The redskins, or, Indian and Injin being the conclusion of the Littlepage manuscripts |
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 | CHAPTER IV. The redskins, or, Indian and Injin |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
“Speak, speak.”
1 Cit.
“You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?”
Cit.
“Resolved, resolved.”
1 Cit.
“First you know, Caius Marcus is chief enemy to the
people.”
Cit.
“We know 't, we know 't.”
1 Cit.
“Let 's kill him, and we 'll have corn at our own price.
Is 't a verdict?”
Coriolonus.
The most inveterate Mauhattanese, if he be anything of
a man of the world, must confess that New York is, after
all, but a Rag-Fair sort of a place, so far as the eye is concerned.
I was particularly struck with this fact, even at
that hour, as we went stumbling along over an atrociously
bad side-walk, my eyes never at rest, as any one can imagine,
after five years of absence. I could not help noting
the incongruities; the dwellings of marble, in close proximity
with miserable, low constructions in wood; the
wretched pavements, and, above all, the country air, of a
town of near four hundred thousand souls. I very well
know that many of the defects are to be ascribed to the
rapid growth of the place, which gives it a sort of hobbledehoy
look; but, being a Manhattanese by birth, I thought
I might just as well own it all, at once, if it were only for
the information of a particular portion of my townsmen,
As for comparing the Bay of New York with that of Naples
on the score of beauty, I shall no more be guilty of any
such folly, to gratify the cockney feelings of Broadway and
Bond street, than I should be guilty of the folly of comparing
the commerce of the ancient Parthenope with that of
old New York, in order to excite complacency in the bosom
of some bottegajo in the Toledo, or on the Chiaja. Our
fast-growing Manhattan is a great town in its way—a wonderful
place—without a parallel, I do believe, on earth, as a
proof of enterprise and of the accumulation of business;
and it is not easy to make such a town appear ridiculous by
any jibes and innuendoes that relate to the positive things of
this world, though nothing is easier than to do it for itself
by setting up to belong to the sisterhood of such places as
London, Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. There is too
much of the American notion of the omnipotence of numbers
among us Manhattanese, which induces us to think that
the higher rank in the scale of places is to be obtained by
majorities. No, no; let us remember the familiar axiom
of “ne sutor ultra crepidum.” New York is just the queen
of “business,” but not yet the queen of the world. Every
man who travels ought to bring back something to the common
stock of knowledge; and I shall give a hint to my
townsmen, by which I really think they may be able to tell
for themselves, as by feeling a sort of moral pulse, when
the town is rising to the level of a capital. When simplicity
takes the place of pretension, is one good rule; but, as
it may require a good deal of practice, or native taste, to
ascertain this fact, I will give another that is obvious to the
senses, which will at least be strongly symptomatic; and
that is this: When squares cease to be called parks; when
horse-bazaars and fashionable streets are not called Tattersalls
and Bond street; when Washington Market is rechristened
Bear Market, and Franklin and Fulton and other
great philosophers and inventors are plucked of the unmerited
honours of having shambles named after them; when
commercial is not used as a prefix to emporium; when people
can return from abroad without being asked “if they
are reconciled to their country,” and strangers are not
interrogated at the second question, “how do you like our
to go alone, and that it may set up for itself.
Although New York is, out of all question, decidedly
provincial, labouring under the peculiar vices of provincial
habits and provincial modes of thinking, it contains many
a man of the world, and some, too, who have never quitted
their own firesides. Of this very number was the Jack
Dunning, as my uncle Ro called him, to whose house in
Chamber street we were now proceeding.
“If we were going anywhere but to Dunning's,” said my
uncle, as we turned out of Greenwich street, “I should
have no fear of being recognised by the servants; for no
one here thinks of keeping a man six months. Dunning,
however, is of the old school, and does not like new faces;
so he will have no Irishman at his door, as is the case with
two out of three of the houses at which one calls, now-a-days.”
In another minute we were at the bottom of Mr. Dunning's
“stoup”—what an infernal contrivance it is to get in
and out at the door by, in a hotty-cold climate like ours!—
but, there we were, and I observed that my uncle hesitated.
