 | The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West |  |
SEVENTH YEAR.
60. CHAPTER LX.
Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus:—I thank you, countrymen:
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.”
“Smooth runs the water, where the brook is deep,
And in his simple show he harbours treason.”
Cheer up! reader, only one and a half year more in
the Purchase! In this time, we lived, also, very fast, and
were so occupied with great matters as to overlook little
things; therefore, we shall not be tedious. Beside, I am
tired riding about; and hence, you will be dragged no more
through the wooden world, except to the Guzzleton Barbecue.
We now introduce a very uncommon personage, a most
powerful prodigious great man, the first of the sort beheld
in the New Purchase—the very Reverend Constant Bloduplex,
D. D.—in all the unfathomable depths of those
mystic letters! And this character, supposed to be invented
for the purpose, will be an important study to the literati,
whether branded on the head or the tail, D. D. or d. d.—
P. or p.: and who aspire to dictate ex cathedra. All
such strong-headed men can here receive important hints
and directions, and have examples how best to discharge
and some never seen or heard of in the East! Yea! some
which the wise Solomon himself never did or imagined in
all his experiments, drunk or sober!
“Indeed! go on then, sir.”
Well, the Reverend Gentleman had lately written, to
state his acceptance of the Presidency; although it would
compel him to resign much more eligible stations, and
make very unpleasant interruptions in his domestic comforts:
and also, that he would be ready to set out for his
new home in the early spring. In due season, followed a
letter, naming the time his journey would be commenced,
and when and where he might be met on the river.
Then should you have been at Woodville, to see our
folks hop about! All, at least, favourable to the conduct
of the Board. However, some, opposed to rats, agreed to
suspend hostilities; being persuaded by Dr. Sylvan, Mr.
Clarence, and specially Mr. Harwood, that our President
was a man of uncommon worth, talents, patriotism, and
enterprise. Yet, a few honest, but perhaps mistaken, persons,
from a sincere love of their own sectarianism, remained
our opponents, if not our enemies. At present,
we were the decided majority, and therefore the people's
people: and so we determined to do things in style. Out
of reverence, then,[1]
to the man, and regard for his station,
we resolved to meet him with an escort; to honour him
with a procession, an illumination, and a feast! And all
this was by and with the consent and advice, and under
the superintendence, and at the expense mainly, of Clarence
and Harwood, aided by Sylvan and Carlton. Hence,
nemine contradicente, it was ordered:
1. That Mr. Carlton, Sen'r, and James Sylvan, Jun'r, be
the escort from the river:
2. That the students prepare an illumination of the Colleges:
3. That Mrs. Clarence, and a dozen other feminine citizens,
fix the President's house, and prepare his first supper:
and
4. That Mr. Clarence be as ubiquitous as possible, and
see that every thing was as straight as—a shingle.
At the proper day, the escort started. On passing
through villages and loggages, we so fired up the citizens,
that in many places, it was promised to meet our Great
Man with inferior processions, like an ovation—the Grand
Triumphal being to be at Woodville. In one town, with a
Jewish name, we met no encouragement—not from want
of good-will in the inhabitants, but simply because there
were no inhabitants there. Like Goldsmith's village, it
was deserted—the inhabitants having all been shaken out
by the ague: although we could not say, as some one of
Ireland, “in it snakes are there none.”
Finally, after an uncommon abrasion of inexpressible-seats,
and green baize leggins—(for, like Gilpin, we rode,
if not for a wager, yet for a President)—we dismounted
and tied our horses at the Ohio.
(N. B. The MS. here was so blotted, the Editor could
not read it.)
— — and — — but the steamer was now seen
descending on the swollen bosom of the waters, belching
fire and smoke as if in labour, and longing to be delivered
of the great weight of character and influence she was
painfully bearing to our inland wilds—apt likeness, too, of
Man of Puffs! Oh! the exciting moment! Now! we
shall see a Man!—we shall have the honour of riding before
him—of showing him to the natives, as Boswell
showed Johnson to the Scotchmen! and — —
— (Here my friend Mr. C. seems to have been so
nervous that his MS. defies my powers to decipher—several
pages, therefore, are necessarily omitted.—Editor.)
“— — when, then, do we set off, Mr. Carlton?”
“To-morrow morning, Doctor. We will now cross the
river, and join your family on the New Purchase side.”
“Is this our skiff?”
“Yes, sir. Well, since we are afloat, Doctor, how do
you think you will like our wooden country?”
“Don't name it, sir. I already repent my precipitancy:
if all could be recalled, I should be better pleased.”
“You surprise me, Dr. Bloduplex!”
“Yes, sir, I have been hasty: I would gladly be in my
former place.”
“But, our College — ”
“Mr. Carlton, plague me not about the college—I shall
have plenty of that when I get to Woodville.”
Conversation, where one is ardent and the other cold, becomes
sissee or zizzy:—a dialogue between cold water
and hot iron. Our escort had too much at stake in the success
of the institution, not to feel now something like a
damper on his spirits; and he, therefore, remained in a ruminating
way the rest of the passage—nay, during the
evening—yea, when he got into bed. In vain chastised he
his own zeal, as too zealous—in vain apologised for the
President's want of firmness and lack of interest in Woodville
matters—it did still occur that the good Doctor should
have counted the cost, and been absorbed in the “great
enterprise for which he had willingly and joyfully sacrificed
himself?” Had he not “left riches, and honours, and
glories” of the Wheelabout country deliberately and “conscientiously”—and
ought he not to have had a little patience
with an escort that “had paid the postage” of a horse, and
nearly ruined a pair of green leggins and a pair of blue unmentionables?
with certain “Brethren,” intimately acquainted
with the President's remarkable life and history—conversations
once attributed to envy, and jealousy, and odium theologicum—and
yet so cognate to the late behaviour—that
battle the suspicion as he would, it did seem, as they said,
“we should soon find out and be bitterly disappointed with
Dr. Bloduplex—that he was no safe confidant—and if we
slighted warning, we should in the end find a person that
could blow hot and cold with the same breath.”
However, we resolved to make the inland journey pleasant,
and honourably to do the escortorial duties, and boldly
throw away all suspicions and uncharitable inferences—yet
to be guarded. When, therefore, next day the President
showed a phase different from the one in the boat, the author,
after listening now to an enthusiastic sermon on Colleges,
Woodville, the Far West in general, the Mississippi
valley in particular, and the nobleness of doing good for
goodness' sake—away packing sent he his base and injurious
suspicions, and began, in the amiable weakness of his
nature, to look up to the Doctor with even greater admiration,
and no small admixture of filial reverence! And then
in his turn—being of course all the time on his guard!—
Mr. C. opened his budget, and told about Woodville, and
the peoples, and the Trustees, and Harwood, and Clarence,
and Allheart, and Domore, and Ned, and all!
“That was indiscreet, Mr. Carlton.”
