"Since you ask this question plainly, Mr. Bragg, it shall be answered with equal sincerity. Mr. Effingham is a man of mature years; the known child, executor, and heir of one who, it is admitted all round, was the master of the controverted property. Knowing his own business, this Mr. Effingham, in sight of the grave of his fathers, beneath the paternal roof, has the intolerable impudence--"
"Arrogance is the word, Jack," said Mr. Effingham, smiling.
"Aye, the intolerable arrogance to suppose that his own is his own; and this he dares to affirm, without having had the politeness to send his t.i.tle-deeds, and private papers, round to those who have been so short a time in the place, that they might well know every thing that has occurred in it for the last half century. Oh thou naughty, arrogant fellow, Ned!"
"Mr. John, you appear to forget that the public has more claims to be treated with attention, than a single individual. If it has fallen into error, it ought to be undeceived."
"No doubt, sir; and I advise Mr. Effingham to send you, his agent, to every man, woman and child in the county, with the Patent of the King, all the mesne conveyances and wills, in your pocket, in order that you may read them at length to each individual, with a view that every man, woman and child, may be satisfied that he or she is not the owner of Edward Effingham"s lands!"
"Nay, sir, a shorter process might be adopted."
"It might, indeed, sir, and such a process has been adopted by my cousin, in giving the usual notice, in the newspaper, against trespa.s.sing. But, Mr. Bragg, you must know that I took great pains, three years since, when repairing this house, to correct the mistake on this very point, into which I found that your immaculate public had fallen, through its disposition to know more of other people"s affairs, than those concerned knew of themselves."
Aristabulus said no more, but gave the matter up in despair. On quitting the house, he proceeded forthwith, to inform those most interested of the determination of Mr. Effingham, not to be trampled on by any pretended meeting of the public. Common sense, not to say common honesty, began to resume its sway, and prudence put in its plea, by way of applying the corrective. Both he and Mr. Dodge, however, agreed that there was an unheard-of temerity in thus resisting the people, and this too without a commensurate object, as the pecuniary value of the disputed point was of no material consequence to either party.
The reader is not, by any means, to suppose that Aristabulus Bragg and Steadfast Dodge belonged to the same variety of the human species, in consequence of their unity of sentiment in this affair, and certain other general points of resemblance in their manner and modes of thinking. As a matter of necessity each partook of those features of caste, condition, origin, and a.s.sociation that characterize their particular set; but when it came to the nicer distinctions that mark true individuality, it would not have been easy to find two men more essentially different in character. The first was bold, morally and physically, aspiring, self-possessed, shrewd, singularly adapted to succeed in his schemes where he knew the parties, intelligent, after his tastes, and apt. Had it been his fortune to be thrown earlier into a better sphere, the same natural qualities that rendered him so expert in his present situation, would have conduced to his improvement, and most probably would have formed a gentleman, a scholar, and one who could have contributed largely to the welfare and tastes of his fellow-creatures. That such was not his fate, was more his misfortune than his fault, for his plastic character had readily taken the impression of those things that from propinquity alone, pressed hardest on it. On the other hand Steadfast was a hypocrite by nature, cowardly, envious, and malignant; and circ.u.mstances had only lent their aid to the natural tendencies of his disposition. That two men so differently const.i.tuted at their births, should meet, as it might be in a common centre, in so many of their habits and opinions, was merely the result of accident and education.
Among the other points of resemblance between these two persons, was that fault of confounding the cause with the effects of the peculiar inst.i.tutions under which they had been educated and lived. Because the law gave to the public, that authority which, under other systems, is entrusted either to one, or to the few they believed the public was invested with far more power than a right understanding of their own principles would have shown. In a word, both these persons made a mistake which is getting to be too common in America, that of supposing the inst.i.tutions of the country were all means and no end.
Under this erroneous impression they saw only the machinery of the government, becoming entirely forgetful that the power which was given to the people collectively, was only so given to secure to them as perfect a liberty as possible, in their characters of individuals.
Neither had risen sufficiently above vulgar notions, to understand that public opinion, in order to be omnipotent, or even formidable beyond the inflictions of the moment, must be right; and that, if a solitary man renders himself contemptible by taking up false notions inconsiderately and unjustly, bodies of men, falling into the same error, incur the same penalties, with the additional stigma of having acted as cowards.
There was also another common mistake into which Messrs. Bragg and Dodge had permitted themselves to fall, through the want of a proper distinction between principles. Resisting the popular will, on the part of an individual, they considered arrogance and aristocracy, _per se_, without at all entering into the question of the right, or the wrong. The people, rightly enough in the general signification of the term, they deemed to be sovereign; and they belonged to a numerous cla.s.s, who view disobedience to the sovereign in a democracy, although it be in his illegal caprices, very much as the subject of a despot views disobedience to his prince.
