The very beasts seemed to conspire to treat me with ingratitude. My first effort in their cause was an attempt I made one day, on the tow-path near the Water-Works, to protect a poor broken-down barge-horse, which the driver was cruelly beating. My interference cost me a dip in the basin, the man, who was both savage and strong, pitching me in headlong, and (what I deemed still more provoking) a kick from the horse, who let fly at me with his heels, merely because mine, as they were tripped into the air, came in contact with his hind-quarters; so that I was both lamed and half drowned for my charity.
In the same way, I was scratched half to death, and much more savagely than I had been before by the needle-women, by a cat that I took out of a dog's mouth,—without counting upon a nip that I had from the cur also. And, to end this small catalogue of animal ingratitude, I may say, that, within a fortnight after, I was served in the same way by a rat that I strove to liberate from the fangs of my own gray tabby; for, while Tabby was clawing at my fingers, the rat took me by the thumb; and between them I was near perishing with lockjaw, the weather being uncommonly hot, and the time midsummer.
There were a thousand other mischances of a like nature which befell me, but which I have not leisure to describe, nor even to enumerate. Some few of them, however, I think proper to record; but, to save space, I will clap them into a short list, along with those already mentioned, where they may be examined at a glance, and where, in that glance, the reader may perceive what are sometimes the rewards of philanthropy.
I. Beaten by a drunkard whom I had taken out of prison, and bailed to keep the peace.II. Mulcted out of $100 surety-money, because my gentleman broke the peace by beating me.III. Driven, and almost kicked, out of a man's workshop, because I asked payment of a loan made without bond or voucher.IV. My nose pulled by a merchant to whom I had (out of charity to the latter, who was unfortunate) recommended a customer, who swindled him.V. Rolled in the mud by the boys of my own charity-school, whom I had exhorted not to daub the passers-by.VI. Abused by their parents for not paying them 25 cents per week for the time I had the boys at school.VII. Hustled by tailors, slop-shopkeepers, and others, for taking part with the needle-women in a strike.VIII. Scolded, scratched, and tumbled down stairs by the needle-women, for advising them to go into domestic service, and take care of their morals.IX. Robbed by a fugitive slave whom I had concealed three days and nights in my house from his master.X. House burnt down by the free blacks (or so it was suspected) for putting the thief as aforesaid into jail, so that his master got him.XI. Whitewashed and libelled on my own back by the stonecutters, for buying wrought marble out of the prison.XII. Tarred and feathered by a gang of the fancy, whom I exhorted at the ring to peace and amity.XIII. Scalded at my own house (which I had converted, at a season of suffering, into a gratis soup-house), and with my own soup, by a beggar, because there was too little meat and too much salt in it.XIV. Soused in the canal by a boat-driver, for rebuking his cruelty to an old barge-horse.XV. Kicked by the horse for taking his part.XVI. Scratched by a cat, for taking her out of a dog's mouth:item, bitten by the dog.XVII. Bitten by a rat, which I rescued from a cat: item, scratched by the cat.XVIII. Gored by a cow for helping her calf out of the mire:item, the calf splashed me all over with mud.XIX. Beaten about the ears with a half-skinned eel, by a fishwoman, whom I reproved for skinning it alive.
I. Beaten by a drunkard whom I had taken out of prison, and bailed to keep the peace.
II. Mulcted out of $100 surety-money, because my gentleman broke the peace by beating me.
III. Driven, and almost kicked, out of a man's workshop, because I asked payment of a loan made without bond or voucher.
IV. My nose pulled by a merchant to whom I had (out of charity to the latter, who was unfortunate) recommended a customer, who swindled him.
V. Rolled in the mud by the boys of my own charity-school, whom I had exhorted not to daub the passers-by.
VI. Abused by their parents for not paying them 25 cents per week for the time I had the boys at school.
VII. Hustled by tailors, slop-shopkeepers, and others, for taking part with the needle-women in a strike.
VIII. Scolded, scratched, and tumbled down stairs by the needle-women, for advising them to go into domestic service, and take care of their morals.
IX. Robbed by a fugitive slave whom I had concealed three days and nights in my house from his master.
X. House burnt down by the free blacks (or so it was suspected) for putting the thief as aforesaid into jail, so that his master got him.
XI. Whitewashed and libelled on my own back by the stonecutters, for buying wrought marble out of the prison.
XII. Tarred and feathered by a gang of the fancy, whom I exhorted at the ring to peace and amity.
XIII. Scalded at my own house (which I had converted, at a season of suffering, into a gratis soup-house), and with my own soup, by a beggar, because there was too little meat and too much salt in it.
XIV. Soused in the canal by a boat-driver, for rebuking his cruelty to an old barge-horse.
XV. Kicked by the horse for taking his part.
XVI. Scratched by a cat, for taking her out of a dog's mouth:item, bitten by the dog.
XVII. Bitten by a rat, which I rescued from a cat: item, scratched by the cat.
XVIII. Gored by a cow for helping her calf out of the mire:item, the calf splashed me all over with mud.
XIX. Beaten about the ears with a half-skinned eel, by a fishwoman, whom I reproved for skinning it alive.
Such were some of the unhappy circumstances that rewarded a seven months' life of philanthropy. But there were others to follow still more discouraging and afflicting.
It is a common belief among those who are more religious than wise, that a man never catches a cold going to church of a wet Sunday, or being baptized in midwinter. I am myself of opinion, the belief of such good people to the contrary notwithstanding, that many devout persons, by wading to church in the slush, or washing out their sins in snow-water, have gone to heaven much sooner than they expected. In the same way, and on the same principle of distrusting all miraculous interposition of Heaven in cases where human reason is sufficient for our protection, I have my doubts in the truth of another maxim of great acceptation in the world,—namely, "that a man never grows poor by giving." I believe, indeed, that the charity of a discreet and truly conscientious man never injures his fortune, but may, in many instances, actually tend to its increase; since the love of benevolence may stimulate him to new labours of acquisition, that he may have the greater means of doing good. But I am also of opinion, and I think it may be demonstrated by a good accountant, that a man who has a revenue of a thousand a year, and bestows fifteen hundred in charity, will, in due course of time, find himself as poor as his pensioners. When a man hath a goose with golden eggs, whatever he may do with the eggs, he should take great care of the goose.
The reader may infer from these remarks, that my philanthropy was as little profitable to my pocket as it proved to my person; and such indeed was the truth. I am of opinion I should myself, in a very few years, have consumed the whole estate of Zachariah Longstraw, ample as it was, in works of charity. How much faster it went with my nephew and my friend Abel to assist me, may be imagined. My nephew became a very dragon of charity, and dispensed my money upon such objects of pity as he could find (for he soon began to practise the profession upon what Abel called his ownhook), with a zeal little short of fury; so that, to supply his demands, I was sometimes obliged even to stint myself. Had Abel Snipe been equally profuse, there is no saying how soon I might have found myself at the end of my estate. But Abel Snipe was a jewel; his charity was great, but his conscientiousness was greater; he had ever a watchful eye to my good; and his solicitude to husband and improve my means kept his benevolence within the bounds of discretion.
But, notwithstanding all his care, Abel perceived that our philanthropy was beginning to eat holes into my possessions; and coming to me one day with a long face, he assured me, that, unless some means were devised to increase my income, we should soon find ourselves driven to resort to the capital.
"Verily, and of a truth," said I, not a whit frighted at this communication, "and why should that chill us in the good work, Abel Snipe? Of a surety, all that I possess, is it not the property of the poor?"