Granted: but we felt then like a son with a father—were
anxious to make amends for our mental injury—and beside,
this leaky state of our mind seemed so to interest the good
Doctor—and he condescended to ask so many leading
questions—and laughed and cried so easy and naturally at
various narrations. Indeed, he innocently started fresh
leaks in a vessel that never held well at the best—but like
Robert Hall's, the noble Baptist, used to pour out at the
finding water increasing in the hold, managed the pumps so
adroitly and incessantly as to empty the whole chest—or
some such place in the body corporate, where secrets are
contained.
“Still, sir, you were too much of a gossip.”
Ah! but consider, dear reader, we had nothing else to
talk about. Moreover, I only gave story for story: and
whenever I told any thing about Woodville, he matched it
with something about Wheelabout. And in these he contrived
to anticipate and answer all inquiries that perchance
might be some day instituted concerning History, in that
region—till I looked on him as a hero, statesman and saint,
basely maligned, persecuted and driven—(for driven it
seemed he had been)—away by cruel foes and unjust
popularity.
“What did he tell you?”
Excuse me:—I can tell—but that would betray what
was told in confidence! And I am not so great a man as
Dr. Bloduplex, and must not look so high for an example,
although twelve months after this ride the Doctor—did remember
all my gossip, things said playfully and idly, and
some seriously, and did narrate and comment on them, and
draw inferences from them, and that before discontented students,
collected at his house—before Dr. Sylvan alone—
before the Board of Trustees convened as a court of trial!
Ay! and so full to overflowing was his remarkable memory,
that he recollected “what Mr. Carlton should have
told him!”—but which Mr. Carlton never did tell him!
However, let us get back to Woodville. On the way,
before arriving at a village, James Sylvan, Jun., would hasten
forward to announce our approach; when, by previous arrangement,
we were met half a mile south of each clearing,
and honoured with the ovation: immediately after which we
usually had another in the shape of eggs and bacon. At
announced the President! In the course of the evening
our hotel was duly visited by some democrats in shirt
sleeves, and some without a shirt—to see that old character—President
Hickory-Face! They saw, however, a
hero with a much smoother phiz, of softer words, but in all
probability of a tougher conscience.
By the end of the third day, we could hear the cow-bells
jingling homeward towards Woodville. The cows, a little
in advance, were hurried forward by our courier, in a long
line, with unwonted speed, unusual clamour, great mud-splashings
and tail lashings; from all which it was conjectured
by the look-outs in the edge of the Woodville
clearing, that something was coming! Indeed, as nothing
else could have produced such commotion and uproar, Professor
Harwood mounted into the crotch of the great old
Beech at the Spring, and peering thence into the forest,
he soon exclaimed:
“Fall in! fall in!—Sylvan's behind the cows! I see
his handkerchief waving on his whip! Fall in! the President
is coming?”
Hence when we came within a few rods of the clearing,
there sure enough they all stood in double file—
“What! the cows!”
Pshaw! no—but Harwood, and the students, and the
citizens—all in their Sunday clothes! And then taking off
their hats—all, I mean, that had any—they gave us, as we
passed between the opened lines, three or four most terrific
cheers!
How the President felt I know not—but I, fondly hoping
our college and town were both made—I was fairly lifted
above my horse! and stood in the stirrups! I rejoiced as
for my own honour,—thinking, too, I foresaw the rapid and
lasting growth of learning, and science, and civilization,
and religion. That Clarence rejoiced also, I well know—
room for an “elder, I did not say, a better soldier!” That
Harwood rejoiced likewise, I well know—nay, without
Harwood's suggestions and after efforts, Bloduplex had yet
been in the peacefulness of his earlier wars—the triumph of
his first victories over the incautious and open hearted!
And yet that Harwood was soon hurled from his own office
—his living taken away—his reputation!—but stay, we
must not write faster than we lived, although very fast did
we now live, if a large experience of evil constitute fast
living!
We omit the supper, and pass to the illumination.
Pause we, however, to state that, in addition to Little College
and Big College, we boasted now a third edifice,
which may properly here be styled Biggest College. Some
time since our Board had ordered the erection of a new
building, and appointed a Committee to carry the order into
effect; who, being carpenters and masons, lost no time, but
taking the contract themselves, went immediately to work.
Hence, one morning was very unexpectedly seen a surveyor
running a line across the Campus, driving down
stakes, &c.—and also several labourers digging a foundation!
Professor Harwood accidentally passing, asked in
surprise what was meant: and he was answered, “it's for
the New College!”
“College!!—why we have no plan yet.”
“Plan!—why it is to be like the Court-House—and aint
that big enough?”
The next moment Harwood was at my store; and out of
breath began:
“I say, Carlton!—do you know what's going on our
way?”
“No: what?”
“Why they're digging away at the foundation of the new
College—
“No! you're quizzing — ”
“Quizzing!—yes, quiz it will be on a large scale: they
are actually going to put up a building the express size and
pattern of that odious Court House!”
`Impossible!—let's go down and stop it.”
And, sure enough, there was a foundation marked off for
a building exactly square, about 50 feet to the side! Happily
we had some influence, and some trustees had some
shame: and hence, while the work could not be stopped, the
contracts having been secretly disposed of and shared
among our own trustees and their friends, an order was procured
for an enlargement of the affair, making the house 30
feet longer; and instead of two, three stories high! And
this is the true history, although Dr. Bloduplex prided himself
with having suggested in his letters “the just proportions:”
the proportions, just or unjust, were wholly accidental,
and owing to the cupidity of the contractors, and not
to the love of classical or unclassical architecture.
Well, on the memorable night of the President's arrival,
Little and Big Colleges were very tastefully illuminated in
the eastern way; but on Biggest College, then incomplete,
had been raised above the roof a pole perpendicular to the
apex. The upper end of said pole, passed through the centre
of radiating pieces bounded by a circumference, and continued
to rise yet a few feet. Near its top crossed a bar at
right angles; and at each end of the bar a candle represented
a Professor—a very large candle on the extremity
of the pole itself personated the President. The Students
stood in other candles around the circle below, and just
described; so that the Greater and Lesser Lights of the
Purchase glimmered forth to night, in all the glory and effulgence
of cotton wick and beef-tallow.
It was a proud night! and not undelightful our emotions
and anticipations, as we stood in the edge of the wilderness,
late the lurking place of the Indian, and yet concealing the
tapers! It did seem that Mind in its march had halted and
erected her standard! But even while we gazed, those tapers
became oddly extinguished! First, one after another,
died away the lights of the circle!—then the lights at the
extreme ends of the bar, first Clarence, then Harwood!—
while the light topping the pole was left, feebly burning, indeed,
and spluttering, yet triumphant and alone!
“Was that ominous of what follows?”
So Aunt Kitty insists. Beside, she fortified her superstition
by a dream! She dreamed that very night! that
Mr. Clarence was seated in his great rocking chair, on the
top of Biggest College, and that a wind, insidious, noiseless,
and yet resistless, came like a double-blowing tornado,
and hurled him to the earth!
