man has a gang of debtors working for him, working out their debts. If
they are idle, if they dispute with him, if they don't let him do what
he pleases with them and their families, he sends them to jail with
a word, and there they stay till he wants to let them out. No man can
interfere between him and them. He does with em whatsoever he will. And
that's why I call them slaves.”
Now, Meshech Little was slightly intoxicated. By that mysterious
faculty, whereby the confirmed drunkard, although absolutely
impecunious, nevertheless manages to keep soaked, while other thirsty
men can get nothing, he had obtained rum. And Meshech it was who,
proceeding in that spirit of frankness engendered by the bottle, now
brought about the solution of a misunderstanding, that was becoming
painful.
“Wha' ye say, Perez, z'all right, but wha'n time be _yew_ a sayin on it
fer? Ye be dressed so fine, an a cap'n b'sides, that we callated ye'd
take yer tod tew the store, long with the silk stockins, 'stid o'
consortin with common folks like we be.”
There was a general sensation. Every mouth was opened, and every neck
craned forward to catch the reply.
“Did you think so, Meshech? Well, you see you are mistaken. There's not
a man among you has less cause to love the silk stockings, as you call
them, than I have, and you Meshech ought to know it. Nine years ago,
my brother Reub and I marched with the minute men. Parson and Squire
Woodbridge, and Squire Edwards and all of em, came round us and said,
'We'll take care of your father and mother. We'll never forget what you
are doing to-day.' Yesterday I came home to find my father and mother
waiting to be sold out by the sheriff, and go to the poor house; and
Reub, I found my brother Reub, rotting to death in Barrington jail.”
“By gosh, I forgot baout Reub, I declar I did,” exclaimed Meshech,
contritely.
“Give us yer hand,” said Israel, “I forgot same ez Meshech, an I
misdoubted ye. This be Ezra Phelps, ez owns the new mill.”
“Shake agin,” said Peleg, extending his hand.
There was exhilaration as well as cordiality in the faces of the men,
who now crowded around Perez, an exhilaration which had its source in
the fact, that one whose appearance and bearing identified him with the
gentlemen, was on their side. It filled them with more encouragement,
than would have done the accession of a score of their own rank and
sort. Brawn and muscle they could themselves supply, but for leadership,
social, political and religious, they had always been accustomed to look
to the gentlemen of the community, and from this lifelong and inherited
habit, came the new sense of confidence and moral sanction, which they
felt in having upon their side in the present crisis, one in whom they
had instinctively recognized the traits of the superior caste.
“Hev ye hearn the news from Northampton, Perez?” asked Israel.
“Yes, and if you men are as much in earnest as I am, there'll be news
from Barrington to-morrow,” replied Perez, glancing around.
“Ef thar ain't, there'll be a lot on us disappinted, fer we be all a
callatin tew go thar tew see,” said Israel, significantly.
“We'll git yer brother aouter jail, fer ye, Perez, an ef thar's any
fightin with the m'lishy, ye kin show us haow, I guess.”
Meshech, as before intimated, was partially drunk, and spoke out of the
fullness of his heart. But except for this one outburst, a stranger,
especially one who did not know the New England disposition, and its
preference for innuendo to any other mode of speech, in referring to the
most important and exciting topics, would have failed entirely to get
the idea that these farmers and laborers contemplated an act of armed
rebellion on the morrow. He would, indeed, have heard frequent allusions
to the probability there would be great goings on at Barrington, next
morning, and intimations more or less explicit, on the part of nearly
every man present, that he expected to be on hand to see what was done.
But there was no intimation that they, themselves, expected to be the
doers. Many, indeed, perhaps most, had very likely no distinct idea, of
personally doing anything, nor was it at all necessary that they should
have in order to ensure the expected outbreak, when the time should
come. Given an excited crowd, all expecting something to be done which
they desire to have done, and all the necessary elements of mob action
are present.
