, Josiah
Allen, it will indeed create a sensation, for I shall be no more. It
will be when my corse is senseless and cold.”
“Oh, shaw! What comfort could I take then, Samantha? It wouldn’t look
very well for me to be a-enjoyin’ myself a-swingin’ out in fashion
then, and I couldn’t wear the dressin’-gown or the tossels, anyway.
It beats all how you love to break up all my plans for astonishin’
the Jonesvillians. You know well enough that folks when they git back
from European towers always act different--more riz up like, and
reminescent, and astonishin’, and everything. And you frown down all
my plans, every one on ’em”; and he sithed bitterly. But I wouldn’t gin
in to him, for I felt that Samantha and a dorg-team wuz not synonomous
terms; no, fur from it.
Wall, in Cologne I’d been glad to bought a hull bottle of cologne, but
Josiah said to his mind there wuz nothin’ on earth so sweet as the
smell of caraway.
I most always do up a little sprig on’t in my handkerchief when I go
to meetin’, to kinder chirk me up in my head some as the minister and
my mind are a-wanderin’ up from the 12thlies to the “Finally, my dear
hearers.”
“But,” sez I, attacktin’ the weakest jint in his armor, “cologne is so
stylish.”
“But,” sez he, and I couldn’t scold him for sayin’ it--sez he, “don’t
you remember how the caraway grew amongst the roses in the old front
yard to Mother Smith’s?” Sez he, “You had a sprig of caraway in your
hand the very minute I asked you to be my bride--I had a little snip
on’t in my pocket when I led you to the altar, and a big vase of the
white blows kinder riz up above the June roses like a halo, right there
on the altar.”
He meant the cherry stand that we stood by, with curly maple draws.
Sez he, “Oh, them beautiful, holy memories! And then,” sez he, with a
look of deep content, “to think of the cookies you’ve garnished with
it durin’ the beautiful years of our union.” Sez he, “Nothin’ like the
scent of caraway to me.”
I wuz deeply moved by the sweet and tender memories he invoked.
Oh, summer hours! oh, old front garden, lit by the settin’ sun
a-shinin’ through the maples! I see it agin, I almost feel the shadders
of the tall lilock bushes; I see the June roses a-shinin’ like rosy
stars above the deep lush grass, and the delicate white tracery of the
caraway a-hoverin’ over ’em like a snowy mist.
Oh, summer garden! oh, summer hours of life! oh, beauty and bloom,
divine sadness and rapter, and rich promise of the glowin’ futer
a-layin’ fur off in the distance, like the sun in the glowin’ west.
My Josiah had brung ’em all back to me. What wuz cologne or bergamot in
them rapt hours?
Men are deep.
The cathedral is a sight to see. It is called one of the most beautiful
cathedrals in Europe, and they don’t lie about it when they say it
is. It wuz begun eight or nine hundred years ago, and two hundred men
wuz to work at it. I wonder if they are slack. Anyway, I don’t have
any idee when they lay out to finish it. I guess they are to work by
the day. I know jest how they acted when they wuz to work at Josiah’s
horse-barn. I believe it is better to let barns, or cathedrals, or
anything else out by the job.
Wall, if I should describe jest that one enormous old meetin’-house,
and what we see in it and about it, it would take a book bigger than
Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.”
I won’t try, but it wuz a sight, a sight to see--carvin’s, statutes,
picters, towers, canopies, arches, altars, relicks, etc., etc., etc.
Among the most interestin’ of the relicks wuz the skulls of the three
Wise Men who came to worship the infant Christ. Here their old skulls
wuz shown--they sed they wuz theirn. I d’no, nor Josiah don’t, whether
they wuz the Wise Men or not, and of course it wuz eighteen hundred
years too late to ask ’em. No, wise as they wuz, their bones wuz on a
par with the bones of the ’leven thousand virgins that we see there in
another meetin’-house.
I d’no as they wuz virgins or not, or wuz massacreed, as they sed.
Martin sed it wuz a perfect fraud. But I d’no either way. Anyway, there
the bones wuz, a real lot of ’em.
Wall, I guess the hull on us wuz glad to git onto the little steamer
that wuz to take us up the beautiful Rhine. And we found that it wuz
indeed beautiful, though after bein’ on sech intimate terms as I had
been with the St. Lawrence and the Hudson, I wuzn’t a-goin’ to say I
had never seen any river so grand--no, indeed!
CHAPTER XXIX.
SAMANTHA CLIMBS THE RIGHI.
Our noble St. Lawrence could have took the Rhine in if she had been in
need and adopted her, and let her run along with her, a-murmurin’ and
a-babblin’ as children will, and nobody would have been the wiser only
the old Saint herself.
And the Hudson is jest as beautiful. No old castles on the Rhine tower
up so grand as Nater’s old homesteads, the Palisades, where she has
dwelt, with Majesty, and Strength, and Sublimity, and Beauty for hired
help, for so many centuries, and is a-livin’ there still in the same
old place with the same help. Them who have eyes to see, can see her
there right along day by day, and night by night, with her help all
round her. Sometimes the risin’ and settin’ sun a-gildin’ their calm
brows. And sometimes the big, serene moon a-standin’ over ’em as if
lovin’ to linger with ’em. Their serene forwards a-shinin’ with the
love they have for him--or her (I d’no whether to call the moon a him
or a her. It is so kinder changeable, my first thought wuz to call it a
him).
But to resoom. Yes, we found the Rhine beautiful. It runs along in my
memory now like a beautiful paneramy right when I’m round the house
a-doin’ up my mornin’s work, or night-times when I wake up ever or
anon or oftener that fair picter onfolds in front of me--the ripplin’
waters, the shores sometimes smooth and grassy, with orchards and
vineyards; fields of grain, with wimmen a-workin’ in ’em, as well
as men; high rocky shores, with grim old castles perched up on the
cliffs, tree-embowered; anon a wayside shrine, with the image of the
Virgin a-lookin’ calmly on us tired voyagers, or the face of our Lord
hallowin’ the spot, or the baby Christ in his Ma’s arms. It made the
spots where we see ’em more lifted up, and made me feel kinder safer,
though I knew it wuz only some wood and paint and glass it wuz made of.
I spoze it wuz the memories and thoughts they invoked that seemed to
hover over us some like wings.
How it sweeps onward in my mind--high cliffs three or four hundred feet
high, with a picteresque old castle perched on it; anon a bridge of
boats more’n a thousand feet long!
Then I see, a-lookin’ onto the paneramy, dog-teams, peasants, soldiers,
beautiful towns, queer little villages, lovely villas, humble cottages,
green grass, wavin’ trees, blue murmurin’ river. Ah, how it floats
along in front of my foretop! Coblentz--Thurnberg--then the high cliff
where the Siren ust to set and sing. I wonder if she sets there now? I
mistrusted she’d kinder moved down into the vineyards. She sings there
a sight, lurin’ the wine lovers right along to destruction.
Oberwesel, Castle Schonberg, and right acrost, like a faithful old
pardner who has kep’ company for centuries, the towerin’ old walls of
Gutenfels.
Right under my head-dress or nightcap the seen moves along. Anon I see
the splendid old castle of Rheinstein way up above the river. Ehrenfel,
vineyards, vineyards, with Lurlei hid amongst ’em, whether they believe
it or not, and on the other, fur up, the Mouse Tower, where selfishness
got its pay if it ever did.
Bingen we found, jest as Alice sed, a quiet little town, its marvellous
beauty born in the homesick longin’ of the soldier who lay dyin’ in
Algiers.
Johannesburg Castle would be dretful interestin’, standin’ up as it
duz three or four hundred feet high, but the sights and sights of
vineyards all round it made me feel bad, dretful. But I’ve had my say
about that--sirens, etc., etc. What crazy acts would the wine make
these surroundin’ folks do! That wuz a question I couldn’t answer,
nor Josiah. I wish they wouldn’t make so much; I wish they would
stop the mouth of Lurlei with good water, or cold tea, or sunthin’ or
other--she’d act like another creeter if they did.
But truly I couldn’t make ’em stop by eppisodin’ or allegorin’.
On, on we went by islands, fortifications, palaces, villages.
I didn’t want to see Wiesbaden, I didn’t want to see card-playin’ and
gamblin’ goin’ on--no, indeed.
But I did want to stop at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the birthplace of
Goethe. And in thinkin’ on’t, I mekanically repeated over the words
I’d heard Thomas J. rehearse a number of times--the homesick words of
Mignon--
“Knowest thou the land where citron apples bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy bloom?”
She wanted to go back home, Mignon did, she wanted to like a dog.
But Martin sed he didn’t know as anybody had ever made a specialty of
visitin’ the birthplace of Goethe.
“And as for citron apples,” sez he, “your friend evidently made a
mistake in writing about them; citrons grow on a vine; but,” sez he,
“perhaps Goethe was in the grocer line and was recommending some new
fruit.”
And I let it go so. Truly the author of “Wilhelm Meister” would have
advised me to let it pass and go by.
But when Martin learned that Rothschild wuz born there, he sed that if
he had had time he would have loved to visit that hallowed spot.
Martin thought he would stop and take a kind of a rest at Heidelberg,
and my two legs and my pardner wuz glad enough of the rest--yes, indeed!
Martin sed that any traveller of note made a pint of visitin’ that
spot, so it wuz on that account, I spoze, that we stopped. He sed he
had seen a number of engravin’s of the place, and I told him I had too.
We stayed all night to a comfortable tarvern, and had a good supper and
breakfust. Josiah admitted we had, though he sed--
“Samantha, it don’t taste like your breakfusts; oh, shall I ever
partake of ’em agin in that blessed, blessed home?”
He suffers dretfully, that man duz. But I told him that we should soon
be to home agin now, and to bear up.
Wall, Heidelberg Castle is a sight, a sight to see. All the picters we
see of it in chromos and almanacks and sech don’t give you any idee of
how grand, how vast it is.
Why, imagine a buildin’ all covered with carvin’s, and towers,
and pinnakles, and with moats, and drawbridges, and dungeons, and
courtyards, and banquet-halls, and decorations of all kinds, as big
as from our house over to Deacon Henzy’s, and back round by Solomon
Bobbettses, and acrost to Seth Shelmadine’s, and so on around the two
cross-roads and back to our house.
Wall, reader, whether you believe it or not, it covers as much ground
as that, and you well know how much ground that covers. Good land! it
is enough to make anybody’s back ache to think of the days’ work it
took to build it. But, then, it wuzn’t all done all in one job--it wuz
begun a good many hundred years ago. They didn’t shirk their work, them
old carpenters didn’t; the makers of summer hotels could take lessons
of ’em in the matter of walls. It would make one of them paper wall
makers swoon away to think of buildin’ a wall twenty feet thick.
I wish I had one of them rooms to take round with me summers on my
towers. It would be impossible for the sound of snorers to penetrate
into the apartment where one wuz vainly tryin’ to woo the Goddess of
Sleep. And midnight snickerers would be futile to kill that Goddess
with their giggle-pinted arrers.
Of course, a big part of this immense buildin’ is in ruins.
A handsome old stone platform or piazza that them old builders made
half way up the castle walls I did want to see. It had everything it
needed in the way of sculpters, vases, carved seats, etc. And the view,
oh! my poor head-dress, it almost rises now as the paneramy sweeps
through my foretop, it gives sech elevatin’ thoughts and emotions.
How fur off, how fur off you could see--towns, country, the blue Rhine,
the mountains--oh, my soul! wuz it not a fair seen, a fair seen!
But the barrel, or, ruther, hogsit, to hold wine in, it jest madded
me to see it. Would you believe it that the very worst old drunkard
you ever see or hearn on would make a hogsit as big as the Jonesville
tarvern to hold his liquor in?
[Illustration: A hogsit as big as the Jonesville tarvern.]
Wall, it is, sir, full as big as Seth Widrigses tarvern. I won’t
compare it to a meetin’-house, no, you can’t make me; the idee would be
too sacrilegious to me.
It wuz as big as Seth Widrigses tarvern, barrooms, parlor, dinin’-room,
bedrooms, ruff and all. It holds two hundred and thirty-six thousand
bottles of wine.
The idee! it’s a burnin’ shame! How many fights can be shet up in it at
one time--broken hearts, broken heads, murders, etc., etc., etc.!
I won’t talk about it another minute.
Wall, Martin sed that he spozed that it would be expected of him to go
and see the Righi.
(I spozed that he thought that in his high, prominent position in
society he ort to see some of the most riz-up places, so he settled on
that.)
Mont Blanc he sed he should not endeavor to ascend, which wuz, indeed,
a comfort to me; for how I wuz a-goin’ to git up on that steep, icy
pinnakle with my heft and my rumatiz, to say nothin’ of my umbrell and
my pardner, wuz more’n I knew. But if Martin had put his ultimatum on
that we must go, I knew that we should have to make the venter.
But he gin up the idee. He is a-gittin’ kinder short-winded himself,
though he don’t own up to it. So we clumb the Righi. We rid up on that.
Josiah wuz all carried away with the idee of goin’ up that mountain,
because the engine that took us up, instead of bein’ hitched on ahead
to pull us up, wuz tackled on behind a-pushin’ us.
Sez he, “Samantha, it will be sech a uneek ride. What will Uncle Sime
Bentley say to it, and the other Jonesvillians, when they hear on’t?”
There it wuz--fashion, fashion and display. From different standpints,
he and Martin wuz jest alike.
But I knew that Josiah had some reason to be sot up by it, for that way
of goin’ up mountains wuz a American idee at first.
Josiah took considerable comfort a-goin’ up (owin’ to the feelin’s I
have depictered). But bein’ of sech a restless temperament, he soon
announced that he wuz a-goin’ to git out and walk up. “For,” sez he, “I
want to git there some time to-day, and I hain’t a-goin’ to creep along
like a snail.”
But I seized him by his vest, and sez I--“Do you set still; it will
tucker you all out to walk up six thousand feet!”
“Wall,” sez he, “I want to git there some time or ruther.”
We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time we arrove on
the summit, and wuz ensconsed in a comfortable tarvern, from which,
after Josiah had satisfied his yearnin’s for food, and the rest on us
had refreshed ourselves with some refreshments, we sallied forth to
see the grandeur as well as beauty of Nater; to behold what she can do
when she humps herself, so to speak, and makes glory.
[Illustration: We did indeed go slow, but sure; for in two hours’ time
we arrove on the summit.]
Wall, the view from the top of that mountain I can’t never describe.
I stood perfectly spellbounded, and looked fur off down the
mountain-side, and see cities, and villages, and farm-housen, and
sparklin’ streams, and, fur down below, beautiful Lucerne and eight
other lakes.
And on the off side the chain of snowy Alps a-meltin’ upwards into the
blue of the summer sky, twelve thousand feet high, and on the nigh side
forests, hills, mountains.
Oh, wuz it not a fair seen--a fair seen!
I stood perfectly lost and by the side of myself. The grandeur and
beauty of the seen wuz so overwhelmin’ that, entirely onbeknown to
myself, my bunnet had fell backward on my neck, and I stood bareheaded,
jest as men do before a great heroine or hero. (I spoze it is jest
as proper to call the Righi a female as a male; anyway, she stood up
so dretful calm and serene it didn’t seem as if a male could hold
that poster and calmness so early in the mornin’. You know, males are
dretful restless and oneasy early in the mornin’. The work of the day
kinder takes the tuck out of ’em, and they grow more sedater.)
But, anyway, I stood there bareheaded, jest as anybody ort to before
the great Presence. The on-matchable grandeur of the seen--the sun
a-beatin’ down onnoticed on my gray “crown of glory,” when I hearn a
voice clost beside me, and the words kinder brung me back, for I had
been quite a distance away from the real world of trouble and tourists
and things.
The voice said--“For the land’s sake! I wouldn’t run the risk you do of
tanning myself all up, for anything in the world.”
I wuz brung clear down, and I looked round, and I see standin’ clost
to me a female, jedgin’ from her matronly form and her gray hair, that
kinder meandered down on the neck of her ulster behind, of about my own
age, or a little older, mebby. Yes, she wuz probble a number of years
older, and though our hefts wuz jest about alike, she hadn’t got nigh
so noble a figger.
She had two veils over her face besides a lace one--two braize veils, a
green and a brown one, and carried a big umbrell, histed up to its full
height, the umbrell a-lookin’ firm and decided, as if it calculated to
shet off all the grandeur the braize veils didn’t make out to.
Sez she, as I slowly turned round and brung my spectacles to bear on
her with a gray flame of wonder and surprise a-shinin’ through each one
on ’em--
Sez she, “I wouldn’t tan my nose as you’re tanning yours for worlds
like this.”
I sez mekanically, “Why, why not tan your nose?”
“Why, it would detract so from my looks; a nose adds so much to the
looks of a human face,” sez she.
That sounded reasonable, and I sez, “Yes, that is so; a nose is
necessary, both for beauty and for use; but,” sez I, “at our age a nose
or two more or less, or a little tan on some on ’em hain’t a-goin’ to
either make or break us--they won’t draw much attention,” sez I. “And
even if they did, I expect to enjoy the society of my nose for quite
a number of years yet, on towers and off on ’em, but this seen of
grandeur I’m a-biddin’ good-bye to,” sez I, sadly--
“It is hail, and farwell, to me--I never expect to see it agin with
these mortal eyes.” And I looked off on the lovely seen agin with all
the rapter and sadness sech thoughts carry with ’em, when agin my rapt
emotions wuz brung downward by the voice--
“Well, I know I wouldn’t run the risk you do of spoiling my complexion
for thousands of worlds like this.” I felt that she needed roustin’ up
and improvin’ upon, and I sez--
“Mom, I believe you’d enjoy Nater as much agin, if not more, if you’d
forgit your complexion. Let your nose retire into the background, so to
speak, and open the winders of your soul to the divine influences--look
about and soar away, so to speak. And how you can do that under three
veils and that umbrell is more’n I can tell.”
Sez she, confidentially, “I am dead tired of seeing things, anyway--I
love to rest my eyeballs.”
“Then,” sez I, pityin’ly, “what be you up here on the Rigi for? What
made you climb up so fur?”
“Well,” sez she, “I came with a party of Cook tourists, and you know
just what they are for boasting; I’m not going to have them crow over
me because they have been where I haven’t. Three of them are bed-sick
at the hotel, but they can say with truth that they have been here. Two
of the girls have to wear bandages over their eyes, and can’t see a
thing, but they both have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t
be out-travelled by the rest of the girls, and so they are leading them
round through Europe; blind as bats, but full of the true Cook fervor
of travel.”
[Illustration: “They have emulative Mas, who are bound that they shan’t
be out-travelled.”]
“Oh, dear me!” sez I, “how bad it is for ’em!”
“No; they enjoy it. The doctor says all they need is quiet and rest
to restore their eyesight, and they will have it when this cruel war
is over and they get home. One of them is my own girl,” sez she, in
a burst of confidence, “and I’m out here unknown to the rest; so my
girl has outdone them, so to speak, for of course it is just the same
as if she stood here where her Ma stands, in this be-a-u-ti-ful place,
looking at this magnificent scenery.”
And she turned her wropped-up face towards the tarvern door, and faced
round towards Josiah.
But truly she wuzn’t to blame, she couldn’t see through that envelopin’
drapery. The tarvern might have been a waterfall, and my Josiah a Alp
for all she knew.
I felt quite curous, but consoled myself a-thinkin’ they wuz
a-follerin’ their own goles, and would all set on ’em when they got
home.
Wall, it wuz that very afternoon that I heard my first yodellin’--the
melogious cry of the Alpine shepherds to one another. Clear and sweet
it rung through the still air--Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--
[Illustration: Ye-o-lo-leo-leo-leo--the melogious cry of the Alpine
shepherds.]
Melogious as any music you ever hearn, only sort o’ bell-like, and
pecular. And while you stand spellbound and wantin’ to hear it agin
the answer comes, sweet, fur away, clear--
Ye-a-oo-ye-ho-oo--
It wuz like nothin’ I ever hearn in my life, and yet seemed sort o’
familar to me, after all, as all true beauty in sight and sound duz
seem to its devotees, he or she.
Wall, I wuz so lost in my own feelin’s of delight, and so carried away
some distance by ’em, that I clean forgot that I wuz still in the flesh
and still had a earthly pardner by the name of “Josiah.” But I wuz too
soon fetched back to a realizin’ sense on’t.
For even as the sweet echoes wuz a-floatin’ back from peak to peak
lingerin’ly, as if they wuz loth to let go on ’em, a voice spoke beside
me--
“You’ll hear yodellin’ when we git home, Samantha Allen. Hereafter I
shall never say ‘co-boss, co-boss’ to cows, or ‘co-day, co-day’ to
sheep; after this I shall always yodel to ’em. Why,” sez he, “what a
stir it will make in Jonesville! how the inhabitants will gather round
me as I stand on the blackberry hill and yodel acrost to the creek
paster! Why,” sez he, all carried away with the subject, as his nater
is, “mebby I can learn Uncle Sime Bentley, so he can yodel back to me;
mebby,” sez he, growin’ ambitious, “I shall yodel to Sister Bobbett and
she that wuz Submit Tewksbury.”
Sez I coldly--“Do you confine your yodellin’ to dumb brutes, Josiah,
who hain’t got sensibilities nor feelin’s to be woonded.”
“Mebby you hain’t willin’ I should yodel to Ury; but I’ll let you know
I shall anyway, mom!”
“Wall,” sez I, “he is used to your performances; he won’t mind ’em so
much.”