Events soon happened strangely corroborative of the old
lady's ideas and misgivings—and we can only account for
those things, as Southey for the unaccountables, in Wesley's
life—“there are more things in heaven,” &c. Some said
the Top Candle burnt and smoked the longest, because it
contained the largest amount of gross animal matter, and
was most wick-ed; but still that, you know, does not account
satisfactorily for Aunt Kitty's dream, does it?
61. CHAPTER LXI.
For villainy is not without such rheum:
And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
Like rivers of remorse, and innocency.”
President Bloduplex was, as is usual, the son of his
father and mother, being born in very early life, at an uncertain
moment of a certain day or night, near Wheelabout.
His talents were good; his acquirements respectable
especially in Classics, Antiquities, History, and Literature
in general;—still they were not uncommon. In Mathematics
and Sciences, we cannot state his attainments; and
simply because we never discovered them—yet he must
have got beyond arithmetic, since Clarence, in return for
aid in Greek, did gratefully assist the Doctor in Algebra.
Harwood, indeed, thought the President's attainments in
such matters inconsiderable; but then Harwood was Professor
of Mathematics and may have expected too much.
At all events the President set no great value on these matters,
making himself merry at Clarence's expense, on
accidentally discovering that this gentleman was studying
Mathematics under the guidance of his friend Harwood,
while Harwood read Latin and Greek with Clarence.
As a companion, no man could be more agreeable than
our President. It was this led our young Professors to
unbosom in his presence—and even when, in an unguarded
moment, the President remarked—“friendship is a word I
have blotted from my vocabulary!”—they thought he suspected
other men only and not themselves. But before
long it was found he had confidence in nobody; and that
he looked on all men as enemies, to be managed, resisted,
counteracted, circumvented. This was his proton pseudos,
to imagine all sorts of wickedness and chicanery in all
others; and then to combat all with such weapons as he
fancied they were using or would use against him! Hence
said Harwood once,—“depend on it, when Bloduplex
tells us of the meanness, and duplicity, and falsehood, and
machinations of Doctor Red and others in Wheelabout, towards
himself, he has used the same towards them.” But
Harwood was a young man, and may have been mistaken.
Doctor B. was an excellent preacher, and a still better
lecturer, whether is regarded the matter or the manner:
His theological opinions, like the Oxford Tracts, were for
the “Times:” his only decided opinion in theology being
that “there were worse men in hell than Judas Iscariot.”
Like King David, our President, but in a different sense,
had been “a man of war from his youth;” and in some
adroit way—(he attributed it partly to his elocution)—he
had usually worsted his enemies and even his friends, too,
in ecclesiastical combats before the clerical courts! Indeed,
so thoroughly had he devoured things as to have
“used himself up!” One demolished brother in the middle
east attributed the victory over himself to the “Doctor's
peculiar memory, which had no tenacity in things that
made against himself, but retained all and more too of such
as were in his own favor.” But that was the fault of his
Phrenological organization; and he only acted in obedience
to the laws of his nature.
My own opinion is, President B. owed most of his victories—and
some of his defeats—to his Wonderful Religious
Experience! which in the stereotyped crying places always
when first heard inclined weak believers to his
side! I well know the peril of meddling with this Experience;
since the Doctor soberly arraigned both Clarence
and Harwood for sniggering when they heard its third or
fourth repetition—although the Judges would not condemn
the accused, inasmuch as a moiety of said Judges did
snigger and sneer a little themselves when the Experience
was enacted for them!
Ay! the Player did sometimes so overdo this part as
not only to look excessively silly, but to see in other men's
faces that he had been making a special fool of himself!
“A donkey,”—says æsop—“boasting descent from a generous
race horse, failed, however, in a certain race; when,
humbled and ear-fallen, he had a shadowy recollection of
his father—an A S S.” A dim remembrance of that donkey's
one solemn court and conclave, and as an accompaniment
to the Religious Experience, may enable our worthy Divine,
if he still live, to see one reason why, (if, he failed
not often to destroy his foes,) he has so completely destroyed
himself.
“Yes—but, by your own account, he did overthrow both
Clarence and Harwood.”
Reader—a double-cone seems to be rolling up hill, on
its inclined planes: and yet is it all the time really going
down hill! According to his threat, he did “trample both
Trustees and Faculty under his feet;”—but it has proved
to himself only a rolling up-hill downwards!
Some will think we are manufacturing a character: and,
maybe, crities will say it is a very poor one after all, and
that any second rate genius could have invented a much
better. Well, honesty is the best policy; and, although it
may affect the sale of the book one way or the other, we
must say that Bloduplex is really a fictitious character!
62. CHAPTER LXII.
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.”
Such being our Fictitious Bloduplex, can any critic say,
a priori, what will be suitable action? Perhaps, the popular
inductive method had better been followed, and the
ascent to the character taken place from the actions a posteriori:
and that would have sorted with our President's
favourite English use of that backsided logical phrase.
Let none, here, exclaim, Mystery! We live in a mysterious
age. Is it not the era of Animal Magnetism?—of
—Repudiation?—Wax Candles?—Holy Vestments? Is
there not a laying, all through the pomps and vanities of
the world, clear up to heaven, a Spiritual Rail Way, by
which a vile sinner, touched and started by the proper persons,
or their deputies and proxies, shall be in glory in a
jiffey?—and that whether puritanically converted and sanctified
or not! But—
Dislike was, in due time, expressed by the President
for his Cabinet, conjectured to spring from—1. His jealousy
of equals, and suspicious and untrustful temper:
2. His determination for a very low grade of studies—especially
in Mathematics, and even in Classics,—he being resolved
to level down and not up: 3. His love of ease, and
wish to get along with a relaxed, or rather no discipline:
4. His using discipline as an instrument of avenging himself
on students disliked by him: 5. His domineering and
tyrannical temper: 6. His prying disposition, by which
he was led to have spies in the professors' classes, and to
watch when they came and went to and from duties, &c.:
7. His desire to make room for former pupils and relatives:
8. His erroneous theology.
Hence, without consulting his peers, nay, contrary to
the known wishes and earnest remonstrances, he tried to
discipline students at will, and to suspend and dismiss; he
permitted some to be graduated, and who now hold imperfect
diplomas, signed with his sole name: and he commanded
what the Professors should and should not do,
and what teach, and how, answering their arguments with
insult and derision, and threatening to stamp them and the
trustees also under his feet! He pretended to think, and
dared to assert, that the discipline of a College was of
right a President's special duty,—and teaching, the Professors'.
