which he was joined by a seedy, red-nosed character, addressed as Zeke,
who appeared to be a hanger-on of the barroom in the function of echo to
the landlord's jokes.
“Ye'll git uster that air red flag ef ye stay long in these parts. Ye
ain't so fer from right arter all, though, fer I guess mos' folks'd
baout as leeve hev the smallpox in the house ez the sheriff.”
“Times are pretty hard hereabouts, are they?”
“Wal, yes, they be baout ez hard ez they kin be, but ye see it's wuss
in this ere caounty 'n 'tis 'n mos' places, cause ther warn't nary court
here fer six or eight year, till lately, an no debts wuz klected 'n so
they've kinder piled up. I callate they ain't but dern few fellers in
the caounty 'cept the parsons, 'n lawyers, 'n doctors ez ain't a bein
sued ted-day, 'specially the farmers. I tell you it makes business
lively fer the lawyers an sheriffs. They're the ones ez rides in
kerridges these days.”
“Is the jail pretty full now?”
“Chock full, hed to send a batch up ter Lenox las' week, an got em
packed bout's thick's they'll lay naow, like codfish in a bar'l. Haow
in time I'm a gonter make room fer the fellers the court'll send in nex'
week, I d'now, derned if I dew. They'd orter be three new jails in the
caounty this blamed minit.”
“Do you expect a good many more this week?”
“Gosh, yes. Why, man alive, the Common Pleas never had ez much business
ez this time. I callate they's nigh onter seven hundred cases tew try.”
“The devil! Has there been a riot or a rebellion in the county? What
have they all done?”
“Oh they hain't done nothin,” replied the landlord, “they ain't nothin
but debtors. Dern debtors, I don' like to hev the jailin of em. They
hain't got no blood intew em like Sabbath-breakers, an blasphemers,
an rapers has. They're weakly, pulin kinder chaps, what thar ain't
no satisfaction a lockin up an a knockin roun'. They're dreffle
deskerridgin kind o' fellers tew. Ye see we never git rid on em. They
never gits let aout like other fellers as is in jail. They hez tew stay
till they pays up, an naterally they can't pay up's long ez they stays.
Genally they goes aout feet foremost, when they goes aout at all, an
they ain't long lived.”
“Why don't they pay up before they get in?” queried Perez.
“Whar be ye from?” asked the landlord, staring at him.
“I'm from New York, last.”
“I thort ye could't be from roun' here, nowheres, to as' sech a
queschin. Why don' they pay their debts? Did ye hear that Zeke? Why,
jess caze they ain' no money in the kentry tew pay em with. It don' make
a mite o' odds haow much propty a feller's got. It don' fetch nothin tew
a sale. The credtor buys it in fer nothin, an the feller goes to jail
fer the balance. A man as has got a silver sixpence can amos buy a farm.
Some folks says they orter be a law makin propty a tender fer debts on a
far valiation. I dunno, I don' keer, I hain't no fault tew find with my
business, leastways the jail end on't.”
Finishing his dinner, Perez asked for his score, and drew a large wallet
from his pocket, and took out a roll of about five thousand dollars in
Continental bills.
“Hain't ye got no Massachusetts bills? They ain't wuth but one shillin
in six but that's suthin, and them Continental bills ain't wuth haouse
room. Gosh durn it. I swow, ef I'd a known ye hadn't nothin but them,
I wouldn't a guv ye a drop to drink nor eat nuther. Marthy say ony this
morning, 'Cephas,' says she, 'rum 's rum an rags is rags, an don' ye
give no more rum fer rags.'”
“Well,” said Perez, “I have nothing else. Government thought they were
good enough to pay the soldiers for their blood; they ought to pay
landlords for their rum.”
“I dunno nothin baout bein soldiers, an I dunno ez I or any other man's
beholden to ye for't, nuther. Ye got paid all twat wuth if ye didn't git
paid nuthin; fur's I kin reckon, we wuz a durn sight better orf under
Ole King George 's we be naow. Ain' that baout so, Zeke?”
“Well,” said Perez, “if you won't take these, I can't pay you at all.”
“Well” said Bement crossly, “thar's the beans an mug o' flip. Call it a
thousand dollars, an fork over, but by gosh, I don' git caught that way
again. It's downright robbery, that's wot it is. I say ain't ye got no
cleaner bills nor these?”
“Perhaps these are cleaner,” said Perez, handing him another lot. “What
odds does it make?”
