 | CHAPTER VII. Thirty years ago, or, The memoirs of a water drinker |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
We go from Home to Boston.
“A barefoot pilgrim on a flinty world.”
—Unknown Play.
“O that clear honour was purchased by the merit of the wearer!”
“I never knew so young a body with so old a head.”
—Shakspeare.
It is not a new observation that a man's destination for life is
often fixed at an age when animal spirits are most abundant,
and reason most powerless. Impressions then made are indelible,
and habits are acquired which never, or at least not without
great trouble and pain, can be counteracted or shaken off. At
this perilous period of man's life our hero was sent from home.
of Spiffard-town, or seen man greater than squire Spiffard, was
suddenly transported to the famous metropolis of Massachusetts.
In the town of Boston, celebrated as the cradle, if not the
birth-place, of American independence, lived the uncle of Zeb
Spiff (as his schoolmates persisted in calling him, and as his
intimates always called him) Mr. Abraham Spiffard, who having
attained the mature age of sixty-eight in a state of single blessedness,
and having made his property procreate as fast as Jacob's
flocks or Shylock's ducats, now looked about him for an heir,
and bethought him of his long-neglected brother, who had travelled
to the wilderness of Vermont at his father's death on
finding himself left nearly penniless by the will—according to
the praiseworthy usage of the dear mother country, and the still
more praiseworthy motive—a desire to support the name of
Spiffard by devising his property to the elder born son. The
brothers had not met since Jeremiah married the beautiful
Louisa Atherton. Abraham had at this time a two-fold motive
for thinking of one of his brother's children as an heir. He,
too, wished to keep up the august family name: and he had a
remaining sense of juslice—a sense which is inherent with and
strong in every man, if not stifled by worldliness—and that sense
of justice told him, that every law or custom founded on a miscalled
right of primogeniture, is contrary to the law of nature
and of God; and consequently, that his younger brother had
been wronged, and he himself had been living and thriving on
the fruits of injustice. He therefore wrote to his brother, desiring
him to send his eldest boy (for still the old leaven stuck
to him, and the first-born must have preference) promising to
educate and adopt him as his own. This was an opening not to
be neglected, and Zeb was accordingly fitted out for a journey
to the far-famed town of Boston.
We must, before taking our hero from home, mention one
circumstance, which had affected the domestic happiness of
Squire Spiffard's family, and made an impression upon little
Zebediah that moulded his character into the form which our
readers will find displayed, as we proceed with his story—fixing
within him an image that was through his future life ever present
to his mind, and was the moving cause of thought and
action. The scenes he had witnessed in his father's household,
mingled with all his ideas of his fellow-creatures, coloured all
the future scenes of his existence, and were the springs which
impelled him in his course through his journey, until they were
obliterated by the hand of death.
We approach most unwillingly to this part of our subject.
To draw aside the decent veil that hides domestic misery, though
that misery proceeds from an accidental cause, is an irksome
task; but to expose the failings of one of that lovely sex from
which we have derived all the choice blessings of life, is inexpressibly
painful. But we owe it to truth and to the world, for
our hero's character and actions would be inexplicable if we
did not give our readers this key to them.
It has been said that Mrs. Spiffard, the beautiful London
lady, was discontented, although placed in the paradise of Spiffard
town. She regretted her banishment from her dear native
land. And who can blame her? She had there enjoyed
luxuries of which she was here deprived, and she had there
enjoyed youth, beauty and flattery. She could not but feel,
that if she returned, she would find the same delightful articles
—for in her mind they were associated with the place. In despite
of reason or even of experience, the returning wanderer
still expects to find in home, the home of his youth.
Mrs. Spiffard's health declined in proportion as she filled her
husband's house with health and life in the shape of little Yankees.
Her countrywoman, Mrs. Lovedog, had taught her that
ether and opium were most pleasant, and she said innocent
remedies for low spirits. In time other stimulants were resorted
to, “for it was necessary,” as has more than once been said
in excuse for such acknowledged weakness, “to change the
current of her ideas, or she would go mad.” The current was
changed; but it was only to increase, not remedy ill—to save
her from the apprehension of that madness we pity and deplore,
with sympathy in nature's frailty, and consign her to that which
we despise and turn from with disgust.
Can any situation in life be so deplorable as that of a husband
under such circumstances?—Yes. We shall see that that of a
wife, whose husband is a victim to this vice, is even worse.
