University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Lear.

“What means this outcry?” demanded the
young man, arresting the arm of an infuriated
soldier who was inflicting the blows; “by what
authority is this man thus abused?”

“By what authority dare you to lay hands on a
British grenadier!” cried the fellow, turning in
his fury, and raising his lash against the supposed
townsman. But when, as the officer stepped aside
to avoid the threatened indignity, the light of the
moon fell full upon his glittering dress, through
the opening folds of his cloak, the arm of the
brutal soldier was held suspended in air, with the
surprise of the discovery.

“Answer, I bid you,” continued the young officer,
his frame shaking with passion; “why is this
man tormented, and of what regiment are ye?”

“We belong to the grenadiers of the brave
47th, your honour,” returned one of the bystanders,
in a humble, deprecating tone, “and we was
just polishing this 'ere natural, because as he refuses
to drink the health of his majesty.”

“He's a scornful sinner, that don't fear his
Maker,” cried the man in duresse, eagerly bending

his face, down which big tears were rolling,
towards his protector. “Job loves the king,
but Job don't love rum!”

The officer turned away from the cruel spectacle,
as he bid the men untie their prisoner.
Knives and fingers were instantly put in requisition,
and the man was liberated, and suffered to
resume his clothes. During this operation, the
tumult and bustle which had so recently distinguished
the riotous scene, were succeeded by
a stillness that rendered the hard breathing of the
sufferer painfully audible.

“Now sirs, you heroes of the 47th!” said the
young man, when the victim of their rage was
again clad, “know you this button?” The soldier
to whom this question was more particularly
addressed, gazed at the extended arm, and, to his
vast discomfiture, he beheld the magical number
of his own regiment reposing on the well-known
white facings that decorated the rich scarlet of the
vestment. No one presumed to answer this appeal,
and after an impressive silence of a few moments,
he continued—

“Ye are noble supporters of the well-earned fame
of `Wolfe's own!' fit successors to the gallant men
who conquered under the walls of Quebec! away
with ye; to-morrow it shall be looked to.”

“I hope your honour will remember he refused
his majesty's health. I'm sure, sir, that if colonel
Nesbitt was here himself—

“Dog! do you dare to hesitate! go, while
you have permission to depart.”

The disconcerted soldiery, whose turbulence
had thus vanished, as if by enchantment, before
the frown of their superior, slunk away in a body,
a few of the older men whispering to their comrades
the name of the officer who had thus unexpectedly
appeared in the midst of them. The

angry eye of the young soldier followed their retiring
forms, while a man of them was visible;
after which, turning to an elderly citizen, who, supported
on a crutch, had been a spectator of the
scene, he asked—

“Know you the cause of the cruel treatment
this poor man has received? or what in any
manner has led to the violence?”

“The boy is weak,” returned the cripple;
“quite an innocent, who knows but little good, but
does no harm. The soldiers have been carousing
in yonder dram-shop, and they often get the poor
lad in with them, and sport with his infirmity. If
these sorts of doings an't checked, I fear much
trouble will grow out of them! Hard laws from
t'other side of the water, and tarring and feathering
on this, with gentlemen like colonel Nesbitt at their
head, will”—

“It is wisest for us, my friend, to pursue this
subject no further,” interrupted the officer; “I
belong myself to `Wolfe's own,' and will endeavour
to see justice done in the matter; as you
will credit, when I tell you that I am a Boston
boy. But though a native, a long absence has
obliterated the marks of the town from my memory;
and I am at a loss to thread these crooked
streets. Know you the dwelling of Mrs. Lechmere?”

“The house is well known to all in Boston,”
returned the cripple, in a voice sensibly altered by
the information that he was speaking to a townsman.
“Job, here, does but little else than run of
errands, and he will show you the way out of
gratitude; wont you Job?”

The idiot, for the vacant eye and unmeaning,
boyish countenance of the young man who had
just been liberated, but too plainly indicated that
he was to be included in that miserable class of
human beings, answered with a caution and reluctance

that were a little remarkable, considering
the recent circumstances.

