gosh darned drunk, most on em, an so nothin would do but they must go
an rig up a hoss-fiddle an hunt up some pans, an go an serenade the silk
stockins. They wuz a givin it tew Squire Woodbridge, wen I come by.
I guess he won't git much sleep ter night,” and with this information
Perez went home again.
CHAPTER TWELFTH
A FAIR SUPPLIANT
Dr. Partridge lived at this time on the hill north of the village, and
not very far from the parsonage, which made it convenient for him to
report promptly to Parson West, when any of his patients had
reached that point where spiritual must be substituted for medical
ministrations. It was about ten o'clock by the silver dialed clock in
the living room of the doctor's house, when Prudence Fennell knocked at
the open kitchen door.
“What do you want, child?” said Mrs. Partridge, who was in the kitchen
trying to instruct a negro girl how to use her broom of twigs so as to
distribute the silver sand upon the floor in the complex wavy figures,
which were the pride of the housewife of that day.
“Please, marm, father's sick, and Mis Hamlin thinks he ought to have the
doctor.”
“Your father and Mrs. Hamlin? Who is your father, pray?”
“I'm Prudence Fennell, marm, and father's George Fennell. He's one of
them that were fetched from Barrington jail yesterday, and he's sick.
He's at Mis Hamlin's, please marm.”
“Surely, by that he must be one of the debtors. The sheriff is more like
to come for them than the doctor. They will be back in jail in a few
days, no doubt,” said Mrs. Partridge, sharply.
“No one will be so cruel. Father is so sick. If you could see him, you
would not say so. They shall not take him to jail again. If Mr. Seymour
comes after him, I'll tear his eyes out. I'll kill him.”
“What a little tiger it is!” said Mrs. Partridge, regarding with
astonishment the child's blazing eyes and panting bosom, while peering
over her mistress's shoulders, the negro girl was turning up the whites
of her eyes at the display. “There, there, child, I meant nothing. If
he is sick, maybe they will leave him. I know naught of such things. But
this Perez Hamlin will be hung of a surety, and the rest be put in the
stocks and well whipt.”
“He will not be hung. No one will dare to touch him,” cried Prudence,
becoming excited again. “He is the best man in the world. He fetched my
father out of jail.”
“Nay, but if you are so spunky to say 'no' to your betters, 'tis time
you went. I know not what we are in the way to, when a chit of a maid
shall set me right,” said Mrs. Partridge, bristling up, and turning
disdainfully away.
But her indignation, at once forgotten in terror lest the doctor might
not come to her father, Prudence came after her and caught her sleeve,
and said with tones of entreaty, supported by eyes full of tears:
“Please, marm, don't mind what I said. Box my ears, marm, but please let
doctor come. Father coughs so bad.”
“I will tell him, and he will do as he sees fit,” said Mrs. Partridge,
stiffly, “and now run home, and do not put me out with your sauce
again.”
An hour or two later, the doctor's chaise stopped at the Hamlins.
Doctors, as well as other people, were plainer-spoken in those days,
especially in dealing with the poor. Dr. Partridge was a kind-hearted
man, but it did not occur to him as it does to his successors of our
day, to mince matters with patients, and cheer them up with hopeful
generalities, reserving the bitter truths to whisper in the ears of
their friends outside the door. After a look and a few words, he said to
Fennell:
“I can do you no good.”
“Shall I die?” asked the sick man, faintly.
“You may live a few weeks, but not longer. The disease has taken too
strong a hold.”
Fennell looked around the room. Prudence was not present.
“Don't tell Prudy,” he said.
As to Reuben, who was already looking much brighter than the preceding
night, the doctor said:
“He may get well,” and left a little medicine.
Perez, who had been in the room, followed him out of doors.
“Do you think my brother will get well?” he asked.
“I think so, if he does not have to go back to jail.”
“He will not go back unless I go with him,” said Perez.
“Well, I think it most likely you will,” replied the doctor dryly. “On
the whole, I should say his prospect of long life was better than yours,
if I am speaking to Perez Hamlin, the mob captain.”
“You mean I shall be hung?”
“And drawn and quartered,” amended the doctor, grimly. “That is the
penalty for treason, I believe.”
“Perhaps,” said Perez. “We shall see. There will be fighting before
hanging. At any rate, if I'm hung, it will be as long as it's short, for
Reub would have died if I hadn't got him out of jail.”
The doctor gathered up the reins.
