WHICH TELLS OF A GREAT PUBLIC MEETING IN SEVENOAKS, THE BURNING IN
EFFIGY OF MR. BELCHER, AND THAT GENTLEMAN'S INTERVIEW WITH A REPORTER.
Mr. Balfour, in his yearly journeys through Sevenoaks, had made several
acquaintances among the citizens, and had impressed them as a man of
ability and integrity; and, as he was the only New York lawyer of their
acquaintance, they very naturally turned to him for information and
advice. Without consulting each other, or informing each other of what
they had done, at least half a dozen wrote to him the moment Mr. Belcher
was out of the village, seeking information concerning the Continental
Petroleum Company. They told him frankly about the enormous investments
that they and their neighbors had made, and of their fears concerning
the results. With a friendly feeling toward the people, he undertook, as
far as possible, to get at the bottom of the matter, and sent a man to
look up the property, and to find the men who nominally composed the
Company.
After a month had passed away and no dividend was announced, the people
began to talk more freely among themselves. They had hoped against hope,
and fought their suspicions until they were tired, and then they sought
in sympathy to assuage the pangs of their losses and disappointments.
It was not until the end of two months after Mr. Belcher's departure
that a letter was received at Sevenoaks from Mr. Balfour, giving a
history of the Company, which confirmed their worst fears. This history
is already in the possession of the reader, but to that which has been
detailed was added the information that, practically, the operations of
the Company had been discontinued, and the men who formed it were
scattered. Nothing had ever been earned, and the dividends which had
been disbursed were taken out of the pockets of the principals, from
moneys which they had received for stock. Mr. Belcher had absorbed half
that had been received, at no cost to himself whatever, and had added
the grand total to his already bulky fortune. It was undoubtedly a gross
swindle, and was, from the first, intended to be such; but it was under
the forms of law, and it was doubtful whether a penny could ever be
recovered.
Then, of course, the citizens held a public meeting--the great panacea
for all the ills of village life in America. Nothing but a set of more
or less impassioned speeches and a string of resolutions could express
the indignation of Sevenoaks. A notice was posted for several days,
inviting all the resident stockholders in the Continental to meet in
council, to see what was to be done for the security of their interests.
The little town-hall was full, and, scattered among the boisterous
throng of men, were the pitiful faces and figures of poor women who had
committed their little all to the grasp of the great scoundrel who had
so recently despoiled and deserted them.
The Rev. Mr. Snow was there, as became the pastor of a flock in which
the wolf had made its ravages, and the meeting was opened with prayer,
according to the usual custom. Considering the mood and temper of the
people, a prayer for the spirit of forgiveness and fortitude would not
have been out of place, but it is to be feared that it was wholly a
matter of form. It is noticeable that at political conventions, on the
eve of conflicts in which personal ambition and party chicanery play
prominent parts; on the inauguration of great business enterprises in
which local interests meet in the determined strifes of selfishness, and
at a thousand gatherings whose objects leave God forgotten and right and
justice out of consideration, the blessing of the Almighty is invoked,
while men who are about to rend each other's reputations, and strive,
without conscience, for personal and party masteries, bow reverent heads
and mumble impatient "Amens."
But the people of Sevenoaks wanted their money back, and that,
certainly, was worth praying for. They wanted, also, to find some way to
wreak their indignation upon Robert Belcher; and the very men who bowed
in prayer after reaching the hall walked under an effigy of that person
on their way thither, hung by the neck and dangling from a tree, and had
rare laughter and gratification in the repulsive vision. They were
angry, they were indignant, they were exasperated, and the more so
because they were more than half convinced of their impotence, while
wholly conscious that they had been decoyed to their destruction,
befooled and overreached by one who knew how to appeal to a greed which
his own ill-won successes and prosperities had engendered in them.
After the prayer, the discussion began. Men rose, trying their best to
achieve self-control, and to speak judiciously and judicially, but they
were hurled, one after another, into the vortex of indignation, and
cheer upon cheer shook the hall as they gave vent to the real feeling
that was uppermost in their hearts.