“Ma'am Lechmere's! Oh! yes, Job knows
the way, and could go there blindfolded, if—if—”

“If what, you simpleton!” exclaimed the
zealous cripple.

“Why, if 'twas daylight.”

“Blindfolded, and daylight! do but hear the
silly child! come, Job, you must take this gentleman
to Tremont-street, without further words.
'Tis but just sundown, boy, and you can go there
and be home and in your bed before the Old
South strikes eight!”

“Yes; that all depends on which way you
go,” returned the reluctant changeling. “Now, I
know, neighbour Hopper, you couldn't go to
Ma'am Lechmere's in an hour, if you went along
Lynn-street, and so along Prince-street, and back
through Snow-Hill; and especially if you should
stop any time to look at the graves on Copps.”

“Pshaw! the fool is in one of his sulks now,
with his Copps-Hill, and the graves!” interrupted
the cripple, whose heart had warmed to his youthful
townsman, and who would have volunteered to
show the way himself, had his infirmities permitted
the exertion. “The gentleman must call the
grenadiers back, to bring the child to reason.”

“'Tis quite unnecessary to be harsh with the unfortunate
lad,” said the young soldier; “my recollections
will probably aid me as I advance; and
should they not, I can inquire of any passenger
I meet.”

“If Boston was what Boston has been, you
might ask such a question of a civil inhabitant, at
any corner,” said the cripple; “but it's rare to see
many of our people in the streets at this hour,
since the massacre. Besides, it is Saturday night,
you know; a fit time for these rioters to choose
for their revelries! For that matter, the soldiers

have grown more insolent than ever, since they have
met that disappointment about the cannon down
at Salem; but I needn't tell such as you what the
soldiers are when they get a little savage.”

“I know my comrades but indifferently well,
if their conduct to night be any specimen of their
ordinary demeanour, sir,” returned the officer;
“but follow, Meriton; I apprehend no great difficulty
in our path.”

The pliant valet lifted the cloak-bag he carried,
from the ground, and they were about to proceed,
when the natural edged himself in a sidelong, slovenly
manner, nigher to the gentleman, and looked
earnestly up in his face for a moment, where he
seemed to be gathering confidence, to say—“Job
will show the officer Ma'am Lechmere's. if the officer
wont let the grannies catch Job afore he gets off
the North End ag'in.”

“Ah!” said the young man, laughing, “there
is something of the cunning of a fool in that arrangement.
Well, I accept the conditions; but
beware how you take me to contemplate the graves
by moonlight, or I shall deliver you not only to
the grannies, but to the light infantry, artillery,
and all.”

With this good-natured threat, the officer followed
his nimble conductor, after taking a friendly
leave of the obliging cripple, who continued
his admonitions to the natural, not to wander from
the direct route, while the sounds of his voice
were audible to the retiring party. The progress
of his guide was so rapid as to require the young
officer to confine his survey of the narrow and
crooked streets through which they passed, to extremely
hasty and imperfect glances. No very
minute observation, however, was necessary to
perceive that he was led along one of the most
filthy and inferior sections of the town; and where,
notwithstanding his efforts, he found it impossible

to recall a single feature of his native place to his
remembrance. The complaints of Meriton, who
followed close at the heels of his master, were
loud and frequent, until the gentleman, a little
doubting the sincerity of his intractable conductor,
exclaimed—

“Have you nothing better than this to show a
townsman, who has been absent seventeen years,
on his return! Pray let us go through some better
streets than this, if any there are in Boston which
can be called better.”

The lad stopped short, and looked up in the
face of the speaker, for an instant, with an air of
undisguised amazement, and then, without replying,
be changed the direction of his route, and
after one or two more deviations in his path, suddenly
turning again, he glided up an alley, so narrow
that the passenger might touch the buildings
on either side of him. The officer besitated an
instant to enter this dark and crooked passage,
but perceiving that his guide was already hid by a
bend in the houses, he quickened his steps, and
immediately regained the ground he had lost.
They soon emerged from the obscurity of the
place, and issued on a street of greater width.

“There!” said Job, triumphantly, when they
had effected this gloomy passage, “does the king
live in so crooked and narrow a street as that!”

