We turn to kindred evidence in the stage-directions. In "Love's Labor's Lost," Act IV., Sc. 3, when Birone conceals himself from the King, the stage-direction in the folio of 1632, as well as in that of 1623, is "He stands aside." But in Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 this is changed to "He climbs a tree," and he is afterward directed to speak "in the tree." So again in "Much Ado about Nothing," Act II., Sc. 3, there is a MS. stage-direction to the effect that Benedick, when he hides "in the arbour," "Retires behind the trees." Now as this use of scenery did not obtain until after the Restoration, these stage-directions manifestly could not have been written until after that period. Upon this point—which was first made in "Putnam's Magazine" for October, 1853, in the article "The Text of Shakespeare: Mr. Collier's Corrected Folio of 1632,"—Mr. Halliwell says (fol. Shak. Vol. IV. p. 340) that the writer of that article "fairly adduces these MS. directions as incontestable evidences of the late period of the writing in that volume, 'practicable' trees certainly not having been introduced on the English stage until after the Restoration." See, too, in the following passage from "The Noble Stranger," by Lewis Sharpe, London, 1640, direct evidence as to the stage customs in London, eight years after the publication of Mr. Collier's folio, in situations like those of Birone and Benedick:—
"I am resolv'd, I over-
Heard them in the presence appoynt to walke
Here in the garden: now in yon thicket
I'll stay," etc.
"Exit behind the Arras."
But no man in the world knows the ancient customs of the English stage better than Mr. Collier,—we may even say, so well, and pay no undue compliment to the historian of that stage;[kk] and though he might easily, in the eagerness of discovery, overlook the bearing of such stage-directions as those in question, will it be believed, by any one not brimful of blinding prejudice, that, in attempting the imposition with which he is charged, and in forging in a copy of the folio of 1632 notes and emendations for which he claimed deference because they were, in his own words, "in a handwriting not much later than the time when it came from the press," he deliberately wrote in these stage-directions, which in any case added nothing to the reader's information, and which he, of all men, knew would prove that his volume was not entitled to the credit he was laboring to obtain for it?
[Footnote kk: The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of
Shakespeare: and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration. By J. Payne
Collier, Esq., F.S.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831.]
Again, Mr. Hamilton's collations of "Hamlet" show that no less than thirty-six passages have been erased from that play in this folio. These erased passages are from a few insignificant words to fifty lines in extent They include lines like these in Act I., Sc. 2:—
"With one auspicious and one dropping eye, With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,"—
and these from the same scene:—
"It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
This must be so."
In the last scene, all after Horatio's speech; "Now cracks a noble heart," etc., is struck out. Who will believe that any man in his senses, making corrections for which he meant to claim the deference due to a higher authority than the printed test, would make such and so numerous erasures? In fact, no one does so believe.
But the collations of "Hamlet" furnish in these erasures one other very important piece of evidence. In Act II., Sc. 1, the passage from and including Reynaldo's speech, "As gaming, my Lord," to his other speech, "Ay, my Lord, I would know that," is crossed out. But the lines are not only crossed through in ink, they are "also marked in pencil." Now it is confessed by the accusers of Mr. Collier that these erasures are the marks of an ancient adaptation of the text to stage purposes, which were made before the marginal corrections of the text; otherwise they must needs have maintained the preposterous position just above set forth. And besides, it is admitted, that, in the numerous passages which are both erased and corrected, the work itself shows that the corrections were made upon the erasures, and not the erasures upon the corrections. We have, therefore, here, upon the very pages of this folio, evidence that alterations in pencil not only might have been, but were, made upon it at an early period, even in regard to so very slight a matter as the crossing out of fourteen lines; and that these pencilled lines served as a guide for the subsequent permanent erasure in ink.
And this collation of "Hamlet" also enables us to decide with approximate certainty upon the period when these manuscript readings were entered upon the margins of the folio. Not more surely did the lacking aspirate betray the Ephraimite at Jordan than the spelling of this manuscript corrector reveals the period at which he performed his labors. Take, for instance, the word "vile." Any man who could make the body of these corrections knows that the most common spelling of "vile" down to the middle of the century 1600 was vild or vilde. This spelling has even been retained in the text by some editors, and with at least a semblance of reason, as being not a mere variation in spelling, but as representing a different form of the word. No man knows all this better than Mr. Collier; and yet we are called upon to believe that he, meaning to obtain authoritative position for the marginal readings in this folio, by making them appear to have been written by a contemporary of Shakespeare's later years, altered vild to vile in three passages of a single play, though he thereby made not the slightest shade of difference in the meaning of the passage! And the same demand is made upon our credulity in regard to the eight hundred and fifty similar instances! Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Duffus Hardy, Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Ingleby, accomplished palaeographers, keen-eyed, remorseless investigators, learned doctors though you be, you cannot make men who have common sense believe this. Your tests, your sharp eyes, and your optical aids, even that dreadful "microscope bearing the imposing and scientific name of the Simonides Uranius," which carried such terror to the heart of Mr. Collier, will fail to convince the world that he spent hour after hour and day after day in labors the only purpose of which was directly at war with that which you attribute to him, and which, if he made these manuscript corrections, must have been the motive of his labors.
But if Mr. Collier, or some other man of this century, did not make these orthographical changes, when were they made? Let us trace the fortunes of vile, which is a good test word, as being characteristic, and as it occurs several times in "Hamlet," and is there thrice modernized by the manuscript corrector. It occurs five times in that play, as the reader may see by referring to Mrs. Clarke's "Concordance." In the folio of 1623, in all these cases, except the first, it is spelled vild; in the folio of 1632, with the same exception, we also find vild; even in the folio of 1664[ll] the spelling in all these instances remains unchanged; but in the folio of 1685, vild gives place to vile in every case. As with "vild," so with the other words subjected to like changes. To make a long story short, the spelling throughout the marginal readings of this folio, judged by the numerous fac-similes and collations that have been published, indicates the close of the last quarter of the century 1600 as the period about which the volume in which they appear was subjected to correction. The careful removal (though with some oversights) of those irregularities and anomalies of spelling which were common before the Restoration, and the harmonizing of grammatical discords which were disregarded before that period, and, on the other hand, the retention of the superfluous final e, (once the e of prolongation,) and of the l in the contractions of "would," in accordance with a pronunciation which prevailed in England until 1700 and later, all point to this date, which is also indicated by various other internal proofs to which attention has been heretofore sufficiently directed.[mm] The punctuation, too, which, as Mr. Collier announced in "Notes and Emendations," etc., 1853, is corrected "with nicety and patience," is that of the books printed after the Restoration, as may be seen by a comparison of Mr. Collier's private fac-similes and the collations of "Hamlet" in Mr. Hamilton's book with the original editions of poems and plays printed between 1660 and 1675.