I knew it wuzn’t best to draw the string too tight; I knew I couldn’t
break up his yodellin’ out to the barn, or round, when I wuzn’t in
sight, and I felt that I would be glad to confine it to dumb brutes,
and Ury, and sech.
Wall, anon, after passin’ through lovely seens--lovely ones, we found
ourselves on beautiful Lake Lucerne, the most beautiful lake in
Switzerland, or the hull world, for all I know--beautiful, beautiful
for situation it is. You could spend weeks a-admirin’ the lovely views,
and then begin agin and keep it up for years.
And before long we found ourselves, much to my pardner’s relief, in a
good tarvern with a long Swiss name, that I always forgit, and called
it to myself “The Swizzler,” which wuz jest as good so fur as I wuz
concerned.
We didn’t stay here long, owin’ to Martin’s pecular views. But we hearn
the organ in the old cathedral, and I wuz carried fur away from myself
into the land of happiness, love, and peace, into the realm--where is
it?--that lays so nigh to us, that a burst of glorious music will sweep
us right into its gates, but so fur off that we hain’t never ketched a
glimpse of its glorified mountains with our nateral eyes.
Al Faizi wuz carried into that same realm, too, I could see by his
mean, and the rest on ’em wuz carried off wherever their nateral bent
lay--Alice into the land of Love and Hope, Martin into the Stock
Exchange mebby, where the roar of its bulls and bears drownded out the
sound of the organ’s grand, melancholy voice.
[Illustration: Listening to the organ’s grand, melancholy voice.]
And Josiah, wall, mebby he wuz a-settin’ agin to a full dinner table
in Jonesville, with Deacon Sypher and Drusilly and some of the other
bretheren and sistern a-hangin’ breathless onto his adventers.
I d’no, I’ve only guessed at their emotions, but mine wuz a sight to
see as the liquid waves of melody swep’ round me, and swep’ me along
with it.
And then we see the Lion of Lucerne, a-layin’ there carved out of solid
rock, in memory of the Swiss Guard, who fell defendin’ the Tuilleries
in 1792. It wuz carved by Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, and
is a noble and impressive sight. There it lay in a beautiful grotto,
with water tricklin’ all round it, some as if the hull country wuz
a-sheddin’ tears over them poor young men that perished in their prime.
It lay stretched out, its hull length of twenty-eight feet, a-holdin’
in its paws the shield of France and some flower de luce--France is
jest sot on them poseys, and I always liked them myself; I’ve got a big
root of ’em under my bedroom winder at home in Jonesville.
I thought considerable in our short sojourn at Lucerne about William
Tell, whose exploits with Gessler, apples, etc., took place in that
vicinity (though I’ve hearn tell that Tell hain’t the creeter they tell
on).
[Illustration: I thought considerable about William Tell and his
exploits with Gessler, apples, etc.]
But I always loved to read about him, and I always did kinder love to
believe in things that ort to be true, if they hain’t--about liberty,
freedom, and sech. Anyhow, he has got a high chapel built to him--mebby
like some other popular idees, that haint got no greater foundation in
solid truth.
Though, agin, what is truth?
Hard question.
Wall, our way on to Lake Geneva wuz like a dream of glory and grandeur,
full of mountain peaks, green and snow-clad, and flashin’ waterfalls,
with little side dreams of sweet green valleys--“sweet fields arrayed
in livin’ green”--quaint villages, cosey little housen, swift dashin’
waterways, and gently flowin’ rivers.
Interlaken, Freiburg, Lausanne, how they look out of the paneramy at me
when I shet my eyes in the Jonesville meetin’-house or anywhere, and
onto the blue lake that Byron writ so much about.
Alice had beset her Pa to take her to Castle Chillon. And I had
strange feelin’s, I can tell you, as I walked down the road with
Josiah Allen by my side--from Jonesville meetin’-house to the Castle
of Chillon--what a leap! Could Fancy cut up any stranger? I spozed we
should have to take a boat to reach it, and so they did in old times,
but now the water has filled in so, that, like the Israelites, we
passed over dry shod.
The castle is over a thousand years old. Some say the Lake Dwellers
built it, and in talkin’ about them queer creeters, who dwelt a
thousand years ago in housen built up on posts stuck in the water, I
had another trouble with my too ardent and susceptible pardner. Sez he--
“Samantha, what a beautiful way of livin’ that would be--how cool and
pleasant in summer weather, and so handy; no luggin’ in water to fill
the tank, no pumpin’, jest lean right out of the buttery winder and
draw in a pailful, and then how easy to lower the milk in the water to
cool. Why, we could have the milk-room built jest below the surface,
and set the milk pans right into the lake, as it were. What butter we
could make, how it would be sought for! And then the idee of settin’ in
your own back door and fishin’ for pike and sturgeons, draw ’em right
up and land ’em on the kitchen table, not a foot off from the briler.
How convenient! And bathin’ now, you’re always a-tewin’ at me about
it--washin’ my feet, it’s always a job--but now jest cut a little hole
in the bedroom floor, and with a towel there you are. I’ll commence a
house out on our pond the minute I git home for a summer retreat, no
mowin’ door-yards, no fences to keep up, no gates to be onhingin’; why,
I’d renew my age there, Samantha. And then think of the profit in the
extra butter, etc.”
“How would it be about milkin’ the cows?” sez I. I see he hadn’t
thought of that or anythin’ else practical, but he’d been jest carried
away by the novel and the new.
But he wouldn’t give in, men have such doggy obstinacy. Sez he--
“Why, learn ’em to swim; begin when they’re yearlin’s, learn ’em to
strike right out and swim up to the milk-house, hitch ’em to the post,
and jest set in the back door and milk ’em.”
“Under water?” sez I; “milk under water?”
I see he wuz gittin’ sick of the idee--sick as a dog, but he sez--
“Yes, milk ’em under the water in rubber bags, jest as Ezekiel did, and
Malachi, and all the rest on ’em.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll keep bachelder’s hall then, and cook your own
vittles and make your own butter for all of me. I hain’t a-goin’ into
any sech enterprise.”
“Wall,” sez he, “that don’t surprise me at all; I never yet got up a
uneek idee but what you backened it all you could.”
Wall, we hung round here for some time, and I meditated on how the
prisoners must have felt, condemned to
“Fetters and the damp vault’s dayless gloom.”
And as I see how they had wore the very stuns away, a-pacin’ back and
forth in their narrer bounds like caged lions, I felt like sayin’ with
Byron:
“May none these marks efface,
For they appeal from tyranny to God.”
And it wuz with quite saddened emotions that we wended our way back to
the tarvern Byron.
I see Al Faizi wuz dretful mournful-lookin’. It always affected that
good creeter to see how Truth and Liberty and Jestice have always been
trompled on by Error and Ignorance all through the ages and in all
countries, and always would, so fur as I could tell.
Geneva! Chamouni, how they glide past the roused eye of my mind, that
don’t need spectacles--no, indeed! For never on earth, it seems to
me, was there sech grandeur of seenery as wuz here in Chamouni. And
the hull world seemed to have found it out, for folks from all the
countries of the earth seemed to be represented here.
Here we wuz set down like little grains of sand in a high pine forest,
and that don’t carry out my idee at all, for what is a pine-tree
compared to Mont Blanc--grand old giant standin’ up there lookin’ down
on the hull world, and seemin’ to be kinder guardin’ it. I believe that
even Martin’s pride wuz kinder crumpled down a-beholdin’ that wonder
and glory.
On, on we went by wild and magnificent seenery, by sweet sheltered
spots, castles, farm-housen, bridges, waterfalls, valleys, towerin’
hills, lofty mountains, etc., etc.
Martigny--the wonderful Rhone valley, the magnificence of the Simplon
Road, straight up the mountain-side, under waterfalls, over wild
waters, along abysses, through tunnels seemin’ly milds long, openin’
out into new seens of beauty--oh, what a time, what a time!
How many bridges did we cross? Josiah said, groanin’, “Over ten
thousand.” But I believe there wuz only six hundred odd; but what would
Miss Gowdey and Sister Bobbett think of that, who have always looked
with some or at the thought of goin’ to North Loontown, because they
had to pass over three bridges to git there, and go up a considerable
steep hill? What would these sistern do under the circumstances that
I wuz placed in? So my almost crazed but riz-up brain would wildly
question me anon or oftener.
CHAPTER XXX.
MILAN, GENOA, VENICE.
Wall, at last, under the fosterin’ care of Martin, we wuz conveyed
along into Italy and put up to a place called Milan. But one memory
of our way thither stands out as plain in my mind as our centre-table
duz in my parlor; it is of beautiful Lake Maggiore. A more beautiful
piece of water I don’t believe moistens this old earth. Them sweet
blue waters, with lovely Isola Bella terraced into hite after hite of
verdure and beauty, and other islands a-standin’ out like clear blue
stars in a clear blue sky, and the Italians in their picteresque dress,
priests, peasants, etc., etc., wuz a seen of enchantment, and even
Martin looked kindly on it, and admitted that it looked well. “But,”
sez he--
“What is it compared to our own Thousand Islands? Why, nothing at all.
Our own St. Lawrence would take in the whole of Lake Maggiore at one
mouthful, and not know the difference.”
Sez I, “Martin, don’t run down the beauty of another country a-praisin’
up your own.”
“Well,” sez he, “do you find such perfection here as in our own
country?”
Sez I reminescently, “I find better telegraph poles.” Sez I, “Think of
the clear granite shafts, good enough for monuments, and then think of
the humbly, crooked wooden poles that disfigger our American landscape.”
“Well,” sez he, “you don’t often find them here.”
Josiah sed if I wuz so bent on havin’ stun telegraph poles, he and Ury
could build up one out of loose stuns in front of the house. Sez he,
“We might make it sort of a monument shape, and Ury might kinder block
out my figger on top.”
Sez I, “I guess it would be a work of art if Ury did it.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I might have a tin-type or sunthin’ fixed on, or a
lock of my hair. It would be real uneek, and my fellow-townsmen would
think the world on’t.”
Mebby he’ll forgit the idee, and mebby I’ll see trouble out on’t yet.
Wall, in Milan our first move wuz, of course, to see the cathedral.
I’d seen so many picters on’t that it looked as familar as Betsey
Bobbettses liniment, only fur grander and more impressive lookin’.
Yes, after lookin’ at that wonderful buildin’ on the outside and
inside, I felt as if I wuz a heathen creeter who had never seen a
cathedral or a meetin’-house in my life. Why, to make it clear to
everybody jest how grand and extensive it is, I will say that if the
pine woods on the hill back of Deacon Henzy’s wuz all turned into
pinnakles and monuments and arches, and every pine needle on ’em wuz
ornaments of delicate tracery and carvin’ and beautiful design, it
could not be more impressive, and to anybody who has seen them woods
that is sufficient. It is a dream to remember in still nights when you
lay on your piller and can’t sleep. I think on’t time and time agin.
Why, it is so big that you could carry on a Stock Exchange meetin’ at
one end and a funeral at the other, and not interfere with each other
in the least; you couldn’t hear the bulls and bears yellin’ or the
mourners a-weepin’ and wailin’, not at all.
And you climb up five hundred steps to the top, and look down on all
the beauty and glory of the world--it is a sight, a sight.
Wall, Martin sed that he must make all haste possible a-travellin’
through Italy, as business wuz a-callin’ him home, but he must go to
Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus. Sez he, “Of course, considering what
he discovered and where he was of late celebrated, that is by far the
most important place in Europe.”
Wall, I wuz glad enough to visit the birthplace of that good, misused
creeter. So we anon found ourselves in Genoa, the Superb, as some call
it, and in good rooms in a big, comfortable tarvern.
The first thing we went to visit wuz the statute of Columbus. It
towers up, a poem in white marble; and in a settin’ poster, on the
four sides on’t, are Religion, Gography, Strength, and Wisdom, and all
round ’em and between ’em are carved the leadin’ events of Columbuses
life. Every one of them symbols carved out there--Religion, Strength,
etc.--Christopher had, and the world realizes it at last.
I should think the world would have been ashamed of itself after
picterin’ out his grand doin’s, his discoveries in the New World, to
have sculped him out in chains; it wuz a burnin’ shame, but his memory
is a-walkin’ down through the ages now free and soarin’, no chains on
it--no, indeed!
But, poor creeter! how he would have enjoyed bein’ made sunthin’ on,
and used well while he wuz here in the body! How he would have enjoyed
havin’ enough to eat, and hull clothes!
But sech is life.
Wall, Martin renewed his strength a-lookin’ on Columbuses statute
and a-realizin’ what it wuz he discovered and how his discovery is
a-branchin’ out and spreadin’ itself. He felt well.
Right acrost from the statute stands a big house, which has writ on it,
“Christopher Columbus Discovered America.” Martin didn’t need to be
told on’t--no, indeed!
As nigh as we could make out, Columbus wuz born in that house. They
showed us the very room where he wuz born; but my lofty emotions in
viewin’ the spot wuz quelled down with the thought that he wuz born in
seven or eight other places. Poor creeter! what a time he did have from
first to last!
In the Municipal Palace, among other curous and valuable relicks, we
see lots of relicks of Columbus--amongst ’em some autograph letters
that he had his own hand on.
Josiah sez, “He’s some like you, Samantha--ducks’ tracks is plain
readin’ compared to ’em.”
I looked coldly at him, but did not dane to argy.
In a glass case, amongst lots of other things, we see the violin of
Paganini, the greatest violinist that ever lived.
He, too, wuz a discoverer; divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by
his heavenly vision. He wafted his hearers into that realm on the flood
of melody. I took sights of comfort a-lookin’ at that old fiddle.
[Illustration: Divine realms of melody wuz brung to view by his
heavenly vision.]
When my thoughts git started back to Italy, as thoughts will, no matter
where your body is--a-settin’ in the meetin’-house or out to the barn
or anywhere--they always linger sort o’ lovin’ly on Venice--Venice that
stands out in my mind all by itself amongst cities, jest as prominent
as Thomas J. duz amongst boys.
My Josiah wuz dumbfoundered when we emerged from the depot to think
that he had got to go to our tarvern in a boat; but so it wuz.
Then he demurred agin about the convenience we wuz a-goin’ in.
He sez, “Dum it all, I hain’t a-goin’ to be drawed by a hearse whilst I
am alive!”
But I soothed him down by pintin’ out that the boats wuz all painted
black.
But wuzn’t it a curous sensation to drive along on streets of water,
instead of good, honest dirt. Bein’ kinder skairy of water, I whispered
to Josiah--
“As bad as our roads in Jonesville be durin’ the worst of Spring mud,
I’d ruther navigate ’em with our wheels up to the hubs in mud than to
ride down these water streets.”
Sez he, “Samantha, we didn’t realize our priveliges then, we made light
on ’em.”
“Yes,” sez I, “you used language on them roads that you wouldn’t use
now if you wuz set back on em.”
“I didn’t talk any worse than the rest of the Jonesvillians!” he
snapped out. “And how these streets smell--dead cats and pollywogs!”
sez he, turnin’ up his nose real high.
“Wall,” sez I, “less count over our blessin’s. We can hold our noses
while we are a-countin’,” sez I. “Look at them towerin’ marble palaces;
see the carvin’ on them tall pinnakles and the arched winders and the
fretted ruffs,” sez I.
“The ruffs don’t fret no worse than my mind duz!” sez he. “Oh,” he
whispered with a low groan, “shall we ever see the cliffs of Jonesville
once more!”
“Don’t give up, Josiah,” sez I, “here right in the dream of the world,
Venice, the beautiful.”
Sez Josiah, “I hearn there wuz a sayin’, ‘See Venice and die,’ and I
can tell ’em that if this smell keeps on, and if the dum muskeeters
keeps on a-bitin’, there’s one man who will foller their advice.”
[Illustration: “If this smell keeps on, and the dum muskeeters keeps on
a-bitin’, one man will ‘see Venice and die.’”]
Sez I, “They hain’t muskeeters, they’re nats, and it wuz Naples that
wuz said on; and,” sez I, wantin’ to roust him up, “they say Venice is
perfectly beautiful by moonlight.”
That kinder nerved him up, bad as he felt--he seemed to look forrered
to it, and after a good meal and a good rest, when we did set off by
moonlight, hirin’ a gondola jest as we would a express wagon to home,
he admitted the beauty of the seen.
And it wuz like a journey through fairyland. The long, glassy streets,
all lit up by lights from the tall, white palaces on each side on us,
and by the lanterns of the passin’ gondoliers; the soft, sweet voices
of the gondoliers as they called out to each other in their melogious
Southern tongue; the glidin’ boats movin’ past us like shadder craft,
with the handsome, graceful forms of the gondoliers a-drivin’ ’em, and
anon or oftener the sweet strains of a guitar, and some divine voice in
song; and the admirin’ surprise when you’d turn a corner and look down
another street of beauty, differin’ in form of glory.
Oh, it wuz a seen to be remembered as long as Memory sets up on her
high-chair under my foretop! And what hantin’ thoughts kep’ company
with me and filled the gondola to overflowin’! I seemed to see Titian
with his artist’s eyes and inspired pencil--the old Doges with their
embroidered and jewelled robes--sad-eyed Beatrice Cenci, Antonio,
Shylock, Wise-eyed Portia--I seemed to hear her sayin’,
“The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven....
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”
The gondola wuz crowded by the fantom crowds that set round me onheeded
by my Josiah, jest as sperit crowds may be cramped all round onbeknown
to us.
Wall, I expected that about the most interestin’ thing in Venice to
me would be the Bridge of Sighs, that stands, as Byron so eloquently
observes, with a palace on the nigh side, and a prison on the off side
(I may not have got the exact words, but it is the same meanin’). And I
had more emotions there than I could count, as I looked at it.
Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in the old prison and dungeons and in
the relicks of the infamous Council of Ten.
He writ pages in that book of hisen, and didn’t come no more nigh
depicterin’ all their atrocities and abominations than one drop of
water would to exhaustin’ the ocean.
In the palaces we see the height of luxury and richness of beauty. In
the prisons and dungeons we can see the black depths of terror and
cruelty of the time when the Council of Ten ruled Venice.
The Doge’s palace is a dream of magnificence. You look up the Giant’s
Staircase, way up--up to the great statutes of Mars and Neptune, where
them mean creeters wuz crowned--the Doges, I mean. And then you can’t
help meditatin’ that whilst they clumb to the very top of magnificence,
they didn’t do well, they didn’t die peaceable in their beds, none on
’em.
No, they wuz pizened, or had their heads cut off, or sunthin’ or other,
that interfered with their comfort.
I wouldn’t want Josiah to be a Doge--not if he could be jest as well
as not. No, Dogein’ seemed to be resky business in them days, and I
presoom that it would be now.
And then they wuz so awful mean some on ’em--jest read what they done,
it’s enough to skair you to death almost. I had dretful emotions as
I looked at that long table where the Ten ust to set in silence, and
condemn men and wimmen to death.
They ort to be ashamed of themselves.
And then the Lion’s Mouth, where the papers accusin’ folks wuz dropped
by the people. The paper dropped down into a chest so’s the wicked old
Ten could git holt of ’em.
Miserable creeters! I’d love to gin ’em a piece of my mind.
But Josiah wuz all took up with the idee; sez he--
“How convenient, how charmin’ it would be to have a complainin’ box
rigged up in the barn over the manger or by the side of the haymow, so
when I wanted to complain of Ury I wouldn’t have to jaw him and have
him sass back! How much easier it would be than jawin’! He’d like it
better, too. And you can have one, Samantha, to complain of Philury;
you could jest drop ’em in, and then you wouldn’t have to tell ’em
over to me when she wuz wasteful or slack, or acted. Jest put ’em down
on paper, drop ’em into the box, and nobody but Philury would be the
wiser.”
Sez I, “Do you spoze I’m a-goin’ to be feelin’ round writin’ complaints
while a batch of cookies are bein’ spilte, or a lot of good vittles
throwed to the hens? No, indeed! My tongue is good yet, and active.”
“Yes, indeed, it is!” sez he with a deep groan (I d’no what he meant by
it).
“But,” sez he, “it would be good for it to rest a spell, and it would
be a good thing for me, anyway, specially nights when I wuz sleepy,”
and agin he sighed (he acted like a fool).
“And if you say so,” sez he, “we could have one rigged up together for
both on us--we ort to be able to complain of our hired man and woman
in one complainin’ box. We might have it over our back door, or on the
smoke-house.”
But I waived off his idee, and mebby he gin it up, and mebby, agin,
he’ll try to rig up some contrivance that won’t do no good, and take
time and money.
Another one of the queer things them old Doges ust to do wuz to marry
the Adriatic to the city at a certain time every year.
What did they want to marry water for?
But Josiah wuz all worked up with the idee, when he hearn us a-talkin’
about it, and about the magnificent ceremonies they went through with
at the weddin’.
Sez he, “How uneek it would be for me to marry the creek to Jonesville
and perform the ceremony out to our mill-dam! It would be beautiful,
and it would be as cheap as dirt, too; Ury could fix up a raft, and I
could take one of the curtain rings out of the spare bedroom to wed it
with.”
“What do you want to be weddin’ the creek for?” sez I coldly.
“Oh, for fashion,” sez he--“style. Old-fashioned things are so stylish
now,” sez he. “You know how them old, long, black clocks, humbly
things in the first on’t as they could be--you know how they’re set
up in the boodores of luxury now, a-lookin’ like a coffin on end. And
spinnin’-wheels and sech that our grandmas ust to hustle out of the
room, if company come, now they’re sot up on velvet carpets, and made
sights on. And this manoover would be dretful stylish. Oh, how the
Jonesville bridge would be crowded! how the Jonesvillians would look on
in admiration to see the sight!