And, therefore, he rudely, on several occasions,
contradicted his Faculty in public, and aimed to consider
young gentleman openly and grossly to insult a member of
the Faculty, he stated in public, that unless that member
and that pupil could make it up! the student or Professor
must leave the College!! He was the master of the
school,—his Professors mere ushers! He arbitrarily prescribed—first,
their duties, and then, dared enter their recitation
rooms to ascertain in person if they were competent
and faithful teachers: where, after asking questions
of the students, showing always his impertinence and insolence,
and not rarely his ignorance of the subjects, he
said to those pupils, and in the very presence of their Professors,
that if not fully satisfied with the teachers' explanations
and instructions, they would come to his study, he
would supply the deficiencies!!!
“Mr. Carlton! — were your Professors men? Why,
Professor Spunk, of our place, would have kicked him
out!”
Softly: Clarence was a Clergyman, and Harwood good
natured. For a while, too, amazement kept them speechless:
and after that they were inclined to take, as a perpetual
apology for the President's rudeness, what he once offered
as such to the students themselves, for a hasty act of discipline,
viz.:—“that his nerves had been disordered by a
cup of strong tea the night before, taken incautiously with
a guest, and that in such cases he was sometimes forgetful
and hasty!”
Clarence, indeed, always insisted that the poor Doctor
was, at times, partially deranged; and that, even after receiving
the following anonymous letter: — — —
(Note:—The Editor is unwilling to print the letter, and
so he always told Mr. C.)
This letter, Clarence, on opening his pocket Virgil, left
book: and, not suspecting its character, he thought he
would run it over before commencing the lesson. The
hand-writing being apparently the President's, Clarence,
conceiving that his master had chosen this way to lecture
for some over-sight, looked for no signature. And, therefore,
he read till the ending, when the absence of all signature
so perturbed him, that he got through with the recitation
mechanically and by instinct!
Great was his distress:—could it be that Bloduplex was
so cowardly and vile to write such a letter! ordering him
to resign, and threatening if he would not! Yet, his was
the hand-writing!—the style!—the very expressions!—
the every thing!—but the signature, and that was wanting!
When this letter was thus found, it was a time of restored
peace and renovated confidence—for, Clarence, being then
a man of implicit faith and trustfulness of spirit—(having
faith in man! according to the modern doctrine of Lyceums)—had,
child-like, looked over the past, and hoped
afresh for the future; * * * Down went he, after
recitation, as usual, to the Doctor's study—but, accidentally,
the door was locked! Then called he Harwood
from his room, and, without uttering a word, put the letter
into his hand. That gentleman read, and trembled as he
read,—and, when Clarence asked—
“Who do you think wrote it?” he answered—
“I am afraid to say! but it seems like the Doctor,—the
style—the hand-writing—the expressions—are so like
his!”
Hastening home, Clarence handed the letter to his wife,
and without word or comment. She read; but, soon bursting
into tears, she voluntarily exclaimed—
“Oh! Charles!—the Doctor must have written this!”
Harwood had now joined them: when the anonymous
letter was compared with several letters written by Bloduplex
the hand—the style—the words—the expressions—was
apparent: nay, in some things, was an identity. And
all this, even Dr. Sylvan afterwards acknowledged; although
with characteristic caution, he expressed no opinion
as to the authorship.
“Do not resign —”
“I must, Harwood: external enemies and mistaken
men, I could and can resist, and face;—but this domestic
traitor —”
“Perhaps, after all, it is not he.”
“Perhaps so; yet, I cannot endure the suspicion. And,
suppose he learns or guesses our suspicion—mutual confidence
can never be again after that. No. I am now
awake: and let me say, dear Harwood, that that man has
some plan for you when he is rid of me.”
“Oh! you are too much alarmed—he cannot be meditating
that;—we shall be too strong for him —”
“Depend on it, I am right. What we have heard of his
character is true: and he that has, by indirect means,
gained victories over ecclesiastical courts, will, by the
same, gain them over us. I must and will resign.”
“At least, see the Doctor first.”
“I will—but I know the result:—it will end in my resignation,
and in your final overthrow.”
Clarence accordingly, taking the letter, waited on the
President, who, meeting him at the door of his dwelling,
did himself thus begin:—
“You received an anonymous letter, Mr. Clarence, I
hear?”—(Who told him?)
“Yes, sir; and I have come to you for advice.”
“Let us walk up the lane. Have you the letter with
you?”
“Here it is.”
The letter was taken by the President, but not read all
at a glance, he learned all its items, and that so well, as
to talk and comment on them! But still, after what he designed
should pass for a searching scrutiny, in a moment
he exclaimed,—“I know the hand writing—it is Smith's!”
“How you relieve me, Doctor Bloduplex,” said Clarence;
“Harwood was right to prevent me from sending
in my resignation.—I shall continue —”
“Mr. Clarence,” replied the President, “Smith, I know,
is your bitter enemy; and I am told you have many more,
and especially among the young gentlemen that came with
me: now, this letter shows a state of great unpopularity,
and I do candidly advise, all things considered, that you
had better resign!!”
“Doctor, pardon me, my first belief is returned—I know
the author of this letter, and it is not Smith.”
“Who then, sir?”
“Come with me, Dr. Bloduplex, and I will satisfy you
in my study.”
“I cannot now, sir, but will call in the course of the
day.”
After a while the President called, when Clarence, conducting
him into the study, said:
“Dr. Bloduplex, from my inmost soul I do hope you
may remove my suspicion;—but I much fear that you
yourself are the author of this letter!”
“I!—the author! how could you ever entertain so unjust
a suspicion?”
“God grant, sir, it be unjust—but I will now give you
the grounds of my suspicion.”
“Name them, sir,—I am curious and patient.”
Here Clarence went over all that the reader has been
told, but to a much wider extent, and with many arguments
and inferences not now narrated; and then spread out the
one. Upon which the Doctor said:
“Well, Mr. Clarence, there is no resemblance between
them, or but very little.”
“But is there not some? Has not the writer tried to
imitate your hand—your style—your very grammatical peculiarities?”
“It does, maybe, seem a little so —”
“It does, indeed, Doctor Bloduplex; and now look
here!—the seal is stamped with the key of your desk!”
Here the President coloured; of course in virtuous indignation
and surprise at such roguery, and in some little
confusion exclaimed:—
“The wicked dogs! they have stolen the key of my
desk!”
Clarence was here affected to tears; that one the other
day almost loved and trusted as a father could be by him no
longer so regarded. Ay, hoping against hope that the man
could not be so fallen from high honour, and looking towards
him with streaming eyes, he said:
“Only assure me, Doctor, on your word of honour and
as a Christian that you did not do this base action, and even
now will I burn this letter in this very fire—(it was a cold
day)—before your face.”
“Mr. Clarence,” said he “I solemnly declare I did not
write the letter; but stay, do not burn it—let me have it
and I will try and find the writer.”
The worthy President then carried away the letter and
retained it three days in his surtout pocket; after which
he returned the paper—but alas! the friction of the pocket,
or something else, had so worn away the seal that the impression
of the desk-key was no longer visible!
