12. CHAPTER XII.
RICHARD AND CLOVER UNITE.
An Anti-Slavery meeting was gathered at the City Hall.
It comprised men and women from Victoria Square and
Knuckle Lane; from the Factories and Saw-mills; from
Taverns and Alehouses.
The lecturer had perhaps more of truth than love in his
composition; he was one who would not receive a cotton
shirt from a slaveholder, lest, like Edward the Confessor,
when a tax he had imposed was brought before him, he
should see a little devil jumping about it. He seemed to
feel, in regard to Slavery, as is related some of the Puritans
felt about Popery, that a thwack at it was the best cure
for the heart-burn. Possibly, acting on an old notion that
enchantment cannot subsist in running water, he thought
that the spell whereby that direful evil infatuates the popular
mind might be broken by setting in motion the currents
of popular feeling.
He was earnest and vehement; quite Pauline, quite
Savonarolian. His words did not exemplify so much the
rain on the new-mown grass, as the fire and the stubble. It
seemed as if he would burn the grass, rather than be at the
trouble of mowing it.
The audience listened patiently a while; many with a
deep conviction of the justice of his cause, — others overpowered
by the terror of his language. But uneasiness
manifested itself, either from fright or from offence. The
speaker no whit faltered. He seemed like one who was
used, as the Prophet says, to threshing the mountains, and
making them small as the dust. And though these mountains
were, like Olympus, covered with gods, it made no
difference; the gods must come down. Presently there
was hissing, and scraping, and groaning. Diana
was great,
but old, and gouty withal, and she could not be ousted
suddenly.
He spoke of the recent War, and its connection with his
subject, and with national affairs generally. And now the
gods rallied, and particularly Clover, and his confreres,
young Chassford, Glendar, and others.
“That war,” he said, “is the disgrace of the nation, and
the triumph of Slavery. Both are a curse, cleaving like
leprosy to the comeliness of the Republic; both are a wickedness
of such magnitude that perdition is not deep enough
to hold them!”
“Repeat those words!” cried Clover, springing from his
seat. The speaker repeated them in such a way there
could be no possibility of misapprehending them.
“Drag him from the desk!” “Pitch him from the
window!” rang from different parts. Timorousness took
the alarm, and some would have left the house. Dr.
Broadwell arose and said, “Be quiet, friends; if the lecturer's
truth does not hurt us, his rhetoric surely will not.
There is no danger.”
Clover, with two or three others, leaped forward to the
platform on which the lecturer stood. “I wish to speak,”
he said. “Certainly,” replied the other. “This fellow,”
so Clover harangued, “assaults the nation — he assaults the
people! He mocks at out institutions — he scoffs at our government!
He would wrench the flag from the mizzen-peak
of our glory! he would break the band-chain of our destiny!
Might is right; Might rules; Might gives law; Might
blew up the fort of Moultan; Might thrashed the Chinese;
Might burned Little Berebee; Might captured Osceola;
Might punished Sullivan! Great is Might! Who will join
in that shout? Who will cheer Might?”
The response was vociferous, but sparse. There could
not have been more than a dozen individuals, out of three
hundred, engaged in it. Yet it sounded large, and seemed
to fill the house; and as with stentor lungs the sentiment
was repeated, “Great is Might!” there were those who
thought it prevailed. Some weak and nervous ones yielded
to it, and fell in with it; some who were opposed to it, adjudging
it to be the sovereign voice, were disposed to acquiesce
in it; and if a vote had been taken on the instant, it
would probably have carried the house.
“I question the response; I repudiate the sentiment!”
cried the lecturer.
“Woe be unto you!” responded Clover. “Might rises;
Might blots out its enemies; Might crushes you!” He
laid his arm heavily on the shoulder of the speaker, as if
he expected to see him vanish through the floor.
Instantly there was a bellowing from all sides, “Do him,
Clover!” “Devour him!” “Take him up with a pair of
tongs!”
Meanwhile, Richard, backed by some friends, mounted
the dais, and while Clover was adjusting himself to the
undertaking of despatching the lecturer at a single swallow,
he swung his cap, and shouted, “Great is Truth!” and his
comrades vibrated the cry; and by deep, pulmonary thunders,
it rolled through the Hall; and the Might-voices, bemazed
by the Truth-voices, fled screeching away.
But Clover, not a little incensed, darting his skinny eye
at Richard, said, “Who are you, that dares cross the path
of Might? Who are you that presumes to lift your puny
finger against the victorious, awe-spreading march of this
powerful, this tremendous nation?”
“I am Richard Edney,” replied the other.
“You are a traitor's whelp!” pursued Clover; “you are
the dregs of an indigo-tub! You are a swag-bellied sniveller,
a coop of half-starved chickens, a milk-blooded son of a cow!
You are rot in the timbers of this hurricane Republic, — the
sappy edge of our all-scaring Institutions! O, admirable
baby-jumper! run home and tend your pigsneys!”
“I am what I am,” replied Richard; “and if you do not
know what that is already, you may know by and by.”
“Am I to be bullyragged by you?” retorted Clover. “Is
Might to have its whiskers pulled by a spinster's lackey?
Is the career of national glory to be turned back with a
cant-dog? Beware of Clover!” To give piquancy to
his words, Clover let loose his fist, which had long fretted
in the leash, at Richard, and dealt him a violent blow in
the face. Richard reeled, and put his hand to his face, as
if he would feel whether it was there or not. His friends
hastened to him, but he shook them off. His blood was
up, — it was up very high for him. He turned towards
Clover, both of whose fists were levelled at him; he leaped
upon these fists, as one would upon a long lever under a
mired wagon-wheel; he clenched one in one hand, the
other in the other, and sought to lower them. He bent
them down, though they were refractory as an elephant's
tusk. He straightened them out carefully and squarely on
Clover's thighs; then he crossed them on Clover's back; and
Clover could not stop him. He writhed, and throbbed, and
fumed, but to no purpose; and though every nerve in his
body had been wrought of Damascus steel, it would not
have availed him; and Richard embraced Clover, giving
him, in rural phraseology, a bear's hug. Then he lifted
him from his feet, and swinging him lightly, very lightly, in
his arms, laid him backwards on the floor, and bade the
lecturer proceed. Clover did not wince nor stir. The
audience, who had risen in expectation and alarm, resumed
their seats. Without further disturbance, the lecture was
finished, and the people dismissed.
Richard and Clover left the Hall together. Richard
drew Clover's arm into his, and they went towards their
homes, both of which lay in the Beauty of Woodylin. Few
words were interchanged. Only we can affirm that Clover
went to bed that night soberly, — quite soberly.