“His majesty must yield the point in your
favour,” returned the officer.

“Ma'am Lechmere is a grand lady!” continued
the lad, seemingly following the current of his
own fanciful conceits, “and she wouldn't live
in that alley for the world, though it is narrow,
like the road to heaven, as old Nab says; I suppose
they call it after the Methodies for that reason.”

“I have heard the road you mention termed
narrow, certainly, but it is also called strait,” returned

the officer, a little amused with the humour
of the lad; “but forward, the time is slipping
away, and we loiter.”

Again Job turned, and moving onward, he led
the way, with swift steps, along another narrow
and crooked path, which, however, better deserved
the name of a street, under the projecting stories
of the wooden buildings, which lined its sides.
After following the irregular windings of their
route for some distance, they entered a triangular
area, of a few rods in extent, where Job, disregarding
the use of the narrow walk, advanced directly
into the centre of the open space. Here he
stopped once more, and turning his vacant face
with an air of much seriousness, towards a building
which composed one side of the triangle, he said,
with a voice that expressed his own deep admiration—

“There—that's the `old North!' did you ever
see such a meetin'us' afore! does the king worship
God in such a temple!”

The officer did not chide the idle liberties of the
fool, for in the antiquated and quaint architecture
of the wooden edifice, he recognized one of those
early effort's of the simple, puritan builders, whose
rude tastes have been transmitted to their posterity
with so many deviations in the style of the same
school, but so little of improvement. Blended
with these considerations, were the dawnings of
revived recollections; and he smiled, as he recalled
the time when he also used to look up at the
building with feelings somewhat allied to the profound
admiration of the idiot. Job watched his
countenance narrowly, and easily mistaking its
expression, he extended his arm toward one of
the narrowest of the avenues that entered the
area, where stood a few houses of more than common
pretension.

“And there ag'in!” he continued, “there's
palaces for you! stingy Tommy lived in the one
with the pile-axters, and the flowers hanging to
their tops; and see the crowns on them too! stingy
Tommy loved crowns, they say; but Province'us'
wasn't good enough for him, and he lived
here—now they say he lives in one of the king's
cupboards!”

“And who was stingy Tommy, and what right
had he to dwell in Province-House, if he would?”

“What right has any governor to live in Province'us'!
because its the king's! though the
people paid for it.”

“Pray, sir, excuse me,” said Meriton, from
behind, “but do the Americans usually call all
their governors stingy Tommies?”

The officer turned his head, at this vapid question,
from his valet, and perceived that he had
been accompanied thus far by the aged stranger,
who stood at his elbow, leaning on his staff,
studying with close attention the late dwelling of
Hutchinson, while the light of the moon fell, unobstructed,
on the deep lines of his haggard face.
During the first surprise of this discovery, he forgot
to reply, and Job took the vindication of his
language into his own hands.

“To be sure they do—they call people by their
right names,” he said. “Insygn Peck is called
Insygn Peck; and you call Deacon Winslow any
thing but Deacon Winslow, and see what a look
he'll give you! and I am Job Pray, so called; and
why shouldn't a governor be called stingy Tommy,
if he is a stingy Tommy?”

“Be careful how you speak lightly of the king's
representative,” said the young officer, raising his
light cane with the affectation of correcting the
changeling.—“Forget you that I am a soldier?”

The idiot shrunk back a little, timidly, and then
leering from under his sunken brow, he answered—

“I heard you say you were a Boston boy!”

The gentleman was about to make a playful
reply, when the aged stranger passed swiftly before
him, and took his stand at the side of the
lad, with a manner so remarkable for its earnestness,
that it entirely changed the current of his
thoughts.

“The young man knows the ties of blood and
country,” the stranger muttered, “and I honour
him!”

