“A golden opportunity, sir; Fortune knocking at your door, as she knocks
but once in a man’s lifetime; and if you refuse to let her in, excuse
me, sir, but you will repent it—you will.”
Such were the persuasive words of Colonel Coriolanus Sling, as he
cracked his filberts and sipped his sherry in the snug dining-room of my
villa at Stamford Hill. The Colonel, as his name indicates pretty
clearly, was an eminent citizen of the model republic, not long arrived
on British ground, and the bearer of an introductory letter from my
esteemed friend Cassius Corkey, a late Secretary of Legation. I had
given a little dinner in honour of my new acquaintance; the repast had
gone off pleasantly enough, and the ladies had left us four gentlemen to
our wine and politics, when the Colonel uttered the above remarks.
It was early autumn, and, if the flower-beds of the garden were somewhat
faded, the shrubberies of Magnolia Villa had still a cheerful aspect;
and the lawn, as seen through the French windows, was smooth and trim as
a gigantic piece of Genoa velvet. Not a weed, not a withered leaf,
marred the neatness of the bright gravel of the walks: the fountain was
in full play, liberally sprinkling the goldfish in the little marble
basin; and the transparent walls of the conservatory showed a wealth of
many-tinted flowers within. There may be larger and more stately
residences than Magnolia Villa, but I flatter myself that few
proprietors could make more of four and a half acres of ground, imperial
measurement, than your humble servant, George Bulkeley. We were, as I
have said, four in company—the Colonel; young Tom Harris of the Stock
Exchange; a friend and countryman of the Colonel’s, by name Dr Titus A.
C. Bett; and myself.
“Why, Colonel Sling,” answered I, doubtfully, “I don’t quite know about
that. The distance, you see, is great, and the risk may be——”
“Nothing at all!” interrupted my guest, warmly; “I pledge you the
honour, sir, of a free-born citizen of the U-nited States, nothing at
all! The plum, sir, is ripe, and ready to drop into your mouth
spontaneous; and I may safely assure you, sir, that nothing but my
gratitude for your hospitality would have induced me to promulgate a
scheme so out-and-out auriferous as the Great Nauvoo and Nebraska
Railway will eventuate.”
I did not always find it in my power to follow the Colonel through all
the windings of an argument. His exuberant diction was occasionally too
much for me; but the drift of what he said was pretty clear, and I was
greatly struck with it.
Tom Harris, who had been staring at the Colonel with his round eyes very
wide open, here ventured to say that he supposed there would be
considerable expenditure before any returns could be expected.
“Guess you’d better shut up,” said, or rather snuffled, Dr Titus A. C.
Bett. “I have documents in my pocket to substantiate the number of miles
metalled, and the bridges, and the viaducts, and general plant. A mere
flea-bite of outlay, sir, would suffice to establish another of those
mighty arteries of communication in respect to which America, it’s
pretty much admitted, whips the world; and none but a soft-horn, sir,
would have the least dubiosity about it.”
The Doctor and the Colonel were compatriots, one being a Boston man and
the other a New-Yorker, but they were very unlike each other in aspect
and manner. For whereas the Colonel was six feet two inches high, at the
very least computation, and had an eagle beak, keen dark eyes, and a
forest of lank black hair streaming around his sallow face; the Doctor
was a little man of five feet three, or thereabouts, with weak eyes,
spectacles, a head almost bald, and a little wizened countenance.
Furthermore, the Colonel was a soft-spoken man, with conciliatory
manners and a peculiarly honeyed tone; and though he smoked
prodigiously, he consumed tobacco in no other way. The Doctor, on the
other hand, was quarrelsome and warlike to a degree, capped every
anecdote, contradicted everybody, hummed and buzzed in society like an
angry wasp, and kept a silver box full of quids in his coat-pocket.
These two were partners. Ill-natured people were malicious enough to say
that the Colonel’s department was cajolery, and the Doctor’s bullying,
in the joint interest of the firm. I gave no ear to these unkind
rumours, and indeed I justly considered the Colonel to be a man of
superior abilities and remarkable eloquence. He did not omit, on this
occasion, to spread a little soothing salve on the wounds which his
countryman’s rudeness had inflicted.
“Excuse the worthy Doctor,” he murmured, in bland accents, to Tom
Harris, whose face was very red with awkward indignation, “he is
accustomed to the free discussions of our colossal country, where the
restrictive etiquette of older and more despotic lands is spurned
beneath the boot-heels of enlightenment. Do not be riled, I beseech you,
at the freedom of his remarks; truth inspires them. You do not know,
gentlemen” (here the orator’s voice swelled into a sonorous
fulness)—“you cannot know—the resources of our glorious country: none
but American citizens can fully appreciate the mines of profitable
pro-duce always awaiting the civilising pick-axe of the hardy western
pioneer. But never, never since first our Pilgrim Fathers began to
improve the Indians off the face of nature—never since Manhattan changed
its name to New Amsterdam, afterwards to be New York—has such a
speculation as this, of which I am the felicitous herald, been going
a-begging. Hail, Columbia, happy land! as our inspired bard, who whips
your Swan of—ahem!” And here the Colonel ended in some confusion, and
hid his fluent lips for a moment in his wine-glass.
Tom Harris was quite appeased. He was not a bright personage, Tom, but
he did very well on the Stock Exchange, to which he may be said to have
been born and bred. He was the only son of the well-known old Peter
Harris, the man who made so much, as a bear, at the time of the Nore
mutiny. He, Tom—not old Peter—had inherited a great deal of money; and
though he set up for a sporting man, and generally hedged so artfully,
and made up such ingenious books on the races that his alternative was
between great losses and small ones, he was richer than when he came
into his father’s fortune. For money accrues to money, as a snowball
gathers in rolling; and it no more requires a genius to thrive in the
Stock Market than it does to rule in a Cabinet, if Chancellor Oxenstiern
tells the truth. And Tom had married a young lady of property, Miss
Mungle, daughter of Chuttnee and Mungle, or rather of the junior partner
in that great firm. Tom Harris, therefore, was wild for lucrative
investments, and so, in a qualified way, was I; and money was plentiful
in the City, as the ‘Times’ correspondent daily informed the reading
public. We therefore already began to nibble at the tempting bait which
the Colonel placed before us so dexterously.
“But,” said I, “is the traffic certain to be remunerative? The line runs
through rather a thinly-peopled tract of country, doesn’t it?”
Colonel Coriolanus Sling slapped his leathery palm upon the polished
mahogany with an emphasis that made the glasses ring. “Sir,” said he,
“you are the most sensible man I have met in this benighted—I mean this
beautiful kingdom. You have hit the exact point, my dear Mr Bulkeley, on
which the eligibility of the whole affair pivots, only you must look at
it from that sublimely piercing elevation from which the American
intellect surveys it. Sir, we must _create_ a population: sir, we must
found cities: sir, it must be ours to people the western solitudes and
to implant the germs of a nascent commerce, a new learning, a fresh
community, where now the coon and the prairie dog dwell unmolested and
alone: and, sir, future ages will decree to us colossal statues of
imperishable brass; while in this we shall realise the applause of our
consciences and of our bankers.” Here the Colonel stopped, overpowered
by his feelings, and blew his nose with a martial dissonance.
“By Jove!” said Tom Harris, “I’ll speak to old Muggins about it: if he
says ‘all right,’ I’ll take a thousand shares in the concern.”