“Parlez au Suisse,” said I; “ten to one he is fresh
from some Bally-this, or Bally-that.”
“No, no; it must be old Garry the nigger”—my uncle
Ro was of the old school himself, and would say “nigger”—
“Jack can never have parted with Garry.”
“Garry” was the diminutive of Garret, a somewhat common
Dutch christian name among us.
We rang, and the door opened—in about five minutes.
Although the terms “aristocrat” and “aristocracy” are
much in men's mouths in America just now, as well as those
of “feudal” and the “middle ages,” and this, too, as applied
to modes of living as well as to leasehold tenures, there is
but one porter in the whole country; and he belongs to the
White House, at Washington. I am afraid even that personage,
royal porter as he is, is often out of the way; and
the reception he gives when he is there, is not of the most
brilliant and princely character. When we had waited three
minutes, my uncle Ro said—
“I am afraid Garry is taking a nap by the kitchen-fire;
I 'll try him again.”
Uncle Ro did try again, and, two minutes later, the door
opened.
“What is your pleasure?” demanded the Suisse, with a
strong brogue.
My uncle started back as if he had met a sprite; but he
asked if Mr. Dunning was at home.
“He is, indeed, sir.”
“Is he alone, or is he with company?”
“He is, indeed.”
“But what is he, indeed?”
“He is that.”
“Can you take the trouble to explain which that it is?
Has he company, or is he alone?”
“Just that, sir. Walk in, and he 'll be charmed to see
you. A fine gentleman is his honour, and pleasure it is to
live with him, I 'm sure!”
“How long is it since you left Ireland, my friend?”
“Isn't it a mighty bit, now, yer honour!” answered Barney,
closing the door. “T'irteen weeks, if it 's one day.”
“Well, go ahead, and show us the way. This is a bad
omen, Hugh, to find that Jack Dunning, of all men in the
country, should have changed his servant—good, quiet, lazy,
respectable, old, grey-headed Garry the nigger—for such a
bogtrotter as that fellow, who climbs those stairs as if accustomed
only to ladders.”
Dunning was in his library on the second floor, where he
passed most of his evenings. His surprise was equal to
that which my uncle had just experienced, when he saw us
two standing before him. A significant gesture, however,
caused him to grasp his friend and client's hand in silence;
and nothing was said until the Swiss had left the room,
although the fellow stood with the door in his hand a most
inconvenient time, just to listen to what might pass between
the host and his guests. At length we got rid of him,
honest, well-meaning fellow that he was, after all; and the
door was closed.
“My last letters have brought you home, Roger?” said
Jack, the moment he could speak; for feeling, as well as
caution, had something to do with his silence.
“They have, indeed. A great change must have come
over the country, by what I hear; and one of the very
got an Irishman in his place.”
“Ah! old men must die, as well as old principles, I find.
My poor fellow went off in a fit last week, and I took that
Irishman as a pis aller. After losing poor Garry, who was
born a slave in my father's house, I became indifferent, and
accepted the first comer from the intelligence office.”
“We must be careful, Dunning, not to give up too soon.
But hear my story, and then to other matters.”
My uncle then explained his wish to be incognito, and his
motive. Dunning listened attentively, but seemed uncertain
whether to dissent or approve. The matter was discussed
briefly, and then it was postponed for further consideration.
“But how comes on this great moral dereliction, called
anti-rentism? Is it on the wane, or the increase?”
“On the wane, to the eye, perhaps; but on the increase,
so far as principles, the right, and facts, are concerned.
The necessity of propitiating votes is tempting politicians of
all sides to lend themselves to it; and there is imminent
danger now that atrocious wrongs will be committed under
the form of law.”
“In what way can the law touch an existing contract?
The Supreme Court of the United States will set that right.”
“That is the only hope of the honest, let me tell you.
