University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS.

Before the hour arrived for the change foretold by the doctor,
Miss Wilsome Winkle had reached Babbleton, where she

was met by Walter, and informed of every thing that had
transpired. She readily entered into the scheme for the overthrow
of the “impudent hussy,” as she never ceased to term
her brother's wife.

Every thing being in readiness, Walter conducted his aunt
to his uncle's house, and led her into the chamber of the patient,
where Lucy had been left to watch, and where Griselda
and the priest were standing on either side of the bed.

“Is that you, sister?” asked the patient.

“It is, brother—get out of the way, Gusset!” said Wilsome,
thrusting Griselda aside, much to the chagrin of the latter.

“The doctor says I must not let him be disturbed,” said
Griselda.

“Sit down by me, Wilsome,” said Napoleon. “I feel a
change approaching. You will stand your ground manfully,
won't you, sister?”

“Never fear! All the men and women and milliners in
the world can't frighten me!”

“His intellects are wandering,” said the priest.

“Do you think so?” asked the patient quickly, and rising
upright in bed.

“Mr. Winkle!” cried Griselda.

“Mrs. Winkle!” said the patient, in a manly tone, “I
command you to bring hither my will.”

“Your will?”

“Yes—my will. I want to read it to my relatives, so
that they may know what disposition I have determined to
make of my property. Be quick—for the change is upon
me!”

“Bring it, daughter,” said the priest, “and likewise permit
the lawyer who wrote it, to enter. Good people,” he added,
when Griselda went out, “the will in question was signed
when his mind was clear and steady—”

“Good for you, father Xavier! I will acknowledge to as
much. There shall be no dispute on that point. Now,” he
continued, taking the instrument from the reluctant hands of
his wife, “I will read the will myself.”

“He then proceeded to read with a firm voice. In the
first paragraph, for the repose of his soul, and for the benefit
of the pious order, of which the priest was a member, there
was a devise of one hundred thousand dollars, in six per cent.
city bonds. The remainder of his personal estate, with the

exception of a few trifling legacies, was bequeathed to his
dearly beloved wife!

“Gusset, this thing is a contrivance of yours!” said Wilsome,
taking the instrument out of her brother's hand.

“I won't be insulted in my own house!” said Griselda,
snatching the will away from Wilsome.

“Let me have the custody of it,” said the priest, putting
it in his bosom.

“You impudent bonnet-maker!” said Wilsome. “Your
house! The little white two-story frame shop, where there
used to be a wooden head—yes, a blockhead—is yours!”

“Be peaceable in the chamber of the dying!” said the
priest.

“He shan't make such a will!” continued Wilsome. “It
is unjust, and he could not have been in his right mind! He
shall make another, and I will be a witness to it. Where's the
lawyer?”

“Here, madam!” said Bawson, sliding into the room,
having been listening outside of the door.

“If you advise it, I will do so, sister,” said the patient.

“You see that the poor man has no mind of his own,” said
the priest; “and any will he may now sign, can be of no virtue.”

“That is true, father Xavier,” said Griselda, “and your
words will be repeated in court!”

“I will sign this will,” said Napoleon, drawing forth the
one he had kept concealed about his person. “Give me pen
and ink, Bawson.”

“He is non compos mentis,” said the priest. “Daughter,
let us not be witnesses of such iniquity! Come with me.”

“Yes, go,” said Napoleon, “and remain in the cabinet
till I send for you. If the doctor comes, despatch him to me,”
he added, as the priest and Griselda closed the door behind
them.

“You have made a good beginning, uncle,” said Walter.

“Oh, if sister Wilsome will support me, the enemy shall
be utterly routed, and I will recover my happiness. But before
we proceed any farther, let me vindicate myself. Some
men of military passions delight in slaughter, and they are
applauded by the world. Some paint battle scenes with the
brush, which are admired by millions. Poets describe the
sanguinary conflict, and mock heroes enact feats of arms on

the stage. None of these are ridiculed as madmen. Then
why should I be censured or laughed at for enjoying the sport
in my own inoffensive way? I read of the achievements of
that extraordinary man who conquered Europe, and I amuse
myself by re-enacting his exploits in imagination, on my own
fields. Why am I termed a monomaniac? All men and
women are monomaniacs, as I can prove by a book in my
library. You, my sister, are crazy on the subject of cards—”

“Cards! The most rational amusement in the world!”

