University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
SKETCHES THE COURT TO WHICH THE HON. MR. CROW WAS ACCREDITED
AS AMBASSADOR.

Absorbed in what has been going on at the Hall, at Riverhead,
at the bachelor Trap of Mr. Hamilton, which has never
caught a wife yet for that worthy gentleman, we have treated
with undeserved neglect and improper silence the affairs of
Lanky and his sweetheart—Donsy Smith, daughter of Mr.
A. Z. Smith, the rosy little factor at Williamsburg. But
the historian cannot give his attention at the same time to
the Lords and Commons: while the Lords prose in their
lofty elevation, the Commons debate furiously in the lower
house:—and so the entertaining prosiness and fiery debate
cannot be reported at one and the same time. For fear,
however, that our lame metaphor will break down if we push
it farther, and betray its want of application to the characters
of this history, we shall proceed to narrate simply what followed
the resolution taken on that bright spring morning by
our friend Lanky, and how Mr. Crow—or “Jeames,” as he
was wont to call himself with noble simplicity—acquitted
himself in the arduous and responsible character of Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary near the Court
of Parson Tag, King of the Oldfield School, and Emperor
of the Ferule.

Perhaps the shortest and most satisfactory means of putting
the reader in possession of the events which attended the
embassy of the Honorable Mr. Crow will be to present those
events in a direct and dramatic form. Then shall we see
how umbrage was taken by Emperor Tag, at the person and
intent of the ambassador, as well as at his unambassadorial
costume:—how the right of the Minister Plenipotentiary to
appear in his every day citizen's dress was harshly questioned;

even his right to appear at all; and how in the hour of
danger that costume afforded him no protection, and led by
its deficiencies to a speedy resignation of his high and responsible
duties. Let us not, however, anticipate: every event
in its place.

Willie arrived at school some time after the proper hour,
mounted as usual on his small pony, and he entered with some
fear of a reproof. But in this he was mistaken. Parson
Tag was mildly courteous, and most pleasantly good-humored.
To explain this singular and unwonted circumstance—
for the parson usually administered justice like Dionysius,
the tyrant—we have only to inform the reader that the worthy
gentleman had been present at the Hall on the previous evening,
and had delighted his inward man with sundry viands
and vintages of the most savory description. He had been
treated with great courtesy by the well-bred host, also:—and
thus he was in a highly amiable state of mind—especially
toward Willie. If the reader is surprised at the fact of the
parson's attending the festival at the Hall, after his quarrel
with the squire, we can only say that our sketch of this worthy's
character must have been defective. He was not the
man to despise an excellent supper and delicious wines, because
he hated and had quarrelled with the host.

The school was busy as usual, and a long row of girls and
boys stood in the middle of the floor conning their lessons,
and preparing for the fiery ordeal. On the benches ranged
round the apartment sat many more, leaning their slates, or
copy-books, or grammars, on the long desk which extended
equally with the benches from end to end; and these hard
little students were engaged apparently in the most intense
toil.

Some grasped their hair furiously at sums in arithmetic,
which persisted in turning out wrong:—for how could the
remainder be greater than the figures from which the others
were subtracted? Some went on voyages of half an hour
around the world, taking in spices of Sumatra, Ceylon and
the Sunda isles; fighting their way into inhospitable Japan;
taking a census of the population of the exclusive cities of
Pekin and Shanghai and other Chinese places: some fought
their way into the noble English grammar, others bent down
over copy-books, endeavoring painfully to enunciate in legible

letters the propositions that “Honesty is the best policy,”
and that “Evil communications corrupt good manners:”
and when a spatter fell upon the page, the hearts of
the urchins were filled with dreadful visions of descending
ferules, and aching blistered hands.

