University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
PURSUITS OF A PHILOSOPHER.

From the house at Swallow Barn, there is to be
seen, at no great distance, a clump of trees, and in
the midst of these an humble building is discernible,
that seems to court the shade in which it is modestly
embowered. It is an old structure built of logs. Its
figure is a cube, with a roof rising from all sides to a
point, and surmounted by a wooden weathercock
which somewhat resembles a fish, and somewhat a
fowl.

This little edifice is a rustic shrine devoted to Cadmus,
and here the sacred rites of the alphabet are
daily solemnized by some dozen knotty-pated and
freckled votaries not above three feet high, both in
trowsers and petticoats. This is one of the many
temples that stud the surface of our republican empire,
where liberty receives her purest worship, and
where, though in humble and lowly guise, she secretly
breathes her strength into the heart and sinews of
the nation. Here the germ is planted that fructifies
through generations, and produces its hundredfold.
At this altar the spark is kindled that propagates its
fire from breast to breast, like the vast conflagrations
that light up and purify the prairie of the west.

The school-house has been an appendage to Swallow
Barn ever since the infancy of the last generation.
Frank Meriwether has, in his time, extended
its usefulness by opening it to the accommodation of
his neighbours; so that it is now a theatre whereon
a bevy of pigmy players are wont to enact the seriocomic
interludes that belong to the first process of
indoctrination. A troop of these little sprites are seen,
every morning, wending their way across the fields,
armed with tin kettles, in which are deposited their
leather-coated apple-pies or other store for the day,
and which same kettles are generally used, at the
decline of the day, as drums or cymbals, to signalize
their homeward march, or as receptacles of the spoil
pilfered from black-berry bushes, against which these
bare-footed Scythians are prone to carry on a predatory
war.

Throughout the day a continual buzz is heard
from this quarter, even to the porch of the mansion-house.
Hazard and myself occasionally make them
a visit, and it is amusing to observe how, as we approach,
the murmur becomes more distinct, until,
reaching the door, we find the whole swarm running
over their long, tough syllables, in a high concert
pitch, with their elbows upon the desks, their hands
covering their ears, and their naked heels beating
time against the benches—as if every urchin believed
that a polysyllable was a piece of music invented
to torment all ears but his own. And, high above
this din, the master's note is sounded in a lordly key,
like the occasional touch of the horn in an orchestra.

This little empire is under the dominion of parson
Chub. He is a plump, rosy old gentleman, rather
short and thick set, with the blood-vessels meandering
over his face like rivulets,—a pair of prominent
blue eyes, and a head of silky hair, not unlike the
covering of a white spaniel. He may be said to be
a man of jolly dimensions, with an evident taste for
good living; somewhat sloven in his attire, for his
coat,—which is not of the newest,—is decorated
with sundry spots that are scattered over it in constellations.
Besides this, he wears an immense
cravat, which, as it is wreathed around his short
neck, forms a bowl beneath his chin, and,—as Ned
says,—gives the parson's head the appearance of that
of John the Baptist upon a charger, as it is sometimes
represented in the children's picture books.
His beard is grizzled with silver stubble, which the
parson reaps about twice a week,—if the weather be
fair.

Mr. Chub is a philosopher after the order of Socrates.
He was an emigrant from the Emerald Isle,
where he suffered much tribulation in the disturbances,
as they are mildly called, of his much-enduring
country. But the old gentleman has weathered
the storm without losing a jot of that broad, healthy
benevolence with which nature has enveloped his
heart, and whose ensign she has hoisted in his face.
The early part of his life had been easy and prosperous,
until the rebellion of 1798 stimulated his republicanism
into a fever, and drove the full-blooded
hero headlong into the quarrel, and put him, in spite

of his peaceful profession, to standing by his pike in
behalf of his principles. By this unhappy boiling
over of the caldron of his valour he fell under the
ban of the ministers, and tasted his share of government
mercy. His house was burnt over his head,
his horses and hounds (for, by all accounts, he was
a perfect Acteon) were “confiscate to the state,” and
he was forced to fly. This brought him to America
in no very compromising mood with royalty.

Here his fortunes appear to have been various,
and he was tossed to and fro by the battledoor of
fate, until he found a snug harbour at Swallow Barn;
where, some years ago, he sat down in that quiet repose
which a worried and badgered patriot is best
fitted to enjoy.

He is a good scholar, and having confined his reading
entirely to the learning of the ancients, his republicanism
is somewhat after the Grecian mould.
He has never read any politics of later date than
the time of the Emperor Constantine,—not even a
newspaper;—so that he may be said to have been
contemporary with æschines rather than Lord Castlereagh,
until that eventful epoch of his life when
his blazing roof-tree awakened him from his anachronistical
dream. This notable interruption, however,
gave him but a feeble insight into the moderns,
and he soon relapsed to Thucydides and Livy, with
some such glimmerings of the American Revolution
upon his remembrance as most readers have of the
exploits of the first Brutus.

