The Funny Philosophers Part 44

When Pate became conscious he was in bed, having been carried home by some laborers, who found him in a sad condition, and thought at first that he was a murdered man. A doctor sat by his side, who had bandaged his wounds and bruises, and given proper attention to an arm which had been broken. It was many weeks before he could leave his house; and when he went abroad his bosom was boiling with indignation at the treatment which he had received at the hands of the fair Juliet, who, he believed, was a fiend or a fury in disguise.

So intense was his anger at the conduct of the beautiful Amazon that he treated her with the greatest indignity, and, when he met her at church, turned his back on her with a scornful curl of his lip. He publicly accused her of an atrocious a.s.sault on his person, and said that she had first knocked him down with her fist, and had then broken his arm, and attempted to murder him with a heavy bludgeon.

The greatest enemy which a man may have is the little organ which lies in his mouth just behind his teeth. The experience of M. T. Pate unfolded this truth when, one morning, the sheriff of the county called upon him with two interesting doc.u.ments. The one was a writ of summons in an action for slander, and the other a similar process in a suit for breach of promise of marriage. He had accused the fair Juliet of an a.s.sault on him with intent to murder, which accusation, if true, would subject her to a criminal prosecution. The words spoken were therefore actionable. He had also treated her with contempt; and the poet tells us that

"h.e.l.l holds no fury like a woman scorned."

By the advice of her father, who was greatly enraged at the treatment which his daughter had received, both suits had been inst.i.tuted.

When the day of trial arrived, there was an immense crowd in the hall of justice, all of whom sympathized with the young lady. In the action for slander, Pate had pleaded the truth in justification. By the rules of pleading, in so doing he admitted the speaking of the words complained of, and undertook to prove that they were true. But to his utter dismay he had no witnesses to establish the proof, as no one but Juliet and himself were present when the a.s.sault was made upon him. To put him in a worse position before the jury, the fair plaintiff succeeded in proving an alibi, by calling several witnesses to the stand who swore that, on the very evening when the a.s.sault was alleged to have been committed at the fountain under the trees, Juliet was some ten miles away at the house of her grandmother. Pate, when he heard this testimony, was immeasurably shocked at the corruption and villainy of mankind; for had he not sat by her side on the rustic bench? had he not taken her fair hand in his own and lifted it to his lips? had he not felt the blow from her fist which had knocked him from his seat? had he not beheld her standing over him with her garments fluttering in his face, and the terrible cudgel in her hand? had he not besought the infuriated Amazon to have mercy on him, while she was ruthlessly beating him, until he became insensible?--and now these false and perjured witnesses, bribed, no doubt, by her father's money, had sworn that she was some ten miles distant from the scene of the outrage!

Pate being unable to establish the truth in justification, the counsel for the plaintiff took occasion to arouse the indignation of the jury against the defendant. He traveled beyond the evidence, as zealous advocates will often do, and told them that this man had basely slandered a respectable young lady in order to extenuate his own dishonorable conduct in trifling with her affections by shamefully violating his promise of marriage. He called the attention of the jury to the absurdity of the charge which Pate, by his plea, alleged to be true. Could any sane person believe that a young lady, with a hand so small and delicate, could double her fist and knock down a bulky man like Pate, and then beat him unmercifully with a heavy bludgeon? And where was the proof of the allegation in the defendant's plea? While he had produced no evidence in support of his preposterous charge, the plaintiff had demonstrated its falsity by establishing an alibi. In a peroration, abounding in vituperation, he then demanded vindictive damages as a punishment for this base and abominable slander. When he had closed his argument, the feelings of the jury were so excited that they retired, and in a few moments returned, with a verdict awarding twelve thousand dollars to the plaintiff as damages for the injury which she had sustained.

On the following day the suit for breach of promise of marriage was tried. As men seldom make promises of marriage in the presence of witnesses, in actions of this sort much of the proof is inferential. It was proved that Pate was in constant attendance on the young lady; that every evening he was seated by her side in her father's parlor, or taking romantic walks in her company, by moonlight, with her arm locked in his own; that in the morning he would walk with her to gather wild flowers in the forest; that in the afternoon he would be seen riding with her in lonely and unfrequented roads; and several witnesses swore that they had seen him on his knees before her, apparently making a most tender appeal. The Irishwoman testified to the scene in the rocking-chair, and said that he was praying to her, and asking her "if she had no heart at all, at all." The woman was asked if she could recollect what day it was on which she had witnessed the scene in the rocking-chair. She said it was the twenty-first day of May, because on that day the bantam hen had hatched a brood of chickens, and she had marked the date of the successful incubation on the top of the hen-coop.

A letter, from Pate to Juliet, was then produced, dated the twenty-fifth of May, in which he spoke of the promise he had made her, and which he would never forget. The nature of this promise was not explained by the context; but so powerful was the impression made on the minds of the jury, that, after the closing argument of the counsel for the plaintiff, in which the character of M. T. Pate was torn to tatters, they retired, and soon returned with a verdict awarding damages to the injured lady to the amount of twenty thousand dollars.

In each case a motion for a new trial failed, and the judgments were soon followed by executions, under which the whole of Pate's property was seized and sold. He bore his reverses with fort.i.tude until he saw old Whitey under the auctioneer's hammer, when his firmness forsook him, and he was seen to shed tears. When the judgments were satisfied but a small sum remained. Pate was compelled to remove from his beautiful residence, and obtained lodgings in the boarding-house where the Professor and the five respectable maiden ladies had dwelt for many months.

Not long afterwards he was informed by one of the respectable maiden ladies that Juliet, with the proceeds arising from the sale of his real and personal estate in her possession, had been married to Romeo, to whom she had become reconciled. M. T. Pate had no ill feelings towards this young man, and could not help pitying him. He predicted, in the presence of the Professor and the five respectable maiden ladies, that Romeo would be murdered by Juliet, in cold blood, before the end of the honeymoon.

At the very moment when Pate was predicting this homicide, the young wife was seated by Romeo's side on the rustic bench by the fountain. One arm was around Romeo's neck and her head rested fondly against his shoulder. And it so happened that their conversation was about M. T.

Pate.

"And he a.s.serted," said Juliet, "that on this very spot he was dreadfully beaten. How strange that a man, who reads the prayers from the pulpit, should tell such a falsehood!"

"Dearest Juliet," said Romeo, "Mr. Pate did not tell a falsehood."

"Oh, Romeo! can you believe that man's story?"

"Indeed, I do."

"Believe that Mr. Pate was beaten?"

"Yes; dreadfully beaten."

"By me?"

"No; not by you."

"By whom?"

"By him who is now your loving husband."

"By you?"

"Yes; by me. When I heard that you had been suddenly called from home to attend upon your grandmother, who was sick, I clothed myself in female attire, and seated myself on this bench, to settle accounts with M. T.

Pate. It was this arm which dealt him the blow under the eye, and afterwards wielded the cudgel which bruised his body and fractured his limb."

"Oh, Romeo! you nearly murdered him."

"Had it not been for the approach of the laborers I would have murdered him!"

"You would?"

"Dearest Juliet, I loved you so that I would have murdered twenty men for your sake!"

Juliet threw her arms around Romeo's neck and kissed him a countless mult.i.tude of times; and, strange as it may seem, she loved her husband more deeply after he had confessed that he was capable of committing twenty homicides for her sake.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

The marriage of Juliet to Romeo had made one young man supremely happy, and another intensely miserable. At a distance of about three miles from the residence of the fair Juliet dwelt Farmer Lovegood, having an only son, who, as he grew up, looked so like a picture of the leader of the Israelites in the farmer's old family Bible, that he was called Moses by common consent, and was soon known by no other name. This unsophisticated youth had always been remarkable for bashfulness in the presence of the opposite s.e.x. So vividly had his imagination depicted the horrors of a captivity in the hands of these merciless foes of the masculine gender that, at the first glimpse of a petticoat, he would frequently glide away as if he had beheld "the devil in disguise." But on a certain Sabbath he saw the beautiful Juliet, seated in her father's pew, and was cruelly enamored. He became a regular attendant at the church; but instead of joining in the devotions of the congregation, he sat in a corner and silently worshiped the lovely owner of the pair of blue eyes and golden tresses. During the week he profoundly meditated on the beauty of Juliet, and on each successive Sunday repaired to the church, and devoutly adored her in the seclusion of his corner.

At length Moses manfully resolves on a pilgrimage to the hallowed spot which holds the object of his adoration. Accordingly he starts from his rural home, and, with infinite toil, wends his way in solitude beneath the silvery light of the twinkling stars, through tangled thickets and th.o.r.n.y fields; floundering through bogs and briers, and tumbling over snake-fences, with thoughts so delicious that, could they have escaped from his bosom and taken a beautiful embodiment, they would have planted his pathway with flowers as sweet as if steeped in the honeyed dews of Hymettus. And now he comes in view of the mansion in which dwells the lovely idol of his worship. He stands beneath the spreading boughs of the trees which shade the sacred spot. He sees the lights within the neatly-furnished parlor. He even hears the siren song of the enchantress, giving utterance to the sweet emotions of her soul, as if magnetically informed of his approach and inviting him to enter. But he pauses. His faculties are seized with a sudden panic, like raw recruits when first brought into action. His heart palpitates, and, with a pit-a-pat motion, comes mounting up to his mouth. His joints tremble. He walks to and fro under the trees, like a fellow sent upon a fool's errand, who has forgotten his message. Finally the lights disappear, and the fair Juliet has retired to rest, while the toil-worn swain proceeds homeward, breathless, and faint, and leaning upon his hickory cudgel.

Moses made many nightly pilgrimages in the same manner, and with similar results; until, one morning, he accidentally heard that Juliet was married to Romeo.

The unfortunate Moses now became intimately acquainted with misery.

Sleep forsook his pillow, and after several nights of wakefulness, he began to meditate upon the various methods of putting one's self to death; but for a number of days his conclusions were unsatisfactory. He put the muzzle of a pistol in his mouth, but there was a mutiny among his fingers, and they rebelliously refused to obey his will, and pull the trigger. He seated himself on a beam in his father's barn, with one end of a rope around his neck and the other securely fastened to the beam, when he suddenly recollected that a man who is hanged usually turns black in the face and presents a hideous appearance. He stood on a brow of a precipice, overhanging a deep and turbid stream, and was about to leap into the water below, when he recoiled with horror at the prospect of being eaten by the fishes, and thus deprived of decent sepulture.

Moses now wisely determined to pa.s.s away without any unnecessary suffering. He supposed that on the shelves of the apothecary, in Mapleton, were potent drugs which would put him in a condition of somnolency, during which he could easily glide out of this sublunary state of existence. So he proceeded to the town, and having procured the proper material for his purpose, was hurrying homeward with deadly intent, when he inadvertently ran against a man who was standing in the street reading a newspaper to a crowd of people. The rapidity with which Moses was walking caused him to collide with great force, and nearly overthrew the reader of the paper. The man turned round, and, grasping Moses by the collar, shook him fiercely.

"I beg pardon!" exclaimed Moses, aroused, by the rude shaking he had received, to a consciousness of his surroundings,--"I beg pardon! I did not see."

"Did not see!" said the man. "Where are your eyes that you can't see a whole crowd of people?"

"I beg pardon!" reiterated Moses, meekly.

"It is granted; but mind how you walk next time!" And with this admonition, the man resumed the reading of the paper, as follows:

"Immense discoveries in the placers! Captain M. reported to have already fifteen barrels buried!"

"Fifteen barrels of what?" asked Moses of a man standing near him, and who happened to be M. T. Pate.

"Fifteen barrels of gold!" said Pate.

"Of what?"

"Of gold."

"Have they discovered gold near Mapleton?"

"No--no--not here."

"Where, then?"