After the feeling of the meeting had somewhat expended itself, Mr. Snow
rose to speak. In the absence of the great shadow under which he had
walked during all his pastorate, and under the blighting influence of
which his manhood had shriveled, he was once more independent. The
sorrows and misfortunes of his people had greatly moved him. A sense of
his long humiliation shamed him. He was poor, but he was once more his
own; and he owed a duty to the mad multitude around him which he was
bound to discharge. "My friends," said he, "I am with you, for better or
for worse. You kindly permit me to share in your prosperity, and now, in
the day of your trial and adversity, I will stand by you. There has gone
out from among us an incarnate evil influence, a fact which calls for
our profound gratitude. I confess with shame that I have not only felt
it, but have shaped myself, though unconsciously, to it. It has vitiated
our charities, corrupted our morals, and invaded even the house of God.
We have worshiped the golden calf. We have bowed down to Moloch. We have
consented to live under a will that was base and cruel, in all its
motives and ends. We have been so dazzled by a great worldly success,
that we have ceased to inquire into its sources. We have done daily
obeisance to one who neither feared God nor regarded man. We have become
so pervaded with his spirit, so demoralized by his foul example, that
when he held out even a false opportunity to realize something of his
success, we made no inquisition of facts or processes, and were willing
to share with him in gains that his whole history would have taught us
were more likely to be unfairly than fairly won. I mourn for your
losses, for you can poorly afford to suffer them; but to have that man
forever removed from us; to be released from his debasing influence; to
be untrammeled in our action and in the development of our resources; to
be free men and free women, and to become content with our lot and with
such gains as we may win in a legitimate way, is worth all that it has
cost us. We needed a severe lesson, and we have had it. It falls heavily
upon some who are innocent. Let us, in kindness to these, find a balm
for our own trials. And, now, let us not degrade ourselves by hot words
and impotent resentments. They can do no good. Let us be men--Christian
men, with detestation of the rascality from which we suffer, but with
pity for the guilty man, who, sooner or later, will certainly meet the
punishment he so richly deserves. 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay,'
saith the Lord."
The people of Sevenoaks had never before heard Mr. Snow make such a
speech as this. It was a manly confession, and a manly admonition. His
attenuated form was straight and almost majestic, his pale face was
flushed, his tones were deep and strong, and they saw that one man, at
least, breathed more freely, now that the evil genius of the place was
gone. It was a healthful speech. It was an appeal to their own conscious
history, and to such remains of manhood as they possessed, and they were
strengthened by it.
A series of the most objurgatory resolutions had been prepared for the
occasion, yet the writer saw that it would be better to keep them in his
pocket. The meeting was at a stand, when little Dr. Radcliffe, who was
sore to his heart's core with his petty loss, jumped up and declared
that he had a series of resolutions to offer. There was a world of
unconscious humor in his freak,--unconscious, because his resolutions
were intended to express his spite, not only against Mr. Belcher, but
against the villagers, including Mr. Snow. He began by reading in his
piping voice the first resolution passed at the previous meeting which
so pleasantly dismissed the proprietor to the commercial metropolis of
the country. The reading of this resolution was so sweet a sarcasm on
the proceedings of that occasion, that it was received with peals of
laughter and deafening cheers, and as he went bitterly on, from
resolution to resolution, raising his voice to overtop the jargon, the
scene became too ludicrous for description. The resolutions, which never
had any sincerity in them, were such a confirmation of all that Mr. Snow
had said, and such a comment on their own duplicity and moral
debasement, that there was nothing left for them but to break up and go
home.
The laugh did them good, and complemented the corrective which had been
administered to them by the minister. Some of them still retained their
anger, as a matter of course, and when they emerged upon the street and
found Mr. Belcher's effigy standing upon the ground, surrounded by
fagots ready to be lighted, they yelled: "Light him up, boys!" and stood
to witness the sham _auto-da-fe_ with a crowd of village urchins dancing
around it.
