The Chainbearer; Or, The Littlepage Manuscripts

  CHAPTER I.

  "Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said--thou wert my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir A princess;--no worse issued."--_Tempest._

  My uncle Ro and myself had been travelling together in the East, and hadbeen absent from home fully five years when we reached Paris. Foreighteen months neither of us had seen a line from America, when wedrove through the barriers, on our way from Egypt, _via_ Algiers,Marseilles, and Lyons. Not once, in all that time, had we crossed ourown track, in a way to enable us to pick up a straggling letter; and allour previous precautions to have the epistles meet us at differentbankers in Italy, Turkey, and Malta were thrown away.

  My uncle was an old traveller--I might almost say, an old resident--inEurope; for he had passed no less than twenty years of his fifty-nineoff the American continent. A bachelor, with nothing to do but to takecare of a very ample estate, which was rapidly increasing in value bythe enormous growth of the town of New York, and with tastes earlyformed by travelling, it was natural he should seek those regions wherehe most enjoyed himself. Hugh Roger Littlepage was born in 1786--thesecond son of my grandfather, Mordaunt Littlepage, and of UrsulaMalbone, his wife. My own father, Malbone Littlepage, was the eldestchild of that connection; and he would have inherited the property ofRavensnest, in virtue of his birthright, had he survived his ownparents; but, dying young, I stepped into what would otherwise have beenhis succession, in my eighteenth year. My uncle Ro, however, had gotboth Satanstoe and Lilacsbush; two country-houses and farms, which,while they did not aspire to the dignity of being estates, were likelyto prove more valuable, in the long run, than the broad acres which wereintended for the patrimony of the elder brother. My grandfather wasaffluent; for not only had the fortune of the Littlepages centred inhim, but so did that of the Mordaunts, the wealthier family of the two,together with some exceedingly liberal bequests from a certain ColonelDirck Follock, or Van Valkenburgh; who, though only a very distantconnection, chose to make my great-grandmother's, or Anneke Mordaunt'sdescendants his heirs. We all had enough; my aunts having handsomelegacies, in the way of bonds and mortgages on an estate calledMooseridge, in addition to some lots in town; while my own sister,Martha, had a clear fifty thousand dollars in money. I had town lots,also, which were becoming productive; and a special minority of sevenyears had made an accumulation of cash that was well vested in New YorkState stock, and which promised well for the future. I say a "special"minority; for both my father and grandfather, in placing, the one,myself and a portion of the property, and the other, the remainder of myestate, under the guardianship and ward of my uncle, had made aprovision that I was not to come into possession until I had completedmy twenty-fifth year.

  I left college at twenty; and my uncle Ro, for so Martha and myselfalways called him, and so he was always called by some twenty cousins,the offspring of our three aunts;--but my uncle Ro, when I was done withcollege, proposed to finish my education by travelling. As this was onlytoo agreeable to a young man, away we went, just after the pressure ofthe great panic of 1836-7 was over, and our "lots" were in tolerablesecurity, and our stocks safe. In America it requires almost as muchvigilance to _take care_ of property, as it does industry to acquire it.

  Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage--by the way, I bore the same name, though Iwas always called Hugh, while my uncle went by the differentappellations of Roger, Ro, and Hodge, among his familiars, ascircumstances had rendered the associations sentimental, affectionate,or manly--Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, senior, then, had a system of hisown in the way of aiding the scales to fall from American eyes, by meansof seeing more clearly than one does, or can, at home, let him belongwhere he may, and in clearing the specks of provincialism from off thediamond of republican water. He had already seen enough to ascertainthat while "our country," as this blessed nation is very apt on alloccasions, appropriate or not, to be called by all who belong to it, aswell as by a good many who do not, could teach a great deal to the oldworld, there was a possibility--just a _possibility_, remark, is myword--that it might also learn a little. With a view, therefore, ofacquiring knowledge _seriatim_, as it might be, he was for beginningwith the hornbook, and going on regularly up to the _belles-lettres_ andmathematics. The manner in which this was effected deserves a notice.