"Verily," said Abel, "verily and yea; but if we betake us to the capital, verily, it will happen that sooner or later it shall be consumed, and nothing left to us wherewithal to befriend the afflicted. I say to thee, Zachariah, thy wealth is, as thou sayest, the property of the poor; and it becomes thee, as a true and faithful servant thereof, to see that it be not wasted, but, on the contrary, husbanded with care and foresight, and put out to profit, so that the single talent may become two, and peradventure three; whereby the poor, as aforesaid, shall be twice, and, it may be, thrice benefited."
"Thou speakest the words of sense and seriousness," said I, struck by the new view of the case. "But how shall this happy object be effected? What shall we do, Abel Snipe, to make the one talent three, and thereby increase our means of doing good?"
"Thee nephew Jonathan," said Abel Snipe, with a look of devout joy, "is now a changed man, a man of seriousness and virtue, a scorner of vain things, and a giver of alms—a man whom we can trust. I say to thee, Zachariah, thee shall establish thee nephew in a gainful business, and he shall make money; thee shall give him what is thee property for his capital, remaining theeself but as a sleeping partner: and thus it shall happen that thee capital shall be turned over three times a year, producing, on each occasion, dividends three times as great as now accrue from thy investments: and thus, Zachariah (and verily it is pleasant to think upon), where thee now has a thousand dollars of revenue, thee shall then have nine; and where thee now relieves nine afflicted persons, thee shall there-upon relieve nine times nine, which is eighty-one."
I need not assure the reader that this proposition of Abel's fastened mightily upon my imagination, and that I was eager to embrace it; and Jonathan coming in at the moment, I repeated the conversation to him, assuring him that, if he thought himself able, with Abel's assistance, to undertake such a business, he should have my money to begin upon instanter, and marry the maiden Ellen into the bargain.
"Nay, verily," said Jonathan, "I will not marry, and I will not do this thing whereof thee speaks. Uncle Zachariah, thee may think me light of mind thus to speak of Ellen Wild, who is much lighter; but, of a surety, I find the spirit moves me to regard her as one not to be regarded any longer. In the matter of the money-making, I say, let Abel Snipe be thy merchant, or whatsoever it may be thee has determined on; for Abel Snipe is a good business man, and he knows how to make money. He shall have my advice and assistance, as far as may be in my power. But, truly, my thoughts now run in the paths of the unfortunate; and thither let my footsteps follow also."
To this proposal the faithful Abel, with tears in his eyes (for he was moved that Jonathan should express such confidence in him at last), demurred, averring that it would be better, and more seemly, for Jonathan himself to undertake the affair, he, Abel Snipe, giving help and counsel, according to his humble ability. Jonathan objected as before, and again declared that Abel, and Abel alone, was, as he expressed it, "the man for my money." In short, the two young men, now the best friends in the world, contested the matter, each arguing so warmly in favour of the other, that it was plain the thing could never be determined without my casting vote, which I, seeing that Jonathan was positive, and bent upon a life of virtue, gave in Abel's favour, and it was resolved accordingly that Abel should be made the money-maker.
And now, the question occurring to me, I demanded into what kind of business we should enter.
"That," said Jonathan, "is a question more easily made than answered, seeing that there are so many ways of making money in this wicked world, that an honest man can scarce tell which to choose among them;" and then proceeded with great gravity to indicate divers callings, which he pronounced the most gainful in the world, and all or any of which, he thought, Abel could easily turn his hand to.
The first he advised was quackery—the making and vending of nostrums to cure all manner of diseases, including corns and the toothache; which was a business that had the merit of requiring no previous study or education, a tinker or cobbler being just as fit to follow it as a man that had read Paracelsus; and which, besides, as was evident from the speed with which its professors in general stepped from the kitchen-pot to the carriage, was the quickest way of making a fortune that could be imagined. I should have thought the young man was joking (for he had that vice in him to the last), had it not been for the fervour with which he pointed out the advantages of the vocation. A great recommendation, he averred, was, that it required no capital beyond a few hundred dollars, to be laid out in bottles and logwood, or some other colouring material. Pump-water, he said, was cheap; and as for the other sovereign ingredient, it was furnished by the buyer himself. "Yes!" said Jonathan, "faith is furnished by the buyer, who pays us for the privilege of swallowing it; we sell men their own conceits, bottled up with green, red, and brown water; and thereby we make them their own doctors. Who then can say the calling of the quack is not honest—nay, even philanthropic? He is a public benefactor—a friend even of physicians; for he frees them from the painful necessity of killing, by making men their own executioners."
And thus he went on until I cut him short by averring, that the whole business was little better than wholesale cheating and murder. He then recommended we should make Abel a tailor, solemnly declaring that, next to quackery, tailoring, which was a quackery of another sort, was the most profitable trade that could be followed; the mere gain from cabbaging, considering that an ingenious tailor got at least one inch of cloth out of every armhole, without counting the nails cribbed from other parts of a coat, being immense, and his profits, seeing that he lost nothing by a bad customer that he did not charge to a good one, as certain and immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.
In short, my nephew Jonathan was in the mood for expatiating on the merits of all money-making vocations; in which I should follow him, were I not urged by the exigencies arising from limited time and space to adhere to my story. He made divers recommendations, none of which I thought of weight; and upon Abel, who had heard him with gravity and attention, I was at last forced to call for advice and assistance. It was his opinion, and he advised accordingly, that all the money I could raise should be thrown into the stock-market, where, being applied to purchase and sale in the usual way, he had no doubt it could be made to yield a revenue of at least twenty per cent., and perhaps twice as much; and this proposal, strange as it may seem to the reader, after the experience Abram Skinner had given me in such matters, I did, after sundry doubts and hesitations, finally agree to.
"Verily," said I, "this is a gainful business, friend Abel; but, of a surety, neither honest nor humane, seeing that it is practised at the expense of the ignorant, and often the needy."
"Verily, no," said Abel Snipe, with fervour; "it shall be at the expense of the rich and niggardly—the man that is a miser and uncharitable—the broker and the gambler—the bull and the bear. Our dealings shall not be with the poor and ignorant man that dabbleth in stocks; but him will we charitably pluck from the grasp of the covetous, and thus protect, while drawing from the covetous man those alms of benevolence which he would never himself apply to the use of the afflicted."
"Verily," said I, pleased with the idea, "if we can make the covetous man charitable, it will be a good thing; and if we can protect the foolish ignorant person from his grasp, it will be still better. But, of a surety, Abel Snipe, this business will be as gambling?"
"Yea, and verily," said Abel Snipe, "it is as gambling when a gambler follows it; but in the hands of an honest man it is an honest profession. Is not money, bagged up in stocks and other investments, as merchandise? and, as merchandise, shall it not be lawfully bought and sold?"
"And moreover," said Jonathan, with equal earnestness, "if it be no better than cheating and swindling, this same buying and selling, are we not embarking in it out of charity? Verily, uncle Zachariah, in such a case as this, the end sanctifies the means. Behold what is the crying evil arising from money that is chartered in stocks, whether it be in banks, rail-roads, loans, or otherwise. This is money that is not taxed for charitable purposes; it is money appropriated solely to the purposes of gain. Why is it that a private man should be taxed to support the poor, and a bank, that has greater facilities for making money, be not taxed for the purpose at all? Verily, uncle Zachariah, we will do what the commonwealth should be doing; we will impose a tax upon the gains of chartered money, and distribute the proceeds among the needy."
To make short work of the matter, I will not pursue our debate further, but merely state that I was soon brought to consider Abel Snipe's scheme the best, honestest, and most philanthropic in the world, and to agree that he should open an office as a stock-broker, turning a penny or two in that way, while making much more by buying and selling on his own account. To this I was brought, in a great measure, by the representations and arguments of Jonathan, among which I esteem as still worthy of consideration that which stands above expressed in his own words. I am still of opinion that a tax, and a round one, should be imposed upon the profits of all banks and other money-making corporations, the same to be specifically appropriated to hospitals, and other charitable foundations, and perhaps also to public schools. In this way evil might be made productive of good, and our avarice rendered the parent of benevolence and knowledge. Of a verity, my philanthropy is not yet got out of me!
