The Attache or Sam Slick in England Part 10

"Yes, Sir."

"Very good. And the ten Commandments?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Who taught you?"

"My mother, Sir; and the parson taught me the Catechism."

"Why, Sam, this child can say the Lord's Prayer, the ten Commandments, and the Catechism. Ain't this beautiful? Tell me the fifth, dear."

And the child repeated it distinctly and accurately.

"Right. Now, dear, always bear that in mind, especially towards your mother. You have an excellent mother; her cares and her toils are many; and amidst them all, how well she has done her duty to you. The only way she can be repaid, is to find that you are what she desires you to be, a good girl. G.o.d commands this return to be made, and offers you the reward of length of days. Here is a piece of money for you. And now, dear," placing her again upon her feet, "you never saw so old a man as me, and never will again; and one, too, that came from a far-off country, three thousand miles off; it would take you a long time to count three thousand; it is so far. Whenever you do what you ought not, think of the advice of the 'old Minister.'"

Here Mr. Slick beckoned the mother to the door, and whispered something to her, of which, the only words that met my ear were "a trump," "a brick," "the other man like him ain't made yet," "do it, he'll talk, then."

To which she replied, "I have--oh yes, Sir--by all means."

She then advanced to Mr. Hopewell, and asked him if he would like to smoke.

"Indeed I would, dear, but I have no pipe here."

She said her old man smoked of an evening, after his work was done, and that she could give him a pipe and some tobacco, if he would condescend to use them; and going to the cupboard, she produced a long white clay pipe and some cut tobacco.

Having filled and lighted his pipe, Mr. Hopewell said, "What church do you go to, dear?"

"The parish church, Sir."

"Right; you will hear Sound doctrine and good morals preached there. Oh this a fortunate country, Sam, for the state provides for the religious instruction of the poor. Where the voluntary system prevails, the poor have to give from their poverty, or go without; and their gifts are so small, that they can purchase but little. It's a beautiful system, a charitable system, a Christian system. Who is your landlord?"

"Squire Merton, Sir; and one of the kindest masters, too, that ever was.

He is so good to the poor; and the ladies. Sir, they are so kind, also.

When my poor daughter Mary was so ill with the lever, I do think she would have died but for the attentions of those young ladies; and when she grew better, they sent her wine and nouris.h.i.+ng things from their own table. They will be so glad to see you. Sir, at the Priory. Oh, I wish you could see them!"

"There it is, Sam," he continued "That ill.u.s.trates what I always told you of their social system here. We may boast of our independence, but that independence produces isolation. There is an individuality about every man and every family in America, that gives no right of inquiry, and imposes no duty of relief on any one. Sickness, and sorrow, and trouble, are not divulged; joy, success, and happiness are not imparted.

If we are independent in our thoughts and actions, so are we left to sustain the burden of our own ills. How applicable to our state is that pa.s.sage of Scripture, 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy.'

"Now, look at this poor family; here is a clergyman provided for them, whom they do not, and are not even expected to pay; their spiritual wants are ministered to, faithfully and zealously, as we see by the instruction of that little child. Here is a friend upon whom they can rely in their hour of trouble, as the bereaved mother did on Elisha.

'And she went up and laid her child that was dead on the bed of the man of G.o.d, and shut the door on him, and went out.' And when a long train of agitation, mis-government, and ill-digested changes have deranged this happy country, as has recently been the case, here is an indulgent landlord, disposed to lower his rent or give further time for payment, or if sickness invades any of these cottages, to seek out the sufferer, to afford the remedies, and by his countenance, his kindness, and advice, to alleviate their trouble. Here it is, a positive duty arising from their relative situations of landlord and tenant. The tenants support the owner, the landlord protects the tenants: the duties are reciprocal.

"With _us_ the duties, as far as Christian duties can be said to be optional, are voluntary; and the voluntary discharge of duties, like the voluntary support of religion, we know, from sad experience, to be sometimes imperfectly performed, at others intermitted, and often wholly neglected. Oh! it is a happy country this, a great and a good country; and how base, how wicked, how diabolical it is to try to set such a family as this against their best friends, their pastor and their landlord; to instil dissatisfaction and distrust into their simple minds, and to teach them to loathe the hand, that proffers nothing but regard or relief. It is shocking, isn't it?"

