OF THE MARCH OF MIND.
"_Smith._ The clerk of Chatham: he can write, and read, and cast
accompt.
_Cade._ O monstrous!
_Smith._ We took him setting of boys' copies.
_Cade._ Here's a villain!
_Smith._ H'as a book in his pocket with red letters in't.
_Cade._ Nay, then, he's a conjuror.
* * * * *
_Cade._ Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to
thyself, like an honest man?
_Clerk._ Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I
can write my name."--_Shakspeare._
"Hail, wedded love"--"and all that sort of thing."
_Milton and Matthews._
It may well be imagined that the appearance of such a flourishing
literary manifesto as that set forth in the preceding chapter, created
an uncommon sensation in the village. The ladies admired the distiches
of poetry with which the pompous proclamation was so plentifully
sprinkled, and the gentlemen, not being conversant with those
convenient _helps_, the "_Elegant Extracts_," supposed of course that
the advertisers must be persons of considerable erudition. Indeed,
the thing took wonderfully, and nothing was thought of, or talked of,
by ambitious mothers, and those opening rose-buds, their daughters,
for the full period of nine days, but the new "Institute," or
"Seminary"--the old-fashioned word "school" never being once mentioned.
Nor were the lords of creation unmindful of the good fortune in which
they were so soon to rejoice. Various situations were proposed and
discussed, for the site of a new edifice which would doubtless be
required within a twelve-month, and real estate rose exorbitantly in
every vicinity thus designated. A charter from the Legislature was
of course to be applied for, and several meetings of those who were
to form the Board of Trustees, were held to adjust the details.
The privileges of a college were to be obtained, with the power
of conferring the same degrees upon female students, as upon
males--forgetting, in their ardor, that the constitution of _female_
Bachelors and Masters of Arts would be a misnomer in any other country
than Ireland. In one word, there was to be no other classical
institution, in this country or any other, comparable with it--and to
it the nuns of Canada, the Moravians of Bethlehem, and the azure-hosed
professors of modern Ilium, would forever thereafter be compelled to
send for instructers.
It need not be added, that under all this excitement, and in view of
all these measures, on the opening of the institute, there was a rush
of pupils, promising golden returns to the accomplished and enterprising
teachers. As to its progress, and the moral and intellectual results,
the biographer has not been supplied with the materials for a minute
history. It is known, however, that the principals provided themselves
with the most modern, and consequently the best elementary "helps" to
be found in the bookstores. Justice also requires of the biographer to
say, that his friend Wheelwright did not enter upon his preceptorial
duties without many severe misgivings; and for some weeks previous to
the opening of the seminary, he applied himself to the work of
preparation with unwonted assiduity. But he was nevertheless sadly
deficient, as may well be supposed. Still, in his classes of geography
and rhetoric, he managed to get along for several weeks, by the aid of
those convenient instruments of instruction, which contain all
necessary questions and answers at the bottom of the pages--Kames and
Malte-Brun done over again by sciolists, so that the real authors would
be astonished to find how greatly they had been simplified. Alexander's
Virgil, also, reflecting the Latin of one page back in English from the
other, was of great assistance to him. But in arithmetic and grammar he
was completely at fault. He had never been able to repeat the whole
multiplication table; and he now found it utterly beyond his capacity
to work a common problem in the rule of three. In grammar, moreover, he
could never quite distinguish between a noun and a verb; and although
he almost committed the rules, and could enumerate the several parts of
speech, yet he could never apply the principles in parsing.
It was not long, therefore, before the most forward of his pupils began
to discover that they knew more than their instructer--and the natural
consequences--contempt and insubordination--speedily followed.
Meantime the qualifications and efforts of Mrs. Wheelwright, in the
other branch of the institute, were presently discovered to be equally,
even if not more, defective and profitless. She was an Irish lady by
birth--had resided for a time in Scotland, and likewise in
England--previous to her visit across the channel to complete her
education in the capital of _la grande nation_. When she left the
emerald isle, "her speech," to use a phrase of Lord Bacon, "was in the
full dialect of her nation." She had afterward conversed enough with
English and Scotch, to complete the union of the three kingdoms--to all
which was added such a smattering of French as was to be acquired by a
residence--as a _femme de chambre_, as it was afterward scandalously
reported--in Paris of a year or perhaps more. She had readily picked up
a good many French words, in the course of her sojourn; but her Gallic
pronunciation was blended with all the other dialects, among which the
brogue of her own mother tongue ludicrously enough predominated.
The reader has probably heard the story of the Yankee candidate for the
mastership of one of our common schools, who, on being asked by the
inspectors whether he knew any thing of mathematics, answered that he
didn't know Matthew, although he had seen a good deal of one Tom
Mattocks, in Rhode Island; but he'd never hearn of his having any
brother. So with Mrs. Wheelwright--Mr. Syntax was equally a stranger to
her. But she had seen some coarse pieces of embroidery from the rustic
pupils of country boarding schools, and knew that they were needlework,
of some sort. She therefore set herself to teaching that elegant branch
of the fine arts. The first group attempted, was a family picture--a
mother and her six children at the tomb of their deceased husband and
father, under what was meant for a willow tree drooping over an
obelisk. But such a group! such a widow! and such weeping children!
Indeed they looked _sorry_ enough. Surely no eye e'er saw such
scare-crows; and no one could look upon them without emotion--but of
what kind, the reader, who has doubtless seen many kindred specimens in
this department of a modern education, may decide for himself. The next
piece was the Prodigal Son, taking leave of his benevolent father, in a
red dress-coat and white-top boots! The drawings were copies, and the
needlework resembling the darnings in the hose to be seen on the heels
of the ladies sitting in the country markets. Thus much for her fancy
work; and the French she taught was on a par. Such French had never
before been spoken--out of Ireland!