The aforementioned arrangement was made at an early period of my new existence, that is to say, at the close of spring; and the faithful Abel soon began to render a good account of his stewardship, by handing me over divers handsome sums of money, the profits of his speculations, which Jonathan and myself disbursed with rival enthusiasm. The experiment was continued in a prosperous manner until the month of September, when there happened a catastrophe not less unexpected than calamitous.
The various mischances and afflictions, as narrated in the preceding chapter, which rewarded my virtue, had begun to affect my mind with sundry pangs of melancholy and misgiving. I perceived that the worldwasungrateful, and I had my doubts whether it was a whit the better for my goodness. These doubts and this persuasion were confirmed by the experience of each succeeding day; and by the month of September as aforesaid, I found myself becoming just as miserable a man as I had ever been before, and perhaps more so, being pierced not merely with the ingratitude of those I had befriended, but convinced that the unworthiness of man was a thing man was determined to persevere in.
It was at the moment of my greatest distress, that the catastrophe alluded to before happened; and this was nothing less than the sudden bankruptcy of Abel Snipe, whereby I was reduced in a moment from affluence to destitution; and what made the calamity still more painful, was a conviction forced upon me by my own reflections, as well as the representations of others, that the failure could not have happened without a fraudulent design on the part of the fiduciary. It is true, this worthy gentleman was the first to inform me of his mishap, which he did with tears in his eyes, and with divers outbreaks of self-accusation and despair; he declared that his imprudence had ruined me, his benefactor, and implored me, his benefactor, to knock him on the head with a poker I had begun to embrace in my agitation; but how he had effected such a catastrophe I could not bring him clearly to explain. The only answers I could get from him were, "Speculation, speculation—bad speculation!—ruined my benefactor! might as well have murdered thee!" and so on; and having given vent to some dozen or more of such frantic interjections, he ran out of the house.
Enter Jonathan the very next moment. The sight of him renewed my grief; he, poor youth, was ruined as well as myself, yet not wholly; for, as good luck would have it, I had, a week or two before, after long cogitation on the subject, resolved to marry him to the maid Ellen Wild, and so secure his happiness more certainly than, it appeared to me, it could be secured by a life of philanthropy. To effect this desirable purpose I bestowed upon him the only property which I had not thought fit to put into Abel Snipe's hands, being the new house I was then building, promising also to add a sum of money, as soon as it could be conveniently withdrawn from the concern. He received the gift and the promise with much joy and gratitude, but betrayed surprising indifference on the score of matrimony, saying that he was in no great hurry, and in fact giving me to understand that there was a difference between him and the maiden.
"Jonathan," said I, as soon as I saw him, "thee is a ruined young man. Abel has broken."
"All to smash!" said Jonathan; "I know all about it. Horrible pickle we're in. But I say, uncle, if thee can borrow twenty thousand dollars, we can save friend Abel yet."
"Does thee say so?" said I; "is it true?"
"Verily," said Jonathan, "I have looked over the demands, and twenty thousand dollars by nine o'clock to-morrow will make all straight. But where will thee get twenty thousand dollars?"
"Where?" said I, fairly dancing for joy. "It was but two days since that thy friend Ebenezer Wild did offer me exactly the sum of twenty thousand dollars for the new house as it stood, not knowing I had conveyed it to thee, until I told him the same, as a reason why I could not take such a handsome offer."
"Well," said Jonathan, opening his eyes, "what then?"
"Surely," said I, "if he would give twenty thousand then, he will give twenty thousand now. And so, Jonathan—"
"And so," said Jonathan, "thee wants me to sell the house, does thee? and give thee back the money? Uncle Zachariah, thee should be a little more reasonable. Thee must remember that the house ismine; and as it seems to be all I am ever to get, why, uncle, thee must excuse me, but—I have no notion of parting with it."
If Jonathan had picked up the poker and served me the turn Abel Snipe had so piteously entreated me to serve him—that is, knocked me on the head, I could not have been more shocked and horror-struck than I was by these words.
"What, Jonathan," said I, "does thee refuse to save me from ruin—me, who have been a father to thee, and given thee all that thou hast?"
"No," said Jonathan, coolly, "I am not so bad as that; but as this house is all I have, I can't think of running too much risk with it. Suppose thee borrows that twenty thousand dollars that Ebenezer Wild has so handy: he is thy friend as well as mine. Or suppose thee tries some of thy other friends. Thee has often loaned to them, and not often borrowed. Sure thee has many friends who can spare money better than I can."
"Oh, thou ungrateful young man!" said I.
"Don't go to call me hard names," said the perfidious and unfeeling youth; "for, if thee comes to that, uncle Zachariah, I can tell thee,theeis the ungrateful man—though not a young one. Haven't I been as a son to thee for eighteen long years? haven't I humoured all thy foolish old notions, even to the point of giving alms, talking about virtue and philanthropy, and so on? haven't I given up Ellen Wild to please thee? And hasn't thee, after all my pains, choused me out of the portion I had a right to expect of thee, except a poor beggarly unfinished house, only worth twenty thousand dollars? Yes, thee has, uncle Zachariah, thee can't deny it. Don't thee talk to me of ingratitude."
"Thou art a viper," said I.
"If I am," said Jonathan in a huff, "I won't stay to be trodden on."
And with that, the heartless creature, tossing up his head like an emperor, stalked out of the house, leaving me petrified by the enormity of his baseness.
I was, indeed, so shocked, so overwhelmed, by ingratitude coming from such a quarter, that it was some time before I could recover myself sufficiently to think of the steps necessary to be taken for my preservation. I remembered, however, that he, evenhe, my thrice unfeeling nephew, had recommended me to borrow of my friends what would be enough to retrieve my affairs from ruin. I ran from the house, not doubting that I could easily raise the sum. Fifty paces distant was my new house—that is, Jonathan's. My old friend Ebenezer, the father of the maid Ellen, was standing before it, looking up to the carpenters, who were nailing the shingles on the roof.
"Ebenezer," said I, "thee is my friend—does thee know I am on the brink of ruin?"
"Very sorry," said Ebenezer—"all the town-talk; looked for nothing better. Perhaps thee will sell the house—pho! I forgot; thee gave it to Jonathan."
"Ebenezer Wild," said I, "if thee is my friend, lend me that twenty thousand dollars. It will save me from ruin."
"Really, Mr. Longstraw," said Ebenezer Wild, (who was no Quaker, though his father had been before him), "I am surprised a reasonable man should make such a request. I have told you twenty times you would ruin yourself by your cursed philanthropy—can't consent to be ruined with you. Pity you, Mr. Longstraw—awfully swindled; wonder you could trust such a knave as Abel Snipe—sorry to hear matters look so black for Jonathan—thought better of him—quite unnatural to be defrauded by one's own flesh and blood."
What Ebenezer meant by his concluding remarks I did not, at that moment, understand. But I comprehended them well enough when I had run to five or six other friends, rich men like him, all of whom treated my request to borrow with as little respect, while all wound up their commonplace condolings by assuring me, first, that Abel Snipe had swindled me; and, secondly, that there was much reason to believe my nephew Jonathan had done the same thing.
