“For here the exile met from every clime,
And spoke, in friendship, every distant tongue.”
--Campbell.
We have made our readers acquainted with some variety in character and
nations, in introducing the most important personages of this legend to
their notice; but, in order to establish the fidelity of our narrative,
we shall briefly attempt to explain the reason why we have been obliged
to present so motley a dramatis personae.
Europe, at the period of our tale, was in the commencement of that
commotion which afterward shook her political institutions to the
centre. Louis the Sixteenth had been beheaded, and a nation once
esteemed the most refined among the civilized people of the world was
changing its character, and substituting cruelty for mercy, and subtlety
and ferocity for magnanimity and courage. Thousands of Frenchmen were
compelled to seek protection in distant lands. Among the crowds who fled
from France and her islands, to the United States of America, was the
gentleman whom we have already mentioned as Monsieur Le Quoi. He had
been recommended to the favor of Judge Temple by the head of an eminent
mercantile house in New York, with whom Marmaduke was in habits
of intimacy, and accustomed to exchange good offices. At his first
interview with the Frenchman, our Judge had discovered him to be a man
of breeding, and one who had seen much more prosperous days in his own
country. From certain hints that had escaped him, Monsieur Le Quoi was
suspected of having been a West-India planter, great numbers of whom had
fled from St. Domingo and the other islands, and were now living in the
Union, in a state of comparative poverty, and some in absolute want The
latter was not, however, the lot of Monsieur Le Quoi. He had but little,
he acknowledged; but that little was enough to furnish, in the language
of the country, an assortment for a store.
The knowledge of Marmaduke was eminently practical, and there was no
part of a settler's life with which he was not familiar. Under his
direction, Monsieur Le Quoi made some purchases, consisting of a few
cloths; some groceries, with a good deal of gunpowder and tobacco; a
quantity of iron-ware, among which was a large proportion of Barlow's
jack-knives, potash-kettles, and spiders; a very formidable collection
of crockery of the coarsest quality and most uncouth forms; together
with every other common article that the art of man has devised for his
wants, not forgetting the luxuries of looking-glasses and Jew's-harps.
With this collection of valuables, Monsieur Le Quoi had stepped behind
a counter, and, with a wonderful pliability of temperament, had dropped
into his assumed character as gracefully as he had ever moved in any
other. The gentleness and suavity of his manners rendered him extremely
popular; besides this, the women soon discovered that he had taste. His
calicoes were the finest, or, in other words, the most showy, of any
that were brought into the country, and it was impossible to look at the
prices asked for his goods by “so pretty a spoken man,” Through
these conjoint means, the affairs of Monsieur Le Quoi were again in a
prosperous condition, and he was looked up to by the settlers as the
second best man on the “Patent.” *
* The term “Patent” which we have already used, and for which we may
have further occasion, meant the district of country that had been
originally granted to old Major Effingham by the “king's letters
patent,” and which had now become, by purchase under the act of
confiscation, the property of Marmaduke Temple. It was a term in
common use throughout the new parts of the State; and was usually
annexed to the landlord's name, as “Temple's or Effingham's Patent.”
Major Hartmann was a descendant of a man who, in company with a number
of his countrymen, had emigrated with their families from the banks of
the Rhine to those of the Mohawk. This migration had occurred as far
back as the reign of Queen Anne; and their descendants were now living,
in great peace and plenty, on the fertile borders of that beautiful
stream.
The Germans, or “High Dutchers,” as they were called, to distinguish
them from the original or Low Dutch colonists, were a very peculiar
people. They possessed all the gravity of the latter, without any of
their phlegm; and like them, the “High Dutchers” were industrious,
honest, and economical, Fritz, or Frederick Hartmann, was an epitome of
all the vices and virtues, foibles and excellences, of his race. He
was passionate though silent, obstinate, and a good deal suspicious of
strangers; of immovable courage, in flexible honesty, and undeviating in
his friendships. In deed there was no change about him, unless it were
from grave to gay. He was serious by months, and jolly by weeks. He had,
early in their acquaintance, formed an attachment for Marmaduke Temple,
who was the only man that could not speak High Dutch that ever gained
his entire confidence Four times in each year, at periods equidistant,
he left his low stone dwelling on the banks of the Mohawk, and travelled
thirty miles, through the hills, to the door of the mansion-house in
Templeton. Here he generally stayed a week; and was reputed to spend
much of that time in riotous living, greatly countenanced by Mr. Richard
Jones. But every one loved him, even to Remarkable Pettibone, to whom he
occasioned some additional trouble, he was so frank, so sincere, and, at
times, so mirthful. He was now on his regular Christmas visit, and had
not been in the village an hour when Richard summoned him to fill a seat
in the sleigh to meet the landlord and his daughter.