  Most American travellers land in England, the country farthest advancedin material civilization; then proceed to Italy, and perhaps to Greece,leaving Germany, and the less attractive regions of the north, to comein at the end of the chapter. My uncle's theory was, to follow the orderof time, and to begin with the ancients and end with the moderns;though, in adopting such a rule, he admitted he somewhat lessened thepleasure of the novice; since an American, fresh from the fresher fieldsof the western continent, might very well find delight in memorials ofthe past, more especially in England, which pall on his taste, andappear insignificant, after he has become familiar with the Temple ofNeptune, the Parthenon, or what is left of it, and the Coliseum. I makeno doubt that I lost a great deal of passing happiness in this way, bybeginning at the beginning, in Italy, and travelling north.

  Such was our course, however; and, landing at Leghorn, we did thepeninsula effectually in a twelvemonth; thence passed through Spain upto Paris, and proceeded on to Moscow and the Baltic, reaching Englandfrom Hamburg. When we had got through with the British isles, theantiquities of which seemed flat and uninteresting to me, after havingseen those that were so much more _antique_, we returned to Paris, inorder that I might become a man of the world, if possible, by rubbingoff the provincial specks that had unavoidably adhered to the Americandiamond while in its obscurity.

  My uncle Ro was fond of Paris, and he had actually become the owner of asmall hotel in the faubourg, in which he retained a handsome furnishedapartment for his own use. The remainder of the house was let topermanent tenants; but the whole of the first floor, and of the_entresol_, remained in his hands. As a special favor, he would allowsome American family to occupy even his own apartment--or rather_appartement_, for the words are not exactly synonymous--when heintended to be absent for a term exceeding six months, using the moneythus obtained in keeping the furniture in repair, and his handsome suiteof rooms, including a _salon_, _salle a manger_, _antichambre cabinet_,several _chambres a coucher_, and a _boudoir_--yes, a male _boudoir_!for so he affected to call it--in a condition to please even hisfastidiousness.

  On our arrival from England, we remained an entire season at Paris, allthat time rubbing the specks off the diamond, when my uncle suddenlytook it into his head that we ought to see the East. He had never beenfurther than Greece, himself; and he now took a fancy to be my companionin such an excursion. We were gone two years and a half, visitingGreece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, the Holy Land, Petra, the Red Sea,Egypt quite to the second cataracts, and nearly the whole of Barbary.The latter region we threw in, by way of seeing something out of thecommon track. But so many hats and travelling-caps are to be met with,nowadays, among the turbans, that a well-mannered Christian may getalong almost anywhere without being spit upon. This is a greatinducement for travelling generally, and ought to be so especially to anAmerican, who, on the whole, incurs rather more risk now of sufferingthis humiliation at home, than he would even in Algiers. But the animusis everything in morals.

  We had, then, been absent two years and a half from Paris and had notseen a paper or received a letter from America in eighteen months, whenwe drove through the barrier. Even the letters and papers received orseen previously to this last term, were of a private nature, andcontained nothing of a general character. The "twenty millions"--it wasonly the other day they were called the "twelve millions"--but, the"twenty millions," we knew, had been looking up amazingly after thetemporary depression of the moneyed crisis it had gone through; and thebankers had paid our drafts with confidence, and without extra charges,during the whole time we had been absent. It is true, uncle Ro, as anexperienced traveller, went well fortified in the way of credit--aprecaution by no means un
necessary with America, after the cry that hadbeen raised against us in the old world.