Of course, Mr. Belcher had calculated upon indignation and anger, and
rejoiced in their impotence. He knew that those who had lost so much
would not care to risk more in a suit at law, and that his property at
Sevenoaks was so identified with the life of the town--that so many were
dependent upon its preservation for their daily bread--that they would
not be fool-hardy enough to burn it.
Forty-eight hours after the public meeting, Mr. Belcher, sitting
comfortably in his city home, received from the postman a large handful
of letters. He looked them over, and as they were all blazoned with the
Sevenoaks post-mark, he selected that which bore the handwriting of his
agent, and read it. The agent had not dared to attend the meeting, but
he had had his spies there, who reported to him fully the authorship and
drift of all the speeches in the hall, and the unseemly proceedings of
the street. Mr. Belcher did not laugh, for his vanity was wounded. The
thought that a town in which he had ruled so long had dared to burn his
effigy in the open street was a humiliation; particularly so, as he did
not see how he could revenge himself upon the perpetrators of it without
compromising his own interests. He blurted out his favorite expletive,
lighted a new cigar, walked his room, and chafed like a caged tiger.
He was not in haste to break the other seals, but at last he sat down to
the remainder of his task, and read a series of pitiful personal appeals
that would have melted any heart but his own. They were from needy men
and women whom he had despoiled. They were a detail of suffering and
disappointment, and in some cases they were abject prayers for
restitution. He read them all, to the last letter and the last word, and
then quietly tore them into strips, and threw them into the fire.
His agent had informed him of the sources of the public information
concerning the Continental Company, and he recognized James Balfour as
an enemy. He had a premonition that the man was destined to stand in his
way, and that he was located just where he could overlook his operations
and his life. He would not have murdered him, but he would have been
glad to hear that he was dead. He wondered whether he was
incorruptible, and whether he, Robert Belcher, could afford to buy
him--whether it would not pay to make his acquaintance--whether, indeed,
the man were not endeavoring to force him to do so. Every bad motive
which could exercise a man, he understood; but he was puzzled in
endeavoring to make out what form of selfishness had moved Mr. Balfour
to take such an interest in the people of Sevenoaks.
At last he sat down at his table and wrote a letter to his agent, simply
ordering him to establish a more thorough watch over his property, and
directing him to visit all the newspaper offices of the region, and keep
the reports of the meeting and its attendant personal indignities from
publication.
Then, with an amused smile upon his broad face, he wrote the following
letter:
"TO THE REVEREND SOLOMON SNOW,
"_Dear Sir_: I owe an apology to the people of Sevenoaks for never
adequately acknowledging the handsome manner in which they endeavored to
assuage the pangs of parting on the occasion of my removal. The
resolutions passed at their public meeting are cherished among my
choicest treasures, and the cheers of the people as I rode through their
ranks on the morning of my departure, still ring in my ears more
delightfully than any music I ever heard. Thank them, I pray you, for
me, for their overwhelming friendliness. I now have a request to make of
them, and I make it the more boldly because, during the past ten years,
I have never been approached by any of them in vain when they have
sought my benefactions. The Continental Petroleum Company is a failure,
and all the stock I hold in it is valueless. Finding that my expenses in
the city are very much greater than in the country, it has occurred to
me that perhaps my friends there would be willing to make up a purse for
my benefit. I assure you that it would be gratefully received; and I
apply to you because, from long experience, I know that you are
accomplished in the art of begging. Your graceful manner in accepting
gifts from me has given me all the hints I shall need in that respect,
so that the transaction will not be accompanied by any clumsy details.
My butcher's bill will be due in a few days, and dispatch is desirable.
"With the most cordial compliments to Mrs. Snow, whom I profoundly
esteem, and to your accomplished daughters, who have so long been spared
to the protection of the paternal roof,
"I am your affectionate parishioner,
"ROBERT BELCHER."