It might have been the sudden recollection of
the danger of those allusions, which the officer so
well understood, and to which his accidental association
with the singular being who uttered them,
had begun to familiarize his ear, that induced the
youth to resume his walk, silently, and in deep
thought, along the street. By this movement, he
escaped observing the cordial grasp of the hand
which the old stranger bestowed on the idiot,
while he muttered a few more terms of commendation.
Job soon took his station in front, and the
whole party moved on, again, though with less
rapid strides. As the lad advanced deeper into
the town, he evidently wavered once or twice in
his choice of streets, and the officer began to suspect
that the changeling contemplated one of his
wild circuits, to avoid the direct route to a house
that he manifestly approached with great reluctance.
Once or twice the young soldier looked
about him, intending to inquire the direction, of
the first passenger he might see; but the quiet of
deep night already pervaded the place, and not an
individual but those who accompanied him, appeared
in the long ranges of streets they had passed.
The air of the guide was becoming so dogged,
and hesitating, that his follower had just determined
to make an application at one of the
doors, when they emerged from a dark, dirty, and
gloomy street, on an open space, of much greater

extent than the one they had so recently left. Passing
under the walls of a blackened dwelling, Job led
the way to the centre of a swinging bridge, which
was thrown across an inlet from the harbour, that
extended a short distance into the area, forming a
shallow dock. Here he took his stand, and allowed
the view of the surrounding objects to work its
own effect on those he had conducted thither. The
square was composed of rows of low, gloomy, and
irregular houses, most of which had the appearance
of being but little used. Stretching from the end of
the basin, and a little on one side, a long, narrow
edifice, ornamented with pilasters, perforated with
arched windows, and surmounted by a humble
cupola, reared its walls of brick, under the light
of the moon. The story which held the rows of
silent, glistening windows, was supported on abutments
and arches of the same material, through
the narrow vistas of which were to be seen the
shambles of the common market-place. Heavy
cornices of stone were laid above and beneath the
pilasters, and something more than the unskilful
architecture of the dwelling houses they had passed,
was affected throughout the whole structure.
While the officer gazed at this scene, the idiot
watched his countenance with a keenness exceeding
his usual observation, until impatient at hearing
no words of pleasure or of recognition, he exclaimed—

“If you don't know Funnel-Hall, you are no
Boston boy!”

“But I do know Fanueil-Hall, and I am a Boston
boy,” returned the amused gentleman; “the
place begins to freshen on my memory, and I now
recall the scenes of my childhood.”

“This, then,” said the aged stranger, “is the spot
where liberty has found so many bold advocates!”

“It would do the king's heart good to hear the
people talk in old Funnel, sometimes,” said Job;

“I was on the cornishes, and looked into the winders,
the last town-meetin'-da', and if there was
soldiers on the common, there was them in the hall
that did'nt care for them!”

“All this is very amusing, no doubt,” said the
officer, gravely, “but it does not advance me a
foot on my way to Mrs. Lechmere's.”

“It is also instructing,” exclaimed the stranger;
“go on, child; I love to hear his simple feelings
thus expressed; they indicate the state of the public
mind.”

“Why,” said Job, “they were plain spoken,
that's all, and it would be better for the king to
come over, and hear them—it would pull down
his pride, and make him pity the people, and then
he wouldn't think of shutting up Boston harbour.
Suppose he should stop the water from coming in
by the narrows, why we should get it by Broad
Sound! and if it didn't come by Broad Sound, it
would by Nantasket! He needn't think that the
Boston folks are so dumb as to be cheated out of
God's water by acts of Parliament, while old Funnel
stands in the dock square!”

“Sirrah!” exclaimed the officer, a little angrily,
“we have already loitered until the clocks
are striking eight.”

The idiot lost his animation, and lowered in
his looks again, as he answered—

“Well, I told neighbour Hopper there was
more ways to ma'am Lechmere's than straight
forward! but every body knows Job's business
better than Job himself! now you make me forget
the road; let us go in and ask old Nab, she
knows the way too well!”

“Old Nab! you wilful dolt! who is Nab, and
what have I to do with any but yourself?”

“Every body in Boston knows Abigail Pray.”

“What of her?” asked the startling voice

of the stranger; “what of Abigail Pray, boy; is
she not honest?”

