Return of madame—The Domine leaves his people—Fulfilment of his
predictions.
MADAME now returned to town with the colonel, and finding this general
disorder and division of sentiments with regard to the pastor, as well
as to the adoption of new modes, endeavoured, with her usual good sense,
to moderate and to heal. She was always of opinion that the increase of
wealth should be accompanied with a proportionate progress in refinement
and intelligence; but she had a particular dislike to peoples forsaking
a respectable plainness of dress and manners, for mere imperfect
imitation and inelegant finery. She knew too well the progress of
society to expect, that, as it grew wealthy and numerous, it would
retain its pristine purity; but then she preferred a gradual abolition
of old habits, that people, as they receded from their original modes of
thinking and living, might rather become simply elegant than tawdrily
fine; and though she all along wished, in every possible way, to promote
the comfort of the brave men to whom the country owed so much, she by no
means thought an indiscriminate admission of those strangers among the
youth of the place, so unpractised in the ways of the world, an
advisable measure: she was particularly displeased with the person in
whose house the colonel of the regiment lodged, for so entirely
domesticating a showy stranger, of whose real character he knew so
little.—Liberal and judicious in her views, she did not altogether
approve the austerity of the Domine’s opinions, nor the vehemence of his
language; and, as a Christian, she still less approved his dejection and
concern at the neglect or rudeness of a few thoughtless young persons.
In vain the colonel and madame soothed and cheered him with counsel and
with kindness; night and day he mused on the imagined insult; nor could
the joint efforts of the most respectable inhabitants prevent his heart
from being corroded with the sense of imagined unkindness. At length he
took the resolution of leaving those people so dear to him, to visit his
friends in Holland, promising to return in a short time, whenever his
health was restored, and his spirits more composed. A Dutch ship
happened about this time to touch at New-York, on board of which the
Domine embarked; but as the vessel belonging to Holland was not expected
to return, and he did not, as he had promised, either write or return in
an English ship, his congregation remained for a great while unsupplied,
while his silence gave room for the most anxious and painful
conjectures: these were not soon removed, for the intercourse with
Holland was not frequent or direct. At length, however, the sad reality
was but too well ascertained. This victim of lost popularity had
appeared silent and melancholy to his ship-mates, and walked constantly
on deck. At length he suddenly disappeared, leaving it doubtful whether
he had fallen overboard by accident, or was prompted by despair to
plunge into eternity. If this latter was the case, it must have been the
consequence of a temporary fit of insanity; for no man had led a more
spotless life, and no man was more beloved by all that were intimately
known to him. He was, indeed, before the fatal affront, which made such
an undue impression on him, considered as a blessing to the place; and
his memory was so beloved, and his fate so regretted, that this, in
addition to some other occurrences falling out about the same time,
entirely turned the tide of opinion, and rendered the thinking as well
as the violent party, more averse to innovations than ever. Had the
Albanians been Catholics, they would probably have canonized M.
Freylinghausen, whom they considered as a martyr to levity and
innovation. He prophesied a great deal; such prophecy as ardent and
comprehensive minds have delivered, without any other inspiration but
that of the sound, strong intellect, which augurs the future from a
comparison of the past, and a rational deduction of probable
consequences. The affection that was entertained for his memory induced
people to listen to the most romantic stories of his being landed on an
island, and become a hermit; taken up into a ship when floating on the
sea, into which he had accidentally fallen, and carried to some remote
country, from which he was expected to return, fraught with experience
and faith. I remember some of my earliest reveries to have been occupied
by the mysterious disappearance of this hard-fated pastor.
In the mean while new events were unfolding more fully to the Albanians
the characters of their lately acquired friends. Scandal of fifty years
standing, must, by this time, have become almost pointless. The house
where the young colonel, formerly mentioned, was billetted, and made his
quarters good by every art of seductive courtesy, was occupied by a
person wealthy, and somewhat vain and shallow, who had an only daughter;
I am not certain, but I think she was his only child. She was young,
lively, bold, conceited, and exceedingly well looking. Artless and
fearless of consequences, this thoughtless creature saw every day a
person who was no doubt as much pleased with her as one could be with
mere youth, beauty, and kindness, animated by vivacity, and
distinguished from her companions by all the embellishments which wealth
could procure in that unfashioned quarter; his heart, however, was safe,
as will appear from the sequel. Madame foresaw the consequences likely
to result from an intimacy daily growing, where there was little
prudence on the one side, and as little of that honour which should
respect unsuspecting innocence on the other. She warned the family, but
in vain; they considered marriage as the worst consequence that could
ensue; and this they could not easily have been reconciled to,
notwithstanding the family and fortune of the lover, had not his address
and attentions charmed them into a kind of tacit acquiescence; for, as a
Roman citizen, in the proud days of the republic, would have refused his
daughter to a king, an Albanian, at one period, would rather have his
daughter married to the meanest of his fellow-citizens, than to a person
of the highest rank in the army, because they thought a young person, by
such a marriage, was not only forever alienated from her family, but
from those pure morals and plain manners, in which they considered the
greatest possible happiness to exist. To return:
While these gaieties were going on, and the unhappy Domine embarking on
the voyage which terminated his career, an order came for the colonel to
march. This was the only commander who had ever been in town, who had
not spent any time, or asked any counsel at the Flats. Meanwhile, his
Calista, (for such she was,) tore her hair in frantic agonies at his
departure; not that she in the least doubted of his returning soon to
give a public sanction to their union, but lest he should prove a victim
to the war then existing; and because, being very impetuous, and
unaccustomed to control, the object of her wishes had been delayed to a
future period. In a short time, things began to assume a more serious
aspect; and her father came one day posting to the Flats, on his way to
the lakes, seeking counsel too late, and requesting the aid of their
influence to bring about a marriage, which should cover the disgrace of
his family. They had little hopes of his success, yet he proceeded; and
finding the colonel deaf to all his arguments, he had recourse to
entreaty, and finally offered to divest himself of all but a mere
subsistence, and give him such a fortune as was never heard of in that
country. This, with an angel, as the fond father thought her, appeared
irresistible; but no! heir to a considerable fortune in his own country,
and, perhaps, inwardly despising a romp, whom he had not considered from
the first as estimable, he was not to be soothed or bribed into
compliance. The dejected father returned disconsolate; and the
astonishment and horror this altogether novel occurrence occasioned in
the town, was not to be described. Of such a circumstance there was no
existing precedent; half the city were related to the fair culprit, for
penitent she could hardly be called. This unexpected refusal threw the
whole city into consternation. One would have thought there had been an
earthquake; and all the insulted Domine’s predictions rose to
remembrance, armed with avenging terrors.
Many other things occurred to justify the Domine’s caution, and the
extreme reluctance which the elders of the land showed to all such
associations. All this madame greatly lamented, yet could not acquit the
parties concerned, whose duty it was, either to keep their daughters
from that society for which their undisguised simplicity of heart
unfitted them, or give them that culture and usage of life, which
enables a young person to maintain a certain dignity, and to revolt at
the first trespass on decorum. Her own protégés were instances of this;
who, having their minds early stored with sentiments, such as would
enable them truly to estimate their own value, and judge of the
characters and pretensions of those who conversed with them; all
conducted themselves with the utmost propriety, though daily mixing with
strangers, and were solicited in marriage by the first people in the
province, who thought themselves happy to select companions from such a
school of intelligence and politeness, where they found beauty of the
first order informed by mind, and graced by the most pleasing manners.
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