Reader, this is a very wicked world we live in. My philanthropy did not make me, as philanthropy often does, selfish with my friends. I felt as much pleasure in obliging one who happened to be in a difficulty, with a loan of any sum within my reach, as in relieving actual distress. Of twelve different persons whom I now sought in my dilemma, I had in this manner, at different times, obliged no less than eleven; of not one of whom could I now borrow a dollar. Every man pitied my misfortune, every one inveighed with becoming severity against the villany of those by whom I was ruined, but every one was astonished that a reasonable man like me should expect another reasonable man to part with his money. In short, it was evident that my friends loved borrowing better than lending; and I left the door of the twelfth with the agreeable conviction on my spirit, that human nature was of the nature of a stone, I being the only man of the thousand million in the world that had actually a heart in my bosom.
This consideration was racking enough; but it made a small part of my distress. Every man had charged my friend, honest Abel Snipe, with having swindled me, as Ebenezer Wild had charged before; and every one, in like manner, swore that my nephew Jonathan had borne a part in the nefarious transaction. This seemed to me incredible enough; but when I remembered Jonathan's late behaviour, his unexpected defection, his hard, unfeeling, nay, his treacherous selfishness, I felt prepared to believe almost any wickedness that might be said of him.
I ran to Abel's office, resolved to sift the affair to the bottom. The work was already done to my hands; I found the office full of people, some of whom were officers of the police, who had seized upon books and papers, and (awful to be said!) the body of Abel Snipe; and all raging with vociferation and confusion, except the latter worthy, who looked as if astounded out of his senses. "It's a clear case of swindling," cried a dozen voices as I entered, "a design to defraud—fraud from beginning to end; flagrant, scandalous, scoundrelly swindling—, nay,worsethan swindling—it is a conspiracy! Jonathan has confessed it—been going on this three months;—Jonathan has confessed it!"
Jonathan had confessed it! confessed what? Why, confessed, as every one gave me to understand, and confessed in the hands of justice (for it seems he had been arrested), that he and Abel Snipe had entered into a conspiracy to defraud me of my property, which had been carried on from the moment that the latter was established in business, and was now completed by a long-designed bankruptcy.
Let the reader imagine my feelings at this disclosure of ingratitude and villany so monstrous.
My best friend—a man whom I had wrested from the extremity of poverty and disgrace, and my only relative—a youth whom I had adopted and reared as my son, who was my heir at law, and the living partner, as I may say, in all my possessions—had leagued together feloniously to deprive me of what I never denied them the privilege to share,—to rob, to fleece, to reduce me to beggary.
Words cannot paint my grief. I crept away from the scene of confusion, ashamed of my manhood, ashamed even of my philanthropy. I reached the door of my house; it was just dusk; a poor man standing at the door implored my charity for a miserable creature, as he called himself. "Go to the devil!" said I.
"You are Zachariah Longstraw?" said another man, tapping me on the shoulder. "I am," said I, supposing he was a beggar like the other; "and you may go to the devil too."
"Very much obliged to you," said the man; "but you're my prisoner; and so come along, if you please." And with that he took me by the arm, and began to march me down the street.
Why I was arrested, and at whose instance, I knew not; I was too downcast and spirit-broken to inquire. I had, doubtless, divers small debts due to persons with whom I was accustomed to deal; and it seemed to me natural enough, as all men were ungrateful rascals, that all such persons, now that I was known to be penniless, should fall upon me without shame or mercy, demanding their dues. I say I thought such a consummation was natural enough, and I asked no questions of my captor. I let my head drop upon my bosom, and, without resisting or remonstrating, and looking neither to the right nor the left, suffered him to conduct me whither he would.
Our progress was rapid, our journey short; in a few moments I found myself led into a house, and ushered into a lighted apartment.
I looked up, to see into what alderman's hands I had fallen. The reader may judge of my surprise, amounting almost to consternation, when I beheld myself in an elegant saloon, brilliantly lighted, and surrounded by a dozen or more gayly-dressed people of both sexes, among whom was my friend Ebenezer Wild, and two or three others whose countenances seemed familiar, but whom, in my surprise and confusion, I did not immediately recognise.
A maiden, beautiful as the morning, and smiling as if her little heart was dancing out of her eyes, ran from the throng, and seized me by the hands, crying,—
"Now, uncle Zachariah, thee shall pay me what thee owes me, or be turned over to some other creditor!"
I looked upon her in astonishment, and began to fancy I was in a dream.
"What!" said my friend Ebenezer, "don't you know my little Ellen?" And thereupon he added other expressions, but what they were I retain no remembrance of, my wits being utterly amazed and confounded.
To make my confusion still greater, the door suddenly opened, and in rushed my nephew Jonathan, dressed, like a dandy of the first water, in a blue cloth coat with shining buttons, white trousers, and satin waistcoat, and exclaiming "Bravo!" and "Victoria!" as if a very demon of joy and exultation possessed him. As soon as he beheld me he ran forward, snatched one of my hands from the maiden, and, dropping on his knees, cried, with a comical look of contrition,—
"Forgive me all my sins, uncle Zachariah, and I'll behave better for the future."
"Oh thou ungrateful wretch!" said I, "how canst thou look me in the face, having ruined me?"
"Don't say so!" cried Ellen Wild; "you don't know how Jonathan has saved you."
"The deuse he don't!" said Jonathan, jumping up; "why then we've got the play all wrong. I say, uncle, don't look so solemn and wrathful. You are no more ruined than I am, and you are out of the clutches of the harpy!"
"Haven't I been swindled?" said I.
"Unutterably!" said Jonathan; "but, as the swindler has been swindled also, there's no great harm done. Uncle Zachariah, a'n't you satisfied Abel Snipe is a rascal?"
"I am," said I; "but what shall I say of thee?"
"That I have broken the spell the villain cast over your senses," said Jonathan, "and so saved you from the ruin your confidence invited him to attempt. Uncle Zachariah, you think I am as bad as Abel. Now listen to my story. I knew that Abel Snipe was a rogue and hypocrite, but could not make you believe it; I saw that he was daily fleecing you of sums of money under pretence of giving to the poor; that he was artfully goading and inflaming your benevolence into a passion, nay, into amonomania(for, uncle, everybody said you were mad), for his own base purposes; and that, sooner or later, he would strip you of every thing. This I could not make you believe; I resolved you should see it. I turned hypocrite myself, and began to fleece you ten times harder than Abel. The rogue was alarmed; he perceived I was ousting him from his employment—that I had greater facilities for cheating (having more of your affection) than himself. His alarm, added to another feeling which you shall hear all about, brought him into the trap from which cautiousness at first secured him. I convinced him I was as great a rogue as himself, and he then agreed with me—yes, uncle, formally agreed—to join in a plan to strip you of fortune. We arranged the whole scheme from beginning to end—the business, the speculations, the bankruptcy. Abel was to play Sir Smash—his reputation could stand it. The sums received from you were to be handed over to me, and accounted for as lost in bad speculations; to make which appear straight, his books were filled with fictitious sales and purchases, very ingeniously got up. After the grand crash we were to make a division of the plunder, he being content, honest man, to receive one fourth, of which he considered himself secure enough as long as I had any value for good name or fear of the penitentiary. Now you may wonder how such a cautious rogue could be so easily gulled. Here stands the fairy," said Jonathan, pointing to the maid Ellen, "who dazzled the eyes of his wisdom. Yes, uncle, would you believe it? the impudent, the audacious fellow had the vanity to think he had found favour in her eyes, at a time when I had lost favour in those of her father. You must know we had a coolness—that is, father Wild and I; it was about you—that confounded philanthropy—but we'll say nothing of that. I used to communicate with Ellen by letter, and Abel was often my Ganymede. Now, you must know, Ellen is a coquette—'
"Fy, Jonathan!" said the damsel; "it was all that vicious Abel's presumption and folly. Because I was glad to see him, and treated him well, just because he brought me letters—oh, the monster! I soon saw what was running in his head!"