"That's what I often say, Sir," said Mrs. Hodgins, "to my old man, to keep away from them Chartists."

"Chartists! dear, who are they? I never heard of them."

"Why, Sir, they are the men that want the five pints."

"Five pints! why you don't say so; oh! they are bad men, have nothing to do with them. Five pints! why that is two quarts and a half; that is too much to drink if it was water; and if any thing else, it is beastly drunkenness. Have nothing to do with them."

"Oh! no, Sir, it is five points of law."

"Tut--tut--tut! what have you got to do with law, my dear?"

"By gosh, Aunty," said Mr. Slick, "you had better not cut that pie: you will find it rather sour in the apple sarce, and tough in the paste, I tell _you_."

"Yes, Sir," she replied, "but they are a unsettling of his mind. What shall I do? for I don't like these night meetings, and he always comes home from 'em cross and sour-like."

"Well, I am sorry to hear that," said Mr. Hopewell, "I wish I could see him; but I can't, for I am bound on a journey. I am sorry to hear it, dear. Sam, this country is so beautiful, so highly cultivated, so adorned by nature and art, and contains so much comfort and happiness, that it resembles almost the garden of Eden. But, Sam, the Serpent is here, the Serpent is here beyond a doubt. It changes its shape, and alters its name, and takes a new colour, but still it is the Serpent, and it ought to be crushed. Sometimes it calls itself liberal, then radical, then chartist, then agitator, then repealer, then political dissenter, then anti-corn leaguer, and so on. Sometimes it stings the clergy, and coils round them, and almost strangles them, for it knows the Church is its greatest enemy, and it is furious against it. Then it attacks the peers, and covers them with its froth and slaver, and then it bites the landlord. Then it changes form, and shoots at the Queen, or her ministers, and sets fire to buildings, and burns up corn to increase distress; and, when hunted away, it dives down into the collieries, or visits the manufactories, and maddens the people, and urges them on to plunder and destruction. It's a melancholy thing to think of; but he is as of old, alive and active, seeing whom he can allure and deceive, and whoever listens is ruined for ever.

"Stay, dear, I'll tell you what I will do for you. I'll inquire about these Chartists; and when I go to London, I will write a little tract so plain that any child may read it and understand it; and call it _The Chartist_, and get it printed, and I will send you one for your husband, and two or three others, to give to those whom they may benefit.

"And now, dear, I must go. You and I will never meet again in this world; but I shall often think of you, and often speak of you. I shall tell my people of the comforts, of the neatness, of the beauty of an English cottage. May G.o.d bless you, and so regulate your mind as to preserve in you a reverence for his holy word, an obedience to the commands of your Spiritual Pastor, and a respect for all that are placed in authority over you!"

"Well, it is pretty, too, is this cottage," said Mr. Slick, as we strolled back to the inn, "but the handsumestest thing is to hear that good old soul talk dictionary that way, aint it? How nateral he is!

Guess they don't often see such a 'postle as that in these diggins. Yes, it's pretty is this cottage; but it's small, arter all. You feel like a squirrel in a cage, in it; you have to run round and round, and don't go forward none. What would a man do with a rifle here? For my part, I have a taste for the wild woods; it comes on me regular in the fall, like the lake fever, and I up gun, and off for a week or two, and camp out, and get a snuff of the spruce-wood air, and a good appet.i.te, and a bit of fresh ven'son to sup on at night.

"I shall be off to the highlands this fall; but, cuss em, they hante got no woods there; nothin' but heather, and thats only high enough to tear your clothes. That's the reason the Scotch don't wear no breeches, they don't like to get 'em ragged up that way for everlastinly, they can't afford it; so they let em scratch and tear their skin, for that will grow agin, and trowsers won't.

"Yes, it's a pretty cottage that, and a nice tidy body that too, is Mrs.

Hodgins. I've seen the time when I would have given a good deal to have been so well housed as that. There is some little difference atween that cottage and a log hut of a poor back emigrant settler, you and I know where. Did ever I tell you of the night I spent at Lake Teal, with old Judge Sandford?"

