it was as good as a study of character, the varying fashions wherein those interested received the story of noah's clash with catron. there was nothing told of it in the paper, for the port wine duff was wise withal, and suppressed whatever of hunger may have possessed him to print a palatable piece of news. the general might not approve such type-freedoms; eaton would doubtless distaste a notoriety of this hue for peg; indeed, there might be others of consequence whom it would disturb. the port wine duff carried a gulping appetite for public printing; it might befall that to offend would get between the legs of his anticipations and trip them up. wherefore, neither noah, catron, pigeon-breast, nor myself, was granted the contemplation of his valor by the pleasing light of ink; i, myself, did not consider this a deprivation; nor did noah; nor catron, so far as one might hear. but the chagrined pigeon-breast bewailed it. he was quite crestfallen, and among intimates talked of the call for a court journal which should, like a similar imprint of st. james, delicately set forth the surprising deeds of our nobility.
it was i who gave the tale of that ballroom fight at gadsby's to the general. he took it coolly; granted it, in sooth, a more quiet reception than i had hoped. the fair truth is, i was prepared for an explosion. i was pleasantly fooled; the general could not have displayed less temper had i related the breaking of a horse. and yet he made claim for slimmest detail; question after question on his part prolonged narration for an hour.
“it was the best that could be,” said the general, revolving the tangle in his mind. “the great thing is to stop folk's mouths; and a duel well fought, and with the right individual, is, as noah says, the way to construct such condition. i've known the killing in proper form of one man to remove a slander from the conversation of a whole county. folk let it fall of themselves and never took it up again.”
“this catron,” said i, “was a noted fighter and had been out before.”
“which is precisely,” responded the general, “what makes the work worth while. here was a berserk, celebrated as one most frothingly prompt for blood. now he is disposed of, it will tame your minor war-hawks. they'll not be half so ready; they may even surprise themselves with what they will hereafter forbear in favor of keeping the peace.”
eaton, strange to tell, was moved of anger against peg's champion.
“sir,” said eaton, bearing himself stiffly to noah, “it is far to the wrong side of the regular that you should defend my wife. that is my privilege, sir; it does not rest with others.”
“and that is true,” returned noah, politely; “but the situation was unusual. it was of crying importance to get the thing off before the president knew. folk would criticise him sharply if he did not interfere for peace. besides, had you been brought into the business, your foes would have torn your prospects to pieces with it. you must see, sir, that however just your quarrel, you could not ride into the cabinet on the back of a duel.”
“sir, i can better be out of a cabinet,” said eaton grimly, “than leave my honor to the swords of other men.”
“you and i,” returned noah, turning distant, “disagree extremely. i can not charge myself with wrong. i should act my part again were occasion to rise. you, however, are the judge of your own injuries. and i shall be in town some time.”
“sir, i am glad to be told so,” responded eaton. “when i have more considered, i may send a word to you.”
this wrong discourse i was ear-witness of, but in it bore no part. i was so stung with anger against eaton, for that he would act the boor, and talk of calling folk out when he should be thanking them, i dared not trust myself with a syllable. i would have spoken nothing pleasant for eaton, and that would be a wide flight from wise, and draw his horns my way. we were both too near the general to talk of a difference that would have broken everybody's dish. moreover, noah owned the wit and the wrist to very well care for his own fortunes.
“why, the man is clean beside himself!” exclaimed the general, when he learned of eaton's high heels. “what franchise could he pretend to for a quarrel with noah? noah's right to fight with whom he will, and for any reason good to his own eyes and those of his adversary, is not to be impeached. eaton has surprised me out of bounds! for myself, i'd as soon think of stepping between a man and his wife, as a man and his enemy. sir, there are relations which are sacred! eaton's great love for peg has blurred him; a husband is ever a bad judge of either his rights or his wrongs. i'll set eaton to the properest view in this when we meet.”
the general was scandalized in the face of eaton's pose. but i did not go with his theory of its being love for peg. it was offspring rather of a march-hare vanity that resented a good office for which it lacked the generosity to be grateful.
it would seem, however, that the general read eaton a right lesson, for he made amends. he came blandly to noah.