It is folly to expect that a body composed of such men as
usually are sent to the State Legislature, can resist the
temptation to gain power by conciliating numbers. That is
out of the question. Individuals of these bodies may resist;
but the tendency there will be as against the few, and in
favour of the many, bolstering their theories by clap-traps
and slang political phrases. The scheme to tax the rents,
under the name of quit-rents, will be restored to, in the first
place.”
“That will be a most iniquitous proceeding, and would
justify resistance just as much as our ancestors were justified
in resisting the taxation of Great Britain.”
“It would more so, for here we have a written convenant
to render taxation equal. The landlord already pays one
tax on each of these farms—a full and complete tax, that
is reserved from the rent in the original bargain with the
tenant; and now the wish is to tax the rents themselves;
wanted, but most clearly with a design to increase the inducements
for the landlords to part with their property. If
that can be done, the sales will be made on the principle
that none but the tenant must be, as indeed no one else can
be, the purchaser; and then we shall see a queer exhibition—
men parting with their property under the pressure of a
clamour that is backed by as much law as can be pressed
into its service, with a monopoly of price on the side of the
purchaser, and all in a country professing the most sensitive
love of liberty, and where the prevailing class of politicians
are free-trade men!”
“There is no end of these inconsistencies among politicians.”
“There is no end of knavery when men submit to
`noses,' instead of principles. Call things by their right
names, Ro, as they deserve to be. This matter is so plain,
that he who runs can read.”
“But will this scheme of taxation succeed? It does not
affect us, for instance, as our leases are for three lives.”
“Oh! that is nothing; for you they contemplate a law
that will forbid the letting of land, for the future, for a period
longer than five years. Hugh's leases will soon be
falling in, and then he can't make a slave of any man for a
longer period than five years.”
“Surely no one is so silly as to think of passing such a
law, with a view to put down aristocracy, and to benefit the
tenant!” I cried, laughing.
“Ay, you may laugh, young sir,” resumed Jack Dunning;
“but such is the intention. I know very well what
will be your course of reasoning; you will say, the longer
the lease, the better for the tenant, if the bargain be reasonably
good; and landlords cannot ask more for the use of
their lands than they are really worth in this country, there
happening to be more land than there are men to work it.
No, no; landlords rather get less for their lands than they
are worth, instead of more, for that plain reason. To compel
the tenant to take a lease, therefore, for a term as short
as five years, is to injure him, you think; to place him
more at the control of his landlord, through the little interests
connected with the cost and trouble of moving, and
he has seeded, and to get the full benefit of manure
he has made and carted. I see how you reason, young sir;
but you are behind the age—you are sadly behind the age.”
“The age is a queer one, if I am! All over the world it
is believed that long leases are favours, or advantages, to
tenants; and nothing can make it otherwise, cœteris paribus.
Then what good will the tax do, after violating right
and moral justice, if not positive law, to lay it? On a hundred
dollars of rent, I should have to pay some fifty-five
cents of taxes, as I am assessed on other things at Ravensnest;
and does anybody suppose I will give up an estate
that has passed through five generations of my family, on
account of a tribute like that!”
“Mighty well, sir—mighty well, sir! This is fine talk;
but I would advise you not to speak of your ancestors at all.
Landlords can't name their ancestors with impunity just
now.”
“I name mine only as showing a reason for a natural
regard for my paternal acres.”
“That you might do, if you were a tenant; but not as a
landlord. In a landlord, it is aristocratic and intolerable
pride, and to the last degree offensive—as Dogberry says,
`tolerable and not to be endured.”'
“But it is a fact, and it is natural one should have some
feelings connected with it.”
“The more it is a fact, the less it will be liked. People
associate social position with wealth and estates, but not
with farms; and the longer one has such things in a family,
the worse for them!”
“I do believe, Jack,” put in my uncle Ro, “that the rule
which prevails all over the rest of the world is reversed
here, and that with us it is thought a family's claim is lessened,
and not increased, by time.”
“To be sure it is!” answered Dunning, without giving
me a chance to speak. “Do you know that you wrote me
a very silly letter once, from Switzerland, about a family
called de Blonay, that had been seated on the same rock, in
a little castle, some six or eight hundred years, and the sort
of respect and veneration the circumstance awakened?
