 | The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West |  |
CONCLUDING SIX MONTHS.
65. CHAPTER LXV.
“That such a slave as this should wear a sword!”
— Ha! I see the light of a Clearing! a little further,
and we are through this Romance of the Forest!
Beautiful the fresh green of our opening spring! Glorious
the wild flowers and blossoms, exhaling their odours
to the air! Grand as ever the dark, solemn, boundless
forest! Full of awe, yon swollen water! bearing through
the desert wood, on its raging bosom, an hundred branching
trees, and, here and there, the shattered fragments of a
rude cabin!
Hark!—ah! it is the piteous cooing of our wood doves!
And hark!—there!—yes, scamper away, you little grey
gaffer, and peep from the dense foliage of that lofty sugar-top!
I knew it was you squealing your cunning song.
Fear not! shady-tail—my rifle is at home—I have no
heart to shoot you now! There! cracks the brush!—I
see you—leap not away! bounding, timid deer! Stay
I am no more your foe!
Yes! there is a clearing ahead! A short moment more
and I leave you, oh! deep and dark ravine, where I have
been so often buried in solitude!—and you, oh! beetling
cliff, with dizzy brow, frowning over the secret waters so
many hundred feet below! And am I so soon to leave you
all—and, for ever? Ah! if I revisit the Purchase, you,
enchanting trees, will be prostrate!—you, merry squirrel,
and timid deer, will have fled!—you, solemn ravine, will
be desecrated with wide and beaten roads! Alas! the
secret waters will lie open then to the public gaze!—the
tall cliff be stripped of its grove!—and the solitary cabin
there of Ned Stanley, be supplanted by the odious, pretending,
and smirking house of brick and mortar!—alas!—
“Mr. Carlton!—Mr. Carlton!!—Mr. Carlton!!!”
Sir!—Sir!!
“We shall never get out of the woods at this rate.”
Thank you, dear reader! I forgot myself—I was away
in the spirit amid the apparitions of innocent joys long dead.
Let us return, then, to history.
Before resuming literary topics, we must say a word of
what happened some weeks ago to the firm of Glenville
and Carlton: and which dissolved our partnership, and
sent Glenville to the Farther West, and Carlton — alas!
whither?
My partner, in early days, had “put his name to paper;”
a security, as he supposed, but making himself liable as a
partner. Notes were given to pay for produce: and this
was loaded and floated to Orleans, and there sold at a fair
profit. But, by a singular negligence, the gentleman entrusted
with the boats, and pork, corn, lard, tallow, and
hoop-poles, never came back with the money! And hence
the merchants failing, the holders of their notes got nothing
for their paper! For many long years, this paper lay
the woods—and the repose of the notes was broken. And
so was that of Glenville! The holders were now taught
for “a consideration,” how to come upon the security—
especially as he, after a long and doubtful struggle, had
got above the waves, and was swimming in comparative
comfort.
The security was, therefore, advised very unexpectedly
of his insecurity: and, in the next moment, stripped of all
his hard earned possessions, he was soused naked into that
very figurative and deeply poetical sea—a Sea of Troubles!
Now, folks intimately connected with others, rarely
take that metaphorical plunge, without ducking their associates:
hence, down went Mr. Carlton into the deep waters,
from which emerging for a sniff of air, he saw most of
his external good things swept away by the torrent!
Mr. Carlton's work, therefore, for the six months under
consideration, was that most vexatious and profitless kind of
twisting called winding-up. Suppose me, then, hard at
work, turning the windlass or some other figured crank of
the Wind-up-business, while we go on to wind-up also the
story of the College: and then Clarence, and the rest of
us, like other phantasms of our drama, disappear—perhaps,
for ever!
After the Saturday, our Literati continued their labours,
—the Government minding the discipline,—the Professors,
the teaching. Except some official intercourse, all other
was at an end: for the Professors were for keeping out of
harm's way, and not only avoided all sayings and doings
in company of the President, but even looking at or to
wards him out of the tail of an eye.
