Nature and Human Nature Part 57

"Snooping and stool-pidgeoning," sais I.

"Constructive mileage, snooping and stool-pidgeoning!" said he, and he put his hands on his ribs, and running round in a circle, laughed until he nearly fell on the ground fairly tuckered out, "what do you mean?"

"Constructive mileage," says I, "is the same allowance for journeys supposed to be performed as for those that are actually made, to and from the seat of government. When a new president comes into office, Congress adjourns of course on the third of March, and his inauguration is made on the fourth; the senate is immediately convened to act on his nominations, and though not a man of them leaves Was.h.i.+ngton, each is supposed to go home and return again in the course of the ten or twelve hours that intervene between the adjournment and their rea.s.sembling. For this ideal journey the senators are allowed their mileages, as if the journey was actually made. In the case of those who come from a distance, the sum often amounts, individually, to one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars."

"Why, Mr Slick," said he, "that ain't honest."

"Honest," said I, "who the plague ever said it was? but what can you expect from red republicans? Well, snooping means taking things on the sly after a good rumage; and stool-pidgeoning means plundering under cover of law; for instance, if a judge takes a bribe, or a fellow is seized by a constable, and the stolen property found on him is given up, the merciful officer seizes the goods and lets him run, and that is all that ever is heard of it--that is stool-pidgeoning. But now,"

sais I, "sposin' we take a survey of the place here, for in a general way I don't affection politics, and as for party leaders, whether English reformers or American democrats, critters that are dyed in the wool, I hate the whole caboodle of them. Now, having donated you with my reasons for being a conservative, sposin' you have a row yourself.

What do you consider best worth seeing here, if you can be said to see a place when it don't exist? for the English did sartainly deacon the calf^1 here, that's a fact. They made them smell cotton, and gave them partikilar Moses, and no mistake."

1 To deacon a calf, is to knock a thing on the head as soon as born or finished.

"Of the doings of the dead," he said, "all that is around us has a melancholy interest; but of the living there is a most extraordinary old fellow that dwells in that white house on the opposite side of the harbour. He can tell us all the particulars of the two sieges, and show us the site of most of the public buildings; he is filled with anecdotes of all the princ.i.p.al actors in the sad tragedies that have been enacted here; but he labours under a most singular monomania.

Having told these stories so often he now believes that he was present at the first capture of the fortress, under Colonel Pepperal and the New England militia in 1745, and at the second in 1754, when it was taken by Generals Amherst and Wolfe. I suppose he may be ninety years of age; the first event must have happened therefore nineteen and the other six years before he was born; in everything else his accuracy of dates and details is perfectly astonis.h.i.+ng."

"Ma.s.sa," said Sorrow, "I don't believe he is nuffin' but a reeblus.h.i.+onary suspensioner (a revolutionary pensioner), but it peers to me dem folks do libb for ebber. My poor old missus used to call 'em King George's hard bargains, yah, yah, yah. But who comma dere, Ma.s.sa?" said he, pointing to a boat that was rapidly approaching the spot where we stood.

The steersman, who appeared to be the skipper of a vessel, inquired for Cutler, and gave him a letter, who said as soon as he had read it, "Slick, our cruise has come to a sudden termination. Blowhard has purchased and fitted out his whaler, and only awaits my return to take charge of her and proceed to the Pacific. With his usual generosity, he has entered my name as the owner of one half of the s.h.i.+p, her tackle and outfit. I must go on board the 'Black Hawk' immediately, and prepare for departing this evening."

It was agreed that he should land the doctor at s.h.i.+p Harbour, who was anxious to see Jessie, which made him as happy as a clam at high-water, and put me ash.o.r.e at Jordan, where I was no less in a hurry to see a fair friend whose name is of no consequence now, for I hope to induce her to change it for one that is far shorter, easier to write and remember, and, though I say it that shouldn't say it, one that I consait she needn't be ashamed of neither.

On our way back, sais the doctor to me:

"Mr Slick, will you allow me to ask you another question?"

"A hundred," sais I, "if you like."