“Muggins, sir! who is Muggins?” demanded the Doctor, waspishly: “is
Muggins, sir, a fit judge when such an enterprise is in question—an
enterprise to reflect eternal honour, sir, on its spirited and
high-feluting projectors, with the finger of ignominy to point at the
craven that draws back. Muggins! some stony-hearted London
capitalist—some toad-eater at the beck of a bloated aristocracy—some
miserable haunter of the gilded saloons of a Chancellor of the
Exchequer” (the doctor was not very particular as to the authenticity of
the accusations he flung broadcast). “Muggins, indeed!”
Tom Harris was an ingenuous youth. He looked excessively ashamed of his
allusion to Muggins, and was quite borne down by the volubility of his
transatlantic opponent. Thus it came about that a meeting was arranged
for the next day at Colonel Sling’s chambers, at which we were to
discuss the propriety of forming a company to work out the concession of
the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway, of which our American friends were the
fortunate owners. I was an older man than Tom Harris, and had
necessarily seen more of the world. And I had been “bit,” as the phrase
goes, once or twice, by Mexican Debentures, Spanish Deferred, and
unsaleable Scrip. I therefore asked, as delicately as I could, why my
new acquaintances had not raised among the enlightened capitalists of
their own country a sufficient amount to pay all preliminary expenses,
thus keeping the golden fruit entirely among Americans. But the Colonel
had an answer ready for me. He frowned, pursed up his month, bit his
lips, and assumed very much the air of a conspirator.
“Hush!” he uttered, in tragic tones; then rushing to the door, whisked
it open, putting to rout Adolphus the page, who always is listening at
keyholes, in spite of repeated corporal punishment. Adolphus scuttled
away across the hall in great dismay, and the Colonel returned to his
seat with an expression that Iago might have envied. “Hush!” said he,
“walls have auriculars, and spies are always on the watch to re-port the
words of Columbia’s children. It is well known that your arbitrary
Government has long adopted the wicked maxim due to the crafty
forethought of your Pitt, Earl of Holland, that ‘America’s danger is
England’s opportunity.’”
I could not help laughing as I answered, “I am afraid, Colonel, your
memory has not rendered the passage in exactly its original form.”
“Excuse me,” croaked the Doctor, “but nothing is more wonderful than the
ignorance which prevails in Britain, with regard to the sayings and
doings of your grandees and public persons.”
“Allow me, Doctor,” said the Colonel, oracularly, “to finish my
explanation. You see, gentlemen, we might have offered this concession
in Wall Street in the Empire City, and Wall Street would have snapped it
up; yes, sir, as an alligator would chaw pork.”
This was a forcible simile, but it did not quite content us. “Why didn’t
you?” was trembling on the lips of both Tom Harris and myself, but
politeness restrained us from uttering what our looks must have plainly
said.
The Colonel answered our looks thus: “Because, squires, there was this
difficulty in the way,—Buck, you know, is our old man.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Tom, reddening again; “but I don’t quite catch
your meaning. Buck, did you call the gentleman?”
“Buck! the old man! White House—deputations—soirees—soft sawder,”
explained the Doctor; and then we discovered that President Buchanan was
the object of discourse.
“Well,” pursued the Colonel, “Buck’s very far gone—notice to quit—time
nearly up. His successor is sure to be Abe Lincoln, if the little giant
don’t beat him at the election. Nobody else has got a chance. Caucuses
all at work! dark as moles. Now, sir, we have plugged the platform.”
“You’ve done what?” exclaimed Tom Harris.
“We’ve made it all safe, and Lincoln stands to win,” exclaimed the
Colonel, condescendingly. “Now we suspect those Southerners mean to ride
rusty if they get an anti-slavery man, like old Abe, to be President
over them; and though our folks air screamers, and that’s a fact, the
South’s an ugly customer, and our line of railway is too close to
Missouri State to be safe, if owned by Northerners. But in the smartest
row the South can make, you Britishers are sure to be handled as
tenderly as a hoosier handles a squirrel’s skin; and so it’s best the
property should be in the name of British subjects, not free citizens.
Don’t you see?”
We did see, and we resolved that on the morrow we would sift the matter
thoroughly.
“Try the claret, Colonel,” said I; “you have been drinking nothing but
sherry, and this is Chateau Margaux that I got at Bilkingham’s sale.
Those are pretty good peaches, Doctor, of my own growing.”
“Don’t talk of peaches,” said the Doctor, who, I will own, was anything
but an agreeable guest; “you must cross the broad Atlantic before you
talk of peaches, I reckon. I’ve fed pigs with better than your dukes and
earls could show. I’ve bought in the market twenty-nine big peaches for
thirty cents, I have. We do crow over you in peaches, as in most, only
your national vanity won’t permit you to see it.”
The Colonel jumped from his chair. “You be quiet!” said he; “the Doctor
is a glowing patriot, Mr Bulkeley; but I know he admires your delightful
snuggery, embellished by art and high-flying taste, as much as I do
myself. Some day, as a director of the Nauvoo and Nebraska, you may, if
you please, build a palace on the site of Magnolia Villa that will take
the shine out of the sumptuous halls of your nobility. But enough of
business. Gentlemen, if you have liquored sufficiently, we will join the
ladies.”
We did join the ladies. We found them strolling over the lawn in the
cool of a September evening, and presently we all went in to coffee. I
noticed that the Colonel was very polite and attentive, not only to my
wife, but to young Mrs Harris, who was exceedingly stupid and plain of
feature. As for Mrs and Miss Jarman, they were entertained by the Doctor
with an amusing dissertation on the difference between America and
England, and especially between London and New York. If Mrs Jarman had
hitherto cherished a belief in the pre-eminence of London, as she
apparently had, she must have received a considerable shock as the
Doctor informed her that Belgravia was but a poor place to Fourth and
Fifth Avenue, and that we were benighted creatures in all matters of
elegance and taste.
“Not a mahogany door, I guess, have I seen in this smoky beggarly town
of yours,” said Dr Bett, with both thumbs in the pockets of his black
satin vest; “and as for silver knockers and bell-pulls, I might as well
look for liberty in your institutions, or for sincerity in your press.
The helps are enough to disgust all free-born men; to see them in plush
and powder, with gold-sticks and nosegays, standing behind the gilt
vehicles of an effete aristocracy, is alone a spectacle that beats
earthquakes; and your Life Guards would sing small, I guess, by the side
of the Brooklyn Volunteers.”
The Colonel, however, could be complimentary and gentle, if his brother
republican could not; and so well did he play his cards, that when the
company drove off, and the last grinding of their carriage-wheels upon
the gravel had died away, my wife and daughters turned to me with
beaming faces, and began to sing the praises of their departed guest.
“A most superior, well-informed, gentlemanly man, is Colonel Sling,”
said the partner of my joys, emphatically.
“A delightful man!” lisped Georgina, my eldest.
“Quite an Admirable Crichton,” said Selina, my second, who is a bit of a
blue.
“Delightful! he has _so_ much conversation, and makes one laugh _so_!”
cried artless Lucy, the third and youngest of my daughters.