Generally, the students remained neutral: but the young
gentlemen belonging to the governmental party, did very
good service as partisans. Among other things, they, one
dark night, girdled all Clarence's flourishing and ornamental
—they cut off his beautiful woodbines, twining up frames
around his doors and windows—and at other times, they
destroyed his garden fence, and admitted or turned a herd
of swine into the too exuberant fruits and vegetables—not
to name other civilized feats unknown before to Hoosier
young men.
Harwood did not share these compliments—not because
less respected—but more feared. Kind and gentle as a
great mastiff, still he was not all patience: and, once
aroused, he would not have scrupled to shake well in his
staunch jaws, the sneaking whelps and genteel curs, so
annoying to his clerical neighbour. Well, indeed, might
Bloduplex have been in awe of that Kentucky spirit, had it
ever dreamed of doing him harm! True, Bloduplex always,
now, went armed—his sword sheathed in a cane!—
maliciously pretending that Harwood intended to whip
him!—poor defence! had the Professor once seriously
undertaken to give him, what he so richly deserved—a
hiding!
And yet, accidentally, these belligerents once met, and
Harwood was upset. First, however, be it remembered,
our side-walk, for a mile, was paved with wood, not chemically,
but mechanically: a line of hewed logs ran from the
Colleges to the centre of Woodville. This pave was used
in miry times—until anybody received two severe falls,
after which he stuck to the mud-way of the vulgar road.
Now, it was the custom, when two peaceful Christians
were about to meet, for the more active to hasten to the
end of his log, and, stepping aside to an adjacent block or
stone, there remain till the superior, or lady, had passed.
Well, one Sabbath morning, Harwood was going full
tilt up town, to visit a sick relative, and, being on the log-way,
he discerned advancing from the opposite direction,
Doctor Bloduplex. Accordingly, he hurried on to reach,
as he stepped aside, the Doctor accidentally quickening
his pace, suddenly presented his shoulder, and, with all his
weight of person and character, tumbled the Professor off
his feet, and had the honour of making his new hat fly
ten feet away into the mud!
That is Harwood's tale. Here, however, is the Governmental
version triumphantly given to our Board of Trustees,
I being present:—
“I had been, Mr. Chairman,” said he to Doctor Sylvan,
our President,—“I had been up town, to visit a
sick parishioner, on Sabbath morning, and was on my
return, in order to prepare for the sacred duties of the
pulpit, when I saw coming to meet me, in a threatening
attitude, Mr. Harwood. At a glance, I saw he was determined
not to yield me the log: and I then resolved so to
chastise his want of respect for my age, character, and
station, as for ever to make him remember the lesson. I
have been accused of fearing that young man; but, Mr.
Chairman, independent of this cane, in which I carry a
sword,”—(and, at the word, this Christian Doctor did, in
presence of our whole Board, draw that sword, and, with
a real Falstaff gravity and swell)—“independent, I say, of
this sword,”—(driven back with inimitable grandeur,)—“I
well knew, in case of a rencontre, I should easily knock
him off the log! because, the day before, I had been
weighed in Mr. Retail's patent scales, and my weight was
exactly One Hundred and Ninety Pounds! and, of course,
when we came together, he found himself and his hat
where he informs you!!”
“Is that true, Mr. Carlton!?”
Yes, reader, it is: and I'll take my “affidavy on it.”
“What meeting of your Board, was this?”
A called meeting, called by the Government, with a
view to have his rebellious Professors instantly expelled.
it would make too long a book to do more than run over a
few outlines.
After the exchange of papers, notes, and other diplomatics,
the Board, the Government, and Faculty, convened;
when Bloduplex began—continued—ay, and held on even
ahead, for two long summer days, “from rise of morn to
set of sun;” and then ended, because fully blown out!
But after that, for other speech or reply there was no time,
and, happily, no necessity.