Before explaining the character and situation of Mr. Grant, it will
be necessary to recur to times far back in the brief history of the
settlement.
There seems to be a tendency in human nature to endeavor to provide for
the wants of this world, before our attention is turned to the business
of the other. Religion was a quality but little cultivated amid the
stumps of Temple's Patent for the first few years of its settlement;
but, as most of its inhabitants were from the moral States of
Connecticut and Massachusetts, when the wants of nature were satisfied
they began seriously to turn their attention to the introduction of
those customs and observances which had been the principal care of their
fore fathers. There was certainly a great variety of opinions on the
subject of grace and free-will among the tenantry of Marmaduke; and,
when we take into consideration the variety of the religious instruction
which they received, it can easily be seen that it could not well be
otherwise.
Soon after the village had been formally laid out into the streets and
blocks that resembled a city, a meeting of its inhabitants had been
convened, to take into consideration the propriety of establishing an
academy. This measure originated with Richard, who, in truth, was much
disposed to have the institution designated a university, or at least
a college. Meeting after meeting was held, for this purpose, year
after year. The resolutions of these as sembiages appeared in the most
conspicuous columns of a little blue-looking newspaper, that was already
issued weekly from the garret of a dwelling-house in the village, and
which the traveller might as often see stuck into the fissure of a
stake, erected at the point where the footpath from the log-cabin of
some settler entered the highway, as a post-office for an individual.
Sometimes the stake supported a small box, and a whole neighborhood
received a weekly supply for their literary wants at this point, where
the man who “rides post” regularly deposited a bundle of the precious
commodity. To these flourishing resolutions, which briefly recounted the
general utility of education, the political and geographical rights of
the village of Templeton to a participation in the favors of the regents
of the university, the salubrity of the air, and wholesomeness of the
water, together with the cheapness of food and the superior state of
morals in the neighbor hood, were uniformly annexed, in large Roman
capitals, the names of Marmaduke Temple as chairman and Richard Jones as
secretary.
Happily for the success of this undertaking, the regents were not
accustomed to resist these appeals to their generosity, whenever
there was the smallest prospect of a donation to second the request.
Eventually Judge Temple concluded to bestow the necessary land, and to
erect the required edifice at his own expense. The skill of Mr., or,
as he was now called, from the circumstance of having received the
commission of a justice of the peace, Squire Doolittle, was again put in
requisition; and the science of Mr. Jones was once more resorted to.
We shall not recount the different devices of the architects on the
occasion; nor would it be decorous so to do, seeing that there was a
convocation of the society of the ancient and honorable fraternity “of
the Free and Accepted Masons,” at the head of whom was Richard, in the
capacity of master, doubtless to approve or reject such of the plans as,
in their wisdom, they deemed to be for the best. The knotty point
was, however, soon decided; and, on the appointed day, the brotherhood
marched in great state, displaying sundry banners and mysterious
symbols, each man with a little mimic apron before him, from a most
cunningly contrived apartment in the garret of the “Bold Dragoon,” an
inn kept by one Captain Hollister, to the site of the intended edifice.
Here Richard laid the corner stone, with suitable gravity, amidst an
assemblage of more than half the men, and all the women, within ten
miles of Templeton.
In the course of the succeeding week there was another meeting of the
people, not omitting swarms of the gentler sex, when the abilities of
Hiram at the “square rule” were put to the test of experiment. The frame
fitted well; and the skeleton of the fabric was reared without a single
accident, if we except a few falls from horses while the laborers were
returning home in the evening. From this time the work advanced with
great rapidity, and in the course of the season the Labor was completed;
the edifice Manding, in all its beauty and proportions, the boast of
the village, the study of young aspirants for architectural fame, and
the admiration of every settler on the Patent.