Of course, then, the letter was not written by the Reverend
Constant Bloduplex, d. d.—for he had the best right
to know; and he said, solemnly, that it was not. Yet
his resignation to Dr. Sylvan; offering, however, to remain
till the meeting of the Board. At that the Board offered
him nearly double salary to remain some months longer till
a suitable successor could be found; to which proposal
Clarence acceded. When that gentleman leaves the stage,
our history, dear reader, is concluded.
Meanwhile pass we to the next chapter and refresh ourselves
with the Guzzleton Barbecue.
63. CHAPTER LXIII.
To any well-deserving friend:
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.”
“Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp?”
Before his marriage, John Glenville had located on the
river; where, being part owner of a tract of land, it was determined
to make the village of Guzzleton. And of all
places in the world this was a—place. It abounded in
wood and water, and was convenient to the river, or—could
be so; the county road went within half a mile, and if desired
would, no doubt, come right through the town; and
there might be rail-roads and canals across it, in every
direction. Nay, all the advantages of Paperville itself
would in due time concentrate in Guzzleton! Yea, it would
eclipse Woodville! Ay, and if some folks did not look
sharp, the Legislature would remove to Guzzleton the State
College, or at least create there a branch College!
Hence, in the tremendous excitement, lots at the first sale,
were bid off at fine prices, to be paid afterwards; and then
the settlers began to pour in and build! But after Glenville's
own dwelling and store-house, Tom Beecher's tannery,
and two cabins, one for a cobbler and the other for a
tailor, had been erected, the rage for improvement ceased;
and as yet the place was only Little Guzzleton!
The Patroons, however, thought if a Fourth of July could
be got up and the place become a centre for stump-speeching,
electioneering, horse-jockeying and other democratical
excellences, a fresh start would be given to its growth,
and the town become Great Guzzleton. Hence this summer,
on the Fourth, was to be there a grand Barbecue,
with the reading of the Declaration of Independence, and
great speeches from Robert Carlton of Woodville, and other
fellow-citizens!
On the third of July, Harwood and myself went over to
indulge in a prefatory “cut up” with Glenville, and to witness
the arrangements for the Barbecue. And as such an
affair may be novel to some, we shall confine ourselves to
that; taking for granted most have once or twice heard
the Declaration and also the patriotic orations of the season.
The spot for the Barbecue was an enchanting plateau
below the cliff on which Guzzleton stood, and yet sufficiently
above the river, to be considered table land. It was
about one hundred yards long by fifty yards wide, and covered
with fine and luxuriant grass, usually cropped by cows
and horses, but now smoothly and evenly mown with
scythes. The hackberry, the buckeye, the sycamore, and
other trees, less abundant than elsewhere, were, yet, plentiful
enough for ornament and shade; and this had led to
the selection.
Near the centre of this sylvan saloon was the table. This
was eminent for strength more than elegance; but still for
the place, the occasion, and the company, was the very
The table was one hundred and fifty feet long; and
consisted of two-inch planks in double layers, resting every
ten feet on horizontal pieces of saplings; which in turn
were supported by strong forked saplings planted several
feet in the earth. Neither nail of iron, nor peg of wood,
confined the planks—they reposed by their own gravity.
Yet an unphilosophical arrangement of fixins, or an undue
resting of plebeian arms and elbows did, now and then, disturb
the gravity of the table in places; and that disturbing
the gravy upset also the gravity of the company—specially
the ungreased portion.
Seats differed from the table in being lower and not so
wide. They ran pretty near parallel with its sides; and
were low enough, that our mouths be as near the food as
possible—so that if the legs were judiciously disposed under
the table, and the head properly inclined above, the
contents of one's plate could be shovelled into the masticating
aperture with amazing dexterity and grace.
On each side of the table, ten feet distant and at intervals
of five feet, were planted in the earth small trees with all
their green and branching tops; and these tops, forced together
and tied with bark-twines over the table, formed a
romantic arcade seemingly of living trees evoked by the
wand of enchantment to adorn and shade!
Far as possible from the arcade, was the place of the
Barbecue Proper. And that was a truly gigantic affair!
It was no contemptible smoke-jack, steam-spit, rotary-stove
contraption to cook a morsel of meat and a half a peck
of potatoes with an apron of chips! or two hands full of
saw-dust! or a quart of charcoal! It contemplated no
fricasee for two or three guests beside the family! No!
no! it was to do whole pigs! whole sheep! whole calves!
whole turkeys! whole chickens! and for a whole settlement—and
all other settlements invited as guests!
A trench was cut in the ground some twenty feet long,
four wide and three deep! And that trench was full of
logs lying on brushwood, all to be set on fire that night,
that a mine of living coals be ready for the morning's cookery!
On the Fourth, about day-light, fresh logs and brush
were added; and thus in due time this whole kitchen was
a glowing and burning mass!
Strips of nice white hickory were, at cooking time, laid
at intervals across the fiery trench; their ends resting on
stones or green logs along the edges of the range, and thus
constituting a clean, simple, and most gigantic wooden gridiron.
And then the beasts and birds, properly cleaned,
skewered, peppered, salted and so on, were all and at once,
spread out whole over the mammoth hickory iron; each
creature being divided longitudinally on its bosom side!
And each was kept spread out by hickory pieces or stretchers,
and seasonably turned by two men, on opposite sides,
with long hickory forks and pokers! Never such a cooking!
It seemed as all the edible creatures of the Purchase
had taken an odd fit to come and be barbecued for the mere
fun of it!
Nor was this wholesale barbecuing deemed sufficient!
During the evening of the third, and early on the fourth,
backwoodswomen were hourly arriving with boiled hams,
loaves of wheat, pones, pies, tarts, sorrel-pies, Irish potato-pies—and
things unknown to fashionable gourmands and
confectioners;—also, meal in bags, and baskets, till provisions
were piled in kitchen, and arbours, and carts like
—oh! like—everything!
Our Fourth was ushered by the roar of Hoosier artillery—
log-guns done by boring solid trunks with a two-inch augur.
These filled with powder, and stopped with a wooden
plug, were fired by means of an ernormous squib, or
slow match; and made a very reasonable noise considering
they could rarely be fired more than once, being wonderfully
cloudless; and during the greatest heat we were so sheltered
under the grand old trees, and our enchanted arcade,
as not to be oppressed; while the river flowed below,
its waters now smooth and deep, now leaping and rustling
over shoals, and now whirling in eddies around the trunks of
fallen trees! its pure white sands looking like granulated
snows—till the very sight was refreshing!
At last, three beech cannon, our signal guns, were fired
and burst; when the procession was formed on the cliff
and in the very centre of Guzzleton—in posse; and this—
(the procession, not the posse)—consisted, not only of menbodies,
but of womenbodies also; since true woodsmen
wish their ladies to share in all that is pleasant and patriotic.
