3. “There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said,
that I will not occupy the time.”
4. “I agree, in general, with my friend on the other side of the
room.”
At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at great cost for
clothing him. But it proved, of course, at once, that, whenever he
was out, I should be at home. And I went, during the bright period
of his success, to so few of those awful pageants which require a
black dress-coat and what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a
white choker, that in the happy retreat of my own dressing-gowns
and jackets my days went by as happily and cheaply as those of
another Thalaba. And Polly declares there was never a year when
the tailoring cost so little. He lived (Dennis, not Thalaba) in
his wife’s room over the kitchen. He had orders never to show
himself at that window. When he appeared in the front of the house,
I retired to my sanctissimum and my dressing-gown. In short, the
Dutchman and, his wife, in the old weather-box, had not less to do
with, each other than he and I. He made the furnace-fire and split
the wood before daylight; then he went to sleep again, and slept
late; then came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied round
his head, with his overalls on, and his dress-coat and spectacles
off. If we happened to be interrupted, no one guessed that he was
Frederic Ingham as well as I; and, in the neighborhood, there grew
up an impression that the minister’s Irishman worked day-times in
the factory village at New Coventry. After I had given him his
orders, I never saw him till the next day.
I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the Enlightenment
Board. The Enlightenment Board consists of seventy-four members,
of whom sixty-seven are necessary to form a quorum. One becomes a
member under the regulations laid down in old Judge Dudley’s will.
I became one by being ordained pastor of a church in Naguadavick.
You see you cannot help yourself, if you would. At this particular
time we had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours
each—wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum. At the first only
eleven men were present; at the next, by force of three circulars,
twenty-seven; at the third, thanks to two days’ canvassing by
Auchmuty and myself, begging men to come, we had sixty. Half the
others were in Europe. But without a quorum we could do nothing.
All the rest of us waited grimly for our four hours, and adjourned
without any action. At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and
only got fifty-nine together. But on the first appearance of my
double—whom I sent on this fatal Monday to the fifth meeting—he was
the _sixty-seventh_ man who entered the room. He was greeted with
a storm of applause! The poor fellow had missed his way—read the
street signs ill through his spectacles (very ill, in fact, without
them)—and had not dared to inquire. He entered the room—finding
the president and secretary holding to their chairs two judges
of the Supreme Court, who were also members _ex officio_, and
were begging leave to go away. On his entrance all was changed.
_Presto_, the by-laws were amended, and the Western property was
given away. Nobody stopped to converse with him. He voted, as I
had charged him to do, in every instance, with the minority. I
won new laurels as a man of sense, though a little unpunctual—and
Dennis, _alias_ Ingham, returned to the parsonage, astonished to
see with how little wisdom the world is governed. He cut a few of
my parishioners in the street; but he had his glasses off, and I am
known to be nearsighted. Eventually he recognized them more readily
than I.
I “set him again” at the exhibition of the New Coventry Academy;
and here he undertook a “speaking part”—as, in my boyish, worldly
days, I remember the bills used to say of Mlle. Celeste. We are all
trustees of the New Coventry Academy; and there has lately been
“a good deal of feeling” because the Sandemanian trustees did not
regularly attend the exhibitions. It has been intimated, indeed,
that the Sandemanians are leaning towards Free-Will, and that we
have, therefore, neglected these semi-annual exhibitions, while
there is no doubt that Auchmuty last year went to Commencement at
Waterville. Now the head master at New Coventry is a real good
fellow, who knows a Sanskrit root when he sees it, and often cracks
etymologies with me—so that, in strictness, I ought to go to their
exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting through three long July
days in that Academy chapel, following the program from
TUESDAY MORNING. ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Sunshine. Miss Jones,
round to
Trio on Three Pianos. Duel from opera of Midshipman Easy.
MARRYATT.
coming in at nine, Thursday evening! Think of this, reader, for
men who know the world is trying to go backward, and who would
give their lives if they could help it on! Well! The double had
succeeded so well at the Board, that I sent him to the Academy.