“i am told,” he said, “by one whose friendship and whose judgment i never doubt, that i have behaved badly towards you. permit me to offer my apologies. also, i am to thank you for your service against that scoundrel.”
noah took eaton's explanation in courtly spirit, and so the wrinkles were made smooth. i was relieved, though not pleased; i would have found no fault with noah had he gone a ruder course.
“where is this catron?” asked noah.
“as to that,” replied eaton, “i think myself qualified to answer. i sent to learn his condition, and with some purpose, so soon as he was able, of taking him up where you let go of him. the word came back that he had quit the town.”
it was peg, however, who minded her debt to noah. she went to him with wet eyes, and, without word, took his sword hand in both of hers and kissed it. noah started back.
“that is too much,” he cried. “it is i who will be now in arrears to you for the balance of my days.”
it stood the day but one following the affair of gadsby's, and i was comfortably in my own room engaged about my letters. if i were to bide with the general, and not immediately to see nashville, then i must name a manager and put my plantations in some kind of command. there were to be missives from the general, also, and we had arranged to send them west on the next day by hand of a special express. it would take him six weeks, that horseman and his saddle-bags, with roads as they were, to win to tennessee; we were then at some fever, you will understand, to have our mails concluded and riding on their way.
as i drove my quill rapidly across the pages, jim was busy in the adjoining bedroom, giving a polish to my boots. jim cheered himself over his labors with snatches of song.
as i wrote hard at my desk, i could hear him, in a most lugubrious refrain:=
``thar's a word to be uttered to d'rich man an' his pride;
``(which a man is frequent richest when it's jest befo' he died.)
``thar's a word to be uttered to d'hawg a-eatin' truck;
``(which a hawg is frequent fattest when it's jest befo' he's stuck.)=
“cease that outlandish howling,” i commanded furiously.
“shore, marse major!” said jim, coming into the room where i sat, and bringing one of my high horseman boots on his arm, polishing it the while with unabated ardor; “shore, marse major! an' yet, that's a mighty well liked song up an' down d'cumberland. hit's been made, that song is, by miss polly hines; little miss polly who lives over on d'possom trot. she makes it all about a villyun who comes fo'closin' 'round her paw's betterments for what he owes that dudleyville bank, an' sellin' 'em off at public vandoo. marse major, you-all oughter listen to d'res' of that roundelay; if you'd only hear it plumb through, jim sort o' reckons you'd like it.”
i made no response, but kept on with my work. i was not to be moved of ballads as jim rendered them, even though vouched to be the offput of that sappho of the 'possom trot.
ten minutes went racing by and jim reappeared in the door.
“say, marse major, do you-all recollects that gentleman who comes pesterin' about for them subscriptions, an' who d'marse gen'ral done skeers off d' time you an' me is goin' down to d'parlor to meet dish yere missis eaton?”
“well, what about him?”
“he's been 'round ag'in to-day. it's this mornin' whiles you is sleepin', an' i runs up on him outside in d'hall, kind o' ha'ntin' about our door. i say: 'what you-all want?' he say: 'i want to see d'marse major.' with that i ups an' admonishes him that you-all is soun' asleep. 'an',' i says, 'it don't do to go keerlessly wakin' d'marse major up. he's got a monstrous high temper, that a-way, d' marse major has, an' all you has to do is rap on that door jes' once, an' he'll nacherally come boilin' outen bed, an' be down on you like a failin' star; that's what he will.' then i tells him he can't get no subscriptions from you no how; that you is a heap sight worse than d' marse gen'ral 'bout 'em. 'you hyar me!' i expostulates; 'you-all is simply barkin' at a knot; thar aint no sign of a raccoon up that tree at all. you-all might jes' as well try to get sugar-sap outen a swamp-beech as subscriptions outen d'marse major!' shore, that's what jim tell 'um.”
“and for that, you miscreant, i'll give him a hundred dollars when he does come, to show him how little truth you tell.”