It is scarcely necessary to say, that Mr. Effingham and his cousin viewed these matters differently. Clear headed, just-minded, and liberal in all his practices, the former, in particular, was greatly pained by the recent occurrence; and he paced his library in silence, for several minutes after Mr. Bragg and his companion had withdrawn, really too much grieved to speak.
"This is, altogether, a most extraordinary procedure, John," he at length observed, "and, it strikes me, that it is but an indifferent reward for the liberality with which I have permitted others to use my property, these thirty years; often, very often, as you well know, to my own discomfort, and to that of my friends."
"I have told you, Ned, that you were not to expect the America on your return, that you left behind you on your departure for Europe. I insist that no country has so much altered for the worse, in so short a time."
"That unequalled pecuniary prosperity should sensibly impair the manners of what is termed the world, By introducing suddenly lame bodies of uninstructed and untrained men and women into society, is a natural consequence of obvious causes; that it should corrupt morals, even, we have a right to expect, for we are taught to believe it the most corrupting influence under which men can live; but, I confess, I did not expect to see the day, when a body of strangers, birds of pa.s.sage, creatures of an hour, should a.s.sume a right to call on the old and long-established inhabitants of a country, to prove their claims to their possessions, and this, too, in an unusual and unheard-of manner, under the penalty of being violently deprived of them!"
"Long established!" repeated John Effingham, laughing; "what do you term long established? Have you not been absent a dozen years, and do not these people reduce everything to the level of their own habits.
I suppose, now, you fancy you can go to Rome or Jerusalem, or Constantinople, and remain four or five l.u.s.tres, and then come coolly back to Templeton. and, on taking possession of this house again, call yourself an old resident."
"I certainly do suppose I have that right. How many English, Russians, and Germans, did we meet in Italy, the residents of years, who still retained all their natural and local right and feelings!"
"Ay, that is in countries where society is permanent, and men get accustomed to look on the same objects, hear the same names, and see the same faces for their entire lives. I have had the curiosity to inquire, and have ascertained that none of the old, permanent families have been active in this affair of the Point, but that all the clamour has been made by those you call the birds of pa.s.sage. But what of that? These people fancy everything reduced to the legal six months required to vote; and that rotation in persons is as necessary to republicanism as rotation in office."
"Is is not extraordinary that persons who can know so little on the subject, should be thus indiscreet and positive?"
"It is not extraordinary in America. Look about you, Ned, and you will see adventurers uppermost everywhere; in the government, in your towns, in your villages, in the country, even. We are a nation of changes. Much of this, I admit, is the fair consequence of legitimate causes, as an immense region, in forest, cannot be peopled on any other conditions. But this necessity has infected the entire national character, and men get to be impatient of any sameness, even though it be useful. Everything goes to confirm this feeling, instead of opposing it. The constant recurrences of the elections accustom men to changes in their public functionaries; the great increase in the population brings new faces; and the sudden acc.u.mulations of property place new men in conspicuous stations. The architecture of the country is barely becoming sufficiently respectable to render it desirable to preserve the buildings, without which we shall have no monuments to revere. In short, everything contributes to produce such a state of things, painful as it may be to all of any feeling, and little to oppose it."
"You colour highly, Jack; and no picture loses in tints, in being retouched by you."
"Look into the first paper that offers, and you will see the _young men_ of the country hardily invited to meet by themselves, to consult concerning public affairs, as if they were impatient of the counsels and experience of their fathers. No country can prosper, where the ordinary mode of transacting the business connected with the root of the government, commences with this impiety."
"This is a disagreeable feature in the national character, certainly; but we must remember the arts employed by the designing to practise on the inexperienced."
"Had I a son, who presumed to denounce the wisdom and experience of his father, in this disrespectful mariner, I would disinherit the rascal!"
"Ah, Jack, bachelor"s children are notoriously well educated, and well mannered. We will hope, however, that time will bring its changes also, and that one of them will be a greater constancy in persons, things, and the affections."
"Time _will_ bring its changes, Ned; but all of them that are connected with individual rights, as opposed to popular caprice, or popular interests, are likely to be in the wrong direction."
"The tendency is certainly to subst.i.tute popularity for the right, but we must take the good with the bad; Even you, Jack, would not exchange this popular oppression for any other system under which you have lived."
"I don"t know that--I don"t know that. Of all tyranny, a vulgar tyranny is to me the most odious."
"You used to admire the English system, but I think observation has lessened your particular admiration in that quarter;" said Mr.
Effingham, smiling in a way that his cousin perfectly understood.
"Harkee, Ned; we all take up false notions in youth, and this was one of mine; but, of the two, I should prefer the cold, dogged domination of English law, with its fruits, the heartlessness of a sophistication without parallel, to being trampled on by every arrant blackguard that may happen to traverse this valley, in his wanderings after dollars. There is one thing you yourself must admit; the public is a little too apt to neglect the duties it ought to discharge, and to a.s.sume duties it has no right to fulfil."