Mr. Belcher had done what he considered a very neat and brilliant thing.
He sealed and directed the letter, rang his bell, and ordered it posted.
Then he sat back in his easy chair, and chuckled over it. Then he rose
and paraded himself before his mirror.
"When you get ahead of Robert Belcher, drop us a line. Let it be brief
and to the point. Any information thankfully received. Are you, sir, to
be bothered by this pettifogger? Are you to sit tamely down and be
undermined? Is that your custom? Then, sir, you are a base coward. Who
said coward? Did you, sir? Let this right hand, which I now raise in
air, and clench in awful menace, warn you not to repeat the damning
accusation. Sevenoaks howls, and it is well. Let every man who stands in
my path take warning. I button my coat; I raise my arms; I straighten my
form, and they flee away--flee like the mists of the morning, and over
yonder mountain-top, fade in the far blue sky. And now, my dear sir,
don't make an ass of yourself, but sit down. Thank you, sir. I make you
my obeisance. I retire."
Mr. Belcher's addresses to himself were growing less frequent among the
excitements of new society. He had enough to occupy his mind without
them, and found sufficient competition in the matter of dress to modify
in some degree his vanity of person; but the present occasion was a
stimulating one, and one whose excitements he could not share with
another.
His missive went to its destination, and performed a thoroughly
healthful work, because it destroyed all hope of any relief from his
hands, and betrayed the cruel contempt with which he regarded his old
townsmen and friends.
He slept as soundly that night as if he had been an innocent infant; but
on the following morning, sipping leisurely and luxuriously at his
coffee, and glancing over the pages of his favorite newspaper, he
discovered a letter with startling headings, which displayed his own
name and bore the date of Sevenoaks. The "R" at its foot revealed Dr.
Radcliffe as the writer, and the peppery doctor had not miscalculated in
deciding that "The New York Tattler" would be the paper most affected by
Mr. Belcher--a paper with more enterprise than brains, more brains than
candor, and with no conscience at all; a paper which manufactured hoaxes
and vended them for news, bought and sold scandals by the sheet as if
they were country gingerbread, and damaged reputations one day for the
privilege and profit of mending them the next.
He read anew, and with marvelous amplification, the story with which the
letter of his agent had already made him familiar. This time he had
received a genuine wound, with poison upon the barb of the arrow that
had pierced him. He crushed the paper in his hand and ascended to his
room. All Wall street would see it, comment upon it, and laugh over it.
Balfour would read it and smile. New York and all the country would
gossip about it. Mrs. Dillingham would peruse it. Would it change her
attitude toward him? This was a serious matter, and it touched him to
the quick.
The good angel who had favored him all his life, and brought him safe
and sound out of every dirty difficulty of his career, was already on
his way with assistance, although he did not know it. Sometimes this
angel had assumed the form of a lie, sometimes that of a charity,
sometimes that of a palliating or deceptive circumstance; but it had
always appeared at the right moment; and this time it came in the form
of an interviewing reporter. His bell rang, and a servant appeared with
the card of "Mr. Alphonse Tibbets of 'The New York Tattler.'"
A moment before, he was cursing "The Tattler" for publishing the record
of his shame, but he knew instinctively that the way out of his scrape
had been opened to him.
"Show him up," said the proprietor at once. He had hardly time to look
into his mirror, and make sure that his hair and his toilet were all
right, before a dapper little fellow, with a professional manner, and a
portfolio under his arm, was ushered into the room. The air of easy
good-nature and good fellowship was one which Mr. Belcher could assume
at will, and this was the air that he had determined upon as a matter of
policy in dealing with a representative of "The Tattler" office. He
expected to meet a man with a guilty look, and a deprecating, fawning
smile. He was, therefore, very much surprised to find in Mr. Tibbets a
young gentleman without the slightest embarrassment in his bearing, or
the remotest consciousness that he was in the presence of a man who
might possibly have cause of serious complaint against "The Tattler." In
brief, Mr. Tibbets seemed to be a man who was in the habit of dealing
with rascals, and liked them. Would Mr. Tibbets have a cup of coffee
sent up to him? Mr. Tibbets had breakfasted, and, therefore, declined
the courtesy. Would Mr. Tibbets have a cigar? Mr. Tibbets would, and, on
the assurance that they were nicer than he would be apt to find
elsewhere, Mr. Tibbets consented to put a handful of cigars into his
pocket. Mr. Tibbets then drew up to the table, whittled his pencil,
straightened out his paper, and proceeded to business, looking much, as
he faced the proprietor, like a Sunday-school teacher on a rainy day,
with the one pupil before him who had braved the storm because he had
his lesson at his tongue's end.