"No, not that I recollect."

"Well, once upon a time I was a-goin' from Mill-bridge to Shadbrooke, on a little matter of bisness, and an awful bad and lonely road it was, too. There was scarcely no settlers in it, and the road was all made of sticks, stones, mud holes, and broken bridges. It was een amost onpa.s.sible, and who should I overtake on the way but the Judge, and his guide, on horseback, and Lawyer Traverse a-joggin' along in his gig, at the rate of two miles an hour at the fardest.

"'Mornin,' sais the Judge, for he was a sociable man, and had a kind word for every body, had the Judge. Few men 'know'd human natur' better nor he did, and what he used to call the philosophy of life. 'I am glad to see you on the road, Mr. Slick, sais he, 'for it is so bad I am afraid there are places that will require our united efforts to pa.s.s 'em.'

"Well, I felt kinder sorry for the delay too, for I know'd we should make a poor journey on't, on account of that lawyer critter's gig, that hadn't no more busness on that rough track than a steam engine had. But I see'd the Judge wanted me to stay company, and help him along, and so I did. He was fond of a joke, was the old Judge, and sais he,

"'I'm afraid we shall ill.u.s.trate that pa.s.sage o' Scriptur', Mr. Slick,'

said he, '"And their judges shall be overthrown in stony places." It's jist a road for it, ain't it?'

"Well we chattered along the road this way a leetle, jist a leetle faster than we travelled, for we made a snail's gallop of it, that's a fact; and night overtook us, as I suspected it would, at Obi Rafuse's, at the Great Lake; and as it was the only public for fourteen miles, and dark was settin' in, we dismounted, but oh, what a house it was!

"Obi was an emigrant, and those emigrants are ginerally so fond of ownin' the soil, that like misers, they carry as much of it about 'em on their parsons, in a common way, as they cleverly can. Some on 'em are awful dirty folks, that's a fact, and Obi was one of them. He kept public, did Obi; the sign said it was a house of entertainment for man and beast. For critters that ain't human, I do suppose it spoke the truth, for it was enough to make a hoss larf, if he could understand it, that's a fact; but dirt, wretchedness and rags, don't have that effect on me.

"The house was built of rough spruce logs, (the only thing spruce about it), with the bark on, and the cracks and seams was stuffed with moss.

The roof was made of coa.r.s.e slabs, battened and not s.h.i.+ngled, and the chimbly peeped out like a black pot, made of sticks and mud, the way a crow's nest is. The winders were half broke out, and stopped up with s.h.i.+ngles and old clothes, and a great bank of mud and straw all round, reached half way up to the roof, to keep the frost out of the cellar. It looked like an old hat on a dung heap. I pitied the old Judge, because he was a man that took the world as he found it, and made no complaints.

He know'd if you got the best, it was no use complainin' that the best warn't good.

"Well, the house stood alone in the middle of a clearin', without an outhouse of any sort or kind about it, or any fence or enclosure, but jist rose up as a toodstool grows, all alone in the field. Close behind it was a thick short second growth of young birches, about fifteen feet high, which was the only shelter it had, and that was on the wrong side, for it was towards the south.

"Well, when we alighted, and got the baggage off, away starts the guide with the Judge's traps, and ups a path through the woods to a settler's, and leaves us. Away down by the edge of the lake was a little barn, filled up to the roof with grain and hay, and there was no standin' room or shelter in it for the hosses. So the lawyer hitches his critter to a tree, and goes and fetches up some fodder for him, and leaves him for the night, to weather it as he could. As soon as he goes in, I takes Old Clay to the barn, for it's a maxim of mine always to look out arter number one, opens the door, and pulls out sheaf arter sheaf of grain as fast as I could, and throws it out, till I got a place big enough for him to crawl in.

"'Now,' sais I, 'old boy,' as I shot to the door arter him, 'if that hole ain't big enough for you, eat away till it is, that's all.'

"I had hardly got to the house afore the rain, that had threatened all day, came down like smoke, and the wind got up, and it blew like a young hurricane, and the lake roared dismal; it was an awful night, and it was hard to say which was wus, the Storm or the shelter.