“Of course I should wear my dressin’-gown. The public has never had a
chance to see it on me yet, you have always been so sot on keepin’ me
to home in it. This would be a very agreeable treat to have on Fourth
of Julys, or any national holiday, and I could carry it out perfectly
and dog cheap, with a little of Ury’s help.”
But I sot my foot right down on the idee to once. Sez I, “It looks
silly as anything in them wicked old Doges, and you hain’t a-goin’ to
import any of their tricks into Jonesville. Next thing I’d know you’d
have a inquisition a-goin’ on, and a secret tribunal of Ten.”
[Illustration: “Next thing I’d know you’d have a inquisition a-goin’
on.”]
“I’d like it first-rate,” sez he, “if I could be the 10. I’d like to
shake some of the sins and foolishness out of Brother Gowdey and Deacon
Henzy,” sez he, “and bring ’em into my way of thinkin’.”
“There it is!” sez I. “Intolerance, bigotry, persecution, how fresh
they be to-day in the human heart! Jest as ready to spring up and act
in 1895 as a thousand years ago.”
“Wall, I hain’t said I wuz a-goin’ to start it up agin,” sez he, kinder
cross like; “I only spoke on’t.”
I expected trials when I sot out to take my pardner through Europe, and
I wuzn’t dissapinted in it. But if it hadn’t been for his ambition for
display, and his bein’ carried away by novelties, and his appetite, he
would have acted real well. But, anyway, act or not, he’s the one man
in the world for me, and visey versey.
But, as I wuz a-sayin’, the palaces of them old Doges rousted lots of
emotions in my brain, and the fantoms of their victims seemed to hover
round them old palaces as thick as the pigeons that come with a rush of
wing down into the great square of St. Mark at jest two o’clock, where
they are fed by order of the government.
The grand old Church of St. Mark interested me dretfully. It is built
in the form of a Greek cross, with a big dome in the centre, and full,
full to overflowin’ with glory of mosaic, precious stuns, picters,
monuments, altars, pillars, colenades, gold, silver, and splendor of
all sorts.
Josiah sez to me, “Our Jonesville meetin’-house wouldn’t show off much
compared to this.”
But I wuz some consoled in this by thinkin’ that if our meetin’-house
wuzn’t so gorgeous, there wuz jest as big a lack of beggars and poor
people of all kinds a-hoverin’ on the outside on’t, and sez I--
“If they should sell off some of their costly things and try to improve
the condition of these poor beggars, they would raise themselves as
much as twenty-five cents in my estimation, and I d’no but more.”
And Josiah sez, “It is hard to make a rotten string stand up
straight--it is hard to brace up laziness, and dissipation, and
improvidence, and make anything on’t.”
I couldn’t dispute him, nor didn’t try to. But I did love to prowl
round in those old meetin’-housen and see the wealth of interestin’
things in ’em.
In the Church of Santa Maria d’Frari, the beautiful monument to
Titian took my admirin’ interest. It has angels, lions, all sorts of
sculptered figgers in elegant carvin’, and beautiful bas-reliefs of
his greatest works--“The Assumption,” “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” and
“Peter Martyr.”
Then the monument to Canova is a sight to see in its beauty. Wall, he
ort to had it; he did enough work to make the world more beautiful.
In the Academy of Fine Arts we see sech sights of beautiful picters
that my brain almost reels now, a-tryin’ to recall ’em. But Titian’s
“Assumption of the Virgin” is one that you can’t forgit, no matter how
clost other idees press around it and squooze aginst it.
Great picters by Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and other great
masters--the walls are jest seens of beauty.
I wouldn’t want it told on--it ort to be kep’, but Josiah told me right
there in that sacred spot, that he wuz sick of Madonnas--sick as a
snipe.
But I told him that I wouldn’t own up to it, if I wuz.
And he said he didn’t care who hearn him.
I wuz kinder sick on ’em myself, but didn’t want to own up to it
right there in a meetin’-house. But, truly, anybody will see enough
Holy Families, Virgins, Madonnas, etc., to last ’em a long life,
unless they’re extravagantly fond of ’em. And every artist seems to
have painted his own idees of the Holy Mother--mebby from his own
sweetheart; anyway, no two of ’em are alike. Most of ’em are real fat
and healthy lookin’. I never spozed she enjoyed sech good health as
they depicter; I thought she wuz more kinder spindlin’ lookin’. And
then I imagined there wuz a ineffible look to the face of the Mother of
our Lord, sech, as it seems to me, they hain’t none of ’em ketched.
The Mother of our Lord! What a face she ort to have to fit my idees
of her! It’s resky work, paintin’ divine things. I wouldn’t want to
undertake it, or have Josiah. Now I see the picter of the Deity once
painted with a hat on.
I didn’t love to see it.
Why, even to Moses the Great Presence wuz surrounded by a flame of
fire; and St. Paul fell to the ground, struck by the blindin’ glory
on’t, and he wuz never able to put in mortal words the sights he
see--“Whether in the body or out of the body, God knoweth.”
He wuz reverent. And it don’t seem quite the thing to try to paint
ineffible glories with chrome yeller and madder. Howsumever, I spoze
they meant well.
And, indeed, some of the picters we see as we journeyed through the
Italian cities are all placed in rows around the inside of my brain,
and can’t never be moved from there--no, the strings must break down
first that they hang up on.
In Florence the Beautiful, oh, the acres and acres and acres of
beauty that I walked through, full to overflowin’ with beauty and
glorious conceptions and the white splendor of marble poems! The
works of Michael Angelo I hain’t a-goin’ to forgit them--no, indeed!
nor Lorenzo Ghiberti, nor the picters by Titian, Raphael, Rembrandt,
Tintoretto, Veronese, Van Dyke, Rubens, etc., etc., etc., and so forth,
and so forth, and so on, and so on.
I walked through the long picter galleries with my brain and heart all
rousted up, and enjoyin’ themselves the best that ever wuz, and my
legs all wore out and achin’ bad. And Josiah groanin’ audibly by my
side. And Martin patronizin’ the marvels of ancient and modern art, and
havin’ a good time. Al Faizi with his hat off, reverent and devout in
the presence of so much divine beauty. And Alice, I spoze, thinkin’ of
the past and the futer, and Adrian eatin’ candy, etc.
Time fails to tell what we see. It seems to me it would be easier to
tell what we didn’t see; I guess it wouldn’t take so long, but I will
desist.
But a few memories stand out shinin’ amidst the bewilderin’ maze. One
of ’em is standin’ in the cell of Savonarola, that noble creeter,
raised up to the pinnakle of saintship by the fickle populace, who
knelt and worshipped him, and then so soon crucified him. And he all
the time a-keepin’ on stiddy, jest as good and noble and riz up as he
could be. Yes, his last words to his persecutors gin a good idee on
him--
“You can turn me out of earthly meeting-houses, but you can’t keep me
out of the Heavenly one.”
I may not have used the same words he did, but it wuz to that effect.
I had a sight of emotions as I stood in that narrer place that once
confined the form of that kingly creeter.
And then the tomb of Galileo. I always liked him the best that ever
wuz. He wuz also persecuted for knowin’ things that them round him
didn’t know, and thinkin’ thoughts and seein’ sights that they didn’t.
And in order to git along with ’em round him, he had to promise to
stop teachin’ the truth. The Majority had to be appeased by the old
Ignorance. It has to now, time and agin. But he kep’ on a-sayin’ to
himself, and out loud, when he got a chance to--“The world duz move.”
Men and wimmen to-day, who feel some as Galileo about men’s and
wimmen’s rights--licenses, the higher spiritual knowledge--they keep on
a-sayin’ all the time, every time that they can git a chance to edge
a word in between Ignorance and Bigotry and shaky-kneed Custom, who
stand all shackled together with mouldy old chains of prejudice, every
time they can git a openin’ between these tattlin’, but hard-lived old
creeters, they keep on a-sayin’--“The world _duz_ move.”
Folks will fall in with ’em after a time, jest as they fell in with
the idees of Galileo; now they persecute ’em.
But more interestin’ to me than the glories and marvels of the Medician
Chapel, the Pitti and Uffizi galleries, the Boboli Gardens, the
monument to Dante (smart creeter _he_ wuz, and went through a sight
from first to last; he and she both--Beatrice, I mean)--
But of fur more interest to me it wuz to stand in the house where
the slender little English woman dwelt while her soul was slightly
imprisoned in her frail body, while she held “The poet’s star-tuned
harp to sweep.” And where at last “God struck a silence through it all,
and gave to His beloved sleep.”
“Sleep, sweet belovéd, we sometimes say,
Yet have no tune to charm away
Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep;
But never doleful dream again
Shall break their happy slumber when
He giveth His belovéd sleep.”
Yes, she sleeps well now. All the melancholy and charm of Italy, all
its magnificence, all of its splendor, its ruins--all seem to be
centred in that one little room. I had emotions there that it hain’t no
use dwellin’ on.
Figgers seemed to start up and bagon to me from every side. Aurora
Leigh, with her sad, sweet smile, stood in front of me with that lover
of hern; the Portuguese lovers, with hearts of fire and dew too; the
“Poet Mother” holdin’ her two boys to her heart, knit to that heart
by ties of iron; Nino and Guido, little babies, teaching ’em to--“Say
_first_ the word country,” after that mother and love. Then I see her
alone in the house--_alone_.
“God, how the house feels!”
While Guido and Nino lay dead, shot down by the balls of the
enemy--“One by the East Sea and by the West”--then she remembered that
she had learnt ’em to say _first_ the word “country,” puttin’ it before
“mother and home.”
She wuz kinder sorry she’d done it at first, I guess. She forgot Glory
and Patriotism, for this woman--this “Who was agonized here, the East
Sea and West Sea rhymed on in her head, forever instead.”
She couldn’t think of anything else, only the mightiness of human love
and grief.
I don’t blame her; I should felt jest so myself if it had been Thomas
Jefferson shot down. What would the glory of Jonesville be to me, if
his bright, understandin’, affectionate eyes wuz closed in death? I,
too, should think that everything else wuz “imbecile, hewin’ out roads
to a wall.”
How black that wall would look to me!
And then the cry of the Human, how it rung in my ears--
“Be pitiful, O God!”
Yes, indeed, in how many crysises have I felt the hite and the depth of
that cry!
I had powerful emotions, powerful, and sights of ’em--so did Al Faizi.
He jest doted on Mrs. Browning’s poetry, and he sot a good deal of
store by the poetry of her relict--her widderer. And Robert duz write
first-rate, but pretty deep, some on ’em. I’ve grown real riz up and
breathless a-hearin’ Thomas J. read about “How they brought the good
news from Ghent to Aix.” And I love to hear Thomas J. read about the
“Lost Leader,” and beautiful “Evelyn Hope,” and etc., etc. But, on the
hull, I sot more store by the poems of his wife.
But, as I say, I always respected and admired Elizabeth’s widderer. He
insisted on marryin’ the woman he loved, no matter how poor health she
enjoyed. I presoom his folks objected and thought that Robert would do
better to marry a woman that wuz enjoyin’ better health. But he never
thought of doctors’ bills or poultices--things that fill up littler
minds--no, indeed! nor she didn’t either. They felt only the supreme
joy of congenial minds and hearts, and love that lifts the soul up to
the divinest hites mortals can ever stand up on.
She says, and it seems almost like liftin’ a veil before the Holy of
Holys, and as if I ortn’t to speak of it, but I will venter--
She sez:
“First time he kissed me, he but kissed
This hand wherewith I write,
And ever since it grew more fair and white,
Slow to world greetings, quick with its Oh, list!
When the angels speak.”
How the words fell from her innocent soul, and how they must always
reach the same place in ’em who hear ’em, if they have got souls!
Yes, in readin’ her poetry you can see that, as she sed about the dead
baby and its sorrerin’ ma, that “The crystal bars shine faint between
the souls of child and mother.” You can see that the veil wuz but thin
indeed between her soul and the Heaven she writes of--yes, you can
almost see its light a-shinin’ through the words, and its music almost
throbs through her sweet thoughts.
But to resoom. It seems almost like a beautiful dream to look back
on’t, with, of course, some shadders to make the brightness seem more
bright, the time we spent in Florence. One day while we wuz there we
rid out to see the Tower of Pisa--Martin sed it would be expected of
him to see it.
We found that Pisa wuz a dretful noisy place--dretful, and, somehow,
yellin’ in a foreign language seems worse than the same yellin’ in
Yankee. Howsumever, I spoze these yellers and jabberers knew their own
business.
[Illustration]
Josiah sed, as we looked up at the tower, sez he--
“You’ve always took me to task, Samantha, about my corn-house bein’
built kinder tippin’ and tottlin’. Now what do you think? This tips as
much agin, and folks can’t think too much on’t, so it seems.”
“Wall,” sez I, “it has a different look to it from your edifice. I
believe that will fall on you some day, Josiah Allen, and be the death
on you.”
“Wall, they hain’t either on ’em fell yet; they both stand kinder
tippin’, but I don’t worry about either on ’em--we knew what we wuz
about when we built ’em.”
He ranked ’em both right in together, I see that he did. But this tower
goes fur ahead of his edifice--fur, though it is some seven hundred
years older.
It is perfectly round, the sides all fixed off in rows of pillows, and
the hull thing most two hundred feet high.
I didn’t hanker for goin’ up to the top on’t--no, indeed! It tuckers
me enough to go up into our wood-house chamber, about twenty odd steps.
I wuzn’t goin’ to trail up three hundred steps--no, indeed!
But Martin sed that he would like to say that he had been there. So
he toiled up the ascent, and so did Alice. And she sed that the view
from the top wuz perfectly wonderful, takin’ in the beautiful country
all round--cities, picteresque villages, and the blue waters of the
Mediterranean twelve milds away.
And Martin sed that if that tower wuz in Chicago, with a outside
elevator let down from the top to take folks up, and a cigar-stand
and saloon on top, a man ort to clear five thousand dollars a year
from it. And he sed the white marble it’s built on would make splendid
mantlepieces, and he told how many it would make--I can’t remember, but
a immense lot on ’em.
He’d figgered ’em up on the tower; he took his pencil out and figgered
it up on the pinnakle, so, for all he realized, the entrancin’ view
below might have been our four-acre paster or a huckleberry patch.
We didn’t stay here long. Of course, we had to see the cathedral and
Baptistery, great buildin’s built of white marble, and all ornamented
off on the outside to as great an extent as I ever see, or ever expect
to, and the Campo Santa has got frescoes in it that are beautiful
beyend any tellin’ on.
There is lots of other things there that is worth seein’--the Museum,
the University, the Aqueduct, etc.--but we didn’t stay to see em all,
Martin, as usual, a-bein’ in a great hurry; but he sed that he wanted
to say, of course, that he had paid proper attention to this city,
which wuz one of the oldest in Europe. Before John the Baptist came
preachin’ in the Wilderness this wuz a Roman town. It beats all! No
wonder it’s a noisy old place--it has seen lots of trouble.
In goin’ out of it we went through so many tunnels, it skairt me most
to death, and Josiah wuz skairt, too, though he wouldn’t own up to it,
but I heard him sithe repeatedly; otherwise I wuz glad to go.
Wall, as I say, what I see in beautiful Florence can’t be told, and the
enchantin’ seenery in the Valley of the Arno. The beautiful Casino,
which even Martin admitted come almost up to Central Park (it is fur
bigger and handsomer, though I wouldn’t want the Central Park folks to
know I sed it, for it would be apt to mad ’em. It made Martin mad as a
hen when I suggested it).
CHAPTER XXXI.
COLOSSEUM AND CATACOMBS.
It wuz jest as beautiful in Rome--magnificent palaces, cathedrals,
picters, statutes, tapestry, mosaics, articles of virtue of all kinds,
and immense gateways leadin’ into new seens of beauty, fountains,
monuments, tombs, parks, wells, etc., etc., etc.
My head-dress almost rises up on my head now as I contemplate the
seens. But specially the Colosseum almost lifts up the ribbins on
it--now, when I meditate on’t.
[Illustration]
Why, when the Loontown Opera House wuz finished, we Jonesvillians hung
our heads considerable before the Loontowners, they wuz so hauty over
it. Two hundred could set down in it all to one time.
It danted us. We envied ’em. But what would them proud Loontowners
think of a theatre that would seat eighty thousand, and probble
twenty or thirty thousand more could have squoze in while they wuz
a-performin’.
One hundred thousand all assembled, mebby to look down on the dretful
sight of seein’ men kill each other. That wuz the thought that riz up
my head-dress, and almost busted my bask waist. To think that men and
wimmen could meet for amusement, and witness sech agony and sufferin’,
and probble laugh at it. Why, in one of their meetin’s, twelve hundred
men wuz killed, wimmen lookin’ on, too, jest as well as men, and
probble snickerin’ over it.
I would be ashamed of myself if I wuz in their places--heartless
creeters! If I’d been there at the time nobody could kep’ me from givin’
’em a piece of my mind. But I wuz eighteen hundred years too young;
they kep’ right at it.
Al Faizi wuz dretful interested in this place. He writ down lots
in that book of hisen. He see sights here he never see in his own
land--religion or no religion.
Christians throwed round to let lions and tigers devour ’em! The idee!
He looked curous as a dog while he talked with me about it.
Martin wuz kinder calculatin’ on how many grain elevators the stun
would build if they wuz landed in Chicago.
And Josiah and the children were wanderin’ round, and he acted tired
and fagged out. He wuz, as usual, hungry. He sed prowlin’ round amongst
them stun heaps gin him a appetite. And I spoze it did. But, then, I’ve
known settin’ still to whet up his appetite, and barn chores, and
everything.
But we prowled round here for some time, and there is one big, vivid
memory that I brung away from Rome; it stands up in my foretop some as
in Naples Mount Vesuvius stands, with the Bay of Naples a-layin’ placid
and fair at its treacherous old feet.
The treasures of the Vatican (which makes my brain reel and my feet
kinder ache to this day when I think of ’em), the biggest palace in the
world, so I spoze. And then St. Peter’s Church, more’n five times as
big as the big Catholic Cathedral in New York--two hundred and twelve
thousand feet; we can’t hardly understand it, it is so big.
But Martin kep’ us there more’n half an hour; for, as he sed, he wanted
to git a thorough idee of it, so that he wouldn’t have to come agin.
Sez he:
“I travel as I do everything else; I do it laboriously and thoroughly.”
Wall, mebby he did, but I carried away from St. Peter’s and the
Vatican, which is jest by the side on’t, a sort of a dizzy, achin’
memory of pillows and picters and statutes and illimitable space,
and picters and carvin’s and statutes, and statutes and carvin’s and
picters--a few of which stands out prominent--the Laocoon, the Apollo
Belvidere (he wuz as handsome as Thomas Jefferson, and that is sayin’
all I can say), and the Annunciation, and the Transfiguration by
Raphael, and great picters by Da Vinci and Murillo. Picters, statutes,
mosaics, carvin’s, chapels, altars, picters, etc., etc., etc., etc.,
etc., and I might go on so all day, but I won’t.
Why, the treasures of art in the Vatican is the finest collection in
the world, and when you realize how big the world is--take it from
Jonesville to Chicago, and so by New York to Ingy, and back agin by the
North Pole to Loontown and Zoar, you can git a faint idee on’t.
There is everything in it besides the glorious picters and statutes
made by the greatest artists and sculpters that ever lived. There are
ancient coins and household utensils of every age, tapestry, mosaics,
jewels, embroideries, carvin’s, etc., etc.
Why, imagine what treasures of art could be put into these ten thousand
rooms by onlimited wealth and power through hundreds of years, and then
see if you expect anybody is a-goin’ to describe ’em; specially if they
are hurried on by a Martin, and goaded on the right and the left by the
hungry groanin’s of a Josiah, and the endless questions of a child of
eight.
Al Faizi got considerable good out on’t, I guess.
He writ down a lot, I see, in that delicate, small handwritin’ of
hisen--I d’no but it is shorthand.
Alice, I spoze, see on every side a face, jest as young eyes will, when
young hearts are full of love and hope.
Wall, Martin sed he must see the catacombs, and I felt, too, that I
must go, although I knew it wuz resky. I felt that with his ardent
temperament and his eager search after ontried paths, I more’n
mistrusted that I should lose Josiah Allen for good in them catacombs.
But I ventered, after layin’ stringent rules onto that small, but
ambitious man.
Sez I, “Don’t you lose sight of me through the day, Josiah Allen!”
“How can I see you in the dark?” sez he.
“Foller my voice!” sez I.
“That’s an easy job,” sez he; “I could foller that for years and years,
and not lose a minute.”
I d’no what he meant; he wuz excited and kinder wanderin’ in his mind,
I believe.
[Illustration: “The guides went ahead with flarin’ lights.”]
Wall, when we descended into the bowels of the earth, I felt queer,
queer as a dog. The guides went ahead, with flarin’ lights held up to
guide us, and as we proceeded onwards through what seemed to be milds
and milds of underground rooms and halls and windin’ ways, the thought
come, and I couldn’t keep it out of my mind--
“What if the light should blow out, as I’ve seen so many lights do in
my day, and we should be doomed to forever more wander here, and die at
last fur from Jonesville, and the light of day. But as I whispered to
Josiah--
“We shall die together at least, which will be a comfort.”
He, too, felt the pathos and danger of the seen, and sez he--
“Hurry up, or the guide will be out of sight!” and he added almost
tenderly, “You’re too fat, Samantha, to take many sech trips.”
And I sez, “Wall, I don’t expect to travel habitually under the ground.”