(Shade of Plato, pardon!) He arrived early on Tuesday, when,
indeed, few but mothers and clergymen are generally expected, and
returned in the evening to us, covered with honors. He had dined
at the right hand of the chairman, and he spoke in high terms of
the repast. The chairman had expressed his interest in the French
conversation. “I am very glad you liked it,” said Dennis; and the
poor chairman, abashed, supposed the accent had been wrong. At
the end of the day, the gentlemen present had been called upon
for speeches—the Rev. Frederic Ingham first, as it happened; upon
which Dennis had risen, and had said, “There has been so much
said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the
time.” The girls were delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the year
before, had given them at this occasion a scolding on impropriety
of behavior at lyceum lectures. They all declared Mr. Ingham was a
love—and _so_ handsome! (Dennis is good-looking.) Three of them,
with arms behind the others’ waists, followed him up to the wagon
he rode home in; and a little girl with a blue sash had been sent
to give him a rosebud. After this debut in speaking, he went to
the exhibition for two days more, to the mutual satisfaction of
all concerned. Indeed, Polly reported that he had pronounced the
trustees’ dinners of a higher grade than those of the parsonage.
When the next term began, I found six of the Academy girls had
obtained permission to come across the river and attend our church.
But this arrangement did not long continue.
After this he went to several Commencements for me, and ate the
dinners provided; he sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions
for me—always voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned
above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had
before been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof
from the associations of the body, began to rise in everybody’s
favor. “Ingham’s a good fellow—always on hand”; “never talks
much—but does the right thing at the right time”; “is not as
unpunctual as he used to be—he comes early, and sits through to the
end.” “He has got over his old talkative habit, too. I spoke to a
friend of his about it once; and I think Ingham took it kindly,”
etc., etc.
This voting power of Dennis was particularly valuable at the
quarterly meetings of the Proprietors of the Naguadavick Ferry.
My wife inherited from her father some shares in that enterprise,
which is not yet fully developed, though it doubtless will become a
very valuable property. The law of Maine then forbade stockholders
to appear by proxy at such meetings. Polly disliked to go, not
being, in fact, a “hens’-rights hen,” and transferred her stock to
me. I, after going once, disliked it more than she. But Dennis went
to the next meeting, and liked it very much. He said the armchairs
were good, the collation good, and the free rides to stockholders
pleasant. He was a little frightened when they first took him upon
one of the ferry-boats, but after two or three quarterly meetings
he became quite brave.
Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. Indeed, being of
that type which is called shiftless, he was only too happy to be
told daily what to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting
or in any way original in his discharge of that duty. He learned,
however, to discriminate between the lines of his life, and very
much preferred these stockholders’ meetings and trustees’ dinners
and commencement collations to another set of occasions, from
which he used to beg off most piteously. Our excellent brother,
Dr. Fillmore, had taken a notion at this time that our Sandemanian
churches needed more expression of mutual sympathy. He insisted
upon it that we were remiss. He said, that, if the Bishop came to
preach at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of the neighborhood
were present; if Dr. Pond came, all the Congregational clergymen
turned out to hear him; if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians; and
he thought we owed it to each other that, whenever there was an
occasional service at a Sandemanian church, the other brethren
should all, if possible, attend. “It looked well,” if nothing
more. Now this really meant that I had not been to hear one of Dr.
Fillmore’s lectures on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that
he did not hear one of my course on the Sandemanianism of Anselm.
But I felt badly when he said it; and afterwards I always made
Dennis go to hear all the brethren preach, when I was not preaching
myself. This was what he took exceptions to—the only thing, as I
said, which he ever did except to. Now came the advantage of his
long morning-nap, and of the green tea with which Polly supplied
the kitchen. But he would plead, so humbly, to be let off, only
from one or two! I never excepted him, however. I knew the lectures
were of value, and I thought it best he should be able to keep the
connection.
Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has observed in the
outset of this memoir. She risked Dennis one night under the
eyes of her own sex. Governor Gorges had always been very kind
to us; and when he gave his great annual party to the town,
asked us. I confess I hated to go. I was deep in the new volume
of Pfeiffer’s _Mystics_, which Haliburton had just sent me from
Boston. “But how rude,” said Polly, “not to return the Governor’s
civility and Mrs. Gorges’s, when they will be sure to ask why you
are away!” Still I demurred, and at last she, with the wit of
Eve and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by saying that, if I
would go in with her, and sustain the initial conversations with
the Governor and the ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis
for the rest of the evening. And that was just what we did. She
took Dennis in training all that afternoon, instructed him in
fashionable conversation, cautioned him against the temptations
of the supper-table—and at nine in the evening he drove us all
down in the carryall. I made the grand star-entrée with Polly and
the pretty Walton girls, who were staying with us. We had put
Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his glasses—and the
girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of looking at him. He sat in
the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the agreeable
to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece. Miss Fernanda—I
complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great case of
D’Aulnay _vs._ Laconia Mining Co.—I stepped into the dressing-room
for a moment—stepped out for another—walked home, after a nod with
Dennis, and tying the horse to a pump—and while I walked home, Mr.
Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library into the
Gorges’s grand saloon.
Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And
even here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for
stakes to fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls
it—and says that single occasion was worth all we have paid for it.
Gallant Eve that she is! She joined Dennis at the library door,
and in an instant presented him to Dr. Ochterlong, from Baltimore,
who was on a visit in town, and was talking with her, as Dennis
came in. “Mr. Ingham would like to hear what you were telling us
about your success among the German population.” And Dennis bowed
and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly, “I’m very glad you liked
it.” But Dr. Ochterlong did not observe, and plunged into the tide
of explanation, Dennis listening like a prime-minister, and bowing
like a mandarin—which is, I suppose, the same thing. Polly declared
it was just like Haliburton’s Latin conversation with the Hungarian
minister, of which he is very fond of telling. “_Quoene sit
historia Reformationis in Ungariâ?_” quoth Haliburton, after some
thought. And his _confrère_ replied gallantly, “_In seculo decimo
tertio_,” etc., etc., etc.; and from _decimo tertio_[16] to the
nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters came. So was
it that before Dr. Ochterlong came to the “success,” or near it,
Governor Gorges came to Dennis and asked him to hand Mrs. Jeffries
down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy.
Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark.
Auchmuty came to her “in pity for poor Ingham,” who was so bored
by the stupid pundit—and Auchmuty could not understand why I
stood it so long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly
could not resist standing near them. He was a little flustered,
till the sight of the eatables and drinkables gave him the same
Mercian courage which it gave Diggory. A little excited then, he
attempted one or two of his speeches to the Judge’s lady. But
little he knew how hard it was to get in even a _promptu_ there
edgewise. “Very well, I thank you,” said he, after the eating
elements were adjusted; “and you?” And then did not he have to
hear about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna,
and chamomile-flower, and dodecathem, till she changed oysters
for salad—and then about the old practice and the new, and what
her sister said, and what her sister’s friend said, and what the
physician to her sister’s friend said, and then what was said
by the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend of
her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff? There was a
moment’s pause, as she declined champagne. “I am very glad you
liked it,” said Dennis again, which he never should have said,
but to one who complimented a sermon. “Oh! you are so sharp, Mr.
Ingham! No! I never drink any wine at all—except sometimes in
summer a little currant spirits—from our own currants, you know.
My own mother—that is, I call her my own mother, because, you
know, I do not remember,” etc., etc., etc.; till they came to
the candied orange at the end of the feast—when Dennis, rather
confused, thought he must say something, and tried No. 4—“I agree,
in general, with my friend the other side of the room”—which he
never should have said but at a public meeting. But Mrs. Jeffries,
who never listens expecting to understand, caught him up instantly
with, “Well, I’m sure my husband returns the compliment; he always
agrees with you—though we do worship with the Methodists—but
you know, Mr. Ingham,” etc., etc., etc., till the move was made
upstairs; and as Dennis led her through the hall, he was scarcely
understood by any but Polly, as he said, “There has been so much
said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the
time.”
His great resource the rest of the evening was standing in the
library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another
in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries
of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your
sentence in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants
and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in
public extempore speech—but better where other talking is going
on. Thus: “We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham.”
Ingham replies: “I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were
m-m-m-m-m.” By gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor is
compelled to supply the answer. “Mrs. Ingham, I hope your friend
Augusta is better.” Augusta has not been ill. Polly cannot think
of explaining, however, and answers: “Thank you, ma’am; she is
very rearason wewahwewob,” in lower and lower tones. And Mrs.
Throckmorton, who forgot the subject of which she spoke, as soon
as she asked the question, is quite satisfied. Dennis could see
into the card-room, and came to Polly to ask if he might not go and
play all-fours. But, of course, she sternly refused. At midnight
they came home delightedly: Polly, as I said, wild to tell me the
story of victory; only both the pretty Walton girls said: “Cousin
Frederic, you did not come near me all the evening.”