CHAPTER SEVENTH
THE FIRST ENCOUNTER
The next morning by six o'clock, a large number of persons had gathered
on the green at Stockbridge, in consequence of an understanding
that those intending to witness the goings on at Barrington, should
rendezvous at the tavern, and go down together, whereby their own hearts
would be made stronger, and their enemies the more impressed. A good
many had, indeed, gone on ahead, singly, or in parties. Meshech Little,
who lived on the Barrington road, said that he hadn't had a wink
of sleep since four o'clock, for the noise of passing teams and
pedestrians. Those who owned horses and carts, including such men as
Israel Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, had preferred that mode of locomotion,
but there were, nevertheless, as many as one hundred men and boys in the
muster on the green. Perhaps a quarter of them had muskets, the others
carried stout cudgels.
All sorts of rumors were flying about. One story was that the militia
had been ordered out with a dozen rounds of cartridges, to defend the
court and jail. Some even had heard that a cannon had been placed in
front of the court house, and trained on the Stockbridge road. On the
other hand, it was asserted that the court would not try to sit at all.
As now one, and now another, of these contradictory reports prevailed,
ebullitions of courage and symptoms of panic alternated among the
people. It was easy to see that they contemplated the undertaking, on
which they were embarking, not without a good deal of nervousness. Abner
was going from group to group, trying to keep up their spirits.
“Hello,” he exclaimed, coming across Jabez Flint. “Look a here, boys.
Derned ef Jabez ain't a comin long with the res' on us. Wal, Jabez, I
swow, I never callated ez I sh'd be a fightin long side o' ye. Misry
makes strange bedfellers, though.”
“It's you ez hez changed sides, not me,” responded the Tory. “I wuz
allers agin the state, an naow ye've come over tew my side.”
Abner scratched his head.
“I swan, it doos look so. Anyhow, I be glad tew see ye tidday. I see
ye've got yer gun, Jabez. Ye muss be keerful. Loryers is so derndly like
foxes, that ye mout hit one on em by mistake.”
There was a slight snicker at this, but the atmosphere was decidedly too
heavy for jokes. However boldly they might discourse at the tavern of an
evening, over their mugs of flip, about taking up arms and hanging the
lawyers, it was not without manifold misgivings, that these law-abiding
farmers found themselves on the point of being actually arrayed against
the public authorities in armed rebellion. The absence of Israel
Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, who were looked up to as the most substantial
in estate and general respectability of those who inclined to the
popular side, was moreover unfortunate, although it was supposed that
they would be present at Barrington.
Meshech, indeed, in spite of the earliness of the hour, was full of
pot-valor, and flourished his gun in a manner more perilous to those
about him than to the state authorities, but his courage reeked so
strongly of its source, that the display was rather discouraging than
otherwise to the sober men around. Paul Hubbard, who had come down from
the ironworks with thirty men or more, presently drew Abner aside and
said:
“See here. It won't do to wait round any longer. We must start. They're
losing all their grit standing here and thinking it over.”
But the confabulation was interrupted by a cry of panic from Obadiah
Weeks:
“Golly, here come the slectmen!”
“Hell!” exclaimed Hubbard, whirling on his heel, and taking in the
situation with a glance, while Abner's face was expressive of equal
consternation.
The local authorities had been so quiet the day before, that no
interference on their part had been thought of.
But here in a body came the five selectmen, cane in hand, headed by
Jahleel Woodbridge, wearing his most awful frown, and looking like the
embodied majesty of law. The actions and attitudes of the crowd were
like those of scholars interrupted by the entrance of the master in
the midst of a scene of uproar. Those nearest the corners of the tavern
promptly slunk behind it. Obadiah slipped around to the further side of
the buttonwood tree before the tavern. There was a general movement in
the body of the crowd, caused by the effort of each individual to slip
quietly behind somebody else, while from the edges, men began to sneak
homewards across the green, at a rate, which, had the warning been a
little longer, would have left no assemblage at all by the time the
selectmen arrived on the spot. Those who could not find shelter behind
their fellows, and could not escape save by a dead run, pulled their
hats over their eyes and looked on the ground, slyly dropping their
cudgels, meanwhile, in the grass. There was not a gun to be seen.
With his head thrown back in the stiffest possible manner, his lips
pursed out, and throwing glances like lashes right and left, Woodbridge,
followed by the other selectmen, passed through the midst of the people,
until he reached the stone step before the tavern door. He stepped up
on this, and ere he opened his lips, swept the shame-faced assemblage
before him with a withering glance. What with those who had pulled their
hats over their eyes, and those who had turned their backs to him in
anxiety to avoid identification, there was not an eye that met his.