“I want to thank you for coming,” said Perez. “You know, I s'pose, that
we are very poor, and can't promise much pay.”
“If you'll see that your mob doesn't give me such a serenade as it did
Squire Woodbridge last night, I'll call it square,” said the doctor, and
drove off.
Now, Meshech Little, the carpenter, had gone home and to bed towering
drunk the night before, after taking part as a leading performer in the
aforesaid serenade to the Squire. His sleep had been exceedingly dense,
and in the morning when it became time for him to go to his work, it was
only after repeated callings and shakings, that Mrs. Little was able to
elicit the first sign of wakefulness.
“You must get up,” she expostulated. “Sun's half way daown the west
post, an ye know how mad Deacon Nash'll be ef ye don' git don shinglin
his barn tidday.” After a series of heartrending groans and yawns,
Meshech, who had tumbled on the bed in his clothes, got up and stood
stretching and rubbing his eyes in the middle of the floor.
“By gosh, it's kinder tough,” he said, “I wuz jess a dreamin ez I wuz
latherin deakin. I'd jess swotted him one in the snout wen ye woke me,
an naow, by gorry, I've got tew go an work fer the critter.”
“An ye better hurry, tew,” urged his wife anxiously. “Ye know ye didn't
dew the fuss thing all day yis'dy.”
“Whar wuz I yis'dy?” asked Meshech, in whose confused faculties the only
distinct recollection was that he had been drunk.
“Ye went daown tew Barrington 'long with the crowd.”
Meshech was in the act of ducking his head in a bucket of water,
standing on a bench by the door, but at his wife's words he became
suddenly motionless as a statue, his nose close to the water. Then
he straightened sharply up and stared at her, the working of his eyes
showing that he was gathering up tangled skeins of recollection.
“Wal, I swow,” he finally ejaculated, with an astonished drawl, “ef I
hadn't a furgut the hull dum performance, an here I wuz a gittin up an
goin to work jess ez if court hadn't been stopped. Gosh, Sally, I guess
I be my own man tidday, ef I hev got a bad tas in my mouth. Gorry, it's
lucky I thort afore I wet my hed. I couldn't a gone tew sleep agin,” and
Meshech turned toward the bed, with apparent intention of resuming his
slumbers.
But Mrs. Little, though she knew there had been serious disturbances
the preceding day, could by no means bring her mind to believe that the
entire system of law and public authority had been thus suddenly and
completely overthrown, and she yet again adjured her husband, this time
by a more dreadful name, to betake himself to labor.
“Ef ye don' go to work, Meshech, Squire Woodbridge 'll hev ye in the
stocks fer gittin drunk. Deakin kin git ye put in any time he wants ter
complain on ye. Ye better not rile him.”
But at this Meshech, instead of being impressed, burst into a loud haw
haw.
“Yes'dy mornin ye could a scart me outer a week's growth a talkin baout
Squire, but, gol, ye'll have ter try suthen else naow. Wy don' ye know
we wuz a serenadin Squire with a hoss-fiddle till ten o'clock las'
night, an he didn' das show his nose outer doors.
“Gosh!” he continued, getting into bed and turning over toward the wall,
“I'd giv considabul, ef I could dream I wuz lickin Squire. Mebbe I
kin. Don' ye wake me up agin Sally,” and presently his regular snoring
proclaimed that he had departed to the free hunting grounds of dreamland
in pursuit of his desired game.
Now Meshech's was merely a representative case. He was by no means the
only workingman who that morning kept his bed warm to an unaccustomed
hour. Except such as had farms of their own to work on, or work for
themselves to do, there was scarcely any one in Stockbridge who went to
work. A large part of the labor by which the industries of the community
had been carried on, had been that of debtors working out their debts at
such allowance for wages as their creditor-employers chose to make them.
If they complained that it was too small, they had, indeed, their choice
to go to jail in preference to taking it, but no third alternative was
before them. Of these coolies, as we should call them in these days,
only a few who were either very timid, or ignorant of the full effect of
yesterday's doings, went to their usual tasks.
Besides the coolies, there was a small number of laborers who commanded
actual wages in produce or in money. Although there was no reason in
yesterday's proceedings, why these should not go to work as usual, yet
the spirit of revolt that was in the air, and the vague impression of
impending changes that were to indefinitely better the condition of the
poor, had so far affected them also, that the most took this day as a
holiday, with a hazy but pleasing notion that it was the beginning of
unlimited holidays.