“don't go blazin' off into a fandad, marse major,” said jim, reprovingly, “throwin' your money away. dish yere gentleman 'sponds to jim, an' allows he aint aimin' at no subscriptions. but he do say he want to see you; an' so i tell him to be back ag'in in five hours. he's liable to come buttin' in yere any minute now, as d' time jim sots is done arriv'.”
as if for endorsement, a knock was heard at the door.
there were two to enter, a man and a woman. the man was huge of frame, shambling, uncouth, with knobby joints and large uncertain feet; his face flabby, sickly, with little greedy, shifty eyes, like the eyes of swine; gross mouth, full lipped and coarse, and working and munching in a full-fed way, engaging itself upon imaginary mouthfuls. the hands of this individual were puffy, warty members, with palms as hot and wet and soft as an august swamp, and, save for their temperature, much like the belly of a toad to the feel. these hands were commonly in motion, making plausible and deprecatory gestures. it was as though the world were a cat and they would stroke its back by way of conciliation. over all was obsequiousness like a veil—my visitor seemed to sweat subserviency, exhale abasement as an atmosphere. the woman, thin, and bird-faced, and with beaky nose that looked as though the frost had pinched the neb, was of the chattering, empty, magpie flock; she appeared as vulgar as the man; albeit, not with his obsequiousness, since she affected the girlish, and stood ready with giggle and gurgle and arch look, all of which but poorly fitted with her sober fifty years. from an odor of pulpits observable, i thought him a preacher; also, i took the woman to be his wife.
the man—i will thus far defend him—was not, however, that subscription person whom jim remembered with the general.
“dish yere's d'gentleman who is done been teeterin' 'round our door this mornin',” said jim, as he ushered the visitors.
“it is not the gentleman who called on the general,” i remarked.
“well, what's d'diffrunce, anyhow?” asked jim with mighty unconcern. “he's a preacher, so it's all d'same.”
“no difference, perhaps,” i returned, “except to make plain how little you are to be relied on.”
“i s'ppose jim's as cap'ble of mistakes as anybody.” here jim lapsed into the abused tone of one virtuous, and driven to the desperate by ill-usage. “but i tells you-all, marse major; since you done locks up that demijohn, jim aint been d'same niggah. his mem'ry has sort o' begun to bog down. no wonder jim gets folks swapped 'round foolish in his mind.”
while these reproofs were going, my callers stood by the door, inviting consideration with much bending of the body and bowing of the head.
“i am the reverend campbell,” began the man; “i am pastor of a precious flock in this town. and this is deborah, my beloved consort. i trust i find all well and holy here, and the blessing of the spirit upon this place?”
then the reverend campbell re-began his abject bowing, while his magpie wife smirked and giggled sociably.
it had been long since i met folk who more repelled me. for the sake of his cloth, however, and the real respect i bore it, i required myself to assume a manner of cordiality. i asked the purpose of the visit.
“it was my privilege,” responded the reverend campbell, with a meeting-house snuffle that certain divines adopt as a professional manner of articulation, “i may say it was my inestimable privilege some years back, to behold in the body of the church, during many of my preachments, that mighty man of war, our coming president, and his sweet lady; although she—for flesh is as grass—has since perished and passed over to dwell among the blest.”
“mrs. jackson was my nearest, dearest friend,” simpered the awful magpie wife, interrupting. “it was when general jackson had a seat in the senate. we were like loving sisters, mrs. jackson and i.”
this last i distrusted, but i did not say so.
“you are the general's old preacher?” i said; the reverend campbell meanwhile seesawing and bowing, and locking and unlocking his warty fingers. “have you been in to meet the general?”
“not yet, good sir, not yet,” replied the reverend campbell. “that shall be in good time. since you abide on terms of intimacy with our coming president, i deemed it prudent to first make myself known to you. knowing david, i would know jonathan. there is a business—a piece of sinful, worldly business—i would inquire of, a boon i would ask, and ere i went to the transaction thereof, i held it sapient to call upon you who will be so strong to bind or loose—so potent, as one might say, in the coming dispensation of preferments.”
the reverend campbell—who should have been a mandarin for his repulsiveness and talents to bow—kept up his bending, while the magpie wife in vacuous vanity, beamed on like a tarnished sun. to put a stop to the bowing, which began to grow on me nervously, i bade the pair be seated. they would remain the longer, but i would save myself with less of irritation.
