The Chainbearer Part 83

"Vell, den, you most alter your whole c.o.o.ntry. You might not haf wifes und children; you might not lif in houses; and plough de landt; you might not eat und drink; and you might not wear any shirt."

Tubbs looked a little astonished. Like the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, he was amazed to find he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it. There is no question that laws unsuitable to the inst.i.tutions of a republic might exist in a kingdom, but it is equally certain that the law which compels the tenant to pay for the use of his house or farm is not one of the number. Tubbs, however, had been so thoroughly persuaded, by dint of talking, there was something exceedingly anti-republican in one man's paying rent to another, that he was not disposed to give the matter up so easily.

"Ay, ay," he answered, "we have many things in common with kingdoms as _men_, I must allow; but why should we have anything in common of this aristocratic natur'? A free country should contain freemen, and how _can_ a man be free if he doesn't own the land out of which he makes his living?"

"Und if he makes his lifin' out of anoder man's land, he might be honest enough to pay for its use, I d.i.n.ks."

"But, we hold it _ought_ not to be another man's land, but the land of him who works it."

"Dell me dis--dost you efer let out a field to a poor neighbor on shares?"

"Sartain; we will do that, both to accommodate folks, and to get crops when we are crowded with work ourselves."

"Und why might not all dat crop pelong to him dat works de field?"

"Oh! that's doin' business on a small scale, and can't do anybody harm.

But the American inst.i.tutions never intended that there should be a great privileged cla.s.s among us, like the lords in Europe."

"Did you efer haf any difficulty in getting your hire for a field dat might be so let out?"

"Sartain. There's miserable neighbors as well as them that isn't. I had to sue the very last chap I had such dealin's with."

"Und dit das law let you haf your money?"

"To be sure it did! What would law be good for, if it didn't help a body to his rights?"

"Und dost den tenants of dis broperty let Hugh Littlebage haf his rents, as might be due?"

"That's a different thing, I tell you. Hugh Littlepage has more than he wants, and spends his money in riotous livin' in foreign parts."

"Vell, und sooppose your neighpors might vants to ask you what you do wit' your tollars after you shall sell your pork and beef, to see you mate goot use of it--might dat be liperty?"

"That! Why, who do you think would trouble himself about my 'arnin's.

It's the big fish only that folks talk about, and care about, in such matters."

"Den folks make Hugh Littlebage a big fish, by dair own mettlin', und enfy, und cofetousness--is it not so?"

"Harkee, fri'nd, I some think you're leanin' yourself to kingly ways, and to the idees in which you was brought up. Take my advice, and abandon all these notions as soon as you can, for they'll never be popular in this part of the world."

Popular! How broad has the signification of this word got to be! In the eyes of two-thirds of the population it already means, "what is right."

_Vox populi, vox dei!_ To what an extent is this little word made to entwine itself around all the interests of life! When it is deemed expedient to inculcate certain notions in the minds of the people, the first argument used is to endeavor to persuade the inhabitants of New York that the inhabitants of Pennsylvania are already of that mind. A simulated public opinion is the strongest argument used, indeed, on every occasion of the public discussion of any disputed point. He that can count the most voices is a better man than he who can give the most reasons; numbers carrying more weight with them than facts or law. It is evident, that, while in some things, such a system may work well, there are others, and those of overshadowing importance, in which its tendency is direct and fearful toward corruption.

As soon as Tubbs had given his admonition, he applied the whip to his horse, and trotted on, leaving us to follow at the best gait we could extort from Tom Miller's hack.

CHAPTER XVII.

"If he were with me, King of Tuscarora, Gazing as I upon thy portrait now, In all its medalled, fringed, and bearded glory, Its eyes' dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow--

"Its brow, half martial, half diplomatic; Its eye, upsoaring, like an eagle's wings; Well might he boast that we, the democratic, Outrival Europe--even in our kings."--_Red Jacket._

My uncle Ro said nothing when the two tenants left us; though I saw, by his countenance, that he felt all the absurdity of the stuff we had just been listening to. We had got within half a mile of the woods, when eight Injins came galloping up to a wagon that was directly behind us, which contained another of my tenants, with his eldest son, a lad of sixteen, whom he had brought with him as a scholar, in having his sense of right unsettled by the selfish mystification that was going on in the land; a species of fatherly care that was of very questionable merit. I said there were eight of these Injins, but there were only four horses, each beast carrying double. No sooner did the leaders of the party reach the wagon I have mentioned, than it was stopped, and its owner was commanded to alight. The man was a decided down-renter, but he obeyed the order with a very ill-grace; and did not obey at all, indeed, until he was helped out of the wagon, by a little gentle violence of this fragment of his own _corps d'armee_. The boy was soon put into the highway, when two of the "disguised and armed" leaped into the vacant places, and drove on, pa.s.sing us at a furious pace, making a parting nod to the owner of the vehicle, and consoling him for its temporary loss by calling out, "Injin want him--Injin good fellow, you know."

Whether the discomfited farmer _knew_ or not, we could not tell; but he _looked_ as if he wished the Injins anywhere but in their "happy hunting grounds." We drove on laughing, for it was in human nature to be amused at such an exhibition of the compulsory system, or of "liberty and equality carried out;" and more particularly so, when I was certain that the "honest, hard-working, h.o.r.n.y-handed tiller of the soil," wanted to cheat me out of a farm; or to put his case in the most favorable point of view, wanted to compel me to sell him one at his own price. Nor did our amus.e.m.e.nt stop here. Before we reached the woods, we found Holmes and Tubbs in the highway, too; the other two worthies who had been mounted _en croupe_ having dispossessed them of their wagon also, and told them to "charge it to Injin." We afterward learned that this practice was very general; the owner recovering his horse and team, in the course of a few days, by hearing it had been left secretly at some tavern within a few miles of his residence. As for old Holmes, he was in an honest indignation, when we came up with him, while even Tubbs looked soured and discontented, or as if he thought friends were ent.i.tled to better treatment.

"Vhat ist der matter?" cried out uncle Ro, who could hardly keep from laughing the whole time; "vhat ist der matter now? Vhere might be your hantsome vaggin and your gay horse?"

"It's too bad!--yes, it's eeny most too bad!" grunted Holmes. "Here am I, past threescore-and-ten, which is the full time of man, the Bible says--and what the Bible says _must_ be true, you know?--here have they trundled me into the highway, as they would a sack of potatoes, and left me to walk every step of four miles to reach my own door! It's too bad--it's eeny most too bad!"

"Oh! dat might be a trifle, compared to vhat it vould be to haf peen drundelled out of your farm."

"I know't!--I know't!--I understand it!--it's all meant for the good cause--to put down aristocracy, and make men raa'ly equal as the law intends them to be--but this I say is eeny most too bad!"

"Und you so olt!"

"Seventy-six, if I'm a day. My time can't be long, and my legs is weak, they be. Yes, the Bible says a man's time is limited pretty much to threescore-and-ten--and I'll never stand out ag'in the Bible."

"Und vhat might der Piple say apout vanting to haf your neighpors'

goots?"

"It cries that down dreadfully! Yes, there's plenty of that in the good book, I know from havin' heard it read--ay, and havin' read it myself, these threescore years; it _doos_ cry it down, the most awfully. I shall tell the Injins this, the next time they want my wagon. There's Bible ag'in all sich practices."

"Der Piple ist a good pook."

"That it is--that it is--and great is the consolation and hope that I have known drawn from its pages. I'm glad to find that they set store by the Bible in Jarmany. I was pretty much of the notion, we had most of the religion that's goin', in Ameriky, and it's pleasant to find there _is_ some in Jarmany."

All this time old Holmes was puffing along on foot, my uncle Ro walking his horse, in order to enjoy his discourse.

"Oh! ja--ja, ja--dere might be _some_ religion left in der olt worlt--de Puritans, as you might call dem, did not pring it all away."

"Desp'rate good people them! We got all our best sarc.u.mstances from our Puritan forefathers. Some folks say that all America has got, is owing to them very saints!"

"Ja--und if it bees not so, nefer mind; for dey will be sartain to get all Ameriky."

Holmes was mystified, but he kept tugging on, casting wistful glances at our wagon, as he endeavored to keep up with it. Fearful we might trot on and leave him, the old man continued the discourse. "Yes," he said, "our authority for everything must come from the Bible, a'ter all. It tells us we hadn't ought to bear malice, and that's a rule I endivor to act up to; for an old man, you see, can't indulge his sinful natur' if he would. Now I've been down to Little Neest to attend a Down-Rent meetin',--but I bear no more malice ag'in Hugh Littlepage, not I, no more than if he weren't a bit of my landlord! All I want of him is my farm, on such a lay as I can live by, and the b'ys a'ter me. I look on it as dreadful hard and oppressive that the Littlepages should refuse to let us have the place, seein' that I have worked it now for the tarm of three whull lives."

"Und dey agreet dat dey might sell you de farm, when dem dree lifes wast up?"

"No, not in downright language they didn't, as I must allow. In the way of bargain, I must own the advantage is altogether on the side of Littlepage. That was his grand'ther's act; and if you wun't drive quite so fast, as I'm getting a little out of wind, I'll tell you all about it. That is just what we complain on; the bargain being so much in his favor. Now my lives _have_ hung on desp'rately, haven't they, Shabbakuk?" appealing to Tubbs. "It's every hour of forty-five years sin' I tuck that lease, and one life, that of my old woman, is still in bein', as they call it, though it's a sort of bein' that a body might as well not have as have. She can't stand it a great while longer, and then that farm that I set so much store by, out of which I've made my livelihood most of my life, and on which I've brought up fourteen children, will go out of my hands to enrich Hugh Littlepage, who's got so much now he can't spend it at hum like honest folks, but must go abroad, to waste it in riotous living, as they tell us. Yes, onless the Governor and the Legislature helps me out of my difficulty, I don't see but Hugh Littlepage must get it all, making the 'rich richer, and the poor poorer.'"

"Und vhy must dis cruel ding come to pa.s.s? Vhy might not mans keep his own in Ameriky?"

"That's jest it, you see. It isn't my own, in law, only by natur', like, and the 'speret of the inst.i.tutions,' as they call it. I'm sure I don't kear much how I get it, so it only comes. If the Governor can only make the landlords sell, or even give away, he may sartainly count on my support providin' they don't put the prices too high. I hate high prices, which is onsuitable to a free country."

"Fery drue. I sooppose your lease might gif you dat farm quite reasonaple, as it might be mate so long ago?"