It was a long, narrow house of wood, painted white, and more than
half windows; and, when the observer stood at the western side of the
building, the edifice offered but a small obstacle to a full view of the
rising sun. It was, in truth, but a very comfortless open place, through
which the daylight shone with natural facility. On its front were divers
ornaments in wood, designed by Richard and executed by Hiram; but a
window in the centre of the second story, immediately over the door or
grand entrance, and the “steeple” were the pride of the building. The
former was, we believe, of the composite order; for it included in its
composition a multitude of ornaments and a great variety of proportions.
It consisted of an arched compartment in the centres with a square and
small division on either side, the whole incased in heavy frames, deeply
and laboriously moulded in pine-wood, and lighted with a vast number of
blurred and green-looking glass of those dimensions which are commonly
called “eight by ten.” Blinds, that were intended to be painted green,
kept the window in a state of preservation, and probably might have
contributed to the effect of the whole, had not the failure in the
public funds, which seems always to be incidental to any undertaking of
this kind, left them in the sombre coat of lead-color with which they
had been originally clothed. The “steeple” was a little cupola, reared
on the very centre of the roof, on four tall pillars of pine that were
fluted with a gouge, and loaded with mouldings. On the tops of the
columns was reared a dome or cupola, resembling in shape an inverted
tea-cup without its bottom, from the centre of which projected a spire,
or shaft of wood, transfixed with two iron rods, that bore on their ends
the letters N. S. E. and W, in the same metal. The whole was surmounted
by an imitation of one of the finny tribe, carved in wood by the hands
of Richard, and painted what he called a “scale-color.” This animal Mr.
Jones affirmed to be an admirable resemblance of a great favorite of
the epicures in that country, which bore the title of “lake-fish,” and
doubtless the assertion was true; for, although intended to answer the
purposes of a weathercock, the fish was observed invariably to look with
a longing eye in the direction of the beautiful sheet of water that lay
imbedded in the mountains of Templeton.
For a short time after the charter of the regents was received, the
trustees of this institution employed a graduate of one of the Eastern
colleges to instruct such youth as aspired to knowledge within the walls
of the edifice which we have described. The upper part of the building
was in one apartment, and was intended for gala-days and exhibitions;
and the lower contained two rooms that were intended for the great
divisions of education, viz., the Latin and the English scholars. The
former were never very numerous; though the sounds of “nominative,
pennaa--genitive, penny,” were soon heard to issue from the windows
of the room, to the great delight and manifest edification of the
passenger.
Only one laborer in this temple of Minerva, however, was known to get so
far as to attempt a translation of Virgil. He, indeed, appeared at the
annual exhibition, to the prodigious exultation of all his relatives,
a farmer's family in the vicinity, and repeated the whole of the first
eclogue from memory, observing the intonations of the dialogue with much
judgment and effect. The sounds, as they proceeded from his mouth, of
“Titty-ree too patty-lee ree-coo-bans sub teg-mi-nee faa-gy
Syl-ves-trem ten-oo-i moo-sam, med-i-taa-ris, aa-ve-ny.”
were the last that had been heard in that building, as probably they
were the first that had ever been heard, in the same language, there
or anywhere else. By this time the trustees discovered that they had
anticipated the age and the instructor, or principal, was superseded by
a master, who went on to teach the more humble lesson of “the more haste
the worst speed,” in good plain English.
From this time until the date of our incidents, the academy was a common
country school, and the great room of the building was sometimes used as
a court-room, on extraordinary trials; sometimes for conferences of the
religious and the morally disposed, in the evening; at others for a ball
in the afternoon, given under the auspices of Richard; and on Sundays,
invariably, as a place of public worship.
When an itinerant priest of the persuasion of the Methodists, Baptists,
Universalists, or of the more numerous sect of the Presbyterians,
was accidentally in the neighborhood, he was ordinarily invited to
officiate, and was commonly rewarded for his services by a collection in
a hat, before the congregation separated. When no such regular minister
offered, a kind of colloquial prayer or two was made by some of the
more gifted members, and a sermon was usually read, from Sterne, by Mr.