All this idle element naturally drifted into the streets, and collected
in particular force on the green and about the tavern. By afternoon,
these groups, reënforced by those who had been busy at home during the
morning, began to assume the dimensions of a crowd. Widow Bingham,
at the tavern, had deemed it expedient to keep the right side of the
lawless element by a rather free extension of credit at the bar, and
there was a good deal of hilarity, which, together with the atmosphere
of excitement created by the recent stirring events, made it seem
quite like a gala occasion. Women and girls were there in considerable
numbers, the latter wearing their ribbons, and walking about in groups
together, or listening to their sweethearts, as each explained to a
credulous auditor, how yesterday's great events had hinged entirely on
the narrator's individual presence and prowess.
Some of the youths, the preceding night, had cut a tall sapling and set
it in the middle of the green, in front of the tavern. On the top of
this had been fixed the cocked hat of Justice Goodrich, brought as a
trophy from Great Barrington. This was the center of interest, the focus
of the crowd, a visible, palpable proof of the people's victory over
the courts, which was the source of inextinguishable hilarity. It was
evident, indeed, from the conversation of the children, that there
existed in the minds of those of tender years, some confusion as to the
previous ownership of the hat, and the circumstances connected with its
acquisition by the people. Some said that it was Burgoyne's hat, and
others that it was the hat of King George, himself, while the affair
of the day before at Great Barrington, was variously represented as a
victory over the redcoats, the Indians and the Tories. But, whatever
might be the differences of opinion on these minor points, the children
were uproariously agreed that there was something to be exceedingly
joyful about.
Next to the hat, two uncouth-looking machines which stood on the
green near the stocks, were the centers of interest. They were wooden
structures, somewhat resembling saw-horses. Beside each were several
boards, and close inspection would have shown that both the surface of
the horses and one side of these boards, were well smeared with rosin.
These were the horse-fiddles, contrived for the purpose of promoting
wakefulness by night, on the part of the silk stockings. Given plenty of
rosin, and a dozen stout fellows to each fiddle, drawing the boards
to and fro across the backs of the horses, pressing on hard, and the
resulting shrieks were something only to be imagined with the fingers in
the ears. The concert given to Squire Woodbridge the night previous,
had been an extemporized affair, with only one horse-fiddle, and
insufficient support from other instruments. To judge from the
conversation of the men and boys standing around, it was intended
to-night to give the Squire a demonstration which should quite
compensate him for the unsatisfactory nature of the former
entertainment, and leave him in no sort of doubt as to the sentiments
of the people toward the magistracy and silk stockings in general, and
himself in particular. A large collection of tin-pans had been made,
and the pumpkin vines of the vicinity had been dismantled for the
construction of pumpkinstalk trombones, provided with which, some
hundreds of small boys were to be in attendance.
Although the loud guffaws which from time to time were heard from the
group of men and hobbledehoys about the horse-fiddles on the green,
were evidence that the projected entertainment was not without comical
features as they looked at it, the aspect of the affair as viewed by
other eyes was decidedly tragical. Mrs. Woodbridge had long been sinking
with consumption, and the uproar and excitement of the preceding night
had left her in so prostrate a condition that Dr. Partridge had been
called in. During the latter part of her aunt's sickness Desire Edwards
had made a practice of running into her Uncle Jahleel's many times a day
to give a sort of oversight to the housekeeping, a department in which
she was decidedly more proficient than damsels of this day, of much less
aristocratic pretensions, find it consistent with their dignity to be.
The doctor and Desire were at this moment in the living-room, inspecting
through the closed shutters the preparations on the green for the
demonstration of the evening.
“Another such night will kill her, won't it, doctor?”
“I could not answer for the consequences,” replied the doctor, gravely.
“I could scarcely hazard giving her laudanum enough to carry her through
such a racket, and without sleep she cannot live another day.”
“What shall we do? What shall we do? Oh, poor Aunty! The brutes! The
brutes! Look at them over there laughing their great horse laughs. I
never liked to see them whipped before, when the constable whipped them,
but oh I shall like to after this. I should like to see them whipped
till the blood ran down,” cried the girl, tears of mingled grief and
anger filling her flashing eyes.
“I don't know when you are likely to have the opportunity,” said the
doctor, dryly. “At present they have the upper hand in town, and seem
very likely to keep it. We may thank our stars if the idea of whipping
some of us does not occur to them.”
“My father fears that they will plunder the store and perhaps murder us,
unless help comes soon.”
“There is no help to come,” said the doctor. “The militia are all in the
mob.”
“But is there nothing we can do? Must we let them murder Aunty before
our eyes?”
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, “if your Uncle Jahleel were to go out to the
mob this evening, and entreat them civilly, and beg them to desist by
reason of your aunt's sickness, they would hear to him.”
“Doctor! Doctor! you don't know my uncle,” cried Desire. “He would
sooner have Aunt Lucy die, and die himself, and have us all killed, than
stoop to ask a favor of the rabble.”
“I suppose it would be hard for him,” said the doctor, “and yet to save
your aunt's life maybe--”
“Oh I couldn't bear to have him do it,” interrupted Desire. “Poor Uncle!
I'd rather go out to the mob myself than have Uncle Jahleel. It would
kill him. He is so proud.”
The doctor walked across the room two or three times with knitted brow
and then paused and looked with a certain critical admiration at the
face of the girl to which excitement had lent an unusual brilliance.
“I will tell you,” he said, “the only way I see of securing a quiet
night to your aunt. Just go yourself and see this Hamlin who is the
captain of the mob, and make your petition to him. I had words with him
this morning. He is a well seeming fellow enough, and has a bold way of
speech that liked me well i' faith, though no doubt he's a great rascal
and well deserves a hanging.”
He paused, for Desire was confronting him, with a look that was a
peremptory interruption. Her eyes were flashing, her cheeks mantled with
indignant color, and the delicate nostrils were distended with scorn.
“Me, Desire Edwards, sue for favors of this low fellow! You forget
yourself strangely, Dr. Partridge.”
The doctor took his hat from the table and bowed low. “I beg your
pardon, Miss Desire. Possibly your aunt may live through the night,
after all,” and he went out of the house shrugging his shoulders.
Desire was still standing in the same attitude when a faint voice caught
her ear, and stepping to a door she opened it, and asked gently, “What
is it, Aunty?”
“Your uncle hasn't gone out, has he?” asked Mrs. Woodbridge, feebly.
“No, Aunty, he's in his study walking to and fro as he's been all day,
you know.”
“He musn't go out. I was afraid he'd gone out. Tell him I beg he will
not go out. The mob will kill him.”
“I don't think he will go, Aunty.”
“Do you think they will make that terrible noise again tonight.”
“I--I don't know. I'm afraid so, Aunt Lucy.”
“Oh dear,” sighed the invalid, with a moan of exhaustion, “it don't
seem as if I could live through it again, I'm so weak, and so tired. You
can't think, dear, how tired I am.”
Desire went in and shook up the pillows, and soothed the sick woman with
some little cares and then came out and shut the door. Her wide brimmed
hat of fine leghorn straw with a blue ostrich plume curled around the
crown, and a light cashmere shawl lay on the table. Perching the one a
trifle sideways on her dark brown curls, which were gathered simply in
a ribbon behind, according to the style of the day, she threw the shawl
about her shoulders, and knocked at the door of her Uncle Jahleel's
study, which also opened into the living-room, and was the apartment in
which he held court, when acting as magistrate. In response to the
knock the Squire opened the door. He looked as if he had had a fit
of sickness, so deeply had the marks of chagrin and despite impressed
itself on his face in the past two days.
“I'm going out for a little while,” said Desire, “and you will go to
Aunty, if she calls, won't you?”
Her uncle nodded and resumed his walking to and fro, and Desire,
stepping out of the house by a back way, went by a path across the
fields, toward Elnathan Hamlin's house.
The Hamlin house, like the houses of most of the poorer class of people,
had but two rooms on the ground floor, a small bedroom and a great
kitchen, in which the family lived, worked, cooked, ate and received
company. There were two doors opening into the kitchen from without, the
front door and the back door. On the former of these, there came a
light tap. Now callers upon the Hamlins, in general, just pulled
the latchstring and came in. Nobody tapped except the sheriff, the
constable, the tax-collector and the parson, and the latter's calls had
been rare since the family fortunes, never other than humble, had been
going from bad to worse. So that it was not without some trepidation,
which was shared by the family, that old Elnathan now rose from his seat
by the chimney corner and went and opened the door. A clear, soft voice,
with the effect of distinctness without preciseness, which betrays the
cultured class, was heard by those within, asking, “Is Captain Hamlin in
the house?”
“Do ye mean Perez?” parleyed Elnathan.
“Yes.”
“I b'leve he's somewheres raound. He's aout doin up the chores, I
callate. Did ye wanter see him?”
“If you please.”
“Wal, come in won't ye, an sid down, an I'll go aout arter him,” said
Elnathan, backing in and making way for the guest to enter.
“It's the Edwards gal,” he continued, in a feebly introductory manner,
as Desire entered.
Mrs. Hamlin hastily let down her sleeves, and glanced, a little
shamefacedly, at her linsey-woolsey short gown and coarse petticoat, and
then about the room, which was a good deal cluttered up, and small blame
to her, considering the sudden increase of her household cares. But it
was, nevertheless, with native dignity that she greeted her guest
and set her a chair, not allowing herself to be put out by the rather
fastidious way in which Desire held up her skirts.
“Sid down,” said Elnathan “an be kinder neighborly. She wants to see
Perez, mother. I dunno what baout, I'm sure. Ef he's a milkin naow I
s'pose I kin spell him so's he kin come in an see what she's a wantin of
him,” and the old man shuffled out the back door.
Desire sat down, calm and composed outwardly, but tingling in every
particle of her body with a revulsion of taste at the vulgarity of the
atmosphere, which almost amounted to nausea. But it may be doubted if
her dainty attire, her air of distinction, and the refined delicacy of
her flower-like face, had ever appeared to more advantage than as she
sat, inwardly fuming, on that rude chair, in that rude room, amid its
more or less clownish inmates. Prudence was very red in the face, and
confused. As housemaid in Mr. Woodbridge's family, she knew Desire well,
and felt a certain sort of responsibility for her on that account. She
did not know whether she ought to go and speak to her now, though Desire
took no notice of her. Reuben also had risen from his chair as she came
in, and still stood awkwardly leaning on the back of it, not seeming
sure if he ought to sit down again or not. Fennell, too sick to care,
was the only self-possessed person in the room. It was a relief to all
when the noise of feet at the door indicated the return of Elnathan
with Perez, but the running explanations of the former which his senile
treble made quite audible through the door, were less reassuring.
“Can't make aout what in time she wants on ye. Mebbe she's tuk a shine
to ye, he, he, I dunno. Ye uster be allers arter her when ye wuz a young
un.”
“Hush father, she'll hear,” said Perez, and opening the door came into
the kitchen.
Desire arose to her feet as he did so, and their eyes met. He would have
known her anywhere, in spite of the nine years since he had seen her.
The small oval of the sparkling gypsy face, the fine features, so
mobile and piquant, he instantly recognized from the portrait painted in
undying colors upon his youthful imagination.
“Are you Captain Hamlin?” she said.
“I hope you remember Perez Hamlin,” he answered.
“I remember the name,” she replied coldly. “I am told that you command
the--the men”--she was going to say mob--“in the village.”
“I believe so,” he answered. He was thinking that those red lips of hers
had once kissed his, that August morning when he stood on the green,
ready to march with the minute men.
“My Aunt Woodbridge is very sick. If your men make a noise again in
front of my uncle's house, she will die. I came to--to ask”--she had to
say it--“you to prevent it.”
“I will prevent it,” said Perez.
Desire dropped an almost imperceptible curtsey, raised the latch of the
door and went out.
All through the interview, even when she had overheard Elnathan's
confidences to Perez, at the door, her cheeks had not betrayed her by a
trace of unusual color, but now as she hurried home across the fields,
they burned with shame, and she fairly choked to think of the vulgar
familiarity to which she had submitted, and the abject attitude she had
assumed to this farmer's son. She remembered well enough that childish
kiss, and saw in his eyes that he remembered it. This perception had
added the last touch to her humiliation.
But Perez went out and wandered into the wood-lot and sat down on a
fallen tree, and stared a long time into vacancy with glowing eyes.
He had dreamed of Desire a thousand times during his long absence
from home, but since his return, so vehement had been the pressure of
domestic troubles, so rapid the rush of events, that he had not had time
to once think of her existence, up to the moment when she had confronted
him there in the kitchen, in a beauty at once the same, and so much more
rare, and rich and perfect, than that which had ruled his boyish dreams.
Presently he went down to the tavern. The crowd of men and boys on the
green received him with quite an ovation. Shaking hands right and left
with the men, he went on to the tavern, and finding Abner smoking on the
bench outside the door, drew him aside and asked him to see that there
was no demonstration in front of Woodbridge's that evening. Abner
grumbled a little.