The little maidens were busy, too, in all these branches;
and with atlases before them, heard the nightingales singing
in the valley of Cashmere;—and sailed along the Tigris in
a splendid barge to visit the great Caliph Haroun at his
Bagdad palace;—and swam to the sound of melodious guitars
in gondolas on broad canals in Venice:—and looked
carefully for the mountain by the royal city of Grenada,
whereon pausing wofully, the handsome Moslem uttered
the “last sigh of the Moor.” Others were busy with arithmetic,
and copying just as the boys were; and the only difference
was that they did not anticipate chastisement for delinquency.
The parson had lived in his adopted country—
Virginia, that is to say—long enough to find that it was not
customary for one of the ruder sex, however lofty his station,
to lay his hand “even in the way of kindness” upon one of
the opposite sex, however humble, and so the little maidens
only dreaded “demerits,” and these they struggled to avoid.

What we have thus briefly described, was the exoteric
and external appearance of things:—which would have
struck a stranger, and caused him to believe that of all the
scholars that ever gladdened with their industry and application
the pedagogic heart, those of the pedagogue in question
were the most prudent and exemplary. A somewhat
closer view, however, would have revealed what we must
borrow another scientific word to characterize—the esoteric
phase of the Oldfield school. From time to time the
maidens and urchins exchanged laughing and mysterious
glances over their slates or atlases:—the lips of the damsels
would move with exaggerated expressiveness, to the end
that from the movement of those cherry-like appendages,
their cavaliers might divine what they meant to express.
Then when the cavaliers remained obstinately dull and would
not understand, the little maidens made signs upon their
fingers, after the well known manner of the dumb; and when
the still obtuse urchins shook their heads, little scraps of
paper were hastily covered with stealthy pencil marks, and

rolled up and tossed invisibly across, while the maidens
seemed to be deeply immersed in study. And the urchins
read, “Just look at Sally Jones and Tom Lackland!”—or,
“You promised me an apple!”—or, “Have you done that
horrid sum?”—or, “Robert Dawson don't know his lesson
again, and the parson'll whip him. Ain't it shameful?”

Another esoteric phase was going on sub rosâ, that is,
under the desk: small hands of little maidens were squeezed
there in the most gallant and impassioned manner by chevaliers
who coveted an opportunity to expire nobly in defence
of their ladyloves:—and fruit, cakes, tarts, biscuits, were
smuggled, as lasting proofs of devoted and disinterested affection:—and
while the hands were being pressed under the
little aprons, the noble cavaliers assumed an innocent and
abstracted expression which would have done them credit in
the eyes of indifferent observers:—and then at the master's
dreadful glance the beaus retreated from their sweethearts
precipitately, and betook themselves to study:—that is, to
studying the manner of passing “playtime” to the best advantage,
turning over the leaves of their spelling-books with
well-executed art, and deeply immersed in the study—
which we have mentioned.

No event of any importance disturbed the even tenor of
the noble academy that morning. True, some half a dozen
unfortunate dunces were feruled for being destitute of
brains; true, a youthful gentleman, with a genius for caricature,
was caught just as he had put the finishing touch to
a splendid design of the parson on his slate—which design
represented the worthy gentleman arrayed in a shovel hat
some leagues in width, with a body formed of a tobacco
hogshead, from beneath which issued an enormous pair of
feet crushing to death a squealing tythe pig:—true, the
wailing of the dunces and the unappreciated artist filled the
room and struck terror into cavalier and lady, boy and girl
alike:—but these little occurrences were not uncommon, and
things went on very pleasantly until “playtime:”—when all
rushed forth free as air, and wild as little colts turned loose
in a green pasture, with liberty to roll, and run, and turn
somersets, and gambol to their hearts' content.

The noble monarch of the school remained within, enthroned
in state upon his rostrum, from which he surveyed

the unfortunates, who, having neglected their tasks, now had
the excruciating and tantalizing pleasure of hearing their
companions shouting at their play out under the blue sky.
The noble parson embraced the opportunity to comfort his
inner man with sandwiches and Jamaica rum, gazing, as he
partook of these humble condiments and liquids, upon the
sketch of himself we have already described.

Let us leave him there, enthroned in state, and go and
breathe that fresh air which is driving the little maids and
urchins mad with full delight. It is more wholesome.