[Footnote ll: Or 1663, according to the title-pages of some copies that we have seen.]
[Footnote mm: See Shakespeare's Scholar, pp. 56-62. And to the passages noticed there, add this: In King Henry VI., Part II., Act IV., Sc. 5, is this couplet:—
"Fight for your King, your country, and your lives.
And so farewell; for I must hence again."
The last line of which in Mr. Collier's folio is changed to
"And so farewell; Rebellion never thrives."
Plainly this was written when Charlie was no longer over the water.]
From the foregoing examination of the evidence upon this most interesting question, it appears, we venture to assume, that the conclusions drawn by Mr. Collier's opponents as to the existence of primal evidence of forgery in the ink writing alone in his folio are not sustained by the premises which are brought forward in their support. It seems also clear, that, to say the least, it is not safe to assume that all the pencil memorandums which appear upon the margins of that volume as guides for the corrections in ink are proofs of the spurious character of those corrections; but that, on the contrary, those pencil-marks, with certain exceptions, may be the faint vestiges of the work of a corrector who lived between 1632 and 1675, and who entered his readings in pencil before finally completing them in ink. We have found, too, that this volume, for the manuscript readings in which the alleged forger claimed an authority based upon the early date at which they were written, presents upon its every page changes in phraseology, grammar, orthography, and punctuation, which, utterly useless for a forger's purpose, could not have been made before a late period in the century 1600. Now when, in view of these facts, we consider that the man who is accused of committing this forgery is a professed literary antiquary, who, at the time when he brought forward this folio, (in 1852,) had been engaged in the minute study of the text of old plays and poems for more than thirty years,[nn] can we hesitate in pronouncing a verdict of not guilty of the offence as charged? It is as manifest as the sun in the heavens that Mr. Collier is not the writer of the mass of the corrections in this folio. It is morally impossible that he should have made them; and, on the other hand, the physical evidence which is relied upon by his accusers breaks down upon examination.
[Footnote nn: The Poetical Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English
Poets and Poetry, particularly of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I.
London, 1820.]
* * * * *
But the modern cursive pencil-writing!—for you see that it is this cursive writing that damns this folio,—what story does that tell? What is its character? Who wrote it? Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby have answered these questions by the publication of between twenty and thirty fac-similes of this pencil-writing, consisting in only five instances of more than a single word, letter, or mark. But these are undeniably the work of a modern hand,—a hand of this century, as may be seen by the following reproductions of two of the fac-similes:—
[Illustration: Handwriting sample.]
The upper one represents the stage-direction in ink, with its accompanying pencil-memorandum, for an aside speech in "King John," Act II., Sc. 1,—doubtless that of Faulconbridge,—"O prudent discipline," etc. This is reproduced from a fac-simile published by Dr. Ingleby. Mr. Hamilton has given a fac-simile of the same words; but Dr. Ingleby says that his is the more accurate. The lower memorandum is a pencilled word, "begging" opposite the line in "Hamlet," Act III., Sc. 2, "And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee," to which there is no corresponding word in ink. Both these words are manifestly not examples of an ancient cursive hand, like those of which fac-similes are given above, but of rapid pencil-writing of the present century. They fairly represent the character of all the fac-similes of words in pencil, with two exceptions, which Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby have published. But the question as to their origin can be brought down to a narrower point. For not only does competent testimony from London assure us that Mr. Collier's handwriting and that of these pencil-memorandums is identical, but, having some of that gentleman's writing in pencil by us, we are able to see this identity for ourselves. We can discover not the slightest room for doubt that a certain number of the pencil-guides for the corrections upon the margins of this folio were written either by Mr. Collier himself, or in the British Museum by some malicious person who desired to inculpate him in a forgery. The reader who has accompanied us thus far can have no doubt as to which alternative we feel compelled to choose. The indications of the pencilled words in modern cursive writing are strengthened by the short-hand stage-direction in "Coriolanus," Act V., Sc. 2, "Struggles or instead noise," in the characters of Palmer's system, which was promulgated in 1774. This system is one which a man of Mr. Collier's years would be likely to use, and the purport of the memorandum is obvious. Would Mr. Collier have us believe that this also was introduced in the British Museum?
We have chosen the word "begging" for fac-simile not merely because of the marked character of its chirography. It has other significance. Mr. Collier asks, "What is gained by it?" and says, that, as there is no corresponding change in the text, "'begging' must have been written in the margin … merely as an explanation, and a bad explanation, too, if it refer to 'pregnant' in the poet's text."[oo] It is, of course, no explanation; but it seems plainly that it is the memorandum for a proposed, but abandoned, substitution. Who that is familiar with the corrections in Mr. Collier's folio does not recognize this as one of those which have been so felicitously described by an American critic as taking "the fire out of the poetry, the fine tissue out of the thought, and the ancient flavor and aroma out of the language"?[pp] The corrector in this case plainly thought of reading,
"And crook the begging hinges of the knee";
but, doubtful as to this at first, (for we regard the interrogation-point as a query to himself, and not as indicating the insertion of that point after "Dost thou hear,") he finally came to the conclusion, that, although he, and many a respectable poet, might have written "begging" in this passage, Shakespeare was just the man to write "pregnant,"—an instance of critical sagacity of which he has left us few examples. Now it is remarkable that the majority of the changes proposed by Mr. Collier in the notes to this edition of Shakespeare (8 vols., 8vo., 1842-3) evince a capacity for the apprehension of figurative language and for conjectural emendation of the very calibre indicated by this proposed change of "pregnant hinges" to "begging hinges." He has throughout his literary career, which began, we believe, with the publication of the "Poetical Decameron," in 1820, shown rather the faithfulness, the patience, and the judgment of a literary antiquary, than the insight, the powers of comparison, the sensibility, and the constructive ingenuity of a literary critic. And one of the great improbabilities against his authorship of all the corrections in his folio is, that it is not according to Nature that so late in life he should develop the constructive ability necessary for the production of many of its specious and ingenious, though inadmissible, original readings.
[Footnote oo: Reply, p. 22.]
[Footnote pp: Rev. N.L. Frothingham, D.D., in the Christian Examiner for November, 1853.]
We see, then, no way of avoiding the conclusion that this notorious folio was first submitted to erasure for stage purposes; that afterward, at some time between 1650 and 1675, it was carefully corrected for the press with the view to the publication of a new edition; and that finally it fell into the hands of Mr. Collier, who, either alone or by the aid of an accomplice, introduced other readings upon its margins, for the purpose of obtaining for them the same deference which he supposed those already there would receive for their antiquity. Either this is true, or Mr. Collier is the victim of a mysterious and marvellously successful conspiracy; and by his own unwise and unaccountable conduct—to use no harsher terms—has aided the plans of his enemies.