So he had pleased them all, and, I admit, he had pleased me too; but he
mostly showed his tact in winning the suffrages of the feminine members
of my household. For Mrs Bulkeley is not a cipher by any means, even in
my business transactions, and she has an amiable habit of warning me
against entering into commercial relations with any one she mistrusts or
dislikes. The next day beheld assembled in the showy Pall Mall chambers
of Colonel Sling the same quartette that had closed around the mahogany
in Magnolia Villa on the preceding day. Tom Harris and I drove down
there together from the City, and we found the two Americans awaiting us
with a hearty welcome. There were maps on a great table, and plans, and
minerals, and parchments, and heaps of papers, carefully stacked and
docqueted, and files of letters with great red seals to them that would
have carried conviction home to the most incredulous. And the Colonel,
after the first salutations were over, and after tenderly inquiring
about the health of my womankind, commenced a lucid explanation of the
exact position of the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway—its position, I mean,
in a pecuniary point of view, not its geographical position. The latter,
we ascertained by a glance at the map, to be in the free State of Iowa,
skirting Missouri, and with one terminus in Illinois State and the other
in Nebraska Territory. But information now came showering upon us, and
the Colonel was extremely careful to prove every fresh axiom which he
laid down by an appeal to documents of the most incontrovertible
character. There was the original concession of the line, approved by
the State Legislature, signed by the governor, registered by the State’s
law officers and by the Federal attorney of the district. There were
similar documents, to which the autographs of the governors of Nebraska
and Illinois were attached. There were the reports of surveyors, the
accounts of contractors, subcontractors, architects, machinists, and
ironmasters. Moreover, there were specimens of minerals found in the
immediate neighbourhood of the line, and within the liberal grant of
land which the State had made—which specimens the Colonel showed us, in
rather a careless way, as mere incidental advantages. But the eyes of
Tom Harris and myself sparkled at the sight; for although we were not
adepts in geology, we knew iron ore, and copper ore, and limestone, and
hornblende, and fine marble, when we saw them; and visions of mines and
quarries to be worked at vast profit, or leased for high rentals,
flitted brilliantly before us. What wonder that, on hearing the generous
terms on which the two American gentlemen were willing to admit us to a
full participation of their advantages, Tom and I shook hands most
heartily with Doctor and Colonel, and devoted ourselves from that moment
to the establishment of the projected Company? And then Colonel
Coriolanus rang the bell for lunch, and we all drank, over and over
again, in creaming bumpers of Clicquot, prosperity and success to the
Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway. Two day after, out came our prospectus to
dazzle the City. A more flowery manifesto, or one more fertile in
temptations, I have seldom seen. It proved, moreover, as plainly as that
two and two make four, that the investment was as secure as the bank, if
not more so, and a hundred-fold more remunerative. Never was there such
a railway; never were there directors so opulent, so respectable, so
conscientious, so experienced; never was there a line on which the
expenses were so trifling, the traffic so enormous, or the dividend so
princely, as that of the Nauvoo and Nebraska. Iowa was a State of
boundless fertility, of inexhaustible resources—cereal, mineral,
commercial. The line would be part of a main highway to the Far West,
and the Old World and the New World pour tribute into the cornucopia of
its matchless wealth. Cities were to spring up, fair and flourishing
provinces were to blossom, where the virgin soil now awaited the spade
and the ploughshare: we were to carry tobacco, madder, corn, cattle,
immigrants, and ore. The gigantic fortunes we were to make were thrown
into the shade by the benefits we were to confer on posterity and our
contemporaries. Unborn millions were to canonise the projectors of the
Grand Nauvoo and Nebraska; and we were not only to insure for ourselves
the smiles and blessings of ages yet to come, but were to feather our
nests pretty handsomely in a few short months. Not only were we to take
rank as philanthropists of the first water, but to rig the market as
well. Nor were the advantages of the new railroad confined to the
eminent and clear-sighted capitalists who had first embarked in it. No;
in that good cause the widow’s mite was welcome. Never, it was pointed
out, was so admirable an opportunity offered to ladies of limited
income, to struggling professional men, to decayed gentry or others, to
double or treble their little store by means of the splendid dividends,
the bonuses, premiums, and other good things, to be expected from the
Company. Who has not read many such glowing proclamations as this,
promising to realise the dreams of an El Dorado for the lucky
speculator, bolstering up each statement by an imposing array of
figures, and always concluding by the recommendation that (to prevent
disappointment) _immediate_ application be made at the office for
shares? We had a secretary and cashier, and Dr Titus A. C. Bett was so
kind as to undertake the latter responsible position; while the
celebrated Wyldrake Flam, Esq., a gentleman who had been concerned with
a good many companies in his time, was happily secured for the former
situation. Sir George Gullings, M.P., a rich banker who had earned his
baronetcy by his long course of voting for a Whig Ministry, was our
chairman; and, of course, Tom Harris, Colonel Sling, and I, were among
the managing directors. We took a great many shares amongst us; but, of
course, by far the greater number were submitted to public competition,
and the frequenters of the money market bit with tolerable freedom. But
there were some wary old fish who refused so much as to nibble at the
glittering bait, and foremost amongst them was old Muggins, that veteran
stockbroker of whom Tom Harris had made mention at my table. Muggins was
a character, and disagreeably outspoken. One day I met him at the Royal
Exchange, and taking him playfully by the button, I asked him why he
gave our Company the cold shoulder.
“Mr Bulkeley, sir, I’ll tell you,” said Muggins, with a frown: “I shirk
your Company, sir, because I can’t afford to lose my property in
duck-and-drake fashion among those swindling Yankees. I hate bubbles,
sir, and this is worse, for it is a cruel robbery.”
“Sir, sir! Mr Muggins!” said I, choking with anger. What did this
remarkable man proceed to say? Just this:
“George Bulkeley, I have known you from a boy, and you are an honest
man, though not very bright (I was speechless at his effrontery). When I
call this affair a swindle, I don’t impute blame to you, for I am aware
that you are a dupe, not a duper. But I don’t pity you for losing some
pen-feathers out of your wings, as you will do; I keep my pity for the
poor wretches who will be plucked bare, and who can least spare the
little savings or capital your fine prospectus has wheedled them into
investing,—I mean the widows and old maids, the half-pay officers, the
needy clergymen, that your Company is to ruin. I wish I could see your
American friends in the pillory, I know! Good-day.”
And off he went, leaving me very angry, but a little dismayed as well.
After all, old Muggins passed for an oracle in the city; and seriously,
_had_ I examined sufficiently into the foundation of all the alluring
statements we had published with the sanction of our names? What Muggins
had said about the widows and poor helpless folks gave me an unpleasant
twinge in my heart, and conscience came and whispered, “George Bulkeley,
the accomplice of rogues, is not very far from being a rogue himself, is
he?” I made a bold resolution. I determined to go out myself to America,
and, on the spot, thoroughly to investigate the condition and prospects
of the line of railway. When I broached this proposal at the next
meeting of the Board, Colonel Sling and the Doctor were found to be
violently opposed to it, and to be inclined to resent such interference
on my part as an insult. And the influence of the two Americans was very
considerable with the committee, partly because all our information was
derived from the authority of Colonel Sling, and partly because the
transatlantic gentlemen had a custom of putting down and pooh-poohing
whatever any one but themselves happened to say. But I was firm this
time; and besides, as I offered to go out without putting the Company to
any expense whatever, the opposition to my departure could not decently
be continued. Then, to my surprise, Colonel Coriolanus Sling very kindly
offered to accompany me, and to save me all trouble and inconvenience by
lending me the aid of his perfect knowledge of the localities. The
Doctor, as cashier, must of course remain at his post; but the Colonel
could be spared, he felt assured he could be spared, and indeed he
proposed that we should go as a deputation, and at the cost of the
Company. Why not? Our shares were at a premium. Money was flowing in.