And we had some words. It madded me considerable to be twitted of my
heft both on top of the ground and in the bowels of the earth, till I
recollected where I wuz and what had once gone on here; then a deep or
took holt on me, and I sez to myself--
“What must the Christians have felt who fled here for safety from
persecution and death! What did the saints and martyrs think on as they
jined in their hymns of praise and victory? A few pounds of flesh, more
or less, what would they have thought on’t, or the teasin’ words of
their pardners? No, lions and tigers and the headsman’s axe wuz what
wuz before their eyes, and, what wuz worse, before the eyes of ’em
they loved best.”
Endless rooms, so it seemed to me, we went through, narrer passages
and chambers, arched overhead, and the walls lined, some on ’em with
dead bodies. Mummies, tombs, picters, windin’ ways, Josiah, Martin,
torches--them wuz the idees that come back to me as I think on’t now.
Wall, Josiah wuz dretful impressed with the Holy Staircase, up which
the members of the meetin’-house went on their knees, a-sayin’ their
prayers as they went, and it wuz a impressive sight to look way up the
stairs and see the bretheren and sistern a-creepin’ up and a-fingerin’
their strings of beads and a-prayin’ to the Virgin Mary or some other
saint or ’postle, mebby.
And here I had another trial with my dear, but too ardent and
impressible pardner. He looked on in deep thought for anon or a little
longer, and then he sez--
“Samantha, wouldn’t it be uneek for you and me to climb up the steps
of the Jonesville meetin’-house a-sayin’ over some hymn, or one of
the Sams? And you could take your mother’s gold string of beads, and
I could buy a string of glass ones for two or three cents, or I could
make a string with a little of Ury’s help--whittle ’em out of wood. And
how impressive it would be! how it would attract attention to us! how
foreign it would look, and show plain how travelled and cultivated
we wuz! You know, folks that come home from Europe always bring lots
of strange ways with ’em and airs; and this would be one of the most
uneekest and impressive that wuz ever brung into Jonesville or America.”
Sez I, “Gin up that idee to once, Josiah Allen, for I will never jine
in with it in the world. The idee!” sez I, “that you and me, with
our age and our rumatiz, should go a-creepin’ up on our knees into
the meetin’-house. Why, to say nothin’ of spilein’ our clothes, our
knee-pans wouldn’t be good for nothin’ after one venter.” Sez I, “The
pans would be perfectly useless forever afterwards, and,” sez I, “what
good would it do? The aid we invoke hain’t bought with beads. The
God we worship hain’t reached by creepin’ up a pair of stairs; He is
right with us to the foot of the stairs or anywhere. Give up the idee
immegiately and to once.”
He acted real fraxious, but I drawed his attention off, and mebby he’ll
forgit it.
The beauty of Naples has been sed and sung in so many different words
and tunes that it don’t need the pen or voice of a Samantha, specially
as I hain’t much of a singer, nor wuzn’t even in my young days, so I
will be content with singin’ to myself at times a rapt sort of a soul
song, as I look back on the enchantin’ beauty of the Bay of Naples.
Beautiful for situation indeed is Naples! clusterin’ round the clear,
blue waters, that sweep round in a sort of a crescent.
The city occupies the centre--the inside on’t, little villages and
tree-embowered castles and villas a-linin’ the shores on each side, and
on the off side, addin’ the one touch of mystery that gives a vivid but
dark charm to the picter, rises Mount Vesuvius, a-standin’ there all
the time as if protestin’ aginst the poor wisdom of the ages.
Who knows what’s a-goin’ on in her insides? Who knows what she’s mad
about? Who knows what makes her act so puggicky, and every now and then
bust out into blood-red indignation, that carries death and ruin all
round her? Queer, hain’t it?
Queer, that havin’ in mind jest what she’s done and is liable to do any
time agin, that men and wimmen go on, gay and happy, and lean up aginst
her old feet, and nestle down in her shadder, and build homes of love
there, liable any minute to be swep’ away by her red-hot wrath!
Passin’ strange! jest as singular as it is to think all of us in
Jonesville and the world at large will build fair homes of love and
content, and anchor ’em to livin’ hearts alone, in the same world where
Death is.
But to resoom. My recollections of this city, like so many others, is
one vast paneramy, framed in by the blue Mediterranean, and ornamented
on top by Vesuvius, of picter galleries, tall palaces, broad avenues,
narrer streets, in which we see many seens that in Jonesville is kep’
under cover, and stately castles--sights and sights of castles, and
immense ones; seems as if they wuz immenser and more numerous than in
any other city I see on my tower, and fountains, and aqueducts, and
churches, and colleges, and theatres, and operas, etc., etc., etc.
Plenty of chances for bein’ good, and plenty of modes of recreations,
the Neapolitans have, and they seem to take advantage on ’em all. But
it seemed as if I couldn’t never forgit that tall, warnin’ figger that
looms up forever in the background. But, then, agin, mebby I should; I
forgit the graveyard in Jonesville lots of times, though I ride by it
every Sunday to meetin’.
The guide wanted us to go up Vesuvius. He said she wuz lookin’ very
mild and pleasant, and it would be perfectly safe.
But I didn’t like her looks, or that is, I thought I’d ruther admire
her at a distance, some as I would a striped tiger right out of the
jungle. But Vesuvius did indeed look beautiful, a-risin’ up above the
incomparable Bay of Naples. But I felt for all her good looks I didn’t
want to tackle her.
I knew what she’d done in the past to ’em that trusted her too much.
Pompey won’t forgit her--no, indeed! After eighteen hundred years
have gone don’t memories hant the House of Pansa and the hull of that
devoted city of what Vesuvius can do when it gits to actin’? Yes,
indeed, indeed! No, I didn’t want to venter.
But I did want to visit that city that has lain buried up in the earth
for so many years. And Martin sed that most all of his inflooential
friends made a practice of goin’ there. So we all sot off one pleasant
mornin’--my Josiah in pretty good sperits, for we had had an oncommon
good breakfust, and Alice lookin’ sweet as a flower, and Al Faizi
a-knowin’ she did, a-realizin’ her sweetness through all his bein’, as
I could see from his big, dark, sad eyes, that wuz bent on her all the
way, and her heart all filled up with another’s image and drawin’ her
radiant looks from that sun of her heart.
O human hearts; O glory and sadness and rapter that fills ’em! How many
jest sech gay young sperits, sech souls, full of the glowin’ rapter of
love, the divine sadness of love, went out in darkness on that dretful
day, a thousand and a half years ago!
I had fearful riz-up emotions before I got to Pompey, jest a-thinkin’
on’t, and so what could they have been when I at last stood in the city
on which fell sech a sudden doom.
To see the silent forms struck down, jest as full of life and love and
happiness as Alice and Adrian wuz to-day. There wuz a woman clingin’
to a bag of gold--gold couldn’t help her. A young man and young girl
clasped in each others’ arms--love couldn’t save ’em. A priest of Isis,
who knew all the secrets of the Mystic Religion--his wisdom couldn’t
save him, or what he called his wisdom. A giant form full of courage
and defiance--strength couldn’t save him, nor courage. A high-born lady
covered with jewels--wealth and high station couldn’t save her.
They all had to bear the common fate, as well as the little maid
who died runnin’ away from death, and had covered her face with her
garments, she wuz so ’fraid. Poor little creeter! what if it had been
Babe?
No; the prisoners shet up in jail, riveted to the rock, the dogs,
horses, goats, even the poor little dove, that wouldn’t leave her nest,
pretty, little affectionate thing!--all, all had to bear the doom that
come down upon ’em on that dretful day.
All on ’em a-doin’ their usual work, jest as if the Heavens should
open and pour down a avalanche of ashes and bury us up in our home in
Jonesville--Josiah a-doin’ his barn chores, and I a-washin’ dishes,
and both on us full of life and joy of livin’. Besides Ury and Philury.
Oh, dear me! oh, dear me suz!
Wall, I went through them streets, so many centuries buried and forgot,
in a state of mind I can’t describe. It seemed some like goin’ through
any city. The streets wuz middlin’ narrer, but the housen stood on each
side; good roads wore down by the steps of the multitude. So wuz the
fountains that stood on every hand; you could see where the lips of
the public had wore ’em away. Palaces, little housen, shops, temples,
amphitheatres. One house we went through looked as though it had been
built yesterday for some rich American; it wuz over three hundred feet
long and over a hundred feet broad, and all ornamented off beautiful
with statutes and mosaics and things good enough for a Vanderbilt.
In some things the old inhabitants did better than they do now. They
had sidewalks--pretty narrer, but fur better than none--and more
facilities for gittin’ water. I wish the Italians used more now--they
would feel as well agin for it, jest as Josiah duz when I can git him
to use it free.
CHAPTER XXXII.
FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACES.
[Illustration: Mr. Goldwind, one of Martin’s business rivals.]
Wall, in the streets of Naples Martin met a man that he knew at home--a
man most as rich as Martin--a Mr. Goldwind, a sort of a rival in
business, I guess, and he had jest been travellin’ through Spain.
And what should P. Martyn Smythe do but proclaim it to us that evenin’
that we wuz to go to Spain.
I hearn him say to Alice--“It will be asked of me if we have been
there. Gertrude Goldwind will ask you if you have been there. Alice, we
must be able to say ‘Yes.’ So we will start immegiately. I have got to
go back to Paris anyway on important business.”
So the next day we started for Paris.
As I have sed heretofore, Martin wuz a very enthusiastick and ambitious
traveller; that is, he wanted to tell what he’d seen in foreign lands,
whether he’d seen ’em or not; but he wuz ambitious to have his body
trailed through ’em. And it made it very good and instructive for me,
though wearisome, for, of course, the more you see, the more you know,
and he had to take the hull circus with him wherever he went. And when
he promulgated the wild idee that we wuz to go to Spain, I acquiesced
immegiately and to once, and after a private interview I held with
Josiah, he did.
Sez Martin--“We won’t make a long stay there; but we will go over the
Pyrenees anyway, and step onto the soil; and when we go back to America
it can’t be said by any one that we did not see Spain.”
Oh, how different folkses key-notes is! Now, the key-note to his
character wuz--what would folks say?--the outside of the platter;
while, as for me, my key-note wuz--what I could see and learn, and what
wuz inside of the platter. And that wuz Al Faizi’s key-note, only his
key wuz stronger and deeper even than mine. Josiah and the children had
their own keys and notes, which it is needless to peticularize.
Wall, I had become some acquainted with Spain through my friend,
Washington Irving, and Mr. Bancroft, and then I wuz quite familar with
its literature. I had learned at a early age one of its poems, runnin’
thus:
“When it rains,
Do as they do in Spain--
Let it rain.”
I had often hearn and repeated this national epick to my relief and
consolation on stormy days. And though I felt that our trip bid fair to
be a hasty and sweepin’ one, yet I felt that if I could jest stand on
the top of the Pyrenees, and look down into the land, I would like it,
even if I did not step my foot into it.
So, after stayin’ a short time in Paris--for Martin to do his errents
there, I spoze--we sot sail for Spain, and the first night come to the
river Garonne, and acrost the long bridge into Bordeaux.
We stayed all night there, and the next mornin’ bright and early sot
out agin. A little after noon we come to Pau. The train stopped down by
the river Gave, a river that rushes right out of the mountains. Above
that, a hundred feet high, on a terrace lookin’ south, stands the city.
And what a view busted onto my vision as I looked out of the winder at
the hotel! Them gleamin’, silent peaks of snow are camped round Pau
like tall, silent, white-robed pickets a-guardin’ Pau from danger.
What a sight! what a sight!
But Martin, anxious to see everything that could be seen, sot off most
the first thing to see the castle--one of the grandest in France--where
Henry IV. wuz born, and I spoze they enjoyed it, for Josiah went with
him.
But what I wanted to see wuz the fountain of Lourdes. And though Martin
and Josiah kinder made light of me, they seemed willin’ enough to go
with me the next day. It is only a two hours’ ride from Pau to this
most famous place of pilgrimage in Europe. And we sot off in good
sperits. It lays down at the foot of the mountain, in a deep valley.
At one end of the village is a grotto where a young girl, years ago,
received a visit from the Virgin Mary, or she sez that she did. She
told the story to her folks and to all the neighbors, and she stuck to
the same story all her life till she died.
Of course ’em that went to the same place and didn’t see nothin’--they
didn’t believe her.
I d’no as Abraham’s folks believed him when he sed that he had had
a visit from angels. I dare presoom to say some of his relations
didn’t--his cousins now, and his mother-in-law’s folks; I dare say
they sed they wuz a-lookin’ right that way at the very time and didn’t
see a thing--Abraham must have been mistaken; and they would add most
probble--
“Abraham’s eyes are a-failin’; he ort to wear stronger specs.”
Not a-thinkin’ that their stronger specs could never give ’em a glimpse
of the things that he see; for speritual things are speritually
discerned, and we all have gifts differin’. Why should a propheysier
try to dream dreams and see visions?
Wall, finally the priests gin out that the story wuz true, but whether
their consciences wuz good in ginin’ it out I d’no--I don’t keep their
consciences in a box in my bureau draw.
But tenny rate, the first six months one hundred and fifty thousand
pilgrims visited the spot and partook of the healin’ water of the
spring that flowed out of the grotto.
And pretty soon a lofty meetin’-house riz up over that grotto. The
grounds round it are laid out like a immense waterin’-place that must
prepare for the comin’ of a multitude without number. In the season of
pilgrimage the meetin’-house is crowded all day and way into the night,
and round it the way is blocked with the pilgrims, and way up onto the
hillside their kneelin’ forms are massed.
What a seen it must be in still nights, that immense kneelin’ throng
and vast procession a-movin’ up the hill and a-carryin’ torches and
a-singin’ thrillin’ hymns!
Inside, the meetin’-house wuz richly decorated, its high arches
festooned with banners, and the walls covered with memorials of
gratitude for cures performed there.
Martin walked round with his hands in his pockets and his head up. I
don’t believe he sensed anything of the sperit of the place, nor Josiah.
Nor down in the grotto either, as we stood by that miracolous fountain
and see a-hangin’ all round us the crutches of the paryaletics and
cripples who had been cured here and walked off with no use for ’em any
more.
I don’t believe them two men took any more realizin’ sense of what they
wuz a-seein’.
Josiah drinked a cup of the water, and sez he in a pert tone--
“That is the best water I’ve drinked sence I left Jonesville. I wish I
could take a kag with me--it tastes like the spring down by the Beaver
Medder in Jonesville.”
And Martin drinked his cupful, and sed he preferred Apollinaris water.
Neither of them men realized its virtues.
But I sez to my pardner--“Josiah Allen, don’t you know that this water
heals the sick, makes the lame walk, and the blind see? Don’t you
realize it as you ort to, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh,” sez he, “I don’t feel any peticular difference in my feelin’s; I
feel jest about the same.”
And Martin sed he thought it wuz imagination mostly. Sez he, “You know
in sudden danger cripples have been known to walk off; it is the power
of their religious fervor that performs the cure.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you can call it what you please, but it is a good thing
anyway that cures ’em.” Sez I, “I dare presoom to say that they feel
like sayin’ as they walk off and look round--‘One thing I know, whereas
I was blind, now I see,’ and they feel like leapin’ and praisin’ the
power that has healed ’em.”
Martin kep’ his hands in his pockets and looked onbelievin’, but I see
that my talk wuz impressin’ my beloved companion, and he whispered to
me while Martin’s back wuz turned--“Do you spoze, Samantha, that it
would be apt to cure that corn of mine? I’m most tempted to try it.”
I sez, “Have you the faith, Josiah Allen?”
And he sez, “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry this minute.”
[Illustration: “I have faith that it aches like the old Harry.”]
Sez I, “Do you believe that the water could heal it? If you hain’t got
faith I wouldn’t take off my shue;” for my ardent companion wuz even
then a-onbuttonin’ the top button.
He paused. “But,” sez he, “would I have to leave my shue here if I
got cured--would it be fashionable and stylish to do so, and go home
barefooted?”
And I swep’ right by him, and sez I, “Come on, Josiah Allen; all the
water of Lourdes can’t cure a soul whose highest aim is to be stylish.”
And he come on a-mutterin’, “You complain if I don’t look ahead, and
you complain if I do. How did I know whether it would be expected of me
to go home in my stockin’ feet or not, and you’d complain if I got a
hole in my stockin’.” Sez he, “If I hain’t healed you complain, and if
I be healed you find fault with me.”
Sez I soothin’ly, “Dear Josiah, you might git cold in your stockin’
feet--it is all for the best, and I d’no its power over corns anyway,”
sez I.
“Wall,” sez he, “it would look queer to Pau to see me mount the hotel
steps with one shue and one red stockin’ on.”
For he had worn his dressiest pair that mornin’.
And he murmured, “If I had my dressin’-gown on, it would droop down
over my feet some.”
Al Faizi had been all this time a-lookin’ round and notin’ down things
in his note-book, and seein’ everything with his deep, strange eyes,
but sayin’ little about it, and a-thinkin’ a lot, as wuz his general
way.
The next mornin’ we left Pau, and in the afternoon we found ourselves
in the “Bay of Biscay, Oh!”
That is a quotation from a poem--in common talk the “Oh” can be omitted.
We had to wait a spell at Bayonne for the train to take us into Spain,
though Martin proposed that we should take a carriage and drive out to
Biarritz.
For Martin sed that so many of his acquaintances went there for the
winter that it would sound better for us to say that we had passed some
time there--it would be far more stylish and fashionable to say it.
“How long a time can you pass there,” sez I, “to git back to ketch the
train?”
“Wall,” sez he, “we shall have time to stay three fourths of an
hour--ample time to see everything of interest there.”
Good land!!!!!
But Martin wuz the head of the procession, as you may say, and we had
to foller on where he went and halt when he halted.
And I felt that one thing wuz favorable to me, I always had a faculty
for seein’ a good deal in a short space of time by the clock.
Biarritz is a pleasant place in the winter, and you could see that a
good many have discovered it by the number of big hotels perched up on
the bluffs, their open winders lookin’ south.
Of course Martin had to drive by the Villa Eugenia, occupied by her who
once had a empire to command, and beauty, youth, and love, and now sits
and looks over the tombs and the ruins of the hull on ’em.
Poor creeter! I always felt onreconciled to that bright young boy of
hern bein’ struck down as he wuz by a savage in a savage place, fur
from a mother’s love.
Oh, dear me!
But here Napoleon came often in the mild September, and happiness
rained in the beautiful villa, with its gay pleasure grounds.
Wall, Martin see a sight, I spoze, and as he sed a-goin’ back:
“I am so glad we stayed here some time, for I know a lot of men who
bring their families here winters, and it will be interesting to
converse with them about the beauties of the place; I’m glad I brought
all my family with me,” sez he, lookin’ complacently at Alice and
Adrian.
“But, papa, we never sat down at all,” sed Adrian.
“Never mind, my boy--you have been there, and it is a great
watering-place. And when Mr. Goldwind’s boy talks about Biarritz, you
can mention to him that you have been there and stayed for some time.”
“But Billy Goldwind stays there all winter, papa.”
“Well, we do not want to stay so long; we want to get back home before
winter. We merely wanted to go there and stay some time, and we have.”
Wall, I don’t spoze it wuz a real lie--we had been there and had stayed
some time.
Josiah sed he had stayed as long as he wanted to, and he should be glad
to git into Spain with his dressin’-gown on, and set down a spell.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CATHEDRALS AND CASTLES IN SPAIN.
I wuz not sorry to be on the train agin on our way to Irun, which wuz
the first town of Spain we entered, and here we wuz ushered into the
Custom House.
Our baggage wuz all took into the station and spread out on long
counters and examined.
Politer creeters I don’t want to see than them Spaniards wuz. And the
language they spoke amongst themselves wuz as soft as silk and as
kinder soothin’ and sweet. And they didn’t hurt our baggage a speck,
though Josiah’s anxiety as they opened his satchel wuz extreme.
He sez to me, “Like as not they’ll spile that dressin’-gown.”
“How could they spile it?” I whispered back.
“Why,” sez he, “them tossels could be hurt easy. I shall have to comb
’em out agin as quick as we stop.”
He had a awful coarse comb with him, and he did spend hours a-combin’
out them red tossels that he ort to spend on his own head, or on his
Bible.
So, as I say, he jest hovered over that satchel and heaved 2 or 3 deep
sithes of relief as the Custom House officer released it from his hand.
And, oh! how lovin’ly he folded the rep folds, and laid the tossels
down caressin’ly.
My baggage was soon and hurridly gone through--in the words of a old
adage concernin’ a horse, changed to suit the occasion--“A short
satchel is soon hurried.”
The Spaniards are a lazy set--I guess they would have examined our
things closter, if they wuzn’t so slow and slack.
[Illustration: I see one of the officials take up my sheep’s-head
nightcap.]
[Illustration: A smile of admiration swep’ over his dark visage.]
I see one of the officials take up one of my sheep’s-head nightcaps
that lay on top--so’s to not muss the agin’--he took it up, and a smile
of admiration swep’ over his dark visage. I believe, if he hadn’t
been so lazy, he would have asked me for the pattern on’t. More’n as
likely as not, so lackin’ is Spain in some of the first elements of the
ingregiencies of civilization, I shouldn’t wonder a mite if them two
wuz the only sheep’s-head nightcaps in Spain.
But this last fact (his laziness) conquered his gropin’s after sunthin’
new and better than he and his companion had known in the way of
nightcaps. He laid it down with another smile of admiration, and closed
up my satchel.