“Wal, ye see, ef they be middlin clean, I kin keep kaounts on the backs
on em, and Marthy finds em handy wen she writes to her folks daown tew
Springfield. Tain't fuss class writin paper, but it's cheaper'n other
kinds, an that's suthin in these times.”
Having satisfied the landlord's requirements, as well as possible, Perez
walked to the door and stood looking out. The ell containing the jail,
coming under his eye, he turned and said, “You spoke of several hundred
debtors coming before the court next week. It don't look as if you could
get over fifty in here.”
“Oh ye can jam in a hundred. I've got nigh that naow, and thay's other
lockups in the caounty,” replied the landlord. “But ef they wuz a gonter
try to shet up all the debtors, they'd hev tew build a half a dozen new
jails. But bless ye, the mos' on em won't be shet up. Ther creditors 'll
git jedgments agin' em, an then they'll hev rings in their noses, an kin
dew wot they likes with em caze ef they don' stan raoun' they kin shove
em right intew jug ye see.”
“You don't mean to say there's much of that sort of slavery,” ejaculated
Perez.
“I'd now baout slavery ezzackly, but thar's plenty o' that sort o' thing
fer sartin. Credtors mosly'd ruther dew that way, caze they kin git
suthin aout a feller, an ef they sen em tew jail it's a dead loss. They
makes em work aout ther debt and reckons ther work tew baout wat they
pleases. They is some queer kinder talk baout wat kind er things they
makes em stan sometimes rather'n go ter jail. Wal, all I says is that
a feller ez hez got a good lookin gal hed better not git a owin much
in these ere times. I hain't said nothin, hev I, Zeke?” and that worthy
answered his wink with a salacious chuckle.
“Have you any debtors from Stockbridge?” asked Perez, suddenly.
“A hull slew on em,” replied Bement. “I've got one more'n I shall hev
much longer, tew.”
“Who be that?” asked Zeke.
“Wal, I callate George Fennell won't hole out much longer.”
“Fennell; George Fennell! George Fennell is not in this jail,” cried
Perez.
“Wal, naow,” said Bement, imperturbably, “perhaps ye know better'n I
dew.”
“But, landlord, he's my friend, my comrade, I'd like to see him,” and
the young man's countenance expressed the liveliest concern.
The landlord seemed to hesitate. Finally he turned his head and called,
“Marthy”, and a plump, kitten-like little woman appeared at a door,
opening into the end of the bar, whereupon, the landlord, as he jerked
his thumb over his shoulder to indicate their guest, remarked:
“He wants ter know if 'ee kin be let ter see George Fennell. Says he's
his fren, an uster know him to the war.”
Mrs. Bement looked at the officer and said, “Wal, my husbun don'
genally keer to hev folks a seein the pris'ners, coz it makes em kinder
discontented like.” She hesitated a little and then added, “But I
dunno's 'twill dew no harm Cephas, bein as Fennell won' las' much longer
anyhow.”
Thus authorized, Bement took a bundle of keys from a hook behind the
bar, and proceeded to unlock the padlock which fastened an iron bar
across a heavy plank door, in the middle of one of the sides of the
room. As he threw open the door, a gust of foul stenches belched forth
into the room, almost nauseating Perez. The smell of the prison was like
that of a pig sty. The door had opened into a narrow corridor, dimly lit
by a small square grated window at the further end, while along either
side were rows of strong plank doors opening outward, and secured by
heavy, oaken bars, slipped across them at the middle. The muggy dog-day
had been very oppressive, even out of doors; but here in the corridor,
it was intolerable. To breathe in the horrible concoction of smells, was
like drinking from a sewer; the lungs, even as they involuntarily took
it in, strove spasmodically to close their passages against it. It was
impossible for one unaccustomed to such an atmosphere, to breathe, save
by gasps. Bement stopped at one of the doors, and as he was raising the
bar across it, he said:
“Thar ain' on'y one feller 'sides Fennell in here. He's a Stockbridge
feller, too. The cell ain' so big's the others. Genally thar's three or
four together. I'll jess shet ye in, an come back for ye in a minit.”
He opened the door, and as the other stepped in, it was closed and
barred behind him. The cell was about seven feet square and as high. The
floor was a foot lower than the corridor, and correspondingly damper.
It must have been on or below the level of the ground, and the floor,
as well as the lower end of the planks which formed the walls, was
black with moisture. The cell was littered with straw and every kind
of indescribable filth, while the walls and ceiling were mildewed and
spotted with ghastly growths of mould, feeding on the moist and filthy
vapors, which were even more sickening than in the corridor.
