"De tar-kittle's a b'ilin' on de keen jump, Mas'r Mellasys."
"Gentlemen of the Jury," said Judge Pyke, "as you had agreed upon your
verdict before the trial, it is not requisite that you should retire to
consult. Prisoner at the Bar, rise to receive sentence."
I thought it judicious to fall upon my knees and request forgiveness;
but my persecutors were blinded by what no doubt seemed to them a
religious zeal.
"Git up!" said Major Licklickin; and I am ashamed, for his sake, to say
that there was an application of boot accompanying this remark.
"Prisoner," continued my Rhadamanthus, "you have had a fair trial, and
you are found guilty on all the counts of the indictment. First: Of
disloyalty to the South. Second: Of indifference to the Democratic
candidate for the Presidency. Third: Of maligning the character
of Southern patriots in a book intended, no doubt, for universal
circulation through the Northern States. Fourth: Of holding
correspondence with an agent of the Underground Railroad, who, as he
himself avows, has recently run off a nigger to Toronto.--Silence, Sir!
Choke him, Billy Sangaree, if he says a word!--Fifth: Of defaming a
Southern lady, while at the same time you were endeavoring to win her
most attractive property and person from those who should naturally
acquire them. Sixth: Of Agrarianism, Abolitionism, Atheism, and
Infidelity. Prisoner at the Bar, your sentence is, that you be tarred
and cottoned and leave the State. If you are caught again, you will be
hung by the neck, and Henry Ward Beecher have mercy on your soul!"
I was now marched along by my two sentries to a huge tree, not of the
bandanna species. Beneath it a sugar-kettle filled with ebullient tar
was standing.
My persecutors, with tranquil brutality, proceeded to disrobe me. As my
nether garments were removed, Mellasys Plickaman succeeded in persuading
Saccharissa to retire. She, however, took her station at a window
and peered through the blinds at the spectacle. I do not envy her
sensations. All her bright visions of fashionable life were destroyed
forever. She would now fall into the society from which I had endeavored
to lift her. Poor thing! knowing, too, that I, and my friend Derby
Deblore, perhaps the most elegant young man in America, regarded her as
a Hottentot Venus. Poor thing! I have no doubt that she longed to rush
out, fling herself at my feet, and pray me to forgive her and reconsider
my verdict of dumpiness and vulgarity.
Meantime I had been reduced to my shirt and drawers,--excuse the nudity
of my style in stating this fact. Mellasys Plickaman took a ladle-full
of the viscous fluid and poured it over my head.
"Aminadab," said he, "I baptize thee!"
I have experienced few sensations more unpleasant than this application.
The tar descended in warm and sluggish streams, trickling over my
forehead, dropping from my eyelids, rolling over my cheeks, sealing my
mouth, gluing my ears to my skull, identifying itself with my hair,
pursuing the path indicated by my spine beneath my shirt,--in short,
enveloping me with a close-fitting armor of a glutinous and most
unsavory material.
Each of the jury followed the example of my detested rival. In a few
moments the tarring was complete. Few can see themselves mentally or
physically as others see them; but, judging from the remarks made, I am
convinced that I must have afforded an entertaining spectacle to the
party. They roared with laughter, and jeered me. I, however, preserved a
silence discreet, and, I flatter myself, dignified.
The negroes, particularly those at whose fustigation I had assisted
in the morning, joined in the scoffs of their masters, calling me
Bobolitionist, Black Republican, Liberator, and other nicknames by
which these simple-hearted and contented creatures express dislike and
distrust.
"Bring the cotton!" now cried Mellasys Plickaman.
A bag of that regal product was brought.
"Roll him in it!" said Billy Sangaree.
"Let the Colonel work his own tricks," Major Licklickin said. "He's an
artist, he is."
I must admit that he was an artist. He fabricated me an elaborate wig of
the cotton. He arranged me a pair of bushy white eyebrows. He stuck
a venerable beard upon my chin, and a moustache upon my lip. Then he
proceeded to indicate my ribs with lines of cotton, and to cap my
shoulders with epaulets. It would be long to describe the fantastic
tricks he played with me amid the loud laughter of his crew.
Occasionally, also, I heard suppressed giggles from Saccharissa at the
window.