"Yes," said Jonathan, "Ellen's a much smarter girl than people suppose her."
"Oh! you great Quaker bear!" said the maiden.
"Well," continued Jonathan, "she boasted her conquest, and then I saw I had the ogre by the nose. It was this put me upon turning swindler; I had a talk with father Wild, who approved my plan, and Ellen agreed to cultivate Abel's good opinion as far as a smile or two. We affected to quarrel; I began to coquet with another, abusing poor Ellen to Abel as hard as I could, until he was persuaded the breach between us was incurable. Ellen gave him a smile—her papa became condescending. In a word, the rascal thought nothing was wanting to make him the happiest man in the world, save the one full fourth of his patron's estate, and as much more as he could cheat me of. Here was the rock upon which Abel split, and split he has; he is now safe. The moment matters came to a crisis, which was this afternoon, I ran to a magistrate—my friend Jones there" (pointing to an elderly gentleman who had entered with him), "and made confession of our roguery; deposed the whole matter; accused myself and Abel of conspiracy to defraud, and so forth, and so forth; and was admitted to the honourable privileges of evidence for the commonwealth, and allowed to walk about on bail, while my rascally colleague takes up his lodgings in prison. There's the whole story; I have exposed Snipe's rogueries, and secured his conviction; and, what is equally agreeable, I have saved your property. Here, uncle—you called me a viper—I only wanted to make you believe I could be ungrateful, as well as others. By-the-way, that was a plan of father Wild's, to have your friends refuse to assist you; they were let into the secret, and I recommended you to apply to them. Here, uncle, you'll see what a viper I am," he continued, a little impetuously; "here are the deeds for the house; here is a roll of bank-notes I cheated you of, to play the philanthropist; you will be surprised at the amount, but Ididspend some, I confess, for there are wretches who deserve our charity. And here, and here, and here you have the property out of which Abel and I conspired to cheat you—at least, the chief part of it; the rest we will soon get possession of, having laid the villain in limbo. Here, uncle Zachariah, take them, and be as philanthropic as you please; we have no fear of you, now your familiar is tied up; take your property, and much good may it do you. As for me, I am content to take Ellen—that is, if you have no objection."
This was a turn of circumstances that confounded me more than ever; and, verily, I knew not whether I was standing on my head or feet. I stood staring Jonathan in the face, without saying a word, until the youth was seized with the idea that the surprise of the thing had turned my wits; at which, being alarmed, he took me again by the hand, and said, with the tears in his eyes,—
"Oh, my dear uncle! do consider it is nothing more than a joke, and that I never meant to offend thee."
"No," said I, "thee did not. Therefore thee shall have it all, and thee shall marry the maiden."
And with that, being seized with uncommon generosity, or perhaps not well knowing what I did, I put into his hands the conveyance of the house, the bank-bills, and other papers which he had given me but a moment before, and turned to leave the house.
"Stay, uncle—I am just going to be married," said he; and "Stay, Zachariah!" said a dozen others; when some one suddenly calling out, "Let him go; he is afraid of being turned out of meeting if he witnesses the ceremony," I was suffered to obey the impulses of the spirit within me, and walk out of the house; which I did without exactly knowing what I was doing.
To tell the honest truth—as, indeed, I have been trying to do all along—I was in a kind of maze and bewilderment of mind, which the first shock of ruin had produced, and which Jonathan's story rather increased than diminished. The effect of this was divided in my brain with the impression of the various proofs of ingratitude and baseness to which the day had given birth, the latter, however, being greatly preponderant. Of one feeling only I had entire consciousness, and that was a hearty disgust of philanthropy, coupled with a sense of shame at having been so basely cheated as I seemed to have been on all sides. I had been cheated out of my senses, as the saying is; and the only cure for me was to be cheated into them again; which was not an agreeable reflection, the whole affair being a reproach on my good sense.
On the whole, I felt very melancholy and lugubrious, and began to have my thoughts of leaving Zachariah Longstraw's body at the first convenient opportunity. The great difficulty was, however, to find a tenement in which I might promise myself content, the disappointment I had experienced in my present adventure having filled me with doubts as to the reality of any human happiness. "At least," said I to myself "I will henceforth look before I leap. I will cast mine eyes about me, I will gird up my loins and look abroad into the human family, and peradventure I shall find some man whose body is worth reanimating. Yea, verily, I will next time be certain I am not putting my soul, as the pickpocket did his hand, into a sack of fish-hooks."
With this resolution on my mind I walked towards my house, and was just about to pass the door, when an adventure befell me which knocked the aforesaid resolution entirely on the head. But before I relate it my conscience impels me to make one remark, which I beg the reader, if he be a man of fortune and blood, to peruse, without excusing himself on the score of its dulness.
There are other persons besides Zachariah the philanthropist, who have experienced the ingratitude of the poor; and, truth to say, if we can believe the accounts of those who profess to have the best means of judging, there is more of it among that class of beings in the United States than in any other Christian land. If it be so, let not the reader wonder at its existence. It springs, like a thousand other evils of a worse, because of a political complexion, from that constitution of society which, notwithstanding its being in opposition to all the interests of the land and the character of our institutions, is founded in, and perpetuated by, the folly of the richer classes. It lies, not in thenaturalenmity supposed to exist between the rich and the poor, but in the unnatural hatred provoked in the bosoms of the one by the offensive pride and arrogance of the other. The poor man in America feels himself, in a political view, as he really is, the equal of the millionaire; but this very consciousness of equality adds double bitterness to the sense of actual inferiority, which the richer and more fortunate usually do their best, as far as manners and deportment are concerned, to keep alive. Why should the folly of a feudal aristocracy prevail under the shadow of a purely democratic government? It is to the stupid pride, the insensate effort at pomp and ostentation, the unconcealed contempt of labour, the determination, manifested in a thousand ways, and always as unfeelingly as absurdly, to keep the "base mechanical" aware of the gulf between him and his betters—in a word, to the puerile vanity and stolid pride of the genteel and refined, that we owe the exasperation of those classes in whose hands lie the reins of power, and who will use them for good or bad purposes, according as they are kept in a good or bad humour. It is to these things we trace, besides the general demoralization ever resulting from passions long encouraged, besides the unwilling and unthankful reception of benefits coming from the hands of the detested, all those political evils which demagoguism, agrarianism, mobocracism, and all otherismsof a vulgar stamp, have brought upon the land. There is pride in the poor, as well as the rich: the wise man and the patriot will take care not to offend it.
Reader, if thou art a rich man, and despisest thy neighbour, remember that he has a thousand friends of his class where thou hast one of thine, and that he can beat thee at the elections. If thou art a gentleman, remember that thy cobbler is another, or thinks himself so—which is all the same thing in America. At all events, rememberthis—namely, that the poor man will find no fault with thy wealth, if thou findest none with his poverty.
I said that, just as I arrived at the door of my dwelling, an adventure befell me; and truly, it was such an extraordinary one as has happened to no other individual in the land since the days of the unfortunate William Morgan. As I passed towards the door, a man whose countenance I could not see, for it was more than two hours after nightfall, and who seemed to have been lying in wait on the stoop, suddenly started up, exclaiming, in accents highly nasal, and somewhat dolorous,
"Well! I guess, if there's no offence, there's no mistake. I rather estimate that you're Mr. Zachariah Longstraw?"
"Well, friend! and what is thatthybusiness?" said I, in no amiable tone.
"Well, not above more than's partickilar," said the stranger; "but I've heern tell much on your goodness, and I'm in rather a bit of the darnedest pickle jist now, with a sick wife and nine small children, the oldest only six years old, that ever you heerd tell on. And so, I rather estimated—"
"Thee may estimate theeself to the devil," said I. "How can the oldest child of nine be only six years old?"