  And here I wish to say one thing plainly, before I write another line.As for falling into the narrow, self-adulatory, provincial feeling ofthe American who has never left his mother's apron-string, and whichcauses him to swallow, open-mouthed, all the nonsense that is uttered tothe world in the columns of newspapers, or in the pages of your yearlingtravellers, who go on "excursions" before they are half instructed inthe social usages and the distinctive features of their own country, Ihope I shall be just as far removed from such a weakness, in any passingremark that may flow from my pen, as from the crime of confoundingprinciples, and denying facts, in a way to do discredit to the land ofmy birth and that of my ancestors. I have lived long enough in the"world," not meaning thereby the southeast corner of the northwesttownship of Connecticut, to understand that we are a vast way behindolder nations, in _thought_ as well as deed, in many things; while, onthe opposite hand, they are a vast way behind us in others. I see nopatriotism in concealing a wholesome truth; and least of all shall I beinfluenced by the puerility of a desire to hide anything of this nature,because I cannot communicate it to my countrymen, without communicatingit to the rest of the world. If England or France had acted on thisnarrow principle, where would have been their Shakespeares, theirSheridans, their Beaumonts and Fletchers, and their Molieres! No, no!great national truths are not to be treated as the gossiping surmises ofvillage crones. He who reads what I _write_, therefore, must expect tofind what I _think_ of matters and things, and not exactly what he mayhappen to think on the same subject. Any one is at liberty to compareopinions with me; but I ask the privilege of possessing some smallliberty of conscience in what is, far and near, proclaimed to be the_only_ free country on the earth. By "far and near," I mean from the St.Croix to the Rio Grande, and from Cape Cod to the entrance of St. Juande Fuca, and a pretty farm it makes, the "interval" that lies betweenthese limits! One may call it "far and near" without the imputation ofobscurity, or that of vanity.

  Our tour was completed, in spite of all annoyances; and here we wereagain, within the walls of magnificent Paris! The postilions had beentold to drive to the hotel, in the Rue St. Dominique; and we sat down todinner, an hour after our arrival, under our own roof. My uncle's tenanthad left the apartment a month before, according to agreement; and theporter and his wife had engaged a cook, set the rooms in order, andprepared everything for our arrival.

  "It must be owned, Hugh," said my uncle, as he finished his soup thatday, "one _may_ live quite comfortably in Paris, if he possess the_savoir vivre_. Nevertheless, I have a strong desire to get a taste ofnative air. One may say and think what he pleases about the Parispleasures, and the Paris _cuisine_, and all that sort of thing: but'home is home, be it ever so homely.' A '_d'Inde aux truffes_' iscapital eating; so is a turkey with cranberry sauce. I sometimes think Icould fancy even a pumpkin pie, though there is not a fragment of therock of Plymouth in the granite of my frame."

  "I have always told you, sir, that America is a capital eating anddrinking country, let it want civilization in other matters, as much asit may."

  "Capital for eating and drinking, Hugh, if you can keep clear of thegrease, in the first place, and find a real cook, in the second. Thereis as much difference between the cookery of New England, for instance,and that of the Middle States, barring the Dutch, as there is betweenthat of England and Germany. The cookery of the Middle States, and ofthe Southern States, too, though that savors a little of the WestIndies--but the cookery of the Middle States is English, in its bestsense; meaning the hearty, substantial, savory dishes of the English intheir true domestic life, with their roast-beef underdone, theirbeefsteaks done to a turn, their chops full of gravy, theirmutton-broth, legs-of-mutton, _et id omne genus_. We have some capitalthings of our own, too; such as canvas-backs, reedbirds, sheepshead,shad, and blackfish. The difference between New England and the MiddleStates is still quite observable, though in my younger days it was_patent_. I suppose the cause has been the more provincial origin, andthe more provincial habits of our neighbors. By George! Hugh, one couldfancy clam-soup just now, eh!"

  "Clam-soup, sir, well made, is one of the most delicious soups in theworld. If the cooks of Paris could get hold of the dish, it would setthem up for a whole season."

  "What is '_creme de Baviere_,' and all such nicknacks, boy, to a goodplateful of clam-soup? Well made, as you say,--made as a cook ofJennings's used to make it, thirty years since. Did I ever mention thatfellow's soup to you before, Hugh?"

  "Often, sir. I have tasted very excellent clam-soup, however, that henever saw. Of course, you mean soup just flavored by the littlehard-clam--none of your vulgar _potage a la_ soft-clam?"

  "Soft-clams be hanged! they are not made for gentlemen to eat. Of courseI mean the hard-clam, and the small clam,

  "Here's your fine clams, As white as snow; On Rockaway These clams do grow."

  The cries of New York are quite going out, like everything else at homethat is twenty years old. Shall I send you some of this eternal _pouleta la Marengo_? I wish it were honest American boiled fowl, with adelicate bit of shoat-pork alongside of it. I feel amazingly _homeish_this evening, Hugh!"

