University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

The difference between a tavern and horse-shed.

—Eddic poem.

—Shakspeare.

—Enk.

Who has not heard of Cato Alexander's? Not to know
“Cato's,” is not to know the world. At least so it was
thought twenty-five or thirty years ago. But as all our readers
are not supposed to be acquainted with the world, we must

point out the situation, and describe the localities of—Cato's—
that our tale may be duly understood, and its incidents appreciated.

Between four and five miles north-east from the building
called in New-York the City Hall, in front of which we first met
our readers, and introduced them to our hero, and other personages
of note, yet to be made more intimately known—between
four and five miles from this building, on the west side of the
old Boston-road, stands this celebrated tavern, owned and kept
by Cato Alexander, and called, from the landlord, “Calo's.”

Cato, the keeper of a road tavern! Alexander the bearer
of gin-toddy to a whiskered shop-boy on a Sunday! Cato—
Alexander—what awful names! How full of associations!
each singly denoting the conqueror of self, or the conqueror of
the world; now united to designate a servant of vicious and
pampered appetites!

Do not let us be mistaken. Cato of Cato's was no worse a
man than the tens of thousands with whiter faces, who administer
to the pride, passions, and vices of the multitude. He
was neither more nor less than the keeper of an eating and
drinking house; one whose lawful trade is to tempt to excess,
and who may legally live by administering poison.

It would puzzle any but a philosopher to find a reason for
that preference “Cato's” has enjoyed for many years over all
the many receptacles of idleness and intemperance which
stand invitingly open on the roads and avenues leading to and
from our moral and religious city. We, being a philosopher,
have found it, and can communicate. It is preferred to other
houses of refuge from temperance, that are known under the
appellation of retreats, (such as “Citizen's Retreat,” “Fireman's
Retreat,” “Mechanic's Retreat,” “Old Countryman's
Retreat,” and a hundred other retreats from public notice,
or domestic duties,) not because its situation has more of rural
retirement—for it stands full in view of the traveller or wayfarer.
It is not a retreat from noise, for that resounds within;
nor from dust, for that it invites and receives from every wheel
and hoof that passes. It is not preferred because it enjoys or
gives its visiters better or more extensive prospects than its rivals,
for it commands no view but of the dirty high-road, a cabbage-garden,
a horse-shed, and a sigh-post; nor is it chosen
for that, the breezes of either land or sea bear health or refreshment
to its admirers; for the land rises on every side,
barring every wind that blows from visiting it too roughly.
Neither is it the spacious apartments or elegant furniture that
gives it preference, for its inmates are cabined cribbed, and confined

in cells like acorn-cups, compared with the halls and saloons
of the town hotels and gambling-houses. But, Mrs.
Cato is a notable cook. The “cabin is convenient.” There
are none but black faces belonging to the establishment. We
feel that we are “right worshipful.” All around is subserviency.
Desdemona saw Othello's visage in his mind; it is
to some, pleasing to see the badge of subserviency in the visage.

To this convenient court of conviviality our pedestrains approached,
somewhat fatigued, but more heated, by the long
walk under a clear October sun. The breezes from the magnificent
sheet of water which ebbs and flows between the
islands of the city, and the harbour, would have been welcome
to the glowing faces of the veteran, and his young companion;
but they never visited “Cato's.” Iced punch was seized, to
supply the deficiency by one, water from the pump refreshed
the other.

“Why, Spiffard, what put it into your head to make Mr.
Cooke walk this infernal distance?” Such was the salutation
from a fat and heavy figure who had approached to meet them.

“He chose to walk, and I chose to please him. By-the-by,
I thought he would be the better for it. It has dissipated
some alcohol.” This Spiffard spoke in a low tone, while
Cooke took another draught from the hands of Cato.

“Master Cato! neither Rome nor Utica ever could boast
such a bowl of iced punch as this! You are the Cato of
Cato's! `Blush not, thou flower of modesty.' What do you
laugh at? A flower may be dingy. Who calls you black?
See how the red blood mantles in his cheeks! The orange-tawny
and the crimson streaks, shine through the glossy ebony
like northern lights through the darkness of a polar-sky, cheering
a six months night. Cato of Utica! thou pride of Africa!
Give me the bowl again. `I'm a horse, if I have wet my lips
these three hours.' ”

“ `These lies are like the father that begot them.' ”

“Ah! Tom!—hah, are you there. Take away the temptation,
Satan. Well, lads! what's the sport?”