I have no doubt that I should have strangled my late _fiancée_, if such
an act had been consistent with my personal safety.
When I was completely cottoned, in the decorative manner I have
described, Mellasys took a banjo from an old negro, and, striking it,
not without a certain unsophisticated and barbaric grace appropriate to
the instrument, commanded me to dance.
I essayed to do so. But my heart was heavy; consequently my heels were
not light. My faint attempts at pirouettes were not satisfactory.
"Dance jollier, or we'll hang you," said Plickaman.
"No," says Judge Pyke,--"the sentence of the Court has been executed.
In the sacred name of Justice I protest against proceeding farther.
Culprit," continued he, in a voice of thunder, "cut for the North Star,
and here's passage-money for you."
He stuck a half-eagle into the tarry integument of my person. Billy
Sangaree, Major Licklickin, and others of the more inebriated, imitated
him. My dignity of bearing had evidently made a favorable impression.
I departed amid cheers, some ironical, some no doubt sincere. But to the
last, these chivalric, but prejudiced and misguided gentlemen declined
to listen to my explanations. Mellasys Plickaman had completely
perverted their judgments against me.
The last object I saw was Saccharissa, looking more like a Hottentot
Venus than ever, waving her handkerchief and kissing her hand to me. Did
she repent her brief disloyalty? For a moment I thought so, and resolved
to lie in wait, return by night, and urge her to fly with me. But while
I hesitated, Mellasys Plickaman drew near her. She threw herself into
his arms, and there, before all the Committee of Fire-Eaters of Bayou La
Farouche, she kissed him with those amorphous lips I had often compelled
myself to taste. Faugh!
I deemed this scene a token that my engagement was absolutely
terminated.
There was no longer any reason why I should degrade myself by remaining
in this vulgar society. I withdrew into the thickets of the adjoining
wood and there for a time abandoned myself to melancholy reminiscences.
Presently I heard footsteps. I turned and saw a black approaching,
bearing the homely viand known as corn-dodger. He offered it. I accepted
it as a tribute from the inferior race to the superior.
I recognized him as one whose fustigation had so revived my crapulous
spirits in the morning. He seemed to bear no malice. Malignity is
perhaps a mark of more highly developed character. I, for example,
possess it to a considerable degree.
The black led me to a lair in the wood. He took my half-eagles from my
tar. He scraped and cleansed me by simple methods of which he had the
secret. He clothed me in rude garments. Gunny-bag was, I think, the
material. He gave me his own shoes. The heels were elongated; but this
we remedied by a stuffing of leaves. He conducted me toward the banks of
Bayou La Farouche.
On our way, we were compelled to pass not far from the Mellasys mansion.
There was a sound of revelry. It was night. I crept cautiously up and
peered into the window.
There stood the Reverend Onesimus Butterfut, since a prominent candidate
for the archbishopric of the Southern Confederacy. Saccharissa, more
over-dressed than usual, and her cousin Mellasys Plickaman, somewhat
unsteady with inebriation, stood before him. He was pronouncing them man
and wife,--why not ogre and hag?
How fortunate was my escape!
As my negro guide would not listen to my proposal to set the Mellasys
establishment on fire while the inmates slept, I followed him to the
banks of the Bayou. He provided me with abundant store of the homely
food already alluded to. He launched me in a vessel; known to some as
a dug-out, to some as a gundalow. His devotion was really touching.
It convinced me more profoundly than ever of the canine fidelity and
semi-animal characteristics of his race.
I floated down the Bayou. I was picked up by a cotton-ship in the Gulf.
I officiated as assistant to the cook on the homeward voyage.
At the urgent solicitation of my mother, I condescended, on my return,
to accept a situation in my Uncle Bratley's cracker-bakery. The business
is not aristocratic. But what business is? I cannot draw the line
between the baker of hard tack--such is the familiar term we employ--and
the seller of the material for our product, by the barrel or the cargo.
From the point of view of a Chylde, all avocations for the making of
money seem degrading, and only the spending is dignified.
As my conduct during the Mellasys affair has been maligned and scoffed
at by persons of crude views of what is _comme il faut_, I have drawn up
this statement, confident that it will justify me to all of my order,
which I need not state is distinctively that of the Aristocrat and the
Gentleman.