Richard Jones.
The consequence of this desultory kind of priesthood was, as we have
already intimated, a great diversity of opinion on the more abstruse
points of faith. Each sect had its adherents, though neither was
regularly organized and disciplined. Of the religious education of
Marmaduke we have already written, nor was the doubtful character of his
faith completely removed by his marriage. The mother of Elizabeth was
an Episcopalian, as indeed, was the mother of the Judge himself; and the
good taste of Marmaduke revolted at the familiar colloquies which
the leaders of the conferences held with the Deity, in their nightly
meetings. In form, he was certainly an Episcopalian, though not a
sectary of that denomination. On the other hand, Richard was as rigid in
the observance of the canons of his church as he was inflexible in
his opinions. Indeed, he had once or twice essayed to introduce the
Episcopal form of service, on the Sundays that the pulpit was vacant;
but Richard was a good deal addicted to carrying things to an excess,
and then there was some thing so papal in his air that the greater part
of his hearers deserted him on the second Sabbath--on the third his
only auditor was Ben Pump, who had all the obstinate and enlightened
orthodoxy of a high churchman.
Before the war of the Revolution, the English Church was supported in
the colonies, with much interest, by some of its adherents in the mother
country, and a few of the congregations were very amply endowed. But,
for the season, after the independence of the States was established,
this sect of Christians languished for the want of the highest order of
its priesthood. Pious and suitable divines were at length selected,
and sent to the mother country, to receive that authority which, it is
understood, can only be transmitted directly from one to the other, and
thus obtain, in order to reserve, that unity in their churches which
properly belonged to a people of the same nation. But unexpected
difficulties presented themselves, in the oaths with which the policy of
England had fettered their establishment; and much time was spent before
a conscientious sense of duty would permit the prelates of Britain to
delegate the authority so earnestly sought. Time, patience, and zeal,
however, removed every impediment, and the venerable men who had been
set apart by the American churches at length returned to their expecting
dioceses, endowed with the most elevated functions of their earthly
church. Priests and deacons were ordained, and missionaries provided,
to keep alive the expiring flame of devotion in such members as
were deprived of the ordinary administrations by dwelling in new and
unorganized districts.
Of this number was Mr. Grant. He had been sent into the county of which
Templeton was the capital, and had been kindly invited by Marmaduke, and
officiously pressed by Richard, to take up his abode in the village. A
small and humble dwelling was prepared for his family, and the divine
had made his appearance in the place but a few days previously to the
time of his introduction to the reader, As his forms were entirely new
to most of the inhabitants, and a clergyman of another denomination had
previously occupied the field, by engaging the academy, the first Sunday
after his arrival was allowed to pass in silence; but now that his
rival had passed on, like a meteor filling the air with the light of his
wisdom, Richard was empowered to give notice that “Public worship, after
the forms of the Protestant Episcopal Church, would be held on the night
before Christmas, in the long room of the academy in Templeton, by the
Rev. Mr. Grant.”
This annunciation excited great commotion among the different sectaries.
Some wondered as to the nature of the exhibition; others sneered; but
a far greater part, recollecting the essays of Richard in that way, and
mindful of the liberality, or rather laxity, of Marmaduke's notions on
the subject of sectarianism, thought it most prudent to be silent.
The expected evening was, however, the wonder of the hour; nor was the
curiosity at all diminished when Richard and Benjamin, on the morning of
the eventful day, were seen to issue from the woods in the neighborhood
of the village, each bearing on his shoulders a large bunch of
evergreens. This worthy pair was observed to enter the academy, and
carefully to fasten the door, after which their proceedings remained
a profound secret to the rest of the village; Mr. Jones, before he
commenced this mysterious business, having informed the school-master,
to the great delight of the white-headed flock he governed, that
there could be no school that day. Marmaduke was apprised of all these
preparations by letter, and it was especially arranged that he and
Elizabeth should arrive in season to participate in the solemnities of
the evening.
After this digression, we shall return to our narrative.