All went prosperously with us. Why not? The Colonel’s proposition was
carried _nem. con._, and it was agreed that George Bulkeley, Esq., and
Colonel Coriolanus Sling, should proceed at once to Iowa, there to
survey, report, and inspect. Mrs Bulkeley’s consent was procured; and
indeed, but for the terrors of sea-sickness, she would have insisted on
accompanying me. The Cunard packet, Mersey, was to sail from Liverpool
on the 17th of the month; our berths were engaged on board her; and it
was duly agreed that the Colonel and I were to go down together on the
day preceding that of embarkation. I never thoroughly understood why the
gallant American officer did not keep his appointment. He wrote me a
hurried note, saying that important business detained him in town, and
that he would join me in Liverpool; but I believe a dinner at the Star
and Garter, at Richmond, was the engagement in question. At any rate I
travelled alone; alone I embarked; and though I looked out for the
Colonel till the last moment, till the bell rang, and the plank was
withdrawn, and the huge paddlewheels began to revolve, no Colonel came.
And we went to sea with his name in the roll of passengers, but without
his corporeal presence on deck or in cabin. I cannot say that I was
altogether sorry. I felt instinctively that I was by far more likely to
form an unbiassed judgment when alone. I felt that in company with a man
so plausible, so fluent of speech, and so experienced in all the ways of
the singular country for which I was bound, I should be in danger of
seeing all objects through the rose-coloured haze in which it was the
Colonel’s policy to mask them. But, at the same time, I was a little
nervous at the prospect of exploring the Far West without a Mentor; and
the weight of the responsibility attaching to my report was not exactly
reassuring. The packet was crowded, for many were desirous of making use
of the last week or two of fine still weather, before the November gales
should begin to expend their fury upon the vast breadth of the Atlantic.
There were but few Britons on board; but there were Dons in abundance;
and great numbers of pallid ladies, with Parisian toilettes and faulty
teeth, and of sallow lean-visaged men in tail-coats and varnished boots,
returning from a tour of European baths and cities. Also, there were
plenty of keen-looking persons, who eyed all mankind with suspicious
scrutiny, who had memorandum-books sticking out of the pockets of their
black satin vests, and who were probably not unconnected with commercial
pursuits and the cotton trade. Aware that I was on my way to a new world
in more senses of the word than one, a world whose standard of morality
was wholly novel, I took every opportunity of acquiring information
which might afterwards prove invaluable. I therefore associated
exclusively with natives of the Western Continent, studied their
sentiments, and stored up every scrap of information bearing on traffic
and transit. I will own that my pride met with frequent abrasions; that
my deepest-rooted convictions were rudely assaulted; and that I was
unable to avoid observing that my neighbours would have been all the
better for a little more attention to the precepts of Lord Chesterfield.
We are not always very fastidious in the city: I am constantly obliged
to bargain, dine, and converse, with uncommonly rough diamonds; but I do
not think that any Cockney alive can contrive to render vulgarity so
glaringly offensive as his Yankee congener. I was most unlucky in my
fellow-passengers, some of whose habits were distressing to a degree,
and did not show any remarkable improvement since the days when Mrs
Trollope and Captain Hamilton crossed the Atlantic. I began to owe Sir
Walter a grudge for his discovery of tobacco, since tobacco, chewed to
pulp, and lubricating the deck and cabin-stairs with its nicotian
extract, became the bugbear of my existence. Besides, I prefer to see
gentlemen sit with their feet in a more normal position than an undue
elevation of the boot soles can afford. I wish our transatlantic
brothers would smoke a little less and wash a little more; and I never
could entirely pardon young Mr Tips for whittling my portmanteau. Mr
Tips—young Mr Tips, that is—Minos Blackstone Story Tips—was the sharer
of what was facetiously called my state-room. The latter was a wedge of
a cabin, with two little berths in it, not quite so spacious as the
box-beds in an old-fashioned Highland cottage, and was naturally meant
to accommodate two passengers. Under ordinary circumstances, Colonel
Sling would have held divided empire over this den with myself; and I
believe that, in strict justice, the whole should have been mine, seeing
that I had signed the cheque in payment for both passages. But berths
were at a premium: several passengers had come on board at the last, and
had to shift for their quarters as they might, and among them the Tips
family. Now, although the “state-room” was rightfully mine, yet I was
easily induced to permit the installation of young Mr Tips in the
undermost berth, though I admit that my temper was sorely tested when I
found him in bed, one rather blusterous afternoon, very sick, and
beguiling the tedious hours, by operating with a sharp penknife on the
glossy leather of my new portmanteau—Allen’s best, fitted for India and
the colonies. Also this delightful youth—a lawyer from the cradle, as
his names imply—was fond of using my pet razor, and borrowing my
scissors and brushes; was not over partial to soap and water; and sang
queer nasal songs at untimely hours, besides smoking in bed. I might
have had a pleasanter companion, but I had let him in, and there was no
help for it, while, after all, the voyage was but for ten days. Why had
I let him in? For two reasons: firstly, because exclusiveness is most
unpopular among Republicans; and the old sentiment which dictated the
New York proverb, that “A man must be a hog to want a bed all to
himself,” still exists in a modified form. Another reason was, that I
wanted to make friends, and get letters of introduction to some Western
citizens who would be able to tell me all about the Nauvoo and Nebraska
Railway, and perhaps a little about Colonel Sling. I knew that
Americans, amongst each other at least, were most generous in this
respect. I was aware that few retired storekeepers or land-jobbers
brought over their charming families without being provided with
introductions from ex-ministers and secretaries to half the peers and
princes of Europe; that American diplomacy was subservient to any one
who could influence an election; and that very queer folks indeed had
the honour of figuring at royal levees and state balls under the wing of
Franklin’s eagle. I determined, therefore, to be as conciliatory as
possible in all my dealings with the citizens and citizenesses of the
model commonwealth.