  "It is quite natural, my dear uncle Ro; and I own to the 'softimpeachment' myself. Here have we both been absent from our native landfive years, and half that time almost without hearing from it. We knowthat Jacob"--this was a free negro who served my uncle, a relic of theold domestic system of the colonies, whose name would have been Jaaf, orYop, thirty years before--"has gone to our banker's for letters andpapers; and that naturally draws our thoughts to the other side of theAtlantic. I dare say we shall both feel relieved at breakfast to-morrow,when we shall have read our respective dispatches."

  "Come, let us take a glass of wine together, in the good old Yorkfashion, Hugh. Your father and I, when boys, never thought of wettingour lips with the half-glass of Madeira that fell to our share, withoutsaying, 'Good health, Mall!' 'Good health, Hodge!'"

  "With all my heart, uncle Ro. The custom was getting to be a littleobsolete even before I left home; but it is almost an American custom,by sticking to us longer than to most people."

  "Henri!"

  This was my uncle's _maitre d' hotel_, whom he had kept at board-wagesthe whole time of our absence, in order to make sure of his ease, quiet,taste, skill, and honesty, on his return.

  "Monsieur!"

  "I dare say"--my uncle spoke French exceedingly well for a foreigner;but it is better to translate what he said as we go--"I dare say thisglass of _vin de Bourgogne_ is very good; it _looks_ good, and it camefrom a wine-merchant on whom I can rely; but Monsieur Hugh and I aregoing to drink together, _a l'Americaine_, and I dare say you will letus have a glass of Madeira, though it is somewhat late in the dinner totake it."

  "Tres volontiers, Messieurs--it is my happiness to oblige you."

  Uncle Ro and I took the Madeira together; but I cannot say much in favorof its quality.

  "What a capital thing is a good Newtown pippin!" exclaimed my uncle,after eating a while in silence. "They talk a great deal about their_poire beurree_, here at Paris; but, to my fancy, it will not comparewith the Newtowners we grow at Satanstoe, where, by the way, the fruitis rather better, I think, than that one finds across the river, atNewtown itself."

  "They are capital apples, sir; and your orchard at Satanstoe is one ofthe best I know, or rather what is left of it; for I believe a portionof your trees are in what is now a suburb of Dibbletonborough?"

  "Yes, blast that place! I wish I had never parted with a foot of the oldneck, though I did rather make money by the sale. But money is nocompensation for the affections."

  "_Rather_ make money, my dear sir! Pray, may I ask what Satanstoe wasvalued at, when you got it from my grandfather?"

  "Pretty well up, Hugh; for it was, and indeed _is_, a first-rate farm.Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will remember that there arequite five hundred acres of it, a
ltogether."

  "Which you inherited in 1829?"

  "Of course; that was the year of my father's death. Why, the place wasthought to be worth about thirty thousand dollars at that time; but landwas rather low in Westchester in 1829."

  "And you sold two hundred acres, including the point, the harbor, and agood deal of the sedges, for the moderate modicum of one hundred and tenthousand, cash. A tolerable sale, sir!"

  "No, not cash. I got only eighty thousand down, while thirty thousandwere secured by mortgage."

  "Which mortgage you hold yet, I dare say, if the truth were told,covering the whole city of Dibbletonborough. A city ought to be goodsecurity for thirty thousand dollars?"

  "It is not, nevertheless, in this case. The speculators who bought of mein 1835 laid out their town, built a hotel, a wharf, and a warehouse,and then had an auction. They sold four hundred lots, each twenty-fivefeet by a hundred, regulation size, you see, at an average of twohundred and fifty dollars, receiving one-half, or fifty thousand dollarsdown, and leaving the balance on mortgage. Soon after this, the bubbleburst, and the best lot at Dibbletonborough would not bring, under thehammer, twenty dollars. The hotel and the warehouse stand alone in theirglory, and will thus stand until they fall, which will not be a thousandyears hence, I rather think."

  "And what is the condition of the town-plot?"

  "Bad enough. The landmarks are disappearing, and it would cost any manwho should attempt it, the value of his lot, to hire a surveyor to findhis twenty-five by a hundred."

  "But your mortgage is good?"