“i do not come for myself,” observed the reverend campbell, snuffling, and balancing uneasily on his chair's edge. his wife had taken her seat with more of confidence; spreading her skirts to advantage, and leaning back as one certain of results. “no, it is by request of a beloved brother in christ, the reverend doctor ely of philadelphia. our great chief magistrate knows him and loves him well.”
then the reverend campbell went on in pulpit tones to elaborate his mission. it soon declared itself to be the old duff green errand of office angling. also, it was a coincidence something strange, i thought, when the reverend campbell, following in the very footprints of the wine colored duff, spoke of the florida governorship, and named the same wealthy zany for its occupation.
“he is a pennsylvania westfall,” concluded the reverend campbell, his breath bated and his air impressed, “he is a pennsylvania westfall, and extremely rich of this world's goods. doctor ely desires this post for him with all his heart; he believes, moreover, that his old friend, our excellent president, who—and heaven be thanked!—is less than a scant two weeks away from his inauguration, will be glad to pleasure him in this regard. you might, sir, hint to that eminent statesman and soldier how his friend, doctor ely, would profit by this selection, going, as in that event he will, to st. augustine, to be chaplain for the then governor westfall.”
“and my husband, too, would be called to dr. ely's place in philadelphia,” gurgled the magpie wife; “it's a much richer church than the one here.”
there, then, was the cat out of the bag; i had been guessing for some moments in the dark, as to why the reverend campbell should so zealously be fishing for office when he ought to be fishing for souls. the magpie wife granted me a glint of his secret. it did not swell my fund of respect for the reverend campbell, a fund nothing rotund as things stood.
“you should see the general,” i said at last. “these are not my affairs; i would not presume, wanting his invitation, to advise with him concerning them. you should see him; or, if you will, you might wait until van buren arrives.”
“ah, yes; the coming secretary of state,” remarked the reverend campbell, while his thick lips munched unpleasantly. “will mr. van buren make the florida selection?”
i was driven to say i thought not; the general himself had been once governor of florida; therefore, he might believe he was the one better qualified to make such appointment.
beholding the reverend campbell in the throes of doubt, tipping on his chair, and looking with his black clothes not a little like a crow hesitating on a fence-rail as to whether or no he will plump down among the sprouting corn, i suggested,—to relieve myself, i fear—that now he was come, he might better go in to the general and offer his request. i entertained no thought of success for him; i had not forgotten the fate in that connection of the pursy duff—duff of the ripe, ripe nose. but i aimed at a riddance of the reverend campbell and his leering, bubbling helpmeet; and i was not so loyal to the general as to prevent me from earning my own release by betraying him into their talons.
“do you deem it the part of sagacity,” said the reverend campbell, following a thoughtful pause, “to crave this boon at once?”
“sagacious? surely!” i would have given my word for anything to work free of the reverend campbell and that magpie wife, the latter gentlewoman being rusty of plume, strident, and of but a sorry favor of face; to say nothing about her gigglings and chuck-lings; for that vacant dame was like a parrot, with a running rattle of vocalisms, going from gurgle to chirp, as an accompaniment to whatever was said by her lord and master.
“then let us repair to him,” said the reverend campbell, raising his hands as if asking a benediction on me and my belongings; “let us hie to him and unbosom ourselves, and may we find him in grace of spirit and well of this mortal body.”
we discovered the general in his rooms. we found him in a rather merry spirit for him. he was sitting by his fire, with peg on a footstool at a corner of the fireplace.
hearing of the general's diet of rice, peg's mother—she lived over to the south, across that wooded strip, the mall—holding herself to excel in certain elixirs and cordials and draughts marvelous for maladies stomachic, had sent to the general's relief a bottle of medicine warranted of transcendent merit, and in which dandelion flourished a dominant element. the good lady would trust her drugs to none save peg; there she was, then, the fairest foot and hand ever to be sent on porter's work or to run an errand with a message.
the unexpected sight of peg sent over me a wave of pleasure. i love the beautiful, have an inborn joy of it, and who or what could be more lovely than our peg—peg with her wildrose face?
the general glanced up through the tobacco smoke wherewith the rooms were cloudy. peg had said she loved smoke, and could stand to it like a side of bacon. his look was of half-recognition as it settled upon my company.
“the reverend campbell, is it not?” said he.