Our business at present is with the first case. To see his neglected
children gazing with expressions varied according to
their respective ages on the idiotic countenance and inconsistent
behaviour of their mother, to—no, we will not enter into the
disgusting detail. Spiffard behaved like a good and discreet—
a humane and determined man. He did not invite (as was his
wish) his friends or strangers to his house; his plea was his
wife's indisposition. He did not take her abroad; for he dreaded
to expose her. He did not pretend to excuse her, when notwithstanding
his care she was exposed; nor did he by falsehoods
outrage the good sense of his acquaintance. But it is
his eldest son, that is our only object in recording it; and that
effect was seen, though not understood, in all he said or did to
the end of his life.
As a child it was long before he could comprehend the nature
of behaviour, in his mother, which was apparently causeless; and
was so unlike that of other females. When the truth burst upon
him, it produced a revolution in his feelings that seemed to
transport him from infancy to intellectual manhood—made him
observant and thoughtful, instead of joyous and careless—and
in short, was quickly indicated by appearances inconsistent with
his age and previous sprightly disposition. The further he advanced
in life and became capable of appreciating his mother's
degradation and his father's misery, the more intense were his
feelings until they became almost insupportable. He thought
as constantly upon the torturing subject as the nature of mind
will permit; for happily we are so constructed that one unbroken
chain of thought cannot be continued. One continuous chain
or circle of thought is either the cause or the effect of insanity.
Yet he strove to banish other thoughts, and avoided the sports
and pursuits incident to his happy age. He could not
speak of the subject of his meditations. There were none
to whom the deep coloured and indefinable images which poured
upon his mind could be communicated in conversation. He
feared lest his father should see that he noticed and understood
the cause of his woe. He became a recluse. Always devoted
to books, although reading without plan and almost without
improvement, he now appeared more than ever studious, and
yet his mind was frequently far from the page over which his
eyes wandered. He watched the behaviour of his father and
mother anxiously, and as anxiously avoided the appearance of
attending to their conduct. He seemed to become years older
as months passed away, and to advance in knowledge as if
by miracle—knowledge gained by thought—self-examination—
not reading. It was a knowledge as bitter as that of our first
parents—and without fault in him, it deprived him of his paradise,
the joys without care of childhood. It is thus that by the
undeviating chain of cause and effect, even the lot of the guiltless
is not pure good, since we must partake of the good or ill
of others.
Our hero's father and the neighbours thought that Zebediah's
improvement was owing to his books, but it was the intense
operation of a vigorous mind set in action by one circumstance,
which affected him deeply and mysteriously; one spring, which
caused observation, comparison and combination in the boy, far
beyond his years—in the man, a state of mind nearly monomaniacal.
When he was told that his uncle had sent for him, the first
sensation was joyous. He felt as if he should escape from
what was ever present to his imagination; his mother's infirmity
and his father's misery. But soon his heart sunk, and he could
not bear the thought of leaving the object which, as if by a
power of fascination, attracted his unceasing attention, and
bound him to the spot—the object to which his eyes were constantly
turned, as it is said the poor bird cannot be diverted
from its gaze on the hateful serpent doomed to destroy it.
These feelings however soon passed away, and the wish for
change prevailed. He was scarce sixteen years of age, and at
that time of life when all abroad is new, fresh and refreshing—
when even the circulation of the blood is pleasure, and when it
is impossible, if in health, to be long unhappy—at such an age,
to see the wonders of the great city and become one in a new
and loftier state of existence, raised hopes and images which,
though undefined, made him impatient to obey the summons.
The very consciousness of being alive—as youth is alive—is
happiness; and though clouds and storms cross the morning of
life, they must pass away quickly, and the sunny beams of hope
and joy are sure to succeed.
Before we turn Zeb out upon the great world of Boston, we
will describe his person, that the reader, who we feel assured
will go with him, may have a clearer idea of his travelling companion.
We have seen what his appearance was at five and
twenty, but we cannot do him justice, or justice to our story,
without a full description of his beauties at sixteen.
Zeb was not only the oldest but the ugliest of his father's
children; and was formed as if in direct opposition to the received
notions of Yankee proportion and symmetry. At the
period of which we speak, he was exactly five feet two inches
in height, and from the strong knitting of his joints, and the uncommon
breadth as well as muscularity of his whole person, it
might have been judged that he never would attain a greater
altitude; but happily, a few years after, a hard fit of fever-and-ague
shook him so long, that he became some inches longer.
