Barbara Ladd Part 16

Barbara clapped her hands with gleeful approbation, but her comment brought a new rose to Mistress Mehitable's face.

"If I didn't love you so much, Uncle Bob," said she, "I'd tell Doctor John and Doctor Jim." And from the fact that she felt embarra.s.sed by this raillery, the conscientious Mistress Mehitable was almost ready to believe she had done wrong.

The dinner was at two o'clock--an extremely formal hour for Second Westings; and a further element of formality was added by the presence of the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer, which effectually removed it from the category of family affairs. These outsiders, however, were a kindly pair, and cast no serious shadow upon the gathering. The Reverend Jonathan kept his austerity pretty strictly for the Sabbath; and being both well-bred and well educated, knew how on occasion to lay aside his cloth without sacrifice of dignity or prestige. He was something of a _bon vivant_, too, in his scholarly way, and among folk who were unimpeachably of his own cla.s.s. And his judgment on a b.u.t.t of Madeira or a hogshead of old West India rum was accounted second to none in Second Westings. His hands were long and white, and he used them with impressive pulpit-gestures to point his carefully constructed witticisms. His presence was favourably regarded even by Barbara, who appreciated his brains and breeding in spite of certain disastrous a.s.sociations which she could never quite erase from her memory. His wife was a non-significant, abundant, gently acquiescent pudding of a woman, not without her utility as a background; and no one but Barbara had the slightest objection to her presence. But Barbara, having a fierce impatience of nonent.i.ties in general unless they chanced to be animals instead of human beings, felt critical when her eyes fell upon the good lady's expansive red bosom. She could not refrain from a private grimace at Doctor John, and from whispering in his ear an acrid comment on the inviting of a feather-bed to dinner. She was greatly disconcerted, however, when Doctor John roared aloud; and, crediting the good lady with an intuition quite foreign to her placid substance, her conscience smote her smartly for the unkind comment. By calculated chance she managed to let herself drift into the scant, unoccupied corner of the sofa on which Mrs. Sawyer was sitting; and for the long half-hour before dinner was served she beguiled the good lady most successfully with thrilling descriptions of the presents which Glenowen had brought. Mistress Sawyer was dearly fond of dining; but so enthralled did she become in the description of Mistress Mehitable's French night-rail that she did not hear when dinner was announced.

Then Barbara escaped, with an appet.i.te and a proud conscience; and proceeded to deal Robert a cruel blow by seating herself as far away from him as possible, between Glenowen and Doctor Jim, who wisely avoided trouble by avoiding interference on the dejected youth's behalf.

Doctor John and Doctor Jim being both tenacious of old Connecticut customs, the dinner began with a pudding of boiled Yokeag, or maize meal, stuffed with raisins and suet, and eaten with a rich sauce. Then came fish and meats in lavish variety, with ripe old ale, followed by elaborate confections, nuts and fruits, and a fiery, high-flavoured Madeira. With the Madeira came eloquence in conversation, and the elaborate interchange of repartee and compliment deepened into a discussion of the great matters which at that hour filled men's minds.

Barbara tried by daring gaieties to stem the tide of seriousness, which seemed to her incongruous with the nuts and wine. But she was swept away, at first reluctantly, then willingly; for, during the past two years, in the intervals of fighting her aunt and loving her cats, dogs, and horses, she had studied history, both colonial and English, with a characteristic, avid zeal, and now had a pretty foundation of theory under her seemingly reckless conclusions.

In response to many interrogations, Glenowen had given at some length and with temperate fairness an account of the latest difference in Virginia between the royal governor and the stiff-necked House of Burgesses. As the result of this lamentable clash of authorities, the House had been dissolved, the Old Dominion was being governed in a fashion contrary to the terms of her long-cherished charter, and the trade of the colony was disastrously shrunken, because her people were refusing to import goods subject to duties which they had not themselves imposed. "When men and women begin to deny themselves voluntarily for the sake of a principle, whether it be right or wrong,"

continued Glenowen, "it is time for those at the helm to consider clearly the course on which they are steering the ship of state!"

"When kings lay hands on charters, free men rise up armed," said the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, rolling the polished phrase with a relish.

The sentiment sounded so at variance with those which he was commonly held to cherish, that every one looked at him for a moment in silent question.

"I speak but in the abstract," he explained, waving a white hand airily. "In the concrete the question baffles me, and I wait for light!"

"I confess I am astounded at Virginia," said Doctor Jim, in a great voice, solemn with reprobation. "Virginia, colony of gentlemen, siding with the rabble against the king! Where are Virginia's aristocrats?"

"Would you impugn the gentility of Mr. Washington?" inquired Doctor John, mildly.

"Yes, I would, John Pigeon," snapped Doctor Jim, "or of any one else who did not show his gentility by his deeds. And so would you, if you were not a bit tarred with the same dirty brush as Mr. Washington."

"Don't you think," ventured Robert, with diffidence, "that our grievance--for, of course, there is a grievance, Doctor Jim--is against the English Parliament? What is Parliament to us, that we should bow down to it, when we have always had parliaments of our own? What's sacred in Parliament? But the king,--that's a question of loyalty.

What's a gentleman without loyalty? Surely the gentry must stand or fall with the king! Surely--"

"What nonsense, Robert!" interrupted Barbara, severely scornful, indignant at him for his views, but grateful to him for the opportunity to express her own with point. "Who was it that whipped King John into submission, and made him sign Magna Charta? Was it the riffraff or the gentry, I'd like to know? Where there is a real aristocracy, Robert, there is no need of kings!"

"Barbara, dear!" cried Mistress Mehitable, appalled at this sweeping heterodoxy. But the others laughed, with varying degrees of sympathy or dissent. Doctor Jim wagged his head.

"That's right, Robert, my boy," said he, sympathetically. "You draw her fire, and let me skirmish around. That's the kind of thing I get continually!"

"Is it true," inquired Doctor John, "that that clear and capacious intellect, James Otis, is permanently clouded since the wound he got in the affair with the king's officers?"

"''Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true!'" quoted Glenowen.

"A fine brain wasted in a smuggler's brawl. I take it there's no wisdom to waste, among either Tories or Whigs, these days,--for these days are big with Fate!"

"Uncle Bob!" said Barbara, fixing him with a wide, level look, "what are you, Whig or Tory? You seem so careful!"

Glenowen laughed.

"You insist on pinning me down to it, do you, saucy hussy? Well, I wish I knew! I think there are some hundred thousand or more of honest men in these colonies who are trying to find out which they really are, right to the bone. But I can tell you in part. For one thing, I am an Englishman, just as much an Englishman here as if I lived in England!

Do you know what that means?"

"No!" said Barbara, bluntly, dissatisfied at this caution when she counted on a hot partisanship.

"It means that I will not be taxed save by my own consent! I am too good an Englishman to let Englishmen in England treat me as less than an Englishman because I am a colonist. But I am no leveller. I have no patience with the doctrine of those sentimental Frenchmen who promulgate the palpable folly that all men are born equal. I am loyal to the king,--or, perhaps, rather, I should say, to the throne, which seems to me just now unfortunate in its occupant. But I will not pay a tax imposed by those who have no right to tax me! I would fight first.

I stand on Magna Charta."

"Then you are a patriot now, Uncle Bob," said Barbara, fairly satisfied, "and before long you will be a rebel! You wait and see!

You're all afraid to say it, but before long the colonies will be fighting King George!"

There were exclamations of protest from every one, even Doctor John, the avowed and consistent Whig,--every one but Glenowen, who smiled thoughtfully at Barbara's rashness.

"Tut! Tut! You little fire-eater!" exclaimed Doctor John. "You mustn't bring discredit on your party! We will fight with const.i.tutional weapons for our just rights, and bring that pig-headed George to his senses. We must teach him to reign properly, and not to meddle, that's all. No throat-cuttings in the English family!"

"It would break my heart to fight against my countrymen," said Robert, earnestly. "But if they should be so misguided as to take up arms against the king, I should have no doubt as to my duty. The king may be unjust; but if so, the injustice will doubtless be remedied by and by. But better, surely, suffer some injustice than be traitor to your king." This speech took courage on Robert's part, with Barbara's eyes blazing scorn upon him. But he looked into vacancy, and made his confession of faith regardless of consequence.

"You fatigue me, Robert!" said Barbara. "Would you rather betray your country than your king? Was the country made for the king? What's a king? Greece and Rome did pretty well without them!"

"What's this stuff and nonsense about fighting?" broke in Doctor Jim, ignoring Barbara's argument as the chatter of a child. "Stuff and nonsense! The notion of our clodhoppers standing up to the king's soldiers, who have whipped the armies of the world! It is easy for demagogues to rant, but they'd find it still easier to run!"

"I fear you all underrate the peril--except this sauce-box here!" said Glenowen, soberly. "And you, Pigeon, are like the king's purblind advisers in underrating the spirit of the people. It is not a noisy, but a sullen temper that seems to be spreading. And clodhoppers are not all cowards! And those who call themselves patriots are not all clodhoppers."

"But who among our people can be so suicidal as to think of war?" asked the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, taking a contemplative pinch of snuff.

"To fight a hopeless battle, and in inevitable defeat lose all!"

"It is not the people who think of war as yet!" said Glenowen. "But the arrogant soldiery, the blindly self-confident officials, the insolent English officers, who seem chosen not to conciliate but to enrage. So many of the officers sent out here do dishonour to the repute of English gentlemen. They seem to look on colonists as a subject race. I have seen them, in New York and in Boston, treat our ladies with an insufferable condescension, such as they would never have dared to show toward the same ladies in England. And I have seen them studiously insolent to colonial gentlemen of birth and breeding far above their own, as if the accident of being born in the mother country instead of in America made them another race. Such conduct, while unimportant in itself, rankles deeply, and sets the two branches of the race in antagonism. Personal affront is mightier than argument, and men cannot overlook a slight to their women."

"I should think not!" cried Robert, loftily. "I would shed the last drop of my blood for the king, but I should not let the king himself put slight upon one of our ladies! I wonder you could endure to see such things, Mr. Glenowen!"

"I did not!" confessed Glenowen. "I have had several differences of late!"

Barbara's eyes sparkled, and her lips parted eagerly over her white teeth.

"You fought them, Uncle Bob! You fought them!" she cried. "Real duels! How many did you fight? Oh, how lovely!"

"Two, sweetheart, I'm sorry to say!" replied Glenowen, modestly. "It was very inconvenient and annoying, because I have so many responsibilities and could not afford to be skewered."

"And how did you come off?" asked Doctor John, leaning far over the table in his eagerness.

"Nothing but a scratch or two, thanks to the righteousness of my cause!" said Glenowen.

"And the other chaps?" inquired Doctor Jim. "Doubtless they were low-bred scoundrels, whom London would have none of! I hope you p.r.i.c.ked 'em!"

"I wish I could feel sure that their manners had mended as well as their wounds!" laughed Glenowen, gaily.

Then, to Barbara's ill-concealed disgust, Mistress Mehitable led the way into the drawing-room, leaving the men to smoke long pipes and thrash out problems of const.i.tutional law to the accompaniment of the fiery old Madeira. In the drawing-room she was moody and silent, grudging all the arguments that were going on without her. And when Robert, who felt himself too unseasoned to stay with his elders beyond one pipe and an extra gla.s.s, followed the ladies at a decent interval, Barbara received him far from graciously. His last speech, in comment on the insolence of the officers, had mollified her a little, but she felt a smart resentment at his presumption in maintaining views so opposite to hers.

"I should think you would stay with the other men," she said, tartly.

"I couldn't stay a moment longer," said Robert, gallantly, "for longing to be with the most fair if _not_ the most gracious of ladies!"

"You had better go back and learn something about your duty to your country, by listening to Doctor John and Uncle Bob!" she counselled, rudely.

Robert bowed low, having himself just now well in hand, though his heart was sore.

"I take great pleasure in listening to them, as well as to Doctor Jim, who also seems intelligent!" said he.