“Yes, as poverty can make her,” returned the
natural, gloomily; “now the king has said there
shall be no goods but tea sent to Boston, and the
people won't have the bohea, its easy living rentfree.—Nab
keeps her huckster-stuff in the old
ware'us', and a good place it is too—Job and
his mother have each a room to sleep in, and they
say the king and queen haven't more!”

While he was speaking, the eyes of his listeners
were drawn by his gestures toward the singular
edifice to which he alluded. Like most of the
others adjacent to the square, it was low, old,
dirty, and dark. Its shape was triangular, a
street bounding it on each side, and its extremities
were flanked by as many low hexagonal towers,
which terminated, like the main building itself, in
high pointed roofs, tiled, and capped with rude ornaments.
Long ranges of small windows were to
be seen in the dusky walls, through one of which
the light of a solitary candle was glimmering, the
only indication of the presence of life about the
silent and gloomy building.

“Nab knows ma'am Lechmere better than
Job,” continued the idiot, after a moment's pause,
“and she will know whether ma'am Lechmere will
have Job whipped for bringing company on Saturday-night;
though they say she's so full of scoffery
as to talk, drink tea, and laugh on that night,
just the same as any other time.”

“I will pledge myself to her courteous treatment,”
the officer replied, beginning to be weary of
the fool's delay.

“Let us see this Abigail Pray,” cried the aged
stranger, suddenly seizing Job by the arm, and leading
him, with a sort of irresistible power, toward
the walls of the building, through one of the low
doors of which they immediately disappeared.

Thus left on the bridge, with his valet, the young
officer hesitated a single instant how to act; but
yielding to the secret and powerful interest which
the stranger had succeeded in throwing around all
his movements and opinions, he bid Meriton await
his return, and followed his guide and the old
man into the cheerless habitation of the former.
On passing the outer door he found himself in a
spacious, but rude apartment, which, from its appearance,
as well as from the few articles of heavy
but valueless merchandise it now contained, would
seem to have been used once as a store-house.
The light drew his steps toward a room in one of
the towers, where, as he approached its open door,
he heard the loud, sharp tones of a woman's voice,
exclaiming—

“Where have you been, graceless, this Saturday-night!
tagging at the heels of the soldiers,
or gazing at the men-of-war, with their ungodly
fashions of music and revelry at such a time, I
dare to say! and you knew that a ship was in the
bay, and that madam Lechmere had desired me
to send her the first notice of its arrival. Here
have I been waiting for you to go up to Tremont-street
since sun-down, with the news, and you are
out of call—you, that know so well who it is she
expects!”

“Don't be cross to Job, mother, for the grannies
have been cutting his back with cords, till the blood
runs! ma'am Lechmere! I do believe, mother, that
ma'am Lechmere has moved; for I've been trying
to find her house this hour, because there's a gentleman
who landed from the ship wanted Job to
show him the way.”

“What means the ignorant boy!” exclaimed
his mother.

“He alludes to me,” said the officer, entering
the apartment; “I am the person, if any, expected

by Mrs. Lechmere, and have just landed from the
Avon, of Bristol; but your son has led me a circuitous
path, indeed; at one time he spoke of
visiting the graves on Copps-Hill.”

“Excuse the ignorant and witless child, sir,” exclaimed
the matron, eyeing the young man keenly
through her spectacles; “he knows the way as
well as to his own bed, but he is wilful at times.
This will be a joyful night in Tremont-street!
So handsome, and so stately too! excuse me,
young gentleman,” she added, raising the candle
to his features with an evident unconsciousness of
the act—“he has the sweet smile of the mother,
and the terrible eye of his father! God forgive us
all our sins, and make us happier in another world
than in this place of evil and wickedness!” As
she muttered the latter words, the woman set aside
her candle with an air of singular agitation.
Each syllable, notwithstanding her secret intention,
was heard by the officer, across whose countenance
there passed a sudden gloom that doubled
its sad expression. He, however, said—

“You know me, and my family, then.”

“I was at your birth, young gentleman, and
a joyful birth it was! but madam Lechmere
waits for the news, and my unfortunate child
shall speedily conduct you to her door; she will
tell you all that it is proper to know. Job, you
Job, where are you getting to, in that corner!
take your hat, and show the gentleman to Tremont-street
directly; you know, my son, you
love to go to madam Lechmere's!”