“the same, mr. president,” returned the other, commencing again those bowing motions which had so tortured my soul, his flabby cheeks the while exuding a beady dew; “the same. and here is deborah, my well-beloved wife, mr. president.”
the magpie one of rumpled feather gained indication by the reverend campbell pointing to her with a bulbous forefinger that was somewhat suffering about the nail for lack of care. the magpie one gave the usual proof of her satisfaction with chirp and giggle.
“the last time i beheld you, mr. president,” said the reverend campbell, “you and your dear wife sat beneath my words.” the general flinched as though a rude hand touched a wound. he gathered himself, however. “that dear one, mr. president, has gone from our midst. it is a chastening, mr. president. whom the lord loveth, he chasteneth. it is a loss, mr. president, but we must summon meekness of spirit. blessed are the meek in spirit, saith the singer, and they shall inherit the earth. mr. president, let us pray.”
the reverend campbell rolled forth the foregoing, and never halt or pause; with the last word he was down upon his knees, expanding into a gale of prayer.
it is not for me to pass upon such sacred petitions, but the reverend campbell's effort grated on my conscience as crude, and, if the term be not improper, vulgar. the general, who was still in his chair, bowed head in hand and sat silent throughout. he made neither sign nor sound; and yet it must have galled him like musketry, that prayer.
it was when the reverend campbell stood again on his feet, and the magpie one had rearranged her feathers, that their glances took in peg where she now stood near the fire. she was silent, collected, and her calm look rested upon the reverend campbell and the magpie one. it was a steady glance of unseeing indifference and unacquaintance, and as though the pair were strangers to her.
their actions, however, would smack of something nearer. no sooner did they behold peg, than with one impulse they started towards her, faces a garden of smiles.
“why, my dear mrs. eaton!” cried the magpie one.
“my dear, recovered lamb!” exclaimed the reverend campbell.
the two made for peg with exuberant hands extended. peg waved them off.
“you make a mistake,” said peg. her words took flight evenly and with nothing of disturbance. “i do not know you.” then, as the reverend campbell and his magpie love seemed but half checked: “and i will not know you.”
these closing words were vibrant of a nipping vigor, and peg's leopard teeth came together with a click, and, as it were, for emphasis. peg turned to me:
“will you take me to my carriage?”
with that, the general arose and cavaliered peg to the door.
“give my thanks to your good mother, child,” said the general, his fond eye pleasant with the reflection of peg's pretty face; “tell her i shall profit by her kindness. i feel half restored with merely having the dandelion water on my shelf.”
closing the door after us, the general returned to the reverend campbell and his magpie love.
“there is no story with it.” peg replied, when i put those queries the situation suggested. “they are folk of treachery; that is it. they have been my persecutors as much as any. and with more shame for them, since they have pretended friendship for my family, and had support from my father for year piled upon year.”
“and is that the whole of it?” i asked.
“truly, it is, my best dear friend.” peg held up her pansy face, and offered me a cheerful look by way of proof. “nor am i even a trifle provoked. for all that, i would not permit them because they found me with the good general, and with you”—she gave my arm a little pressure—“and doubtless would offer some request, to put on a false face, and so use me for their interest. i owe them no such tenderness. besides, since i've found real friends,”—peg crowded to my side more closely, and bent upon me her kind, unfathomed eyes, as though admitting my protection,—“since i've found real friends, i've no room in my heart for mocking imitations.” peg laughed her witch-laugh now, and stepped on more quickly. “don't let us talk of them,” she said, “don't let us talk of such hollow folk!”
peg's carriage stood at the curb. indeed, she had but just arrived when, as i piloted the reverend campbell and the magpie, i found her by the general's fire.
“some day you must go with me to meet my mother,” said peg; “i've promised her.” then, as i lifted her into the carriage, “mercy! you should practice for a lighter hand. i feel as one in the paws of a bear.”
with a wave of her hand, she was off for the president's square where her home stood; i, on my part, turned back to the general, walking slowly, and seeing peg's gentle eyes before me all the way to his door. sweet peg! had it been i, no tawdry ambition of politics would have divided my heart with you; you would have reigned over it alone; we would have left washington to the vermin who devoured it, and made our kingdom in lands of peace and truth!
it was not without relief i discovered that the reverend campbell, with his magpie mate, was gone.