Although remarkably square built and powerful in muscle, he
yet looked meagre. His knees were rather bowed outwards,
always a mark of firmness on the feet; his joints were all large,
but his limbs well proportioned to his body. His head was
called Roman and sometimes parrot-billed). His eyes
were dark hazel, the iris small, the balls very large and prominent,
and the white of the eye disproportionably great; the
upper lids covered the iris so as to give the idea of a West
India turtle. His mouth was wide, and garnished with strong
teeth, and his chin with the parts adjacent, assumed the appearance
vulgarly called wapper-jaw'd. His beard in its incipient
and downy state, promised to be what Shakspeare calls
“cane-coloured.” A shock of coarse unyielding hair capp'd
this unpromising physiognomy with deviously diverging locks,
in colours rather too red to be called carotty. With all this
picturesque diversity—this variety of curve and line and angle,
in feature and in figure, there was an archness, an audacity,
and an expression of good nature in Zeb, that gained him a
firmer footing in the good will of those he happened to be
thrown among, than many a smoother form and face could
boast. His was an attractive figure. It did not pass unnoticed
in a crowd. The eye once fixed on such a face was
not rapidly withdrawn; and when Zeb, in after times found
the looks of beauty rivetted on his form and features, he
enjoyed in return the privilege of gazing on sparkling eyes
fixed unconsciously on his odd physiognomy—vermeil lips
half opened by surprise—and the happy consciousness of being
an object of admiration, for such he certainly was. A female
feels ashamed to gaze at a pretty fellow; but no one thought
it any harm to look at Zeb Spiff.
The aversion our hero felt to leaving home and his beloved
brothers and sisters, and schoolfellows, all endeared by scenes
of joy and, in years long past, by scenes of strife, was now exchanged
for a desire to see the world. Curiosity and ambition
triumphed so far over his tender feelings, that he became impatient
for the time of departure to arrive. The evening previous
to that important day which consigned our Zebediah
Spiffard to the stage driver and the world, his father took him
apart, and bestowed on him a roll of hard dollars, and a lecture,
longer and quite as heavy, upon his future conduct in life.
Zeb afterwards said that it was considerable lengthy; but we
know that it was cut short by a loud snore unconsciously
sounded from the open mouth and nostrils of the patient, who
remembered nothing his father had said except that in great
towns young men were likely to be beset by temptations of
various kinds, especially in the form of beautiful young women,
who might distract his attention from business and interrupt his
looking forward to the dangers that awaited him—nay he even
became curious and anxious to know how these allurements
would affect him, and to try his strength against temptation.
Every enticement that the glass, however filled, could offer, he
was amply prepared to repel; and he had a fund of good sense
and sound morality to oppose to allurements which might war
with duty.
We have nothing of importance to record of our pilgrim
until he arrived at the end of his journey, and set foot in the
famous town of Boston. As the scenes and objects connected
with that image, the contemplation of which had formed as it
were the key-stone of his character, and had cast a shade overall
his joys—as these objects were left behind, other associations
were created by the change, and his whole train of thought
and feeling received a new impulse and a new direction. He
still carried the arrow with him, but it ceased for a time to give
pain, or control thought or action.
He passed through Charlestown without knowing that close
at his left hand were the far-famed hills of Bunker and Breed's.
He was rattled over the bridge, and plunged among the intricacies
of “North-end,” his senses almost overpowered by the
awful delight which the rapid succession of new objects presented
by a dim light on entering a great city for the first time,
and the confused anticipations of the new life he was about to
enter into: while in silent expectation he awaited the long delayed
moment when the coach would stop and deposit him, he
knew not where, to be received he knew not how. The coach
did at length stop at an inn near the market. The passengers
eagerly left the vehicle and each other, and Zeb found himself
about seven o'clock in the evening of the seventh of November,
in the bar room of the stage house. He knew no one—no
one knew him—no one heeded him.
His trunk was thrown into the door. He looked around for
some one of his fellow passengers of whom he might inquire
his way to his uncle's; but all were already gone; each one
his own way, unmindful of the other; and poor Zeb felt for a
moment that he was alone in the world. This was but a transient
feeling; his mind and body were endowed with an elasticity
fitted to meet circumstances, and boldly confront them.