“Miss Flora Blount,” continued Napoleon, “has a monomaniacal
passion for novels. Griselda must be an imperious
mistress. Xavier must be canonized, like Loyola. Pollen, the
poet, must be an erratic genius, like Coleridge. And so with
thousands, whose views differ from the mass. But the mass—
the millions themselves—who struggle desperately for the superfluous
heaps of gold that glitter in their waking dreams,
are the most absurd maniacs of all! They could not enjoy
more than an insignificant portion of the huge fortunes they
strive to obtain, nor can they take them hence! Then who
can be a more ridiculous and raving monomaniac than the man
who perils health, life, happiness, here and hereafter, for the
acquisition of wealth which he cannot enjoy! I shall resume
my amusements. You have my reasons, which you may, if
you see proper, repeat to others. Why do you stare so, Bawson?
I have not been ill at all. Lucy, bring me the fried
oysters from the closet. But I will rise and dress before I
eat them. Walter, give me my breeches—”

“Brother!” said Wilsome, springing up, “I hope you
would not be so indelicate as to rise and dress in my presence.”

“Go, then, with Lucy into the next room. I shall certainly
rise and dress.”

As the ladies went out the doctor came in.

“Ah! Winkle!” said he, “I am a true prophet. The
change has occurred just as I predicted. But not as the
couple I met in the library would wish. They hurried me
away, and I must immediately report to them. What shall I
say?”

“Wait till I fasten this button. You must say it is
all over with me. Stop! Stay a few minutes. Set out the
table, Walter. Place chairs around it. So! Come in, sister!”

“That looks like preparing for a game,” said Wilsome,
glancing at the table and chairs.”

“Exactly! Choose your partner, Wilsome—Lucy or
Walter. I'll take the other, and beat you for a bottle. Have
you any cards?”

“Yes—here in my pocket. I'll take Walter.”

“Very good. All sit down. Now, Bawson, go with the
doctor to the library. Tell them they may come in and see
the end. Say, doctor, that your duties are ended—and you
may send in your bill to-morrow. And tell them I signed the
other will before I departed.”

It was not long before the voices of Griselda and Xavier
could be heard, but not in lamentation.

“We can establish the fact,” said the priest, “that he was
not of sane mind when they caused him to sign the last will.”

“If they will take my testimony,” said Griselda, “I can
prove he had no mind of his own.”

“But he has recovered his senses,” said Napoleon, playing
the last card in his hand, and lifting his large eyes just as
Griselda and the priest came into the room.

“My gracious!” exclaimed Griselda.

“There has been a gross deception practised on us,” said
the priest.

“No. You have deceived yourselves,” said Napoleon,
sternly. “Why do you stare so? We are merely a party of
Winkles, all in perfect health, and amusing ourselves, as we
have a perfect right to do. We are not interlopers here. We
are on our own premises. But who are you? I will tell you.
That woman, by her false pretences, induced me to believe she
honestly sympathized in the pursuit of my innocent pleasures,
when others either ridiculed or condemned my idiosyncrasy.
I married her, as a reward for what I supposed to be her generous
defence of me; and bestowed upon her both my name
and a comfortable home. But she had not been the mistress
of my household twenty-four hours, before she exhibited her
true colors. Without being restrained by any considerations
of modesty or propriety, and forgetting her former humble
condition, she seized the reins as one having the right to rule
despotically. This I endured, until I became convinced she
had neither affection nor respect for me, her benefactor; and
that she had been made the instrument of an equivocal order
of religionists, whose interference in the domestic affairs of

unsuspecting families has become a proverb and an opprobrium
in all Christian lands. It was then that I resolved to
disenthrall myself, and to banish from my hearth such an impudent
and mischievous intruder. Such, madam, is the sentence
I pronounced, and which will be immediately put in
execution.