As usual, the President read his certificates—gave his
religious experience, and miraculous conversion from infidelity—told
of his sainted mother looking down on him—
and sobbed, and finally roared right out, like a bull-calf
foreibly held back from the cow! From this recovering,
he told us how Harwood and Clarence had even ridiculed
that experience! and expressed suspicion about those
tears, when he had indiscreetly given them the same history
in private! He then went over his own whole life and
character—did the same for Harwood, and ditto for Clarence:
in all which he showed the pre-eminence of his
mnemonic-system, by detailing to us every word, joke,
pleasantry, tea-drinking, walk in the woods, rash-saying,
silly-word, indignant-exclamation, &c. &c.—and even
very many improper things that “should have been” said
and done by our Professors,—but which never had been!
He tried his hand at irony and sarcasm, comparing himself
to Dr. Johnson, and Clarence to Boswell! He ridiculed
Clarence for being a “charity scholar:” because, at
Princeton, he had paid nothing for his Theological education!
He then acted the bottle story—which, however,
cannot be fully represented without a diagram: but he
used one hand for a bottle, and the fore-finger of the other
as corkscrew; and then, holding the bottle-and-corked-fist
under an Honourable Trustee's nose, he suddenly, with
essence, in that remarkable sentence, “Billy! you're a
mighty little man!” And “this,” added the facetious
Government—“this is what I did for the students at my
house on the Saturday named, and to illustrate Professor
Clarence's character; as I did not choose to employ a
sledge-hammer to kill a fly!”
It was now the Government, and with great complacency,
spoke and acted the celebrated a posteriori mentioned
in this work, and so often afterwards repeated by
him. But, at length, this Great Engine ceased its emissions
of steam; and we aroused to hear Clarence's reply,
and yet with looks of peevishness, as dreading another
long, abusive, windy tempest of words. Oh! the delicious
refreshing of his more than laconic reply—thus:—
“Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Board,—I have
very much I could say—but I shall make no reply!”
This answer will be better appreciated from the following
dialogue between Dr. Sylvan and Mr. Clarence, directly
after our adjournment:—
Dr. S. “Never, sir, did you do a happier thing: you
effected more for yourself than by a thousand speeches.”
Mr. C. “You saw me, Dr. Sylvan, for six hours the
first day, taking notes, that I might reply to the innumerable
slanders and falsehoods with which I was assailed:
but, then occurred this thought, amid that torrent of ribaldry,
viz:—`If these Trustees are gentlemen, they need
not my reply;—if they are not gentlemen, I need not
make a reply.' And then, sir, you saw me crumble up my
notes, and put them into my pocket: and I shall hand them
over to Robert Carlton.”
Our called meeting, however, utterly declined expelling
the Professors; and that, notwithstanding the President
repeatedly said in his oration, that he would resign if Mr.
Harwood was permitted to remain! We recommended,
the whole matter to the new Board of Trustees, that
were to meet in the Fall: a very cowardly behaviour, since
we all privately felt and acknowledged that President Bloduplex
certainly deserved to be dismissed, whatever the Professors
may have merited.
To Clarence, that resolution was nothing: he had resigned;
and, for weeks past, had been preparing, as all the
town knew, to leave the Purchase! The attack on him
now, was to have the existing contract annulled; which
would deprive him, it was supposed, of the residue of his
salary; cripple his resources; blacken his character; and
render his probable story of events less impressive! But
Bloduplex overlooked Mr. Clarence's old crony, Robert
Carlton, Esq.: and he saw not then and there “a chiel
takin notes!”
Beside, for ever to prevent any evil surmises in regard
to Professor Clarence, our Board, (and at the instance of
Mr. Carlton,) not only unanimously voted the full and entire
acquittal of Clarence, but each and every one of them
did personally and individually over and above the official
signatures, add his own name to my friend's honourable
and laudatory dismissal! Ay, and this man, after all that
ingenuity and malice (and of practised cunning,) could invent,
and colour, and say of him, in a speech of two summer
days!—and after making no defence, nor an appeal to
passion or prejudice, was acquitted!—and, not only acquitted,
but thanked and praised!—and by his very Judges!!
“What do you think of that, Master Ford?”
