 | Sheppard Lee |  |
BOOK II.
CONTAINING SUNDRY ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ADVANTAGES
OF GOOD LIVING, WITH A FEW
CHAPTERS ON DOMESTIC FELICITY.
1. CHAPTER I.
Some passages in the life of John H. Higginson, Esq., the happy
sportsman; with a surprising affliction that befell the Author.
I went off in a towering rage, to think of the reception
I had met, and that too after an absence of
a whole night. I had been bitten by my own dog,
and driven from my own doors by my own servants!
But there was something in these circumstances to
admonish me of the change that had come over
me. They reminded me of a fact that was not
always present to my thoughts,—to wit, that I was
no longer Sheppard Lee, but Mr. John Hazlewood
Higginson, a very different sort of personage altogether.
To account for my forgetfulness of this important
transformation, I must relate that, although I
had acquired along with his body all the peculiarities
of feeling, propensity, conversation, and conduct
of Squire Higginson, I had not entirely lost
those that belonged to Sheppard Lee. In fact, I
different characters, one of which now governed
me, and now the other; though the squire's, it must
be confessed, was greatly predominant. Thus, the
moment after the transformation, I found myself
endowed with a passion for shooting, as if I had
had it all my life long, a buoyant tone of mind, and,
in addition, as I by-and-by discovered, with somewhat
a hot temper; none of which had ever been
known to me before. The difficulty was, that I
could not immediately shake off my old Sheppard
Lee habits; and the influence of these, perhaps (if
one must scrutinize into the matter), more than the
absolute retention of any other native peculiarities,
drove me into the inconsistencies of which I was
for a short time guilty. But I will not trouble the
reader with philosophizing.
I perceived, from the repulse I had received from
Jim Jumble, that it now became me to sink his old
master altogether, which I was very well content
to do, and resolved accordingly; although I could
not help thinking, as I strode over the forty-acre
farm, how much satisfaction I should have, now
that I was a rich man, in putting it into fine order.
But these thoughts were soon driven from my mind
by Ponto making a set at some game, and in a moment
I was banging away, right and left, and slaughtering
the birds in the finest style imaginable.
Oh, the delights of shooting woodcock! It is
rather hot work, though, of a midsummer day; and
notwithstanding the prodigious satisfaction I had
would have been still greater, had I been a few
stone lighter. I began to think Squire Higginson's
fat rather inconvenient; and I had the same opinion
of a touch of asthma, or something of that nature,
which I found in his lungs; and, besides, there
was a sort of whizzing, and humming, and spinning
in my head, where they had been all the morning
which were not altogether agreeable.
In consequence of these infirmities of my new
body, I began, after a while, to weary of the sport;
and was just on the point of setting off to the village
to get my dinner, when a crowd of men made their
appearance in the marsh, and setting up a great
shout at sight of me, began to run towards me. I
could not conceive the cause of such a concourse,
nor could I imagine for what reason they directed
their steps towards me; but hearing them utter the
most furious cries, and perceiving that a multitude
of dogs they had with them were rushing against
me, as if to devour me, I was seized with alarm,
and began to retreat towards a wood that was not
far off.
This evidence of terror on my part only caused
the people to utter louder and more savage cries,
besides setting the dogs to running faster; and these
ferocious animals gaining upon me, and being on
the point of tearing me to pieces, I was obliged to
let fly my piece among them, whereby I shot one
dead, and disabled two or three others. I then defended
myself with the breech of my gun, until the
while the others seized and disarmed me, crying
out “that I was a murderer; that I was found out,
and should be hanged, if there was any law in the
county.”
I was confounded at this charge; but how much
greater was my amazement, when I understood, as
they haled me along towards the village, which
they did very roughly, that I was accused of having
murdered Sheppard Lee—that is, my own
identical self!
This accusation appeared to me so preposterous,
that in spite of my indignation (for my fears
had now subsided), I burst into a laugh; which
only made them rail at me more furiously than
I can express. “Hear him!” said they; “he
laughs! He thinks, because he is a rich man, he
can shoot any poor man he pleases, and buy himself
off. But we will show him there's law in
Jersey for aristocrats as well as poor men, and
that we can hang a purse-proud man as soon as a
beggar.”
And so they went on reviling me as if I had
been the greatest criminal in the land, and dragging
me, as they said, to a squire, who would soon
show me what law was.
I tried to reason with them, but it was all in
vain; I then fell into a passion, and cursed and
swore at them in a way which I am certain I
never did before at any human being; having
always had, while Sheppard Lee, a great horror of
as the other. They dragged me on until we
reached the village, where we found all in a
hubbub, men, women, and children running about
as if mad, and exclaiming that “Squire Higginson
had murdered Sheppard Lee, and hid the body in
the Owl-roost Swamp.” As soon as they saw
me they set up a shout, and some low fellows
among them raged in such a degree that I thought
they would have massacred me in the street.
They crowded round me, hustled me, seized me
by the collar, shook their fists in my face, and,
in general, testified such a vindictive concern for
the murder of poor Sheppard Lee, as they called
him, that I might have supposed there was never
a man more widely beloved than myself, had I
not known otherwise—or, rather, had I not been
too closely occupied to suppose any thing about it.
In a word, they carried me before Squire Andrew
Parkins, who was a fat man that I heartily
despised; and here they called upon him for justice,
while I did the same thing, swearing that I
would prosecute every rascal of them for assault
and battery, conspiracy, defamation, and the Lord
knows what beside; all of which, it seems, only
inflamed the mob against me the more. They
charged me with the murder, and the evidence they
brought to support the charge appeared to Justice
Parkins sufficient to authorize his issuing a mittimus.
There were twenty persons to swear I had,
two or three days before, acknowledged having
that is, the forty-acre—and that he had ordered me
off; and there were twenty more to swear I was a
man of such a hot and furious temper, that it was
a wonder I had not shot the poor man down on the
spot. Then came old Turnbuckle and his son,
who swore that the ghost of Sheppard Lee had
come to them in the gray of the morning, calling
for help, and assuring them that he (or his body)
lay murdered under the beech-tree in the hollow;
that as soon as the phantom had vanished, and they
recovered from their fears, they roused the neighbours,
and sending some to my house, who learned
I had not been at home all night, the others proceeded
to the hollow, where they found a freshly-dug
grave, with spade and mattock in it, and near
it they lit upon my hat and one of my shoes, which
latter was bloody, as well as the grass on which
it lay; that then, looking round them, they discovered
me (that is, John Higginson), sneaking
away through the reeds on the marsh in a suspicious
way; that at that moment old Jim Jumble
was brought forward, who said I (John Hazlewood
Higginson) had come to the house, shot his
bulldog, threatened to blow his brains out, and
bragged that I had just finished, or, in other words,
murdered his master, Sheppard Lee; and, finally,
that this confirming the suspicions they all had
against me, they pursued me (I retreating and
shooting their dogs, like a man conscious of guilt,
a furious resistance on my part.
On the strength of this testimony I was committed
to jail, whither I was conducted amid the
shouts of the mob. Squire Parkins (doubtless to
beg off as well as he could) afterward privately
assured me, that he had committed me to prison,
not from any belief that I was guilty, or that the
testimony really warranted such a step, but because
he was afraid the people would otherwise
murder me, and considered that the only way to
protect me from their violence.
Meanwhile, there was a great search made for
my—that is, Sheppard Lee's—body; the general
belief being that I—that is, John H. Higginson—
had cast it into the swamp, after having been at
the pains to dig a grave, wherein I at first designed
to hide it; and I do verily believe that, had my
unfortunate old casing been found, I should have
begun my new existence in the body of the man
I had so much envied by being hanged for the
murder. Its sudden disappearance was therefore
not more extraordinary than it was really fortunate.
2. CHAPTER II.
The Author, being in prison, makes a confidant of a deputy Attorney-General.—The
inconvenience of telling a truth which happens to
be somewhat incredible.
My wrath gave way when I found myself in
prison; and hearing from the jailer that the grand
jury was then in session, and the prosecuting attorney
actually engaged in framing a bill of endictment
against me, to send up to its members, I began
to think the matter rather serious, and resolved
to end it before it proceeded further.
I had already experienced the ill effects of attempting
to sustain the character of Sheppard Lee
while in the body of another man, and for this
reason was resolved to be more cautious for the future;
but I now perceived I had no better way of
relieving myself of my troubles than by making
the prosecutor, who had been an old friend of
mine, and had always treated me with respect,
acquainted with my transformation; after which, I
had no doubt, he would throw his bill of endictment
into the fire. I sent for him accordingly; but was
obliged to repeat the message before he thought
fit to make his appearance.
“You have perhaps made a mistake, Mr. Higginson,”
said he, as he entered. “You have occasion
for counsel, but none that I can imagine for
affair—”
“The devil take the affair,” said I, in no amiable
voice; “it was to get rid of it entirely that I sent
for you; for I must stop that cursed endictment of
yours. I don't want it said of me hereafter that I
was once in my life endicted for a felony.”
“Oh, sir,” said he, with a smile, “we are in no
hurry about these things; the bill will lie over till
we can procure a little more evidence, and some of
a better quality. Don't be in any alarm; but allow
me to recommend you to employ counsel. My
friend Sharphead, I think, will be your best man.”
“I don't want any counsel,” said I, “and Sharphead
may go to the devil; I want to confide to you
the true secret of this extraordinary affair.”
“Faith, sir,” said he, looking at me in surprise,
“if you can do that, the case is not so ridiculous
as I thought. Really, Mr. Higginson, I was rather
amused than otherwise at the charge brought
against you, not supposing you knew any thing of,
or had any connexion whatever with, the disappearance
of poor Sheppard Lee. But, since you talk
of secrets, sir, I must inform you, I am not the
person you should make any confessions to. I
must again recommend you to employ counsel.”
And with that he was about leaving me, but I
arrested him. “Stop, Jack,” said I (his name was
John Darling, and he is very well known in the
state, though he was turned out of office), “you and I
are old friends, and we must have a talk together.”
At these words he gave me a hard stare, looking
more astonished than ever.
“Jack,” said I, taking him by the hand, “I'll
make you stare harder than that. Sheppard Lee
is no more dead than I am; though, as for his body,
I believe Old Nick has got it. Now, my boy, I
take it you will act as a friend in this matter, and
not blab my secret: but the truth is, it is John H.
Higginson who is dead, and I who am living.”
“The deuse it is!” said the lawyer, whose
amazement set me into a capital humour. “And
pray, sir,” he added, “if John H. Higginson is
dead, who are you?”
“Sheppard Lee!” said I, bursting into a laugh,
“only that you see me now in John H. Higginson's
body.”
I then proceeded to inform him, as I have informed
the reader, of my digging for the treasure,
of my sudden death, of the visit of my spirit to old
Turnbuckle's, of the disappearance of my body, of
my finding and entering that of Squire Higginson,
in which he now saw me, and, in fine, of all the
other circumstances connected with the transformation;
all which he heard like a man whom the
novelty of the relation astounded into marble.
“Upon my soul,” said he, when I had done, “you
have told me a most surprising story. And so you
really think yourself Sheppard Lee—that is, Sheppard
Lee's spirit in Squire Higginson's body?”
“Think myself, sir!” said I, a little fiercely.
doubt my common sense?”
“By no means,” said he; “I have the utmost
respect for both. Your story has completely satisfied
me of your innocence. A most wonderful
story, sir! truly, a most wonderful story!” And
repeating these words over and over again, he fell
to nodding his head and musing, staring at me all
the time, like one who is lost in wonder; and then
suddenly rousing up, he burst into a roar of laughter.
Seeing that I was incensed at his merriment,
he hastened to apologize, declaring that he was not
laughing at my story, but at the absurdity he had
been so nigh committing in endicting me for my
own murder; and he added, that my relation was
altogether the most remarkable he had ever heard
in his life.
I then gave him to understand, I expected, for
very good and obvious reasons, that he would keep
the story to himself; which he faithfully promised.
He then fell to cross-questioning me in relation to
different points; and he was particularly curious
to know what I supposed had become of my body;
when, not being able to satisfy him on that point,
he himself suggested that perhaps Squire Higginson's
spirit had taken possession of it, as I had done
with his, and carried it off for some purpose or
other, and that we should soon have news of him;
an idea that was so agreeable to him, that he fell
to laughing as hard as ever. “Sir,” said he, shaking
me by the hand in excellent good-humour,
that without betraying your secret. Heaven forbid
I should spoil the good fortune of my old friend
Sheppard Lee! No, sir, I am no tale-bearer, or
blabber of secrets. Comfort yourself, sir; I never
had the least idea of endicting you on this absurd
charge. Nobody believes Sheppard Lee has been
murdered by you, nor, indeed, by any one else.
No, poor devil! the general opinion now is, that
he has taken himself off, to get clear of duns and
sheriffs; and as for the bloody shoe and hat, why
that's a common way of turning pursuers off the
scent, by throwing dust in their eyes. The charge
will be abandoned, sir; you will be liberated, and
may, if you like such amusement, prosecute your
captors by the dozen for assault and battery. Farewell,
Mr. Higginson,—that is, Mr. Lee; fortune
smiles upon you at last; and you are a happy,—a
wonderful man, sir.—Farewell!”
The attorney then left me; and so much diverted
was he by my adventure, that I could hear him
indulge peal after peal of mirth, until he had got
out of the prison.
Now it may be supposed that my story, from its
reasonableness, carried conviction to the attorney's
mind; and so I was persuaded. But I reckoned
without my host; the hypocritical gentleman did
not believe a word of it, however much he pretended
to do so. But in this he was like the rest
of the fraternity: I never, indeed, knew a lawyer
to believe any thing unless he was paid for it; and
therefore, not being paid for, or proved according
to law, only convinced this skeptical person that I
—“the unfortunate Higginson,” as he called me—
had suddenly lost my senses, and gone staring
mad; and in consequence, disregarding all his
promises of secrecy, he ran over the whole village,
diverting every one he could lay hands on with an
account of “the poor squire's hallucination,” as he
termed it—that is to say, his conceit that his body
was now inhabited by the soul of Sheppard Lee.
But to give a certain personage his due, or one
of that personage's representatives, I must confess
that Darling, who was at bottom a good-natured
fellow, recollected one part of his promise, and
took measures to effect my discharge from prison;
which was no very difficult matter, people being
now pretty well aware of the folly of the charge
they had brought against me, and the absurdity of
the evidence designed to support it. The opinion
was already entertained that poor Sheppard Lee,
instead of being murdered, had taken himself out
of the neighbourhood to avoid his creditors, having
left his hat and shoe in the swamp only as blinds
to those who might be most anxious to secure his
person; and pursuers had already left the village
to discover his place of concealment.
3. CHAPTER III.
Sheppard Lee is visited by new friends, released from prison, and
carried to his new place of abode.
Another service that the attorney did me, according
to the jailer, through whom I discovered
all these things, was to despatch a messenger to
my friends in Philadelphia, with the news of my
insanity and imprisonment, and a request that they
should send proper persons to take charge of me
after being liberated: and I was roused the following
morning by the appearance of some half a
dozen kinsmen who had come to the village for
that purpose, fully persuaded that they should find
me a raging lunatic.
But the jailer's information had set me to reflecting
upon my difficulties, all of which, as I clearly
perceived, were owing to my indiscretion in attempting
to keep up the character of Sheppard
Lee while in another man's body. I saw the
necessity I was now placed under to be Mr. John
H. Higginson, and nobody else, for the future;
and so I resolved to be—for I did not like the idea
of being clapped into a mad-house by my new
friends.
Yet they took me so much by surprise that I
was guilty of some few inconsistencies; for it was
new character.
The truth is, my situation was peculiar and
embarrassing. With the body of Mr. Higginson,
I had acquired all his distinctive peculiarities,
as I mentioned before. But many of these were
in a manner stupified within me, and required to
be renewed, or resuscitated, by processes of association.
I was like a man who has been roused
from a lethargy, which had destroyed or obscured
his memory, though not his instincts; and who
betrays complete ignorance of past events, and
forgetfulness of old friends, until some accidental
circumstance—a casual reference to some past
event, the tone of a voice, or other such cause—
recalls him, it may be, to sudden and complete,
though usually imperfect, consciousness.
Thus, when I was roused up in the morning,
and beheld a good-looking personage of about my
own years shaking me by the shoulder, I regarded
him only as some impertinent stranger intruding
upon my privacy, saluted him with divers epithets
expressive of rage and indignation, and concluded
by asking him “who the devil he was?”
“What! I?” said he, with the most doleful
visage in the world; “why, Timothy—that is,
Tim Doolittle, your brother-in-law—Don't you
know me?”
And “Don't you know me? and me? and me?
your cousin, Tom This, and your old friend, Dick
That?” cried they all, with horrible long faces; the
especially when I came to recollect them all, as I
did by-and-by when they had pronounced their
names; for at each name it seemed to me as if a
film fell from my eyes, and some spirit within
awakened me to a vague recollection of the person
to whom it belonged. In a word, I became
aware that I was surrounded by a knot of my oldest
and best friends, all of them excellent jolly
dogs and good fellows, who were come to escort
me home, and assured me that I was no longer a
prisoner.
I shook them all by the hand, and contrasting
for a moment in my mind the melancholy condition
in which I had lived as Sheppard Lee, with
my present glorious state, surrounded by friends,
and conscious of possessing lands, houses, stocks,
Schuylkill coal-mines, and the Lord knows what
other goods beside, I fell into a rapture, danced
about my cell, and hugged every person present,
as well as the jailer, and my old friend Darling, the
attorney, who happened at that moment to enter.
“Bravo!” said Tim Doolittle; “now you're the
true Jack Higginson again; and I don't believe
you are mad a bit.”
“Mad!” said I, thinking it needful to explain
away that imputation, “No, and I never was. I
tumbled over an old rotten fence, and hurt my
head, which was, in consequence, in a whiz all
day yesterday; but now it is clear enough. I
think I said some silly things about one thing and
another; but that's neither here nor there.”
“Ah!” said Tim Doolittle, touching his forehead
and looking as grave as a bullfrog, “it's well
it's no worse; for I always thought you had a
turn for apoplexy. But I'm glad you are so well;
it will be good news for poor Margaret.”
“Margaret! who the deuse is she?” said I,
feeling quite strange at the name.
“Why, my poor sister, your wife, to be sure,”
said he.
My wife!!! I recollected that I had a wife;
but the recollection made me feel, I knew not exactly
why, as if I had been suddenly soused into
cold water. It was a highly uncomfortable idea,
and accordingly I hastened to get rid of it.
“Let us leave this confounded place,” I said;
and we left the prison.
The prospect of a fine sunshiny day infused animation
into my mind, which was vastly increased
when I stepped into a splendid new barouche, with
a pair of bay horses worth a thousand dollars—for
so much Tim gave me to understand I—that is to
say, my prototype—had given for them scarce
a month before—the whole establishment being
therefore my own! “What a happy man am I!
Ah! poor miserable Sheppard Lee! Farewell
now to poverty! farewell to discontent!”
Such were my secret ejaculations as we set out
in my splendid barouche, followed by a train of gigs
and carriages that contained my friends. I esteemed
myself the happiest man in the world;
and I gave my last sigh to the memory of Sheppard
Lee.
What a glorious time we had of it on our way
to Philadelphia! I found myself the richest man
in the company—my pocketbook was full of
bank-notes—and I resolved to give my friends a
blow-out. We stopped at a certain village, and at a
certain hotel therein, the master of which prepares
the best dinners, and has the best butt of genuine
Madeira, in all New-Jersey. “Let us rest and rejoice,”
I said, “and we will drive into town after
nightfall.”
My friends agreed; we ate, drank, and were
merry; and it was not until after sunrise the next
morning that we found ourselves in Philadelphia,
and in my—yes, excellent reader—in my house in
Chestnut-street, south side, two doors from the
corner of— But it is needless to be particular.
The house is yet standing, in a highly aristocratic
neighbourhood, and is not yet converted
into a dry-goods shop.
I reached my house: I— But before I relate
what befell me in that splendid pile of red bricks,
which, like its neighbours, seems to be blushing
all the year round at its naked simplicity, I must
say a few words more of Sheppard Lee.
4. CHAPTER IV.
Containing illustrations of the advantages of dying an unusual death,
in times of high political excitement.
I never felt the slightest inclination to revisit
the scenes of my late trouble and discontent; but
the newspapers, which are the lights of the age,
though occasionally somewhat smoky, acquainted
me with the events that followed after my marvellous
disappearance. “What has become of Sheppard
Lee?” was the cry, after his creditors had
sought for him in vain during a space of two
weeks and more. No vestige of him was discovered,
not the slightest clew to indicate his fate,
beyond those already brought to light in the Owl-roost.
It was impossible he could have fled without
leaving some traces; and none were found.
“And why should he fly?” men at last began to
ask. He was in debt, it was true; but what could
he gain by absconding, since his little property
was necessarily left behind him?
In a word, the improbabilities of his having voluntarily
fled were so great, that men began to
recur to their original idea of his having been
murdered. But why was he murdered? and by
whom? Some few began to revive the charges
against me—that is to say, against John H. Higginson;
but brighter ideas were struck out, and
of mine, who never cared a fig for me, but who
was ambitious to create a tumult, and become the
leader of a party, got up in a public place, and
recounted the history of William Morgan, and his
mysterious abduction and murder by the masons
of the empire state. A terrible agitation at once
seized his listeners. “Poor, dear, unfortunate
Sheppard Lee!” they cried; “the masons have
Morganized him, for apostatizing from his oaths,
and revealing the secrets of the society! Yes,
he has been Morganized!” And, giving way to
their rage, they were on the point of tarring and
feathering all the free-masons they could lay their
hands on; when, presto—as the conjurers say,
they suddenly made discovery that the masons
could not have murdered me for divulging secrets,
inasmuch as I had never known them, nor for apostatizing,
as I had never been a mason in my life.
But the tumult was not allowed to subside.
My old friends of the administration, finding that
their strength was dwindling away in the country,
and dreading the event of the coming election, unless
a reaction could be got up in their favour,
suddenly burst into a fury, swore that I had been
made away with by the opposition, on account
of my remarkable zeal, energy, and success, as
an electioneerer and political missionary; and
taking my old hat and shoe, and carrying them
round the village in solemn procession, they stopped
in the market-place, where one of their chief
—delivered a sort of funeral address, in which he
compared the opponents of the administration to
cut-throats and cannibals, pronounced them the
enemies of liberty, swore that no honest patriot was
safe among them, and declared—his declaration
being illustrated by shouts, and groans, and grim
faces—that I had perished, “the.victim of a murderous
opposition!”
But, as if that was not immortality enough for
one of my humble pretensions, the opposition
instantly turned the tables upon their accusers.
Witnesses stepped forward to prove that, on the
night when I was seen for the last time, I had, in
the bar-room of the first hotel in the village, publicly
denounced the hurrah party, as being based
upon deception and fraud, and avowed my determination
not only instantly to leave it, but to go
my death thenceforth in opposition. “See the
bloody vindictiveness and malice of the hurrah
party!” they cried; “before the sun rose upon
this unfortunate and honest man—honest, because
he deserted his party the moment his eyes were
opened to its corruption—he was a living man no
longer. The bravoes of this horrible gang of mid-night
murderers, who have trampled on our rights
and liberties, and now trample on our lives, met
the unlucky patriot as he returned to his lowly
cot, and—just Heavens!—where was he now, save
in his bloody and untimely grave? he, the humble,
the unoffending, the honest, the universally-esteemed,
—waylaid and ambushed! killed, slain, murdered,
massacred! the victim of a despotic and vindictive
cabal,—the martyr of liberty, the—” In short,
the noblest, honestest, dearest, best, and most ill-used
creature that ever dabbled in the puddle of
politics. One might suppose that this outcry of
the antis, backed as it was by the full proof of my
change of politics, would have stopped the mouths
of the hurrah-boys. But it did no such thing;
they only raved the louder. As for the proof of my
backsliding, they treated that with contempt; proofs
being as little regarded in politics as arguments.
They accused the antis more zealously than before;
and the antis recriminated with equal enthusiasm.
There were some men in the village who strove
to appease the ferment, by directing suspicion upon
the German doctor, and divers other personages,
just as the humour of suspicion seized them, furiously
accusing these suspected individuals of having
had some hand in the catastrophe. But the
German doctor and the other persons accused had
nothing to do with politics, and were therefore
suffered to go their ways. It is a great protection
to one's reputation to keep clear of politics. The
guilt of my murder was left to be borne by the
hurrah-boys and the antis, one party or the
other; but as the evidence was equally strong
against either party, and just as strong against any
one individual of either party as another, it resulted
by every man of both parties;—a peculiarity in
my history that proved me to have possessed,
though I never dreamed it before, a vaster number
both of energetic friends and bloodthirsty enemies
(each man being both friend and enemy) than any
other man in the whole world.
How the antis and the hurrah-boys settled the
affair among them, I did not care to inquire. I
was engrossed by the novelties and charms of a
new being, and willing to forget that such a poor
devil as Sheppard Lee had ever existed.
5. CHAPTER V.
The true meaning of the word Podagra.
Let the reader judge of my transport, when my
elegant new barouche and splendid pair of horses,
that cost me a thousand dollars, drew up before my
house in Chestnut-street. I stood upon the kerb-stone
and surveyed it from top to bottom. The
marble of the steps, basement, and window-sills
was white as snow, and the bricks were redder
than roses. The windows were of plate glass, and
within them were curtains of crimson damask,
fronted with hangings of white lace, as fine and
lovely as a bride's veil of true Paris blonde; and
a great bouquet of dahlias, wreathed around a
the house of a man of wealth and figure.
The neighbourhood, it was equally manifest,
was of the highest vogue and distinction: on one
side was the dwelling of a fashionable tailor, who
built a house out of every ten coats that he cut;
on the other side was the residence of a retired
tavern-keeper; and right opposite, on the other
side of the street, was the mansion of one of the
first aristocrats in the town, who had had neither a
tailor nor a tavern-keeper in the family for a space
of three full generations. There was no end to
the genteel people in my neighbourhood; here
was the house of a firstrate lawyer, there of a
shop-keeper who had not sold any thing by retail
for ten years; here a Cræsus of a carpenter who
turned up his nose at the aristocrat, and there a
Plutus of a note-shaver who looked with contempt
on the gentleman of chips. In short, my house
was in a highly fashionable neighbourhood; and I
felt, as I mounted my marble steps, that Jack Higginson,
the brewer (as my brother Tim always
called me), was as genteel a fellow among them as
you would find of a summer's day.
I entered the house as proud as Lucifer, telling
my friends that they should crack a bottle or two
of my best port; for Tim had given me a hint
that my cellar contained some of the best in the
world. “And,” said Tim, giving me a wink,
“we may take our fun now, as sister Margaret—”
at that name I felt a cold creeping in my bones—
ague left me—“I did not think it,” he continued,
“worth while to alarm her.”
“The Lord be thanked!” said I; though why I
said it, I knew no more than the man in the moon.
We sat down, we drank, and we made merry—
that is to say, they made merry: as for myself, a
circumstance occurred which nipped my pleasure
in the bud, and began to make me doubt whether,
in exchanging the condition of Sheppard Lee for
that of John H. Higginson, I had not made some-what
of a bad bargain.
I had managed, somehow or other, in the course
of the night, to stump my toe, or wrench my foot;
and, though the accident caused me but little inconvenience
at the time, the member had begun gradually
to feel uneasy; and now, as I sat at my
table, it grew so painful that I was forced to draw
off my boot. But this giving me little relief, and
finding that my foot was swollen out of all shape
and beauty, my brother Tim pronounced it a severe
strain, and recommended that I should call in my
family physician, Dr. Boneset, a very illustrious
man, and fine fellow, who at that moment chanced
to drive by in his coal-black gig, which looked, as
physicians' gigs usually look, as if in mourning for
a thousand departed patients.
“What's the matter?” said the doctor.
“Why, doctor,” said I, “I have given my foot
a confounded wrench; I scarce know how; but it
is as big and as hot as a plum-pudding.”
“Hum, ay!—very unlucky,” said the doctor:
“off with your stocking, and let me look at your
tongue. Pulse quite feverish. Fine port!” he
said, drinking off a glass that Tim had poured him,
and cocking his eye like one who means to be
witty, “fine port, sir; but one can't float in it for
ever without paying port-charges. A very gentlemanly
disease, at all events. It lies between port
and porter.”
“Port and porter! disease!” said I, slipping off
my stocking as he directed, without well knowing
what he meant. My foot was as red as a salamander,
swelled beyond all expression, and, while
I drew the stocking, it hurt me most horribly.
“Zounds doctor!” said I, “can that be a
wrench?”
“No,” said the doctor, “it's the wrencher—genuine
podagra, 'pon honour.”
“Podagra!” said I; “Podagra!” said Tim; and
“Podagra!” said the others. “What's that?”
“Gout!” said the doctor.
“Gout!” cried my friends; “Gout!!” roared
my brother Tim; and “Gout!!!” yelled I, starting
from the doctor as if from an imp of darkness
who had just come to make claim to me. It was
the unluckiest leap in the world; I kicked over a
chair as I started, and the touch was as if I had
clapped my foot into the jaws of a roaring lion.
Crunch went every bone; crack went every sinew;
and such a yell as I set up was never before heard
in Chestnut-street.
“You see, gentlemen—(I'll take another glass
of that port, Mr. Doolittle)—you see what we must
all come to! This is one of the small penalties
one must pay for being a gentleman; when one
dances, one must pay the piper. Now would my
friend Higginson there give a whole year of his
best brewing, that all the pale ale and purple port
that have passed his lips had been nothing better
than elder-wine and bonny-clabber. But never
mind, my dear sir,” said the son of Æsculapius,
with a coolness that shocked me; “as long as it's
only in your foot, it's a small matter.”
“A small matter!”—I grinned at him; but the
unfeeling wretch only repeated his words—“A
small matter!”
I had never been sick before in my life. As
John H. Higginson, my worst complaints had been
only an occasional surfeit, or a moderate attack of
booziness; and as Sheppard Lee, I had never
known any disease except laziness, which, being
chronic, I had grown so accustomed to that it
never troubled me. But now, ah, now! my first
step into the world of enjoyment was to be made
on red-hot ploughshares and pokers; my first hour
of a life of content was to be passed in grinning, and
groaning, and—but it is hardly worth while to say it.
The gout should be confined to religious people;
for men of the world will swear, and that roundly.
For six days—six mortal days—did I lay upon
my back, enduring such horrible twitches and
twinges in my foot, that I was more than once on
do not know how far that conceit might have gone,
had not the heartless fellow, who, I believe, was
all the while making game of my torments, assured
me that the only effect of the dismemberment
would be to drive the enemy into the other foot,
where it would play the same tricks over again.
“The gout,” said he, “has as great an affection
for the human body as a cat has for a house in
which she has been well treated. When it once
effects a lodgment, and feels itself comfortable—”
“Comfortable!” said I, with a groan.
“In good easy quarters—”
“Don't talk to me of easy quarters,” said I; “for
if I were hacked into quarters, and that by the clumsiest
butcher in the town, I could not be more uneasy
in every quarter.”
“I am talking,” said Dr. Boneset, “not of you,
but of the disease; and what I meant to say was,
that when it once finds itself at home, in a good
wholesome corporation of a man, there you may
expect to find it a tenant for life.”
“For life!” said I. “I am the most wretched
man in existence. Oh, Sheppard Lee! Sheppard
Lee! what a fool were you to think yourself miserable!—Doctor,
I shall go mad!”
“Not while you have the gout,” said he; “'tis
a sovereign protection against all that.—But let us
look at your foot.” And the awkward or malicious
creature managed to drop a tortoise and gold snuff-box,
of about a pound and a half weight, which he
great toe, while he was looking at it. Had it been
a ton and a half instead of a pound and a half in
weight, it could not have thrown me into greater
torture; and the—the man!—he thought he had
settled the matter by making me a handsome apology!
He left me to endure my pangs, and to curse
Squire Higginson's father, grandfather, great-grandfather,
and, in general, all his forefathers, who had
entailed such susceptible great toes upon the family.
In a word, I was in such a horrible quandary,
that I wished the devil would fly off with my new
body, as he had done before with the old.
6. CHAPTER VI.
Sheppard Lee's introduction to his wife, and his suspicion that all
is not gold that glistens.
But there is, as philosophers say, an unguent for
every wound, a solace for every care; and it was
my fate to experience the consolation that one provides
beforehand against the gout, as well as all
other ills man may anticipate, in the person of a
faithful spouse. On the fourth day of my malady,
and just at a moment when I was fairly yelling with
pain, a lady, neither young nor beautiful, but dressed
like a princess, save that her shoes were down
at heel, and her bonnet somewhat awry, stepped
up to my bedside, seized me by the hand, and
into tears.
Her appearance acted like a charm; even my
foot, that seemed to be roasting over one of Nott's
patent anthracite blazers, grew cool and comfortable
in the chill that was diffused over my whole
body. Complaint was silent at the sight of her;
pain vanished at her touch; I forgot that I had the
gout, and remembered only that I had a wife.
I was struck dumb, and presume I should not
have groaned again for twenty-four hours, had not
my consort, in the exuberance of her affection and
grief, thrown her arms around my neck, and thereby
brought the whole weight of her body upon my
foot, which, after having tried all parts of the bed,
I had at last lodged upon the very extremity of the
feathers; by which act of endearment my poor
unfortunate limb was crushed against the horrible
log of mahogany that made one side of the bed-stead,
and ground to pieces. Had my wife been
my wife twenty times over, I must have uttered
just as loud a cry as I did, and repeated it just as
often.
She started up, and regarded me with severity.
“Is that the way you use me?” said she.—I believe
I had rather pushed her away; but how could
I help it?—“Is that the way you welcome me
home, whither I have come,—leaving kinsfolk and
friends,—to nurse you? Barbarous man, you hate
me! yes, and besides having no longer any love
for me, you have not even the slightest regard for
I will be treated so any longer; you may break my
heart,—your poor Margaret's heart,—if you will,
but—but—” And here the affectionate creature
was so overcome that she could not utter another
word, but sat down wringing her hands and weeping
as if I had broken her heart, and she had not
crushed my foot! But, as far as my experience
enables me to form any opinion on such a subject,
I must say, that wives have an extraordinary knack
at turning the tables on their husbands.
“For Heaven's sake, madam,” said I, “don't set
me distracted;”—the pain and her absurd reproaches
together made me both frantic and ferocious—
“don't make me believe that Adam's wife was
made out of the bone of a gouty leg, instead of a
good sound rib.”
“What do you mean by that, sir?” said Mrs.
Higginson.
“Only,” said I, gritting my teeth, “that I have
some thoughts she must have been a piece of the
sorest bone in his body.”
My wife marched up to the bed, and looked me
in the face. My wrath went out like a gas-light
before a black frost; my agonies again disappeared.
There was no standing that look, unless one could
stand the look of a Jersey black-snake, famous beyound
all other snakes for its powers of fascination.
And, talking of snakes, I must add, that, while my
wife gave me that look, I felt as if one, just turned
out of winter-quarters, horribly cold and creepy,
with mingled anger and disdain.
“How often have I told you, Mr. Higginson,”
she said, “never to attempt to be witty, since you
only expose your folly—I won't use any harder
word. And whatever you do, sir,” she added, beginning
to cry again, “don't make a jest of your
wife, sir. You're always doing it, sir; you're always
making me appear ridiculous to your friends
and to myself; you treat me as if I were a fool—
you—”
“Madam,” said I, endeavouring to appease her
a little, for I was quite overcome by her violence,
“remember that I have the gout, and am suffering
the—”
“Yes!” she cried; “and you are determined
that everybody else shall suffer as well as yourself,
and me in particular. Oh, Mr. Higginson! how
can you use me so? I'll never speak to you another
word!”
And down she sat again, weeping and wringing
her hands harder than ever, and moping and whining
the Lord knows how long.
“Sheppard Lee! Sheppard Lee!” I muttered
(but I took good care not to mutter aloud), “you
were not the most miserable dog in the world by a
great deal. A gouty constitution and a perverse
wife are—oh! pangs and purgatory!”
I hoped my consort, being so greatly incensed,
would take herself out of the room, when I determined,
though it should cost me a howl for every
what might; but she was not of that mind. She
maintained her seat, sobbing and sighing, and, by
taking off her hat and flinging it pettishly into a
corner, made it manifest that she had determined
to nurse me in earnest, though in a way entirely
of her own. Happily, the paroxysm of suffering,
which was at its height when she entered, soon
subsided; and being left greatly exhausted, and
her sobs having somewhat of a soporific quality, I
managed, notwithstanding my mental disquiet, to
fall fast asleep; whereby I got rid for a time of an
evil in many respects equal to the gout itself.
Two days after I was able to leave my bed,
though not to walk: had I been, I am strongly of
opinion I should have walked out of my house—
out of the city of Philadelphia—and perhaps out
of the United States of America—nay, and upon a
pinch, out of the world itself, to get rid of my
beloved wife. Who would have believed in our
village, that John H. Higginson, who seemed to
have nothing in the world to do but to slaughter
woodcocks, beat his dog Ponto, and ride about in
a fine new barouche with a pair of horses that
cost a thousand dollars; who had a dwelling-house
in Chestnut-street, a brewery in the Northern
Liberties, with an ale-butt as big as the basin of the
Mediterranean, a goodly store of real estate in town
and country, bank-stock and coal-mines, and a
thousand other of the good things of the world—
who, I say, would have believed that this same
dog in the whole universe? It was truth,
every word of it; and before I was six days old in
my new body, I wished—no, not that the devil
had me—but I was more than willing he should
have the better half of me. I had the gout, my
wife was a shrew, and I was—a henpecked husband.
Yes! the reader may stare, and bless his stars
—the manly John H. Higginson, who seemed to
have no earthly care or trouble, and who was so
little deficient in spirit that he could quarrel with
a Jersey farmer while trespassing on his grounds,
shoot his bull-dog, and take aim at his negro, had
long since succumbed to the superior spirit, and
acknowledged the irresponsible supremacy of his
wife; in the field, and at a distance from his house,
he was a man of spirit and figure, but at home
the most submissive of the henpecked. Resistance
against a petticoat government is, as all know,
the most hopeless of resistance: a single man has
often subverted a monarchy, and overturned a republic;
but history has not yet recorded an instance
of successful rebellion on the part of a married
man against the tyranny of a wife. The
tongue of woman is the only true sceptre; for, unlike
other emblems of authority, it is both the instrument
of power and the axe of execution. John
H. Higginson attempted no resistance against the
rule of his wife; the few explosions of impatience
of which he was now and then guilty, were punished
with a rigour that awed him into discretion.
On this subject I feel myself eloquent, and I
could expatiate on it by the hour. But I am
writing not so much the history of my reflections
as of my adventures; and I must hasten on with
my story.
7. CHAPTER VII.
A comparison between dunning and scolding, with some thoughts
on suicide.
No one but a henpecked husband who may
happen to be shut up in prison with his wife, can
appreciate the horror of the situation in which I
now found myself placed. The gout prevented
my escaping, even for a moment, from the sway
of my spouse; she truly had me tied to her apron-string,
and, as I may say, by a cord that went round
my sore foot. I was a martyr to two of the greatest
ills that ever afflicted a son of Adam; and the two
together were not to be borne. Either, if alone, I
might perhaps have tolerated, in consideration of
the many good things that marked my lot. I might
have endured the gout, if I had had a wife who, instead
of scolding at me, would have suffered me, as
a good wife should, to do all the scolding myself;
or I might even have submitted to the tyranny of
my Margaret, had I been able to beat a retreat
when I grew tired of it. But my wife and the
being: they set me, after a while, quite distracted.
What pleasure had I in being the rich John H.
Higginson? It was in vain that my brother-in-law,
Tim (who, it appears, was the junior partner and
factotum in the brewery, as well as manager-general
of my affairs), bragged to me of the astonishing
rise in my property, and declared I was
already worth a hundred thousand dollars; in the
midst of my exultation I heard my wife's voice on
the stairs, and my joy oozed out of the hair of my
head. I could only look at Tim and groan, and
Tim did the same; for, poor fellow, though only
her brother, he was as much henpecked as myself.
“Never mind,” said Tim, consolatorily; “your
foot will be well by-and-by, and then we shall
have a jolly time together.” But my comforter
took great care on such occasions to sneak out of
the house in good time, and so leave me to bear
the evil by myself.
In the course of two weeks, or thereabouts, my
foot had so far recovered that I was able to put it on
the ground, and hobble about a little with a crutch;
but I had lost all hope of ever being able to resume
my exercises in the field. I was therefore reduced
to despair; and my wife becoming more intolerable
every day, I began to be so weary of existence,
that I was once or twice on the point of making
away with myself.
She was, in truth, the nonpareil of women and
of scolders. I have called her a shrew; but it
which men give the name of Tartar. She was
none of your fierce, pepper-tempered creatures,
who wrangle in a loud voice over the whole house,
and sometimes take broomsticks to the servants.
Such viragoes are in a measure sufferable, for they
are sometimes in a good-humour. My Margaret
was of the family of Croakers, as they are called;
that is, of a lugubrious, grumbling complexion,
always sad and whining, full of suspicions and
reproaches, now in tears, now in hysterics, always
in an ill-humour, and so keeping every one about
her in a state of misery. I never knew a servant,
male or female, old or young, black or white, to
remain in the house two weeks at a time, except a
poor little negress that had been bound to me—
that is, my prototype—under indentures; and she,
after running away a dozen times, began to mope,
and pine, and look so sorrowful, that, out of pity, I
sent her home to her mother. As for myself, being
incapable of flying, and exposed all day long to her
lectures and reproaches, I became melancholy and
desperate, wished myself Sheppard Lee again, with
the constable and sheriff both after me, and, twice
or thrice, as I have hinted before, resolved to put
an end to my life.
One day, while I was reading the papers, I fell
upon the account of a man who had hanged himself.
“He was in good circumstances,” said the
journal, “and had a wife and three children. No
reason has been assigned or suspected for his rash
act.”
“No doubt his wife was a shrew!” said I to myself,
“and there was no way of getting rid of her;
and so it was the wisest thing the poor man could
do.”
I thought over this occurrence so long, that it
produced a great effect upon my mind; and my
wife leaving me one day more incensed and desperate
than ever, I snatched up a bit of cord that
lay in my way, and resolved to strangle myself
forthwith. I should have hanged myself over the
chamber door, but was in dread I might slip down
to the floor, and hurt my foot; and thinking it
more genteel to die in my bed, I made the cord
into a noose, or ring, through which, having placed
it about my neck, I clapped a silver candlestick,
by means of which I thought I might twist the
cord tight enough to strangle me. And so I might,
had I possessed the nerve; but in truth, I no sooner
found my breath a little obstructed, than I became
alarmed with the idea of apoplexy, which was
always frightful to me, and so gave over my purpose.
On another occasion I sent to an apothecary
whom I knew, for a vial of prussic acid, which
takes life so expeditiously, that, as I supposed, one
could have no time to be in pain. But that I
might know in what manner it operated, I gave a
quantity to a neighbour's cat, which had found her
way into my chamber, and made friends with me
during my confinement; and the creature was
thrown into such horrible convulsions, and set up
in less than half a minute, I was convinced
this was the most uncomfortable way of dying that
could be hit on.
I had then some thoughts of drowning myself,
and only hesitated whether I should try the experiment
in the bath-tub, or wait until I could bear a
ride over the paving-stones to the river. As to cutting
my throat, or blowing my brains out, I had
never the slightest idea of trying either; for in respect
to the former, besides that it makes such a
horrible puddle of blood about one's body, it causes
one to look as vulgar and low-lived as a slaughtered
bullock; and as for the latter, I was so familiar
with fire-arms, that I knew them to be weapons one
cannot trifle with.
But fortune, that had served me such a scurvy
trick in saddling me with gout and a scolding wife,
along with the wealth of John H. Higginson, willed
that I should employ none of these deadly expedients
against my life, but get rid of my distresses in
a manner much more remarkable and novel.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
Sheppard Lee forms sundry acquaintances, some of which are
genteel.
It was three full weeks before I left my chamber;
and during the last days of that confinement,
the only amusement I had consisted in looking from
the window, after properly poising my leg on a soft
cushion, upon what passed in the streets; and this,
as the reader may suppose, I only enjoyed when
my wife left off tormenting me for a moment, to
go down stairs and torment the servants.
This was poor pastime for one of my habits and
turn of mind; but my wife had made me contemplative;
and had it not been for the perpetual dread
of her return that I was under, I think I might
have extracted some diversion from what I saw in
the streets. But being in constant fear and vexation,
I looked on with a spirit too morose and cynical
for my own enjoyment.
Day after day, between the hours of five and six
in the afternoon, I observed Mr. Cutclose, the tailor,
descend from his marble steps, and climb upon the
back of a horse, to take the evening air. He rode
like one who had taken his chief lessons on the
shop-board; and I often wondered he did not draw
up his legs, and sit on the saddle hunker-fashion
at once; but what particularly struck me was the
coats, cut American-fashion about the arm-holes,
and so keeping himself in purgatory all day long.
He used to give parties every fortnight, and invite
all the dandies whom he had down in his tick-book;
by which means his entertainments were rendered
highly genteel and fashionable.
Next door to Mr. Cutclose lived the great lawyer
of our square, the celebrated Coke Butterside, Esq.
I could see him sally out every morning with his
green bag, which he carried in his own hands,
either because he intended to be a candidate at
the next Congressional election, and would seem
democratic, or because he was afraid, if he intrusted
it to another, the devil might snap it up as
his own property. He had a lordly, self-satisfied
air about him, as if he felt the full merit of his
vocation, and prided himself upon having more
men by the ears than any other in the whole city.
His bow was exceedingly condescending, and his
look protecting.
Nearer at hand was the dwelling of the old note-shaver—old
Goldfist, as they called him, though
his true name was Skinner. He was horribly rich,
and such a miserly, insatiable old hunks, that
although he had ostensibly retired from business
(he was originally a pawn-broker) for some six or
seven years, he still kept up his trade in a certain
way, that was not so reputable as gainful, and
of which I shall have occasion to say something
by-and-by. He was said to be a good friend of
life, and had passable expectations from rich uncles
and parents, but he was said to hold his friendship
at very extortionate prices. How such a skinflint
as he ever came to live in a good house and in a
fashionable quarter, was a question not easy to
solve. But according to Tim my brother-in-law's
story, he came for economy, having got the house
of a demolished aristocrat who had fallen into his
clutches, and found it in so dilapidated a condition
that he chose to live in it himself rather than submit
to the expense of preparing it for a tenant.
It brought him, moreover, nearer to his customers;
and perhaps the old curmudgeon, who had a
daughter and a brace of hopeful sons, had a hope
of thus getting them into society.
But one who lives at Heaven's gate does not live
in Heaven, as the saying is. Old Goldfist kept
neither horses nor carriages, nor did he give parties:
I doubt whether he ever asked anybody to
dine with him in his life; and as for his boys and
his girl, all of whom were grown up, he kept them
in such a mean condition that they were not
company for genteel people. Everybody despised
them, especially Cutclose the tailor, who turned up
his nose at them, and called them rooterers, which,
I am told (for I never troubled myself to study
the modern languages, there being so many of
them), is a French word signifying low people.*
This old money-maker, who had a stoop in the
shoulders, used to parade the street up and down
before his own door every sunshiny day, in a
thread-bare brown coat, to which he sometimes
added a blue spencer roundabout, a silver-headed
stick in one hand, and a yellow handkerchief in the
other. The latter he was wont every two or three
minutes to clap to his nose, producing thereby an
explosion, which, notwithstanding the muffler over
his nostrils, was prodigiously strong and sonorous;
and once, to my knowledge, it frightened a
young lady into the gutter.
I could say a great deal more of this old gentle
man, whom everybody despised, but whom every
man took off his hat to, on account of his wealth;
but I shall have occasion to speak of him hereafter.
As for the rest of my neighbours, I do not think
them worthy of notice. I might, indeed, except
Mr. Periwinkle Smith, my opposite neighbour,
spoken of before, whom I knew to belong to that
order of aristocracy which is emphatically termed
chip-chop, and who was of such pure blood that it
had known no mechanical taint for three different
generations, the nearest approach to such disgrace
being found in a family of ragamuffins, who claimed
to be Mr. Smith's relations, merely because they
were descended from his grandfather, but who
were very properly discountenanced by him.
This old gentleman had a daughter who seemed
to be universally admired, judging from the numbers
of visiters of both sexes who besieged her
must say she was very handsome; but she had
the additional merit of being an only child, and
therefore an heiress, as was supposed. I thought
so myself, until Tim, who knew something of
everybody's affairs, assured me that her father's
estate was eaten up by mortgages, that he was
poor as a rat, and would die insolvent.
Among the many young gentlemen who paid
court to the fair Miss Smith, I noticed one, who,
besides being more assiduous in his attentions,
seemed also to enjoy a greater share of her regard
than others. He was a young fellow of uncommonly
genteel figure; that is, he was long and
lank, somewhat narrow in the shoulders, but clean-limbed,
and straight as an arrow. He had a long
face and hollow cheeks; but what his jaws lacked
in flesh was made up to them in beard, his whiskers,
which were coal-black, being as exuberant as
if made by a brush-maker, and stretching from his
temples to the point of his chin, and so enveloping
his whole face. He had besides a pair of peaked
mustaches, that would have done honour to the
Grand Seignior; and, with a turban and caftan
on, he might have paid his respects to the alumni
of any college in the land, without even the necessity
of speaking bad Latin.* He dressed well,
stork or an ostrich, and was evidently a favourite
with the ladies.
His name, Tim told me, was I. D.—that is to
say, Isaac Dulmer—Dawkins; though, in consideration
of the rusticalness of the first member of
the triad, and from regard to his feelings, which
were outraged by its pronunciation, his friends had
universally agreed to suppress it; and, in consequence,
he was called I.Dulmer Dawkins, Esquire,
that title being added, because it is the only one
an American gentleman not in office, or the militia,
can claim. He was, as Timothy assured me, a
dandy of the true style, being a born scion of the
chip-chop order, and, as such, admitted to all its
honours and immunities, though without the support
of any living relations in society, or, as his ill
luck would have it, of connexions either. He was
said to possess some little property in town, and,
what was still better, to be the heir of a rich uncle
without children, whom he expected to die within
a reasonable period. As for his town property,
my brother Tim doubted its existence altogether,
and would perhaps have been as skeptical in regard
to the uncle, had he not known that an uncle did
really exist, and a rich one too, for he was largely
concerned in the distilling and lumbering business
on the Susquehanna.
I am particular in making the reader acquainted
with Mr. I. Dulmer Dawkins, inasmuch as it was
my fortune, after a time, to fall into a connexion
with him myself—as intimate as it was unexpected.
When I first saw him, I accounted him an ugly
and uncouth personage, and I regarded him with
contempt and dislike. I had acquired, along with
other peculiarities of John H. Higginson, a hearty
hatred for all people who considered themselves
better than myself; for, rich and respectable as I
was, I soon perceived that I was considered a very
low, vulgar personage by the true chip-chop aristocracy,
and I longed greatly at times, as I looked
out of the window upon them, to take some of
them by the ears, and settle the matter of superiority
between us in that way.
But as for Mr. Dulmer Dawkins, I soon began
to experience an interest in him, which was indeed
of a somewhat envious complexion. I frequently
saw him dancing along at the side of the fair Miss
Smith; and he seemed so exceedingly happy and
content, and she cast upon him so many approving
glances, that I could not help contrasting his condition
with mine. There he strutted in the open
street, young, active, and hale, as ignorant of disease
as of care, and here sat I, in a sick chamber,
imprisoned with the gout. There he moved at the
side of a young and elegant woman, who eyed him
with admiration, doubtless, also, with regard, and
who had such native amiableness and cheerfulness
imprinted together on her countenance, that it was
curse, to him who should be so happy as to wed
her; while I, miserable I! was tied to such a wife
as I could scarce have the cruelty to wish bestowed
upon my worst enemy, contracted to an ague,
married, as I may say, to a toothache. I should
have been glad to exchange conditions with Mr.
Dulmer Dawkins—ay, by my honour! if there was
ever honour in man—or with anybody else.
From Tim's account it seemed that my young
gentleman had a longer face than head; in other
words, that nature had endowed him more bountifully
with beard than brains: and, in truth, I judged,
by the way he showed his teeth and rolled his
eyes at the fair Miss Smith, and a thousand other
little grimaces and affectations I was witness to,
that he was neither more wise nor brilliant than
the others of his tribe. But what of that? Wisdom
and care go hand in hand, and wit makes us
uncomfortable: fools are the only happy people.
So I used to think, while I looked on Mr. I. D.
Dawkins and the fair Miss Smith.
But it is an ill way to pass time, peeping into
millstones, or reading men's history out of their
faces. Dulmer Dawkins had his cares, as well as
another. I suddenly missed him from the street;
the fair Miss Smith made her promenades, attended
by other admirers, and for three whole days
Mr. Dawkins was invisible. On the fourth he
reappeared: I saw him as he came up the street,
escorting another belle, entirely unknown to me,
Periwinkle Smith's house, the fair Miss Smith
issued from the door. Mr. Dawkins made her a
low and most elegant bow, his companion waved
her fan, and they passed on, looking unutterable
things at one another. The fair Miss Smith
seemed confounded; a flush appeared on her face,
and then vanished; she looked after her admirer,
and then, with her attendants, two young coxcombs
who were with her, descended the steps, and
walked down the street. I saw her once turn her
head half round as if to look again after Dulmer;
but her curiosity, anger, sorrow, or whatever feeling
it was prompted the movement, was restrained, and
she strode off at an unusually rapid and unfashionable
gait. “So, so! my turtles have been quarrelling,”
I said to myself; “and the fair Miss Smith
is just a Jezebel, like the rest of her confounded
sex!”—It never occurred to me to think a quarrel
arising between two persons of different sexes
could be caused by any thing but the unreasonable
behaviour of the lady.
It was two weeks before I saw Dulmer Dawkins
again, and then I beheld him under a new
aspect.
9. CHAPTER IX.
The Author grows weary of his wife, and mistakes the Schuylkill
for the river Lethe.—The tragical adventure that befell a young
gentleman in that romantic tide, with its effects upon the destinies
of Sheppard Lee.
It may be supposed, since I was able to amuse
my mind with such observations, that they detracted
from the miseries of my condition, or at least assuaged
in some measure my pangs. But as well
might one believe that the condemned malefactor,
who looks out from his cart on the volunteer companies
escorting him to the gallows, and admires
the splendid incoherence of their trappings—their
infantry coats and horsemen's hats, their republican
faces and imperial colours—feels thereby less
dissatisfaction with his shroud and coffin, and the
rope coiled so inelegantly round his neck. My
observations were made only at intervals that were
both brief and rare. My wife was the most attentive
creature that ever set a husband distracted;
and under the plea of nursing me, gave me so much
of her company, that I was gradually driven to
desperation. In course of time I was happily able
to get into my barouche, and thus, for a short hour
or two, escape my tormentor. Had that period
been deferred a week later, I should certainly have
taken an ounce of arsenic that I found lying in a
closet, though I knew it was awful bad stuff to
swallow.
As soon as I found myself once more at liberty,
I began to con over a project I had formed of
deserting my dear Margaret altogether; and this I
resolved to put into execution the moment my foot
should be well enough for travelling. But, oh
horror! just as the doctor pronounced me cured,
I was seized with a second paroxysm, and beheld
nothing before me but eternal captivity and unmitigated
wife!
This attack was brought on by the mere triumph
of restoration. The afternoon before, I drove
out upon the Schuylkill, with Tim and another
friend; and several other jolly dogs meeting us,
we stopped together at a well-known house of
entertainment on the banks of that river, and resolved
to enjoy ourselves. I declare in all sincerity
that I was very moderate both in eating and
drinking; but having sat at the table until after
nightfall, and being well content to tarry longer,
I made a sudden and rash resolution not to return
that night at all, nor upon the following day either,
if I could avoid it. But as it was necessary to
account for my absence to my wife, I instructed
Tim to tell her I had contracted a sudden fit
of podagra, which made it proper I should not
expose myself to the night-air. With this fib in
his mouth, Tim, who considered the whole thing a
capital joke, as indeed he did every other of my
devising, returned to the city, whither he was followed
by the others before midnight.
Now whether it was that the immoderate satisfaction
of quiet, was an excess capable of bringing on a
paroxysm of gout,—whether it was the unwholesome
night-air of the Schuylkill, so famous for its
agues and bilious fevers, or whether indeed it was
not the lie I had invented, which was punished
upon me in the reality of the affliction I had assumed,—it
is certain that I woke up the next morning
in quite a feverish condition, and with all the
symptoms of returning podagra, though I did not
immediately suspect it. It was not until towards
nightfall that I understood my situation.
In the meanwhile Tim had returned, and again
driven back to town without me, to assure my affectionate
spouse, that, being entirely recovered, I
thought it best to defer my return until the evening;
at which time I proposed to be sick again, so
as to excuse my remaining from home a second
night. In this way I designed to put off my return
from night till morning, and from morning till night,
as long as I could.
Feeling a little better about dinner-time, I indulged
in a hearty meal, and then lay down. But
I had not slept many hours before I dreamed the
devil was tugging at my foot with a pair of red-hot
tongs; and starting up in anguish, I perceived
clearly enough that my malady had returned.
“Miserable wretch that I am!” I cried; “why
was I not content to be Sheppard Lee? Was
poverty worse than the gout? was debt equal in
torment to a scolding wife? What a fool I was to
dog!”
I hobbled down to the porch of the inn, not without
pain, for my foot was awfully tender, and began
to picture to myself the misery that was inevitably
prepared for me. The thought of living a
month longer in the same house with my wife,
entirely at her mercy, drove me to despair; in the
midst of which, being roused by the sound of approaching
wheels, I looked up, and beheld my wife
herself, advancing as fast as my elegant bays could
bear her, to pay me a visit. I knew her by her
white feathers, and my brother Tim was sitting at
her side.
At this sight my philosophy forsook me altogether;
I fell into a phrensy, and disregarding the
condition of my foot, or rather sharpened and confirmed
in my purpose by the pangs it gave me, I
rushed down to the river-side towards a spot where
I knew there was deep water, resolved to throw
myself in without a moment's delay; and this without
considering that, as it was hot weather, I should
spoil the water drunk by my fellow-citizens. This
was an objection that partly occurred to me before,
when debating the subject of drowning; and I think
it so serious a one, that I would recommend to
the councils of Philadelphia to appoint a bailiff,
whose express duty should be to prevent people
drowning themselves in the basin; and the same
person might have an eye to the drowned cats,
dogs, pigs, calves, dead fish, and swimming boys,
the water.
I reached the place just as the barouche drew
up at the door, and hopping forward, I began to slip
off my coat and waistcoat, and draw out my watch
and pocketbook, though for what purpose, I am
sure I cannot say. But what was my surprise to
perceive myself forestalled in my intentions by another
person, who stood upon the very rock from
which I designed to throw myself, and was evidently
preparing to exercise justice upon himself in the
same summary way. He was a tall, lank personage,
of highly genteel figure and habit; but his
back being towards me, I could not see his face.
I had scarce laid eyes upon him before, with a
very violent motion of his arm, he cast his hat into
the stream, and immediately afterward his neck-cloth;
then slapping his hands together like one
who is about rushing into a fight, and rushing into
it with resolution, he exclaimed, “The devil take
all women and tailors!” and leaped into the river,
which instantly closed over his head.
I was so petrified at his rashness that I forgot
my own, and stood staring on the water, as it came
rushing in agitated ripples to the shore, lost in such
confusion and horror, that for a space of a minute
or more I neither moved hand nor foot. The
water, which, previous to the plunge, had been as
smooth as a mirror, was fast regaining its tranquillity,
when, on a sudden, a great bubbling began to
appear a few yards below the rock, and I saw the
after sink again.
At that sight, my presence of mind was restored;
and being much concerned that a young fellow, as
he appeared to be, should perish so miserably, I
rushed into the river, and being a good diver, had
but little trouble to fish him up, and drag him to
the shore. But I pulled him out a moment too
late; he was as dead as a herring, or appeared to
be; for his countenance was distorted, and blue as
an in digo-bag, and his mouth full of foam; a circumstance
which I regretted the more, as I no
sooner looked him in the face than I recognised
the features of my friend, if I may so call him, Mr.
I. Dulmer Dawkins.
As I was dragging the body to the shore, a carriage
came rattling along the road, which is there
so near to the river that those who were in it could
easily perceive the act in which I was engaged,
and they stopped it to give me assistance. It was
at that very moment that I discovered who it was
I was carrying; and I was so much surprised at
the discovery, that I cried out in a loud voice, “I.
D. Dawkins, by the Lord!”
There was immediately a great screaming in the
carriage, and out rushed my aristocratical neighbour,
Mr. Periwinkle Smith, with two young ladies,
one of whom was his daughter; and such an uproar
and lamentation as they made about me, were perhaps
never before made by so small a number of
genteel people, on any occasion. I was particularly
Smith, who seemed overcome by grief; and, as I
did not doubt she had an affection for the young
fellow, I wondered what folly could have driven
him into this act of suicide.
But my wonder was not very long-lived; the
cries of the two ladies had reached the inn, and
drawn every soul therein to the scene of disaster.
They came running towards us, and I saw that my
wife was among them.
I could maintain my equanimity no longer: in
the bitterness of my heart I muttered, almost aloud,
and as sincerely as I ever muttered any thing in
my life, “I would I were this addle-pate Dawkins,
were it only to be lying as much like a drowned
rat as he!”
I had not well grumbled the last word, before a
sudden fire flashed before my eyes, a loud noise
like the roar of falling water passed through my
head, and I lost all sensation and consciousness.
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