“Job would never go, if Job could help it,”
muttered the sullen boy; “and if Nab had never
gone, 'twould have been better for her soul.”

“Do you dare, disrespectful viper!” exclaimed
the angry quean, seizing, in the violence of

her fury, the tongs, and threatening the head of
her stubborn child.

“Woman, peace!” said a voice behind.

The dangerous weapon fell from the nerveless
hand of the vixen, and the hues of her yellow
and withered countenance changed to the whiteness
of death. She stood motionless, for near a
minute, as if riveted to the spot by a superhuman
power, before she succeeded in muttering,
“who speaks to me?”

“It is I,” returned the stranger, advancing
from the shadow of the door into the dim light
of the candle; “a man who has numbered ages,
and who knows, that as God loves him, so is
he bound to love the children of his loins.”

The rigid limbs of the woman lost their stability,
in a tremour that shook every fibre in
her body; she sunk in her chair, and her eyes
rolled from the face of one visiter to that of
the other, while her unsuccessful efforts to utter.
denoted that she had temporarily lost the command
of speech. Job stole to the side of the
stranger, in this short interval, and looking up
in his face piteously, he said—

“Don't hurt old Nab—read that good saying
to her out of the Bible, and she'll never strike
Job with the tongs ag'in; will you, mother?
See her cup, where she hid it under the towel,
when you came in! ma'am Lechmere gives her
the p'ison tea to drink, and then Nab is never
so good to Job, as Job would be to mother, if
mother was half-witted, and Job was old Nab.”

The stranger considered the moving countenance
of the boy, while he pleaded thus earnestly
in behalf of his mother, with marked attention,
and when he had done, he stroked the
head of the natural compassionately, and said—

“Poor, imbecile child! God has denied the
most precious of his gifts, and yet his spirit
hovers around thee; for thou canst distinguish between
austerity and kindness, and thou hast learnt
to know good from evil. Young man, see you no
moral in this dispensation! Nothing, which says
that Providence bestows no gift in vain; while
it points to the difference between the duty that
is fostered by indulgence, and that which is extorted
by power!”

The officer avoided the ardent looks of the
stranger, and after an embarrassing pause of a
moment, he expressed his readiness, to the reviving
woman, to depart on his way. The matron,
whose eye had never ceased to dwell on
the features of the old man, since her faculties
were restored, arose slowly, and in a feeble voice,
directed her son to show the road to Tremont-street.
She had acquired, by long practice, a
manner that never failed to control, when necessary,
the wayward humours of her child, and
on the present occasion, the unwonted solemnity
imparted to her voice, by deep agitation, aided
in effecting her object. Job quietly arose, and
prepared himself to comply. The manners of
the whole party wore a restraint which implied
they had touched on feelings that it would
be wiser to smother, and the separation would
have been silent, though courteous, on the part
of the youth, had he not perceived the passage
still filled by the motionless form of the stranger.”

“You will precede me, sir,” he said; “the
hour grows late, and you, too, may need a
guide to find your dwelling.”

“To me, the streets of Boston have long been
familiar,” returned the old man. “I have noted
the increase of the town as a parent notes the
increasing stature of his child; nor is my love

for it less than paternal. It is enough that I am
within its limits, where liberty is prized as the
greatest good; and it matters not under what
roof I lay my head—this will do as well as another.”

“This!” echoed the other, glancing his eyes
over the miserable furniture, and scanning the air
of poverty that pervaded the place; “why this
house has even less of comfort than the ship we
have left!”

“It has enough for my wants,” said the stranger,
seating himself with composure, and deliberately
placing his bundle by his side. “Go you to your
palace, in Tremont-street: it shall be my care
that we meet again.”

The officer understood the character of his
companion too well to hesitate, and bending low,
he quitted the apartment, leaving the other leaning
his head on his cane, in absent musing, while the
amazed matron was gazing at her unexpected
guest, with a wonder that was not unmingled
with dread.