“Now, sir,” he continued, turning to the priest, “when
you crossed my threshold, you were well aware that I had relations
to inherit my fortune. I need not ask you if it can be
truly serving your Maker, to snatch the bread from the widow
and the orphan. These young relations of mine, as you well
know, and knew at the time, are orphans, and destitute of fortune—”

“Pooh! Brother!” said Wilsome, “don't expose the
family. I intend to leave them my fortune. Pitch the priest
out of the window, and be done with it.”

“You say well, sister; but still I desire to utter my emphatic
condemnation of the practice of having sinners encouraged
by the fallacious promises of gowned hypocrites, who bestow
their fortunes as an equivalent for repentance, or as the
purchase-money of redemption, while their families are left to
starve, and subjected to all the temptations to crime which
poverty entails! I thank my Maker that I have risen superior
to such delusions.

“Now, madam,” he continued, turning again to Griselda,
“I do not intend to sue for a divorce; but we shall never
meet again. If you claim it, and the law allows it, I will provide
for your maintenance; but you shall dwell no more under
my roof. Pack up your clothes. I will send your trunks
after you. You have the option to go on foot to your shop in
the village, or to ride in a cart. My coach you shall never
enter again.”

“As for you, insidious and sinful priest, I turn you over
to the tender mercies of the one you sought to despoil of his
natural inheritance. Take charge of him, Walter.”

Walter rose up quickly, and passing between the astonished
couple, approached the window.

“Now! Close your ears, aunt!” cried he, pulling a cord
that came in at the window.

The next moment the company were startled by a volley
of musketry. This was succeeded by the rub-a-dub-dub of a

drum, and soon after the measured tramp of a file of Blore's
men were heard descending the stairway.

The sergeant himself came in, and going up to the priest,
slapped him smartly on the shoulder, and ordered him to face
about and march. Walter followed them out of the room.

“Why don't you pack up your things, Gusset?” demanded
Wilsome. “Don't speak, but go about it instantly. I will
not lose sight of you until you leave my brother's premises,
for fear you might set fire to the house. Go—or I will lead
you by the ear, you impudent strumpet!”

Griselda obeyed, livid with rage, and speechless with astonishment.
And a few minutes afterwards she might have
been seen alone and on foot hurrying along the road towards
Babbleton.

Lucy sought the cook, to order dinner for her uncle; while
the liberated commander promenaded his hall with the lofty
bearing of a monarch.

Walter and the sergeant conducted their prisoner through
the orchard towards the barracks, while the drum played the
rogue's march.

Arrived at the quarters of the men, a cord and a staff
were produced, and the prisoner was made to sit down on a
blanket. His hands were tied before him, his knees were
pulled up between his arms, and the staff thrust through in
such a manner as to prevent him from rising.

“Frangas non flectes!”[1] said the prisoner, with a smile.

“What's that he says?” asked Blore.

“It's the devil's lingo,” said one of the men, who professed
to have a smattering of all languages.

“Extremis malis, extrema remedia,”[2] said Walter.

“There! that's good Dutch,” said the wise linguist; “and
it's the language the devil speaks most fluentially, and understands
the perfectest.”

“But what does it mean?” asked Blore.

“Am I the devil that I should understand it? Let him
use the Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, French, Irish or Scotch,
and you'll see how quick I'll turn it into English for you!”

“It was by such suffering,” said the priest, “that Francis
Xavier became a saint!”

“Your prototype and namesake,” said Walter, “was a
good man. The founders of your order were pure and holy.
They made voluntary sacrifices themselves, for the benefit of
the cause in which they were embarked; and were never
known to use fraud in coercing others to contribute to their
coffers. They were honest men, and went about the world
healing the wounds of miserable humanity; but their degenerate
successors have reversed their principle of action. They
care not for the desolation and ruin left behind them, in their
ambitious endeavors to obtain earthly wealth and human
power.”

“That is merely the vulgar opinion—the slander of the
Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc.”

“No, sir. It is true. You have commanded your agents
and spies, absolving them from the guilt of perjury, to become
members of our order of Americans, for the purpose of sowing
discord amongst us. But you have failed. On the contrary,
without incurring the same guilt, we have obtained a
knowledge of your designs. We have availed ourselves of
your example, so far as secrecy was concerned, to counteract
your iniquitous operations. We shall confront you at every
turn. Throughout this broad land, wherever there may be a
sneaking political Jesuit, there will be found a score of patriotic
Americans to oppose him. Perform your duty, men!”

