University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
POLITICS AND COURTSHIP.

“We cannot rationally doubt it, sir,” said the squire, admiring
the excellent glass of claret which he held between his
eye and the window; “there must be classes, scales of refinement,
culture and authority: to state the proposition
proves it.”

The squire uttered these oracular words at his dinner-table
on the day after Mr. Champ Effingham's visit to Riverhead.
That gentleman was seated in a lounging attitude,
ever and anon moistening his lips with a glass of wine. In
one corner of the room Miss Alethea prosecuted some darling
household work, her favorite Orange lying comfortably
coiled up in her lap: in another, Master Willie and little
Kate were having a true-love quarrel as to the proper shade of
silk to be used on Carlo's nose in the famous embroidery.
But we have omitted in this catalogue of personages a gentleman
sitting at the table on the squire's right hand, and
whom we now beg leave to briefly introduce to the reader
as Mr. Tag, the parson of the parish. The parson was a
rosy, puffy-looking individual of some fifty years, and in
his person, carriage, and tone of voice betrayed a mingled
effrontery and awkwardness: having formerly served as a
common soldier, then lived by his wits, as an adventurer,
he had finally, perforce of the influence of a noble patron
for whom he had performed some secret service, been presented
to a benefice in the colony of Virginia. We cannot
dwell on the worthy gentleman's character, and can only
add here that he was a regular visitor at Effingham Hall
about dinner time, and that he had no religious scruples
against taking a hand at tictac or other games of chance,
any more than he was opposed to the good old English
divertisement of fox-hunting.

To the squire's oracular dogma laying down the laws of social
organization, the parson replied between two gulps of
claret:

“Certainly — oh, certainly.”

“The men of education and lineage not only must always
rule,” continues his host, “but ought to; to trust the reins
of power in the hands of common men, who have comparatively
no stake in the community, no property, no family,
is absurd—a doctrine too monstrous to require refutation.”

The parson shook his head.

“I very much fear, squire, that these good old sentiments
are becoming obsolete. We men of position and rank in society,
born in high social station, will have to yield, I fear.—
They are seriously talking, I understand, of giving every
man in the colony a vote.”

“Every man a vote! who speaks of it? who broaches
such an absurdity?”

“A parcel of hair-brained young men, who will yet get
themselves into trouble. As a minister of the Established
Church, I hold it my duty to warn them, and after that have
no further concern with them. I have pointed them out to
the authorities, and I now call your worship's attention to
the subject.”

“Who are they?”

“First and foremost, a young man called Waters—son of
the fisherman on the river there near Williamsburg. He had
the audacity to intrude upon a conversation I was holding
with some gentlemen of my parish in town a day or two
since, and he uttered opinions over and above what I have
called to your attention, which will bring him to the gallows
if he does not beware.”

“Other opinions?”

“He spoke of the oppressions of the Home Government,
said that Virginians would not always be slaves, and actually
broached a plan for thoroughly educating the lower classes.”

“A statesman in short clothes,” said the squire, with a
sneer — “the wine stays with you, sir—a colonial patriot!
faugh! Educate the lower classes! Educate my indented
servant, and the common tradesman and farmer, and have
the knave talking to me of the `rights of men,' and all the
wretched stuff and foolery of Utopian castle-builders! you
are right, sir, that young man must be watched. Good heavens!
how has the Home Government oppressed us? I grant
you, there are some laws I would have altered—and others
refused us, passed — but is this oppression? Damn my

blood!” added the squire, with great indignation, “I now feel
the truth of Will Shakespeare's words, that `the age is grown
so picked, the toe of the peasant comes near the heel of the
courtier and galls his kibe,' or to that effect. The direct
consequence of these fooleries is to abolish our rank—follow
these doctrines, and where will be our gentlemen?”

“Where, indeed?”

“Even the very parsons will go to the devil,” here interposed
Mr. Champ Effingham, with an evident desire to
yawn.

The squire greeted this sally of his son with a laugh.

“You are irreverent, young sir,” the parson said, making
an effort to look dignified.

“I irreverent!” replied Mr. Effingham, coolly; “by no
means, most reverend sir. I think my respect for you is
sufficiently shown by attending church punctually every
Sunday, and respectably going to sleep under the effect of
your admirable homilies.”

