 | CHAPTER VI. Thirty years ago, or, The memoirs of a water drinker |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
A Sporling Gentleman, and a Philosophic Lady.
“Alas! poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep in sedges.”
“—Tyrants,
To fright the animals, and kill them up
In their assigned and native place.”
“—A poor sequester'd stag
That from the hunter's
aim had ta'en a hurt
Did come to languish.”
Shakspeare.
Another year passed, and another child was given to the
husband; and early in the third year of her residence at Spiffard-town,
the arrival of an English gentleman of fortune, with
his wife and two young children, gave a gleam of joy to the
misplaced Louisa; but only to plunge her in deeper darkness.
The gentleman brought letters from Mrs. Spiffard's father;
and having, as he thought, determined to make America the
country; and being told that Spiffard-town and its vicinity
abounded in game, and was destitute of game-laws, he never
doubted that the pheasant of Asia (domesticated in his father's
park), and the partridge of Europe, were natives of the Green
Mountains; especially as he found “real English snipe” on the
borders of the lake, woodcock on the upland, and deer, by
the herd, “all along Champlain.” He fixed, at once, on that
sequestered spot, purchased land, and began to plan a mansion-house,
park, gardens, and pleasure-grounds; but, in the meantime,
found no difficulty in purchasing the house and “improvements”
of a sturdy yeoman, who began to think he had too
many neighbours, and turned his thoughts to the Genesee
country. The lady of this gentleman had no apparent wish for
introduction to those of her own sex and station in Boston (the
port at which they landed), but seemed willing to seek romantic
solitude among those, whom she called “the unsophisticated
farmers of a new and innocent world.”
This gentleman's name was Lovedog. This is not a coined
name to express character, like Fielding's Allworthy, or the
Lovegold, the Crackjaw, and the thousand others of Comedy,
but a real family, English name; and that it should denote the
bearer's character, is not our fault. It certainly did so: for
Mr. Lovedog bestowed no small portion of his affections on
some very fine pointers, setters, and terriers, who had accompanied
him from England. Until he could determine on a site
for his intended buildings and plantations, he endeavoured to
content himself in the house recently built by a Connecticut
settler, who, having got all comfortable about him, was very
glad to sell his buildings and go west, leaving the rich Englishman
to furnish his purchase by importations from Boston
and New-York.
The sportsman was out with his gun and dogs every day and
all day. Sometimes Spiffard accompanied, but generally he
went alone—his dogs his only companions. Spiffard used to
say, that it was very pleasant to him, to ramble over hills and
dales, and that he felt great exultation when he attained sufficient
skill to strike down a distant bird in its rapid flight, and to
be as expert with a double-barreled fowling-piece, as he had
from youth been with a musket and rifle; but when he saw that
he wounded more birds than he killed—that he frequently, after
having brought to the earth, with a broken wing, an innocent
and a harmless fellow-creature, had to chase it before he could
make prey of it, and while struggling in agony and terror, to
to think that what was sport to him was worse than death to
creatures endowed with life by the same Creator who blessed
him with health and strength; creatures enjoying the same
blessings in another degree;—this “gave him pause”—and
reason told him that he was counteracting God's will. He frequently
observed too that a bird though wounded escaped, and he
knew that there was no surgeon to cure the wound, or nurse to
attend the patient—for “misery doth part the flux of company”
—the herd shun the wounded stag—the struck bird “seeks the
rushes” and there pines and dies in solitude. One day Spiffard
exultingly brought down a bird from its flight—the fowl was
winged only, and ran. The triumphant man pursued—overtook,
and placed his foot on his victim. He stooped to seize it—the
bird turned up his eye and looked him full in the face with such
an imploring, such a reproving glance, that his heart smote
him; and his reason rebuked him as a convicted murderer—a
murderer for sport. In times long after he has said, “I have
seen that eye a thousand times.” He never discharged a gun
to kill for pleasure again.
At the proper season for the sport, for the time and season
for hunting each species of game was observed by the rough
Vermonters—Lovedog was shown, by a neighbour, the manner
of hunting the deer in America. Here the free denizens of the
forest were as free as the citizens of the republic who trespassed
on their haunts, and sought their lives in sport. Lovedog had
been only accustomed to see the beautiful animal in the parks
of the lordly aristocrats of England, protected from commoners
by laws which seemed to value their lives as if equal to the lives
of men, but which only protected them from vulgar interference
with the lord's pastimes, to be sacrificed to the luxury,
the pleasures, and the pomp of the chosen few, the titled Nimrods,
deriving what they call their rights from the conquering
Norman, who desolated provinces to form privileged hunting
forests for his own gratification. The English sportsman now
saw the beautiful animal in a state of nature, free to rove his native
woodlands. The novelty pleased the gentleman for a time,
but he soon became weary of the change; and the deer hunt of
Vermont suffered in comparison with the sports he had been
used to, as much as the shooting of the partridges, snipe, and
grouse of the country, appeared contemptible and laborious,
compared with the same kind of bloody amusement, of which he
had been a privileged participant in the enclosures devoted to
the lordly game. He sighed for the park and the race-course
that favoured country, he might be pitied in his voluntary exile,
but such pleasures were to him unknown.