Well, all that was very foolish, as you will find when you
the result of your schooling; but, go to school.”
“As the Rensselaers and other great landlords, who have
estates on durable leases, will not be very likely to give
them up, except on terms that will suit themselves, for a tax
as insignificant as that mentioned by Hugh,” said my uncle,
“what does the legislature anticipate from passing the law?”
“That its members will be called the friends of the people,
and not the friends of the landlords. Would any man
tax his friends, if he could help it?”
“But what will that portion of the people who compose
the anti-renters gain by such a measure?”
“Nothing; and their complaints will be just as loud, and
their longings as active, as ever. Nothing that can have
any effect on what they wish, will be accomplished by any
legislation in the matter. One committee of the assembly
has actually reported, you may remember, that the State
might assume the lands, and sell them to the tenants, or
some one else; or something of the sort.”
“The constitution of the United States must be Hugh's
ægis.”
“And that alone will protect him, let me tell you. But
for that noble provision of the constitution of the Federal
Government, his estate would infallibly go for one-half its
true value. There is no use in mincing things, or in affecting
to believe men more honest than they are—AN INFERNAL
FEELING OF SELFISHNESS IS SO MUCH TALKED OF, AND
CITED, AND REFERRED TO, ON ALL OCCASIONS, IN THIS
COUNTRY, THAT A MAN ALMOST RENDERS HIMSELF RIDICULOUS
WHO APPEARS TO REST ON PRINCIPLE.”
“Have you heard what the tenants of Ravensnest aim
at, in particular?”
“They want to get Hugh's lands, that 's all; nothing
more, I can assure you.”
“On what conditions, pray?” demanded I.
“As you `light of chaps,' to use a saying of their own.
Some even profess a willingness to pay a fair price.”
“But I do not wish to sell for even a fair price. I have
no desire to part with property that is endeared to me by
family feeling and association. I have an expensive house
and establishment on my estate, which obtains its principal
look after my interests with the least inconvenience to myself.
What can I do with the money but buy another
estate? and I prefer this that I have.”
“Poh! boy, you can shave notes, you 'll recollect,” said
uncle Ro, drily. “The calling is decided to be honourable
by the highest tribunal; and no man should be above his
business.”
“You have no right, sir, in a free country,” returned the
caustic Jack Dunning, “to prefer one estate to another,
more especially when other people want it. Your lands are
leased to honest, hard-working tenants, who can eat their
dinners without silver forks, and whose ancestors—”
“Stop!” I cried, laughing; “I bar all ancestry. No
man has a right to ancestry in a free country, you 'll remember!”
“That means landlord-ancestry; as for tenant-ancestry,
one can have a pedigree as long as the Maison de Levis.
No, sir; every tenant you have has every right to demand
that his sentiment of family feeling should be respected.
His father planted that orchard, and he loves the apples
better than any other apples in the world—”
“And my father procured the grafts, and made him a
present of them.”
“His grandfather cleared that field, and converted its
ashes into pots and pearls—”
“And my grandfather received that year ten shillings of
rent, for land off which his received two hundred and fifty
dollars for his ashes.”
“His great-grandfather, honest and excellent man—nay,
super-honest and confiding creature—first `took up' the land
when a wilderness, and with his own hands felled the timber,
and sowed the wheat.”
“And got his pay twenty-fold for it all, or he would not
have been fool enough to do it. I had a great-grandfather,
too; and I hope it will not be considered aristocratic if I
venture to hint as much. He—a dishonest, pestilent knave,
no doubt—leased that very lot for six years without any
rent at all, in order that the `poor, confiding creature' might
make himself comfortable, before he commenced paying his
sixpence or shilling an acre rent for the remainder of three
most liberal terms known to a new country; and who
knew, the whole time, he could buy land in fee, within ten
miles of his door, but who thought this a better bargain than
that.”
“Enough of this folly,” cried uncle Ro, joining in the
laugh; “we all know that, in our excellent America, he
who has the highest claims to anything, must affect to have
the least, to stifle the monster envy; and, being of one mind
as to principles, let us come to facts. What of the girls,
Jack, and of my honoured mother?”