“assuredly, no!” exclaimed the general, when i inquired whether the name of doctor ely, and the petition preferred of the reverend campbell, had re-colored his thoughts touching st. augustine and the florida governorship; “assuredly, no! he who has that place from me must be emphatically two things—a man and a friend. the creature, westfall, is emphatically neither. i can not guess, however, in what this sudden office-hunting excitement of our ghostly fathers finds its source. i asked the reverend campbell, was this westfall known to him. he said, only by repute; that he urged the case at the request of doctor ely.”
clearing him on that question of purpose, i told the general of doctor ely's arrangement to be a governor's chaplain in st. augustine; and how, in a moment of gurgling exaltation concerning what might be, that unguarded magpie exposed the scheme of “calling” our reverend campbell to doctor ely's fat present pulpit, should it become vacant in favor of palms and orange groves.
“and in that way runs the road!” exclaimed the general, full of leniency and amusement. “the preachers are becoming better politicians every day. major, you and i must look to our lines, or some dominie may yet turn our flanks.”
then i gave the general what peg had told of her attitude, like a diminutive iceberg, towards the reverend campbell and his magpie partner.
“they have done peg no actual harm,” i said. “they passed her by one day, like the levites they were and are; and now she revenges herself.”
“one can always hear the savage stirring about in peg,” commented the general; “and i like her the better for it. i love your re-vegeful soul—he who has a long knife, a long memory, and will go a long trail to his feud.”
“and that is an excellent observe,” i said, teasing him a bit, “and you a christian and a president!”
“the observe, as you phrase it,” retorted the general, “is not only excellent but earnest. revenge is the fair counterpart of gratitude. they are off the same bolt of cloth. find me a soul for revenge, and i'll find you a soul to be grateful. what are revenge and gratitude, when one goes to the final word, but just a man paying his debts?”
“who is this doctor ely?” i asked. “the reverend campbell described him as your friend.”
“doctor ely is no more than an acquaintance, and hardly that. i met him years ago in philadelphia; and i've heard him preach. he is a showy, fashionable figure of man; not deep, yet musical and fluent. the women, i remember, liked his discourses right well. there were a beat and a march to his periods; and albeit, while he talked, the wise ones went to sleep, others with music-boxes for minds, and who mistook sensation for sense, sat bolt upright, feeling the liveliest delight.”
“i've met the latter sort,” i assented; “the gentry who prefer rhyme to reason.”
“somehow,” observed the general, following an interval of silence, “i ever fear i'll be unfair to your preachers. my inclination is to judge them too harshly—estimate them below their worth. it has been ever the fault of military men to do this, and, for myself, i would guard against it.”
“and now will you explain what you are talking about?” i was in cold earnest, for the general's remorse over an injustice to preachers was clean beyond me and apropos of nothing.
my own thought galloped to it—for his wife taught him that softness, being as devout as an abbess, herself—that for the dominies, as an order or trade among men, he carried more of charity than any whom i knew. more by far than i could boast, or cared to. “why do you reproach yourself about the preachers?”
“it was this doctor ely,” returned the general, “of whom i was thinking. i was remembering certain severities of judgment towards him long ago. i heard him preach, yet could give him no credit for sincerity. he impressed me as one who looked often in the glass and seldom from the window. he was friendly, affable, and, i think, honest; and yet i liked him no more than i like that reverend cringer who was just now here. i well recall saying to this doctor ely—probably i had him in my mind's eye at the time, and it hurt him, too—that he who was professionally good would never be very good, nor he who was excellent for a salary offer an example of the best excellence. it may be that my natural distrust of preachers is, after all, nothing save my natural fear of them. you have not forgotten how i told you i feared men of peace. that is true; i fear folk who profess peace as a principle—your quaker and your preacher—as i fear and fall back before the inhuman, or as children fear a ghost. it is all to be accounted for perhaps, in the differing natures of folk. one man has a genius for peaceful while another's bent is for war, and each will misunderstand the other's motives. there can be little in common and less of trust between them, since they will live as far apart as black and white. it is, i say, quite natural—war and peace—wolf and sheep. i've no doubt, now,” concluded the general, a smile beginning to show, “that to your wolf on the hill, your grazing sheep down in the valley is a mighty suspicious character.”