I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with old Mr Tips,—Judge Tips,
of Salem, Mass.—his Christian name was Magnentius,—in rather a curious
manner. He sat next to me at the general dinner in the best cabin or
saloon. The table was crowded, but there were three below me, on the
same side of the long board. The dinner was a capital one: the Cunard
directors are famous for good feeding; and Judge Tips, father to my
young companion, played an excellent knife and fork. A dish of peas came
round, the last of the marrow-fats, the latest peas of summer; and
indeed I cannot conceive from what remote market the steamboat purveyors
had imported them, seeing that Covent Garden had been barren, in respect
to this vegetable, for some weeks. I am very fond of peas, and was
rejoiced to see my favourites once again; and I anxiously awaited their
arrival. Miss Tips, Miss Julia Tips, and Tips _mère_, as the French
would say, had each taken a decorous spoonful from the flying dish, and
now the black waiter was offering the delicacy to Tips himself, enough
being left for five persons at least. What was my horror to behold the
Judge deliberately monopolise the whole—sweep, as I live, every pea into
his own plate—and then turning to me, with a greasy smile, remark, “I
guess, stranger, I’m a whale at peas.”[4] Yes, Mr Bright tells sterling
truth. There are some matters in which the most acquisitive of us all
are distanced by an American. Judge Tips was obliging enough to favour
me with a good deal of his improving conversation, and by meekness and
affability I won his heart. He not only invited me to visit him at
Salem, but when I hinted that I was on my way to the West, and should be
glad to make the acquaintance of any notable citizens of Illinois or
Iowa, he gave me the coveted letters of introduction to more than one
magistrate, sheriff, and popular preacher. Nor did any accident mar the
even tenor of our agreeable passage to New York. We had almost uniform
good weather; and before the evening of the eleventh day, we were
standing on the wooden landing-places of the Empire City, surrounded by
German porters, Irish car-drivers, and Yankee touts. The latter race,
wise in their generation, prefer head-work to the toil of actual muscle,
and permit old Europe to furnish them with soldiers and foremast-men,
stevedores, navvies, and dock labourers; while they supply officers,
foremen, mates, and overlookers, to regulate and profit by the exertions
of their hirelings.
The Astor House is not what it was. It has been distanced by more
gigantic competitors; and as for the Tremont, it is left high and dry,
like a stranded whale, by the tide of fashion. Nevertheless, I bestowed
my patronage on the latter, perhaps for Sam Slick’s sake, and spent a
couple of days under its hospitable roof while recovering from the
sensation of cramp, tedium, and nausea quite inseparable from a sea
voyage. Then I set out for the West. The journey, as far as Fort
Madison, on the western boundary of the State of Illinois, I performed
by railway, expeditiously perhaps, and not very uncomfortably, in spite
of the amount of rocking and swinging due to a carelessly-metalled
“permanent way,” if I may employ the phraseology of engineering. But I
could not, with a clear conscience, agree with the enthusiastic comments
of my fellow-travellers, as to the immense superiority, in speed and
accommodation, of American railroads over those of Britain. After being
jolted and swung till one’s bones ached, all the time, perhaps, being at
a net speed of thirty miles an hour, it was rather provoking to listen
to such remarks as the following:—
“Wall, mister, I expect our flying locomotives do rayther astonish you.
They kinder take the conceit out of Old England, I some think.” Or, more
gravely, “I believe, sir, it’s pretty universally admitted that America
whips the world for speed. We have beaten your yachts, we have licked
your racers, and our trains must make you think small beer of your
expresses. We go ahead, _we_ do!”
I take great praise to myself that I was always able to keep my temper,
and to abstain from polemics. But argument would have been useless. I
had to do with a people who saw the outer world through the spectacles
of their journalists, and who would no more admit the imperfections of
America than a lover will see a blemish in his mistress. To them America
was all in all; and the mightiest countries in Europe were esteemed by
them as rotten and worthless, only existing by the sufferance of the
Giant Republic. As for my praise of the British Constitution, they
simply laughed at it, assuring me that I knew nothing about the matter,
and that there could be no liberty where a plain man was not allowed to
go to court in his working dress if he chose. But I had not crossed the
ocean to argue: I had come to pluck out the heart of the mystery
concerning the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway. And I was very careful at
dinner-tables, bars, cafés, and railway cars, to elicit all available
information with respect to the resources of the West. What I heard was,
of course, vague; but on the whole it contained some comfort. It
appeared certain that a great trade was carried on by land and water;
that towns started up with incredible quickness in the midst of desolate
prairies, or, like Chicago, on piles in a swamp; and that hardy men were
taming the wilderness. So far so good. But it did not appear to me that
security to life and property went in exactly the same ratio as the
increase of wealth. I heard odd stories about regulators, vigilance
committees, and Judge Lynch. Mob-law seemed paramount to written
statutes; and the fiat of a legal court required to be backed by the
good pleasure of a majority before its execution could be guaranteed.
Besides, the moral standard of the community did not rank as high as
perhaps a very delicate sense of honour required. Commercial tricks were
spoken of as “clever,” or “ingenious,” which in other lands would have
engaged the serious attention of the law-officers of the Crown; and the
most unprincipled ruse was mentioned with laughter and indulgence, if
not with approbation. All this augured badly, methought, for the
prospects of the Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway. And yet I did not despair,
and still less did I drop a hint of my suspicions to any casual
acquaintance. It was not for me, a managing director, to denounce the
project with which my name was, alas! inextricably linked, until it
should be proved a bubble on the very clearest evidence. I reached Fort
Madison, the most remote point to which the steam-horse could convey me,
and had, at any rate, the satisfaction of knowing that I was within a
few miles of Nauvoo. I hired a mule-waggon for the journey, and sitting
down to dinner at the public table of the hotel, I inquired what sort of
a place Nauvoo might be?
“Nauvoo, mister,” said a tall gaunt man whom his friends addressed as
“Major,” “Nauvoo is a pretty considerable sprig of a city. It is a tall
place, sir. There air good points and great developments about Nauvoo.
Do you settle down there, stranger? I could sell you a lot of land awful
cheap.”
“Thank you,” said I, “I have no intention of becoming a resident at
Nauvoo; I merely wish to visit it.”
“I see,” observed another guest; “you want to have a peep at the great
temple the Mormons built before Joe Smith was shot at Springfield.
’Tain’t much you’ll see, though, stranger, for the place is all to ruin.
The bhoys were not soft enough to let so much cedar-pine and dressed
limestone stand, when houses were costing hat-fulls of dollars. But
Nauvoo has some fine bluffs, con-sidered aiqual to any scenery the old
Rhine can show.”
“Air you in the hardware line? If so, we might trade, I guess;” said a
little man at my elbow.
“No, no;” I returned, “my journey is not of a commercial character,
exactly.”
“Political, eh?” asked the Major: “picking up news, perhaps, for your
Downing Street wiseacres, and feeling Uncle Sam’s pulse to know when the
old gentleman is at fever heat, eh, mister?”
“Not at all,” said I; “I have no mission of the sort; nor, indeed, do I
believe the British Government to entertain any peculiar anxiety on the
subject you mention.”
A cough and shrug of disapprobation pervaded the assembly.
“It is well known, sir,” said the tall Major, “that the Government of
your benighted land is ever on the watch for the expression of American
opinion. American opinion, sir, has great weight in your House of
Commons.”
“I was not aware of it, I give you my word;” I answered with a smile.
“Perhaps not, sir, perhaps not,” replied the Major, pityingly. “Do you
never read the ‘Evening Planet,’ sir, when you are at home?”
I winced. The truth was, that I _did_ take in the ‘Evening Planet,’ and
heedfully perused therein the valuable dicta of its eloquent proprietor,
a celebrated parliamentary and platform orator. And I had been
accustomed to give credence to the confident assurance of this
gentleman, that we were miles behind the Northern States of the American
Union in all that was useful and good, and that we could not do better
than copy so shining a model in all things. I had read and heard the
bold statement, made in defiance of statistics, that America was
floating peacefully on the tide of prosperity into the haven of
universal empire—an empire won by bloodless means, of course; for what
nation, unsaddled with an aristocracy, would dream of war, while Britain
was sinking into decrepitude and decay! All this, and much more, had I
heard and read, and I had believed that Britannia ought to sit at the
feet of her flighty offspring for instruction, and to remodel her old
institutions after a republican pattern. But, as not seldom happens, a
nearer view of the United States did not precisely confirm the loud
assertions of the Americanising party in the British press and senate,
and I was gradually losing my ideal admiration for transatlantic liberty
and customs. After the rapid dinner, and the more leisurely supplement
of juleps and brandy-cobblers imbibed in the bar-room of the hotel, I
asked a coloured waiter if my waggon and mules were forthcoming, as I
was desirous of reaching Nauvoo before dark.