  "Ay, good in one sense; but it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer toforeclose it. Why, the equitable interests in that town-plot people theplace of themselves. I ordered my agent to commence buying up therights, as the shortest process of getting rid of them; and he told mein the very last letter I received, that he had succeeded in purchasingthe titles to three hundred and seventeen of the lots, at an averageprice of ten dollars. The remainder, I suppose, will have to beabsorbed."

  "Absorbed! That is a process I never heard of, as applied to land."

  "There is a good deal of it done, notwithstanding, in America. It ismerely including within your own possession, adjacent land for which noclaimant appears. What can I do? No owners are to be found; and then mymortgage is always a title. A possession of twenty years under amortgage is as good as a deed in fee-simple, with full covenants ofwarranty, barring minors and _femes covert_."

  "You did better by Lilacsbush?"

  "Ah, _that_ was a clean transaction, and has left no drawbacks.Lilacsbush being on the island of Manhattan, one is sure there will be atown there, some day or other. It is true, the property lies quite eightmiles from City Hall; nevertheless, it has a value, and can always besold at something near it. Then the plan of New York is made andrecorded, and one can find his lots. Nor can any man say when the townwill not reach Kingsbridge."

  "You got a round price for the bush, too, I have heard, sir?"

  "I got three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, in hard cash. Iwould give no credit, and have every dollar of the money, at thismoment, in good six per cent. stock of the States of New York and Ohio."

  "Which some persons in this part of the world would fancy to be no verysecure investment."

  "More fools they. America is a glorious country, after all, Hugh; and itis a pride and a satisfaction to belong to it. Look back at it, as I canremember it, a nation spit upon by all the rest of Christendom----"

  "You must at least own, my dear sir," I put in, somewhat pertly,perhaps, "the example might tempt other people; for, if ever there was anation that is assiduously spitting on itself, it is our own belovedland."

  "True, it has that nasty custom in excess, and it grows worse instead ofbetter, as the influence of the better mannered and better educateddiminishes; but this is a spot on the sun--a mere flaw in the diamond,that friction will take out. But what a country--what a gloriouscountry, in truth, it is! You have now done the civilized parts of theold world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be persuaded,yourself, of the superiority of your native land."

  "I remember you have always used this language, uncle Ro; yet have youpassed nearly one-half of your time _out_ of that glorious country,since you have reached man's estate."

  "The mere consequence of accidents and tastes. I do not mean thatAmerica is a country for a bachelor to begin with; the means ofamusement for those who have no domestic hearths, are too limited forthe bachelor. Nor do I mean that society in America, in its ordinarymeaning, is in any way as well-ordered, as tasteful, as well-mannered,as agreeable, or as instructive and useful, as society in almost anyEuropean country I know. I have never supposed that the man of leisure,apart from the affections, could ever enjoy himself half as much athome, as he may enjoy himself in this part of the world; and I amwilling to admit that, intellectually, most gentlemen in a greatEuropean capital live as much in one day, as they would live in a weekin such places as New York, and Philadelphia, and Baltimore."

  "You do not include Boston, I perceive, sir."

  "Of Boston I say nothing. They take the mind hard there, and we hadbetter let such a state of things alone. But as respects a man or womanof leisure, a man or woman of taste, or man or woman of refinementgenerally, I am willing enough to admit that, _caeteris paribus_, eachcan find far more enjoyment in Europe than in America. But thephilosopher, the philanthropist, the political economist--in a word, thepatriot, may well exult in such elements of profound nationalsuperiority as may be found in America."

  "I hope these elements are not so profound but they can be dug up atneed, uncle Ro?"

  "There will be little difficulty in doing that, my boy. Look at theequality of the laws, to begin with. They are made on the principles ofnatural justice, and are intended for the benefit of society--for thepoor as well as the rich."

  "Are they also intended for the rich as well as the poor?"

  "Well, I will grant you, a slight blemish is beginning to appear, inthat particular. It is a failing incidental to humanity, and we must notexpect perfection. There is certainly a slight disposition to legislatefor numbers, in order to obtain support at the polls, which has made therelation of debtor and creditor a little insecure, possibly; butprudence can easily get along with that. It is erring on the right side,is it not, to favor the poor instead of the rich, if either is to bepreferred?"