"Well," sais he, "I have inquired of you what you think of state affairs; will you tell me what you think about the Church? I see you belong to what we call the Establishment, and what you denominate the American Episcopal Church, which is very nearly the same thing. What is your opinion, now, of the Evangelical and Puseyite parties? Which is right and which is wrong?"

"Well," sais I, "coming to me about theology is like going to a goat's house for wool. It is out of my line. My views on all subjects are practical, and not theoretical. But first and foremost, I must tell you, I hate all nick-names. In general, they are all a critter knows of his own side, or the other either. As you have asked me my opinion, though, I will give it. I think both parties are wrong, because both go to extremes, and therefore are to be equally avoided. Our Articles, as dear old Minister used to say, are very wisely so worded as to admit of some considerable lat.i.tude of opinion; but that very lat.i.tude naturally excludes anything ultra. The Puritanical section, and the Newmanites (for Pusey, so far, is stedfast), are not, in fact, real churchmen, and ought to leave us. One are Dissenters and the other Romanists. The ground they severally stand on is slippery. A false step takes one to the conventicle and the other to the chapel. If I was an Evangelical, as an honest man, I would quit the Establishment as Baptist Noel did, and so I would if I were a Newmanite. It's only rats that consume the food and undermine the foundations of the house that shelters them. A traitor within the camp is more to be dreaded than an open enemy without. Of the two, the extreme low-churchmen are the most dangerous, for they furnish the greatest number of recruits of schism, and, strange to say, for popery too. Search the list of those who have gone over to Rome, from Ahab Meldrum to Wilberforce, and you will find the majority were originally Puritans or infidels--men who were restless, and ambitious of notoriety, who had learning and talent, but wanted common sense. They set out to astonish the world, and ended by astonis.h.i.+ng themselves. They went forth in pursuit of a name, and lost the only one they were known by. Who can recognise Newman in Father Ignatius, who, while searching for truth, embraced error? or Baptist Noel in the strolling preacher, who uses a horse-pond instead of a font, baptizes adults instead of infants, and, unlike his Master, 'will not suffer little children to come unto him?'

Ah, Doctor, there are texts neither of these men know the meaning of, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' One of them has yet to learn that pictures, vestments, music, processions, candlesticks, and confessionals are not religion, and the other that it does not consist in oratory, excitement, camp-meetings, rant, or novelties. There are many, very many, un.o.btrusive, noiseless, laborious, practical duties which clergymen have to perform; what a pity it is they won't occupy themselves in discharging them, instead of entangling themselves in controversies on subjects not necessary to salvation! But, alas! the Evangelical divine, instead of combating the devil, occupies himself in fighting his bishop, and the Newmanite, instead of striving to save sinners, prefers to 'curse and quit' his church. Don't ask me therefore which is right; I tell you, they are both wrong."

"Exactly," sais he.

"In medio tutissimus ibis."

"Doctor," sais I, "there are five languages spoke on the Nova Scotia coast already: English, Yankee, Gaelic, French, and Indian; for goodness gracious sake don't fly off the handle that way now and add Latin to them! But, my friend, as I have said, you have waked up the wrong pa.s.senger, if you think I am an ecclesiastical Bradshaw. I know my own track. It is a broad gauge, and a straight line, and I never travel by another, for fear of being put on a wrong one. Do you take?

But here is the boat alongside;" and I shook him by the hand, and obtained his promise at parting that he and Jessie would visit me at Slickville in the autumn.

And now, Squire, I must write finis to the cruise of the "Black Hawk,"

and close my remarks on "Nature and Human Nature," or, "Men and Things," for I have brought it to a termination, though it is a hard thing to do, I a.s.sure you, for I seem as if I couldn't say Farewell.

It is a word that don't come handy, no how I can fix it. It's like Sam's hat-band which goes nineteen times round, and won't tie at last.

I don't like to bid good-bye to my Journal, and I don't like to bid good-bye to you, for one is like a child and the other a brother. The first I shall see again, when Hurst has a launch in the spring, but shall you and I ever meet again, Squire? that is the question, for it is dark to me. If it ever does come to pa.s.s, there must be a considerable slip of time first. Well, what can't be cured must be endured. So here goes. Here is the last fatal word, I shut my eyes when I write it, for I can't bear to see it. Here it is--

Ampersand.

THE END.