“Iss, massa!” answered the negro, and whisked off with his napkin to
inquire after the lingering equipage.
The Major said he was going to Nauvoo too, and begged the favour of a
lift, which I willingly conceded.
The mules and waggon, with their whipcracking teamster, soon rattled up
to the door; my bill was promptly paid, my baggage transferred to the
vehicle; the Major and I climbed into our places, and we started.
“How comes it, Major,” said I, “that there is no line open to Nauvoo?”
The Major knocked the ashes off his cigar as he replied, “Wall, I
suppose it wouldn’t pay. Rail to Fort Madison is all right and spry,
because Uncle Sam has property there; but I guess not a dime could be
drawed from Washington treasury to make a line on to Nauvoo.”
“And from Nauvoo, westward through Iowa, say to Nebraska,” observed I,
with affected carelessness; “what should you say to the prospects of a
railroad in that direction?”
My heart throbbed audibly as I spoke, for all my feigned indifference,
and I listened with anxiety for the Major’s reply. I had not long to
wait.
“That depends,” said my fellow-traveller, with sagacious deliberation,
“on the sort of rail you talk about. Is it a line to go no farther than
Wall Street, and perhaps your London Capel Court, that you are speaking
of, mister?”
“Wall Street and Capel Court! Upon my life, I hardly comprehend you,”
returned I.
“Moonshine, flummery, make-believe, sleepers, rails, stations, all of
paper, _that’s_ what I mean, stranger;” rejoined the Major, somewhat
impatiently.
“But I spoke of a _bona fide_ concern—of a real railway, honestly made
and fairly worked,” answered I; “what would you say to that?”
“Say!” replied the Major, with infinite contempt, “say! Let me see the
gonies. Trot ’em up to me, sir. Just let me have a look at the simple
ones that are at the head of the business, and I’ll tell them what I
think, fast enough. No, Nauvoo is a rising place, a neat location, but
it can wait for a rail one while, unless every sage plant on the prairie
turns to silver dollars.”
After this I asked the Major no more questions. We reached Nauvoo, and
through the dusk I espied the shingled roofs of its houses, the bold
bluffs of limestone, the rushing coffee-coloured river, and the
unfinished building-lots with their heaps of wreck and rubbish. We put
up at the General Jackson Hotel. I had a letter of introduction to
Squire Park of Nauvoo, a gentleman in the flatboat interest, who owed
his title of Squire to his being in the commission of the peace. But on
repairing to his house I was doomed to disappointment—the more vexatious
because Mr Park had been eulogised by Judge Tips as a man who knew the
West thoroughly. Squire Park was gone to Cairo on business, and was not
expected back before the end of the month. On consulting the map I
carried, I found that a place called Keosauque was the nearest of the
few towns in Iowa to the line of railway, real or imaginary, in
connection with which my name, and those of other men of respectability
and substance, were flaming, in advertisements and on the broadsheets of
a prospectus, throughout the British metropolis. I set off to Keosauque,
mounted on an Indian pony, and accompanied by a guide in the shape of a
wiry backwoodsman, in an enduring costume of leather, and who gave
accommodation to my portmanteau behind his saddle. For some miles we
rode in silence over the apparently boundless sea of grass, mottled with
weeds and flowers, and occasionally studded with lone farmhouses and
maize fields, or by herds of grazing cattle. Those half-reclaimed
mustangs are not the most pleasant mount for a timid rider, nor am I,
George Bulkeley of Stamford Hill, a very adventurous horseman; and
before we had got far, I began to wish the brute I rode would desist
from what seemed an alternation of starts and stumbles. My guide, a
good-humoured wild man, observed my embarrassment, and undertook its
removal.
“See here, Colonel,” said he—strangers in the West are usually decorated
with visionary epaulettes—“you mustn’t keep the rein so slack as that,
nor yet hold your hand up level with your cravat, or, scalp me, but
you’ll be spilt! Mustangs want a tight grip on the bit. So—steady now.
Stick in your knees, Colonel, and scorn to ketch hold of the pummel—so.
Do as you see me do; give him a touch of the spur, but mind his
kicking—for mustangs _can_ kick, they can. You’ll do nicely, now.”
Ichabod was a skilful riding-master, by instinct, I suppose; and, thanks
to his forcible instructions, I was soon on better terms with my
refractory quadruped. On we rode, over the waving grass, through the
rank weeds, through the belts of cottonwood timber and maples that
skirted every streamlet, and past the swampy bottoms where sluggish
waters wound like wounded snakes. We dined on dried venison, jerked
beef, parched corn, and hominy, at a farm which did duty for an inn, and
slept at another house of the same character. Next day we resumed our
route; and as we rode towards Keosauque, I ventured to ask Ichabod if he
had ever heard of the Great Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway. I had been
hitherto averse to propounding this query; for how could I tell whether
the interests of my informant might conflict with mine?—but with this
rough frontiersman I felt I was safe. He, at least, was no rival
speculator—no shareholder in a competing line—no steamboat proprietor,
or lord of many stage-waggons. But his first answer was not
satisfactory. It was comprised in the one word, “Anan!”
“The Railway”—asked I again—“from Nauvoo to Nebraska: not a finished
thing, of course; but you surely must have seen or heard of the
works—the bridges, the embankments, and the rest of the preparations?”
Ichabod shook his head. “You’re talking Greek to me, Colonel, and that
air a fact.”
“How is it possible,” cried I, in an agony, “that there can have been a
railway begun in this country, and the settlers unaware of it? Surely
you must be a stranger to this part of the State yourself!”
“You’re wrong there, Colonel,” answered Ichabod; “I’m Illinois born, but
I’m Iowa bred. In this State I was raised; and I don’t believe there’s a
thing happened over the border sin’ I could mount a horse, be it buffler
or deer, loping Indian, runaway nigger, or Yankee pedlar, without my
hearing on’t. Stop” (and he smote his knee with a palm as hard as
iron)—“I’ve got it. You’re talking of Harvey’s Folly.”
And I thought the young backwoodsman would have tumbled off his horse in
the extravagant burst of mirth which this discovery produced.
“Who-whoop!” cried he; “I’ve seen queer sights, but never did I think to
see a stranger come out in a bee-line from the old country—no offence,
Colonel!—to ax about Harvey’s Folly. I’d nigh forgot that the thing
existed at all. Wah! but it beats coon-catching!”
With some trouble I got an explanation. It appeared from the borderer’s
statement that, years ago, a speculative individual of the name of
Harvey had undertaken to construct a railway from Nebraska to Nauvoo,
with a branch linking it to the Central Illinois line. He had obtained
the usual charter and grant of land from the State, and had actually
commenced operations between Keosauque and New Buda, two little towns
not far from the Missouri boundary. But he had soon desisted from the
Sisyphean task, ruined, disheartened, or disappointed of the aid on
which he had somewhat sanguinely reckoned; and thenceforth no more had
been said of the scheme or the schemer. “But the property,” groaned I,
“the works, surely _they_ must remain?”