Full six feet from the floor, too high to look out of, was a small
grated window, a foot square, through which a few feeble, dog-day
sunbeams, slanting downward, made a little yellow patch upon the lower
part of one of the sides of the cell. Sitting upon a pile of filthy
straw, leaning back against the wall, with his face directly in this
spot, one of the prisoners was half-sitting, half-lying, his eyes shut
as if asleep, and a smile of perfect happiness resting on his pale and
weazened face. Doubtless he was dreaming of the time, when, as a boy,
he played all day in the shining fields, or went blackberrying in the
ardent July sun. For him the river was gleaming again, turning its
million glittering facets to the sun, or, maybe, his eye was delighting
in the still sheen of ponds in Indian summer, as they reflected the red
glory of the overhanging maple or the bordering sumach thicket.
The other prisoner was kneeling on the floor before the wall, with a
piece of charcoal in his hand, mumbling to himself as he busily added
figures to a sum with which the surface above was already covered. As
the door of the cell closed, he looked around from his work. Like the
man's on the floor, his face had a ghastly pallor, against which the
dirt with which it is stained, shows with peculiarly obscene effect,
while the beards and hair of both had grown long and matted and were
filled with straw. So completely had their miserable condition disguised
them, that Perez would not have known in the dim light of the cell that
he had ever seen either before.
The man who had been kneeling on the floor, after his first look of dull
curiosity, began to stare fixedly at Perez, as if he were an apparition,
and then rose to his feet. As he did so, Perez saw that he could not be
Fennell, for the latter was tall, and this man was quite short. Yes,
the reclining man must be George, and now he noted as an unmistakable
confirmation, a scar on one of the emaciated hands lying on his breast.
“George,” he said, stepping to his side. As he did so he passed athwart
the bar of sunshine that was falling on the man's countenance. A peevish
expression crossed his face, and he opened his eyes, the burning,
glassy eyes of the consumptive. For a few seconds he looked fixedly,
wonderingly, and then said half dreamily, half inquiringly, as if he
were not quite certain whether it were a man or a vision, he murmured:
“Perez?”
“Yes, it is I, George,” said the soldier, his eyes filling with
compassionate tears. “How came you in this horrible place?”
But before Fennell could answer the other prisoner sprang to the side of
the speaker, clutching his arm in his claw-like fingers, and crying in
an anguished voice:
“Perez; brother Perez. Don't you know me?”
At the voice Perez started as if a bullet had reached his heart. Like
lightning he turned, his face, frozen with fear, that was scarcely yet
comprehended, his eyes like darts. From that white filthy face in its
wild beast's mat of hair, his brother's eyes were looking into his.
“Lord, God in Heaven!” It was a husky, struggling voice, scarcely more
than a whisper in which he uttered the words. For several seconds the
brothers stood gazing into each other's countenances, Reuben holding
Perez' arm and he half shrinking, not from his brother, though such was
the attitude, but from the horror of the discovery.
“How long” he began to ask, and then his voice broke. The emaciated
figure before him, the face bleached with the ghastly pallor which a
sunless prison gives, the deep sunken eyes looking like coals of fire,
eating their way into his brain, the tattered clothing, the long unkempt
hair and beard, prematurely whitening, and filled with filth, the
fingers grown claw-like and blue, with prison mould, the dull vacant
look and the thought that this was Reuben, his brother; these things all
filled him with such an unutterable, intolerable pity, that it seemed as
if he should lose his head and go wild for very anguish of heart.
“I 'spose I'm kinder thin and some changed, so ye didn't know me,” said
Reuben, with a feeble smile. “Ye see I've been here a year, and am going
into a decline. I sent word home to have father ask Deacon Nash if he
wouldn't let me go home to be nussed up by mother. I should get rugged
again if I could have a little o' mother's nussin. P'raps ye've come to
take me home, Perez?” And a faint gleam of hope came into his face.
“Reub, Reub, I didn't know you was here,” groaned Perez, as he put his
arm about his brother, and supported his feeble figure.
“How come ye here, then?” asked Reuben.
“I was going home. I haven't been home since the war. Didn't you know? I
heard o' George's being here, and came in to see him, but I didn't think
o' you're being here.”
“Where have ye been, Perez, all the time? I callated ye must be in jail,
somewheres, like all the rest of the soldiers.”
“I had no money to get home with. But how came you here, Reub? Who put
you here?”
“Twas Deacon Nash done it. I tried to start a farm arter the war, and
got in debt to Deacon for seed and stock, and there wasn't no crop, and
the hard times come. I couldn't pay, and the Deacon sued, and so I lost
the farm and had to come here.”