Mr. Collier's position in this affair is, in any case, a most singular and unenviable one. His discoveries, considering their nature and extent and the quarters in which they were made, are exceedingly suspicious:—the Ellesmere folio, the Bridgewater House documents, including the Southampton letter, the Dulwich College documents, including the Alleyn letter, the Petition of the Blackfriars Company in the State Paper Office, and the various other letters, petitions, accounts, and copies of verses, all of which are justly open to suspicion of tampering, if not of forgery. What a strange and unaccountable fortune to befall one man! How has this happened? What fiend has followed Mr. Collier through the later years of his life, putting manuscripts under his pillow and folios into his pew, and so luring him on to moral suicide? Alas! there is probably but one man now living that can tell us, and he will not. But this protracted controversy, which has left so much unsettled, has greatly served the cause of literature, in showing that by whomsoever and whensoever these marginal readings, which so took the world by storm nine years ago, were written, they have no pretence to any authority whatever, not even the quasi authority of an antiquity which would bring them within the post-Shakespearian period. All must now see, what a few at first saw, that their claim to consideration rests upon their intrinsic merit only. But what that merit is, we fear will be disputed until the arrival of that ever-receding Shakespearian millenium when the editors shall no longer rage or the commentators imagine a vain thing.
* * * * *
Off, fetters of the falser life,—
Weeds that conceal the statue's form!
This silent world with truth is rife,
This wooing air is warm.
Now fall the thin disguises, planned
For men too weak to walk unblamed;
Naked beside the sea I stand,—
Naked, and not ashamed.
Where yonder dancing billows dip,
Far-off, to ocean's misty verge,
Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,
The Orient's cloudy surge.
With spray of scarlet fire before
The ruffled gold that round her dies,
She sails above the sleeping shore,
Across the waking skies.
The dewy beach beneath her glows;
A pencilled beam, the light-house burns:
Full-breathed, the fragrant sea-wind blows,—
Life to the world returns!
I stand, a spirit newly born,
White-limbed and pure, and strong, and fair,—
The first-begotten son of Morn,
The nursling of the air!
There, in a heap, the masks of Earth,
The cares, the sins, the griefs, are thrown
Complete, as, through diviner birth,
I walk the sands alone.
With downy hands the winds caress,
With frothy lips the amorous sea,
As welcoming the nakedness
Of vanished gods, in me.
Along the ridged and sloping sand,
Where headlands clasp the crescent cove,
A shining spirit of the land,
A snowy shape, I move:
Or, plunged in hollow-rolling brine,
In emerald cradles rocked and swung,
The sceptre of the sea is mine,
And mine his endless song.
For Earth with primal dew is wet,
Her long-lost child to rebaptize:
Her fresh, immortal Edens yet
Their Adam recognize.
Her ancient freedom is his fee;
Her ancient beauty is his dower:
She bares her ample breasts, that he
May suck the milk of power.
Press on, ye hounds of life, that lurk
So close, to seize your harried prey!
Ye fiends of Custom, Gold, and Work,
I hear your distant bay!
And like the Arab, when he bears
To the insulted camel's path
His garment, which the camel tears,
And straight forgets his wrath;
So, yonder badges of your sway,
Life's paltry husks, to you I give:
Fall on, and in your blindness say,
We hold the fugitive!
But leave to me this brief escape
To simple manhood, pure and free,—
A child of God, in God's own shape,
Between the land and sea!
When I state that my name is A. Bratley Chylde, I presume that I am already sufficiently introduced.
My patronymic establishes my fashionable position. Chylde, the distinguished monosyllable, is a card of admission everywhere,— everywhere that is anywhere.
And my matronymic, Bratley, should have established my financial position for life. It should have—allow me a vulgar term—"indorsed" me with the tradesmen who have the honor to supply me with the glove, the boot, the general habiliment, and all the requisites of an elegant appearance upon the carpet or the trottoir.
But, alas! I am not so indorsed—pardon the mercantile aroma of the word—by the name Bratley.
The late Mr. A. Bratley, my grandfather, was indeed one of those rude, laborious, and serviceable persons whose office is to make money—or perhaps I should say to accumulate the means of enjoyment—for the upper classes of society.
But my father, the late Mr. Harold Chylde, had gentlemanly tastes.
How can I blame him? I have the same.
He loved to guide the rapid steed along the avenue.
I also love to guide the rapid steed.
He could not persuade his delicate lungs—pardon my seeming knowledge of anatomy—to tolerate the confined air in offices, counting-houses, banks, or other haunts of persons whose want of refinement of taste impels them to the crude distractions of business-life.
I have the same delicacy of constitution. Indeed, unless the atmosphere I breathe is rendered slightly narcotic by the smoke of Cabañas and slightly stimulating by the savor of heeltaps,—excuse the technical term,—I find myself debilitated to a degree. The open air is extremely offensive to me. I confine myself to clubs and billiard-rooms.
My late father, being a man distinguished for his clear convictions, was accustomed to sustain the statement of those convictions by wagers. The inherent generosity of his nature obliged him often to waive his convictions in behalf of others, and thus to abandon the receipt of considerable sums. He also found the intellectual excitement of games of chance necessary to his mental health.
I cannot blame him for these and similar gentlemanly tastes. My own are the same.
The late Mr. A. Bratley, at that time in his dotage, and recurring to the crude idioms of his homely youth, constantly said to my father,—
"Harold, you are a spendthrift and a rake, and are bringing up your son the same."
I object, of course, to his terms; but since he foresaw that my habits would be expensive, it is to be regretted that he did not make suitable provision for their indulgence.
He did not, however, do so. Persons of low-breeding never can comprehend their duties to the more refined.
The respective dusts of my father and grandfather were consigned to the tomb the same week, and it was found that my mother's property had all melted away, as—allow me a poetical figure—ice-cream melts between the lips of beauty heated after the German.
Yes,—all was gone, except a small pittance in the form of an annuity. I will not state the ridiculously trifling amount. I have seen more than our whole annual income lost by a single turn of a card at the establishment of the late Mr. P. Hearn, and also in private circles.
Something must be done. Otherwise, that deprivation of the luxuries of life which to the aristocratic is starvation.
I stated my plans to my mother. They were based in part upon my well-known pecuniary success at billiards—I need not say that I prefer the push game, as requiring no expenditure of muscular force. They were also based in part upon my intimacy with a distinguished operator in Wall Street. Our capital would infallibly have been quadrupled,—what do I say? decupled, centupled, in a short space of time.
My mother is a good, faithful creature. She looks up to me as a Bratley should to a Chylde. She appreciates the honor my father did her by his marriage, and I by my birth. I have frequently remarked a touching fidelity of these persons of the lower classes of society toward those of higher rank.
"I would make any sacrifice in the world," she said, "to help you, my dear A—-"
"Hush!" I cried.