“Sport? We waited for you.”

“True, there is no sport till I come; as the thief said on his
way to Tyburn.”

“We have waited dinner for you. What put it into your
heads to walk?”

“Lusty youth, vigorous limbs, active minds, hot blood, ha!
Was it not so, comrade?”

“More of the last than the first,” said Spiffard.

“Envy, by the gods! thou water drinker!—if I could find
epithet of more contempt, I would bestow it on thee,—in thy
abject taste, thou likest thyself to the beasts of the field.”

“Who are guided by unerring instinct to avoid poison.”
said Spiffard. “Water drinker! it is my title of honour.”

“So be it then. Spiffard, the water-drinker!”

“Dinner, gentlemen!”

“Hold to the practice,” said Cooke to Spiffard, as he took
his arm and walked to the dining-room. “Hold fast the practice,
my young friend, and deserve the title. Long may you
keep it, and you may laugh when you see us make wry faces
as we hobble and limp with gouty limbs, or pant for lack of
breath, our livers like sieves or gridirons, and our noses like
hot pokers. Sieves and gridirons, hot coals and pokers,—I
am a Cook, you know, and here's dinner!”

Leave we the company of thought-drowners, and meet them
again by-and-by. Some hours had passed. Spiffard had
tired of the noise of the table, wearied with flashes of merriment
not inspired by wit, but by wine; not the genuine and
healthy progeny of the reasoning faculty when indulging in
sportive recreation, but the mere empty ebullition of excited
animal spirits, without the guidance or control of reason. He
had walked up and down the road in search of a pleasant
place for retirement, but finding none, seated himself upon a
bench under a building erected for the reception of water-drinkers,—it
was the horse-shed in front of the house. The
tavern has a piazza, but the noise of the revellers made it almost
as disagreeable as the smoke-incumbered dining-room.
The tumult increased so as to reach the place of refuge he had
chosen. Discordant sounds commingled in confusion, the
monotomy of which was broken by the high, harsh, screeching
and croaking of Cooke's notes of inebriation.

“I'm your man, sir!—a dead shot, sirr! George Frederick
is the name to cow a yankee!”

The whole party now issued to the piazza, and after a preliminary
discussion of the mode in which wounded honour was
to be cured by the duello, (a discussion of which Spiffard only
heard pieces or snatches of sentences, as “ten paces—five
paces,—yankee actor,—dead shot,” they descended, and took
a station between the tavern and the horse-shed.

It now appeared that Cooke and Cooper were to be pitted,
not as actors, but as duellists. The seconds were busy loading
the pistols, (an implement of death or amusement always
kept in readiness at Cato's.) Cooke became silent and dignified,

only showing by increased energy in his step, (not always
properly applied,) and increased colour in his face, the increase
of his ebriety. His antagonist was all politeness—the established
etiquette with those who meet to murder. The seconds
and witnesses displayed to the eye of the water-drinker, or any
other rational animal, that they were all so far blinded themselves,
that they could not see how plainly they were exposing
their supposedly deep-hidden hoax, to any clear-sighted spectator.

The word was given. The two tragedians fired at the
same moment, or nearly so. Cooke's second took advantage
of the smoke and noise to thrust a stick through his principal's
coat, to produce a bullet-hole, at the same time he threw his
left arm around him, as if for support, crying, “He has hit you,
sir.”

But Cooke was in one of those half-mad, half-cunning paroxysms,
which enabled him to act as the subject of the hoax,
while he in reality hoaxed the hoaxers; and enjoyed all the
pleasure of acting the part of the dupe, with the assurance of
duping those who thought they were playing upon him. He
was assuming the madman, and sufficiently mad to enjoy all
the pleasure which “only madmen know.” Pretending to believe
that he was hit by his opponent's ball, he, with a force
which only madness could give, threw out his left arm, and
hurled his officiously designing second several paces from him,
reeling until the cow-yard (the court-yard of the establishment)
received him at full length. As the smoke evaporated, Cooper
was seen extended in mock agonies; his second and others of
the party, leaning over him in pretended mourning.

“Mr. Cooke, your ball has passed through the lungs of poor
Cooper, I'm afraid. The surgeon is examining the wound.
There is little hope—”

“None, sirr! I never miss. He is the tenth. I am sorry
for him.” He stalked up to the pretended hurt man with due
gravity. This was a precious opportunity, for the veteran to
mingle sarcasm and mock regrets, and to pay the hoaxers in
their own coin, stampt anew in the mint of his brains, and he
did not let it escape him.