“She, noble, heroic woman! she is at Ravensnest at this
moment; and, as the girls would not permit her to go alone,
they are all with her.”
“And did you, Jack Dunning, suffer them to go unattended
into a part of the country that is in open rebellion?”
demanded my uncle, reproachfully.
“Come, come! Hodge Littlepage, this is very sublime as
a theory, but not so clear when reduced to practice. I did
not go with Mrs. Littlepage and her young fry, for the good
and substantial reason that I did not wish to be `tarred and
feathered.”'
“So you leave them to run the risk of being `tarred and
feathered' in your stead?”
“Say what you will about the cant of freedom that is
becoming so common among us, and from which we were
once so free; say what you will, Ro, of the inconsistency
of those who raise the cry of `feudality,' and `aristocracy,'
and `nobility,' at the very moment they are manifesting a
desire for exclusive rights and privileges in their own persons;
say what you will of dishonesty, envy, that prominent
American vice, knavery, convetousness, and selfishness;
and I will echo all you can utter;—but do not say that a
woman can be in serious danger among any material body
of Americans, even if anti-renters, and mock-redskins in the
bargain.”
“I believe you are right there, Jack, on reflection. Pardon
my warmth; but I have lately been living in the old
world, and in a country in which women were not long
since carried to the scaffold on account of their politics.”
“Because they meddled with politics. Your mother is in
able to think so. There are few women in the State, and
fewer of her time of life anywhere, that would do what she
has done; and I give the girls great credit for sticking by
her. Half the young men in town are desperate at the
thought of three such charming creatures thus exposing
themselves to insult. Your mother has only been sued.”
“Sued! Whom does she owe, or what can she have
done to have brought this indignity on her?”
“You know, or ought to know, how it is in this country,
Littlepage; we must have a little law, even when most bent
on breaking it. A downright, straight-forward rascal, who
openly sets law at defiance, is a wonder. Then we have a
great talk of liberty when plotting to give it the deepest
stab; and religion even gets to share in no small portion of
our vices. Thus it is that the anti-renters have dragged in
the law in aid of their designs. I understand one of the
Rensselaers has been sued for money borrowed in a ferry-boat
to help him across a river under his own door, and for
potatoes bought by his wife in the streets of Albany!”
“But neither of the Rensselaers need borrow money to
cross the ferry, as the ferry-men would trust him; and no
lady of the Rensselaer family ever bought potatoes in the
streets of Albany, I 'll answer for it.”
“You have brought back some knowledge from your
travels, I find!” said Jack Dunning, with comic gravity.
“Your mother writes me that she has been sued for twenty-seven
pairs of shoes furnished her by a shoemaker whom
she never saw, or heard of, until she received the summons!”
“This, then, is one of the species of annoyances that
has been adopted to bully the landlords out of their property?”
“It is; and if the landlords have recourse even to the
covenants of their leases, solemnly and deliberately made,
and as solemnly guarantied by a fundamental law, the cry
is raised of `aristocracy' and `oppression' by these very
men, and echoed by many of the creatures who get seats
in high places among us—or what would be high places, if
filled with men worthy of their trusts.”
“I see you do not mince your words, Jack.”
“Why should I? Words are all that is left me. I am
of no more weight in the government of this State than that
Irishman, who let you in just now, will be, five years hence
—less, for he will vote to suit a majority; and, as I shall
vote understandingly, my vote will probably do no one any
good.”
Dunning belonged to a school that mingles a good deal
of speculative and impracticable theory, with a great deal
of sound and just principles; but who render themselves
useless because they will admit of no compromises. He did
not belong to the class of American doctrinaires, however,
or to those who contend—no, not contend, for no one does
that any longer in this country, whatever may be his opinion
on the subject—but those who think that political power, as
in the last resort, should be the property of the few; for he
was willing New York should have a very broad constituency.