As the substance of the questions and answers appeared in the next
morning's "Tattler," hereafter to be quoted, it is not necessary to
recite them here. At the close of the interview, which was very friendly
and familiar, Mr. Belcher rose, and with the remark: "You fellows must
have a pretty rough time of it," handed the reporter a twenty-dollar
bank-note, which that gentleman pocketed without a scruple, and without
any remarkable effusiveness of gratitude. Then Mr. Belcher wanted him to
see the house, and so walked over it with him. Mr. Tibbets was
delighted. Mr. Tibbets congratulated him. Mr. Tibbets went so far as to
say that he did not believe there was another such mansion in New York.
Mr. Tibbets did not remark that he had been kicked out of several of
them, only less magnificent, because circumstances did not call for the
statement. Then Mr. Tibbets went away, and walked off hurriedly down the
street to write out his report.
The next morning Mr. Belcher was up early in order to get his "Tattler"
as soon as it was dropped at his door. He soon found, on opening the
reeking sheet, the column which held the precious document of Mr.
Tibbets, and read:
"The Riot at Sevenoaks!!!
"An interesting Interview with Col. Belcher!
"The original account grossly Exaggerated!
"The whole matter an outburst of Personal Envy!
"The Palgrave Mansion in a fume!
"Tar, feathers and fagots!
"A Tempest in a Tea-pot!
"Petroleum in a blaze, and a thousand fingers burnt!!!
"Stand out from under!!!"
The headings came near taking Mr. Belcher's breath away. He gasped,
shuddered, and wondered what was coming. Then he went on and read the
report of the interview:
"A 'Tattler' reporter visited yesterday the great proprietor of
Sevenoaks, Colonel Robert Belcher, at his splendid mansion on Fifth
Avenue. That gentleman had evidently just swallowed his breakfast, and
was comforting himself over the report he had read in the 'Tattler' of
that morning, by inhaling the fragrance of one of his choice Havanas. He
is evidently a devotee of the seductive weed, and knows a good article
when he sees it. A copy of the 'Tattler' lay on the table, which bore
unmistakable evidences of having been spitefully crushed in the hand.
The iron had evidently entered the Colonel's righteous soul, and the
reporter, having first declined the cup of coffee hospitably tendered to
him and accepted (as he always does when he gets a chance) a cigar,
proceeded at once to business.
"_Reporter_: Col. Belcher, have you seen the report in this morning's
'Tattler' of the riot at Sevenoaks, which nominally had your dealings
with the people for its occasion?
"_Answer_: I have, and a pretty mess was made of it.
"_Reporter:_ Do you declare the report to be incorrect?
"_Answer:_ I know nothing about the correctness or the incorrectness of
the report, for I was not there.
"_Reporter:_ Were the accusations made against yourself correct,
presuming that they were fairly and truthfully reported?
"_Answer:_ They were so far from being correct that nothing could be
more untruthful or more malicious.
"_Reporter:_ Have you any objection to telling me the true state of the
case in detail?