Wall, after we got on the cars agin, bag and baggage, and I thought,
my soul, owin’ to the utter shiftlessness and slowness, that we never
should git fairly to goin’.
After Josiah wuz set at rest agin concernin’ his dressin’-gown, and I
settled down about my nightcap, little did I think that we should have
to go through the hull performance agin in a few hours.
But we did--the hull seen was enacted agin, my pardner’s anxiety
and all. Only these new officials hadn’t the sense to appreciate my
nightcaps--they turned ’em over as if they wuz common apparel.
Martin and Alice took everything of the sort with composure and good
nater; they wuz ust to it, I spoze, travellin’ round all the time. And
Al Faizi looked on the faces of the men with that searchin’, enquirin’
gaze of hisen, and didn’t say nothin’. Adrian wuz tired, I could see,
and when we got into the carriage to take us to our hotel, he kinder
laid down in my lap and went to sleep.
Good, pretty little creeter!
San Sebastian is situated on sech a beautiful little bay that they
have named it the Concha, or shell, as we would call it. It is a noted
waterin’-place, and Queen Isabella ust to come here summers and water
herself, and bathe, and act. If I’d been here I should have gin her a
talkin’ to; I dare presoom to say I could have got her to turn right
round in her tracts and got her to behavin’; I presoom, in all the
crowds around her, there wuzn’t one well-wisher to walk up and tell her
what wuz what. No; praise to her face and back-bitein’ to her back.
I’d ort to been there! She had a hard time all her life, and I’m real
sorry for her, and she would have read it in my mean, and took my
advice as it wuz meant to be took.
Wall, we stayed here two days, and I wuz glad, indeed, of the rest. I
wuz willin’ to spend my time with St. Sebastian, while the rest spent
their time a-meanderin’.
Martin and Josiah and the rest made lots of excursions to all the
castles and cathedrals in the vicinity, but I felt middlin’ satisfied
to see the most on ’em from the outside. The ruffs of ’em, viewed from
my bedroom winder, seemed to satisfy my mind as I looked out on ’em
dreamily, as I applied arnaky to my knee jints. I wuz real lame, but
recooperated a good deal while here.
I did take one or two drives, when I wuz charmed with the strange and
picteresque scenery. In some places to see the mountains a-standin’ up
all round us in the fur blue distance, and the queer little hamlets
nestled down in the deep green valleys.
We went to Pasages, less than a hour’s drive, to see the very place
where Lafayette sot sail to help us git our freedom.
I had so many emotions here, as I viewed this spot, that I breathed
hard, and had to restrain myself to keep a composure on the outside.
On the way back we met lots of their heavey, rough carts, drawed by an
ox and a cow lashed together by ropes wound round their horns, and then
hitched to the cart.
[Illustration: Heavey, rough carts, drawed by an ox and a cow lashed
together by ropes wound round their horns.]
As Josiah see this, he sez, “There, Samantha, you can see the practical
workin’s of wimmen’s rights.” Sez he, “I say a cow has done all she ort
to when she’s gin a good pail of milk; she ortn’t to plough and reap
too.”
That speech kinder dumbfoundered me for a spell. It wuz the smartest
thing my pardner had sed for over a year and a half. But, after
considerin’ on’t for a spell, I sez--
“Josiah, that hain’t so deep a speech as you’d think it wuz from
considerin’ it from jest on the outside. The cases are different,” sez
I. “The cow helps draw the cart, both equal; but the cow don’t have to
pay taxes and the ox can’t make laws that hang her and rob her, etc.”
But still, in my own mind, I did admire my pardner’s observation, and
admired him considerable for thinkin’ on’t. It showed high gallantry,
too, and devotion to females; I felt quite proud on him for pretty nigh
half a day.
On one excursion that Martin wanted to make I wuz more’n willin’ to
accompany and go with him--that wuz to Azpeitia, a little village 25
miles from San Sebastian; but its bein’ a mountain road, it took us
about all day to go and come.
But Martin didn’t begrech the time. “For,” sez he, “I want to see the
spot where the man was born who has exerted the greatest power of any
man on earth--Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits.”
Sez he--
“I shall be asked if I went there, and I want to be able to say yes.”
How different I felt on the subject, and how different Al Faizi felt!
I see in that heathen’s rapt eyes as we talked about it on the way the
same emotions I felt--a deep admiration for the grand, heroic character
of Loyola, a deep horrow of the power he sot to goin’, not knowin’ how
fur it wuz a-goin’ to move, nor how much blood it wuz a-goin’ to wade
through.
I’d hearn his history rehearsed a number of times by Thomas Jefferson,
and I knew all about it. He wuz a favorite at court, with beauty and
wit and good sense, a brave warrior, brought down to death’s door by
the enemy’s sword. When he wuz thirty years old, as you can see by the
inscription over his front door, “He gave himself to God.”
In that same hour he wuz converted, there hain’t a doubt of that;
nobody ever had more faith than he had. Why, he see for himself the
water and the wine changed right before his eyes into the blood and
body of our Lord.
Some say it wuz a vision caused by his religious ecstasy. But _he
saw it_, and forevermore he doubted not--he _knew_ what he believed,
and with all the ardor of his immortal faith, with all the brave
generalship learnt by his warlike trainin’, he led on his countless
troops aginst the Wrong as he see it.
Nobody can doubt the sincerity and single-mindedness of Loyola; he
give proof of it in his life of self-denial and fastin’ and prayer. He
changed his clothes with a beggar, eat the most loathsome food, and to
mortify his pride begged from door to door. Why, he who wuz ust to the
soft couches of a court dwelt a hull year in a cave in plain sight of
a convent built to the Virgin Mary. He lay here on the ground a hull
year, three hundred and sixty-five nights, so that he could show that
he wuz indeed a worm of the dust in sight of his Maker.
Havin’ prepared himself thus, he went to the shrine of the Virgin Mary
and spent a hull night in prayer before the altar, then laid his sword
upon it to show that he laid aside all dreams of earthly honor. And
here he took his vows--to give his heart’s deepest love, and his hull
life’s devotion.
These vows he kep’ to the last minute of his life. In a church built to
his honor are those words that ruled him:
“To the Greater Glory of God.”
There can be no doubt of his sincerity and no doubt of the fatal power
he wielded and wields yet. For that strong, inexecrable hand holds
empires in its grasp, blood drippin’ through the firm, cast-iron
fingers. A well-meanin’ grasp in the first place, nobody doubts, and as
time has passed, a-snatchin’ many savages from their barbarous lives
and savage beliefs into better ways of livin’, and bringin’ ’em into
the shelter of the Cross.
Good and evil, evil and good. Loyola is not the only Leader who has
waded through seas of blood, and all to “The Greater Glory of God.” And
what will be the end?
Onlimited power is a dangerous weepon to handle. Believin’ as he did
firmly, onalterably, that his way wuz the only right way, he proceeded
to make people walk in it. He went to work jest as the Puritans did
when they hung witches and whipped Baptists. Only as his power reached
by powerful organizations into all the countries of the earth, so the
streams of bloodshed flowed down all the mountains of the earth, and
reddened all the valleys.
And he, shet up to home a-fastin’ and a-prayin’ and a-seein’ visions of
his Lord, and heads a-bein’ cut off and flames a-cracklin’ round the
martyrs that he caused to be put to death in the name of his religion.
And St. Francis Xavier, the best and sweetest soul that ever lived,
he too become a general in this great army. By its swift, silent,
mysterious power Kings wuz put to death, a Pope wuz poisoned, and some
say that the Massacree of St. Bartholomew wuz caused by it. By its
power Queen Isabella, the sweet, tender-hearted soul who sold her own
earrin’s and things to help Columbus discover us--jest think of her,
for what she wuz made to think wuz for “The Greater Glory of God,” she
give her consent to have the dretful Inquisition established in Spain,
causin’ half a million of Christians to be tortured and put to death.
Curous, hain’t it, what actin’ and behavin’ mortals will take on
themselves to do in the name of Religion!
And she, so sweet, so peaceable, so holy--rejoicin’ not in Iniquity,
but rejoicin’ in the Truth; forgivin’ her enemies, blessin’ ’em that
persecute her, lovin’ all men and wimmen, blessin’ the world.
Queer, hain’t it!
Wall, from San Sebastian we went to Bruges and put up at a hotel built
in honor of a Emperor. But I wuz dissapinted; a hotel in honor of a
tramp ort to have more conveniences and smell sweeter. But I got a
chance to set down and rest, anyway, which wuz indeed a panaky to my
legs and to me.
I’d been quite rousted up about comin’ to Bruges, for here Cid wuz
born, as I told Josiah.
“Syd who?” sez he.
“Why, the Cid,” sez I, “who led the armies aginst the Moors and freed
Spain.”
“Wall,” sez Josiah, “I should think if he done all that it would look
better for you not to nickname him and call him Syd. You never wuz
intimate with Sydney,” sez he.
Sez I, “That hain’t his name; it is C-i-d, Cid. Hain’t you hearn Thomas
J. read about him--all the great things he did, and how after he wuz
dead he rode into Bruges clad in armor? And when a Jew approached his
dead body to offer it some insult his mailed hand come up and knocked
him down.”
Sez Josiah, “I don’t approve of Syds doin’ that anyway--I should go
aginst it; it would be apt to make queer funerals if sech things wuz
encouraged.”
“Wall,” sez I, “I don’t say it is so, but I’ve hearn tell it wuz.”
Anyway, we found in the town-hall his bones wuz nothin’ but dust.
Josiah kinder sheered away from the box where they wuz kep’, but
nothin’ took place and ensued.
The cathedral is a sight--a sight. I felt a good deal as I stood under
its walls as a ant would feel if she wuz sot down under Bunker Hill
Monument. And inside the buildin’ my emotions wuz still more various
and lofty. The interior is exquisite, grand beyend any idee almost,
and the proportions are so perfect, the harmony of it affects one a
good deal as the most melogious music would, and the colorin’ is jest
as perfect as the architecture. Take it all in all, it is a sight--a
sight. Even Josiah wuz affected by it; his local pride wuz lowered
imperceptibly, and sez he--
“I’ve cracked up the Jonesville meetin’-house everywhere I’ve been, and
it is a comogious structure, but this goes ahead on’t, and I will own
up that it duz.”
Martin sed, “I’m glad I’ve been here; a good many of my friends have
spoken of it to me. I shall be glad to say that I have studied this
much-talked-of cathedral at length.”
We wuz there about half a hour.
Al Faizi showed in his ardent face, lifted in reverence and admirin’
or, jest how he felt about it. The lights from the stained-glass winder
gleamed on’t, and made it look almost inspired. He nor I didn’t seem
to want to talk much about it. I never do when I see Niagara. No, I’m
willin’ to let that do the talkin’ to my rapt soul.
It wuz so here. When I stood in these cathedrals, the grandeur and
might of their silent oratory preached to me so loud that I wuz almost
overwhelmed and by the side of myself, and carried some distance by the
power of the sperit that carried out these grand results.
But anon, when I got outside, other emotions got into my sperit; they
come in onbid, and I had to use ’em well.
I thought how on great days the congregation who meet here would
worship God all day and wave banners and anon fire cannons in honor of
some saint or other, and then end up with a bull-fight.
Jest as if Josiah and Deacon Bobbett should pass the Holy Communion,
bread and wine, and then withdraw into the horse-shed, and have a dog
or rooster fight.
It took off a number of my soarin’ emotions to think on’t, probble as
many as 80 or 85. I had had over a hundred right along--I know I had.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
JOSIAH’S DEVOTION.
Wall, another day we went to see the Carthusian Monastery, founded
four hundred years ago by Queen Isabella--Christopher Columbuses
Isabella--the intimate friend of America (owin’ to jewelry, discovery,
etc.).
Josiah and I thought we would branch out this day and go alone, so he
secured the gayest-lookin’ rig he could find, drawed by three mules
hitched side by side. It attracted all the beggars in town, so they
follered us as a dog with a bone is follered by other dogs.
But Josiah took it as a tribute to our style, and he leaned back in
perfect delight, and sez he, a-wavin’ his hand with a kind of hauty
wave--
“Drive by Alameda!”
Come to find out the reasons he gin his orders wuz he’d heard Alameda
talked about, and he thought she wuz a woman, and mebby a American, and
he wanted to show off before her.
But it wuzn’t a woman. It wuz a pretty park, and we driv along and
crost the river, and went through a long avenue of ellum trees each
side on’t, and anon we found ourselves on top of a noble hill in front
of a Monastery.
Here we rung the bell at a gate for admission, and a small grated
winder wuz opened and a man’s face appeared with a dark-colored
nightcap on.
He asked if there wuz wimmen in the party. If there wuz we couldn’t
come in.
I guess he wuz fraxious, bein’ waked up sudden. I jedged from his
nightcap. But little did I think it would have sech a effect on my
pardner.
He could not at first comprehend the indignity offered to his beloved
pardner. But the driver repeated it; sez he--
“The Friar says you can come in, but no woman could be admitted.”
Then I see the power of cast-iron devotion made harder by the hammers
of Joy and Sorrer a-hammerin’ down on the anvil of Time. That noble but
too hasty man riz right up in the vehicle and shook his fist at the man
with the nightcap, and hollered out--
“I’ll give that fryer a piece of my mind!” and before I interfered he
yelled out:
“You may keep right on with your fryin’; I won’t stir a step inside if
Samantha can’t come too. I’ll let you know that any place that’s too
good for her is too good for me. Keep right on with your fryin’, your
bull beef will probble spile if it hain’t cooked!”
I ketched him by his vest, and sez I: “Pause, Josiah Allen. He hain’t a
cook; it is a F-r-i-a-r.”
“How do you spoze I care how you spell it? You can spell their
bull-fights b-o-u-l if you want to; that don’t hender ’em from havin’
to take care of their fresh beef. Keep right on a-fryin’!” sez he in
bitter mockery. “My Samantha hain’t probble good enough to see a little
beef a-fryin’; but,” sez he, waxin’ eloquent, as, animated by the power
of love, he stood up nobly for me--
“You can fry all day and think you go ahead of any woman, and be too
proud to let ’em see you at it; but Samantha’s cookin’ is as fur ahead
of yours as the United States is bigger than Spain. And I’d ruther have
one of Samantha’s steaks that she cooks than all the beef that you ever
killed at your dum bull-fights. And don’t you forgit it!” he hollered,
as the driver drove away by my almost frenzied directions.
He sunk back exhausted on his seat as we swep’ on. And you can jedge of
his agitation when I say that he threw out three copper cents all to
one time to the swarm of ragged beggars that run along by the side of
the carriage. He threw ’em out mekanically, and as if he didn’t know
what he wuz about. Ah! the insult to me rankled deep in his noble but
small-sized frame. He didn’t git over it all that night. I always knew
he loved me deeply--I knew it in Jonesville, and I knew it in Spain.
But oh! how touchin’ the proof wuz that he gin to me as his voice rung
out in the vast, lonesome bareness of our chamber in Bruges, Spain, as
he lifted his hand in mockery, and cried out:
“Keep right on with your fryin’; you won’t git me to eat a mou’ful
while Samantha is hungry!”
Oh, the power of love! How it gilds with its rosy rays the quiet ways
of Jonesville! How it still shone on and shed its ambient light in a
foreign land! But I gently hunched him and woke him up, for I see it
wuz endin’ in nightmair.
I wuz too overcome by a deep sense of his nobility of sentiment in my
behaff to argy with him that day. I felt that it would be ongrateful in
me; and then, agin, I felt that he wuz too overcome by the greatness of
his emotions--I knew his frame wuz but small, and his devoted affection
and his righteous anger mighty. I dassent add another single emotion
to them he wuz already a-carryin’--no, I dassent venter. But I talked
soothin’ly all the evenin’, and said not a upbraidin’ word when his
nightmair snorted and waked me up with its prancin’ huffs.
No; I, too, am a devoted pardner, and know when to talk and when to
keep silence. That is a great nack for pardners to learn--one of the
greatest and most neccessary.
But the next mornin’, when all wuz calm, and a not knowin’ how fur his
emotions might lead him agin into twittin’ them Spaniards about their
national custom of bull-fights, etc., and fearin’ he might git into
serous trouble by it when I wuz not near to soothe and assuage the
ragin’ tumult, I sez--
“Josiah, you made a mistake yesterday; that man in the nightcap wuzn’t
a-fryin’ the beef slaughtered in their bull-fights. They don’t eat
that; why,” sez I, “sech mad beef wouldn’t be fit to eat--it would make
’em sick.”
“Wall, don’t they look sick?” sez he; “a little, under-sized, saller
set, caused almost entirely,” sez he, “by eatin’ that beef.”
Wall, I see that I couldn’t change his mind, and I sez--
“Wall, anyway, they’re about the politest creeters I ever see, and how
soft and melogious their voices are! Their words seem as soft as velvet
and silk.”
“Yes,” sez he; “if they wuz a-goin’ to spell ‘cat’ or ‘dog,’ they would
pronounce it c-a-t, cattah, or d-o-g, doggah,” sez he. “I’m kinder sick
on’t, but most probble they can’t help it--it is caused by their diet;
and,” sez he, lookin’ wise--
“That bull beef hain’t the worst on’t. Don’t history tell of that Diet
of Worms that they wanted Martin Luther to partake on and he wouldn’t?”
Sez I, “Josiah, that wuz the name of the meetin’ he wuz dragged before.”
Sez he, “I take history or the Bible as it reads, and I know I have
read a sight of that Diet they couldn’t git Martin to jine in with ’em
and partake of.”
Mekanically I disputed him, for my thoughts wuzn’t there. No, as I
thought on’t, the form of my companion a-tyin’ his necktie before the
small lookin’-glass, and a-tryin’ to edify me, faded away, and I seemed
to look back through the centuries and see that brave Monk a-standin’
up for the Holy Truth, revealed to him in his cloister, as it has been
through all time revealed to chosen, prophetic souls. I seemed to see
the angry-faced assemblage surroundin’ him. The cold, gloomy face of
Charles V., King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, a-lookin’ frownin’ly
on him as he pleaded for liberty and conscience. And I seemed to hear
Luther’s voice say the words that have echoed down through all these
centuries and are a-echoin’ still:
“Here I take my stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me!”
But anon the voice of my pardner drawed me back down the long aisle of
the years wet with blood, black with the Inquisition, with little oases
of Peace scattered along, shinin’ through the lurid battle clouds.
His voice rousted me as it sed, “Hain’t you never goin’ to git that
nightcap off, Samantha? I’m almost starved to death, though what I’m
goin’ to eat, goodness knows.”
And as I hastily took off my nightcap and wadded up my back hair, he
resoomed--
“I never wuz any case to eat clear pepper and ginger for any length of
time, or allspice.” Sez he, “I am slowly wastin’ away, Samantha; I’ll
bet I weigh five or six ounces less than I did when I left home.” Sez
he, pitifully, “It seems to me, Samantha, if I could set down once more
quiet in our own home and eat one of your good breakfusts, I would be
willin’ to die.”
“Wall,” sez I, “less try to bear up and lot on gittin’ back home agin.”
Sez I, “One of the noblest fruits of travel, Josiah, is the longin’ it
gives us to be back home agin and settle down and rest.”
He assented with a deep sithe, and at my request hooked up my dress
skirt in the back.
[Illustration: At my request he hooked up my dress skirt in the back.]
Wall, knowin’ Martin’s pecular, but, as I found out afterwards, popular
idees of travel, I didn’t expect to remain long in Spain; but we did
stay there several days, for, as Martin sed, after comin’ so fur he
wanted to make a exhaustive study of the country; so we stayed most a
week.
Wall, so far as exhaustion wuz concerned I felt that we wuz havin’ a
success, for I wuz as tired as a dog from day to day, and tireder than
any dogs I ever see from all appearance.
But Martin sed that we would visit Madrid before we left the country,
for he sed that he wouldn’t want to be asked if he had been to the
capital of Spain and be obliged to say no. Al Faizi spoke of wantin’
to see the Alhambra, and I myself, havin’ been introduced to it by
Washington Irving and my boy, had a sort of a longin’ to explore its
wonders. But Martin sed that he had studied the Alhambra exhaustively
at Chicago, and he felt, seein’ he had got all the information that
could be got on the subject, it wuz useless to prolong our trip by
goin’ there.
Sez he, “If there was anything new to learn I would go, for it is my
way to go to the very bottom of things in exploration or discovery;
but,” sez he, “I spent over half an hour in the Alhambra in Chicago,
and I have no more to learn.”
I had been in that place myself, and had got lost, and felt like a fool
there. I remembered well how I roamed through them curous labrinths,
and had been brought up standin’ in front of myself repeatedly, and had
bowed to myself real polite, thinkin’ that I recognized some familar
form from Jonesville.
And there it wuz myself, in one of them countless lookin’-glasses. I
felt cheaper than dirt.
Sometimes I would think it wuz two or three somebody elses, and I’d
wonder how so many other wimmen could look so much like me as these
several ones did, a-appearin’ right up in front and on both sides of me.
Only I would always give up every time that there didn’t none on ’em
look nigh so well as I did. They didn’t somehow have sech a noble
look to ’em, and their clothes didn’t hang so well as mine did, and
their bunnet strings wuz more rumpled up, and their front hair wuzn’t
so smooth, and they looked fur more tired out than I ever looked, and
bewildered like, and kinder wan.
Yes, I’d been through them labrinths. I had enough of Moorish palaces
by the time I got out, a plenty.
And if, as Martin sed, there wuz nothin’ more to see in Grenada, I
didn’t care a cent to go. And I thought more’n as like as not I should
lose Josiah in a labrinth--lose him for good and all.