“Poor Tom, poor `Tom's acold!' I'm sorry for him. I'm
sorry that his farthing-candle-life was extinguished by my hand,
although he deserved death from none more. `This even-handed
justice commends the ingredients of' our murderous pistols
to our own breasts. I warned him of my unerring aim;
but the `thief will seek the halter.' How do you find his
wound sirr?”

“I am examining it, sir; I am torturing him.”

“It is no more than he has done to hundreds of hearers.”

“I am afraid, sirr, he will never play again.”

“Then by murdering him honourably, I have prevented
many dishonourable murders. Shade of Shakspeare, applaud
me! He will never again murder Macbeth instead of Duncan,
or throttle Othello instead of Desdemona. I am a second
Mahomet overthrowing idolatry! The wooden god of the
Yankee-doodles lies prostrate! Fie, George Frederick to triumph
over a block. Farewell, poor Tom! poor enough.”
This was said over his shoulder. “I could have better spared
a better actor—but let that pass, while we pass to our pious
meditations. Who takes order for the funeral? Bear the
body in!” When sober none did more justice to his rival's
merit.

“He revives, sir. There is hope yet,” said the surgeon.

“Then may the poets mourn.”

While the pretended dead duellist was removed into the
house, Cooke's second approached him, exclaiming, “The
horses are ready, sir; we must fly.”

“We, sirr! when I fly `or creep,' I choose my company.
George Frederick Cooke never flies from danger. Fly, sirr,
if the idol of Yankee-land lives, there is nothing to apprehend
from his worshippers, nothing to fly from, except when he acts;
and if he dies, and by my hand, I have honoured him, and benefited
the world.” So saying, the hero strutted most sturdily
to the steps of the piazza, where, feeling the difficulty of ascent,
he recollected his wound, called for assistance, and was supported
to the table, at which sat, like another Banquo, the man
whose fall he triumphed over.

Spiffard had looked on unmoved at this farce: unmoved
except by feelings peculiarly his own. He had been spell-bound.
Although suffering, he had been unable to move or
turn his eyes from the objects that caused his pain. He was
fascinated. He gazed upon the scene as the bird fixes her
eyes on the serpent who approaches to destroy her young; and
like the bird, he could not fly or withdraw his attention from that
which distressed him. His eyes followed the retiring company,
until they were again within the walls accustomed to revelry,
riot, and brawling. He then turned his head, and perceived for
the first time, that he had a companion.

Sitting on the same bench, under the horse-shed, and within
a few feet of him, he saw an old gentlemen in a brown suit of
clothes, coat, waistcoat, and breeches, (an article of clothing
even then rarely seen,) his cotton stockings, and well

polished shoes, only soiled by recent dust, denoted him a
pedestrian. He supported both hands on his silver mounted
cane, and his eyes were fixed on his young companion. “You
appeared to be interested in the scene that has just passed.
Do you know any of the sportive gentlemen who have been
playing such strange gambols?”

“I know them all. I am one of the party.”

“But you have not joined in their frolicsome foolery.”

“Perhaps because I did not partake of the exciting cause.”

“I understand,” was the stranger's brief reply.

Spiffard was pleased with both the appearance and the address
of the senior, whose manner, and a something independent
of dress, indicated good breeding and philanthropy,
mingled with eccentricity. Is it too much to say that all this
may be seen at a glance? If not seen, it may be imagined.
Imagination is rapid in conclusions.

This person had walked into the horse-shed, and seated himself,
while Spiffard's attention had been so occupied that he was
unconscious of his approach. The old gentleman had marked
both the scene, and the absorbing interest the young man took
in it.

There was a pause in the conversation of these chance-connected
and dissimilar interlocutors, during which, Spiffard took
note of the figure, dress, and attitude of the person to whom he
felt himself attracted by something stronger than mere curiosity.
In his sitting posture, the tall, thin person of the stranger was
supported, as he bent forward, by a cane, with a plain round
silver head, on which both hands, ungloved, rested, and a
mourning ring was displayed upon a finger of one. As his head
was projected, his gray locks, not time-thinned, fell on either
side of a face, pale, and marked by the furrows of at least fifty
years. His eyes were black as jet, and as brilliant as the most
vigorous intellect, or the most robust health and youth could
display. They were piercing; but the bland tranquillity of the
surrounding features prevented the appearance of severity.