"_Answer:_ None at all. Indeed, I have been so foully misrepresented,
that I am glad of an opportunity to place myself right before a people
with whom I have taken up my residence. In the first place, I made
Sevenoaks. I have fed the people of Sevenoaks for more than ten years. I
have carried the burden of their charities; kept their dirty ministers
from starving; furnished employment for their women and children, and
run the town. I had no society there, and of course, got tired of my
hum-drum life. I had worked hard, been successful, and felt that I owed
it to myself and my family to go somewhere and enjoy the privileges,
social and educational, which I had the means to command. I came to New
York without consulting anybody, and bought this house. The people
protested, but ended by holding a public meeting, and passing a series
of resolutions complimentary to me, of which I very naturally felt
proud; and when I came away, they assembled at the roadside and gave me
the friendliest cheers.
"_Reporter:_ How about the petroleum?
"_Answer:_ Well, that is an unaccountable thing. I went into the
Continental Company, and nothing would do for the people but to go in
with me. I warned them--every man of them--but they would go in; so I
acted as their agent in procuring stock for them. There was not a share
of stock sold on any persuasion of mine. They were mad, they were wild,
for oil. You wouldn't have supposed there was half so much money in the
town as they dug out of their old stockings to invest in oil. I was
surprised, I assure you. Well, the Continental went up, and they had to
be angry with somebody; and although I held more stock than any of them,
they took a fancy that I had defrauded them, and so they came together
to wreak their impotent spite on me. That's the sum and substance of the
whole matter.
"_Reporter:_ And that is all you have to say?
"_Answer:_ Well, it covers the ground. Whether I shall proceed in law
against these scoundrels for maligning me, I have not determined. I
shall probably do nothing about it. The men are poor, and even if they
were rich, what good would it do me to get their money? I've got money
enough, and money with me can never offset a damage to character. When
they get cool and learn the facts, if they ever do learn them, they will
be sorry. They are not a bad people at heart, though I am ashamed, as
their old fellow-townsman, to say that they have acted like children in
this matter. There's a half-crazy, half-silly old doctor there by the
name of Radcliffe, and an old parson by the name of Snow, whom I have
helped to feed for years, who lead them into difficulty. But they're not
a bad people, now, and I am sorry for their sake that this thing has got
into the papers. It'll hurt the town. They have keen badly led,
inflamed over false information, and they have disgraced themselves.
"This closed the interview, and then Col. Belcher politely showed the
'Tattler' reporter over his palatial abode. 'Taken for all in all,' he
does not expect 'to look upon its like again.'
"None see it but to love it,
None name it but to praise.
"It was 'linked sweetness long drawn out,' and must have cost the
gallant Colonel a pile of stamps. Declining an invitation to visit the
stables,--for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as
the narcotic weed--and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with
wondrous horsemanship,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, 'pierced
through with Envy's venomed darts,' and satisfied that his courtly
entertainer had been 'more sinned against than sinning.'"
Col. Belcher read the report with genuine pleasure, and then, turning
over the leaf, read upon the editorial page the following:
"COL. BELCHER ALL RIGHT.--We are satisfied that the letter from
Sevenoaks, published in yesterday's 'Tattler,' in regard to our highly
respected fellow-citizen, Colonel Robert Belcher, was a gross libel upon
that gentleman, and intended, by the malicious writer, to injure an
honorable and innocent man. It is only another instance of the
ingratitude of rural communities toward their benefactors. We
congratulate the redoubtable Colonel on his removal from so pestilent a
neighborhood to a city where his sterling qualities will find 'ample
scope and verge enough,' and where those who suffer 'the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune' will not lay them to the charge of one who
can, with truthfulness, declare 'Thou canst not say I did it.'"
When Mr. Belcher concluded, he muttered to himself, "Twenty
dollars!--cheap enough." He had remained at home the day before; now he
could go upon 'Change with a face cleared of all suspicion. A cloud of
truth had overshadowed him, but it had been dissipated by the genial
sunlight of falsehood. His self-complacency was fully restored when he
received a note, in the daintiest text on the daintiest paper,
congratulating him on the triumphant establishment of his innocence
before the New York public, and bearing as its signature a name so
precious to him that he took it to his own room before destroying it and
kissed it.