So I gin a willin’ consent to proceed onwards to Madrid. The children
wuz willin’ to go anywhere, and so wuz Al Faizi, for, as he sed to me:
“Truth makes her home in all lands. I seek the light of her face under
every sky.”
And, poor creeter! not findin’ it time and agin, I’m afraid. Though
in our long talks about this country, which in tryin’ to stomp out
Protestantism, had stomped out her own life; and in tryin’ to drownd
out Religion in the blood of her saints, had drownded out her own
civilization and progress--
Al Faizi and I talked this all over, but took comfort in thinkin’,
after all, that good can be found in every country by them that seek
her benine face. We took sights of comfort in talkin’ back and forth
about the Archbishop of Grenada, and his self-sacrificin’, heroic
doin’s in the great cholera plague of 1885.
No Methodist could have done any better than he did, no deacon or
minister or anybody. I d’no as John Wesley could have come up to it.
Wall, as I sed, I felt well to think that we had saved a journey to
Grenada, though I had kinder lotted on walkin’ under the Gate of
Jestice that I knew had to be gone through to visit the Alhambra. But I
sort o’ comforted myself by the thought that mebby it wuz only a name,
after all.
I got real soothed for my dissapintment in not walkin’ through it by
thinkin’ of our own Halls of Jestice, and a-meditatin’ that Jestice
never sot her foot in ’em from one year’s end to the other, as nigh as
I could find out.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE QUEEN, ULALEY, AND A BULL-FIGHT.
Wall, we had a very fatiguin’ journey, durin’ which I will pass
over the sufferin’s of my pardner from the hot, dry climate, the
ever-present pangs of hunger, that wuz always with him, and the
fraxiousness, that, alas! always overcomes him at sech tuckerin’ times.
I will draw a curtain of cretonne over the incidents of our tegus,
tegus journey, and only draw it back agin, on its hot, dry, brass
rings, when we are once more settled down in a middlin’ good tarvern
at Madrid--I a-settin’ by the winder and Josiah a-layin’ on the bed
fast asleep, the dressin’-gown folded lovin’ly round his small-boneded
figger.
Martin and the children and Al Faizi went out a good deal to see all
the strange, new sights of the Spanish capitol.
But I took considerable comfort a-settin’ still in as comfortable a
chair as I could find, a-lookin’ down on the Spaniards and their kinder
queer-lookin’ housen, and the strange costooms and ways of another
country--
The tall, hauty-lookin’ Dons a-walkin’ along as if the ground wuzn’t
quite good enough for ’em to walk on, and the dark-eyed wimmen, and
the children, and the beggars, and the splendid carriages, some on ’em
drawed by six horses apiece, and their harnesses all glitterin’ with
gold, and the humbler vehicles drawed by mules, and these mules trimmed
off beautiful, too, and, etc., etc., etc.
Wall, it wuz on the third day after we arrov in Madrid, and I wuz
a-walkin’ in the Public Garden with little Adrian and my Josiah, when,
on turnin’ the corner of a leafy avenue, who should I see, right face
to face a-comin’ towards me, but my intimate friend, Ulaley.
I wuz tickled most to death. It is always happifyin’ in a strange and
foreign country to meet anybody you’re intimate with, and when that
friend is a Infanty, and one you’ve advised and neighbored with, your
happiness is still greater.
[Illustration: She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty
lips.]
I advanced and held out my hand, my Josiah and Adrian a-bringin’ up my
rear. She knowed me to once--a happy smile curved her pretty lips, and
sez she--
“Madam, I’m pleased to meet you. I remember seein’ you in your own
country.”
“Yes,” sez I, “we met in Chicago, Ill., and had a first-rate visit
there.” Sez I, “How have you been ever sence I see you, and how is all
your folks? How is Antonio?” Sez I, “Did he git through the winter all
right? Sickness and the grip has been round lots, and if it has spared
our two pardners we ort to be thankful. And that makes me think,” sez
I, “let me introduce my pardner, Josiah Allen.
“Josiah,” sez I, “this is the Infanty--Ulaley, you’ve hearn me speak
on.”
Josiah made his best and lowest bow, and murmured sunthin’ about havin’
read about her in the _World_.
“Yes,” sez I, “and you’ve hearn me talk about her a sight.”
But he had a sort of a obstinate streak come over him, sech as pardners
will have in the strangest and most onconvenient times, and he never
assented to that at all, but sed agin that he had read about her in the
_World_.
And I had to let it go. Truly, pardners, though agreeable at times,
yet how clost do they clip off the wings of your pride and ambition at
other and more various times!
Ulaley see it. Wimmen know only too well how often sech _contrarytemps_
occurs, and she helped me out, as I’ve helped many a woman out of the
mud-puddle of embarrassment a pardner’s words have throwed her into.
Sez she, “I have such warm recollections of your country--it is so
great a country,” sez she.
“Yes,” sez I, “our country is a middlin’ big one, but I thought I
wouldn’t speak of the size on’t to you, Ulaley, thinkin’ that you might
think mebby that I’d come over here to kinder twit you of the smallness
of yourn.” And wantin’ to be real polite, sez I--
“The value of anything don’t always depend on its size.”
“No, indeed!” sez Josiah.
He wuz alludin’ to his own small weight by the steelyards. But I
waved off his speech--I felt quite cool towards him, about as cool as
rain-water, and I wouldn’t fall in with his hint and gin him my usual
compliment.
Wall, jest as the Infanty and I wuz a-talkin’ back and forth, a woman
and a little boy, who had been a-lingerin’ a little behind, come
up, and I see in a minute who they wuz; and though I’m bashful by
nater--very, yet knowin’ that I had the honor and politeness of my own
country and Jonesville to uphold, I advanced towards her in a very
admirin’, respectful way.
Yes, I see it wuz the Queen Regent and little Alfonso himself. I wuz
tickled, and still hampered, by the duties that devolved onto me, but
above all of my emotions riz the thought of how glad I wuz to meet ’em,
and how glad they would be afterwards a-thinkin’ it over to think that
they had a chance to meet me.
Ulaley didn’t make no move to introduce us. And I see in a minute how
it wuz. There wuz the Queen pardnerless and alone, there wuz I with my
livin’ pardner; it would roust up too many sad memories to bring us all
closter to each other.
But she’d no need to hesitated on that account; I could have told the
Queen that though a pardnerless state had its trials, havin’ a pardner
brings afflictions also--Heaven knows it duz!
But I see how it wuz, and havin’ the sole glory of Jonesville and
America in my eyes, I advanced forwards with quite a lot of dignity and
made a deep curchy.
I took holt of each side of my brown alpaca dress and held out the
skirt a very little. They wuz good curchys, and I made about three
on ’em--two to the Queen Regent and one to Alfonso. I thought one wuz
about right for him, considerin’ his age.
I then advanced and held out my hand, and sez I--“I am glad to meet
you, Julia, and tell you how well I think on you.” Sez I, “A young
woman who has done as well as you have with what you have had to do
with deserves to be encouraged, and I’m glad to encourage you.”
She looked awful surprised at my good manners and politeness; she bowed
her head in almost dumbfounder, as I could see, and I went on--
“You’ve had a hard time on’t, Julia--real hard. It’s always hard
to leave your own folks when you’re married and go and live with
his folks, and I presoom you’ve had days when you thought his folks
didn’t treat you well--it is nateral. And I presoom he cut up more or
less--pardners will. And you, fur away from your own folks, made the
cuttin’ up and actin’ seem worse. I persoom you’ve had days when you
would have willin’ly swapped off five or six Spanish palaces for one
free, onfettered hour beyend the Alps. And you would have willin’ly
swapped the most flatterin’ words addressed to you in a strange tongue
to listen to the swashin’ waves of the blue Danube, the ripplin’ waves
that beat up agin the shores of home--you had a real hard time.
“And then, to cap all, your pardner wuz took from you, before even
the catnip wuz put to steepin’--before his baby’s eyes could look any
comfort into yours. Poor creeter! what a hard time on’t you did have.
“But when the baby wuz born, he brung a new life to you--you see your
dead-and-gone pardner’s first tender love a-shinin’ through the little
face, all the passion and dross and dissapintment of a pardner’s love
filtered through the divine and satisfyin’ sweetness of a child’s love.
“Oh, he has made life and Spain different things to you, and you’ve
sprunted up and done well--you’ve done first rate! You are a-bringin’
up little Alfonso jest as well as I could, and I d’no but better, for,
bein’ younger, you can git round spryer and find out new things to
teach him. His little hands, too, have drawed you and Spain nigher to
each other; you think as much agin of each other as you ust to, and I’m
glad on’t.
“And how do you do?” sez I, a-holdin’ out my hand to little Alfonso.
Sez I, “Are you pretty well, Bub?”
He answered real pretty, and I then and there introduced little Adrian
to him, and I sez--
“I wish I had both of you children to Jonesville for a month in
strawberry time or blackberry time--it would do you both lots of good.”
And I sez to his ma--
“It seems to me he looks ruther pimpin’; have you gin him any smartweed
lately?” Sez I, “A syrup of smartweed and catnip, half and half,
sweetened with honey, would set him right up agin, and if you’d like
to try it, I will write and have Philury send you over a bundle of the
herbs.”
She hesitated--I see she felt a delicacy about makin’ me so much
trouble.
But I sez, “It won’t be no trouble at all--we’ve got more’n a floursack
full up in the woodhouse chamber.”
She didn’t reply, but still looked sort o’ wonderin’ and queer.
And I sez--“I will write to-day to Philury to send you a paper bag
full of the herbs, and a handful of spignut--that is dretful good for
a cold, if he happens to git one, and boys will, goin’ barefooted and
actin’.” Sez I, “Pour bilein’ water on ’em, and let ’em stand, and be
sure the water biles.”
But at this minute their carriage driv up--they’d been a-walkin’ for
exercise, I guess. And though I presoom they hated to leave me--hated
to like dogs, they had to tear themselves away.
But they bowed real polite to me, and Ulaley held out her hand and
shook hands. The Queen wuz busy with the little boy, but they both
bowed real polite after they got into the carriage. And then they driv
off.
The carriage wuzn’t nigh so showy as some we see, and the Queen Regent
wuz dressed real plain.
I believe she’s a real likely woman, and if anything happens to her,
and she should lose her property, I’d love to have her come and settle
down in Jonesville--I’d love to neighbor with her first rate.
But I truly hope she won’t never have to make the move--I hope the
little King will have his Pa’s good nater, and his Ma’s good sense and
Christian sperit, and that Spain and he won’t have no fallin’ out, but
do well by each other.
Wall, Martin and Alice went to a bull-fight. I waved off coldly
Martin’s request to accompany and go with ’em, though Josiah wuz, for a
minute, rampant to go.
But I didn’t encourage him in it.
He sez it would be sunthin’ to talk over with Ury and Deacon Bobbett
when I got home.
This wuz his best argument, and I sez, “If I couldn’t talk over
anything but this I wouldn’t talk at all. The idee,” sez I, “of human
bein’s with hearts in their bosoms a-settin’ to see a wild animal kill
a human bein’, and visey versey.” Sez I, “If I should see it goin’ on I
should be so shamed on’t that I shouldn’t want to speak agin at all for
some time.”
But sez Josiah, “It’s a national recreation; it’s fascinatin’; probble
you’d like it.”
“Mebby,” sez I; “mebby my heart would git so hard that I could enjoy
it--I, that in days of pig and beef killin’ have always run into the
parlor bedroom and put my fingers in my ears to escape the sounds of
agony the poor brutes make.” Sez I, “Spozen if in them days I should
invite the minister and his folks and the Jonesvillians, and have high
seats built up aginst the side of the barn, and let ’em witness the
gory spectacle?”
[Illustration: The Matador.]
Josiah sot a minute in deep thought. “Wall,” sez he, “I’ll be hanged if
it wouldn’t be stylish. You could drape some turkey-red calico over the
top, kinder canopy style, and I and Ury could dress like them Spanish
Matadors with knee-breeches and a long sash, and some feathers in our
hats.”
Sez he, growin’ enthused with the new idee, “We could use our winter
scarfs--they’re very gay colored; and I could take that long feather
out of your winter bunnet, and have it hang down gracefully over my
left shoulder, and I guess Tirzah Ann would lend me a couple to stand
up in front. I declare, it would be sunthin’ new and uneek, and we’ll
have it next fall.”
I glared at him with a stuny look, and sez I--“And while you’re all
dressed up and enjoyin’ yourself, what of the poor dumb brutes who
are made to suffer the agony of death?” Sez I, “What happiness could
come to you built up on a custom of pain and sufferin’, bloodshed and
terrer? Let me hear no more about sech a seen.”
“But,” sez he, “it would make talk; it would be the topic in all the
genteel circles of Jonesville and Loontown.”
“If you should brain me with a tommyhawk it would make talk,” sez I.
[Illustration: His Victim.]
“The idee of your follerin’ sech a custom as this. I scorn and despise
sech doin’s, and I don’t see what a nation can be thinkin’ on to allow
it to go on.”
Al Faizi writ down quite a lot in that book of hisen about the
bull-fightin’, and he seemed to be lookin’ for a peticular page to jot
down his notes.
And Josiah sez (he hain’t no scruples about questionin’ the noble
heathen), sez he, “What are you lookin’ for, Fazer?”
He sez calmly, “I am looking for the page where I wrote down the doings
of John Sullivan and other American prize-fighters. I wish to put
public exhibitions of this nature together.”
His tone wuz as calm and serene as a cool afternoon in June. He hadn’t
a shade of sarcasm or irony in his axent; no, he simply grouped similar
occurrences together.
And where wuz my feathers that had stood up hautily on my foretop
as I condemned another country’s doin’s and cuttin’s up? Where wuz
they? They wuz droopin’ and hangin’ down limp on my foretop as I sot
and meditated how we in America allowed prize-fighters to knock and
bruise and maim each other in public for the delight of the throngin’
multitude. Then fill hull sides of our American newspapers with
minute details of their punchin’ and knockin’ down and actin’, for
the eyes of our youth to peruse and emulate. Deeds of religion and
science and philanthropy all pushed into the background, amongst the
advertisements, while the papers were flooded with the deeds of men
fighters and men killers.
The idee! What wuz I, to talk about the doin’s of Spain or the doin’s
of a Josiah, and look down on ’em? Truly, folks who live in glass
housen mustn’t throw stuns; how many, many times I realized this deep
truth when I witnessed doin’s I didn’t like in foreign countries!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A SPANISH FUNERAL AND A JONESVILLE ONE.
While we wuz in Madrid we felt that we ort to anyway visit the
Escuriel, that immense palace and monastery built by Philip II. He got
skairt, so I wuz told, and made a vow to St. Lawrence (it wuz on that
saint’s day) that if Lawrence would help him git the victory, he would
build a monastery and name it after him. So havin’ won the victory,
he did as he agreed. He built this immense structure; it took him
twenty-one years to do it. Out of compliment to Lawrence, who perished
on a gridiron, it wuz built in that form.
I hearn Josiah a-explainin’ it that day. Sez he, “It wuz built in the
form of a gridiron because that is the best way of cookin’ beef.” Sez
he, “After their bull-fights they have immense quantities of beef, so
this takes its shape from that national characterestick.”
But it hain’t no sech thing--he gits things wrong.
Wall, it wouldn’t took us but a little while to git to the Escuriel if
the train had sprunted up and gone as fast as an American hand-car.
But we crept along so slow that it took us three hours. Before we got
there we see the buildin’ loomin’ up so vast, so gloomy, that it looked
like a mountain itself--a low, big mountain without much of a peak to
it.
We had to approach it with some dignity, it bein’ a royal palace,
so we got into a big covered omnibus, drawed by four mules and two
horses. Though what peticular dignity there is in a mule I never see
before, unless it is in their ears. But we got there all right, the
driver a-yellin’ and whippin’ the mules as if he wuz crazy. If you want
beauty, you won’t git it in the Escuriel, but if you want size, there
you are suited. It takes up as much room as one of the pyramids; it has
two thousand rooms in it and five thousand winders, and the winders
wuzn’t very thick together, neither.
There is a big meetin’-house in it, a palace and a monastery and a
Pantheon, where the dead kings and mothers of kings sleep and forgit
the troublesome days when they sot on thrones, and worried about their
children who wuz settin’.
This meetin’-house is grand and imposin’; you can look down inside a
long, clear space of four hundred feet. Then there is a library, one of
the finest in Spain, and picters that are dretful impressive in number
and beauty. We wanted to see the private room of Philip II., and so we
wuz led up grand staircases and through apartment after apartment hung
with the costliest tapestry.
And havin’ seen sech glory on the outside, what did we imagine must be
the splendor of the inner room, sacred to his majesty, where he sat
alone and sent out orders that ruled half or three quarters of the
world.
Wall, I d’no as you’ll believe me when I say the floor wuz brick--not
even a strip of rag carpet on’t, sech as I spread down often in my back
kitchen.
Poor creeter! I’d gin him a breadth of my best hit-or-miss carpet in
welcome if I’d lived in his day, and known how cold his feet must have
been as he stepped out of bed cold mornin’s onto that hard brick floor.
[Illustration: How cold his feet must have been cold mornin’s.]
And there wuzn’t a picter on the walls--not one, only a picter of the
Virgin.
I’d a-gin him one of my chromos in welcome. I had two throwed in at
Jonesville with the last chocolate calico dress I bought.
He should have had one on ’em, and I’d a-gin ’em both to him if it
would a-made that gloomy, mysterious creeter any happier; and most
probble they would have had their influence--they wuz very bright
colored.
One hard wood chair and two stools wuz the only settin’ accommodations
he had. I’d made him a barrell chair, if I’d been there; if he’d wanted
to go in for cheapness, that would have suited him. Saw a seat out of
an old salt barrell and cushion it with a old bed-quilt and cover it
with cretonne.
He could a-sot easy in it. Poor creeter! it made me feel bad to think
he always sot on that hard board chair--not a sign of a cushion in
it. I could have made a good cushion for it anyway out of hens’
feathers. And mebby he wouldn’t been so hard on the nations if he’d sot
easier--it makes a sight of difference. Josiah wuz as hard agin on Ury
when he had a bile on his back, and couldn’t set easy. I didn’t know
but Ury would leave.
Wall, Philip lived here fourteen years, and when he come to die, he
died hard, so they say. Mebby the oceans of blood he had caused to be
shed kinder swashed up aginst his conscience; if it did, I hope the
prayers he had knelt on the hard floor and prayed all night long sort o’
lifted him up some.
Queer creeter! strange and mysterious doin’s! A-prayin’ and a-fastin’
and a-killin’, a-prayin’ and a-killin’ and a-fastin’! I am glad I
hain’t got to straighten out the dark and tangled skein of his life
and git the threads a-runnin’ even, and sort out the black threads and
the lighter ones and count ’em.
No, it takes a bigger hand than mine to hold ’em, and a eye that looks
deeper into the soul of things.
Wall, when he wuz dead at last they laid him in the Pantheon. We
visited the spot. We went down first into the big, eight-sided room, a
sort of annex, where princes and princesses lay, and then we went down
a long flight of steps with walls of jasper, into the room where kings
and queens lay asleep.
This is a smaller room, but eight-sided, like the other. The dead lay
in black marble coffins, piled up on top of the other, the kings to
the right, the queens to the left. Wimmen have to take the second-best
place even down there in the grave, but then they wuz in a condition
where they couldn’t argy about it, and where it wouldn’t hurt their
feelin’s.
It must have been a sight to see a king buried. No funeral in
Jonesville ever approached it in solemnity or mystery.
You know they don’t give up that a king is dead till they go through
with certain performances, but they treat the dead body with all the
honor that they would give the livin’ monarch. When the procession gits
up to the door, the new-comer has to be announced.
A voice sez, “Who would enter here?”
They reply, “King Philip.”
Then the door is thrown open, and all the long, illustrious procession
of the noblest in the land enter, and they lay the body of the king on
a table, for he has got to give his own consent, as it were, before
they will admit that he is dead--silence gives consent, they say.
So after all are gone the Lord Chamberlain lifts the heavey,
gold-embroidered pall, and kneelin’ down by the side of his royal
master, looks long in his face to see if he recognizes him. But he
don’t. He lays cold and still as marble.
Then he cries, “Señor! Señor! Señor!” and waits for a reply. But as no
answer comes, he sez--
“His Majesty does not answer! then indeed the king is dead!”
So he takes the wand of office--the septer, I spoze--and breaks it over
the coffin in token of a power that has ceased to be. Then he locks the
marble coffin, hands the key to the Prior of the Monastery, and they go
up the long steps and leave the king to sleep with his own folks.
It must have been a sight to see it go on.
Why, a mourner who undertook sech doin’s in Jonesville or Loontown
would find himself lugged off to the loonatick asylum, or have threats
on’t. But the ways of countries differ--I didn’t make any moves to
break it up. I am very liberal minded, and then I meditated that it
wuzn’t my funeral.
What made me say that a mourner in Jonesville couldn’t do sech a thing
wuz owin’ to a incident that came under my own observation.
A man that lived in the outskirts of Jonesville, havin’ moved down
there from Zoar, got it into his head that he wuz goin’ to die on a
certain day at two o’clock in the afternoon.
So what should that creeter do but write his own funeral sermon, and
gin out the word that he would preach it at one o’clock sharp. Because
he wuz to die at two precisely.
He got his coffin made, his wife got her mournin’ clothes all done,
for he wuz so dead sure of the result that he had converted her to his
belief. So at one o’clock exactly the crowd gathered to see the corpse,
as you may say, preach its own funeral sermon.