Therefore while Lovedog continued in Vermont, his pointers
and setters were almost exclusively his associates. Spiffard
said, some time after, that his dogs were his only fit companions.
In truth, it was hard to conceive that an English gentleman of
fortune (and fortune he certainly had) could be so profoundly
ignorant as Lovedog. Not so his wife. She was almost blue.
She had not only read, but conversed with the Darwins, Hayleys,
Sheridans, Moores, and Sewards. But she was as totally
ignorant of the world she had come to, as she was of the world
to come. She thought she was a philosopher, and was willing
to be thought an atheist, rather than her philosophy should be
doubted. Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, Helvetius, Hume and
Gibbon, were at her tongue's tip. She imagined that on coming
to America she should find an Arcadia, such as she imagined
Arcadia had been; and was determined to be the lawgiver, the
female Solon of an Utopia, such as she thought an Utopia ought
to be. She found herself in Spiffard-town, among practical
pioneers, and was soon solicited for her contribution to the building
a new church, and the support of a new clergyman who
preached thorough-going Calvinism in the school house, until his
pulpit and steeple should be erected.
Disappointed in not finding an Utopia, she imagined herself
in a Botany bay. Mrs. Lovedog soon tired of, and became
tiresome to her neighbours. The yeomen's wives, (simple souls!)
were shocked at what they thought indecency, and she was disgusted
by what she (enlightened creature!) termed mauvaise
honte, false delicacy, and unphilosophical ignorance. Mrs.
Spiffard was neither a blue, nor a Yankee, and therefore was
treated with indulgent condescending politeness; a mode of
treatment sometimes felt as insult: not so in this instance.
Being countrywomen, there was a bond of union which continued
unimpaired when the bonds were all broken which united
Mrs. Lovedog and the other females of the village. Mrs. Spiffard,
though she had conformed, by degrees, to the mode of those
among whom she had been thrown, was pleased to find that
bold—and as we think, indelicate style of conversation and
choice of subject in Mrs. Lovedog, to which she had been accustomed
at home. She was become, in most things, a disciple of
the dashing female philosopher; but at length Spiffard became
dissatisfied; for he found that the learned lady prescribed
ether and laudanum to his wife as well as materialism and
irreligion.
There are many, male and female, who, living in what are
called christian countries, have no notion of the essence of
christianity. Many think only, (when they think at all, on the
subject) of abuses practised by nominal christians. They are
taught to abhor the actions and teachings of wolves in sheep's
clothing, and to cry “all is false.” There are many again, who
admit that the lessons and life of the author of christianity are
truly admirable. If they would believe and imitate that life and
teaching, we should not deny them a place among christians,
whatever name they may assume. Mrs. Lovedog could talk
of the beauty of that life and that teaching, as of an admirable
fiction—she neither believed, nor felt. Her husband hated
priests, because he had paid tithes. He had been taught something
at school about Moses and Christ, but had forgotten
whether they were racers or pointers.
The female philosopher having discovered that her neighbours
were not unsophisticated shepherds and shepherdesses of an
Utopian Arcadia, adopted an opinion on the other extreme, and
concluded that they were all sharpers or thieves. This led to
conduct which sometimes produced odd results, and often covered
her with ridicule.
The servants she brought from England soon left her in pursuit
of that independence which they saw others all around them
enjoying, or anticipating. Help she could not tolerate, nor
could the yeomen's daughters tolerate her manners or caprices;
neither would they condescend to be servants. The name, and
state of servitude had been made vile in America by the English
traffic in African slaves, and the English policy in attempting to
poison their colonies with the convicted thieves and other outcasts
of their prisons. Mrs. Lovedog had been reduced to the
pitiful establishment of an old negress as a cook, and a little
girl from a neighbouring settlement, whose parents had on overflowing
log-house; and were persuaded that the English lady
would instruct the girl and treat her as a companion, or child of
the family. Never were expectations less realized. Poor little
Sophy was a perfect slave to this lover of Utopian liberty; and
was taught little else, than to tremble in the presence of this
fair disciple of universal benevolence.
Nothing went according to previous anticipation in this affluent
family, who were following their own unshackled wishes in
pursuit of happiness, but never suspected that the road to happiness
was pointed out on a way-post in large letters, “Love
God and your neighbour.”