“You are one of the party,” said the stranger; “but you
give as a reason for not joining in their anties, that you had not
partaken of the exciting cause; that is, as I understand—”

“Drinking madeira and champagne.”

“And you?”

“Never drink any liquor but water.”

“Is it possible!”

Here followed another pause. The old man seemed surprised.

He repeated his last words several times, in a low
tone, as to himself.

The reader must recollect that I record events of five and
twenty years ago. There were then no temperance societies.
Gentlemen—yes, gentlemen, did not think themselves degraded
by drunkenness.

At length the stranger resumed, “You dislike wine or spirituous
liquors, perhaps?”

“No, on the contrary, I remember, as a child, being delighted
by the taste, and eagerly desiring wine.”

“And you deny yourself the gratification! Why?”

“I have seen the misery caused by indulgence.”

“Have you, so young, seen enough to produce such a resolution;
such a determined abstinence? If you had seen what
I have seen—felt what I have felt! you would curse the poison
that scatters shame and sorrow among so many victims of
intemperance, and their unhappy relatives!”

The colour had rushed to the old man's cheeks, and his
eyes, before bright, now shone with a brilliancy almost supernatural.

If I have made myself understood in the previous delineation
of Spiffard's character, and the circumstances which had formed
it, I need not say that the words and looks of the stranger had
on him the effect of magic. Those chords of the memory,
feeling, imagination, which, too strongly touched, tended to
intellectual derangement, were violently assailed. His excitement
rose with the old man's voice, and the fire of his eyes
maddened him. “My curses join with yours; I have seen and
felt all you speak of.”

“Oh, no! you have not looked on a face beloved, and seen
it distorted.”

“I have!”

“You have not seen one justly beloved, flying from the
proud eminence his virtues had gained; the beloved shepherd
of a Christian flock driven to despondency by admitting doubts;
a despondency, the result of severe application upon a delicate
frame; doubts, the effects of disease; and beheld the victim
of overstrained research seeking a refuge from doubt in certain
destruction, until his only asylum was in a mad-house!”

Spiffard's feelings had so long been pushed beyond the
healthful medium, that his monomaniacal propensities had
gained full power over him. The images of his father and
mother rushed before his imagination so vividly, that he appeared
to see them with his bodily eyes; and the form and

lineaments of the latter were strangely commingled with those
of his own wife: he uttered an exclamation that attracted the
attention of the old gentleman, and his feelings were no longer
absorbed in self.

Admiration, produced by the conduct of a youth who appeared
so strongly to sympathize with him in a sorrow happily not
common, took possession of the stranger, and changed his expressive
countenance from its wildness, to a softer and calmer
appearance. His voice faltered as he attempted to utter words
intended to soothe the agitation he had so unaccountably
caused. At this moment the noisy bacchanalian rout issued
from the house, and the imaginary gave place to reality. The
shades of evening were closing in. Carriages and saddled
horses were brought to the door, and several voices shouted
“Spiffard! Skulker! Where are you? Where is the water-drinker?”

Cooke insisted upon having his pedestrian companion as an
attendant in the carriage into which he was lifted; for now, in
consequence of the additional cups taken in token of reconciliation
with his late antagonist, (who had miraculously recovered
from his mortal wound,) and a parting glass, or stirrup-cup,
drank with Cato, who had been dubbed Emperor of Morocco,
and king of Utopia, instead of Utica, he could no longer
obtain command over any member but his tongue, which incessantly
demanded Spiffard.

But Spiffard had, for the present, a stronger attraction in the
aged stranger; who, refusing to take a place in one of the hacks
had turned his steps to the road, as if determining to walk to
the city.

The young man resolved not to leave him, and seeing that his
former pedestrian companion was safely stowed in a carriage
with one of the youngest of the revellers, who promised to deposite
him at his lodgings and with trusty Trustworthy, the water
drinker followed his new-made acquaintance, and soon overtook
him, although he was walking with strides and vigour unpromised
by his grey hairs and attenuated form.

Joining the old gentleman, Spiffard asked permission to accompany
him, which was readily granted, with an expression
of gratification that one so young should prefer walking with
him to the easier mode of accomplishing the journey. There
was a sympathetic attraction felt by these two dissimilar individuals
not commonly experienced by two of the male sex at
first sight.

“You pay me a compliment by preferring my company to
that of your friends.”

After a silence of a moment, Spiffard ejaculated, “friends.”

“Perhaps companions would have been a more suitable
word.”

“For most of them, sir: but there are some even in that
riotous company, who, I have reason to believe, are my
friends.”