The coffin wuz in the parlor, the mourners come down from upstairs,
some on ’em weepin’ bitterly, and headed by the body, dressed in its
shroud, bearin’ its own funeral sermon.
The mourners wuz arranged in orderly rows round the room (he wuz wide
connected), and the body stood by the head of the coffin and preached a
long sermon.
He touched on the sins of his hearers, and of course they couldn’t
resent it in him, bein’ a corpse’s last thoughts, as you may say.
He bore down hard on ’em, specially his relations--the more distant
ones, cousins and sech, and kinder rubbed up his bretheren and sistern
some.
But to his wife he spoke words of tenderness, and in a touchin’ and
fervent manner spoke of what she had lost. He praised himself up to the
highest notch, and his wife sobbed out loud, and she had to be fanned
on both sides by a circuit minister and his wife, who wuz present; and
she sed to ’em that she had never mistrusted before what a prize she
had in her pardner.
He then warned his children to grow up as nigh like their father as
they could conveniently, and he got ’em to sniffin’ and wipin’ their
noses. He then addressed the community, tellin’ ’em of their sinful
ways, and exhorted ’em to turn round and do better, and sed to ’em a
few words of consolation about the great blessin’ they had lost.
And then he folded his shroud around him with one hand, and with quite
a lot of dignity he stepped up into a chair, and so into his coffin.
Then he laid down, arranged the folds of his shroud and crossed his
hands on his bosom and shet his eyes up. As he did so the clock struck
two. He laid a minute, while a dumbfoundered look swep’ over his
liniment, and anon a sheepish one. And then he lifted up his head and
looked round, and sez he--
“There must be some mistake.”
And one of the cousins, one he had rasped down the hardest (they wuz at
swords’ pints anyway, caused by line fences), he hollered out--
“Yes, I should think there wuz, you dum fool you! gittin’ us all here
right in hayin’ time to hear your dum funeral sermon.”
And another one he had reviled yelled out--
“Why didn’t you do as you agreed, you consarned loonatick, you!”
And still another cried--“We’ll have the law on you for this! You
agreed to die, and we all got together for that purpose, and we’ll see
if we’re goin’ to be bamboozled and fooled in this way. It is all a
contrived plan to abuse us and make fun on us. But I’ll see if I can’t
make you sick of sech dum nonsense,” sez he. And he rushed for the
live body with sech vengeance in his eyes and a wooden stool in his
hand that the body’s wife precipitated herself onto the coffin, and sez
she--
“I will perish with this noble man, if die he must” (you see he’d
worked her all up about his worth).
Wall, suffice it to say, the cousin wuz overmastered, and etiket
prevailed, and decorum wuz established, and the crowd dispersed,
leavin’ him still in his coffin, for he sed he wuz tired, and would lay
there for a spell.
I believe he wuz ’fraid to git out. It kinder protected his lims and
body. But then mebby he told the truth; the sermon wuz a powerful one,
and delivered loud--it must have used up considerable wind.
Wall, they talked hard of sendin’ Jake Bilhorn to the asylum. He
escaped it jest by the skin of his teeth, as the sayin’ is. His wife
testified to the last minute that his mind wuz weak, and he couldn’t
help it. But she would watch him, she sed, and take care on him. So it
wuz agreed that he should be let off on the Idiot Act, and she promised
to let him go to the loonatick asylum if he ever tried to git up any
sech performance agin.
But I am a-eppisodin’, and a-eppisodin’ too fur, too fur.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
AL FAIZI SAYS GOOD-BYE.
Wall, the very next day, follerin’ and ensuin’ after our visit to the
Escuriel, Martin gin orders for the march.
We wuz to git back to London at the rapidest rate possible, and from
thence embark for home.
Home! sweet sound! No word ever did, or ever can, sound so sweet as
that word “home” duz hearn on a foreign shore. And though the journey
seemed long and perilous and full of fatigue and danger, yet Josiah and
I hearn it with joy.
So after a journey that seems, to look back on’t, like a confused
dream of wonderful sights, and strange ones, rumatiz, car whistles,
big hotels, cold beds, dyspeptic food, groans, sithes, beautiful views
seen from flyin’ trains, talk in a strange language goin’ on round
me, murmured words from a pardner, better left onsaid, dreams of home
sot in a frame of foreign seenery, tired eyes and lims, dizzy flyin’
through space, headache, etc., etc., etc., after this dream we found
ourselves in London.
We parted with Al Faizi in London. It wuz on the eve of our departure.
Our tickets reposed in Martin’s vest-pocket, so I spoze, and our ship
wuz to sail on the morrer.
The lamps wuz lit in our room, and their meller glow lit up the form of
my companion, clad in his dressin’-gown and layin’ outstretched on the
couch.
I myself wuz a-rubbin’ my spectacles with shammy-skin.
I see the minute that Al Faizi come in that he looked sort o’ agitated
and riz up like. And anon I understood the reason--he had come to bid
us good-bye.
I felt mean--mean as a dog. I hated to have him go, though Common Sense
told me, and, of course, I didn’t spoze that I could in the common
nater of things lug round a heathen with me everywhere I went all my
life; but still I felt bad.
After the first compliments wuz spoke, and he told us that he wuz
a-goin’, and we told him that we hated to have him go, and, etc., he
sez:
“I have sought for the ways of love and truth all through these Western
lands--and now--”
He paused, and only his dark, sad eyes spoke for quite a spell. Finally
I sez:
“And now?”
“I go back to my own country--I have many things to teach my people.”
“Then you _have_ learnt some good things in my country and on our
tower?” sez I, glad and proud to hear him say so.
But his soft voice resoomed--“I have to teach them many things--to
avoid.”
[Illustration: “I go back to my own country--I have many things to
teach my people--to avoid.”]
I felt deprested agin. “But,” sez I, wantin’ to git some closter view
of his mind--wantin’ to like a dog, for I hadn’t had, I can truly say,
any more clear view on’t than if we had lived some milds apart, sez
I, “you must have seen some things in this land worthy your approvin’
of--these lofty cathedrals built to the honor of the Lord. To be sure,”
sez I, “the poor are a-flockin’ round ’em like a herd of freezin’ and
starvin’ animals. But look at the free schools and the great charities,
mighty and fur reachin’ in their influence.”
“Yes,” sez Al Faizi, “I have seen some things in your land that I
will teach them to do. I have seen sweet charities--the sick and
unfortunate cared for; great free schools; crowds of little children
helped to better lives.”
“Yes,” sez I, “a great many rich men and wimmen give their money like
water to help the poor and unfortunate. To be sure,” sez I, “the
poverty and the crime is caused, most of it, by ourselves, and Uncle
Sam bein’ so sot on that license business of hisen.” Sez I, “We cause
the evils we relieve in a great measure--but then--”
I see that Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ at me with that same calm, sweet
smile, and I’ll be hanged if it seemed as if I could go on a-drivin’
them metafors right in front of it. It made me feel curous as a dog,
and curouser to think on’t.
There it wuz, he a-settin’ right by me, and I couldn’t git a full,
clear view of what wuz a-goin’ on in his mind, his idees and emotions,
no more’n I can see the high trees in our orchard in a heavey
snow-storm.
I spoze I showed my deep chagrin in my face, for he hastened to add:
“Everywhere I see strivings after the Good--the Perfect Life. The
nations are feeling after God. But I see His truth covered up by a
network of man-made lies; and shadows of darkness, cast from human
comprehension, veil and shadow the sweet, just face of the Good. But
evermore my heart burns within me, and I long for the perfect way.”
Right here my Josiah spoke up in this unappropos moment, and sez:
“I hate to say good-bye, Fazer, but if you ever come up our way from
Hindoostan, or Egypt, or Africa, or wherever you are a-stayin’, you
must be sure to stop and stay overnight with us.”
Adrian come in at that minute, and when I told him that Al Faizi was
a-biddin’ us good-bye, and wuz a-goin’ away, he put both arms around
his neck and nestled his head aginst him. Al Faizi pressed him clost
to his heart and bent his head low over him, and when he let him
go, sunthin’ bright shone amongst the curls and waves of Adrian’s
gold-brown locks, that Alice loved so well.
Custom and pride makes folks reticent and keep their griefs to
themselves, but as long as human hearts are made as they be now, they
will ache. Love’s arrers are sharp winged; when they fly they don’t
take any note of where they are a-goin’, and the pain is keen and sharp
when they hit--bittersweet at any time, and sometimes bitter without
the sweet. The good Lord go with Al Faizi and comfort him, so I sez to
myself.
He took both of my hands in his little brown ones, and it seemed as if
he would never let ’em go.
“I will never forget you!” he cried; “you have had for me the kind
heart and kind deeds of a mother.”
I thought to myself that he might jest as well sed a “sister” while he
wuz about it, but then I laid it to the excitement of the occasion--I
wuz excited myself and felt bad. I hated to have him go, and when he
wuz a-goin’ to let go of my hands I didn’t know. I wuz a-thinkin’ that
if he offered to kiss me I didn’t know what I should do--it wuzn’t
nothin’ I wanted, leavin’ Josiah out of the question, but I didn’t know
what he would take it into his head to do. But he didn’t offer nothin’
of the kind, which I wuz glad enough on. But he gin my hands a long,
hard clasp, and sez he:
“Farewell!” And then he let go. He looked bad, sorrerful as death. And
I sez, onbeknown to me:
“Won’t you wait and bid good-bye to Alice?”
“No,” sez he; “I leave with you my farewell to her. May heaven bless
her!” sez he.
“Amen!” sez I.
It wuz some as if we wuz to protracted meetin’, only more strange-like,
and mebby not quite so protracted, but curouser.
Sez I, with a real good axent--“My heart will go with you, Al Faizi;
I shall think of you when you’re fur away, some as I do of my own
boy--knowin’ that you are doin’ your best for your own soul, and for
everybody round you.”
“I go to my own people,” sez he sadly. “Forevermore will I work to help
them to the right way--help them to understand the teachings of the
Lord Christ. Nowhere else do I find such a pure religion as His. In my
own home, far away beyond the dark waters”--and he made that gester of
his towards the East--“I will work till I die to bring my people to
know this great love, this mighty King. And there also I will pray that
your people, too, may follow His teachings, and the people in the great
countries I have visited with you, that these lands may renounce their
false ways, and follow His gentle and lovely guidance, and be led into
His truth. I will give my life for this,” sez he.
His tone wuz sweet and tender. It sounded to me sunthin’ like the
autumn winds a-rustlin’ the leaves over the grave of the one you love.
I wuz almost a-cryin’, and sez I:
“Shan’t we ever see you agin?”
He pinted upwards, his eyes wuz full of the love and passion of
devotion, of Christian feelin’.
“We will meet in that great land,” sez he.
I wuz dretful riz up and glad and deprested and sorry all to one time.
I felt queer.
But Josiah had to holler most the last minute. Sez he, “What are you
a-goin’ to do with that book of yourn, Fazer?”
“I will use it to help teach my people--to avoid the mistakes of
civilization.”
Josiah sez, “Good for you, Fazer!”
And I sez, “I always felt that we ort to have missionaries come over
here to teach us how to behave.”
But his face had no triumph in it--no look of reproach, only that sweet
smile rested on it that made his face look better than any face I ever
see, or ever expect to see.
And agin he took my hand in his little brown one; agin he said
“Farewell,” and he wuz indeed gone.
I didn’t git over it all day.
I felt some as if the meetin’-house to Jonesville should dissapear
mysteriously, as if sunthin’ good had vanished, and some as if my boy
Thomas J. should go off out of my sight for some time.
Adrian mourned for him several hours. Alice wuz writin’ a letter home,
and didn’t hardly seem to know that he wuz gone, and Martin wuz glad, I
believe. He had never took to him for a minute.
Wall, I will hang up a thick moreen curtain between my readers and the
voyage homewards.
It needs a thick curtain to hide the fraxious, querilous complaints and
the actin’s of my pardner, the howlin’s of the wind and waves, and the
usual discomforts of a sea voyage.
There are times when Heaven knows I wuz glad to hide behind it myself.
Yes, I will cower down behind the thick folds, knowin’ that I am doin’
the best I can for myself and the world at large. Yes, I will let ’em
droop down over our voyage through the wild waves, our arrival in our
own dear native land, our feelin’s when we see the shore we loved dawn
on us out of the mist, and when we sot our feet on the sile of the
Continent that wears Jonesville like a pearl of great price on its
tawny old bosom.
I will also let its thick folds screen us in our partin’ from Martin
and the children, and our lonely but short journey by our two selves.
And I will only loop that curtain back in graceful folds as we draw
nigh to Jonesville--Mecca of our hearts’ hopes and love.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
HOME AGAIN, FROM A FOREIGN SHORE.
Jonesville wuz bathed in the rosy hue of sunset when Ury let down the
bars and we passed up into the lane leadin’ to our dear home--that
sweet, restful haven, into which Josiah and me truthfully felt that our
barks would sail in and be moored forever and ever.
Yes, we both felt that nothin’, nothin’ could tempt us agin to spread
our sails and float out of that blessed Home Harbor.
How soft the light fell onto the white curtains with lace agin’! How
sweet the rosy glow illumined the piaza and front yard, and how it
played round the red chimblys and Philury’s collar, as she stood in the
front stoop to welcome us home! Inside the house wuz all lit up, and
when we entered, there wuz the children all come to surprise us, and
welcome us home. They had sent Philury out, like the dove, on the front
doorstep, while they stayed in the ark to surprise Ma and Pa when we
come.
[Illustration: They had sent Philury out, like a dove, on the front
doorstep to meet us.]
Oh, how glad they wuz to see us, and visey versey. Yes, indeed, I
guess it wuz visey versey--the children and grandchildren almost eat us
up, and we them.
A beautiful supper wuz a-waitin’ the tired-out travellers. The girls
had laid to and helped, and it wuz a supper long to be remembered, and
the children’s and the grandchildren’s demeanors to us wuz as tender
as the briled chicken and cream biscuit, and the ties of love that
united us all together wuz as strong as the coffee, and stronger, too,
and mellered down by our happiness, jest as that wuz with lump-sugar
and rich cream. And, oh, how good! how good it did feel to be to home!
Josiah the first thing pulled off his boots and went round in his
stockin’ feet.
I sez, “Why do you do that, Josiah?”
“Oh, for no reason, only to swing out and do jest as I’m a-mind to.
After bein’ cramped and hampered for months, I’m a-goin’ to act and
feel to home, and I’m a-goin’ barefoot for a spell,” sez he, “as soon
as the children go.”
And, sure enough, he did, for all I could do and say, and he sung
several pieces while I wuz ondressin’--he sung ’em loud. I remember he
sung the hull of “Robert Kidd” and “André’s Lament,” besides some hymns.
Sez he, “I’ve been pent up and bound down so long that I’m a-goin’ to
swing right out and act all I want to.”
And happy--why, happy is no name for the feelin’s of that man, and I
felt the same--yes, indeed! Only, as my nater is, I acted more megum,
though I did kinder jine in with him in the chorus--
“My name is Robert Kidd,
As I sailed, as I sailed.”
I wuz so perfectly happy that I had to.
And when he struck into the hymns I jined in strong, right there in my
nightgown--“On Canaan’s happy banks I stand,” and “Long time I have
wandered,” and etcetery.
Why, Josiah sung the most of the time for days and days.
When Deacon Henzy come to see him, instead of advancin’ and shakin’
hands dignified, as a foreign traveller ort to, he jest advanced onto
him, a-singin’ loud--
“Home agin, Deacon, home agin, from a foreign shore.
And, oh! it fills my soul with joy
To greet Deacon Henzy and the rest of the Jonesvillians once more.”
* * * * *
It spilte the meter, but he didn’t care. He acted fairly crazed with
joy to be home.
The first thing he done the next mornin’ when he got up wuz to throw
his best clothes in a sort of a scornful heap behind his closet door.
He throwed ’em some as if he hated the very sight on ’em. When I found
’em afterwards, all tumbled in together, we had a number of words.
But, as I say, he throwed his best clothes there, and specially his
stiff collars and cuffs--them looked some as if they’d been trompled on.
And then that man got on the worst-lookin’ pair of pantaloons and vest
you ever see--holes in the knees, and the vest ripped up in the back,
and the pockets hangin’ outside. I’d been a-savin’ ’em for carpet rags.
And he went down suller and took a old coat offen the apple-ben. We had
used it for two winters to cover up the apples in extra cold nights.
And the land knows where he got the hat he put on--a old straw, the rim
a-hangin’ half off, and the crown all jammed in. I guess he found it up
in the woodhouse chamber.
But, anyway, his looks wuz sech, so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a
pathmaster, let alone a cultered gentleman of foreign travel, that I
took him to do sharply about it.
[Illustration: His looks wuz so onbecomin’ to a deacon and a
pathmaster.]
Sez I, “I won’t have you a-goin’ round lookin’ worse than any old
scarecrow, Josiah Allen.”
He took up a position in front of me, where his rags showed off to the
most plainest advantage, and sez he--
“As you see me now, Samantha, you will see me henceforth. I
shall never, never be dressed up agin as long as I retain my
conscientiousness.”
He spoke so firm, I felt some browbeat and skairt.
Sez I faintly, “Do you expect to go through your life a-lookin’ as you
do now?”
“Always, always, Samantha; only worse, if I can manage it.” Sez he
bitterly, “I am a man that has been dressed up too long; the iron
has entered too deep into my soul--the worm has turned,” sez he. “I
calculate to go in rags the rest of my life. And I wish,” sez he in a
pleadin’ axent, “I wish that you would promise that you would bury me
in this suit--that you would take a vow that I shall not be dressed up.”
I wuz at my wits’ end; he looked as determined as any old hen turkey
ever did on her nest.
But by a happy inspiration I sez--
“Wouldn’t you ruther lay in your dressin’-gown, Josiah? Think of them
beautiful tossels,” sez I.
I see a change come over his mean; he wavered and turned onto his heel,
and went out-doors.
And I may as well tell the end on’t. It wuz that dressin’-gown that
gradual won him back into decenter clothin’.
I lured him into that at first, and then gradual into pepper-and-salt,
and so on to broadcloth; but it wuz a hard tussle! Collars and cuffs
wuz my worst battle-field, but I got the victory over ’em at last.
Oh, dear me, dear me, suz! what hard times female pardners do have anon
or oftener; but yet I believe that pardners pay, after all.
And it did seem so good to walk round the house, free and ontrammelled,
and see the old bureaus and tables once more, and sasspans and things;
and go out into the garden and see the garden-truck, and walk out to
the barn and gather the eggs, and count the chickens.
And plunge into all the sweet delights that make home a perfect Eden.
Yes, we both felt that we should never want to move a inch from our own
fireside. But how little--how little we can tell what is ahead on us in
the onseen futer.
In this case Alice wuz ahead.
We hadn’t been to home more’n several weeks when that sweet creeter
wrote to me, urgin’ me hard to come and see her.
She didn’t make no open complaints, but all through the letter I could
read between the lines, as it wuz, the echoes of a sad heart.
I felt, as I read it, that I ort to go right away and see her.
But I hated to leave home agin--I hated to like a dog.
So I writ her back as lovin’ a letter as I could, and I kinder waved
off the subject of my comin’, sayin’ I’d come jest as soon as I could.
A week or more passed, then come a letter from Martin, sayin’ Alice
wuzn’t very well, and had sot her heart on seein’ me--wouldn’t I come?
I went.
Alice wuz dretful glad to see me, and in my lovin’ sympathy her white
face seemed to git a little more color and brightness into it.
Good land! I see what ailed her jest as well as though I had took our
big parlor lamp and walked through her mind.
Her father wuz jest as determined as ever that she should have nothin’
to do or say to Richard Noble.
And bein’ right here by his side, as it were, and forbid to see him or
speak to him made it fur worse than it wuz when they wuz seperated by
a ocean. Her Pa had planned in his own mind that this trip should ween
her from him. But how mistook he wuz!
She had carried a faithful, lovin’ heart over the Atlantic, and had
brung it back with her.
Distance had only drawed the ends of the love-knot, unitin’ their souls
all the tighter. They couldn’t be ontwisted now by the hands of a
Martin--no, indeed!
Martin wuz dretful good to me. He see that Alice loved me and
brightened up considerable in my presence. And that would have made
Miss Belzebub welcome.
And Adrian, how he did hang round me, sweet little creeter that he wuz!
Yes, Alice wuz the same, and Martin wuz the same as before his trip. He
kep’ right on in the same old roteen of money-makin’, and money-savin’,
and obstinacy, and sotness, and ambition, and etcetery.
I found that out only a few mornin’s after I got there.
I happened to take up a daily paper, and I read a piece in it about
a horrible axident that had took place right there in the city a
few days before--two children killed, and the driver of the car had
died from the effects of the horrow and remorse he had experienced in
causin’ the death of the two children.
_Died!_ when the poor creeter wuz no more guilty than a babe for it. He
wuzn’t no more guilty than the spokes in the wheels. They all wuz run
by another’s orders.
As I sed, I wuz so horrified by it, that I felt that mad him or not, I
must tackle Martin about the matter.
And I found that he wuz as stiffnecked and rambellous as a iron-clad
about it.
And we had a number of words.
And in the course of our conversation I atted Martin agin about
Alice’s lover. For her big, sad eyes had follered me all the time I’d
been there, and I had vowed in my heart that I would help her to her
happiness if I could.
As I sed, the pretty creeter had took her faithful heart over the
Atlantic, and carried it round with her all the time she wuz there, and
had brung it back with her.