We always called him Dennis at home, for convenience, though his
real name was Frederic Ingham, as I have explained. When the
election day came round, however, I found that by some accident
there was only one Frederic Ingham’s name on the voting-list; and,
as I was quite busy that day in writing some foreign letters to
Halle, I thought I would forego my privilege of suffrage, and stay
quietly at home, telling Dennis that he might use the record on
the voting-list and vote. I gave him a ticket, which I told him he
might use, if he liked to. That was that very sharp election in
Maine which the readers of _The Atlantic_ so well remember, and it
had been intimated in public that the ministers would do well not
to appear at the polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by
self or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and this
standing in a double queue at townmeeting several hours to vote was
a bore of the first water; and so, when I found that there was but
one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up,
I stayed at home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured
for Fothergill his coveted appointment of Professor of Astronomy
at Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called him, the chance.
Something in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the
Frederic Ingham name; and at the adjourned election, next week,
Frederic Ingham was chosen to the legislature. Whether this was I
or Dennis, I never really knew. My friends seemed to think it was
I; but I felt, that, as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was
entitled to the honor; so I sent him to Augusta when the time came,
and he took the oaths. And a very valuable member he made. They
appointed him on the Committee on Parishes; but I wrote a letter
for him, resigning, on the ground that he took an interest in our
claim to the stumpage in the minister’s sixteenths of Gore A, next
No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never made any speeches, and always
voted with the minority, which was what he was sent to do. He made
me and himself a great many good friends, some of whom I did not
afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis did my parishioners. On
one or two occasions, when there was wood to saw at home, I kept
him at home; but I took those occasions to go to Augusta myself.
Finding myself often in his vacant seat at these times, I watched
the proceedings with a good deal of care; and once was so much
excited that I delivered my somewhat celebrated speech on the
Central School District question, a speech of which the State of
Maine printed some extra copies. I believe there is no formal rule
permitting strangers to speak; but no one objected.
Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But our experience
this session led me to think, that if, by some such “general
understanding” as the reports speak of in legislation daily, every
member of Congress might leave a double to sit through those
deadly sessions and answer to roll-calls and do the legitimate
party-voting, which appears stereotyped in the regular list of
Ashe, Bocock, Black, etc., we should gain decidedly in working
power. As things stand, the saddest state prison I ever visit is
that Representatives’ Chamber in Washington. If a man leaves for
an hour, twenty “correspondents” may be howling, “Where was Mr.
Prendergast when the Oregon bill passed?” And if poor Prendergast
stays there! Certainly, the worst use you can make of a man is to
put him in prison!
I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted
to this expedient long ago. Dumas’s novel of _The Iron Mask_ turns
on the brutal imprisonment of Louis the Fourteenth’s double. There
seems little doubt, in our own history, that it was the real
General Pierce who shed tears when the delegate from Lawrence
explained to him the sufferings of the people there—and only
General Pierce’s double who had given the orders for the assault
on that town, which was invaded the next day. My charming friend,
George Withers, has, I am almost sure, a double, who preaches his
afternoon sermons for him. This is the reason that the theology
often varies so from that of the forenoon. But that double is
almost as charming as the original. Some of the most well-defined
men, who stand out most prominently on the background of history,
are in this way stereoscopic men; who owe their distinct relief to
the slight differences between the doubles. All this I know. My
present suggestion is simply the great extension of the system, so
that all public machine-work may be done by it.
But I see I loiter on my story, which is rushing to the plunge.
Let me stop an instant more, however, to recall, were it only
to myself, that charming year while all was yet well. After the
double had become a matter of course, for nearly twelve months
before he undid me, what a year it was! Full of active life, full
of happy love, of the hardest work, of the sweetest sleep, and
the fulfilment of so many of the fresh aspirations and dreams of
boyhood! Dennis went to every school-committee meeting, and sat
through all those late wranglings which used to keep me up till
midnight and awake till morning. He attended all the lectures to
which foreign exiles sent me tickets begging me to come for the
love of Heaven and of Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets
for charity concerts which were sent to me. He appeared everywhere
where it was specially desirable that “our denomination,” or
“our party,” or “our class,” or “our family,” or “our street,”
or “our town,” or “our country,” or “our state,” should be fully
represented. And I fell back to that charming life which in
boyhood one dreams of, when he supposes he shall do his own duty
and make his own sacrifices, without being tied up with those of
other people. My rusty Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
French, Italian, Spanish, German and English began to take polish.