It happened one day that a sturdy yeoman, who had a territory
of many a German sovereign, having taken more fish in his net
than he wanted for his family and immediate neighbours, crossed
over to Spiffard-town to find a market for the surplus, and
with the produce buy tea and sugar,—for although princely in
territory, his treasury was not filled by the labour of slaves or
subjects. He was directed to Lovedog's house; knocked:
was refused entrance at the street door, and told to go round
to the kitchen. Several messages and replies, reiterations, replications
and rejoinders, through the medium of momo Dinah
and Sophy had passed and repassed between the Yankee and
the lady, until at length little Sophy came to inquire, from the
learned lady, “if the fish were salt-water fish?”
This question excited the loud laughter of both the farmer
and the black cook.
“Who eber hear of such a ting in Varmount,” said Dinah.
“O dang it, she's quizzing me,” said the farmer. And he took
his basket of salmon-trout, and half laughing, half offended, he
trudged off, determined to give, or sell, or dicker, the fish at his
friend Spiffard's.
“Well Sophy! What does he say? Are they from the ocean?”
“Ma'am?” said the timid girl, who had never heard the word
before.
“Are they salt-water fish, child? What is his answer?”
“He said you were quizzing him.”
“I do not treat such folks with that familiarity. Tell him to
leave three or four with the cook, and call on Mr. Lovedog for
the money.”
“He's gone, Ma'am.”
“Gone! He must have come with some sinister purpose!”
“He only come with the fish, Ma'am.”
“Tell Diana to see that the spoons are all safe—and the
silver forks—and the silver handled carving-knife that she took
a few minutes ago from the knife-case.”
Sophy went to the kitchen. The lady resumed her studies.
She was reading Zimmerman on solitude. “Charming writer!
what a soothing quiet he sheds over the soul! All perturbation
ceases! And the stormy passions which assail us in the
great world are put to rest forever!”
Sophy returned with a report which tested the power of Zimmerman.
A report confirming former opinions of the dishonest
propensities of the corrupted and debased population she had
been enticed to trust herself among.
“O solitude! how tranquilizing thy influence to the lover of
“Momo Dinah says she can't find the carving knife.”
The old negress, wanting pot-herbs, had taken the knife as
the first trenchant instrument she could lay her hand upon, and
having accomplished her purpose, left it in the garden; she now
looked for it in every other place she could think of.
“I thought as much! Sophy! run after the man! He's a
thief! Tell him to bring back my carving-knife!—Why do you
stand gazing like an idiot! Run! instantly! Where is there a
constable? Why do you stop?—Run!—bring him back!”
The girl, who feared the lady more than she did any of her
own country folk, after recovering from her surprise, darted off
in pursuit, and soon overtook the heavy trudging yeoman, who
was every now and then ejaculating, “Well!—after all! these
old-country folk are more queer than cute. Salt water fish up
here in the green mountains!”
“Mister!” shouted Sophy as she drew near. “I don't know
your name, sir!”—
“No—I suppose not,” and he put down his basket of fish.
“My name's Bloodgood. Well, my child, and what would you
havewith me?—Why you are out of breath with running. Does
the fine lady want some lobsters? You are a nice little girl,” he
continued, as he smiled and patted her curly head, “are you
from the old country too? I have half a dozen at home, and
not one as pretty as you.”
“Mrs. Lovedog—sir—” and the child stopped—partly from
want of breath, and partly from shame and reluctance to deliver
her message—for she would as soon have suspected the parson
of stealing, as any other of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.
“Ha ha ha! salt water fish for Mrs. Lovedog! If she wants
the fish she must come arter um—fresh or salt!”
“She says, sir—she says—you must bring back—”
“Must! No, no I'll be dang'd if I do. I am not one of
your brook trout to be played back and forth with a hair line as
her husband catches um. I am not angry with you, my dear—
but the fish won't bite again.”
“She says, sir—you must bring back the carving-knife.”
“The what?”
“The carving-knife, sir.”
My American readers will understand the feelings of the
Green Mountain yeoman, when the thought occurred that he
was suspected of being a thief.—He repeated several times the
words “carving-knife,” before he formed any conception that he
had been accused of stealing. When he understood the mes
thunder, “What! Does she take me for a thief?”
Sophy frightened, answered, “Yes, sir,” and made one of her
best curtseys.
“Well, that's too good! Don't be frightened, child! If her
husband!—Don't be scar't!—Go back and tell her, she may
go to—England.” And so saying, Bloodgood took up his basket,
turned and trudged on again towards Spiffard's, rather sullenly—but
soon began to laugh. “Well, I will be the first to
tell squire Spiffard of this, however! A thief!—Steal! a carving-knife!
Why the woman's mad!”
Poor Sophy returned with the message of, “He says,
ma'am—”
“Where's the knife?”
“He says, Ma'am,—you may go to England.”