The old gentleman has a learned passion for

folios. He had been a long time urging Meriwether
to make some additions to his collections of literature,
and descanted upon the value of some of the
ancient authors as foundations, both moral and physical,
to the library. Frank gave way to the argument,
partly to gratify the parson, and partly from
the proposition itself having a smack that touched
his fancy. The matter was therefore committed entirely
to Mr. Chub, who forthwith set out on a voyage
of exploration to the north. I believe he got as
far as Boston. He certainly contrived to execute
his commission with a curious felicity. Some famous
Elzivirs were picked up, and many other antiques
that nobody but Mr. Chub would ever think of
opening.

The cargo arrived at Swallow Barn in the dead
of winter. During the interval between the parson's
return from his expedition and the coming of the
books, the reverend little schoolmaster was in a remarkably
unquiet state of body, which almost prevented
him from sleeping: and it is said that the
sight of the long expected treasures had the happiest
effect upon him. There was ample accommodation
for this new acquisition of ancient wisdom provided
before its arrival, and Mr. Chub now spent a whole
week in arranging the volumes on their proper shelves,
having, as report affirms, altered the arrangement at
least seven times during that period. Every body
wondered what the old gentleman was at all this
time; but it was discovered afterwards, that he was
endeavouring to effect a distribution of the works according

to a minute division of human science, which
entirely failed, owing to the unlucky accident of
several of his departments being without any volumes.

After this matter was settled, he regularly spent
his evenings in the library. Frank Meriwether was
hardly behind the parson in this fancy, and took,
for a short time, to abstruse reading. They both,
consequently, deserted the little family circle every
evening after tea, and might have continued to do so
all the winter but for a discovery made by Hazard.

Ned had seldom joined the two votaries of science
in their philosophical retirement, and it was whispered
in the family that the parson was giving Frank
a quiet course of lectures in the ancient philosophy,
for Meriwether was known to talk a good deal, about
that time, of the old and new Academicians. But
it happened upon one dreary winter night, during a
tremendous snowstorm, which was banging the shutters
and doors of the house so as to keep up a continual
uproar, that Ned, having waited in the parlour
for the philosophers until midnight, set out to invade
their retreat,—not doubting that he should find them
deep in study. When he entered the library, both
candles were burning in their sockets, with long, untrimmed
wicks; the fire was reduced to its last embers,
and, in an arm-chair on one side of the table,
the parson was discovered in a sound sleep over
Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium; whilst Frank,
in another chair on the opposite side, was snoring
over a folio edition of Montaigne. And upon the
table stood a small stone pitcher containing a residuum

of whiskey punch, now grown cold. Frank
started up in great consternation upon hearing Ned's
footstep beside him, and, from that time, almost
entirely deserted the library. Mr. Chub, however,
was not so easily drawn away from the career of
his humour, and still shows his hankering after his
leather-coated friends.

It is an amusing point in the old gentleman's
character to observe his freedom in contracting engagements
that depend upon his purse. He seems
to think himself a rich man, and is continually becoming
security for some of the neighbours. To hear
him talk, it would be supposed that he meant to renovate
the affairs of the whole county. As his intentions
are so generous, Meriwether does not fail
to back him when it comes to a pinch;—by reason
of which the good squire has more than once been
obliged to pay the penalty.

Mr. Chub's character, as it will be seen from this
description of him, possesses great simplicity. This
has given rise to some practical jokes against him,
which have caused him much annoyance. The
tradition in the family goes, that, one evening, the
worthy divine, by some strange accident, fell into an
excess in his cups; and that a saucy chamber-maid
found him dozing in his chair, with his pipe in his
mouth, having the bowl turned downward, and the
ashes sprinkled over his breast. He was always
distinguished by a broad and superfluous ruffle to
his shirt, and, on this occasion, the mischievous maid
had the effrontery to set it on fire. It produced, as

may be supposed, a great alarm to the parson, and,
besides, brought him into some scandal; for he was
roused up in a state of consternation, and began to
strip himself of his clothes, not knowing what he was
about. I don't know how far he exposed himself,
but the negro women, who ran to his relief, made a
fine story of it.

Hazard once reminded him of this adventure, in
my presence, and it was diverting to see with what
a comic and quiet sheepishness he bore the joke.
He half closed his eyes and puckered up his mouth
as Ned proceeded; and when the story came to the
conclusion, he gave Ned a gentle blow on the breast
with the back of his hand, crying out, as he did so,
“Hoot toot,—Mister Ned!”—Then he walked to
the front door, where he stood whistling.