Heavens! how little I had done with them while I attended to my
_public_ duties! My calls on my parishioners became the friendly,
frequent, homelike sociabilities they were meant to be, instead
of the hard work of a man goaded to desperation by the sight of
his lists of arrears. And preaching! what a luxury preaching was
when I had on Sunday the whole result of an individual, personal
week, from which to speak to a people whom all that week I had been
meeting as hand-to-hand friend! I never tired on Sunday, and was
in condition to leave the sermon at home, if I chose, and preach
it extempore, as all men should do always. Indeed, I wonder, when
I think that a sensible people like ours—really more attached to
their clergy than they were in the lost days, when the Mathers and
Nortons were noblemen—should choose to neutralize so much of their
ministers’ lives, and destroy so much of their early training,
by this undefined passion for seeing them in public. It springs
from our balancing of sects. If a spirited Episcopalian takes an
interest in the almshouse, and is put on the Poor Board, every
other denomination must have a minister there, lest the poorhouse
be changed into St. Paul’s Cathedral. If a Sandemanian is chosen
president of the Young Men’s Library, there must be a Methodist
vice-president and a Baptist secretary. And if a Universalist
Sunday-School Convention collects five hundred delegates, the next
Congregationalist Sabbath-School Conference must be as large, “lest
‘they’—whoever _they_ may be—should think ‘we’—whoever _we_ may
be—are going down.”
Freed from these necessities, that happy year, I began to know my
wife by sight. We saw each other sometimes. In those long mornings,
when Dennis was in the study explaining to map-peddlers that I
had eleven maps of Jerusalem already, and to school-book agents
that I would see them hanged before I would be bribed to introduce
their textbooks into the schools—she and I were at work together,
as in those old dreamy days—and in these of our log-cabin again.
But all this could not last—and at length poor Dennis, my double,
overtasked in turn, undid me.
It was thus it happened. There is an excellent fellow—once a
minister—I will call him Isaacs—who deserves well of the world
till he dies, and after—because he once, in a real exigency, did
the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, as no other
man could do it. In the world’s great football match, the ball by
chance found him loitering on the outside of the field; he closed
with it, “camped” it, charged, it home—yes, right through the
other side—not disturbed, not frightened by his own success—and
breathless found himself a great man—as the Great Delta rang
applause. But he did not find himself a rich man; and the football
has never come in his way again. From that moment to this moment he
has been of no use, that one can see, at all. Still, for that great
act we speak of Isaacs gratefully and remember him kindly; and he
forges on, hoping to meet the football somewhere again. In that
vague hope, he had arranged a “movement” for a general organization
of the human family into Debating Clubs, County Societies, State
Unions, etc., etc., with a view of inducing all children to take
hold of the handles of their knives and forks, instead of the
metal. Children have bad habits in that way. The movement, of
course, was absurd; but we all did our best to forward, not it, but
him. It came time for the annual county-meeting on this subject
to be held at Naguadavick. Isaacs came round, good fellow! to
arrange for it—got the townhall, got the Governor to preside (the
saint!—he ought to have triplet doubles provided him by law), and
then came to get me to speak. “No,” I said, “I would not speak, if
ten Governors presided. I do not believe in the enterprise. If I
spoke, it should be to say children should take hold of the prongs
of the forks and the blades of the knives. I would subscribe ten
dollars, but I would not speak a mill.” So poor Isaacs went his
way, sadly, to coax Auchmuty to speak, and Delafield. I went out.
Not long after, he came back, and told Polly that they had promised
to speak—the Governor would speak—and he himself would close with
the quarterly report, and some interesting anecdotes regarding.
Miss Biffin’s way of handling her knife and Mr. Nellis’s way of
footing his fork. “Now if Mr. Ingham will only come and sit on the
platform, he need not say one word; but it will show well in the
paper—it will show that the Sandemanians take as much interest
in the movement as the Armenians or the Mesopotamians, and will
be a great favor to me.” Polly, good soul! was tempted, and she
promised. She knew Mrs. Isaacs was starving, and the babies—she
knew Dennis was at home—and she promised! Night came, and I
returned. I heard her story. I was sorry. I doubted. But Polly had
promised to beg me, and I dared all! I told Dennis to hold his
peace, under all circumstances, and sent him down.