“Why,” said Ichabod, meditatively, “I kinder think there’s rails laid
down a bit—yes, for some miles I guess, and they’ll be there still. The
cussed Indians can’t have stampedoed them, like they do the cattle.
There’s a tidy bridge over a creek or two Harvey built, and some sheds
and scantling; and that’s about all.”
“All,” said I, “think again, Ichabod. Surely there must be more plant
than that, and then the rolling stock?”
The frontiersman laughed. “We know more about gunstocks than rolling
stocks, out here on the pararas,” said he; “and I never heard of plants,
onless ’twas hickory or sumach. But I’ve kinder catalogued the hull
fixings for you, Colonel, without ’tis a pile of rusty iron, or a few
waggon-loads of logs—neat bits of oak timber they were, trimmed and
dressed, and shaped mighty like a saddle-tree, that Harvey left on the
ground.”
“The sleepers, I suppose,” returned I; “are they there still?”
“Well, Colonel, mebbe some of ’em are taking a nap there still,” replied
Ichabod, “but parara men often camp thereabouts, hunting,
cattle-tending, or prospecting, and firewood being mortal scarce on the
plains, ’twasn’t to be expected the bhoys wouldn’t make free with some
chips to cook with. I may have had a chop at those logs with my
tomahawk, when I wanted a broil, onst or twice, myself.”
I groaned again. The Great Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway was evidently as
brittle a speculation as Alnaschar’s basket of glass. I finished the
ride to Keosauque in moody reverie. There was no other guest to share
such rugged plenty as the wooden tavern, called by courtesy the Eagle
Hotel, could afford; and as the landlord was absent, and the landlady
busy in the management of her children and Irish helps, no one talked to
me, and I sat sullen and dejected the whole evening. Next day, tired as
I was, I set out again, under Ichabod’s guidance, to visit what he
persisted in naming Harvey’s Folly. We reached the spot at last. A
swampy level, intersected by runlets of water, and with a good deal of
thorny brake, and here and there a clump of cottonwood poplars
diversifying the scene, had been selected by Mr Harvey for the site of
his preliminary operations. Why he had chosen that wet ground at all,
when so much dry prairie lay beyond, of very tolerable smoothness, it is
difficult to conjecture; but perhaps the more accurate level had tempted
him. There were rails, certainly there were rails, half-hidden by the
growth of hemlocks and rank grass; but on dismounting I discovered that,
for lack of proper metal trams, the rails had been constructed of
_wood_, covered with a thin slip of iron—not an unusual device in
out-of-the-way parts of America, as I was afterwards told. The
fastenings were very defective, the sleepers loose, and the whole
concern had a crazy haphazard look. Such as they were, these precious
rails were continued for about 5 miles—5 miles out of 350!—and then they
terminated in a mass of ruin and confusion. There were roofless sheds,
scantlings and screens blown down by hurricane gusts, heaps of rusty
iron, broken tools, damaged wheelbarrows, and a shattered truck with
only one wheel left. Also there were a quantity of sleepers of dressed
oak, and the fragments of many more, split by the axe and charred to
coal, as they lay around the blackened spots of burnt turf, where many a
camp-fire had been lit by the frontiersmen. That was all the valuable
property left at the disposal of the directors. The sight sickened me.
“Harvey’s Folly,” muttered I between my teeth, “say rather Bulkeley’s
Folly—Bulkeley’s credulity, idiocy, weakness! And not only mine, but Tom
Harris’s, and that of all of us. What a long-eared pack were we to be
lured by the crafty piping of such a dissembling knave as that glib
Colonel!” I rode away, sad and careworn. Ichabod’s quaint talk was
unnoticed. I had another companion that claimed my undivided attention,
and that was Care, Black Care, which sat crouching behind my saddle. I
was haunted by a ghastly phantom of impending bankruptcy. The London
Gazette spread its ill-omened sheet before me, and in its fatal columns
I read, in flaming characters, “George Bulkeley, of Cannon Street in the
City of London, and Stamford Hill, Middlesex, to surrender at Portugal
Street on Monday the 14th inst. Official Assignee, Mr Wilks!” That it
should have come to this! Ruin, ruin, ruin. Ruin and disgrace to us all,
the duped directors of this wretched swindle. Were we not responsible
for the debts of the undertaking? Was not the paid-up capital in the
treacherous hands of our Yankee cashier, Dr Titus A. C. Bett, and could
there be a doubt that it was lost for ever? Plainly the whole business
was a fraudulent trick from the first—a net to catch gold-fish! Ah!
already with my mind’s eye I saw the broker’s men in possession of
Magnolia Villa; I saw my costly furniture, the cellar of wines I had
been so proud of, carriages, pictures, everything, submitted to public
competition by a smirking auctioneer. I heard the hammer fall, knocking
down my Lares and Penates to the highest bidder. Going, going, gone! the
accursed formula rang in my ears with baleful clearness. Magnolia
Cottage to let! My family hiding in poor lodgings in Boulogne! George
Bulkeley, a moody bankrupt, slinking about the pier of that refuge for
insolvency, and afraid to face the Stock Exchange! Even though the Court
might declare me blameless, even though the commissioner might whitewash
me into commercial purity, my conscience was less complaisant, and
sternly refused me even a third-class certificate.
I might have had the right to ruin myself and family, but what right had
I to make desolate the hearths of many helpless and confiding people?
How about those shareholders ignorant of business, those pinched vicars,
needy widows, poor old half-pay officers, and the rest, who had been
dazzled by our prospectus, and had invested their savings in the pocket
of Dr Titus A. C. Bett? It was my respectable name, in common with those
of my fellows in the Direction, which had baited the hook for such poor
prey as these. My heart—even City men have hearts sometimes—was heavy
and mournful with a grief not wholly selfish. Plump! fluff! down went
the mustang on his knees, his feet having plunged into the holes that
led to the dwellings of some “prairie-dogs”—interesting little brutes
that burrow all over the plains—and over the animal’s head I flew with
the force of a sky-rocket. Lighting with a great thump on the hard turf,
I ran no trifling risk of a broken neck; but my hat saved me, at the
expense of its own demolition, and I was only stunned. But when Ichabod
hurried to the rescue he found me bruised and faint, and with a sprained
thumb that caused me exquisite pain for the time. So stupified was I by
the shock, that I did not hear the beat of hoofs upon the green carpet
of the prairie, nor the sound of friendly voices, and was surprised, on
looking up, to see that I was surrounded by a large party of
equestrians, who were surveying me from the saddle with every appearance
of interest. Riding-habits and side-saddles here in prairie-land! hats
and feathers, too, of most ladylike elegance, and a pair of pretty,
rather pale faces under the shadow of those plumed felts. Besides the
two girls, there were a grey-haired elderly man, two younger gentlemen,
and three or four mounted blacks in suits of striped cotton, one of whom
led a couple of hounds in a long leash, while another had a buck
strapped behind him on the horse.