Then headed by a drum and fife, aided by the triangle
already celebrated, and with as many flags flying as were
pocket-handkerchiefs to spread out and wave on poles, we
took up the line of march; we, the leading citizens, who
were to read and speak; and then the common and uncommon
citizens; and then certain independent ladies: and
then young ladies with escorts; and then the boys; and
then finally the rabble. After showing ourselves in the
woods and bushes along the future streets of Great Guzzleton,
and passing the store, and the tannery, and the two
cabins, we descended the cliff and marched to the speaker's
scaffold to the tune of Yankee Doodle—or something
tolerably like it; although to-day the drum beat the other
instruments hollow!
The literary feast ended, we again formed the procession,
and marched to the head of the arcade, while the
music very judiciously played “Love and Sausages.”
There halted, our lines were separated, and duly marshaled
each proceeded along its own side of the table; when
at a signal we halted again, and now opposite one another,
to perform “the set up.” And this delicate manœuvre was
the wearers of frocks and petticoats showed want of drill,
making an undue exhibit of white thread stockings and
yarn garters. In some places, however, active and skittish
maids stepped first on to the seat, and then with an
adroit movement of one hand, as in going to milk a cow,
held affairs in a very becoming tuck till the blushing damsels
were safe between the table and the seat.
We may not recount our jokes, and raillery, and tilting of
tables, and sinking of seats, and spilling of gravy, and upsetting
of water; only all such were on the same large
scale that best sorted with the inartistical and undisciplined
world around! Tit for tat, and even butter for fat, was
largely done that day—and in a way to demolish nice bodies.
But never was more good humour! never heartier fellowship!
No drunkenness, however, and no profanity! No
breaking of wine glasses—no singing of nasty songs—no
smoking of cigars—no genteel and polished doings at all.
We were then too far West for refinements!
“No reflections—Mr. Carlton. But what did all that
cost and what did you pay for a ticket?”
Cost!—pay for a ticket! why don't you know? And
yet how should anybody brought up where they sell a penneth
of salad! and pay a fippenny-bit to walk in a garden
and buy tickets to hear sermons, and eat temperance dinners!—and
everything costs something, whether to eat, or
drink, or smell, or touch, or look at!—everything, every
thing except preaching and teaching! Cost! why nothing
in the sense you mean. All was a contribution—a gift
—everybody did it—and everybody ate and drank that was
invited, and everybody that was not invited!
“But it was a great labour!”
To be sure it was. But what to a woodsman is labour
with the rifle and the axe? A single shot killed each victim
felled trees and saplings for fuel, seats, tables, and arcades.
“What's the use of a Barbecue any how?”
Well, its uses to Guzzleton may be mentioned in some
other work. But we answer now by asking:—Has not a
man, who ranges in a wide forest untrammelled by artificial
forms, an invincible love of freedom?—Will not he who
feasts like Homer's heroes despise the meannesses of a
huckster's life?—Can he be content to live on alms of broken
meat and filthy crumbs?—Is there much hope of subduing
men whose pastimes are to the effeminate, labours!
And, dear reader, out there the noble Declaration of Independence
itself, when properly read and commented on,
as to-day by John Glenville, has an effect on backwoodsmen,
such as is rarely felt now in here! Oh! could you
have seen Domore, and Ned Stanley, and old man Ashmore,
and Tom Robinson, rise at one or two places and clench
their rifles convulsively—and with tearful eyes and quivering
lips stand intently gazing on the face of that reader!—
oh! could you have heard the enthusiastic cries, at the
close, that came warm bursting from the very hearts of our
congregation, men, women and children—then would you
have deemed perilous the attempt to put, by force, a yoke
on such necks! Vain the belief that our native woodsmen
can be tamed! Numbers may, perchance, have destroyed
their forest bulwarks—but in the doing, woodsmen and
their foes would all have fallen down slain together!
I only add that notwithstanding the continuous feasting
of many hundreds for four or five hours, large quantities—
nay, heaps of provisions, were left; and that these in the
spirit of native western hospitality, were divided among the
poorer of the guests, who carried away with them food
enough for a week.
The day passed without any important accident or lasting
anger. It was, indeed, very like the colour and thrill
places, and with amiable and excellent people—I have
heard sweet music and merry laughter in the graceful and
dwarfish groves of the east—but the thrill came not there!
My poor, foolish fancy wanders then far away off to that
wild plateau of the Silver River, and sighs for the sylvan
life of that rude Barbecue!
64. CHAPTER LXIV.
“Out with it, sir!”
“Spectatum admissi risum teneatis?”
“You won't laugh then?”
Clarence's prediction to Harwood was soon verified.
One member of the Faculty being ingeniously managed
according to the sensitiveness of his temper, the other was
to be dealt with on the first fair opportunity. Our worthy
President aimed now to be the Government; in humble
imitation of dear old President Hicoryface—but not by the
same means. Hence he now treated Harwood as a child,
and began to represent him as lacking manly judgment;
and secretly, like Ulysses, by asking insidious, ensnaring,
and doubt engendering questions.
At last a noble and ingenuous young man refused to acquiesce
in an unnecessary and arbitrary change of arrangement
for an exhibition, having previously received a solemn
pledge from the President that the change should not be
made; and that change being, notwithstanding, now made
and,—without the consent of the Faculty. On this, the
Government and without any conference with his cabinet,
pronounced in public and immediate sentence of dismission
on young Heartly. But in this the Faculty neither could
solemn promise, and then out of revenge wished to inflict
summarily a very disproportionate punishment. Hence,
Harwood not only refused to acquiesce in a hasty decision,
but he in private even earnestly remonstrated with the
Doctor; after which Harwood saw Heartly and advised
him not to leave Woodville till regularly and legally ordered
so to do by the Faculty.
Well, this was just what the worthy President desired;
and he forthwith, both publicly and privately, denounced
usher Harwood as having rebelled against the Government!
Nay! as guilty of resistance and ingratitude to his father!
And, therefore, Harwood himself must and should leave the
College! He declared, and in no measured terms, that it
was High Treason in Mr. H. to visit a dismissed student;
and then—the President himself, that very day, did visit
the same dismissed student, and implore him to remain,
saying he never would have suspended him had he not
been secretly advised so to do by Harwood himself!
This placed our learned men in what is called hot water;
and gave us a beautiful illustration of the scriptural sentiment,
“how beautiful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity!”
“Harwood as yet believed no plan was laid for his over-throw.
He thought the Doctor was sorry for his haste, as he
both in public and private, professed to be, himself attributing
his own rashness and forgetfulness to the disordered state of
his nerves; and, as young Heartly had by the Doctor's
own decree, been reinstated. Still rumors were afloat that
mischief was brewing. Harwood, however, uttered no
threat and laid no plans either of attack or defence, but
was, as usual, wholly and laboriously busy with the duties
of his office. He rarely, in truth, taught less than five
hours a day, and oftener more than six!