Abner himself, brave as a lion with his own class, was no braver than
any one of them when it came to encountering one of the superior caste,
to which he, and his ancestors before him, had looked up as their rulers
and leaders by prescription. And so it must be written of even Abner,
that he had somehow managed to get the trunk of the buttonwood tree,
which sheltered Obadiah, between a part at least of his own enormous
bulk, and Squire Woodbridge's eye. Paul Hubbard's bitter hatred of
gentlemen, so far stood him in stead of courage, that it would not let
him hide himself. He stood in plain view, but with his face half averted
from Woodbridge, while his lip curled in bitter scorn of his own craven
spirit. For it must be remembered that I am writing not of the American
farmer and laborer of this democratic age, but of men who were separated
but by a generation or two from the peasant serfs of England, and who
under the stern and repressive rule of the untitled aristocracy of
the colonies, had enjoyed little opportunity for outgrowing inherited
instincts of servility.
And now it was that Perez Hamlin, who had been all this while within the
tavern, his attention attracted by the sudden silence which had fallen
on the people without, stepped to the door, appearing on the threshold
just above Squire Woodbridge's head and a little to one side of him. At
a glance he saw the way things were going. Already half demoralized by
the mere presence and glance of the magnates, a dozen threatening
words from the opening lips of Woodbridge would suffice to send these
incipient rebels, like whipped curs, to their homes. He thought of Reub,
and for a moment his heart was filled with grief and terror. Then he had
an inspiration.
In the crowd was one known as Little Pete, a German drummer of
Reidesel's Hessian corps, captured with Burgoyne's army. Brought to
Stockbridge and quartered there as a prisoner he had continued to live
in the town since the war. Abner had somewhere procured an old drum for
Pete, and with this hung about his neck, the sticks in his hands, he
now stood not ten feet away from the tavern door. He spoke but little
English, and, being a foreigner, had none of that awe for the selectmen,
alike in their personal and official characters, which unnerved the
village folk. Left isolated by the falling back of the people around
him, Pete was now staring at these dignitaries in stolid indifference.
They did not wear uniforms, and Pete had never learned to respect or
fear anything not in uniform.
Having first brought the people before him, to the fitting preliminary
stage of demoralization, by the power of his eye, Woodbridge said in
stern, authoritative tones, the more effective for being low pitched,
“You may well”----
That was as far, however, as he got. With the first sound of his voice,
Perez stepped down beside him. Drawing his sword, which he had put on
that morning, he waved it with a commanding gesture, and looking at
little Pete, said with a quick, imperious accent:
“Drum!”
If a man in an officer's uniform, with a shining piece of steel in his
hand, should order Pete to jump into the mouth of a cannon, he would no
more think of hesitating, than the cannon itself of refusing to go off
when the linstock was pulled. Without the change of a muscle in his
heavy face, he raised the drumsticks and brought them down on the
sheepskin.
And instantly the roll of the drum deafened the ears of the people,
utterly drowning the imperious tones of the selectman, and growing
louder and swifter from moment to moment, as the long unused wrists of
the drummer recalled their former cunning.
Woodbridge spoke yet a few words without being able to hear himself.
Then, his smooth, fleshy face purple with rage, he wheeled and glared at
Hamlin. It did not need the drum to silence him now. He was so overcome
with amazement and passion that he could not have articulated a word.
But if he thought to face down the man by his side, he was mistaken. At
least a head taller than Woodbridge, Perez turned and looked down into
the congested eyes of the other with cool, careless, defiance.
And how about the people who looked on? The confident, decisive tone of
Hamlin's order to the drummer, the bold gesture that enforced it, the
fearless contempt for the village great man, which it implied, the
unflinching look with which he met his wrathful gaze, and accompanying
all these, the electrifying roll of the drum with its martial
suggestions, had acted like magic on the crowd. Those who had slunk
away came running back. Muskets rose to shoulders, sticks were again
brandished, and the eyes of the people, a moment ago averted and
downcast, rose defiantly. On every face there was a broad grin of
delight. Even Paul Hubbard's cynical lips were wreathed with a smile of
the keenest satisfaction, and he threw upon Perez one of the few glances
of genuine admiration which men of his sardonic type ever have to spare
for anybody.