“Why didn't father help you? He ain't dead is he?”
Almost any misfortune now seemed possible to Perez.
“No, he ain't dead, but he ain't got nothin. I spose he's sold out by
this time. Sol Gleason had a mortgage on the place.”
“How much was your debt, Reub?”
“Nineteen pound, seven shilling and six-pence. 'Leastways, the debt was
nine pound, and the rest was lawyers', justices' and sheriffs' fees. I
callate they'll find them figgers cut into my heart, when I'm dead.”
And then he pointed to the sums in charcoal, covering the walls of the
cell.
“I callated the interest down to how much a minute. I allers liked
cipherin, ye know, Perez, and I have a great deal of time here. Ye see,
every day, the interest is a penny and twenty-six twenty-sevenths of a
farthin. The wall round me gits that much higher and thicker every day.”
He stepped closer up to the wall, and pointed to a particular set of
figures.
“Here's my weight, ye see, ten stone and a fraction,” and then observing
Perez' pitiful glance at his emaciated form, he added, “I mean when I
come to jail. Dividin nineteen pound, seven and six, by that, it
makes me come to thrippence happenny a pound, 'cording to the laws o'
Massachusetts, countin bones and waste. Mutton ain't wuth but tuppence,
and there's lots o' fellers here for sech small debts, that they don't
come to mor'n a farthin a pound, and ye see I'm gittin dearer, Perez.
There's the interest one way, and I'm a gittin thinner the other way,”
he added with a piteous smile.
“Perez,” interrupted Fennell, in a feeble, whimpering voice, as he
weakly endeavored to raise himself from the floor, “I wish you'd jess
give me a boost on your shoulders, so I kin see out the winder. Reub
uster to do it, but he ain't stout enough now. It's two months since
I've seen out. Say, Perez, won't ye?”
“It'll do him a sight o' good, Perez, if ye will. I never see a feller
set sech store by trees and mountings as George does. They're jess like
medicine to him, an he's fell off faster'n ever since I hain't been able
to boost him up.”
Perez knelt, too much moved for speech, and Reub helped to adjust upon
his shoulders the feeble frame of the sick man, into whose face had
come an expression of eager, excited expectation. As the soldier rose he
fairly tottered from the unexpected lightness of his burden. He stepped
beneath the high, grated window, and Fennell, resting his hands on the
lintel, while Reub steadied him from behind, peered out. He made no
sound, and finally Perez let him down to the floor.
“Could you see much?” asked Reub, but the other did not answer. His gaze
was afar off as if the prison walls were no barrier to his eyes, and a
smile of rapturous contemplation rested on his face. Then with a deep
breath he seemed to return to a perception of his surroundings, and in
tones of irrepressible exultation he murmured:
“I saw the mountains. They are so,” and with a waving, undulating
gesture of the hand that was wonderfully eloquent, he indicated the bold
sweep of the forest clad Taghcanic peaks. The door swung open, and the
jailer stood there.
“Time's up,” he said sharply.
“What, you're not going now? You're not going to leave us yet?” cried
Reuben, piteously.
Perez choked down the wrath and bitterness that was turning his heart to
iron and said, humbly.
“Mr. Bement, I should like to stay a few minutes longer. This is my
brother. I did not know he was here.”
“Sorry for't,” said Bement, carelessly. “Don' see as I kin help it,
though. S'posed like nuff he was somebuddy's brother. Mout's well be
your'n ez anybuddy's. I dunno who ye be. All I knows is that ye've been
here fifteen minutes and now ye must leave. Don' keep me waitin, nuther.
Thay ain' nobuddy tendin bar.”
“Don't make him mad, Perez, or else he won't let ye come again,”
whispered Reuben, who saw that his brother was on the point of some
violent outburst. Perez controlled himself, and took his brother's hands
in his coming close up to him and looking away over his shoulder so that
he might not see the pitiful workings of his features which would have
negatived his words of comfort.
“Cheer up, Reub,” he said huskily, “I'll get you out. I'll come for
you,” and still holding his grief-wrung face averted, that Reuben might
not see it, he went forth, and Bement shut the door and barred it.
CHAPTER FOURTH
THE PEOPLE ASK BREAD AND RECEIVE A STONE
As Captain Hamlin, leaving behind him Great Barrington and its
tavern-jail, was riding slowly on toward Stockbridge, oblivious in
the bitter tumult of his feelings, to the glorious scenery around him,
Stockbridge Green was the scene of a quite unusual assemblage. Squire
Sedgwick, the town's delegate, was expected back that afternoon from the
county convention, which had been sitting at Lenox, to devise remedies
for the popular distress, and the farmers from the outlying country had
generally come into the village to get the first tidings of the result
of its deliberations.