Nevertheless, he was opposed to the universal suffrage,
in its wide extent, that does actually exist; as I suppose
quite three-fourths of the whole population are opposed
to it, in their hearts, though no political man of influence,
now existing, has the moral calibre necessary to take the
lead in putting it down. Dunning deferred to principles,
and not to men. He well knew that an infallible whole was
not to be composed of fallible parts; and while he thought
majorities ought to determine many things, that there are
rights and principles that are superior to even such unanimity
as man can manifest, and much more to their majorities.
But Dunning had no selfish views connected with his
political notions, wanting no office, and feeling no motive to
affect that which he neither thought nor wished. He never
had quitted home, or it is highly probable his views of the
comparative abuses of the different systems that prevail in
the world would have been essentially modified. Those he
saw had unavoidably a democratic source, there being neither
monarch nor aristocrat to produce any other; and,
under such circumstances, as abuses certainly abound, it is
not at all surprising that he sometimes a little distorted facts,
and magnified evils.
“And my noble, high-spirited, and venerable mother has
actually gone to the Nest to face the enemy!” exclaimed my
uncle, after a thoughtful pause.
“She has, indeed; and the noble, high-spirited, though
not venerable, young ladies have gone with her,” returned
Mr. Dunning, in his caustic way.
“All three, do you mean?”
“Every one of them—Martha, Henrietta, and Anne.”
“I am surprised that the last should have done so. Anne
Marston is such a meek, quiet, peace-loving person, that I
should think she would have preferred remaining, as she
naturally might have done, without exciting remark, with
her own mother.”
“She has not, nevertheless. Mrs. Littlepage would brave
the anti-renters, and the three maidens would be her companions.
I dare say, Ro, you know how it is with the
gentle sex, when they make up their minds?”
“My girls are all good girls, and have given me very
little trouble,” answered my uncle, complacently.
“Yes, I dare say that may be true. You have only been
absent from home five years, this trip.”
“An attentive guardian, notwithstanding, since I left you
as a substitute. Has my mother written to you since her
arrival among the hosts of the Philistines?”
“She has, indeed, Littlepage,” answered Dunning, gravely;
“I have heard from her three times, for she writes to
urge my not appearing on the estate. I did intend to pay
her a visit; but she tells me that it might lead to a violent
scene, and can do no good. As the rents will not be due
until autumn, and Master Hugh is now of age and was to
be here to look after his own affairs, I have seen no motive
for incurring the risk of the tarring and feathering. We
American lawyers, young gentleman, wear no wigs.”
“Does my mother write herself, or employ another?”
inquired my uncle, with interest.
“She honours me with her own hand. Your mother
writes much better than you do yourself, Roger.”
“That is owing to her once having carried chain, as she
would say herself. Has Martha written to you?”
“Of course. Sweet little Patty and I are bosom friends,
as you know.”
“And does she say anything of the Indian and the
negro?”
“Jaaf and Susquesus? To be sure she does. Both are
ate of their venison, so lately as last winter.”
“Those old fellows must have each lived a great deal
more than his century, Jack. They were with my grandfather
in the old French war, as active, useful men—older,
then, than my grandfather!”
“Ay! a nigger or a redskin, before all others, for holding
on to life, when they have been temperate. Let me see—
that expedition of Abercrombie's was about eighty years
since; why, these fellows must be well turned of their hundred,
though Jaap is rather the oldest, judging from appearances.”
“I believe no one knows the age of either. A hundred
each has been thought, now, for many years. Susquesus
was surprisingly active, too, when I last saw him—like a
healthy man of eighty.”
“He has failed of late, though he actually shot a deer, as
I told you, last winter. Both the old fellows stray down to
the Nest, Martha writes me; and the Indian is highly scandalized
at the miserable imitations of his race that are now
abroad. I have even heard that he and Yop have actually
contemplated taking the field against them. Seneca Newcome
is their especial aversion.”
“How is Opportunity?” I inquired. “Does she take any
part in this movement?”
“A decided one, I hear. She is anti-rent, while she
wishes to keep on good terms with her landlord; and that
is endeavouring to serve God and Mammon. She is not
the first, however, by a thousand, that wears two faces in
this business.”