This remark ended the discourse.
Chapter XVI.
Her breast was a brave palace, a broad street, Where all heroic, ample thoughts did meet, Where nature such a tenement had ta"en, That other souls, to hers, dwelt in "a lane.
JOHN NORTON.
The village of Templeton, it has been already intimated, was a miniature town. Although it contained within the circle of its houses, half-a-dozen residences with grounds, and which were dignified with names, as has been also said, it did not cover a surface of more than a mile square; that disposition to concentration, which is as peculiar to an American town, as the disposition to diffusion is peculiar to the country population, and which seems almost to prescribe that a private dwelling shall have but three windows in front, and a _facade_ of twenty-five feet, having presided at the birth of this spot, as well as at the birth of so many of its predecessors and contemporaries. In one of its more retired streets (for Templeton had its publicity and retirement, the latter after a very village fashion, however,) dwelt a widow-- bewitched of small worldly means, five children, and of great capacity for circulating intelligence. Mrs. Abbott, for so was this demi-relict called, was just on the verge of what is termed the "good society" of the village, the most uneasy of all positions for an ambitious and _ci-devant_ pretty woman to be placed in. She had not yet abandoned the hope of obtaining a divorce and its _suites_; was singularly, nay, rabidly devout, if we may coin the adverb; in her own eyes she was perfection, in those of her neighbours slightly objectionable; and she was altogether a droll, and by no means an unusual compound of piety, censoriousness, charity, proscription, gossip, kindness, meddling, ill-nature, and decency.
The establishment of Mrs. Abbott, like her house, was necessarily very small, and she kept no servant but a girl she called her help, a very suitable appellation, by the way, as they did most of the work of the _menage_ in common. This girl, in addition to cooking and washing, was the confidant of all her employer"s wandering notions of mankind in general, and of her neighbours in particular; as often, helping her mistress in circulating her comments on the latter, as in anything else.
Mrs. Abbott knew nothing of the Effinghams, except by a hearsay that got its intelligence from her own school, being herself a late arrival in the place. She had selected Templeton as a residence on account of its cheapness, and, having neglected to comply with the forms of the world, by hesitating about making the customary visit to the Wigwam, she began to resent, in her spirit at least, Eve"s delicate forbearance from obtruding herself, where, agreeably to all usage, she had a perfect right to suppose she was not desired. It was in this spirit, then, that she sat, conversing with Jenny, as the maid of all work was called, the morning after the conversation related in the last chapter, in her snug little parlour, sometimes plying her needle, and oftener thrusting her head out of a window which commanded a view of the princ.i.p.al street of the place, in order to see what her neighbours might be about.
"This is a most extraordinary course Mr. Effingham has taken concerning the Point," said Mrs. Abbott, "and I _do_ hope the people will bring him to his senses. Why, Jenny, the public has used that place ever since I can remember, and I have now lived in Templeton quite fifteen months.--What _can_ induce Mr. Howel to go so often to that barber"s shop, which stands directly opposite the parlour windows of Mrs. Bennett--one would think the man was all beard."
"I suppose Mr. Howel gets shaved sometimes," said the logical Jenny.
"Not he; or if he does, no decent man would think of posting himself before a lady"s window to do such a thing.--Orlando Furioso," calling to her eldest son, a boy of eleven, "run over to Mr. Jones"s store, and listen to what the people are talking about, and bring me back the news, as soon as any thing worth hearing drops from any body; and stop as you come back, my son, and borrow neighbour Brown"s gridiron.
Jenny, it is most time to think of putting over the potatoes."
"Ma"--" cried Orlando Furioso, from the front door, Mrs. Abbott being very rigid in requiring that all her children should call her "ma","
being so much behind the age as actually not to know that "mother"
had got to be much the genteeler term of the two; "Ma"," roared Orlando Furioso, "suppose there is no news at Mr. Jones"s store?"
"Then go to the nearest tavern; something must be stirring this fine morning, and I"m dying to know what it can possibly be. Mind you bring something besides the gridiron back with you. Hurry, or never come home again as long as you live! As I was saying, Jenny, the right of the public, which is our right, for we are a part of the public, to this Point, is as clear as day, and I am only astonished at the impudence of Mr. Effingham in pretending to deny it. I dare say his French daughter has put him up to it. They say she is monstrous arrogant!"
"Is Eve Effingham, French," said Jenny, studiously avoiding any of the usual terms of civility and propriety, by way of showing her breeding--"well, I had always thought her nothing but Templeton born!"
"What signifies where a person was born? where they _live_, is the essential thing; and Eve Effingham has lived so long in France, that she speaks nothing but broken English; and Miss Debby told me last week, that in drawing up a subscription paper for a new cushion to the reading-desk of her people, she actually spelt "charity"
"carrotty.""
"Is that French, Miss Abbott?"