  "Justice would favor neither, but treat all alike. I have always heardthat the tyranny of numbers was the worst tyranny in the world."

  "Perhaps it is, where there is actually tyranny, and for a very obviousreason. One tyrant is sooner satisfied than a million, and has even agreater sense of responsibility. I can easily conceive that the Czarhimself, if disposed to be a tyrant, which I am far from thinking to bethe case with Nicholas, might hesitate about doing that, under hisundivided responsibility, which one of our majorities would do, withouteven being conscious of the oppression it exercised, or caring at allabout it. But, on the whole, we do little of the last, and not in theleast enough to counterbalance the immense advantages of the system."

  "I have heard very discreet men say that the worst symptom of our systemis the gradual decay of justice among us. The judges have lost most oftheir influence, and the jurors are getting to be law-makers, as well aslaw-breakers."

  "There is a good deal of truth in that, I will acknowledge, also; andyou hear it asked constantly, in a case of any interest, not which partyis in the right, but _who_ is on the jury. But I contend for noperfection; all I say is, that the country is a glorious country, andthat you and I have every reason to be proud that old Hugh Roger, ourpredecessor and namesake, saw fit to transplant himself into it, acentury and a half since."

  "I dare say now, uncle Ro, it would strike most Europeans assingular that a man should be proud of having been born anAmerican--Manhattanese, as you and I both were."

  "All that may be true, for there have been calculated attempts to bringus into discredit of late, by harping on th
e failure of certain Statesto pay the interest on their debts. But all that is easily answered, andmore so by you and me as New Yorkers. There is not a nation in Europethat would pay its interest, if those who are taxed to do so had thecontrol of these taxes, and the power to say whether they were to belevied or not."

  "I do not see how that mends the matter. These countries tell us thatsuch is the effect of your _system_ there, while we are too honest toallow such a system to _exist_ in this part of the world."

  "Pooh! all gammon, that. They prevent the existence of our system forvery different reasons, and they coerce the payment of the interest ontheir debts that they may borrow more. This business of repudiation, asit is called, however, has been miserably misrepresented; and there isno answering a falsehood by an argument. No American State hasrepudiated its debt, that I know of, though several have been unable tomeet their engagements as they have fallen due."

  "_Unable_, uncle Ro?"

  "Yes, _unable_--that is the precise word. Take Pennsylvania, forinstance; that is one of the richest communities in the civilized world;its coal and iron alone would make any country affluent, and a portionof its agricultural population is one of the most affluent I know of.Nevertheless, Pennsylvania, owing to a concurrence of events, _could_not pay the interest on her debt for two years and a half, though she isdoing it now, and will doubtless continue to do it. The sudden breakingdown of that colossal moneyed institution, the _soi-disant_ Bank of theUnited States, after it ceased to be in reality a bank of thegovernment, brought about such a state of the circulation as renderedpayment, by any of the ordinary means known to government, _impossible_.I know what I say, and repeat _impossible_. It is well known that manypersons, accustomed to affluence, had to carry their plate to the mint,in order to obtain money to go to market. Then something may beattributed to the institutions, without disparaging a people's honesty.Our institutions are popular, just as those of France are the reverse;and the people, they who were on the spot--the home creditor, with hisaccount unpaid, and with his friends and relatives in the legislature,and present to aid him, contended for his own money, before any shouldbe sent abroad."

  "Was that exactly right, sir?"

  "Certainly not; it was exactly wrong, but very particularly natural. Doyou suppose the king of France would not take the money for his civillist, if circumstances should compel the country to suspend on the debtfor a year or two, or the ministers their salaries? My word for it, eachand all of them would prefer themselves as creditors, and actaccordingly. Every one of these countries has suspended in some form orother, and in many instances balanced the account with the sponge. Theirclamor against us is altogether calculated with a view to politicaleffect."

  "Still, I wish Pennsylvania, for instance, had continued to pay, atevery hazard."