As Walter said this, four of the strongest men seized the
blanket at its corners, and commenced tossing up the prisoner.
Sometimes he fell on his back, sometimes on his face; on his
feet, and on his head, alternately; but he received no bodily
injury. When he had been exercised thus for some minutes
to the infinite diversion of the company, he was put down and
unbound. But during this operation, a number of printed
bonds. Philadelphia 6's, fell from his bosom.

“Why, you impudent thief!” said Walter, looking at the
papers, “these bonds belong to my uncle. They are payable
to him, and he has not indorsed them. You must have stolen
them.”

“No, my son. They were given me by your pious Aunt
Griselda, in accordance with the provision of the will.”

“I will take the liberty of returning them to my uncle.
Now, sir, you shall be released. I will not require any promises
or oaths from you, since it would appear that your religion
has run into such excesses as to tolerate and justify every

thing which the Bible teaches is dishonorable and sinful. But
you may rely upon this: that in every council of the Know
Nothings your iniquity shall be made known; and that whenever
you attempt to execute any of your impious designs, you
will be again tossed in a blanket. In our order you have at
last found a match for your own execrable machinery. You
will not alone henceforth wield the terrors of an awful mystery.
Beware, in time! Do not exasperate the millions in this land
of liberty, or you will be annihilated at one blow. You never
can be sufficiently numerous and powerful to prevail against us.”

“Fide et fortitudine,”[3] said the priest.

“Fide, non armis,”[4] replied Walter.

“What's that?” asked Blore.

“It's all as plain as the face of the bull yonder, staring at
us across the water,” said the learned soldier. “The priest
says fight with fortitude—and Walter says fight not our
armies, and he gives him good advice. It is the language of
the great Florentine.”

Both the priest and Walter smiled at the erudition of the
man, whose interpretation was not without signification.

Father Xavier did not tarry when permitted to depart, and
as he strode towards the high road leading to the village, the
drummer again played the rogue's march.

When it was ascertained that the last of the invaders had
retired from the premises, all the forces of the garrison were
assembled by Blore in front of the mansion, where they uttered
cheer after cheer most vociferously. Napoleon appeared on
the balcony, and manifested by his looks of pleasure the happiness
he felt. And he gave an order for the event of his enfranchisement
to be celebrated in an appropriate manner. In
effect, soon afterward, the whole country, for miles round, was
startled by the repeated discharges of artillery. At first it
was supposed an heir had been born; but when it was understood
that the doctor's visits had been made to the commander
himself, it was taken for granted that the patient was gone.
Blore, however, did not permit the inhabitants of Babbleton
to remain long in ignorance. He dispatched a courier to the
village with the news of the expulsion of the “Tartarian,” as
he called her, and long before Gusset reached her shop, for
her walking was impeded by several monstrous corns on her

feet, the urchins of the village were collected in full force in
the middle of the street in readiness to hoot at her. Pale,
and completely subdued, the disgraced wife rushed into her
own humble domicil. Her tenant, and successor in business,
gazed in astonishment. But the tale was soon told. It was
quickly babbled throughout the village. And, singular as it
may appear, Gusset had not one to sympathize with her. The
poor, of her own condition, had been abandoned and frowned
upon by her; and the rich, such as the Arums and the Crudles,
could have no respect for any but the rich, or those in more
elevated positions than themselves. They sought to level upwards,
not downwards. And hence poor Gusset could look
for nothing but jeers and contumely from her own sex.

Miss Wilcome having imparted to her brother the information
that both Lucy and Walter were to be married in the
spring, and that the countess and the earl would not sail for
England before midsummer, he immediately proposed that his
niece, and Lowe, and the countess, should occupy his spacious
mansion, as the guests of Walter, which was agreed to—Lucy
remaining silent, but looking very grateful.

In the afternoon the splendid coach was ordered out, and
Walter and Wilsome were driven in great state through the
streets of Babbleton to Mrs. Winkle's mansion. Lucy remained
with her uncle, as his housekeeper. But Walter rejoined
her in the evening, and superintended a grand illumination
of the mansion, which was admired by thousands.