Seated on the piazza of the store, and standing around it, at a distance
from the assemblage of the common people, suitably typifying their
social superiority, was a group of the magnates of Stockbridge, in the
stately dress of gentlemen of the olden time, their three-cornered hats
resting upon powdered wigs, and long silk hose revealing the goodly
proportions of their calves. Upon the piazza sits a short, portly
gentleman, with bushy black eyebrows and a severe expression of
countenance. Although a short man he has a way of holding his neck
stiff, with the chin well out, and looking downward from beneath his
eyelids, upon those who address him, which, with his pursed up lips,
gives a decided impression of authority and unapproachableness. This is
Jahleel Woodbridge, Esquire.
Parson West is standing on the ground in front of him, his silver headed
cane tucked under one arm. His small person--he is not an inch over five
feet tall--is as neatly dressed as if just taken out of a band-box,
and his black, shining hose encase a leg and ankle which are the chaste
admiration of the ladies of the parish, and the source, it is whispered,
of no small complacency to the good man himself.
“What think you,” he is saying to Squire Woodbridge, “will have been the
action of the convention? Will it have emulated the demagogic tone of
that at Hatfield, do you opine?”
“Let us hope not, Reverend Sir,” responded the Squire, “but methinks
it was inexpedient to allow the convention to meet, although Squire
Sedgwick's mind was on that point at variance with mine. It is an easier
matter to prevent a popular assembly than to restrain its utterances,
when assembled.”
“I trust,” said the parson, looking around upon those standing near,
“that we have all made it a subject of prayer, that the convention might
be Providentially led to devise remedies for the inconveniences of the
time, for they are sore, and the popular discontent is great.”
“Nay, I fear 'tis past hoping for that the people will be contented with
anything the convention may have done, however well considered,” said
Dr. Partridge. “They have set their hearts on some such miracle as that
whereby Moses did refresh fainting Israel with water from the smitten
rock. The crowd over yonder will be satisfied with nothing short of that
from the convention,” and the doctor waved his hand toward the people
on the green, with a smile of tolerant contempt on his clean-cut,
sarcastic, but not unkindly face.
“I much err,” said Squire Woodbridge, “if the stocks and the
whipping-post be not the remedy their discontent calls for. I am
told that seditious and disorderly speech is common at the tavern of
evenings. This presumption of the people to talk concerning matters of
government, is an evil that has greatly increased since the war, and
calls for sharp castigation. These numskulls must be taught their place
or t'will shortly be no country for gentlemen to live in.”
“A letter that I had but a day or two ago from my brother at Hatfield,”
said Dr. Partridge, “speaks of the people being much stirred up in
Hampshire, so that some even fear an attempt of the mob to obstruct
the court at Northampton, though my brother opined that their insolence
would not reach so far. One Daniel Shays, an army captain, is spoken of
as a leader.”
Timothy Edwards, Esquire, a tall sharp featured man, with a wrinkled
forehead, had come to the door of his store while the doctor was
talking. I should vainly try to describe this stately merchant of the
olden time, if the reader were to confound him, ever so little in his
mind's eye, with the bustling, smiling, obsequious, modern storekeeper.
Even a royal customer would scarcely have presumed so far as to ask this
imposing gentleman, in powdered wig, snuff-colored coat, waistcoat and
short clothes, white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, to cut
off a piece of cloth or wrap up a bundle for him. It may be taken for
granted that commercial enterprise, as illustrated in Squire Edwards'
store, was entirely subservient to the maintenance of the proprietor's
personal dignity. He now addressed Dr. Partridge:
“Said your brother anything of the report that the Tories and British
emissaries are stirring up the popular discontent, to the end that
reproach may be brought on the new government of the States, by
revealing its weakness as compared with the King's?”
“Nay, of that he spoke not.”
“For my part, I do fully believe it,” resumed Edwards, “and, moreover,
that this is but a branch of the British policy, looking toward the
speedy reconquering of these States. It is to this end, also, that they
are aiming to weaken us by drawing all the money out of the country,
whereby, meanwhile, the present scarcity is caused.”
“Methinks, good sir,” replied the doctor, “the great expense of the war,
and the public and private debts made thereby, with the consequential
taxes and suits at law, do fully explain the lamentable state of the
country, and the disquiet of the people, though it may be that the King
has also designs against us.”