Such were the condition and prospects of this hopeful seminary, when
another unexpected change came over the temporal circumstances of poor
Wheelwright. The girls under the charge of his accomplished consort
having been engaged in a frolic during her absence to prepare the
pottage for dinner--and girls at school will always have their
frolics--the gentle instructress returned in a rage, flushed with
passion, the heat of the kitchen fire, and perhaps a drop of the
CRATHUR--swore several big Irish oaths that she would have no more such
carryings on by the _childers_ in her house, and by the powers, she
would be afther clearing them out--the spalpeens!--that's what she
would, honies!
It was her first outbreak of the kind, and the little misses were
appalled, and many of them, thinking, perhaps, that she was crazy, or
had "a drop in her eye," ran home in affright. Nor did their parents,
or at least the most of them, allow their children again to return.
"Rare are solitary woes," says the poet--on the contrary, they are ever
apt to be treading each other's heels; and it was so with the hero of
this biography in the present instance. The school had been undertaken
as a temporary resource, during the pendency of the legal measures
necessary to obtain his estates. It had now been suddenly broken up,
and that, too, before any thing but delays and expense had been
realized. An incident that occurred the day following, moreover, might
have occasioned misgivings as to the future to a man of quicker
perceptions than Mr. Wheelwright--but fortunately his wife was the
earliest riser. It happened that as his spouse was exchanging some
rather undignified jokes with the milkman, a jolly son of Erin came
along, whose rubicund visage kindled with a thousand smiles as his eyes
rested on the lady.
"Och! the top o' the morning to you, Misthress Judy O'Calloran!" says
Pat. "Divil burn me, but it's a long while sin my eyes have seen the
like o'ye, Misthress Judy," he continued.
"And that's you, Misther Thady O'Flannerty," replied the fair one--"but
I'm not Misthress Judy O'Calloran,--and d'ye think it's myself that
does'ent know."
"Troth, and if ye're not Misthress Judy, honey, then it's not your dare
ould mother's darther that ye be."
"Whisht!" rejoined the lady:--"Don't ye percave that it's not I--it's
not Judy--botheration, Thady--how can ye be afther coming where you
ain't known?"
"Och, Judy, thin ye see if it's not ye'rsel, it's bekase I'm not Thady
O'Flannerty that was, sin the wake last night. But it's mighty
unnathural if it's not Judy I suspict. And where's the man that ye had,
Pat Rooney that was!"
"Get ye gone, ye baste," replied the amiable Misthress Wheelwright,
"you mallet-headed bog-throtter, to hinsult an honest woman all of a
suddint so. No gintilman would thrifle with a dacent woman afther this
gate, whin he'd niver seen her."
"Och, murther in Irish now, and it's the blissed thruth, Misthress
Judy, that I was tellin ye. But thin, such is the way of the
world--Saint Pathrick save us! If the crathur hadn't bin afther laving
her own husband, and runnin' off with Pat Rooney, may be that her
darlint ould mother's life would have bin extinded many years afther
her death--shame on the crathur! But thin, it's not the ould lady's
wake that would have bin the last that Thady O'Flannerty attinded in
Limerick--bad luck to her!"
Long before her unwelcome acquaintance had finished his oration,
however, the indignant lady had scampered into the house, slamming the
door after her with great violence, and dashing her pitcher of milk to
fragments by the same unguarded action. But Thady followed on, as
though to make good his acquaintanceship, and was met at the threshhold
by Wheelwright himself, who had been aroused by the clamor.
"And plase your honor," says Thady, "can you tell me where is Misther
Whalewright's boardin'-school that was, that's called the siminary that
is?"
"That _was_--sure enough,--said Wheelwright, bitterly. I 'spose this
is the place you're looking for as-like-as-not."
"Arrah, thin it's the right place that I'm already in--thanks to
Misthress Judy for that. And thin, there's a letter for your worship's
honor, and that's yer'self!"
Wheelwright took the despatch, and at once perceived from the
superscription, that it was a missive from his counsel. He was turning
upon his heel, but Thady, unwilling to retire without a fee, arrested
his retreat by saying:--
"Faith, thin, but I'm thinking your honor's mimory is none of the
longest, and that a thrifle of change would do me no harm for the
throuble I've had."
Wheelwright, hoping that he was the bearer of agreeable tidings from
his estates, threw him all but his last quarter, and Thady took his
leave with,
"Blissings on your honor, and long life to ye; and as your worship is a
civil-spoken gintilman, may be ye'll not think it bowld if I jist hint
to your honor, that if Misthress Judy there is a servant, she needs
looking to--and bad luck to her!"
Not having heard the street dialogue already related, this benevolent
caution was lost upon the husband, who, on opening the note, found it
as he had anticipated--a summons to call upon his lawyer in the city.
High with hope, therefore,--upon the pleasures of which he had been
living already too long,--not doubting that success had at length
crowned the exertions of his legal advisers,--and supposing, therefore,
that the school was just dissolving at the fortunate moment when it was
no longer necessary to his support, he hastened across the ferry. But
alas! Little indeed did he anticipate the cause of his summons to the
city. The development fell upon his disappointed senses like the crash
of a thunderbolt. In the progress of his investigations, the learned
counsel had discovered that the accomplished lady of my friend, was
none other than one of the unmarried wives of the lamented Captain
Scarlett, and that the legal representatives were already in the secure
possession of his estates!