"Oh, darn it," said the fellow, "there was three on 'em twins. But if you'll jest step round to my wife, she'll tell you all about it. Always heern you was a great andyfist, or what-d'-ye-call-it."
"Then thee has heard a great lie," said I, "and so thee may go about thee business, for I'll give thee nothing."
"Well now, do tell!" said the man, with a tone of surprise that conveyed a part of the emotion to myself, particularly when, by way of pointing his discourse with the broadest note of admiration, he suddenly clapped a foot to my heels, and laid me sprawling on the broad of my back.
My astonishment and wrath may well be imagined; but they were nothing to the terror that beset me, when, recovering a little from the stunning effects of the fall, I opened my mouth to cry aloud, and found it instantly stuffed full of handkerchiefs, or some such soft material, which the pretended beggar took that opportunity to gag me with. The next moment I felt myself whipped up from the ground and borne aloft, like a corpse, on the shoulders of two men, who trudged along at a rapid pace, and apparently with the greatest unconcern possible; for some of the people in the street hearing my groans, which were the only sounds I could make, and demanding what was the matter, were answered by my cool captors, "Oh, nothing more than's partickilar—only a poor mad gentleman that broke hospital; guess he won't do it again. Raving mad, and hollers a gag out. I say, Sam, hold fast to his legs, and don't let him jump; for I rather estimate, if he gets loose, he'll kill some on these here people."
The villain! I had begun to hope my moans and struggles, which I made for the purpose as loud and furious as I could, having no other way of calling for help, would cause some of the persons collected to arrest the rogues, and inquire into the matter a little more closely; but no sooner had the villain expressed his fears of the mischief I might do, than all inquiries ceased, and a horrible scraping and rattling of feet told me that assistance and curiosity had scampered off together.
In three minutes more I found myself clapped into a little covered, or ratherboxedwagon, such as is used by travelling tinmen, and held fast by one of the rogues, while the other seized upon the reins, and whipping up a little nag that was geared to it, we began to roll through the streets at a round gait, and with such a rattle of wheels and patty-pans, that there was little hope of making myself heard, had I possessed the voice even of an oyster-man. My companion took this opportunity to secure my wrists in a pair of wooden handcuffs, and to lock my feet in a sort of stocks, secured against the side of the wagon. Then, overhauling the handkerchiefs, and arranging them more to his liking, though not a whit more to mine, he opened his mouth and spoke, saying,
"Now, uncle Longlegs, I estimate we'll be comfortable. So keep easy; or, if youwillgrunt, just grunt in tune, and see what sort of a bass you'll make to Old Hundred."
With that the rascal, after pitching his voice so as to accommodate mine as much as possible, began to sing a song; of which all that I recollect is, that it related the joys of a travelling tinman—tricks, rogueries, and all;—that it began somewhat in the following fashion;—
"When I was a driving along Down East,I met old Deacon Dobbs on his beast;The beast was fat, and the man was thin—'I'll cheat Deacon Dobbs,' says I, 'to the skin,—'"
that it was as long and soporific as a state constitution, or a governor's message—that it was actually sung to a psalm-tune, or something like it—and that, during the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and half of the fourteenth stanza, the little wagon rolled leisurely over a long and hollow-sounding bridge, which I had no doubt was one of the wooden Rialtos of the Schuylkill—having passed which, the driver whipped up, and away we went at a speed of at least six miles an hour.
Verily, reader, the thing was to me as an amazement and a marvel, and the wonder thereof filled my spirit with anguish and perturbation. But if I was dismayed at my seizure and abduction, at my involuntary journey, prolonged through the space of a whole night, how much greater was my alarm to find it continued for five days and nights longer, during which I was never allowed to speak or breathe the fresh air, except when my captors halted to rest and eat, which they did at irregular intervals, and always in solitary places among woods and thickets. It was in vain that I demanded by what authority they treated me with such violence, what purpose they had in view, and whither they were conducting me. The rogues assured me they were very honest fellows, who made their living according to law, and had no design to harm me; and as to what they designed doing with me,that, they said, I should know all in good time; recommending me, in the meanwhile, to take things patiently. I studied their appearance well. They were common-looking personages, with a vulgar shrewdness of visage, and would have been readily taken for Yankee pedlers of the nutmeg and side-saddle order—that is, of the inferior branch of that adventurous class—as indeed they were. There was nothing of the cut-throat about them whatever, and I soon ceased to feel any apprehension of their doing me a personal injury. But what did the villains mean? what was their object in carrying me off? what did they design doing with me? To these questions, which I asked myself and them in vain, I had, on the sixth day of my captivity, an answer; and verily it was one that filled me with horror and astonishment. Oh! the wickedness of man! the covetousness, the depravity, the audacity! the enterprise and originality thereof!
During the first three days of my captivity, my roguish captors had taken great pains to conceal me from, and to prevent any noises I might make from being heard by, any persons they met on the road. On the fourth day they relaxed somewhat from their severity; on the fifth they unbound my arms; and on the sixth they even removed the gag from my mouth, assuring me, however, that it should be replaced if I attempted any outcries, and giving me, moreover, to understand, that I was now in a land where outcries would be of no service to me whatever; and, indeed, I had soon the most mournful proof that, in this particular, they spoke nothing but the truth.
The evening before, I heard, while passing by a farmhouse, a great sawing of fiddles and strumming of banjoes, with a shuffling of feet, as of people engaged in a dance, while a voice, which I knew, by its undoubted Congo tang, could be none but a negro's, sang, in concert with the fiddles,—
"Ole Vaginnee! nebber ti—ah!Kick'm up, Juba, a leetle high—ah,—"
or something to that effect. And, while I was marvelling what could make a negro in Pennsylvania chant the praises of Virginia, having rolled a little further on, I heard, far in the distance, while our little nag stopped to drink from a brook, the sound of many voices, which I knew also were those of negroes. They were labourers husking corn in the light of the moon, and singing as they laboured; and, verily, there was something uncommonly agreeable in the tones, now swelling, now dying in the distance, as many or fewer voices joined in the song. There was a pleasing wildness in the music; but it was to me still more enchanting, as showing the light-heartedness of the singers. "Verily," said I, forgetting my woes in a sudden impulse of philanthropy, "the negro that is free is a happy being"—not doubting that I was still in Pennsylvania.
But oh, how grievously this conceit was dispersed on the following morning! I was roused out of sleep by the sound of voices and clanking of chains, and looking from the door of my prison, which my conductors had left open to give me air, I spied, just at the tail of the cart, a long train of negroes, men, women, and children, of whom some of the males were chained together, the children riding for the most part in covered wagons, while two white men on horseback, armed with great whips and pistols, rode before and behind, keeping the whole procession in order.
"What!" said I, filled with virtuous indignation, and thrusting my head from the cart so as to address the foremost rider, "what does thee mean, friend? Are these people slaves or freemen? and why dost thou conduct them thus in chains through the free state of Pennsylvania?"
"Pennsylvanee!" cried the man, with a stare; "I reckon we're fifty miles south of Mason's and Dixon's, and fast enough in old Virginnee."
"Virginia!" said I, seized with dismay. Before I could add any thing farther, one of my captors, jumping from the front of the cart, where he had been riding with the other, clapped to the door of the box, swearing at me for an old fool, who could not keep myself out of mischief.
"Hillo, stranger!" I heard the horseman cry to my jailer, "what white man's that you've got locked up thaw?"
"Oh, darn it," was the answer, "it's an old fellow of the north, jist as mad as the dickens."