For a few moments Woodbridge hesitated, uncertain what to do. To remain
standing there, was impossible, with this crowd of his former vassals on
the broad grin at his discomfiture. To retire was to confess defeat.
The question was settled, however, when one of his official associates,
unable longer to endure the din of the drum, desperately clapped both
hands over his ears. At this the crowd began to guffaw uproariously, and
seeing that it was high time to see about saving what little dignity he
still retained, Woodbridge led the way into the tavern, whither he was
incontinently followed by his compeers.
Instantly, at a gesture from Perez, the drum ceased, and his voice
sounded strangely clear in the sudden and throbbing silence, as he
directed little Pete to head the column, and gave the order to march.
With a cheer, and a tread that shook the ground, the men set out. Perez
remained standing before the tavern, till the last man had passed, by
way of guarding against any new move by the selectmen, and then mounting
his horse, rode along the column.
They were about half a mile out of Stockbridge, when Abner, accompanied
by Paul Hubbard, approached Perez, and remarked:
“The fellers all on em says, ez haow ye'll hev tew be cap'n o' this ere
kumpny. Thar's no use o' shilly-shallyin the business, we've got tew hev
somebody ez kin speak up tew the silk stockins. Hain't that so, Paul?”
Hubbard nodded, but did not speak. It was gall and wormwood to his
jealous and ambitious spirit, to concede the leadership to another, but
his good sense forced him to recognize the necessity of so doing in the
present case.
“Abner,” replied Perez, “you know I only want to get Reub out. That's
why I interfered when the plan looked like falling through. I don't want
to be captain, man, I'd no notion of that.”
“Nuther had I,” said Abner, “till ye tackled the Squire, an then I see
quick ez a flash that ye'd got ter be, an so'd all the other fellers. We
sh'd a kerflummuxed sure's taxes, ef ye hadn't done jess what ye did. An
naow, ye've got tew be cap'n, whether or no.”
“Well,” said Perez, “If I can do anything for you, I will. We're all
in the same boat, I suppose. But if I'm captain, you two must be
lieutenants.”
“Yes, we're a gonter be,” replied Abner. “Ye kin depend on us in a
scrimmage, but ye muss sass the silk stockins.”
Meanwhile the men, as they marched along the road in some semblance of
military order, were eagerly discussing the recent passage between the
dreaded Squire and their new champion. Their feeling about Perez seemed
to be a certain odd mingling of respect, with an exultant sense of
proprietorship in him as a representative of their own class, a
farmer's son who had made himself as fine a gentleman as any of the silk
stockings, and could face down the Squire himself.
“Did ye see haow Squire looked at Perez wen Pete begun tew drum?”
observed Peleg. “I reckoned he wuz a gonter lay hans ontew him.”
“Ef he had, by jimmeny, I b'leeve Cap'n would a hit him a crack ez would
a knocked him inter the middle o' nex week,” said Meshech.
“Oh, gosh, I ony wisht he hed,” cried Obadiah, quite carried away at
the wild thought of the mighty Squire rolling on the grass with a bloody
nose.
“I allers hearn ez them Hamlin boys hed good blood intew em,” observed
a farmer. “Mrs. Hamlin's a Hawley, one o' them air River Gods, ez they
calls em daown Hampshire way. Her folks wuz riled wen she tuk up with
Elnathan, I hearn.”
CHAPTER EIGHTH
GREAT GOINGS ON AT BARRINGTON
As the company from Stockbridge surmounted the crest of a hill, about
half way to Barrington, they saw a girl in a blue tunic, a brown rush
hat, and a short gown, of the usual butternut dye, trudging on in the
same direction, some distance ahead. As she looked back, in evident
amazement at the column of men marching after her, Perez thought that
he recognized the face, and on coming up with her, she proved to be, in
fact, no other than Prudence Fennell, the little lass who had called at
the house Sunday evening to inquire about her father down at the jail,
and whose piteous grief at the report Perez was obliged to give, had
determined Abner and him to attempt the rescue of George, as well as
Reub, at whatever additional risk.
Far enough were they then from dreaming that two days later would find
them leading a battalion of armed men, by broad daylight along the high
road, to free the captives by open force. As readily would they then
have counted on an earthquake to open the prison doors, as on this
sudden uprising of the people in their strength.
As the men came up, Prudence stopped to let them pass by, her fresh,
pretty face expressive of considerable dismay. As she shrunk closely
up to the rail fence that lined the highway, she looked with timid
recognition up at Perez, as if to claim his protection.
“Where are you going?” he asked kindly, stopping his horse.
“I'm going to see father,” she said with a tremulous lip.
“Poor little lassie, were you going to walk all the way?”
“It is nothing,” she said, “I could not wait, you know. He might die,”
and her bosom heaved with a sob that would fain break forth.
Perez threw himself from his horse.
“We are all going to the jail,” he said. “You shall come with us, and
ride upon my horse. Men, she shall lead us.”
The men, whose discipline was not as yet very rigid, had halted and
crowded around to listen to the dialogue, and received this proposition
with a cheer. Prudence would far rather had them go on, and leave her to
make her own way, but she was quite too much scared to resist as Perez
lifted her upon his saddle. He shortened one of the stirrups, to support
her foot, and then the column took up its march under the new captain,
Perez walking by her side and leading the horse.
Had he arranged this stroke beforehand, he could not have hit on a more
effective device for toning up the morals of the men. Those in whose
minds the old misgivings as to their course had succeeded the sudden
inspiration of Little Pete's drum, now felt that the child riding ahead
lent a new and sacred sanction to their cause. They all knew her story,
and to their eyes she seemed, at this moment, an embodiment of the
spirit of suffering and outraged humanity, which had nerved them for
this day's work. A more fitting emblem, a more inspiring standard, could
not have been borne before them. But it must not be supposed that even
this prevented, now and then, a conscience-stricken individual from
stopping to drink at some brook crossing the road, until the column had
passed the next bend in the road, and then slinking home cross-lots,
taking an early opportunity after arriving to pass the store, so as to
be seen and noted as not among the rioters. But whatever was lost in
this way, if the defection of such material can be called a loss, was
more than made up by the recruits which swelled the ranks from the
farmhouses along the road. And so, by the time they entered Muddy Brook,
a settlement just outside of Great Barrington, through which the road
from Stockbridge then passed, they numbered full one hundred and fifty.
Muddy Brook was chiefly inhabited by a poor and rather low class of
people, who, either from actual misery or mere riotous inclination,
might naturally be expected to join in any movement against constituted
authority. But instead of gaining any accession of forces here, the
Stockbridge party found the place almost deserted. Even the small boys,
and the dogs were gone, and apparently a large part of the able-bodied
women as well.
“What be all the folks?” called out Abner to a woman who stood with a
baby in arms at an open door.
“Over tew Barrington seein the fun. Thar be great dewins,” she replied.
This news imparted valor to the most faint-hearted, for it was now
apparent that this was not a movement in which Stockbridge was alone
engaged, not a mere local revolt, but a general, popular uprising, whose
extent would be its justification. And yet, prepared as they thus were,
to find a goodly number of sympathizers already on the ground, it was
with mingled exultation and astonishment that, on topping the high hill
which separates Muddy Brook from Great Barrington, and gaining a view of
the latter place, they beheld the streets packed, and the green in front
of the court house fairly black with people.
There was a general outburst of surprise and satisfaction.
“By gosh, it looks like gineral trainin, or'n ordination.”
“Looks kinder 'z if a good many fellers b'sides us hed business with the
jestices this mornin.”
“I'd no idee courts wuz so pop'lar.”
“They ain't stocks nuff in Berkshire fer all the fellers as is out
tidday, that's one sure thing, by gol.”
“No, by Jock, nor Saddleback mounting ain't big nuff pillory to hold
em, nuther,” were some of the ejaculations which at once expressed the
delight and astonishment of the men, and at the same time betrayed the
nature of their previous misgivings, as to the possible consequences of
this day's doings. Estimates of the number of the crowd in Barrington,
which were freely offered, ranged all the way from two thousand to ten
thousand, but Perez, practiced in such calculations, placed the number
at about eight or nine hundred men, half as many women and boys. What
gave him the liveliest satisfaction was the absence of any military
force, not indeed that he would have hesitated to fight if he could not
have otherwise forced access to the jail, but he had contemplated the
possibility of such a bloody collision between the people and militia,
with much concern.