“Hugh has a deep admiration of Opportunity,” observed
my uncle, “and you had needs be tender in your strictures.
The modern Seneca, I take it, is dead against us?”
“Seneky wishes to go to the legislature, and of course he
is on the side of votes. Then his brother is a tenant at the
mill, and naturally wishes to be the landlord. He is also
interested in the land himself. One thing has struck me in
this controversy as highly worthy of notice; and it is the
naiveté with which men reconcile the obvious longings of
covetousness with what they are pleased to fancy the principles
of liberty! When a man has worked a farm a certain
fact itself gives him a high moral claim to possess it for
ever. A moment's examination will expose the fallacy by
which these sophists apply the flattering unction to their
souls. They work their farms under a lease, and in virtue
of its covenants. Now, in a moral sense, all that time can
do in such a case, is to render these covenants the more
sacred, and consequently more binding; but these worthies,
whose morality is all on one side, imagine that these time-honoured
covenants give them a right to fly from their own
conditions during their existence, and to raise pretensions
far exceeding anything they themselves confer, the moment
they cease.”
“Poh, poh! Jack; there is no need of refining at all, to
come at the merits of such a question. This is a civilized
country, or it is not. If it be a civilized country, it will
respect the rights of property, and its own laws; and if the
reverse, it will not respect them. As for setting up the doctrine,
at this late day, when millions and millions are invested
in this particular species of property, that the leasehold
tenure is opposed to the spirit of institutions of which
it has substantially formed a part, ever since those institutions
have themselves had an existence, it requires a bold
front, and more capacity than any man at Albany possesses,
to make the doctrines go down. Men may run off with the
notion that the tendencies to certain abuses, which mark
every system, form their spirit; but this is a fallacy that a
very little thought will correct. Is it true that proposals
have actually been made, by these pretenders to liberty, to
appoint commissioners to act as arbitrators between the
landlords and tenants, and to decide points that no one has
any right to raise?”
“True as Holy Writ; and a regular `Star Chamber'
tribunal it would be! It is wonderful, after all, how extremes
do meet!”
“That is as certain as the return of the sun after night.
But let us now talk of our project, Jack, and of the means
of getting among these self-deluded men—deluded by their
own covetousness — without being discovered; for I am
determined to see them, and to judge of their motives and
conduct for myself.”
“Take care of the tar-barrel, and of the pillow-case of
feathers, Roger!”
“I shall endeavour so to do.”
We then discussed the matter before us at length and
leisurely. I shall not relate all that was said, as it would
be going over the same ground twice, but refer the reader
to the regular narrative. At the usual hour, we retired to
our beds, retaining the name of Davidson, as convenient
and prudent. Next day Mr. John Dunning busied himself
in our behalf, and made himself exceedingly useful to us.
In his character of an old bachelor, he had many acquaintances
at the theatre; and through his friends of the green-room
he supplied each of us with a wig. Both my uncle
and myself spoke German reasonably well, and our original
plan was to travel in the characters of immigrant trinket
and essence pedlars. But I had a fancy for a hand-organ
and a monkey; and it was finally agreed that Mr. Hugh
Roger Littlepage, senior, was to undertake this adventure
with a box of cheap watches and gilded trinkets; while Mr.
Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior, was to commence his travels
at home, in the character of a music-grinder. Modesty
will not permit me to say all I might, in favour of my own
skill in music in general; but I sang well for an amateur,
and played, both on the violin and flute, far better than is
common.
Everything was arranged in the course of the following
day, our wigs of themselves completely effecting all the
disguises that were necessary. As for my uncle, he was
nearly bald, and a wig was no great encumbrance; but my
shaggy locks gave me some trouble. A little clipping, however,
answered the turn; and I had a hearty laugh at myself,
in costume, that afternoon, before Dunning's dressing-room
glass. We got round the felony law, about being
armed and disguised, by carrying no weapons but our tools
in the way of trade.
| CHAPTER IV. The redskins, or, Indian and Injin | |