"Friend!" cried I from my prison, seized with a sudden hope of escape, "the man tells thee a fib. If thee is an honest man and a lover of the law, I charge thee to give me help; for these men are villains, who have dragged me from my home contrary to law, and now have me fastened up by the legs."
"I say, strange-aw! by hooky!" cried the horseman, in very emphatic tones, addressing himself to my captor, as I saw through a crack, while his companion rode up to his assistance, "what's the meaning of all this he-aw? What aw you doing, toting a white man off in this style, like a wild baw?"
What a "wildbaw" was I could not conveniently comprehend; but I saw that I had lighted on a friend, who had the power to deliver me from thraldom.
"My name," said I, "is Zachariah Longstraw, and I can reward thee for thy trouble."
"You hear him!" said my jailer, with all imaginable coolness. "Well now, darn it, if I must tell, it is Zachariah Longstraw, the famous Zachariah Longstraw. You understand!" And here he nodded and winked at the questioner with great significancy; but, as it appeared, all in vain.
"Never heard of the man in my life," said my friend, "and I've followed niggur-driving ever since I could hold a two-year-old bo' pig."
"What!" cried my jailer, "never heard of Zachariah Longstraw, the famous abolitionist?"
"Abolitionist!" cried the two horsemen together, and they cried it with a yell that made my hair stand on end. "Can't say ever heard the name, but reckon he's one of them 'aw New-Yorkers and Yankees what sends 'cendiary things down he-aw! I say, strange-aw! is it a true, right up-and-down, no-mistake abolitionist?"
"Darn it, I think you'd say so, if you had ever read the papers."
"Jist open the box then, and if I don't take the scalp off him, call me a black man!"
"You won't do no sitch thing, meaning no offence," said my jailer. "Didn't go to the expense to fetch him so far for nothing; and don't mean him for the Virginnee market. Bound down to Louisianee, stranger; that's the best market for abolitionists; seen a public advertisement offering fifty thousand dollars for fellers not half so bad. I rather estimate we'll get full price for our venture."
With that my jailers whipped up, and succeeded in putting a proper distance betwixt them and that ferocious person who had such a desire to rob me of my scalp.
Reader, if thou art an abolitionist (and, verily, I hope thou art not), thou wilt conceive the mingled wo and astonishment with which I listened to these words of the chief kidnapper—whose Christian name, by-the-way, was Joshua, though as for his surname, I must confess I never heard it—and appreciate, even to the cold creeping of the flesh, the terrible situation in which I was placed. I was an abolitionist—or, at least, my captors chose so to consider me, and they were now carrying me down south, to sell me on speculation. For this they had kidnapped me! for this they had fastened me up by the legs like a "wild baw!" for this—but it is vain to accumulate phrases expressive of their villany and my distresses. What mattered it to my captors if, after all, I wasnoabolitionist? (for, of a verity, though opposed in principle to the whole institution of slavery, my mind had been so fully occupied with other philanthropic considerations that I had had no time to play the liberator)—it was all one to my captors. The genius which could convert a hemlock-knot into a shoulder of bacon, a bundle of elder twigs into good Havana cigars, and bags of carpet-rags into Bologna sausages, could be at no fault when the demand was only to transform a peaceable follower of George Fox into a roaring lion of abolition. I felt that they had got me into a quandary more dreadful than any that had ever before afflicted my spirit. I knew we were already far south of Mason's and Dixon's.
The moment my vile kidnappers slackened their speed a little, having ridden hard to escape the negro-drivers, I called a parley, in the course of which two circumstances were brought to light, which greatly increased the afflictions of my spirit. I began by remonstrating with the villains upon the wickedness, cruelty, and injustice of their proceedings; to which Joshua made answer, that "times was hard—that a poor man was put to a hard shift to get a living—that, for his part, he was an honest man who turned his hand to any honest matter— that he knew what was lawful, and what was not—that he was agin all abolition, which was anti-constitutional, and clear for keeping the peace betwixt the North and South"—and twenty other things of a like nature, of which the most important was, a declaration that the good people of some parish or other in Louisiana had offered a reward of fifty thousand dollars for either of two individuals whose names I have forgotten, though they were very famous abolitionists, and although Joshua, to settle the matter at once, showed me their names in the advertisement, which he had cut from a newspaper.
"Friend," said I, "I don't see that these foolish people have offered any reward forme."
"Well, darn it, I know it," said Joshua; "but I rather estimate they'll give half price for you; and that will pay us right smart for the venture. For, you see, what they want is an abolitionist, and I rather estimate they're not over and above partickilar as to who he may be. Now I have heern tell of a heap of incendiary papers you sent down south to free the niggurs—"
"I never did any such thing!"
"Oh, well," said Joshua, "it's all one; them there sugar-growing fellers will think so; and so it's all right. And there's them runaway niggurs you Phil'delphy Quakers are always hiding away from their masters. I rather estimate we'll make a good venture out of you."
"What!" said I, "will you sell my life for money?"
"No," said the vile Joshua, "it's a mere trade in flesh and blood—wouldn't take a man's life on no consideration."
"Friend, thee shall have money if thee will permit me to escape."
"Well," said Joshua, with an indifferent drawl, "I estimate not. Abel Snipe told me you was cleaned out as clear as a gourd-shell."
"Abel Snipe!" said I; "is thee a friend of that villain, Abel Snipe?"
"A sorter," said Joshua; "or rather Sam is. Him and Abel was friends together at Sing—"
"Oh, blast your jaw," said Sam, speaking for almost the first time on the whole journey, for he had been, until then, uncommonly glum and taciturn; "where's the difference where it was? Says Abel Snipe to me, says he, 'If you want's an abolitionist, there's my old friend Zachariah; he's your true go.' And so, d'ye see, that's what made us snap you; for we was thinking of snapping another."
"Oh, the wretch! the base, ungrateful, hypocritical wretch!"
"Come, blast it," said Sam, "don't abuse a man's friends."
"Fellow," said I, "hast thou no human feeling in that breast of thine? Wilt thou sell me to violent men and madmen, who will wrongfully take my life?
"Think what thou doest! Hast thou no conscience? Thou art selling a fellow-being! Hast thou no fear of death and judgment? of the devil and the world of torment?"
"Oh, hold your gab," said the ruffian. "As for selling fellow-critters, why, that was once a reggelar business of mine; for, d'ye see, I was a body-snatcher. And I reckon I was more skeared once snapping up a dead body, than ever I shall be lifting a live one. You must know, I was snatching for the doctors, over there in Jarsey; for, d'ye see, I'm a Jarseyman myself: I reckon it was some fourteen months ago: it was summer. What the devil-be-cursed the doctor wanted with a body in summer, I don't know; but it was none on my business. So we, went, me and Tim Stokes, and the doctor, to an old burying-ground where they had just earthed a youngster that the doctor said would suit him. Well, d'ye see, when we came to the grave, up jumps a blasted devil, as big as a cow, or it might ha' been a ghost, and set up a cry. So we takes to our heels. But the doctor said 'twas a man's cry, and no ghost's. And so, d'ye see, blast it, we was for going back again, after having a confab; when what should we do but find a poor devil of a feller lying dead by a hole under a beech-tree. The doctor saidhewould do better nor the other; and so, blast it, d'ye see, we nabbed him."
"Of a surety," said I, eagerly, "it was the beech-tree at the Owl-roost! and that was the body of poor Sheppard Lee!"
"Well, they did call him summat of that like; and they made a great fuss about him in the papers. But I'm hanged if I wasn't skeared after that out of all body-snatching."
"Friend," said I, "can thee tell me what the doctor did with that body?"
"Why, cut him up, blast him, and made a raw-head-and-bloody-bones of him. The doctor was so cussed partickilar, he wouldn't let us even knock the teeth out; though that was no great loss, for Jarseymen hasn't no great shakes in the tooth way."