  "It is well enough to wish, Hugh: but it is wishing for animpossibility. Then you and I, as New Yorkers, have nothing to do withthe debt of Pennsylvania, no more than London would have to do with thedebt of Dublin or Quebec. _We_ have always paid _our_ interest, and,what is more, paid it more honestly, if honesty be the point, than evenEngland has paid hers. When _our_ banks suspended, the State paid itsinterest in as much paper as would buy the specie in open market;whereas England made paper legal tender, and paid the interest on herdebt in it for something like five-and-twenty years, and that, too, whenher paper was at a large discount. I knew of one American who held neara million of dollars in the English debt, on which he had to takeunconvertible paper for the interest for a long series of years. No, no!this is all gammon, Hugh, and is not to be regarded as making us a whitworse than our neighbors. The equality of our laws is the fact in whichI glory!"

  "If the rich stood as fair a chance as the poor, Uncle Ro."

  "There _is_ a screw loose there, I must confess; but it amounts to nogreat matter."

  "Then the late bankrupt law?"

  "Ay, that was an infernal procedure--that much I will acknowledge, too.It was special legislation enacted to pay particular debts, and the lawwas repealed as soon as it had done its duty. That is a much darker spotin our history than what is called repudiation, though perfectly honestmen voted for it."

  "Did you ever hear of a farce they got up about it at New York, justafter we sailed?"

  "Never; what was it, Hugh? though American plays are pretty much allfarces."

  "This was a little better than common, and, on the whole, really clever.It is the old story of Faust, in which a young spendthrift sellshimself, soul and body, to the devil. On a certain evening, as he ismaking merry with a set of wild companions, his creditor arrives, and,insisting on seeing the master, is admitted by the servant. He comes on,club-footed and behorned, as usual, and betailed, too, I believe; butTom is not to be scared by trifles. He insists on his guest beingseated, on his taking a glass of wine, and then on Dick's finishing hissong. But, though the rest of the company had signed no bonds to Satan,they had certain outstanding book-debts, which made them excessivelyuncomfortable; and the odor of brimstone being rather strong, Tom arose,approached his guest, and desired to know the nature of the particularbusiness he had mentioned to his servant. 'This bond, sir,' said Satan,significantly. 'This bond? what of it, pray? It seems all right.' 'Isnot that your signature?' 'I admit it.' 'Signed in your blood?' 'Aconceit of your own; I told you at the time that ink was just as good inlaw.' 'It is past due, seven minutes and fourteen seconds.' 'So it is, Ideclare! but what of that?' 'I demand payment.' 'Nonsense! no one thinksof paying nowadays. Why, even Pennsylvania and Maryland don't pay.' 'Iinsist on payment' 'Oh! you do, do you?' Tom draws a paper from hispocket, and adds, magnificently, 'There, then, if you're sourgent--there is a discharge under the new bankrupt law, signed SmithThompson.' This knocked the devil into a cocked-hat at once."

  My uncle laughed heartily at my story; but, instead of taking the matteras I had fancied he might, it made him think better of the country thanever.

  "Well, Hugh, we have wit among us, it must be confessed," he cried, withthe tears running down his cheeks, "if we have some rascally laws, andsome rascals to administer them. But here comes Jacob with his lettersand papers--I declare, the fellow has a large basketful."

  Jacob, a highly respectable black, and the great-grandson of an oldnegro named Jaaf, or Yop, who was then living on my own estate atRavensnest, had just then entered, with the porter and himself luggingin the basket in question. There were several hundred newspapers, andquite a hundred letters. The sight brought home and America clearly andvividly before us; and having nearly finished the dessert, we rose tolook at the packages. It was no small task to sort our mail, there beingso many letters and packages to be divided.

  "Here are some newspapers I never saw before," said my uncle, as hetumbled over the pile; "_The Guardian of the Soil_--that must havesomething to do with Oregon."

  "I dare say it has, sir. Here are at least a dozen letters from mysister."

  "Ay, _your_ sister is single, and can still think of her brother; butmine are married, and one letter a year would be a great deal. This ismy dear old mother's hand, however; that is something. Ursula Malbonewould never forget her child. Well, _bon soir_, Hugh. Each of us hasenough to do for one evening."

  "_Au revoir_, sir. We shall meet at ten to-morrow, when we can compareour news, and exchange gossip."