“Not any engaged in the farce of the duel?”

“Yes, both the principal actors in that farce; one intended
by the authors as the butt—even the long-erring eccentric
George Frederick Cooke: the other, the frank and liberal
minded Cooper.”

“Can such a man as Mr. Cooke be the friend of any one?”

“Yes, sir, if that one has shown an interest in his welfare
that could not be suspected to arise from selfishness. I may
be mistaken; but I think he is attached to me because I have
opposed his mad career, and have rejected firmly his excuses
while I endeavored to strengthen his (hitherto fruitless) resolves
to amend, and to give effect to his penitence. O, how truly,
in one of his comedies, Holcroft has called repentance a sneaking,
snivelling fellow, when not accompanied by amendment.
I don't quote his words.”

“The words of a play are seldom worth quoting.”

“The words of truth are as acceptable from a play as from
a homily—from a stage as from a pulpit—falsehood is always
detestable and truth always to be reverenced.”

“I spoke hastily—I was occupied by my feelings respecting
that grey-haired actor whose folly I had been witnessing. I
felt that plays were worthless, viewing the conduct of players.
I was wrong.”

“You do injustice now to players, as then to plays. You
forget that men of every profession play the fool. Even in the
fools-play which you have witnessed, and which boys might be
ashamed of, there were only two players to ten men of other
denominations; men with more fixed occupations and connexions;
more generally esteemed in society; but all as eager in
the childish game and as deeply involved in the guilt of intemperance,
as the man you stigmatize as the grey-haired-actor.”

“Folly is doubly despicable connected with grey hairs.”

“True, sir, but not more in an actor than in a merchant,
physician or lawyer.”

“Your remark is just. But you have excited my curiosity.
What could have induced one so young and so firmly attached

to habits of temperance, to seek the company of an old inveterate,
irreclaimable debauchee?”

“Old, inveterate, but perhaps not irreclaimable. While life
remains, there is hope. We do not despair of returning reason
for the lunatic or the maniac.”

“True,—true,—thank God! thank God!”

The pedestrians were by this time walking in that imperfect,
though oft times pleasant, light, which the stars alone shed over
an American landscape in autumn; and Spiffard did not observe
the change his words had produced upon his companion; the
convulsive expression of feature with which he uttered the few
last words.

“Such being the nature of man,” the youth proceeded,
“and the power of truth, persuasively employed, being great
beyond our knowledge, surely we ought not to abandon as irreclaimable
any of our fellow-creatures who are not permanently
deprived of reason. Mr. Cooke has a powerful mind,
and although perverted and debased by the second nature of
habit, perhaps the inclinations implanted in the first, may be
restored, and the patient saved. I am influenced by motives
flowing from circumstances touching me nearly, as has been
already hinted.”

“Yes!” said the old man. “Yes, I can understand. You
have witnessed the mental alienation of some one dear to you.
You are a stranger to me, and I have already spoken to you as
men of the world do not often speak to strangers, but it is evident
that we, however dissimilar in other respects, are alike sufferers
from the same cause, and that is a source of sympathy
with minds under the governance of reason. The loss of reason
in one dear to me has caused the greatest suffering I have
ever experienced. I have to-day, within a few hours, witnessed
his deplorable condition; and seeing, as I did in your
presence, such voluntary relinquishment of the greatest blessing
bestowed on man, I lose my self-command, and utter that
which had better, perhaps, have been locked in the breast, and
guarded with close lips.”

There was a long pause in the colloquy of the two pedestrians.
We will not continue to report in detail any more of
the conversation touching this subject. Our hero's return
walk from Cato's was a perfect contrast to that which carried
him thither. His companion was equally an opposite,
in all but age, and in an alacrity for walking. The old gentleman
was an habitual pedestrian, and could talk, although
walking at a good round pace. His feelings had been excited

by circumstances; his confidence was gained by the open
manner, and the truth-stamped physiognomy of our homely
hero.

They reciprocally imparted their names, and Mr. Littlejohn
(such was the stranger's appellation) made known many circumstances
relative to his domestic griefs, which were drawn
from him by the conversation we have related. He said that
he was returning from a visit to his unhappy son, (who was
confined in the lunatic asylum,) when he stopped at Cato's,
attracted by the scene he had there witnessed.

We will dedicate another chapter to the character and conversation
of Mr. Littlejohn and his companion, by which the
reader will find, or may suspect, that the old gentleman will
perform no unimportant part in our drama.