“You jest at my homilies—”

“Oh, no.”

“But you should understand, young man, that a minister
of the Church of England is not a public haranguer—”

“Precisely.”

“And dishonors his high place and position by appealing
to the passions and feelings of his hearers instead of giving
them good wholesome doctrine.”

And Parson Tag drew himself up, with a hauteur which
badly assorted with his puffy face and figure.

“You are right,” replied Mr. Effingham, with languid
indifference; “nothing is so disagreeable as these appeals to
the feelings which you speak of, most reverend sir. How
could you bend your excellent mind to ombre and tictac
after such performances; or, exhausted by such unnecessary
exertion as a `rousing appeal' demands, join in the delightful
pursuit of a grey fox on the following Monday?”

The squire laughed again, at the crestfallen parson, and
said:

“Come, no tongue-fencing at the dinner-table; we have
wandered from the subject which we commenced with.”

“What was the subject?” asked Mr. Effingham, languidly.

“What! was all the parson's eloquence thrown away on
you?”

“Perfectly; I was not listening, with the exception of a
moment, when you closed your address.”

“We were speaking of classes, and the necessity which
every gentleman is under to preserve his rank.”

“I suppose it's true; but I never busy myself with
these matters.”

“You should, sir; the estate of Effingham falls to you
as eldest son.”

“I trust, respected sir, that I shall worthily comport
myself in that station in life to which it hath pleased Heaven
to call me,” drawled Mr. Effingham.

“Never jest with the forms of the Established Church,
sir,” said his father, with some asperity; for however willing
the squire was to applaud a jest at the parson's expense,
one directed at the church itself was a very different
matter. “I hold every thing connected with the Liturgy
of the Holy Church as sacred.”

Mr. Effingham assented, with a careless inclination of his
head.

“This spirit of free speaking and thinking is worse than
the other,” continued the planter; “those abominable New
Lights!”

“Wretched, misguided fools,” chimed in the parson,
whose equanimity several glasses of wine had restored by
this time perfectly.

“I cordially hate and despise them,” said the planter,
“and consider it my duty to do so. I hope the representative
of my family will share my sentiments.”

This observation being directed at Mr. Effingham, that
gentleman replied indifferently:

“Of course—of course.”

“Champ,” said the old planter, “you are really becoming
worse than ever. Where will your indifference to every
thing end, I should like much to know? You seem to
have no aim in life, no thought of advancement, no opinions,
even.”

“True, sir; that is a pretty fair statement of the truth.
This subject of rank and classes, gentlemen and commoners,
advancement, ambition, and all that, never troubles me.”

or something of that sort. It's Horace, I believe, and the
scanning strikes me as correct. I mean, respected sir, that
I am not ambitious, and have no very fervid desire to get
dusty in the arena, or race-course, I should more properly
say—dust soils the ruffles so abominably.”

The squire always ended by laughing at his son's petit
maitre airs, though he had sagacity enough to perceive that
there was little real affectation in the young gentleman's
weariness and indifference. He argued, however, that this
would disappear in time, and knowing that any argument
would be useless on the present occasion, turned the conversation
by taking wine with the parson.

Let us see what the youthful members of the company
were saying now. Human nature, under all guises, and in
every possible degree of development, is worthy of attention.
Master Will, who had been making assiduous love to
Kate, engaged now on Carlo's nose, caught Mr. Effingham's
Latin, and betook himself to a sotto voce criticism on the
speaker.

“Just listen to brother Champ, how learned he is! He's
just from Oxford, and thinks that Latin mighty fine—to
be kissing you the other day!” added this young scion of
the house of Effingham, thus betraying the disinterested and
impartial character of his criticism.

“Why, I didn't care—I like to kiss cousin Champ,” says
Kate, with a coquettish little twinkle of the eye, “he's always
so nice, you know.”

“Nice! he nice?”

“Why, yes.”

“He aint!”

“That's your gallantry: to contradict a lady,” says
Kate, with the air of a duchess.

“I'm nicer than he is,” says Will, eluding like a skilful
debater the charge of want of gallantry. “I don't stuff my
nose full of snuff and sneeze all the powder off my hair.”