Movin’ the body round don’t change the soul.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MARTIN’S TERRIBLE LESSON.
Wall, I found that Martin wuz as immovable and sot as a rock. “As for
Alice,” sez he, “I told you six months ago what I should do, and I
never change my mind.”
And agin I sez, “Sometimes folks are made to change their minds when
they don’t mean to or want to.”
But before I could multiply any more words with him a servant come in
to say that a paintin’ had come that Martin had ordered while he wuz
abroad. And he asked me quite polite to go in and see it.
He wuz glad of the interruption. He wanted to change the subject--he
wanted to like a dog.
The picter had been onpacked, and wuz standin’ in the big hall, waitin’
for Martin to decide where to hang it.
It wuz called “The Mother’s Sacrifice,” and wuz the picter of a Eastern
mother, who wuz a-throwin’ her child under the wheels of a juggernaut
to insure its everlastin’ salvation.
Her face wuz torn with love and duty. It wuz a impressive picter. He
gin twenty thousand dollars for it, for he told me so.
Sez Martin as we looked at it, full of the rich Oriental glow of forest
and landscape, and the dark, frenzied beauty of the mother’s face and
the innocent beauty of the child, who trusts to her love and care and
don’t mistrust its impendin’ doom--
Sez Martin, “What a struggle is going on in that woman’s breast! how
her heart is torn between her love for the child and her religious
belief! What a masterly handling of the subject!” sez he.
“Yes,” sez I; “but what of the hearts of the mothers who see their
children crushed down under jest as murderous wheels, and don’t have
her religious zeal to hold ’em up? That Eastern mother thinks that this
will insure her child’s eternal well-bein’--she thinks the wheels move
on in the cause of eternal good. What would she think if she wuz a
American mother, and knew these wheels murdered her child jest to save
a little money--jest out of wicked, graspin’ avarice?”
Sez Martin coldly, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Sez I, “Yes you do, Martin; I mean your trolley cars, that move on and
crush down childhood and age, when a little bit of money you spend for
this ficticious woe would relieve the real agony which is goin’ on
right before your front gate through your own neglect.”
I would gin him some sech little delicate hints, whether he liked it or
lumped it, as the sayin’ is. Agin he sez in that dretful dignified way
of hisen, “I don’t know what you mean,” and turned away.
But jest as I wuz withdrawin’ myself from the seen, for I felt that
these little blind hits I gin him wuz enough for the present, Adrian
come in, and Martin called out--
“Well, dear little Partner, what do you want?”
And Adrian sez, “Alice and I are going out driving, and I wanted to say
good-bye to you.”
Martin kissed the pretty face, with his adorin’ love for the child
a-showin’ plain in him. And then Adrian come and kissed me, his gold
curls fallin’ back from his little, earnest face, and his black velvet
cap a-settin’ ’em off first rate, and he sez to me, “Good-bye;” and I
hadn’t any way of knowin’ that that good-bye would echo through the
long futer and die out only at the Dark Portal.
Martin took out his purse and took out a roll of bills and handed ’em
to Adrian, and sez he, “Hand that to your sister; I was going to give
it to her last night--it is for a necklace she wanted. Be careful of
it,” sez Martin as Adrian took it; “it is five thousand dollars, and
that is worth taking care of, little partner.”
Wall, they sot off, and I went back into a little settin’-room acrost
the hall from Martin’s study and took up a book and went to readin’.
It wuz a interestin’ book, and I wuz carried away--some distance away
from the big city and trolley cars.
When I heard a hum of a good many voices in Martin’s room, and the door
bein’ open, I couldn’t help hearin’ what they wuz a-sayin’. It seemed
to be a deputation of some kind a-askin’ Martin for some favor or other.
For I heard him say out loud, “I am sick of these complaints.”
His tone wuz cold--cold as a iceberg. There wuz one man amongst ’em who
seemed to be the speaker; he sez, “We are workingmen; we have homes and
families. We work hard every day. We leave our children, that we may go
away and earn food and clothing for them; our houses are the best that
we can afford, but the best that we can pay for lay in the populous
region where so many lives are lost by these cars. I know you are the
owner of that line, and we have come to appeal to you.”
Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these everlasting complaints.”
[Illustration: Sez Martin agin, “I am sick to death of these
everlasting complaints.”]
His tone wuz cold--cold as a frog, and I see from his voice that he wuz
mad--mad as a wet hen.
The man that answered him I could see from where I sot wuz evidently
jest a plain workin’-man, jest like ’em that you meet in droves at 7
o’clock in the mornin’ and six at night.
But I liked his looks--he looked rugged and honest, and his voice had a
uncultured ring of common sense and honesty, and at times a deep sorrer
and sense of wrong touched it to a rude eloquence.
Martin sez, and his tone wuz cold and smooth as a icesuckle in a
January mornin’--
“What is it that you want me to do, anyway--tell me as briefly as you
can, for my time is valuable.”
Sez the man agin, “We are workingmen and poor, and we do not expect to
have many things that rich people have, but we do want our children
to be educated. They must go out alone to their schools while their
mothers are at home working to make a decent home for them, and they
cannot follow them only with their thoughts and prayers.
“These cars going with the swiftness of lightning through these
thronged streets, with no safeguard to protect them, are the means of
making fathers’ and mothers’ hearts ache with fear and dread.
“One of my own children, a bright little lad, my only son, dear to me
as my own life, was crushed down by them on his way to school.” The
man’s voice broke here, for a rush of feeling swep’ up agin his voice,
and stopped it.
“Another of these men lost a child, another saw an old mother crushed
down before his eyes as she tried to cross the street, another--”
“There is no need of repeating all this to me. What do you want me
to do?” I see by Martin’s voice that he wuz madder than that wet hen
a-settin’, and obstinate.
“We want to have you give orders to go more slowly through crowded
places and put fenders on the cars, so as to lessen the peril as much
as may be, so we poor people, who have to live and labor in these
dangerous places, can carry a lighter heart to our hard daily toil.”
“Leave me your address,” sez Martin sharp and cold, “and I will
communicate with you.” Then sez he, “James, show these men to the
door. Good-morning,” sez he. The door closed on the men, and Martin
crossed the hall with a quick step, and come right into the room where
I sot. In his haste to git out of their sight he had, as the sayin’ is,
“jumped from the fryin’-pan into the fire.”
For I sez, and tears wuz in my eyes as I sed it--
“You will grant their request, Martin?”
“No, I will not grant their request;” and he went on sarcastically, “I
don’t know what you people want. Do you want to do away with cars and
railroads and go back to ox-teams and pillions? Here a few men take a
big risk, put all their capital into an enterprise, doing the public
an incalculable good, and then they have to be badgered night and day
by the very ones they have benefited, and by a set of philanthropic
fools.” I guess he meant me by that last term, but I didn’t care; I
wouldn’t have cared if he’d called me a plain fool--I knew I wuzn’t.
When you are out a-ketchin’ a tiger you don’t care for a muskeeter’s
bite; no, your mind is sot on the tiger.
I sez, “The cost is but triflin’ to one of your means. Why not do it?”
“Because I am capable of attending to my own business, and I am not
to be bossed by a lot of workingmen and wild-eyed reformers and
sentimental idiots--I’ll do what I please.”
Sez I, “Mebby you will, Martin, and mebby you won’t.”
Jest as I said these words a cry come up from the streets--“A child run
over! a lady killed! a child and a lady killed!”
“There,” sez Martin, actin’ impatient and mad as anything--“there is
another text for you, Cousin Samantha; and probably the whole car full
of people, who have rode all over the city for five cents, will all
join in and shriek at me as a murderer and a villain, because a couple
of fools have started to cross the track just in front of a car; in
nine cases out of ten the fault is their own.”
But the cries outside grew louder and louder, and finally Martin went
to the winder, kinder flingin’ himself along in a sort of a impatient
way; and he had been nagged considerable--I had to admit it.
He went to the winder, which looked down onto the broad street below.
He looked a minute; then shriekin’ out--
“My God! my God!”
He fell down jest like a log at my feet.
[Illustration: He fell down jest like a log at my feet.]
And what wuz the sight that struck him down like a arrer?
Two men of the very deputation that had jest left the house wuz
bearin’ between ’em the crushed form of a little boy--gold curls wuz
hangin’ back from the velvet cap. A kind hand had covered the little
disfiggered face with a handkerchief. Behind, two more of the men and a
policeman wuz carryin’ the crushed, senseless form of Alice.
I hearn all about it afterwards. There wuz a florist jest acrost from
Martin’s, where a little bend in the road made it impossible to stop.
Little Adrian had jumped out of the carriage and run to choose a bokay
of flowers to gin to me. They wuz the English voyalets he loved so
well. One of ’em wuz in the buttonhole of the little velvet coat.
Dear little creetur!
And as he ran back the flowers fell; he stopped to pick ’em up, and the
car swep’ down on him. Alice see his danger, she jumped to save him,
only to be struck down herself.
Wall, what tongue of men or angels shall describe the seen that
follered and ensued.
Martin layin’ in a dead faint, like death to all appearance--and it is
blood relation to it. Little Adrian layin’ white and cold on a couch in
the reception-hall, where the men had reverently laid him, right under
the picter of that Eastern mother.
The agony in her dark face seemed to be for him, too--the fair-haired
child of the race who condemn their barbarity, and practise worse.
And Alice a-layin’ white and onconscious, but breathin’ still, in her
own room. One round, white arm a-hangin’ broken by her side, and blood
streamin’ from a cruel gash in her head.
Wall, the best doctors in the city wuz there in a few minutes. But all
their genius and wisdom and learnin’ could not bring back the spark of
life that had flown away from little Adrian’s body.
And then afterwards the clergyman come and whispered consolin’ words to
Martin in his darkened chamber.
But not all the preachin’ since Adam can make death other than death.
Martin didn’t want the clergyman--he wanted to be alone. He wouldn’t
see anybody, and he lay still and cold after his senses come back--so
still and cold that the doctors feared for his sanity, and even for his
life.
The first glimpse of interest he showed wuz when they told him that
there wuz a chance for Alice to live.
He turned his face towards the wall (so the nurse told me, a good,
faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by stimulants, I believe).
[Illustration: A faithful creeter with a strong breath, caused by
stimulants, I believe.]
Sez she, “I went to the foot of the bed and looked up, and see tears
a-streamin’ down his white face. But I dare not speak to him,” sez
she--“no, I dare not.”
Sez she, “His face had that look on it that it frightened me, and it
gave me such a turn that I feel weak yet. I guess,” sez she, “I will
take a drop to nerve me up. Don’t you want a drop of stimulant, too?”
sez she.
“No, indeed,” sez I, “I don’t!”
“But,” sez I, “poor creeter, do everything you can for him, for the
hand of the Lord has dealt sorely with him. And,” sez I, “I would
gladly help him if I could, but I can do nothin’ but pray for him.”
Wall, there wuz a big funeral in the church where little Adrian had
been baptized when he wuz a baby.
The minister, a very eloquent and high-priced one, preached a beautiful
sermon about the inscrutable mysteries of our lives, and the mystery of
the Providence who should take, in sech a onforeseen and onheard-of way
the child of sech a man, who had spent his hull life for the good of
the people--that angelic man, who wuz a-layin’ now in his palatial home
at the pint of death.
These last words affected the congregation dretfully. A maiden jest
behind Martin’s pew and a widder jest in front (who both had hopes)
sallied away and partially fainted, and the widder had to be borne out
by the sexton.
And as she wuz heavey, it bore hard on him. The old maid revived in
time to see the widder carried out. Widders always will go further and
resk more than the more single ones.
And the maiden wuz wroth for fear that Martin should hear of it that
she didn’t go so fur herself as the widder did.
I myself didn’t faint nor shed tears. I sot up straight in that
luxurious pew and kep’ a-sayin’ in my heart--
“Oh, God help that wretched man! God help and comfort him, for nothin’
else can!”
CHAPTER XL.
“GOOD-NIGHT, LITTLE PARDNER.”
Wall, that night after the funeral I wuz called down into the parlor to
see a stranger--a good deal devolved on me in that awful time; I kep’
calm, or tried to, and that calmness wuz like a paneky to ’em round me,
and they didn’t see the tumult of pity and grief that wuz a-goin’ on
inside of my heart onbeknown to ’em.
I went down into the hall, and there I found a handsome, noble-lookin’
young man, whose face wuz so white with anguish and dread that I knew
before he spoke who he wuz, and sez I right out the first thing,
a-holdin’ out both my hands--
“Alice is better.”
He grasped holt of my hands as if he wouldn’t never let go.
Sez he, “God bless you for saying that!” He wouldn’t go into the
parlor, nor set down, or nothin’. But it got to be my stiddy practice
to go down into that hall two or three times a day to gin him news, and
as the news grew brighter every day, jest so his face grew brighter,
till it got luminous with joy and gratitude the day I told him that
Alice wuz out of danger.
Wall, there come a day, long to be remembered, when Martin sent for me.
I wuz the first one he asked to see. He couldn’t talk much, and I jest
grasped his hand and sez--
“I have been prayin’ for you, Martin.”
“I knew it,” he whispered, “I knew you would.”
And that wuz about all I could say. But I spoze he felt the pity and
sympathy that oozed out of my sperit onbeknown to me as I looked down
onto that broken-hearted man, and he seemed to like to have me round
his room.
Wall, it wuz weeks before I could go home, Josiah a-bearin’ up nobly,
aided by Philury, and a-bravely eatin’ pancakes in her hours of too
burdened haste, and a-writin’ to me to stay if I could be of any
comfort to ’em.
Noble man that he is, though small boneded I am proud of him--a good
deal of the time I am.
Wall, there come a time when Martin, a-settin’ up in his study and
a-lookin’ over his papers, sent for me, and spoke to me for the first
time of Adrian.
He didn’t cry. His speechless grief wuz beyend that relief, but he gin
me to understand that his life wuz a blank to him now.
Sez I, “Martin, remember that Alice is left to you--you have one child
left.”
“Yes,” sez he, “but I want my boy!!” and he busted right out into
tears, and buried his face in his hands.
[Illustration: He busted out into tears and buried his face in his
hands.]
Sez I, “Martin, do you remember what the dear little boy said--he wuz
a-goin’ to be your pardner?”
He groaned, “Why do you speak of that? Do you want to kill me?”
“I want to help you, Martin.”
“Do you ever think that Adrian can be your pardner now, better than he
ever could if he wuz on earth--as much better as the glorified sperit
is above our common humanity?”
But agin he groaned out, “I want my boy!”
“It is hard, Martin,” sez I, a-layin’ my hand on his bowed-down
shoulders.
“It is hard to know that the sweet little voice is silent on earth, but
he can hear you--he is a-hearin’ you this minute; he hears the language
of your sperit as you vow to ondo the past so fur as you can--to go on
in the futer and work for the poor, as he wanted to.
“You can’t go agin these strong desires of your little pardner,
Martin--you’ve got to hear to ’em. He is your pardner now jest as much
as he ever wuz, and more, only he has gone over the deep waters into
another country to tend to the interests of the firm there. It is a
country where the Right is always done, where things that are wrong
here are made right--he will help you, Martin. He wanted to work for
the poor; why not let him?”
He lifted his white face, tears a-streamin’ down it, but as my meanin’
dawned on him his mean grew a little mite brighter.
Sez I, “He is a-workin’ now for ’em.” Sez I, “I see in the new look in
your eyes the divine work of your pardner.
“He is helpin’ you this minute to think softer thoughts. He is helpin’
you to remember that you are to spend your money and his--for you told
him that it belonged to you both equally--in helpin’ the poor, in
helpin’ to surround their lives with safeguards,” sez I, a-wantin’ to
strike while the iron wuz hot.
“You are a-goin’ to git some fenders right off, Martin.”
“Order five hundred of them right off--send for a thousand of them.”
“No,” sez I, “Martin, be megum. You’ve got to be megum in fenders
as well as any other goodness. Why order a thousand fenders for one
hundred cars?
“But,” sez I, “Martin, I will send for ’em.” And I did, that very day,
not knowin’ but he would be some like Pharaoh, and his heart would
be hardened before night. I told his secretary within a hour, and he
ordered ’em before sundown on my word. Oh, they think high on me--all
on ’em! He dassent refuse to take my orders.
But I’d no need to have worried--no, indeed! I felt ashamed to think I
had let my mind sally back to that old Egyptian Pharaoh.
Martin’s repentance didn’t prove to be short-lived and evanescent--no,
indeed!
He divided his property equally between himself and his little pardner.
He invested his pardner’s money to the best of his knowledge, and every
cent of the interest of that money, and it is a immense sum--millions
of dollars. He uses it only as the steward of his pardner. It all goes
to help the poor--to try to defend ’em from dangers, temporal and
speritual, from want, and from the worst of all dangers--Ignorance and
Crime.
Dear little Silent Pardner! I wonder if you know it? I wonder if, when
grateful hearts rise in prayer, callin’ you the saviour of their lives
and happiness--I wonder if them prayers and grateful thoughts bloom out
in some divine way, as they reach the Heavenly country, so you can see
the desire of your little heart, and know that it is granted?
Are you ever permitted to come down in the stillness of a Summer
evenin’ and stand clost by the side of that white-haired old man,
who grew old so fast after you left him, whose heart yearns for you,
and who is a-tryin’ so faithfully to carry out his little pardner’s
wishes? He sez that sometimes he feels that you are so near to him that
he almost expects to see your face blossom out of the dark, like the
evenin’ star out of the misty twilight. And so he can live, he sez.
Did you stand in the church when Alice wuz married to the man she
loved? A ray of gold light shone out sudden and luminous and lit her
sweet face as she took her solemn vows.
Wuz it you, little Pardner? wuz the joy and glory in your face
permitted to shine for a moment on the one you loved, in the supreme
hour of her life?
We can’t tell this, little Adrian, but we see your work goin’ on from
day to day, and we bless you for it.
We see it in the safety and protection thrown around the masses,
protectin’ ’em from physical and moral ills; in the great free school
which bears your name; in the Adrian Home, where sick and poor children
find a home and tender care; in the University, where your picter hangs
over the doorway--a doorway where any poor, ignorant boy may enter,
and go out a scholar; in the large, plain church, whose best ornament
is the stained-glass winder bearin’ your name in gold letters, where
a pure Christianity is taught to all, rich and poor, and the Blessed
Master is brought near to sad lives by the anointed lips of consecrated
genius--where rich and poor worship the God man together. The poor
givin’ their strength and good-will, the rich givin’ their wealth and
learnin’, and so becomin’ a strong bulwark, protectin’ society from the
high flood of undisciplined passions--Ignorance and Crime.
Do you see it all, little Pardner? Sometimes I think you do.
I am writin’ this at the open winder you looked out of as you sed you
would work for the poor.
And as I think how you have worked for ’em, and are still a-workin’, my
heart is as full of the thought of you, little Adrian, as the voyalets
you loved are filled with their strong, onseen perfume.
And as I set askin’ these questions, the twilight shades are fallin’,
the evenin’ star shines bright above the golden west.
And wuz that the odor of English voyalets that swep’ by the open winder
on the night breeze? There’s a bed of ’em down in the garden. Did the
soft breeze come from that way--or further off?
But I stop and lean out of the winder and say--
“Good-night, little Adrian--good-night, little Pardner--till mornin’.”
And wuz that a soft, fur-off echo, or wuz it my own thoughts that
repeated--“Till mornin’”?
[Illustration: FINIS.]
Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife.
Poems.
A Charming Volume of Poetry. By “Josiah Allen’s Wife.”
Beautifully Illustrated by W. H. Gibson and other Artists.
Beautifully bound. Square 12mo, 216 pp. Cloth, $2.00.
“Will win for her an honorable place among American
poets.”--_Chicago Standard._
Samantha Among the Brethren.
By “Josiah Allen’s Wife.” 100 Illustrations. Square 12mo, 452 pp.
Cloth, $2.50.
“It is irresistibly humorous and true.”--_Bishop John P.
Newman._
“It is full of meat as an egg.... Calculated to do immense
good in that department of women’s rights which relates
to her participation in the great work of the Church
of Christ, _beyond the scrubbing and papering of the
meeting-house_.”--_Ex-Judge Noah Davis._
Sweet Cicely;
Or, Josiah Allen as a Politician. A Fascinating Story. Square 12mo, 390
pp. 100 Illustrations. Cloth, $2.00.
“The interest of the book is immense.... Never was such
a defender of women’s rights, never was such an exponent
of women’s wrongs! In Samantha’s pithy, pointed, scornful
utterances we have in very truth the expression of feelings
common to most thoughtful women, well understood among them,
but rarely finding voice except in confidential intercourses
and for sympathetic ears.... Alongside of the fun are
genuine eloquence and profound pathos; we scarcely know
which is the more delightful.”--_The Literary World, London,
Eng._
Samantha at the World’s Fair.
By Josiah Allen’s Wife. Over 100 Illustrations by C. de Grimm. 8vo, 700
pp. Elegantly Bound. Cloth, $2.50; Half Russia, $4.00.
“There is no brighter literary outgrowth of the great event
of 1893 than this volume (‘Samantha at the World’s Fair’)
from the pen of one of America’s happiest humorists.”--_The
Union Signal, Chicago, Ill._
“Aside from the fun of the book, it recites multitudes of
facts of positive value.”--_The Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago,
Ill._
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
Transcriber's Notes
A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.
Cover image is in the public domain.
Augmented Table of Contents with “Other Works by Josiah Allen’s Wife”.
Added caption “His Victim” to an illustration based on List of
Illustrations table.
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