It was not half an hour more before he returned, wild with
excitement—in a perfect Irish fury—which it was long before I
understood. But I knew at once that he had undone me!
What happened was this: The audience got together, attracted by
Governor Gorges’s name. There were a thousand people. Poor Gorges
was late from Augusta. They became impatient. He came in direct
from the train at last, really ignorant of the object of the
meeting. He opened it in the fewest possible words, and said other
gentlemen were present who would entertain them better than he.
The audience were disappointed, but waited. The Governor, prompted
by Isaacs, said, “The Honorable Mr. Delafield will address you.”
Delafield had forgotten the knives and forks, and was playing the
Ruy Lopez opening at the chess club. “The Rev. Mr. Auchmuty will
address you.” Auchmuty had promised to speak late, and was at the
school committee. “I see Dr. Stearns in the hall; perhaps he will
say a word.” Dr. Stearns said he had come to listen and not to
speak. The Governor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor looked at
Dennis, who was resplendent on the platform; but Isaacs, to give
him his due, shook his head. But the look was enough. A miserable
lad, ill-bred, who had once been in Boston, thought it would sound
well to call for me, and peeped out, “Ingham!” A few more wretches
cried, “Ingham! Ingham!” Still Isaacs was firm; but the Governor,
anxious, indeed, to prevent a row, knew I would say something,
and said, “Our friend Mr. Ingham is always prepared—and though we
had not relied upon him, he will say a word, perhaps.” Applause
followed, which turned Dennis’s head. He rose, flattered, and
tried No. 3: “There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so
well said, that I will not longer occupy the time!” and sat down,
looking for his hat; for things seemed squally. But the people
cried, “Go on! go on!” and some applauded. Dennis, still confused,
but flattered by the applause, to which neither he nor I are used,
rose again, and this time tried No. 2: “I am very glad you liked
it!” in a sonorous, clear delivery. My best friends stared. All
the people who did not know me personally yelled with delight at
the aspect of the evening; the Governor was beside himself, and
poor Isaacs thought he was undone! Alas, it was I! A boy in the
gallery cried in a loud tone, “It’s all an infernal humbug,” just
as Dennis, waving his hand, commanded silence, and tried No. 4:
“I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room.”
The poor Governor doubted his senses, and crossed to stop him—not
in time, however. The same gallery-boy shouted, “How’s your
mother?”—and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his last shot,
No. 1, vainly: “Very well, thank you; and you?”
I think I must have been undone already. But Dennis, like another
Lockhard chose “to make sicker.” The audience rose in a whirl of
amazement, rage, and sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at
Dennis, broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered
himself of an address to the gallery, inviting any person who
wished to fight to come down and do so—stating, that they were all
dogs and cowards—that he would take any five of them single-handed,
“Shure, I have said all his Riverence and the Misthress bade me
say,” cried he, in defiance; and, seizing the Governor’s cane from
his hand, brandished it, quarter-staff fashion, above his head. He
was, indeed, got from the hall only with the greatest difficulty
by the Governor, the City Marshal, who had been called in, and the
Superintendent of my Sunday School.
The universal impression, of course, was, that the Rev. Frederic
Ingham had lost all command of himself in some of those haunts
of intoxication which for fifteen years I have been laboring to
destroy. Till this moment, indeed, that is the impression in
Naguadavick. This number of _The Atlantic_ will relieve from it a
hundred friends of mine who have been sadly wounded by that notion
now for years—but I shall not be likely ever to show my head there
again.
No! My double has undone me.
We left town at seven the next morning. I came to No. 9, in the
Third Range, and settled on the Minister’s Lot, In the new towns in
Maine, the first settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of
land. I am the first settled minister in No. 9. My wife and little
Paulina are my parish. We raise corn enough to live on in summer.
We kill bear’s meat enough to carbonize it in winter. I work on
steadily on my _Traces of Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh
Centuries_, which I hope to persuade Phillips, Sampson & Co. to
publish next year. We are very happy, but the world thinks we are
undone.