Harwood now stood alone: and Polyphemus having “a
sorter” devoured one victim, took additional steps to eat the
other. Several of our Board had, indeed, agreed with me
in thinking and saying that “Doctor Bloduplex had behaved
badly and even shamefully;” yet I warned Harwood
that the New Board in the Fall, who “knew not Joseph
truth, but according to their ideas of interest and policy:
because, too, some Trustees had told me that “they feared
to dismiss Bloduplex, lest his influence might injure Woodville!—that
after such a quarrel, it would be difficult to obtain
immediately another President—and that the College
must not be destitute of such, Mr. Clarence, the maker of
the Institution, being gone too!”
It was now, Bloduplex, Lord Bishop of the parish
church, summoned Harwood before his little ecclesiastical
star-chamber, and had him excommunicated, for calling his
Reverence a Liar: intending said excommunication to act
like an interdict on a kingdom, and prejudice his antagonist's
cause before the New Board of Trustees to meet in
the Fall! At this ecclesiastical Inquisition, Bloduplex
himself sat as chief Inquisitor!—he made the charges!—
he excluded the defensive testimony and all pleas of mitigation—all
entreaties to carry the whole at once to a higher
court—he directed the officials—pronounced the sentence
—inflicted the torture!
As Nero to the primitive Christians, so did Bloduplex to
Harwood—he dressed him in a wild beast's skin, and then
hissed dogs on him! Ay, he was cruelly hunted like a
brute! And after in vain spending his hard earned dollars
in seeking redress, he in an excusable moment of bitter indignation
left at last that, upon the whole, Best of Religious
Denominations! But let that Harwood, if he yet live, know
there is One Bold enough to raise a voice against the vile
Injustice of the Past—one that knows—and says Harwood
was always badly, and sometimes basely and wickedly
used! And let him know, too, that under better auspices,
and but for some mere accidents, the Immense Majority of
the Denomination he has left would have done him justice
on his Cruel and Unrelenting Foe!
Reader! here falls the curtain! And we stand before
it, not to announce a new Drama—but our Farewell:—We
bid you adieu in the next and—last chapter.
66. CHAPTER LXVI.
I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness:
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.”
About the middle of October, a small Christian chapel
was, one night, filled to overflowing; and deeply impressive
was the sadness and solemn hush of the congregation!
They were listening to the farewell address of Charles
Clarence! while the voice of the wind moaning in the dying
woods around, came upon our hearing in fitful gusts like
passionate gushings of lamentation for the fading away of
their glories! Our injured and persecuted friend concluded
thus:—
EXTRACT.
“— — But I must cease, and that with no expectation
that I shall ever more preach to you; or you ever again
listen to me. This is sufficiently solemn and mournful; yet
other things exist here to deepen now my sorrows. For
some years this has been my home—nay, why conceal it?
I had once cherished the hope it was to be my home for
years to come! It was in my heart to live and die with
you! I came to be a Western Man—but God forbade it.
I have shared your prosperity and adversity; and in your
hopes and fears, your joys and griefs. We have interchanged
visits of mutual good-will; we have worshipped in
We have met at the same house of feasting,—alas!
oftener at the same house of mourning! Yes!—my children
lie together, in their little graves, amidst the graves of
your children—that moaning wind is stirring now the
leaves over them!—dust of mine is mingling with yours!
* * * Can these and other ties be so unexpectedly
sundered without pain?—without emotion? But the hour
is come—we part! Come, fellow citizens and Christian
friends, let us mutually forgive one another. If I have
aught against the misled I have forgiven it; if any have
aught against me, I pray such forgive me! Kindly do I
thank many for past kindness, and more especially for the
healing of their balm-like sympathy: and now let us say,
not in indifference, much less in anger, but in manly, hearty
good-will—Farewell!”
In the morning his house was tenantless;—Clarence had
gone very early away with his family—and Woodville
with its pleasures and pains was to him as all other dreams
of this life—past!