“Ha! ha!” laughs Kate.

“What are you laughing at?'

“You hav'n't any powder!”

“Never mind: I mean to.”

“When?”

“Never mind!”

“Why you'd look ridiculous, Willie.”

“Ridiculous! me ridiculous! Hav'n't I high-heeled
shoes—”

“So have I—I'm a girl.”

“And silk stockings.”

“So have I, sir.”

“And ruffles, and sword, and all.'

“Oh, what a fine cavalier.”

Master Will looks mortified.

“Now, Willie,” says Kate, “don't pout, for you know I
was only jesting.”

“Give me a kiss, then.”

“A young lady kiss a gentleman? Indeed!”

The flattering word “gentleman” completely restores
Master Will's good humor: and essaying to conquer a
“salute,” as they said in those honest courteous old times,
Kate's needle pricks his finger, which circumstance causes
the youthful cavalier to utter a shrill cry of pain.

“What's the matter, Will?” asks the squire, breaking
off in the middle of a sentence addressed to the parson.

“Nothing much,” says Mr. Champ Effiingham, who has
watched the assault of his younger brother with philosophic
interest, “merely an illustration of the truth of my
views.”

“Your views—what views?”

“Will was ambitious to `collect the Olympic dust'—in
other words to kiss Katy, and the needle ran into his
finger. So much for ambition. Moral: never meddle with
the ladies.”

Master Will listens to this languidly-uttered speech
with many indications of dissatisfaction—uttering more than
one expressive “humph!” that little monosyllable which
conveys so much. At Mr. Effingham's “moral,” however, he
boiled over.

“Never meddle with ladies, indeed!” he said, “that's
pretty, coming from you, brother Champ, when old June from
Riverhead says he saw you yesterday courting cousin
Clare!”—old June having, indeed, retailed to Cato that

evening, in Master Will's hearing, the fact that he “spec
they'd be a marridgin somewheres 'fore long 'sidering how
Mas' Champ Efnum and Mis' Clary was agwyin' on!”

The squire burst into a hearty laugh, and rallied Mr.
Effingham without mercy. That gentleman, though for a
moment disconcerted, quickly regained his nonchalance, and
raising his glass languidly, said with a delightful drawl, an
exaggeration of his usual languor:

“Of course it's all true, sir; but why laugh at me for
following your respectable advice?”

“Clare's much too good for you, Champ,” said Miss
Alethea, taking a pin from her mouth and affixing therewith
some indescribable garment to her knee, the better to
set to work on it.

“Ah!” said Mr. Effingham, indifferently, “well, I think
so too.”

“A thousand times,” said Master Will.

“Come, Will, recollect Champ is your elder brother,”
said the old planter, laughing merrily.

“Brother Champ laughed at me,” said Master Will.

“True, I did, and am justly punished—but correct the
word, Will: say I philosophized upon the result of your assault
to steal the kiss. I never laugh.”

“There's no harm in my kissing Kate,” says Master
Will, with great dignity.

“None—none!”

“Because we are engaged,” adds Will, with the air of an
emperor.

Kate suddenly fires up at these words, and exclaims indignantly:

“My goodness! aint you ashamed, Willie?”

“Not engaged!” cries Will.

“No—never,” says Kate, with a charming little pout,
“and if we were, do you think I would acknowledge it, and
have the servants talking about me like cousin Clare?”

At which speech the whole company burst into laughter;
and a smile is even observed to wander over Mr. Effing
ham's face.

“I see,” says that gentleman, “that Miss Clare is given
to me by universal consent:—I forgive you, Katy—”

“Oh, cousin Champ, I didn't mean—” commences Kate,
remorsefully.

“No matter,” concludes Mr. Effingham, yawning, “I have
only to observe that I am willing to take Miss Clare or any
other agreeable young lady for my wedded wife:—and now,
as I feel drowsy, I beg leave of you, parson, and you, respected
sir, to excuse me; I am going to take a nap.”

With which words Mr. Effingham saunters through the
door, and slowly ascends the broad stairs to his chamber.
Miss Alethea continues to sew: the children to play: the
parson and his host to converse over their wine.