“Is the poor gentleman much hurt?” asked one of the young ladies in a
sweet kind voice. Ichabod, as bold as a lion in general, was awkward and
bashful when addressed by a lady, and seemed to be weighing the words of
his answer, when I felt it necessary to reply for myself. On discovering
that I was a stranger in the land, General Warfield insisted that I
should accompany the party to his house, just across the Missouri
border, where my injured thumb should receive every attention, and where
he and his family would gladly welcome me. Yielding willingly to this
hospitable persuasion, I permitted Ichabod and one of the negroes to
help me to remount my mustang, and we rode towards the Missouri
boundary. The family whose acquaintance I had just made in so singular a
way, bore no similarity to the travelling Americans whom it had
previously fallen to my lot to encounter. General Warfield, his son,
daughters, and nephew, had the well-bred air and unobtrusive demeanour
which I had hitherto deemed exclusively insular. They asked me no abrupt
questions as to my station or errand: they indulged in no diatribes
against my country, nor in any extravagant laudations of their own; and
I might have fancied myself the guest of some long-descended family at
home, but for the wild scenes and unusual objects that met my eye as we
rode along. It turned out that General Warfield, a retired military
officer, _not_ a militiaman, was of an old Virginian family, and had
migrated to the newer soil of Missouri six years ago. There his children
had grown to be men and women, in the hardy habits of that wild country,
a mere outpost of civilisation; and indeed they were returning from a
hunting expedition into Iowa when they stumbled upon me in my prostrate
condition. Three hours’ ride brought us to the General’s house, a large
building of mingled wood and stone, with a pretty garden on one hand,
and on the other the farm-buildings, the corrals for horses and cattle,
and the negro huts. Within I found furniture of old-fashioned dark
mahogany, partridge-wood, and bird’s-eye maple, old family pictures,
pretty knickknacks picked up during a three years’ residence in Europe,
and the massive silver plate which had been handed down from father to
son ever since the ancestral Warfield settled in Virginia in the reign
of Charles I. I never knew anything so _un_-American, in respect to the
usual standard of comparison, as the mode of life, the bearing, and
tastes, of General Warfield and his high-spirited and amiable children.
Here was no exaggeration of sentiment, no outrageous national vanity, no
rude indifference to the feelings of others, no prying, no pretension. I
felt, as I conversed with them, how wide was the gulf that severed the
North from the South. It was not diversity of interest alone, but
diversity of habits, principles, and aspirations. Wide apart in heart
and mind as the poles from each other, the citizens of the opposite ends
of the Union had but the feeble Federal bond to delay that violent
disruption and severance of which, even then, the signs of the times
gave fearful warning. But it is not my purpose to linger on the happy
days I spent beneath the roof of my kind hosts. Let me rather relate the
information I received from General Warfield, when his friendly
hospitality had caused me to confide to his ear my errand to America,
and the ruin I had too much reason to anticipate.
“My dear sir,” said the General, “I am glad you have told me of
this—very glad. I can help you in this matter.”
The General then proceeded to tell me that, in the first year of his
residence in Missouri, Harvey, a notorious speculator, had begun the
railway whose miserable wreck I had visited. He had given it up for want
of funds, had become insolvent, and was reputed to have died in Texas.
That he had received a real concession of land and authentic charters
from the State legislatures, was undoubted. But the concession had been
clogged by the express stipulation, that in two years Harvey should have
a hundred and fifty miles in working order, and that the whole should be
completed in four years. The condition not having been complied with,
the concession was null and void. The Great Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway
Company, had no right to a corporate existence.
“But,” said I, “I of course perused the papers. I saw no mention of such
a conditional clause.”
The General smiled.
“Depend upon it, Mr Bulkeley,” said he, “that erasure and forgery have
been practised to make the old deeds sufficiently tempting to effect the
only purpose their present holders have in view—that of raising cash in
the London market. Colonel Sling—who, by the way, is no more a colonel,
even of militia, than black Cæsar there—is no novice at fraud. He was
convicted at Jefferson city of a like offence, and I was present at his
trial, and heard some of his antecedents; indeed, I was a witness in the
case. But if you will take my advice, you will hasten back to England,
and, if possible, save the funds in the hands of this confederate of
his, this Bett, before the pair can abscond with their gains. Do not
parley, but apply to the police at once, if, indeed, it be not too
late.”
Finally, General Warfield was so good as to accompany me to the chief
town of Iowa State, where he introduced me to the legal authorities, by
whom his statements were fully confirmed, and the Nauvoo and Nebraska
declared a transparent swindle. In this town we suddenly came on
“Colonel” Sling, who had come out by the next packet, and was tracking
me, no doubt in the hope of hoodwinking or silencing me in some mode or
other. But when he saw the General, his swaggering air collapsed, a
guilty crimson suffused his yellow cheeks, and he slunk away and entered
a tavern without accosting us. And yet when, after giving hearty thanks
to my kindly Virginian friend, I hurried to embark at New York, I had
the honour of finding Colonel Coriolanus Sling, my fellow-passenger. He
now ventured to address me, but by this time I was on my guard against
his specious eloquence, and he retired with an air of mingled effrontery
and shame. At Liverpool, as I took my seat in the train, which I did
without the loss of a moment, I saw Colonel Sling dart into the
telegraph office. So busy was my brain with what was before me, that I
did not, during the principal part of the journey, attach any particular
meaning to this proceeding of my treacherous ally. When I _did_ think of
its probable object, I struck my forehead, and could have cursed my
blind stupidity, my dulness of conception. After all my haste,
scampering as quickly as possible to the station at Liverpool, was I to
be too late, after all? Was this Yankee rascal to be permitted to warn
his brother knave in London through my inattention, and was the paid-up
capital to fatten the two harpies whose tools we had been? Heavy
misgivings filled my heart as I arrived in London, hurried to Scotland
Yard, and requested that a detective policeman might at once be ordered
to accompany me to the residence of Dr Titus A. C. Bett, cashier to the
Nauvoo and Nebraska Company. Luckily I was a man of credit and character
in the city; my request was granted instantly, and off whirled the
hansom cab, as fast as hansom cab could be impelled by the most lavish
bribe, on its way to Piccadilly, bearing me and a quiet man with a
resolute, thoughtful face, in plain clothes. Ha! there is a cab waiting
at the door as we jump out—I hot and breathless, the policeman cool and
steady. The gaping servant-girl belonging to the lodgings comes quickly
at our knock. It is morning yet, early morning, from a London point of
view—not much after nine.
“Is Dr Bett in?”
“Yes, sir,” replies the girl, “but he’s just a-going. He sent me out for
the cab five minutes ago, and he’s called away so sudden he won’t take
breakfast.”
“Ah, indeed!” says the detective; “telegram, I suppose, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the maid, “and he swore hawful because I hadn’t woke
him up directly it came, two hour ago, along with the milk, but I didn’t
dare, ’cause he always stops out late, and always swears and scolds if I
bring up his hot water before nine o’clock.”
I could have hugged that maid, Mary Ann, Eliza, or Susan, no matter
what, for she was my preserver—a most valuable but unwitting ally. I did
give her a sovereign as I bade her show us up. We found the Doctor,
unshaved, half dressed, tugging at his boots, and with a leather
dressing-case weighty with gold and notes lying on the table at his
elbow. We rushed in with scant ceremony. The detective tapped him on the
shoulder and took him into custody with the magic formula of uttering
her Majesty’s name. The bubble burst, but the funds were saved; and
after some expense, ridicule, and trouble, we were able to return their
money to the shareholders, and I washed my hands most gladly of my
American investment.