Alas! what an ending for poor Sheppard Lee! His body subjected to the knife of an anatomist, his bones scraped, boiled, bleached, hung together on wires, and set up in a museum, while his spirit was wandering about from body to body, enduring more afflictions in each than it had ever mourned even in that unlucky original dwelling it was so glad to leave! I am not of a sentimental turn, and I cannot say that, as Zachariah Longstraw, I felt any peculiar sorrow for the woes of Sheppard Lee. Nevertheless, I did not hear this account of the brutal way in which his body had been stolen and anatomized, without some touch of indignation and grief; which, perhaps, I should have expressed, had not there arisen, before the brutal Samuel had quite finished his remarks on Jerseymen's teeth, an occasion to exercise those feelings on my own immediate behalf.
This was produced by the vile Joshua, who had then the reins, telling a brace of horsemen whom we met that he had "the great abolitionist, the celebrated Zachariah Longstraw, in his cart," and was carrying him to be Lynched in Louisiana; a confession that threw the strangers into transports of satisfaction, one of them swearing he would accompany my captors to the Mississippi, or to the end of the earth, for the mere purpose of seeing me get my deservings.
And now arose a train of incidents, by which I was taught three things, namely—first, the manner in which my merchants designed giving a value to their merchandise not inherent and intrinsic to it (for, of a truth, my abolition principles, as I said before, had never been carried to the point of notoriety, or even notice); secondly, the love with which a southron regards those pious philanthropists who will have him good and virtuous against his own will; and, thirdly, the religious respect for law and order which is so prominent a feature in the American character.
To make me valuable, it was necessary I should be made famous; and this was easily accomplished in a land where men make up their opinions for themselves, according as they are instructed. It was only necessary to assure some half dozen or more independent sovereigns that I was famous, to ensure their making me so. And this my kidnappers did. They told everybody they met that they had secured Zachariah Longstraw, the famous abolitionist, the very life and soul of northern incendiarism, whom they were carrying to Louisiana, to be Lynched according to law; and as the circumstance would, of course, get into every patriotic newspaper along the way, it was certain I should be made famous enough before I got there, and they thus enjoy the advantage of advertising their commodity without paying a cent to the printer.
It was astonishing (and to none more than myself) to witness the suddenness with which I was exalted from obscurity to distinction, and the readiness with which every living soul, upon being told my name, character, and reputation, remembered all about me and my misdeeds. "Yes," cried one worthy personage, shaking at me a fist minus two fingers and a half, "I have heerd of him often enough: he lives in New-York, and he sells sendary pictures, packed up between the soles of niggur shoes."—"Yes!" cried another, who had but one eye, "I have read all about him: he lives in Boston, keeps a niggur school, and prints sendary papers, a hundred thousand at a time, to set niggurs insurrecting." In short, they remembered not only all that the unworthy Joshua told them to my disparagement, but a thousand things that the imagination of one suggested to the credulity of another. It was in vain that I endeavoured to say any thing in denial or defence; ridicule and revilement, threats and execrations, were my only answers. It was clear, that by the time we reached the Mississippi, I should be the most important personage in America; and that, if my value as an article of merchandise was to be determined by the distinction I won on the road, my friends, Joshua and Samuel, would make their fortunes by the speculation. But it was not my fate to travel beyond the bounds of the Ancient Dominion.
It happened, that on this day an election was held in the district through which we were travelling, to return a representative to Congress, in lieu of one who had fought his way into the shoes of achargé. All the world—that is, all the district—was therefore in arms; and men and boys, Americans and Irishmen, were making their way to the polls as fast and comfortably as two-mile-an-hour hard-trotting horses could carry them; and thither also, as it appeared, or in that direction, we were ourselves bending our course. As we advanced, therefore, we found ourselves gliding into a current of human bodies—honest republicans, moving onward to the polls, all of whom were ready to add their approval to my claims, or those the kidnappers made for me, to the honour of Lynchdom. The word was passed from one to another, that the Yankee cart contained the famous abolitionist, Zachariah Longstraw; they pressed around to look at and revile me, to discourse with the kidnappers on my demerits, and to express their delight that such a renowned member of the incendiary gang, as they called that class of conscientious people, should at last be on the road to justice.
And thus I was rolled along, attended by sundry groups, which grew fast into crowds, consisting of persons who rejoiced over my capture, and painted to my ears, in words uncommonly rough and ferocious, the fate that awaited me when arrived at my place of destination.
That place, as it chanced, was nearer than I either expected or desired. As the crowd thickened, the sounds of wrath and triumph increased, becoming more terrible to my auditories. A new idea came into the minds of the sovereigns. A villain, seven feet and a half high, mounted on a horse just half that altitude, who had a great knife-scar across his nose and cheek, and a dozen similar seams on his hands, rode up to the cart, and giving me a diabolical look, cried out "Whaw! what aw the use of carrying the crittur so faw? I say, Vawginnee is the place for Lynching, atter all. I say, gentlemen and Vawginians! I go for Lynching right off-hand. Old Vawginnee for evvaw!"
Loud and terrible was the roar of voices with which the throng testified their approbation of the barbarian's proposal. It was agreed I ought to be, and should be, Lynched on the spot. The kidnappers appealed to the justice of "Virginians," requesting them not to invade "the sacred rights of private property,"—"they could not think of giving up their prisoner for nothing; they meant him solely for the Louisiana market." But things were coming to a crisis, and that my conductors perceived. They whipped up to escape the throng; but in vain. The further they went, the more they became involved in the crowd, having now arrived at the village where the favourite candidate was stumping among his constituents, and promising them worlds of reform, retrenchment, and public virtue, provided they would send him to Congress. I could hear from my box (my friend Joshua having taken care to lock me up at the first sign of danger), as we entered the village, the distant cries of "Hampden Jones for ever!" mingled with those nearer ones of my persecutors, "Lynch the abolitionist!" and the loudly-expressed remonstrances of my friends against invasion of their rights, coupled with threats to have the law of any one who robbed them of their property.
But threats and appeals were alike wasted on the independent freemen of that district. Joined by the voters and others already assembled at the polls, who, at the cry of "Lynch the abolitionist!" had deserted their orator, to join in the nobler sport of Lynching, they increased in wrath and enthusiasm; and, stopping the cart and breaking open my prison-house, they dragged me into the light of day, one man calling for a pistol, another a knife, a third a rope, and a fourth a cord of good dry wood and a coal of fire, to "burn the villain alive." Such a horrible clamour never before afflicted my ears or soul. I saw that, abolitionist or not, it was all over with me; and so saw honest Joshua and Samuel, whose only solace for this unlucky interruption to their speculation, was a call some one generously made to take up a subscription for their benefit, seeing that it was "beneath the dignity of the chivalry of Virginia to cheat even a Yankee of what was justly his due."
At this moment the orator and candidate of the day, stalking up in high dudgeon to find what superior attraction had robbed him of his audience, laid eyes upon me. I thought I had seen him before; and verily I had. He was that identical gentleman, the master of the fugitive slave whom I had concealed in my house in Philadelphia, and then clapped into prison for robbing me, whence his master recovered him. There was no mistaking the gentleman: He was a young man of twenty-six or seven, six feet high and one foot wide, long-limbed, with small feet and huge hands, a great shock of Indian-looking hair, vast, solemn black eyes, a mouth wide and square, and a brow that might have suited a patriarch, it was so wide, and lofty, and wrinkled. He was evidently a man destined to shake the walls of the Capitol, and cause stenographers to groan; the Tully shone in his eye, the Demosthenes moved on his lip—there was genius even in the shape of his nose.