Queechy Volume I Part 17

"And was that the general spirit of the ranks?"

"Not altogether," replied the old gentleman, pa.s.sing his hand several times abstractedly over his white hair, a favourite gesture with him, ? "not exactly that ? there was a good deal of mixture of different materials, especially in this state; and where the feeling wasn't pretty strong, it was no wonder if it got tired out; but the real stuff, the true Yankee blood, was pretty firm! Ay, and some of the rest! There was a good deal to try men in those days. Sir, I have seen many a time when I had nothing to dine upon but my fife, and it was more than that could do to keep me from feeling very empty!"

"But was this a common case? did this happen often?" said Mr.

Carleton.

"Pretty often ? pretty often, sometimes," answered the old gentleman. "Things were very much out of order, you see, and in some parts of the country it was almost impossible to get the supplies the men needed. Nothing would have kept them together, ? nothing under heaven ? but the love and confidence they had in one name. Their love of right and independence wouldn't have been strong enough, and besides a good many of them got disheartened. A hungry stomach is a pretty stout arguer against abstract questions. I have seen my father crying like a child for the wants and sufferings he was obliged to see, and couldn't relieve."

"And then you used to relieve yourselves, grandpa," said Fleda.

"How was that, Fairy?"

Fleda looked at her grandfather, who gave a little preparatory laugh, and pa.s.sed his hand over his head again.

"Why, yes," said he, ? "we used to think the tories, King George's men, you know, were fair game; and when we happened to be in the neighbourhood of some of them that we knew were giving all the help they could to the enemy, we used to let them cook our dinners for us once in a while."

"How did you manage that, Sir?"

"Why, they used to have little bake-ovens to cook their meats and so on, standing some way out from the house, ? did you never see one of them? ? raised on four little heaps of stone; the bottom of the oven is one large flat stone, and the arch built over it; ? they look like a great beehive. Well ? we used to watch till we saw the good woman of the house get her oven cleverly heated, and put in her batch of bread, or her meat-pie, or her pumpkin and apple pies! ? whichever it was ?

there didn't any of 'em come much amiss ? and when we guessed they were pretty nigh done, three or four of us would creep in and whip off the whole ? oven and all! ? to a safe place. I tell you," said he, with a knowing nod of his head at the laughing Fleda, ? "those were first-rate pies!"

"And then did you put the oven back again afterwards, grandpa?"

"I guess not often, dear!" replied the old gentleman.

"What do you think of such lawless proceedings, Miss Fleda?"

said Mr. Carleton, laughing at or with her.

"O, I like it," said Fleda. "You liked those pies all the better, didn't you, grandpa, because you had got them from the tories?"

"That we did! If we hadn't got them, maybe King George's men would, in some shape. But we weren't always so lucky as to get hold of an oven full. I remember one time several of us had been out on a foraging expedition ? there, Sir, what do you think of that for a two-and-a-half year old?"

They had come up with the chief favourite of his barnyard, a fine deep-coloured Devon bull.

"I don't know what one might see in Devonshire," he remarked, presently, "but I know _this_ county can't show the like of him?"

A discussion followed of the various beauties and excellencies of the animal; a discussion in which Mr. Carleton certainly took little part, while Mr. Ringgan descanted enthusiastically upon "hide" and "brisket" and "bone," and Rossitur stood in an abstraction ? it might be scornful, it might be mazed. Little Fleda quietly listening and looking at the beautiful creature, which from being such a treasure to her grandfather was in a sort one to her, more than half understood them all; but Mr.

Ringgan was too well satisfied with the attention of one of his guests to miss that of the other.

"That fellow don't look as if _he_ had ever known short commons," was Rossitur's single remark as they turned away.

"You did not give us the result of your foraging expedition, Sir," said Mr. Carleton, in a different manner.

"Do, grandpa," said Fleda, softly.

"Ha! ? Oh, it is not worth telling," said the old gentleman, looking gratified; ? "Fleda has heard my stories till she knows them by heart ? she could tell it as well herself. What was it? ? about the pig? ? We had been out, several of us, one afternoon, to try to get up a supper ? or a dinner, for we had had none ? and we had caught a pig. It happened that I was the only one of the party that had a cloak, and so the pig was given to me to carry home, because I could hide it the best.

Well, Sir! ? we were coming home, and had set our mouths for a prime supper, when just as we were within a few rods of our shanty, who should come along but our captain! My heart sank as it never has done at the thought of a supper before or since, I believe! I held my cloak together as well as I could, and kept myself back a little, so that if the pig showed a cloven foot behind me, the captain might not see it. But I almost gave up all for lost when I saw the captain going into the hut with us. There was a kind of a rude bedstead standing there; and I set myself down upon the side of it, and gently worked and eased my pig off under my cloak till I got him to roll down behind the bed. I knew," said Mr. Ringgan, laughing, "I knew by the captain's eye, as well as I knew anything, that he smelt a rat; but he kept our counsel, as well as his own; and when he was gone we took the pig out into the woods behind the shanty and roasted him finely, and we sent and asked Capt.

Sears to supper; and he came and helped us eat the pig with a great deal of appet.i.te, and never asked no questions how we came by him!"

"I wonder your stout-heartedness did not fail, in the course of so long a time," said Mr. Carleton

"Never, Sir!'" said the old gentleman. "I never doubted for a moment what the end would be. My father never doubted for a moment. We trusted in G.o.d and in Washington!"

"Did you see actual service yourself?"

"No, Sir ? I never did. I wish I had. I should like to have had the honour of striking one blow at the rascals. However, they were hit pretty well. I ought to be contented. My father saw enough of fighting ? he was colonel of a regiment ? he was at the affair of Burgoyne. _That_ gave us a lift in good time.

What rejoicing there was everywhere when that news came! I could have fifed all day upon an empty stomach and felt satisfied. People reckoned everywhere that the matter was settled when that great piece of good fortune was given us.

And so it was! ? wa'n't it, dear?" said the old gentleman, with one of those fond, pleased, sympathetic looks to Fleda with which he often brought up what he was saying.

"General Gates commanded there?" said Mr. Carleton.

"Yes, Sir. Gates was a poor stick ? I never thought much of him. That fellow Arnold distinguished himself in the actions before Burgoyne's surrender. He fought like a brave man. It seems strange that so mean a scamp should have had so much blood in him!"

"Why; are great fighters generally good men, grandpa?" said Fleda.

Not exactly, dear!" replied her grandfather; ? "but such little-minded rascality is not just the vice one would expect to find in a gallant soldier."

"Those were times that made men," said Mr. Carleton, musingly.

"Yes," answered the old gentleman, gravely, ? "they were times that called for men, and G.o.d raised them up. But Washington was the soul of the country, Sir!"

"Well, the time made him," said Mr. Carleton.

"I beg your pardon," said the old gentleman, with a very decided little turn of his head. ? "I think he made the time.

I don't know what it would have been, Sir, or what it would have come to, but for him. After all, it is rather that the things which try people show what is in them; ? I hope there are men enough in the country yet, though they haven't as good a chance to show what they are."

"Either way," said his guest, smiling, "it is a happiness, Mr.

Ringgan, to have lived at a time when there was something worth living for."

"Well ? I don't know ?" said the old gentleman; ? "those times would make the prettiest figure in a story or a romance, I suppose; but I've tried both, and on the whole," said he, with another of his looks at Fleda, "I think I like these times the best!"

Fleda smiled her acquiescence. His guest could not help thinking to himself that however pacific might be Mr.

Ringgan's temper, no man in those days that tried men could have brought to the issue more stern inflexibility and gallant fort.i.tude of bearing. His frame bore evidence of great personal strength, and his eye, with all its mildness, had an unflinching dignity that _could_ never have quailed before duty or danger. And now, while he was recalling with great animation and pleasure the scenes of his more active life, and his blue eye was shining with the fire of other days, his manner had the self-possession and quiet sedateness of triumph that bespeak a man always more ready to do than to say.

Perhaps the contemplation of the n.o.ble Roman-like old figure before him did not tend to lessen the feeling, even the sigh, of regret with which the young man said,

"There was something then for a man to do!"

"There is always that," said the old gentleman, quietly. "G.o.d has given every man his work to do; and 'tain't difficult for him to find out what. No man is put here to be idle."

"But," said his companion, with a look in which not a little haughty reserve was mingled with a desire to speak out his thoughts, "half the world are busy about humdrum concerns, and the other half doing nothing, or worse."

"I don't know about that," said Mr. Ringgan; ? "that depends upon the way you take things. 'Tain't always the men that make the most noise that are the most good in the world. Humdrum affairs needn't be humdrum in the doing of 'em. It is my maxim," said the old gentleman, looking at his companion with a singularly open, pleasant smile, ? "that a man may be great about a'most anything ? chopping wood, if he happens to be in that line. I used to go upon that plan, Sir. Whatever I have set my hand to do, I have done it as well as I knew how to; and if you follow that rule out you'll not be idle nor humdrum neither. Many's the time that I have mowed what would be a day's work for another man, before breakfast."

Rossitur's smile was not meant to be seen. But Mr. Carleton's, to the credit of his politeness and his understanding both, was frank as the old gentleman's own, as he answered, with a good-humoured shake of his head,

"I can readily believe it, Sir; and honour both your maxim and your practice. But I am not exactly in that line."