Just then Lovedog with his pointers at his heels and his game
bag full of woodcock, returned from the chase. He had come
from an opposite direction to that yeoman Bloodgood had taken.
He was tired—but there was no rest for him. He “must go,”
so said his wife, “to Spiffard's, and take measures to apprehend
the thief of the carving-knife.”
What would have been the result of the meeting under such
circumstances, between the English sportsman and the Yankee
yeoman, we will not pretend to say. May strife never again
arm the son of Old England and the New England man against
each other! The trial of valour was not now destined to be made,
for happily, Dinah, wanting more pot-herbs for her cookery,
took another knife, and, as Shakspeare says, “shooting another
bolt the self-same way,” she found the first. That is, carrying
a second knife to the parsley bed, she found the first where she
had left it.[1]
Such, sometimes, English men and English women appear
amongst Yankees. So they torment themselves, and are laughed
at by those around them—and then they go home, and the
learned ladies write books, (Mrs. Lovedog published three volumes)
to show, that men, where all men have equal rights, (and
are not divided into the two European classes of the oppressors
and the oppressed, the many and the few,) their manners and
pursuits are not the same as in Europe; and to show, above all
things, their own ignorance. Surely, every thinking mind must
know that where none are exclusively the inheritors of riches;
educated; but, where neither honours nor riches are hereditary,
and the roads to wealth and the highest offices are open to all
equally; the universal exertion for acquirement, whether of fortune,
fame, or official station, must cause a greater equality on
a higher level for the mass of the people; and must give to society
a greater proportion of those who attain high intellectual
powers and extensive knowledge, than in monarchies and aristocracies.
It will be said, perhaps, that the inheritors of fortune
have a fairer starting post for the race, either of intellectual improvement,
or official rank—but can it be a question which state
of society tends most to general improvement and national
happiness?
“But what has all this to do with the memoirs of Zebediah
Spiffard?” Reader, you must not only be gentle and courteous,
but patient. If you are used to novel reading, you must know
that you have waded through many a tedious introductory page
in the hope that all the present prosing is necessary to, and will
give clearness and additional zest to the future story. The
plot must be made intricate to be interesting, and what appears
dull now, will be bright as a sun-ray at the unravelling. We
have our plot too. Trust us now; we will pay hereafter—if
we can.
To conclude the history of the Lovedogs (who are rather exceptions
to, than examples of, the characters of English gentlemen
and ladies)—the sagacious reader will readily believe that
they did not settle at Spiffard-town. The lady, as we have seen,
had been disappointed in all her expectations; and the gentleman,
who had at first been delighted with the free range of unlimited
sporting ground, and the novelty presented by the game
of another hemisphere, now began to sigh for the stubble fields
enclosed by hedge rows, where his dogs were always in view,
one backing the other on the scent of the covey—for the pheasant
park, the fox hunt, the race-course, the cock-pit, the boxer's
ring, and all the many joys of his youth,—in short, this happy
pair sold off in disgust, removed to Connecticut—thence to
New-York—and thence they returned home, the lady to write
books on American manners, the gentleman to pay tithes and
poor-rates, hunt, set up for parliament, and rail on republican
institutions.
In the meantime, Zeb, our hero, grew; as is common with
other heroes between the age of ten and twenty, and he received
that common unheroic kind of education which resulted from
his father's circumstances, and the circumstances of the country
from the north of Ireland, to read without the eastern accentuation
or orthoepy, and was prevented, by his out-o-door practice
in language, from acquiring a slight touch of the brogue
which adhered pertinaciously to his teacher's tongue. He was
taught to write a decent hand (there were then no Wriffards or
other doctors, native or foreign, travelling through the land to
teach elegant penmanship). He was taught to cipher as far as
the rule of three; and at the same time he learned to take care
of the cattle, the horses and the sheep. He could run barefoot
into the meadow and halter a horse, first enticing him within
striking distance by holding out an ear of corn, he would then
mount him by placing his toe on the joint of sorrel's hind leg—
“making stepping stones,” as Master McNorton said, “of the
poor brute's bones to get a saddle-sate on his bare back”—and
he could then, without saddle or bridle, ride as fearlessly through
woods or over rocks, as a Virginia negro, or a wild Arab.
Such were the attainments of Zebediah Spiffard, and he might
have gone on in the steps of his father, that is—stepped from
Vermont to Ohio, or further; emigrating, and clearing, and
settling, and pulling up stakes, and emigrating again; or he
might have founded another Spiffard-town in the valley of the
Mississippi, and filled the great house of the founder with little
Zebs and Jerrys, never arriving at the prodigious honour of being
the hero of a book, but for certain circumstances, which though
still introductory, must be told before we can get at the marrow
of our story.
| CHAPTER VI. Thirty years ago, or, The memoirs of a water drinker | |