Soon after, the fragments of my shattered fortunes being
collected, we too were ready to bid adieu to our home:—
home! did I say? Yes; had we not graves there? Alas!
we had them elsewhere too!—
It was a rainy morning; but, notwithstanding, our little
wagon and horses were at the door. All had been arranged
and prepared for this morning, and all farewells, as we
thought, had been spoken; and why should rain delay those
that had endured so many storms? Emily Glenville was
to go and share our fortunes—but Aunt Kitty—poor Aunt
Kitty was to stay; for we were wandering forth we knew
not whither, and she in her old age must remain till we
—(nor have we ever)—and we had then the desolate hearts
of pilgrims—as now and often since!
Farewell!—dearest Aunt Kitty!—ah! break not our
hearts by that convulsive sobbing!—Farewell! * * * *
—and then we were all in our wagon—but just as we moved,
a well-known, a rough, yet softened voice in a tone of
melancholy reproach sounded at our side:
“Bust my rifle! Mr. Carltin, you ain't a puttin off without
biddin me and Domore good bye!?”
“My honest old friends! no, never!—but I could not
find you yesterday when we went round bidding all the
citizens good bye—”
“Well, we was out arter deer, for, says I to Domore,
Domore, says I, lets git a leg or two for Mrs. Carltin afore
they goes—and we've fetch'd 'em along in this here bag—
if you kin find room for 'em in this here waggin.”
“Thank you, my kind friends, with all our very hearts!
—I do wish we could make you some return—we should
be so glad to be remembered when we are away—”
“Bust my rifle—if I ever forgit you—and Domore wont
nither—”
“No, indeed, Mr. Carltin—and if you chance to come our
way like, Domore's cabin will be open as in old times—”
“Yes!—Mr. Carltin—and me and Domore and you'll
have some more shots with the rifle—good bye, Mr. Carltin
—God bless you—good bye!”
“Good bye, my friends!—I have no home now—but
cabin or brick house, wherever you find us—I say to you
and all other frank-hearted honest woodsmen, as the old
General said to you—`you will never find the string
pulled in!”'
Here I started my horses; and then the last we ever
heard of Woodville was something very like:—“Poor Carltin!—God
bless him—poor feller!—he's most powerful
then through the uproar of the increasing storm came the
voice of the two hunters united in a loud, cordial, solemn,
last Farewell!
Many years after this, on the pinnacle of the Great Cove
Mountain of the Alleghanies, and leaning against a tree,
stood a solitary traveller, who, after contemplating for some
minutes the setting sun, thus broke forth into a soliloquy:
“Yes! O Sun! thou art unchanged!—melting away to
rest amid the same gorgeous clouds, piled on those distant
mountains! I remember thee rising in the brilliancy of
that Spring morning! Here Clarence stood and looked towards
the Elysium of that Far West—and she was in his
thoughts! There is the rock where Brown, and Wilmar,
and Smith rested a moment! — Sad remembrances!
—bitter emotions! O! Sun! as glorious thou as ever!
those sumptuous curtains of woven cloud around thy pavilion
as matchless!—I am changed—alas! how changed!
“Far West!—that name has power to heave the bosom
with sighs—but it can call up no more forever the illusions
of the dreamy days! I know what is in thee, land of the
setting Sun!
“A world of shadows is coming over yon vallies—
darker ones are on my soul! That Spring Morning!
The comrades of that day—where? The scenes!—the
sufferings!—the disappointments!—in that far away forest
land! Graves of my dead!—why need I care to weep,
where there are none to mock. * * * * * *
“World of Spirits!—around and near me! No dreams
—no shadows there! Sun, farewell!—thy last rays are
falling across those graves in that leaf-covered resting place!
Home!—I have none now:—but there is a home!
“Awake! from this dreamy life! True, perfect, uninterrupted
happiness is neither in the far East, nor in the
far West:—it is in God, in Christ, in Heaven!”
Reader! dear reader! the lesson in that soliloquy is for
thee! Ponder it; live according to it; and thou wilt not
have read this work in vain!
| The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | |