University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
The dénouement of the drama.

Why I was arrested, and at whose instance, I
knew not; I was too downcast and spirit-broken to
inquire. I had, doubtless, divers small debts due
to persons with whom I was accustomed to deal;
and it seemed to me natural enough, as all men
were ungrateful rascals, that all such persons, now
that I was known to be penniless, should fall upon
me without shame or mercy, demanding their dues.
I say I thought such a consummation was natural
enough, and I asked no questions of my captor. I
let my head drop upon my bosom, and, without resisting
or remonstrating, and looking neither to the
right nor the left, suffered him to conduct me whither
he would.

Our progress was rapid, our journey short; in a
few moments I found myself led into a house, and
ushered into a lighted apartment.

I looked up, to see into what alderman's hands
I had fallen. The reader may judge of my surprise,
amounting almost to consternation, when I
beheld myself in an elegant saloon, brilliantly lighted,
and surrounded by a dozen or more gayly-dressed
people of both sexes, among whom was my
friend Ebenezer Wild, and two or three others
whose countenances seemed familiar, but whom, in

my surprise and confusion, I did not immediately
recognise.

A maiden, beautiful as the morning, and smiling
as if her little heart was dancing out of her eyes,
ran from the throng, and seized me by the hands,
crying,—

“Now, uncle Zachariah, thee shall pay me what
thee owes me, or be turned over to some other
creditor!”

I looked upon her in astonishment, and began to
fancy I was in a dream.

“What!” said my friend Ebenezer, “don't you
know my little Ellen?” And thereupon he added
other expressions, but what they were I retain no
remembrance of, my wits being utterly amazed and
confounded.

To make my confusion still greater, the door
suddenly opened, and in rushed my nephew Jonathan,
dressed, like a dandy of the first water, in a
blue cloth coat with shining buttons, white trousers,
and satin waistcoat, and exclaiming “Bravo!” and
“Victoria!” as if a very demon of joy and exultation
possessed him. As soon as he beheld me he
ran forward, snatched one of my hands from the
maiden, and, dropping on his knees, cried, with a
comical look of contrition,—

“Forgive me all my sins, uncle Zachariah, and
I'll behave better for the future.”

“Oh thou ungrateful wretch!” said I, “how
canst thou look me in the face, having ruined me?”

“Don't say so!” cried Ellen Wild; “you don't
know how Jonathan has saved you.”

“The deuse he don't!” said Jonathan, jumping
up; “why then we've got the play all wrong. I
say, uncle, don't look so solemn and wrathful. You
are no more ruined than I am, and you are out of
the clutches of the harpy!”

“Haven't I been swindled?” said I.

“Unutterably!” said Jonathan; “but, as the
swindler has been swindled also, there's no great
harm done. Uncle Zachariah, a'n't you satisfied
Abel Snipe is a rascal?”

“I am,” said I; “but what shall I say of thee?”

“That I have broken the spell the villain cast
over your senses,” said Jonathan, “and so saved
you from the ruin your confidence invited him to
attempt. Uncle Zachariah, you think I am as bad
as Abel. Now listen to my story. I knew that
Abel Snipe was a rogue and hypocrite, but could
not make you believe it; I saw that he was daily
fleecing you of sums of money under pretence of
giving to the poor; that he was artfully goading
and inflaming your benevolence into a passion, nay,
into a monomania (for, uncle, everybody said you
were mad), for his own base purposes; and that,
sooner or later, he would strip you of every thing.
This I could not make you believe; I resolved you
should see it. I turned hypocrite myself, and began
to fleece you ten times harder than Abel. The
rogue was alarmed; he perceived I was ousting
him from his employment—that I had greater facilities
for cheating (having more of your affection)
than himself. His alarm, added to another feeling

which you shall hear all about, brought him into
the trap from which cautiousness at first secured
him. I convinced him I was as great a rogue as
himself, and he then agreed with me—yes, uncle,
formally agreed—to join in a plan to strip you of
fortune. We arranged the whole scheme from beginning
to end—the business, the speculations, the
bankruptcy. Abel was to play Sir Smash—his
reputation could stand it. The sums received from
you were to be handed over to me, and accounted
for as lost in bad speculations; to make which appear
straight, his books were filled with fictitious
sales and purchases, very ingeniously got up. After
the grand crash we were to make a division of
the plunder, he being content, honest man, to receive
one fourth, of which he considered himself
secure enough as long as I had any value for good
name or fear of the penitentiary. Now you may
wonder how such a cautious rogue could be so easily
gulled. Here stands the fairy,” said Jonathan,
pointing to the maid Ellen, “who dazzled the eyes
of his wisdom. Yes, uncle, would you believe it?
the impudent, the audacious fellow had the vanity
to think he had found favour in her eyes, at a time
when I had lost favour in those of her father. You
must know we had a coolness—that is, father Wild
and I; it was about you—that confounded philanthropy—but
we'll say nothing of that. I used to
communicate with Ellen by letter, and Abel was
often my Ganymede. Now, you must know, Ellen
is a coquette—'

“Fy, Jonathan!” said the damsel; “it was all
that vicious Abel's presumption and folly. Because
I was glad to see him, and treated him well, just
because he brought me letters—oh, the monster!
I soon saw what was running in his head!”

“Yes,” said Jonathan, “Ellen's a much smarter
girl than people suppose her.”

“Oh! you great Quaker bear!” said the maiden.

“Well,” continued Jonathan, “she boasted her
conquest, and then I saw I had the ogre by the
nose. It was this put me upon turning swindler;
I had a talk with father Wild, who approved my
plan, and Ellen agreed to cultivate Abel's good
opinion as far as a smile or two. We affected to
quarrel; I began to coquet with another, abusing
poor Ellen to Abel as hard as I could, until he was
persuaded the breach between us was incurable.
Ellen gave him a smile—her papa became condescending.
In a word, the rascal thought nothing
was wanting to make him the happiest man in the
world, save the one full fourth of his patron's estate,
and as much more as he could cheat me of.
Here was the rock upon which Abel split, and split
he has; he is now safe. The moment matters
came to a crisis, which was this afternoon, I ran to
a magistrate—my friend Jones there” (pointing to
an elderly gentleman who had entered with him),
“and made confession of our roguery; deposed the
whole matter; accused myself and Abel of conspiracy
to defraud, and so forth, and so forth; and
was admitted to the honourable privileges of evidence

for the commonwealth, and allowed to walk
about on bail, while my rascally colleague takes up
his lodgings in prison. There's the whole story;
I have exposed Snipe's rogueries, and secured his
conviction; and, what is equally agreeable, I have
saved your property. Here, uncle—you called me
a viper—I only wanted to make you believe I could
be ungrateful, as well as others. By-the-way, that
was a plan of father Wild's, to have your friends
refuse to assist you; they were let into the secret,
and I recommended you to apply to them. Here,
uncle, you'll see what a viper I am,” he continued,
a little impetuously; “here are the deeds for the
house; here is a roll of bank-notes I cheated you
of, to play the philanthropist; you will be surprised
at the amount, but I did spend some, I confess, for
there are wretches who deserve our charity. And
here, and here, and here you have the property out
of which Abel and I conspired to cheat you—at
least, the chief part of it; the rest we will soon get
possession of, having laid the villain in limbo.
Here, uncle Zachariah, take them, and be as philanthropic
as you please; we have no fear of you,
now your familiar is tied up; take your property,
and much good may it do you. As for me, I am
content to take Ellen—that is, if you have no objection.”

This was a turn of circumstances that confounded
me more than ever; and, verily, I knew not
whether I was standing on my head or feet. I
stood staring Jonathan in the face, without saying

a word, until the youth was seized with the idea
that the surprise of the thing had turned my wits;
at which, being alarmed, he took me again by the
hand, and said, with the tears in his eyes,—

“Oh, my dear uncle! do consider it is nothing
more than a joke, and that I never meant to offend
thee.”

“No,” said I, “thee did not. Therefore thee
shall have it all, and thee shall marry the maiden.”

And with that, being seized with uncommon
generosity, or perhaps not well knowing what I
did, I put into his hands the conveyance of the
house, the bank-bills, and other papers which he had
given me but a moment before, and turned to leave
the house.

“Stay, uncle—I am just going to be married,”
said he; and “Stay, Zachariah!” said a dozen others;
when some one suddenly calling out, “Let
him go; he is afraid of being turned out of meeting
if he witnesses the ceremony,” I was suffered
to obey the impulses of the spirit within me, and
walk out of the house; which I did without exactly
knowing what I was doing.

To tell the honest truth—as, indeed, I have been
trying to do all along—I was in a kind of maze and
bewilderment of mind, which the first shock of ruin
had produced, and which Jonathan's story rather
increased than diminished. The effect of this was
divided in my brain with the impression of the various
proofs of ingratitude and baseness to which

the day had given birth, the latter, however, being
greatly preponderant. Of one feeling only I had
entire consciousness, and that was a hearty disgust
of philanthropy, coupled with a sense of shame at
having been so basely cheated as I seemed to have
been on all sides. I had been cheated out of my
senses, as the saying is; and the only cure for me
was to be cheated into them again; which was not
an agreeable reflection, the whole affair being a reproach
on my good sense.

On the whole, I felt very melancholy and lugubrious,
and began to have my thoughts of leaving
Zachariah Longstraw's body at the first convenient
opportunity. The great difficulty was, however,
to find a tenement in which I might promise
myself content, the disappointment I had experienced
in my present adventure having filled me
with doubts as to the reality of any human happiness.
“At least,” said I to myself “I will henceforth
look before I leap. I will cast mine eyes
about me, I will gird up my loins and look abroad
into the human family, and peradventure I shall
find some man whose body is worth reanimating.
Yea, verily, I will next time be certain I am not
putting my soul, as the pickpocket did his hand,
into a sack of fish-hooks.”

With this resolution on my mind I walked
towards my house, and was just about to pass the
door, when an adventure befell me which knocked
the aforesaid resolution entirely on the head. But
before I relate it my conscience impels me to

make one remark, which I beg the reader, if he
be a man of fortune and blood, to peruse, without
excusing himself on the score of its dulness.