On the contrary, the President true to his favourite rule,
rarely taught more than One Hour a day; and
that, sometimes, on horseback! Hence he had abundant
leisure to exercise, as he termed it, “parental care and government
over all!”
The extent and mode of this care and government may
be understood by what was afterwards called in the Purchase
“the Celebrated Saturday.”
On that day Harwood, just before the bell for morning
exercises in College, when all the Students and all the
Faculty statedly assembled for certain duties, knocked at
the door of Little College, and thus, in evident perturbation,
addressed Mr. Clarence:—
“Clarence! something is brewing, I do believe”—
“Why?”
“The Doctor has sent for eight or ten Students for a
body guard!”
“A body guard!—against what?”
“I can't imagine: the Manton's were asked—and Bloduplex
told them he was in fear of some violence, and asked
their aid in protecting him. One brother went; the other
declined, and has just now given me the information.
What can the man be about?”
“Your ruin! But why does so large and able bodied a
man ask for a guard, and in addition to his sword-cane? or
why does he not apply to the civil authority? Hark!
there's the bell —”
“Yes! and see!—there, sure enough, is Bloduplex coming
not only with his sword-cane, but with at least
twelve of the Students around him! What is he driving
at?”
“Let us go—we shall soon find out?”
All now entered the Hall and took their places. The
Faculty as usual ascended the Rostrum; where the Government
took his customary central seat, between Clarence
immediately after Prayer! solemnly and tearfully done by
the venerable Pedagogue, that curious personage commenced
as follows:
“My dear—(mellow voice)—children:—For I must call
you children,—I shall not pursue the ordinary course of
our duties to day. Instead of that I design to go into a full
explanation of the nature and propriety of my government.
But as some things, by certain persons, have been said
against that government, I beg leave to read to you first,
my dear children, a few out of very many papers and testimonials
in my possession, to shew you what good judges
in other places have thought about me as a President, and
what they do yet think.”—(Here the President read his
certificates, consisting of official dismissions from sundry
ecclesiastical and literary bodies, and several highly laudatory
letters and notes from former pupils; and among them
a very eulogistic one from the Hon. Stulty Pistolpop, who
probably admired the Clergyman's sword-cane-propensities:
the effect of all which documents being very happy
on the Judges—the Students now seated below as a court
of appeals—and making them, for a time, think their Father
the Government was really as great and good a man
as he was cracked up to be,)—“And so you see my dear
children—(voice very tender)—may I not consider myself
after all this competent to the government of this college?
“But I wish now to say that my system is wholly parental.
It is not regulated by printed or written rules and
laws, or by the precedents of other colleges, where some
people have imbibed arbitrary notions: no, the parental
system is that of a father in governing his family—it depends
on circumstances—it differs with cases. Some Faculties
govern only by rules—rebuking, suspending, expelling,
according to the letter. They will take no pains to
discriminate; they fix the iron bed and stretch out and lop
children?—(Several of the Court of Appeals cried out
`No! it is not.')—No, indeed, it is not: and persons that
thus govern are not fit to govern—are they?”—(No!—from
the tribunal below.)—“Deeply do I regret to say that the
worthy gentlemen of the Faculty seated on my right and
left do not agree with me in these views; for instance, Professor
Clarence would have urged me to discipline Mr.
Smith according to rule —”
Here Mr. C. interrupted—
“Doctor Bloduplex I cannot submit to this public insult
and injustice —”
“Sit down, sir—don't interrupt me, sir!”
“I will not sit down till I explain—”
“Mr. Clarence you may speak when I am done.”
“Well, sir, go on; but do not endeavour to prejudice the
minds of these young men against me.”
The reverend President went on; and, although he alluded
repeatedly to Mr. C. and named many private and
confidential matters to his prejudice, that gentleman concluded
to let the personage have rope enough to hang himself
metaphorically or, otherwise.
“Well now, my dear children,—(voice thrilling)—let
me imagine a case of parental government, and propose it
for your consideration and vote. Suppose a young man,
rash and without judgment, was to pursue a rebellious
course against a President and Father of a college; and
that after every means of private rebuke—yes!—(voice
sobby)—after earnest and affectionate entreaty;—(voice
breaking)—yes! and suppose after—(sob)—his Father—
(sob,sob,)—had even shed tears over him;”—(Here irrepressible
sobs and tears for a few moments choked the
Government; and many of the judges wept out audibly)—
`Suppose the poor rebel's Father should drop on his knees
before the ungrateful boy, as I now kneel before you!”—
of the rostrum, in open view of all the students)—“and
should weep before him!”—(Here a gush of many tears
burst from the wretched man—and weeping was audible,
all over the court below)—“And should, with his hands
imploringly clasped thus—(action to word)—entreat and
beseech that poor rebellious child!—And suppose that
child, while his Father was thus on his knees!—thus imploring!—thus
weeping!—oh! suppose that child should
spit in his Father's face!—ought not that wicked child to
be instantly cut off from college and expelled from it forever?”
“Yes! yes! he ought, he ought!”—was answered by
many, if not all the Students: upon which the Government,
still kneeling and with hands in an imploring attitude,
cried out with great tenderness and gratitude, thus:
“Thank you, my dear children—thank you!”—Then
rising from his knees, the miserable Government sank back
exhausted with his exercises—(and they were pretty severe)—into
his central seat, and hiding his face—(properly
enough)—in his hands, he remained thus some moments,
sobbing and recovering; perhaps considering the next act.
Hence, taking advantage of this pause between the acts, we
will enlighten the reader as to some matters.
Be it known then, that the rebellious and wicked young
dog represented by our Grand Actor, was intended to be
Professor Harwood! But none of the tender scene had
ever occurred in private; although the Actor wished the
audience to think so. On the contrary, when our Professors
respectfully yet earnestly had remonstrated against the
haste and illegality of Mr. Heartly's dismission by the sole
act of the President, Doctor Bloduplex had fallen into an
outrageous fit of anger: nay, raising his clenched fist, he
had stamped with fury on the floor of his study, and exclaimed—“I
Trustees—I will stamp them under my feet!”
Some may think the acting described thus far must have
injured the actor himself. But, gentle reader, it was done
to the very life! Clarence said, he should have been deceived
himself, had he not discerned the hoofs and the tail.
Had the performer confined himself to his rehearsed parts,
and not ventured on a certain extemporaneous playing to
be named presently, Harwood and Clarence would have
encountered that day a tempest in the outcries of the Students,
which must have immediately driven them from
their offices—perchance with bloody noses, black eyes and
cracked pates!
Let a band of generous young men, a little inclined to
the mobocratical tendencies of the New Purchase, fully believe
all that a venerable and not ill looking clergyman tells
them; let them once think that such a man did kneel to his
junior, and dehort with tears, and at that moment was basely
struck and spit upon by that youth, and there is no act of
violence to which such an excited and indignant company
may not be led or coaxed.
For a while our Professors sat as in a dream! So curiously
wonderful was that act in the drama of their lives!