He saw a person busily dealing out liquor at the bar, and
approached to make inquiry of him for direction to Mr. Abraham
Spiffard's, but he was surrounded by a crowd boisterously
demanding “bitters—brandy—gin”—and uttering coarse jests
him, (principally draymen, porters, hostlers, and others of the
roughest cast, the attendants upon the market and the stage
house) with the smell of liquors and tobacco smoke, made the
poor boy's heart sink a second time, and he retired, shrinking
from the loathsome scene, and sat down on his trunk to collect
his thoughts: his head was whirling and dancing, as if still
feeling the motion of the stage-coach, and his heart sickened
at the scene before and around him. He heard the coach
drive from the door. Even this was like the departure of an
acquaintance—the last link that united him to home. In addition
to the disagreeable objects that offended his physical senses,
his moral sense was pained by that which was present, and by
the revival or awakening of the spectre that haunted him. He
thought of his mother.
This situation, either of body or mind, could not endure
long with a boy of sixteen. He knew he must not remain
where he was, and now recollected, for the first time, that his
father had given him a letter, with, of course, the address of
his uncle. It was locked up carefully in his trunk. The first
movement was to open his trunk and seek it: but the thought
occurred, that in such a place and with such company, that
would not be eligible; he had read of tricks upon travellers.
He stood undetermined, looking at the depository of his worldly
treasure with somewhat of lack-lustre eye.
The suspicion that ill could be intended him by any thing in
human shape, had only entered his mind from books: and only
experience can make the innocent mind suspicious. He had
read of deceits and falsehoods, and in after life saw and suffered
from them, as all must; but suspicion never, even in after
life, made a part of his character. To utter any words but
those of truth, would have appeared to the Green-mountainboy
as impolitic as it was absurd. This characteristic always
remained with him. In despite of experience, he never could
be brought to suspect his fellow-creatures of deceit; and in
despite of the many inconveniences his frankness occasioned,
he continued to love truth the more he suffered for truth's
sake. As a man is induced to love his country the more in
consequence of those miseries he encounters in her defence.
All the mental debate we have suggested, and much more,
had passed in a moment of time, and the rumbling of the coach
wheels had scarcely ceased in his ears, or the giddiness occasioned
by riding, left his head, when once more looking around
for some one to whom he might apply for that information he
person near him whose appearance did not discourage the
address, and he asked this gentleman (for such he evidently
was) who happened to be near him, where “Mr. Abraham
Spiffard lived?”
The man was a tall, thin, upright figure, enveloped in an
ample blue cloak, clasped under his chin with silver: above
the collar of this cloak arose on each side of his parchment-coloured
face, three formidable curls, such as belles sometimes
think ornamental to the faces of girls of sixteen, but at that
period, confined to the well-powdered wigs of gentlemen of
sixty. This buckram-stiff pile was surmounted by a large
cocked-hat, rather brown than black—not from any lack of
brushing. Below the cloak could only be seen high-topp'd
shoes and silver buckles; both showing that they were daily
well cleaned, though now bespattered with mud from the low
and filthy place in which the stage-house stood.
“I can tell you, my little man,” was the old gentleman's
reply, as he looked down upon Zeb's queer face, turned up
towards his own, with a slight inclination to the right, and a
twist of the mouth to the left, while the earnest protrusion of
his dark sparkling eyes, and the honest confidence expressed
by all his features in combination, rivetted the stranger's attention
to the person of our hero, though at first overlooked in his
examination of the travellers who had arrived in the stage.
“And what may your business be with Mr. Abraham Spiffard?”
“I have been two days riding from Long-pond in the Green
Mountains, to come and pay him a visit,” said Zeb, “and I
have got a letter from father to him, but it is in my trunk.”
Mr. Abraham Spiffard, to whom these words were addressed,
had come to await the arrival of the stage, kindly anticipating
the wants of his adopted son. On finding that this strange
figure was the object of his expectations, he stepped back
and surveyed the odd and uncouth appearance of the boy
with mingled sensations, in which pleasure did not predominate.
He had, in imagination, seen a tall, florid lad, rustic to be sure,
but looking as vigorous, towering, independent, and fresh as
the country of his birth; and he in the reality, saw a creature
of diminutive height, pallid complexion and outrè physiognomy;
whose members appeared any thing rather than symmetrical,
and whove movements under present circumstances, gave no
indication of Green Mountain buoyancy, for though our hero
was in truth both independent in mind and vigorous in body,
his externals little denoted either; and these externals were
now in their worst dress.
The uncle's good sense overpowered his feelings of chagrin;
and telling Zebediah who he was, he welcomed him to Boston,
and hastily called the porter of the inn to bear the trunk of the
Green-mountain-boy to his future home. This done, he
courteously led his protegee to his house, which was pleasantly
situated near the summit of Fort-hill.
| CHAPTER VII. Thirty years ago, or, The memoirs of a water drinker | |