I have suppressed my first name as unmelodious and connecting me too much with a religious persuasion meritorious for its wealth alone. Need I say that I refer to the faith of the Rothschild?
"All that I have is yours, my dear Bratley," continued my mother.
Quite touching! was it not? I was so charmed, that I mentally promised her a new silk when she went into half-mourning, and asked her to go with me to the opera as soon as she got over that feeble tendency to tears which kept her eyes red and unpresentable.
"I would gladly aid you," the simple-hearted creature said, "in any attempt to make your fortune in an honorable and manly way."
"Brava! brava!" I cried, and I patted applause, as she deserved. "And you had better make over your stocks to me at once," I continued.
"I cannot without your Uncle Bratley's permission. He is my trustee. Go to him, my dear son."
I went to him very unwillingly. My father and I had always as much as possible ignored the Bratley connection. They live in a part of New York where self-respect does not allow me to be seen. They are engaged in avocations connected with the feeding of the lower classes. My father had always required that the females of their families should call on my mother on days when she was not at home to our own set, and at hours when they were not likely to be detected. None of them, I am happy to say, were ever seen at our balls or our dinners.
I nerved myself, and penetrated to that Ultima Thule where Mr. Bratley resides. His house already, at that early hour of two, smelt vigorously of dinner. Nothing but the urgency of my business could have induced me to brave these odors of plain roast and boiled.
A mob of red-faced children rushed to see me as I entered, and I heard one of them shouting up the stairs,—
"Oh, pa! there's a stiffy waiting to see you."
The phrase was new to me. I looked for a mirror, to see whether any inaccuracy in my toilet might have suggested it.
Positively there was no mirror in the salon.
Instead of it, there were nothing but distressingly bright pictures by artists who had had the bad taste to paint raw Nature just as they saw it.
My uncle entered, and quite overwhelmed me with a robust cordiality which seemed to ignore my grief.
"Just in time, my boy," said he, "to take a cut of rare roast beef and a hot potato and a mug of your Uncle Sam's beer with us."
I shuddered, and rebuked him with the intelligence that I had just lunched at the club, and should not dine till six.
Then I stated my business, curtly.
He looked at me with a stare, which I have frequently observed in persons of limited intelligence.
"So you want to gamble away your mother's last dollar," said he.
In vain I stated and restated to him my plans. The fellow, evidently jealous of my superior financial ability, constantly interrupted me with ejaculations of "Pish!" "Bosh!" "Pshaw!" "No go!" and finally, with a loud thump on a table, covered with such costly but valueless objects as books and plates, he cried,
"What a d—d fool!"
I was glad to perceive that he began to admit my wisdom and his stolidity. And so I told him.
"A—-," said he, using my abhorred name in full, "I believe you are a greater ass than your father was."
"Sir," said I, much displeased, "these intemperate ebullitions will necessarily terminate our conference."
"Conference be hanged!" he rejoined. "You may as well give it up. You are not going to get the first red cent out of me."
"Have I referred, Sir," said I, "to the inelegant coin you name?"
The creature grinned. "I shall pay your mother's income quarterly, and do the best I can by her," he continued; "and if you want to make a man of yourself, I'll give you a chance in the bakery with me; or Sam Bratley will take you into his brewery; or Bob into his pork-packery."
I checked my indignation. The vulgarian wished to drag me, a Chylde, down to the Bratley level. But I suppressed my wrath, for fear he might find some pretext for suppressing the quarterly income, and alleged my delicate health as a reason for my refusing his insulting offer.
"Well," said he, "I don't see as there is anything else for you to do, except to find some woman fool enough to marry you, as Betsey did your father. There's a hundred dollars!"
I have seldom seen dirtier bills than those he produced and handed to me. Fortunately I was in deep mourning and my gloves were dark lead color.
"That's right," says he,—"grab 'em and fob 'em. Now go to Newport and try for an heiress, and don't let me see your tallow face inside of my door for a year."
He had bought the right to be despotic and abusive. I withdrew and departed, ruminating on his advice. Singularly, I had not before thought of marrying. I resolved to do so at once.
Newport is the mart where the marriageable meet. I took my departure for
Newport next day.
I need hardly say, that, on arriving at Newport, one foggy August morning, I drove at once to the Millard.
The Millard attracted me for three reasons: First, it was new; second, it was fashionable; third, the name would be sure to be in favor with the class I had resolved to seek my spouse among. The term spouse I select as somewhat less familiar than wife, somewhat more permanent than bride, and somewhat less amatory than the partner of my bosom. I wish my style to be elevated, accurate, and decorous. It is my object, as the reader will have already observed, to convey heroic sentiments in the finest possible language.
It was upon some favored individual of the class Southern Heiress that I designed to let fall the embroidered handkerchief of affectionate selection. At the Millard I was sure to find her. That enormously wealthy and highly distinguished gentleman, her father, would naturally avoid the Ocean House. The adjective free, so intimately connected with the substantive ocean, would constantly occur to his mind and wound his sensibilities. The Atlantic House was still more out of the question. The name must perpetually remind the tenants of that hotel of a certain quite objectionable periodical devoted to propagandism. In short, not to pursue this process of elimination farther, and perhaps offend some friend of the class Hotel-Keeper, the Millard was not only about the cheese, per se,—I punningly allude here to the creaminess of its society,—but inevitably the place to seek my charmer.
The clock of the Millard was striking eleven as I entered the salle à manger for a late breakfast after my night-journey from New York by steamboat.
I flatter myself that I produced, as I intended, a distinct impression. My deep mourning gave me a most interesting look, which I heightened by an air of languor and abstraction as of one lost in grief. My shirt-studs were jet. The plaits of my shirt were edged with black. My Clarendon was, of course, black, and from its breast-pocket appeared a handkerchief dotted with spots, not dissimilar to black peppermint-drops on a white paper. In consequence of the extreme heat of the season, I wore waistcoat and trousers of white duck; but they, too, were qualified with sombre contrasts of binding and stripes.
The waiters evidently remarked me. It may have been the hope of pecuniary reward, it may have been merely admiration for my dress and person; but several rushed forward, diffusing that slightly oleaginous perfume peculiar to the waiter, and drew chairs for me.
I had, however, selected my position at the table at the moment of my entrance. It was vis-à-vis a party of four persons,—two of the sterner, two of the softer sex. A back view interpreted them to me. There is much physiognomy in the backs of human heads, because—and here I flatter myself that I enunciate a profound truth—people wear that well-known mask, the human countenance, on the front of the human head alone, and think it necessary to provide such concealment nowhere else.
"A rich Southern planter and his family!" I said to myself, and took my seat opposite them.
"Nothing, Michel," I replied to the waiter's recital of his bill-of-fare. "Nothing but a glass of iced water and bit of dry toast. Only that, thank you, Michel."
My appetite was good, particularly as, in consequence of the agitation of the water opposite Point Judith, my stomach had ceased to be occupied with relics of previous meals. My object in denying myself, and accepting simply hermit fare, was to convey to observers my grief for my bereavement. I have always deemed it proper for persons of distinguished birth to deplore the loss of friends in public. Hunger, if extreme, can always be reduced by furtive supplies from the pastry-cook.
I could not avoid observing that the party opposite had each gone through the whole breakfast bill-of-fare in a desultory, but exhaustive manner.
As I ordered my more delicate meal, the younger of the two gentlemen cast upon me a look of latent truculence, such as I have often remarked among my compatriots of the South. He seemed to detect an unexpressed sarcasm in the contrast between my gentle refection and his robust déjeuner.
I hastened to disarm such a suspicion by a half-articulate sigh. No one, however crass, could have failed to be touched by this token of a grief so bitter as to refuse luxurious nutriment.
As I sighed, I glanced with tender meaning at the young lady. Her feminine heart, I hoped, would interpret and pity me.
I fancied, that, at my look, her cheeks, though swarthy, blushed. She was certainly interested, and somewhat confused, and paused a moment in her mastication. Ham was the viand she was engaged upon, and she (playfully, I have no doubt) ate with her knife. I have remarked the same occasional superiority to what might be called Fourchettism and its prejudices in others of established position in society.
I lavished a little languid and not too condescending civility upon the party by passing them, when Michel was absent, the salt, the butter, the bread, and other commonplace condiments. Presently I withdrew, that my absence might make me desired. Before I did so, however, I took pains, by the exhibition of the "New York Herald" in my hands, to show that my political sentiments were unexceptionable.
I lost no time in consulting the books of the hotel for the names and homes of the strangers.
I read as follows:—
Sachary Mellasys and Lady, } Bayou La Miss Saccharissa Mellasys, } Farouche, Mellasys Plickaman, } La.
Saccharissa Mellasys! I rolled the name like a sweet morsel under my tongue. I forgot that she was not beautiful in form, feature, or complexion. How slight, indeed, is the charm of beauty, when compared with other charms more permanent! Ah, yes!
The complexion of Miss Mellasys announced a diet of alternate pickles and pralines during her adolescent years,—the pickles taken to excite an appetite for the pralines, the pralines absorbed to occupy the interval until pickle-time approached. Neither her form nor her features were statuesque. But the name glorified the person.
Sachary Mellasys was, as I was well aware, the great sugar-planter of
Louisiana, and Saccharissa his only child.
I am an imaginative man. I have never doubted, that, if I should ever give my fancies words, they would rank with the great creations of genius. At the dulcet name of Mellasys a fairy scene grew before my eyes. I seemed to see an army of merry negroes cultivating the sugar-cane to the inspiring music of a banjo band. Ever and anon a company of the careless creatures would pause and dance for pure gayety of heart. Then they would recline under the shade of the wild bandanna-tree,—I know this vegetable only through the artless poetry of the negro minstrels,—while sleek and sprightly negresses, decked with innocent finery, served them beakers of iced eau sucré.
As I was shaping this Arcadian vision, Mr. Mellasys passed me on his way to the bar-room. I hastened to follow, without the appearance of intention.
My reader is no doubt aware that at the fashionable bar-room the cigars are all of the same quality, though the prices mount according to the ambition of the purchaser. I found Mr. Mellasys gasping with efforts to light a dime cigar. Between his gasps, profane expressions escaped him.
"Sir," said I, "allow a stranger to offer you a better article."
At the same time I presented my case filled with choice Cabañas,—smuggled. My limited means oblige me to employ these judicious economies.
Mr. Mellasys took a cigar, lighted, whiffed, looked at me, whiffed again,—
"Sir," says he, "dashed if that a'n't the best cigar I've smoked sence I quit Bayou La Farouche!"
"Ah! a Southerner!" said I. "Pray, allow the harmless weed to serve as a token of amity between our respective sections."
Mr. Mellasys grasped my hand.
"Take a drink, Mr. ——?" said he.
"Bratley Chylde," rejoined I, filling the hiatus,—"and I shall be most happy."
The name evidently struck him. It was a combination of all aristocracy and all plutocracy. As I gave my name, I produced and presented my card. I was aware, that, with the uncultured, the possession of a card is a proof of gentility, as the wearing of a coat-of-arms proves a long line of distinguished ancestry.
Mr. Mellasys took my card, studied it, and believed in it with refreshing naiveté.
"I'm proud to know you, Mr. Chylde," said he. "I haven't a card; but Mellasys is my name, and I'll show it to you written on the hotel-books."
"We will waive that ceremony," said I. "And allow me to welcome you to
Newport and the Millard. Shall we enjoy the breeze upon the piazza?"
Before our second cigar was smoked, the great planter and I were on the friendliest terms. My political sentiments he found precisely in accord with his own. Indeed, our general views of life harmonized.
"I dare say you have heard," said Mellasys, "from some of the bloated aristocrats of my section that I was a slave-dealer once."
"Such a rumor has reached me," rejoined I. "And I was surprised to find, that, in some minds of limited intelligence and without development of the logical faculty, there was a prejudice against the business."
"You think that buyin' and sellin' 'em is just the same as ownin' 'em?"
"I do."
"Your hand!" said he, fervently.
"Mr. Mellasys," said I, "let me take this opportunity to lay down my platform,—allow me the playful expression. Meeting a gentleman of your intelligence from the sunny South, I desire to express my sentiments as a Christian and a gentleman."
Here I thought it well to pause and spit, to keep myself in harmony with my friend.
"A gentleman," I continued, "I take to be one who confines himself to the cultivation of his tastes, the decoration of his person, and the preparation of his whole being to shine in the salon. Now to such a one the condition of the laboring classes can be of no possible interest. As a gentleman, I cannot recognize either slaves or laborers. But here Christianity comes in. Christianity requires me to read and interpret my Bible. In it I find such touching paragraphs as, 'Cursed be Canaan!' Canaan is of course the negro slave of our Southern States. Curse him! then, I say. Let us have no weak and illogical attempts to elevate his condition. Such sentimentalism is rank irreligion. I view the negro as a man permanently upon the rack, who is to be punished just as much as he will bear without diminishing his pecuniary value. And the allotted method of punishment is hard work, hard fare, the liberal use of the whip, and a general negation of domestic privileges."
"Mr. Chylde," said Mr. Mellasys, rising, "this is truth! this is eloquence! this is being up to snuff! You are a high-toned gentleman! you are an old-fashioned Christian! you should have been my partner in slave-driving! Your hand!"
The quality of the Mellasys hand was an oleaginous clamminess. My only satisfaction, in touching it, was, that it seemed to suggest a deficient circulation of the blood. Mr. Mellasys would probably go off early with an apoplexy, and the husband of Miss Mellasys would inherit without delay.
"And now," continued the planter, "let me introduce you to my daughter."
I felt that my fortune was made.
I knew that she would speedily yield to my fascinations.
And so it proved. In three days she adored me. For three days more I was coy. In a week she was mine.
We were betrothed, Saccharissa Mellasys and I.
In vain did Mellasys Plickaman glower along the corridors of the Millard. I pitied him for his defeat too much to notice his attempts to pick a quarrel. Firm in the affection of my Saccharissa and in the confidence of her father, I waived the insults of the aggrieved and truculent cousin. He had lost the heiress. I had won her. I could afford to be generous.
We were to be married in December, at Bayou La Farouche. Then we were to sail at once for Europe. Then, after a proud progress through the principal courts, we were to return and inhabit a stately mansion in New York. How the heart of my Saccharissa throbbed at the thought of bearing the elevated name of Chylde and being admitted to the sacred circles of fashion, as peer of the most elevated in social position!
I found no difficulty in getting a liberal credit from my tailor. Upon the mere mention of my engagement, that worthy artist not only provided me with an abundant supply of raiment, but, with a most charming delicacy, placed bank-notes for a considerable amount in the pockets of my new trousers. I was greatly touched by this attention, and very gladly signed an acknowledgment of debt.
I regret, that, owing to circumstances hereafter to be mentioned, the diary kept jointly by Saccharissa and myself during our journey to the sunny South has passed out of my possession. Its pages overflowed with tenderness. How beautiful were our dreams of the balls and soirées we were to give! How we discussed the style of our furniture, our carriage, and our coachman! How I fed Saccharissa's soul with adulation! She was ugly, she was vulgar, she was jealous, she was base, she had had flirtations of an intimate character with scores; but she was rich, and I made great allowances.
At last we arrived at Bayou La Farouche.
I cannot state that the locality is an attractive one. Its land scenery is composed of alligators and mud in nearly equal proportions.
I never beheld there my fancy realized of a band of gleeful negroes hoeing cane to the music of the banjo. There are no wild bandanna-trees, and no tame ones, either. The slaves of Mr. Mellasys never danced, except under the whip of a very noisome person who acted as overseer. There were no sleek and sprightly negresses in gay turbans, and no iced eau sucré. Canaan was cursed with religious rigor on the Mellasys plantation at Bayou La Farouche.
All this time Mellasys Plickaman had been my bête noir.
I know nothing of politics. Were our country properly constituted, I should be in the House of Peers. The Chylde family is of sublime antiquity, and I am its head in America. But, alas! we have no hereditary legislators; and though I feel myself competent to wear the strawberry-leaves, or even to sit upon a throne, I have not been willing to submit to the unsavory contacts of American political life. Mr. Mellasys Plickaman took advantage of my ignorance.
When several gentlemen of the neighborhood were calling upon me in the absence of Mr. Mellasys, my defeated rival introduced the subject of politics.
"I suppose you are a good Democrat, Mr. Chylde?" said one of the strangers.
"No, I thank you," replied I, sportively,—meaning, of course, that they should understand I was a good Aristocrat.
"Who's your man for President?" my interlocutor continued, rather roughly.
I had heard in conversation, without giving the fact much attention, that an election for President was to take place in a few days. These struggles of commonplace individuals for the privilege of residing in a vulgar town like Washington were without interest to me. So I answered,—
"Oh, any of them. They are all alike to me."
"You don't mean to say," here another of the party loudly broke in, "that Breckenridge and Lincoln are the same to you?"
The young man wore long hair and a black dress-coat, though it was morning. His voice was nasal, and his manner intrusive. I crushed him with a languid "Yes." He was evidently abashed, and covered his confusion by lighting a cigar and smoking it with the lighted end in his mouth. This is a habit of many persons in the South, who hence are called Fire-Eaters.
Mellasys Plickaman here changed the subject to horses, which I do understand, and my visitors presently departed.
"How happily the days of Thalaba went by!"
as the poet has it. My Saccharissa and myself are both persons of a romantic and dreamy nature. Often for hours we would sit and gaze upon each other with only occasional interjections,—"How warm!" "How sleepy!" "Is it not almost time for lunch?" As Saccharissa was not in herself a beautiful object, I accustomed myself to see her merely as a representative of value. Her yellowish complexion helped me in imagining her, as it were, a golden image which might be cut up and melted down. I used to fancy her dresses as made of certificates of stock, and her ribbons as strips of coupons. Thus she was always an agreeable spectacle.
So time flew, and the sun of the sixth of November gleamed across the scaly backs of the alligators of Bayou La Farouche.
In three days I was to be made happy with the possession of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) on the nail,—excuse the homely expression,—great expectations for the future, and the hand of my Saccharissa.
For these I exchanged the name and social position of a Chylde, and my own, I trust, not unattractive person.
I deemed that I gave myself away dirt-cheap,—excuse again the colloquialism; the transaction seems to require such a phrase,—for there is no doubt that Mr. Mellasys was greatly objectionable. It was certainly very illogical; but his neighbors who owned slaves insisted upon turning up their noses at Mellasys, because he still kept up his slave-pen on Touchpitchalas Street, New Orleans. Besides,—and here again the want of logic seems to culminate into rank absurdity,—he was viewed with a purely sentimental abhorrence by some, because he had precluded a reclaimed fugitive from repeating his evasion by roasting the soles of his feet before a fire until the fellow actually died. The fact, of coarse, was unpleasant, and the loss considerable,—a prime field-hand, with some knowledge of carpentry and a good performer on the violin,—but evasions must be checked, and I cannot see why Mr. Mellasys's method was too severe. Mr. Mellasys was also considered a very unscrupulous person in financial transactions,—indeed, what would be named in some communities a swindler; and I have heard it whispered that the estimable, but somewhat obese and drowsy person who passed as his wife was not a wife, ceremonially speaking. The dusky hues of her complexion were also attributed to an infusion of African blood. There was certainly more curl in her hair than I could have wished; and Saccharissa's wiggy looks waged an irrepressible conflict with the unguents which strove to reduce their crispness.
Indeed, why should I not be candid? Mellasys per se was a pill, Mrs. Mellasys was a dose, and Saccharissa a bolus, to one of my refined and sensitive taste.
But the sugar coated them.
To marry the daughter of the great sugar-planter of Louisiana I would have taken medicines far more unpalatable and assafoetidesque than any thus far offered.
Meanwhile Mr. Mellasys Plickaman, cousin of my betrothed, had changed his tactics and treated me with civility and confidence. We drank together freely, sometimes to the point of inebriation. Indeed, unless he put me to bed, on the evening before the day of the events I am about to describe, I do not know how I got there.
Morning dawned on the sixth of November.
I was awakened, as usual, by the outcries of the refractory negroes receiving their matinal stripes in the whipping-house. Feeling a little languid and tame, I strolled down to witness the spectacle.
It stimulated me quite agreeably. The African cannot avoid being comic. He is the grotesque element in our civilization. He will be droll even under the severest punishment. His contortions of body, his grimaces, his ejaculations of "O Lor'! O Massa!" as the paddle or the lash strikes his flesh, are laughable in the extreme.
I witnessed the flagellation of several pieces of property of either sex. The sight of their beating had the effect of a gentle tickling upon me. The tone of my system was restored. I grew gay and lightsome. I exchanged jokes with the overseer. He appreciated my mood, and gave a farcical turn to the incidents of the occasion.
I enjoyed my breakfast enormously. Saccharissa never looked so sweet; Mr. Mellasys never so little like—pardon the expression—a cross between a hog and a hyena; and I began to fancy that my mother-in-law's general flabbiness of flesh and drapery was not so very offensive.
After breakfast, Mr. Mellasys left us. It was, he said, the day of the election for President. How wretched that America should not be governed by hereditary sovereigns and an order of nobles trained to control!
The day passed. It was afternoon, and I sat reading one of the novels of my favorite De Balzac to my Saccharissa. At the same time my imagination, following the author, strayed to Paris, and recalled to me my bachelor joys in that gay capital. I resolved to repeat them again, on our arrival there, at my bride's expense. How charming to possess a hundred thousand dollars, ($100,000,) even burdened with a wife!
My reading and my reverie were interrupted by the tramp of horses without. Six persons in dress-coats rode up, dismounted, and approached. All were smoking cigars with the lighted ends in their mouths. Mellasys Plickaman led the party. I recognized also the persons who had questioned me as to my politics. They entered the apartment where I sat alone with Saccharissa.
"Thar he is!" said Mellasys Plickaman. "Thar is the d—d Abolitionist!"
Seeing that he indicated me, and that his voice was truculent, I looked to my betrothed for protection. She burst into tears and drew a handkerchief.
An odor of musk combated for an instant with the whiskey reek diffused by Mr. Plickaman and his companions. The balmy odor was, however, quelled by the ruder scent.
"I am surprised, Mr. Plickaman," said I, mildly, but conscious of tremors, "at your use of opprobrious epithets in the presence of a lady."
"Oh, you be blowed!" returned he, with unpardonable rudeness. "You can't skulk behind Saccharissy."
"To what is this change in tone and demeanor owing, Sir?" I asked, with dignity.
"Don't take on airs, you little squirt!" said he.
It will be observed that I quote his very language. His intention was evidently insulting.
"Mr. Chylde," remarked Judge Pyke, one of the gentlemen who had been inquisitive as to my political sentiments, "The Vigilance Committee of Fire-Eaters of Bayou La Farouche have come to the conclusion that you are a spy, an Abolitionist, and a friend of Beecher and Phillips. We intend to give you a fair trial; but I may as well state that we have all made up our minds as to the law, the facts, and the sentence. Therefore, prepare for justice. Colonel Plickaman, have you given directions about the tar?"
"It'll be b'ilin' in about eight minutes," replied my quondam rival, with a boo-hoo of vulgar laughter.
"Culprit!" said Judge Pyke, looking at me with a truly terrible expression, "I have myself heard you avow, with insolent audacity, that you were not a Democrat. Do you not know, Sir, that nothing but Democrats are allowed to breathe the zephyrs of Louisiana? Silence, culprit! Not a word! The court cannot be interrupted. I have also heard you state that the immortal Breckenridge, Kentucky's favorite son, was the same to you as the tiger Lincoln, the deadly foe of Southern institutions. Silence, culprit!"
Here Saccharissa moaned, and wafted a slight flavor of musk to me from her cambric wet with tears.
"Colonel Plickaman," continued the Judge, "produce the letters and papers of the culprit."
I am aware that a rival has rights, and that a defeated suitor may, according to the code, calumniate and slander the more fortunate one. I have done so myself. But it seems to me that there should be limits; and I cannot but think that Mr. Mellasys Plickaman overstepped the limits of fair play, when he took advantage of my last night's inebriety to possess himself of my journal and letters. I will not, however, absolutely commit myself on this point. Perhaps everything is fair in love. Perhaps I may desire to avail myself of the same privilege in future.
I had spoken quite freely in my journal of the barbarians of Bayou La
Farouche. Each of the gentlemen now acting upon my jury was alluded to.
Colonel Plickaman read each passage in a pointed way, interjecting,—"Do
you hear that, Billy Sangaree?" "How do you like yourself now, Major
Licklickin?" "Here's something about your white cravat, Parson
Butterfut."
The delicacy and wit of my touches of character chafed these gentlemen.
Their aspect became truly formidable.
Meantime I began to perceive an odor which forcibly recalled to me the asphaltum-kettles of the lively Boulevards of Paris.
"Wait awhile, Fire-Eaters," said Plickaman, "the tar isn't quite ready yet."
The tar! What had that viscous and unfragrant material to do with the present interview?
"I won't read you what he says of me," resumed the Colonel.
"Yes,—out with it!" exclaimed all.
Suffice it to say that I had spoken of Mr. Mellasys Plickaman as a person so very ill-dressed, so very lavish in expectoration, so entirely destitute of the arts and graces of the higher civilization, merited. His companions required that he should read his own character. He did so. I need not say that I was suffering extremities of apprehension all this time; but still I could not refrain from a slight sympathetic smile of triumph as the others roared with laughter at my accurate analysis of my rival.
"You'll pay for this, Mr. A. Bratley Chylde!" says Plickaman.
So long as my Saccharissa was on my side, I felt no special fear of what my foes might do. I knew the devoted nature of the female sex. "Elles meurent, ou elles s'attachent,"—beautiful thought! These riflers of journals would, I felt confident, be unable to produce anything reflecting my real sentiments about my betrothed. I had spoken of her and her family freely—one must have a vent somewhere—to Mr. Derby Deblore, my other self, my Pylades, my Damon, my fidus Achades in New York; but, unless they found Derby and compelled him to testify, they could not alienate my Saccharissa.
I gave her a touching glance, as Mellasys Plickaman closed his reading of my private papers.
She gave me a touching glance,—or rather, a glance which her amorphous features meant to make touching,—and, waving musk from her handkerchief through the apartment, cried,—
"Never mind, Arthur dear! I don't like you a bit the less for saying what barbarous creatures these men are. They may do what they please,—I'll stand by you. You have my heart, my warm Southern heart, my Arthur!"
"Arthur!" shouted that atrocious Plickaman,—"the loafer's name's
Aminadab, after that old Jew, his grandfather."
Saccharissa looked at him and smiled contemptuously.
I tried to smile. I could not. Aminadab was my name. That old dotard, my grandfather, had borne it before me. I had suppressed it carefully.
"Aminadab's his name," repeated the Colonel. "His own mother ought to know what he was baptized, and here is a letter from her which the postmaster and I opened this morning. Look!—'My dear Aminadab.'"
"Don't believe it, Saccharissa," said I, faintly, "It is only one of those tender nicknames, relics of childhood, which the maternal parent alone remembers."
"Silence, culprit!" exclaimed Judge Pyke. "And now, Colonel, read the letter upon which our sentence is principally based,—that traitorous document which you and our patriotic postmaster arrested."
The ruffian, with a triumphant glance at me, took from his pocket a letter from Derby Deblore. He cleared his throat by a plenteous expectoration, and then proceeded to read as follows:—
"Dear Bratley,—Nigger ran like a hound. Marshall and the rest only saw his heels. I'm going on to Toronto to see how he does there. Keep your eyes peeled, when you come through Kentucky. There's more of the same stock there, only waiting for somebody to say, 'Leg it!' and they'll go like mad."
Here the audience interrupted,—"Hang him! hang him! tar and feathers a'n't half bad enough for the dam' nigger-thief!"
I began to comprehend Deblore's innocent reference to his favorite horse Nigger; and a successful race he had made with the well-known racer Marshall—not Rynders—was construed by my jury into a knowledge on my part of the operations of the "Underground Railroad." What could have been more absurd? I endeavored to protest. I endeavored to show them, on general and personal grounds, how utterly devoted I was to the "Peculiar Institution."
"Billy Sangaree," said Judge Pyke, "do you and Major Licklickin stand by the low-lived Abolitionist, and if he says another word, blow out his Black Republican heart."
They did so. I was silent. Saccharissa gave me a glance expressive of continued devotion. So long as I kept her and her hundred thousand dollars, ($100,000,) I little cared for the assaults of these noisy and ill-bred persons.
"Continue, Colonel," said Judge Pyke, severely.
Plickaman resumed the reading of my friend's letter.
"Well, Bratley," Deblore went on, "I hope you'll be able to stand Bayou La Farouche till you're married. I couldn't do it. I roar over your letters. But I swear I respect your powers of humbug. I suppose, if you didn't let out to me, you never could lie so to your dear Saccharissa. Do you know I think you are a little too severe in calling her a mean, spiteful, slipshod, vulgar, dumpy little flirt?"
"Read that again!" shrieked Saccharissa.
"You are beginning to find out your Aminadab!" says Plickaman.
I moved my lips to deny my name; but the pistol of Billy Sangaree was at my right temple, the pistol of Major Licklickin at my left. I was silent, and bore the scornful looks of my persecutors with patience and dignity.
Plickaman repeated the sentence.
"But hear the rest," said he, and read on:—
"From what you say of her tinge of African blood and other charming traits, I have constructed this portrait of the future Mrs. Bratley Chylde, as the Hottentot Venus. Behold it!"
And Mellasys held up a highly colored caricature, covering one whole side of my friend's sheet.
Saccharissa rose from the sofa where she had been sitting during the whole of my trial.
She stood before me,—really I cannot deny it,—a little, ugly, vulgar figure, overloaded with finery, and her laces and ribbons trembled with rage.
She seemed not to be able to speak, and, by way of relieving herself of her overcharge of wrath, smote me several times on either ear with that pudgy hand I had so often pressed in mine or tenderly kissed.
At this exhibition of a resentment I can hardly deem feminine, the Fire-Eaters roared with laughter and cheered her to continue. A circle of negroes also, at the window, expressed their amusement at the scene in the guttural manner of their race.
I could not refrain from tears at these unhappy exhibitions on the part of my betrothed. They augured ill for the harmony of our married life.
"Hit him again, Rissy! he's got no friends," that vulgar Plickaman urged.
She again advanced, seized me by the hair, and shook me with greater muscular force than I should have expected of one of her indolent habits. Delicacy for her sex of course forbade my offering resistance; and besides, there were my two sentries, roaring with vulgar laughter, but holding their pistols with a most unpleasant accuracy of aim at my head.
"Saccharissa, my love," I ventured to say, in a pleading tone, "these momentary ebullitions of a transitory rage will give the bystanders unfavorable impressions of your temper."
"You horrid little wretch!" she screeched, "you sneak! you irreligious infidel! you Black Republican! you Aminadab!"——
Here her unnecessary passion choked her, and she took advantage of the pause to handle my hair with extreme violence. The sensation was unpleasant, but I began to hope that no worse would befall me, and I knew that with a few dulcet words in private I could remove from Saccharissa's mind the asperity induced by my friend's caricature.
"I leave it to you, gentlemen," said she, "whether I am vulgar, as this fellow's correspondence asserts."
"Certainly not," said Judge Pyke. "You are one of the most high-toned beauties in the sunny South, the land of the magnolia and the papaw."
"Your dignity," said Major Licklickin, "is only surpassed by your grace, and both by your queenly calmness."
The others also gave her the best compliments they could, poor fellows!
I could have taught them what to say.
Here a grinning negro interrupted with,—
"De tar-kittle's a b'ilin' on de keen jump, Mas'r Mellasys."
"Gentlemen of the Jury," said Judge Pyke, "as you had agreed upon your verdict before the trial, it is not requisite that you should retire to consult. Prisoner at the Bar, rise to receive sentence."
I thought it judicious to fall upon my knees and request forgiveness; but my persecutors were blinded by what no doubt seemed to them a religious zeal.
"Git up!" said Major Licklickin; and I am ashamed, for his sake, to say that there was an application of boot accompanying this remark.
"Prisoner," continued my Rhadamanthus, "you have had a fair trial, and you are found guilty on all the counts of the indictment. First: Of disloyalty to the South. Second: Of indifference to the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. Third: Of maligning the character of Southern patriots in a book intended, no doubt, for universal circulation through the Northern States. Fourth: Of holding correspondence with an agent of the Underground Railroad, who, as he himself avows, has recently run off a nigger to Toronto.—Silence, Sir! Choke him, Billy Sangaree, if he says a word!—Fifth: Of defaming a Southern lady, while at the same time you were endeavoring to win her most attractive property and person from those who should naturally acquire them. Sixth: Of Agrarianism, Abolitionism, Atheism, and Infidelity. Prisoner at the Bar, your sentence is, that you be tarred and cottoned and leave the State. If you are caught again, you will be hung by the neck, and Henry Ward Beecher have mercy on your soul!"
I was now marched along by my two sentries to a huge tree, not of the bandanna species. Beneath it a sugar-kettle filled with ebullient tar was standing.