Clarence says, he was busy awhile, with a contrast between
the oddity on his knees before them, and gentlemen and
men like Witherspoon, and Ludlow, and Day, and Nott,
and Smith, and Carnahan, and Green! Harwood, the hard
hearted rascal! he sat with such a lip and nose of Kentucky
scorn!—but soon, as was his habit, when having
nothing to do, he began strapping a round-ended blade of
an old pocket knife on his boot—said boot tastefully reposing
on the knee of the other leg!
Reader—that very knife cut the thread of our Actor's intended
speech? Happily it was fit for that kind of cutting,
but for no other: even if heated it would barely have cut
I have handled it an hundred times. Oh! Bloduplex! had
it been a dirk! a Spanish blade! a Mississippi tooth-pick!
—what grandeur in that attitude! that look of horror! that
piercing thrill of thy outcry! when starting from thy sobs
and tears, on catching sight of that funny old knife through
thy parted fingers, thou didst thus exclaim and appeal to the
Students:
“Young gentlemen!—take notice—there is a knife open
at my left side!—and I know not for what purpose!”
“Doctor Bloduplex!”—cried Clarence—“no harm is
threatened—I know that knife—it is entirely worthless—
and that is Harwood's habit—I have seen him do it in
church!”
Here something sticking in the Government's throat, he
ejected from his mouth a gob right at Clarence's feet, and
then went on:
“I have reason, my children, to fear Mr. Harwood; and
to protect myself, I asked some of you to guard me to day!
It was natural, then, I should dread a knife so near me;
but I did not mean to insinuate he had it out for a bad purpose
(!)—I only meant to teach him how impolite[2]
it is to
be thus playing with his knife. (!!)”
Affairs were now a little disordered: although to the
Professors it was plain this thrust at the knife had hurt the
Government more than the worst thrust from it could ever
have done. Clarence then rose to make his defence before
the Court of Appeals.
“Young gentlemen,” dixit ille, “we have witnessed a
scene both amazing and surprising; hence I shall be easily
credited in saying I have no preparation for it —”
The President interrupted—“If Mr. Clarence means to
speak —”
“Sir”—rejoined the other—I will speak; and I will repeat
that I have no preparation. Further, let the Students
notice that surprised and amazed I am, but not in a passion:
nay that I am calm and, therefore, competent to make a
statement of all facts which, directly and indirectly, the
President of the Faculty has seen fit to bring and lay before
this school. But why he wishes to involve me is wonderful,
as I have already resigned my office, and am only to
remain, by contract, for a few months.” Accordingly, and
spite of re-repeated and brutal interruptions from the Government,
Clarence made his statements and ceased, and
then arose Harwood, and commenced as follows:
“Gentlemen, Professor Clarence has said he is not angry;
but it would be wrong in me not to be angry and indignant
too. Doctor Constant Bloduplex, with all the authority
of his clerical and official station, has openly and
publicly accused me of a design to assassinate him! and
seeks thus, as far as he can, to destroy my moral character
—”
“I did not accuse you, sir!”—said the President.
“Not in so many words, Doctor, but you did insinuate,
and you intended by your whole manner and your words to
insinuate as much.”
“I did not.”
“You did, sir;—you did! And now, as you have put
several things to the vote of the Students to-day, I insist on
putting this matter to vote; and if the Students acquit you
of evil intention I will yield the point.”
“Agreed,” instantly replied the Doctor. Alas! did he
not see the tears of the Students had dried away? Or
dared he not refuse?
Harwood, then, very distinctly stated the question,
thus:
“All the Students who believe that Doctor Bloduplex
did not insinuate that I had out my knife to stab him, affirm
that belief by saying—yes.”
Not a voice responded!
“All the Students who believe that Doctor Bloduplex
did insinuate that I had out my knife to stab him, affirm
that belief by saying—yes.”
“Yes—yes—yes!”—from twenty voices; and from one
louder than the rest—“Yes! I'll be d— if he didn't!”
“There, sir!”—said now Harwood to the delinquent
Government—“You well know you meant your remark for
an insinuation; and sir, it was a base insinuation!”
To this the President vouchsafed no reply. And he
stopped all further preceedings by running down from the
Rostrum and retreating to the far side of the Hall, where
he declared himself now afraid of Harwood, and said he
wished to be surrounded by the Students! And then, after
abusing the Professors, he cried out “let all the Students
who are in my favour follow me to my house;” when
he hurried forth, followed by a few.
Had now our two Professors gone home! But “evil
communications corrupt good manners;” and so imitating
the Parental System, they, forsooth, must have a little talk
with the Students!—many of whom remained. They did
not say much, indeed; yet Harwood was imprudent
enough to say there “Bloduplex is a Liar!” Nay! the
same impertinent language both Professors used afterwards,
the same day, to the citizens of the village! And for this
frightful and outrageous insolence Harwood was shortly after
excommunicated from the Communion of the Church!
True, Harwood had a dreadful provocation;—but what
right had he to twist and squirm about when a Holy and
Reverend Man stamped upon him? Why did he not, like
an humble worm, crawl back wounded into his hole? True,
Harwood offered to bring Clarence, and twenty Students,
who himself presided, and advocated, and judged
on the trial, in the inferior court—“no; the greater the
truth the greater the libel: and let him thus be taught not
to slander and abuse a clergyman!”
Ay, and true it was, that Professor Clarence was summoned
before our Grand Jury, and on solemn oath declared,
that to the best of his knowledge and belief there was not
the slightest ground for believing that Mr. Harwood intended
on that Saturday to assassinate Doctor Constant
Bloduplex! But what right had a mere layman to a character?
What right to defend himself, by saying indignantly
that the accusation of Doctor B. was malicious and
false?—What—
“Well, but Mr. Carlton, did not the higher ecclesiastical
court take up the case against Bloduplex on Fama Clamosa?—did
not the officers and members of his own parish
lay the matter before a bench of Bishops?”
No! dear reader, no: but consider, he was the only
Doctor of Divinity in the whole Purchase! He was too
enormous a Big-Bug—and the sting of such is sometimes
fatal!
“Mr. Carlton, what did the President with the Students
that went with him?”
Well, several of his body-guard told the author, and gave
Mr. Clarence written certificates to the same purport, that
“early on Saturday morning the President had sent for and
told them expressly he was afraid of Harwood, and wished
them to protect him from violence;—that they then believed
him, and, indeed, until the knife scene was presented;—that
afterwards they went back with the Doctor,
but only to hear what else he would say;—that at his
house the President treated them with cakes and wine;—
that he then read Clarence's confidential letters, and spent
a full hour in ridiculing and burlesquing his character, and
Professor of Languages,” &c.
Any more questions, reader?
“No, indeed, we have heard enough.”
So I had begun to think. Here, then, let us end our
celebrated Saturday—a day memorable enough, also, to be
the Last of our Seventh Year.
| The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | |