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The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays' Rebellion

by Edward Bellamy · English · Gutenberg #7472 · 609,389 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays' Rebellion

Author: Edward Bellamy


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #7472]
                Most recently updated: March 8, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE OF STOCKBRIDGE: A ROMANCE OF SHAYS' REBELLION ***




Produced by Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, Robert Shimmin and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE DUKE OF STOCKBRIDGE

A ROMANCE OF SHAYS' REBELLION

By Edward Bellamy




CHAPTER FIRST

THE MARCH OF THE MINUTE MEN


The first beams of the sun of August 17, 1777, were glancing down
the long valley, which opening to the East, lets in the early rays of
morning, upon the village of Stockbridge. Then, as now, the Housatonic
crept still and darkling around the beetling base of Fisher's Nest, and
in the meadows laughed above its pebbly shoals, embracing the verdant
fields with many a loving curve. Then, as now, the mountains cradled the
valley in their eternal arms, all round, from the Hill of the Wolves,
on the north, to the peaks that guard the Ice Glen, away to the far
south-east. Then, as now, many a lake and pond gemmed the landscape, and
many a brook hung like a burnished silver chain upon the verdant slopes.
But save for this changeless frame of nature, there was very little, in
the village, which the modern dweller in Stockbridge would recognize.

The main settlement is along a street lying east and west, across the
plain which extends from the Housatonic, northerly some distance, to the
foot of a hill. The village green or “smooth” lies rather at the western
end of the village than at the center. At this point the main street
intersects with the county road, leading north and south, and with
divers other paths and lanes, leading in crooked, rambling lines to
several points of the compass; sometimes ending at a single dwelling,
sometimes at clusters of several buildings. On the hill, to the north,
somewhat separated from the settlement on the plain, are quite a number
of houses, erected there during the recent French and Indian wars, for
the sake of being near the fort, which is now used as a parsonage by
Reverend Stephen West, the young minister. The streets are all very wide
and grassy, wholly without shade trees, and bordered generally by rail
fences or stone walls. The houses, usually separated by wide intervals
of meadow, are rarely over a story and a half in height. When painted,
the color is usually red, brown, or yellow, the effect of which is a
certain picturesqueness wholly outside any design on the part of the
practical minded inhabitants.

Interspersed among the houses, and occurring more thickly in the south
and west parts of the village, are curious huts, as much like wigwams
as houses. These are the dwellings of the Christianized and civilized
Stockbridge Indians, the original possessors of the soil, who live
intermingled with the whites on terms of the most utter comity, fully
sharing the offices of church and town, and fighting the battles of the
Commonwealth side by side with the white militia.

Around the green stand the public buildings of the place. Here is the
tavern, a low two-story building, without porch or piazza, and entered
by a door in the middle of the longest side. Over the door swings a
sign, on which a former likeness of King George has, by a metamorphosis
common at this period, been transformed into a soldier of the
revolution, in Continental uniform of buff and blue. But just at this
time its contemplation does not afford the patriotic tipler as much
complacency as formerly, for Burgoyne is thundering at the passes of
the Hoosacs, only fifty miles away, and King George may get his red coat
back again, after all. The Tories in the village say that the landlord
keeps a pot of red paint behind the door, so that the Hessian dragoons
may not take him by surprise when they come galloping down the valley,
some afternoon. On the other side [of] the green is the meeting-house,
built some thirty years ago, by a grant from government at Boston,
and now considered rather old-fashioned and inconvenient. Hard by the
meeting-house is the graveyard, with the sandy knoll in its south-west
corner, set apart for the use of the Indians. The whipping-post, stocks,
and cage, for the summary correction of such offences as come within the
jurisdiction of Justice Jahleel Woodbridge, Esquire, adorn the middle of
the village green, and on Saturday afternoon are generally the center of
a crowd assembled to be edified by the execution of sentences.

On the other side [of] the green from the meeting-house stands the
store, built five years before, by Timothy Edwards, Esquire, a structure
of a story and a half, with the unusual architectural adornment of a
porch or piazza in front, the only thing of the kind in the village. The
people of Stockbridge are scarcely prouder of the divinity of their
late shepherd, the famous Dr. Jonathan Edwards, than they are of his
son Timothy's store. Indeed, what with Dr. Edwards, so lately in their
midst, Dr. Hopkins, down at Great Barrington, and Dr. Bellamy, just over
the State line in Bethlehem, Connecticut, the people of Berkshire are
decidedly more familiar with theologians than with storekeepers, for
when Mr. Edwards built his store in 1772, it was the only one in the
county.

At such a time it may be readily inferred that a commercial occupation
serves rather as a distinction than otherwise. Squire Edwards is
moreover chairman of the selectmen, and furthermore most of the
farmers are in his debt for supplies, while to these varied elements of
influence, his theological ancestry adds a certain odor of sanctity.
It is true that Squire Jahleel Woodbridge is even more brilliantly
descended, counting two colonial governors and numerous divines among
his ancestry, not to speak of a rumored kinship with the English noble
family of Northumberland. But instead of tending to a profitless
rivalry the respective claims of the Edwardses and the Woodbridges
to distinction have happily been merged by the marriage of Jahleel
Woodbridge and Lucy Edwards, the sister of Squire Timothy, so that in
all social and political matters, the two families are closely allied.

The back room of the store is, in a sense, the Council-chamber, where
the affairs of the village are debated and settled by these magnates,
whose decisions the common people never dream of anticipating or
questioning. It is also a convivial center, a sort of clubroom. There,
of an afternoon, may generally be seen Squires Woodbridge, Williams,
Elisha Brown, Deacon Nash, Squire Edwards, and perhaps a few others,
relaxing their gravity over generous bumpers of some choice old Jamaica,
which Edwards had luckily laid in, just before the war stopped all
imports.

In the west half of the store building, Squire Edwards lives with his
family, including, besides his wife and children, the remnants of his
father's family and that of his sister, the widowed Mrs. President
Burr. Young Aaron Burr was there, for a while after his graduation at
Princeton, and during the intervals of his arduous theological studies
with Dr. Bellamy at Bethlehem. Perchance there are heart-sore maidens
in the village, who, to their sorrow, could give more particular
information of the exploits of the seductive Aaron at this period, than
I am able to.

Such are the mountains and rivers, the streets and the houses of
Stockbridge as the sun of this August morning in the year 1777,
discloses them to view. But where are the people? It is seven, yes,
nearly eight o'clock, and no human being is to be seen walking in the
streets, or travelling in the roads, or working in the fields. Such lazy
habits are certainly not what we have been wont to ascribe to our
sturdy forefathers. Has the village, peradventure, been deserted by the
population, through fear of the Hessian marauders, the threat of whose
coming has long hung like a portentous cloud, over the Berkshire valley?
Not at all. It is not the fear of man, but the fear of God, that has
laid a spell upon the place. It is the Sabbath, or what we moderns call
Sunday, and law and conscience have set their double seal on every door,
that neither man, woman nor child, may go forth till sunset, save at the
summons of the meeting-house bell. We may wander all the way from the
parsonage on the hill, to Captain Konkapot's hut on the Barrington road,
without meeting a soul, though the windows will have a scandalized face
framed in each seven by nine pane of glass. And the distorted, uncouth
and variously colored face and figure, which the imperfections of
the glass give the passer-by, will doubtless appear to the horrified
spectators, but the fit typical representation of his inward depravity.
We shall, I say, meet no one, unless, as we pass his hut by Konkapot's
brook, Jehoiachim Naunumpetox, the Indian tithing man, spy us, and that
will be to our exceeding discomfiture, for straightway laying implacable
hands upon us, he will deliver us to John Schebuck, the constable, who
will grievously correct our flesh with stripes, for Sabbath-breaking,
and cause us to sit in the stocks, for an ensample.

But if so mild an excursion involve so dire a risk, what must be the
desperation of this horseman who is coming at a thundering gallop along
the county road from Pittsfield? His horse is in a foaming sweat, the
strained nostrils are filled with blood and the congested eyes protrude
as if they would leap from their sockets to be at their goal.

It is Squire Woodbridge's two story red house before which the horseman
pulls rein, and leaving his steed with hanging head and trembling knees
and laboring sides, drags his own stiffened limbs up the walk and enters
the house. Almost instantly Squire Woodbridge himself, issues from
the door, dressed for church in a fine black coat, waistcoat, and
knee-breeches, white silk stockings, a three-cornered black hat and
silver buckles on his shoes, but in his hand instead of a Bible, a
musket. As he steps out, the door of a house further east opens also,
and another man similarly dressed, with brown woolen stockings, steps
forth with a gun in his hand also. He seems to have interpreted the
meaning of the horseman's message. This is Deacon Nash. Beckoning him to
follow, Squire Woodbridge steps out to the edge of the green, raises
his musket to his shoulder and discharges it into the air. Deacon Nash
coming up a moment later also raises and fires his gun, and e'er the
last echoes have reverberated from the mountains, Squire Edwards, musket
in hand, throws open his store door and stepping out on the porch, fires
the third gun.

A moment ago hundreds of faces were smiling, hundreds of eyes were
bright, hundreds of cheeks were flushed. Now there is not a single smile
or a trace of brightness, or a bit of color on a face in the valley.
Such is the woful change wrought in every household, as the successive
reports of the heavily-charged pieces sound through the village, and
penetrate to the farthest outlying farmhouse. The first shot may well
be an accident, the second may possibly be, but as the third inexorably
follows, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and sons,
look at each other with blanched faces, and instantly a hundred scenes
of quiet preparation for meeting, are transformed into the confusion
of a very different kind of preparation. Catechisms are dropped for
muskets, and Bibles fall unnoticed under foot, as men spring for their
haversacks and powder-horns. For those three guns summon the minute men
to be on the march for Bennington. All the afternoon before, the roar of
cannon has faintly sounded from the northward, and the people knew that
Stark was meeting Baum and his Hessians, on the Hoosac. One detachment
of Stockbridge men is already with him. Does this new summons mean
disaster? Has the dreaded foe made good his boasted invincibility? No
one knows, not even the exhausted messenger, for he was sent off
by Stark, while yet the issue of yesterday's battle trembled in the
balance.

“It's kinder suddin. I wuz in hopes the boys wouldn' hev to go, bein as
they wuz a fightin yisdy,” quavered old Elnathan Hamlin, as he trotted
about, helplessly trying to help, and only hindering Mrs. Hamlin, as
with white face, but deft hands, and quick eyes, she was getting her two
boys ready, filling their haversacks, sewing a button here, tightening a
buckle there, and looking to everything.

“Ye must tak keer o' Reub, Perez. He ain't so rugged 'zye be. By rights,
he orter ha stayed to hum.”

“Oh, I'm as stout as Perez. I can wrastle him. Don't fret about me,”
 said Reuben, with attempted gayety, though his boyish lip quivered as he
looked at his mother's face, noting how she did not meet his eye, lest
she should lose her self-control, and not be able to do anything more.

“I'll look after the boy, never fear,” said Perez, slapping his brother
on the back. “I'll fetch him back a General, as big a man as Squire
Woodbridge.”

“I dunno what 'n time I shall dew 'bout gittin in the crops,” whimpered
Elnathan. “I can't dew it 'lone, nohow. Seems though my rheumatiz wuz
wuss 'n ever, this las' spell o' weather.”

“There goes Abner Rathbun, and George Fennell,” cried Perez. “Time we
were off. Good-bye mother. There! There! Don't you cry, mother. We'll be
back all right. Got your gun, Reub? Good-bye father. Come on,” and the
boys were off.

In seeming sympathy with the sudden grief that has fallen on the
village, the bright promise of the morning has given place in the last
hour to one of those sudden rain storms to which a mountainous region
is always liable, and a cold drizzle is now falling. But that does
not hinder every one who has friends among the departing soldiers, or
sympathy with the cause represented, from gathering on the green to
witness the muster and march of the men. All the leading men and the
officials of the town and parish are there, including the two Indian
selectmen, Johannes Metoxin and Joseph Sauquesquot. Squire Edwards,
Deacon Nash, Squire Williams and Captain Josiah Jones, brother-in-law of
Squire Woodbridge, are going about among the tearful groups, of one of
which each soldier is a centre, reassuring and encouraging both those
who go, and those who stay, the ones with the promise that their wives
and children and parents shall be looked after and cared for, the others
with confident talk of victory and speedy reunions.

Squire Edwards tells Elnathan, who with Mrs. Hamlin has come down to the
green, that he needn't fret about the mortgage on his house, and Deacon
Nash tells him that he'll see that his crops are saved, and George
Fennell, who, with his wife and daughter, stands by, is assured by the
Squire, that they shall have what they want from the store. There is
not a plough-boy among the minute men who is not honored today with a
cordial word or two, or at least a smile, from the magnates who never
before have recognized his existence.

And proud in her tears, to-day, is the girl who has a sweetheart among
the soldiers. Shy girls, who for fear of being laughed at, have kept a
secret of their inclinations, now grown suddenly bold, cry, as they talk
with their lovers, and refuse not the parting kiss. Desire Edwards, the
Squire's daughter, as she moves among the groups, and sees these things,
is stirred with envy and thinks she would give anything if she, too,
had a sweetheart to bid good-bye to. But she is only fifteen, and Squire
Edwards' daughter, moreover, to whom no rustic swain dares pretend. Then
she bethinks herself that one has timidly, enough, so pretended. She
knows that Elnathan Hamlin's son, Perez, is dreadfully in love with
her. He is better bred than the other boys, but after all he is only a
farmer's son, and while pleased with his conquest as a testimony to her
immature charms, she has looked down upon him as quite an inferior order
of being to herself. But just now he appears to her in the desirable
light of somebody to bid good-bye to, to the end that she may be on
a par with the other girls whom she so envies. So she looks about for
Perez.

And he, on his part, is looking about for her. That she, the Squire's
daughter, as far above him as a star, would care whether he went or
stayed, or would come to say good-bye to him, he had scarcely dared to
think. And yet how deeply has that thought, which he has scarcely
dared own, tinged all his other thinking! The martial glory that has so
dazzled his young imagination, how much of its glitter was but reflected
from a girl's eyes. As he looks about and not seeing her, says, “She
does not care, she will not come,” the sword loses all its sheen, and
the nodding plume its charm, and his dreams of self-devotion all their
exhilaration.

“I came to bid you good-bye, Perez,” says a voice behind him.

He wheels about, red, confused, blissful. Desire Edwards, dark and
sparkling as a gypsy, stands before him with her hand outstretched. He
takes it eagerly, timidly. The little white fingers press his big brown
ones. He does not feel them there; they seem to be clasping his heart.
He feels the ecstatic pressure there.

“Fall in,” shouts Captain Woodbridge, for the Squire himself is their
captain.

There is a tumult of embraces and kisses all around. Reuben kissed his
mother.

“Will you kiss me, Desire?” said Perez, huskily, carried beyond himself,
scarcely knowing what he said, for if he had realized he never would
have dared.

Desire looked about, and saw all the women kissing their men. The air
was electric.

“Yes,” she said, and gave him her red lips, and for a moment it seemed
as if the earth had gone from under his feet. The next thing he knew he
was standing in line, with Reub on one side, and George Fennell on the
other and Abner Rathbun's six feet three towering at one end of the
line, while Parson West was standing on the piazza of the store, praying
for the blessing of God on the expedition.

“Amen,” the parson said, and Captain Woodbridge's voice rang out again.
The lines faced to the right, filed off the green at quick step, turned
into the Pittsfield road, and left the women to their tears.




CHAPTER SECOND

NINE YEARS AFTER


Early one evening in the very last of August, 1786, only three years
after the close of the Revolutionary war, a dozen or twenty men and
boys, farmers and laborers, are gathered, according to custom, in the
big barroom of Stockbridge tavern. The great open fireplace of course
shows no cheery blaze of logs at this season, and the only light is the
dim and yellow illumination diffused by two or three homemade tallow
candles stuck about the bar, which runs along half of one side of the
apartment. The dim glimmer of some pewter mugs standing on a shelf
behind the bar is the only spot of reflected light in the room, whose
time-stained, unpainted woodwork, dingy plastering, and low ceiling,
thrown into shadows by the rude and massive crossbeams, seems capable
of swallowing up without a sign ten times the illumination actually
provided. The faces of four or five men, standing near the bar, or
lounging on it, are quite plainly visible, and the forms of half a dozen
more who are seated on a long settle placed against the opposite wall,
are more dimly to be seen, while in the back part of the room, leaning
against the posts or walls, or lounging in the open doorway, a dozen or
more figures loom indistinctly out of the darkness.

The tavern, it must be remembered, as a convivial resort, is the social
antipodes of the back room of Squire Edwards' “store.” If you would
consort with silk-stockinged, wigged, and silver shoe-buckled gentlemen,
you must just step over there, for at the tavern are only to be found
the hewers of wood and drawers of water, mechanics, farm-laborers, and
farmers. Ezra Phelps and Israel Goodrich, the former the owner of the
new gristmill at “Mill Hollow,” a mile west of the village, the other
a substantial farmer, with their corduroy coats and knee-breeches, blue
woolen hose and steel shoe buckles, are the most socially considerable
and respectably attired persons present.

Perhaps about half the men and boys are barefooted, according to
the economical custom of a time when shoes in summer are regarded as
luxuries not necessities. The costume of most is limited to shirt and
trousers, the material for which their own hands or those of their
women-folk have sheared, spun, woven and dyed. Some of the better
dressed wear trousers of blue and white striped stuff, of the kind
now-a-days exclusively used for bed-ticking. The leathern breeches which
a few years before were universal are still worn by a few in spite of
their discomfort in summer.

Behind the bar sits Widow Bingham, the landlady, a buxom, middle-aged
woman, whose sharp black eyes have lost none of their snap, whether she
is entertaining a customer with a little pleasant gossip, or exploring
the murky recesses of the room about the door, where she well knows
sundry old customers are lurking, made cowards of by consciousness
of long unsettled scores upon her slate. And whenever she looks with
special fixity into the darkness there is soon a scuttling of somebody
out of doors.

She pays little or no attention to the conversation of the men around
the bar. Being largely political, it might be expected to have the less
interest for one of the domestic sex, and moreover it is the same old
story she has been obliged to hear over and over every evening, with
little variation, for a year or two past.

For in those days, throughout Massachusetts, at home, at the tavern, in
the field, on the road, in the street, as they rose up, and as they sat
down, men talked of nothing but the hard times, the limited markets, and
low prices for farm produce, the extortions and multiplying numbers of
the lawyers and sheriffs, the oppressions of creditors, the enormous,
grinding taxes, the last sheriff's sale, and who would be sold out next,
the last batch of debtors taken to jail, and who would go next, the
utter dearth of money of any sort, the impossibility of getting work,
the gloomy and hopeless prospect for the coming winter, and in general
the wretched failure of the triumph and independence of the colonies to
bring about the public and private prosperity so confidently expected.

The air of the room is thick with smoke, for most of the men are smoking
clay or corncob pipes, but the smoke is scarcely recognizable as that of
tobacco, so largely is that expensive weed mixed with dried sweet-fern
and other herbs, for the sake of economy. Of the score or two persons
present, only two, Israel Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, are actually
drinking anything. Not certainly that they are the only ones disposed
to drink, as the thirsty looks that follow the mugs to their lips,
sufficiently testify, but because they alone have credit at the bar.
Ezra furnishes Mrs. Bingham with meal from his mill, and drinks against
the credit thus created, while Israel furnishes the landlady with
potatoes on the same understanding. There being practically almost
no money in circulation, most kinds of trade are dependent on such
arrangements of barter. Meshech Little, the carpenter, who lies
dead-drunk on the floor, his clothing covered with the sand, which it
has gathered up while he was being unceremoniously rolled out of the
way, is a victim of one of these arrangements, having just taken his pay
in rum for a little job of tinkering about the tavern.

“Meshech hain't hed a steady job sence the new meetin-haouse wuz done
las' year, an I s'pose the critter feels kinder diskerridged like,” said
Abner Rathbun, regarding the prostrate figure sympathetically. Abner has
grown an inch and broadened proportionally, since Squire Woodbridge made
him file leader of the minute men by virtue of his six feet three, and
as he stands with his back to the bar, resting his elbows on it, the
room would not be high enough for his head, but that he stands between
the cross-beams.

“I s'pose Meshech's fam'ly 'll hev to go ontew the taown,” observed
Israel Goodrich. “They say ez the poorhouse be twicet ez full ez't orter
be, naow.”

“It'll hev more intew it fore 't hez less,” said Abner grimly.

“Got no work, Abner? I hearn ye wuz up Lenox way a lookin fer suthin
to dew,” inquired Peleg Bidwell, a lank, loose-jointed farmer, who was
leaning against a post in the middle of the room, just on the edge of
the circle of candlelight.

“A feller ez goes arter work goes on a fool's errant,” responded Abner,
dejectedly. “There ain' no work nowhar, an a feller might jess ez well
sit down to hum an wait till the sheriff comes arter him.”

“The only work as pays now-a-days is pickin the bones o' the people. Why
don't ye turn lawyer or depity sheriff, an take to that, Abner?” said
Paul Hubbard, an undersized man with a dark face, and thin, sneering
lips.

He had been a lieutenant in the Continental army, and used rather better
language than the country folk ordinarily, which, as well as a
cynical wit which agreed with the embittered popular temper, gave him
considerable influence. Since the war he had been foreman of Colonel
William's iron-works at West Stockbridge. There was great distress among
the workmen on account of the stoppage of the works by reason of the
hard times, but Hubbard, as well as most of the men, still remained
in West Stockbridge, simply because there was no encouragement to go
elsewhere.

“Wat I can't make aout is that the lawyers an sheriffs sh'd git so dern
fat a pickin our bones, seein ez ther's sech a dern leatle meat ontew
us,” said Abner.

“There's as much meat on squirrels as bears if you have enough of em,”
 replied Hubbard. “They pick clean, ye see, an take all we've got, an
every little helps.”

“Yas,” said Abner, “they do pick darned clean, but that ain't the wust
on't, fer they sends our bones tew rot in jail arter they've got all the
meat orf.”

“'Twas ony yesdy Iry Seymour sole out Zadkiel Poor, ez lives long side
o' me, an tuk Zadkiel daown tew Barrington jail fer the res' what the
sale didn't fetch,” said Israel Goodrich. “Zadkiel he's been kinder
ailin like fer a spell back, an his wife, she says ez haow he can't live
a month daown tew the jail, an wen Iry tuk Zadkiel orf, she tuk on reel
bad. I declare for't, it seemed kinder tough.”

“I hearn ez they be tew new fellers a studyin law intew Squire
Sedgwick's office,” said Obadiah Weeks, a gawky youth of perhaps twenty,
evidently anxious to buy a standing among the adult circle of talkers by
contributing an item of information.

Abner groaned. “Great Crypus! More blood-suckers. Why, they be ten
lawyers in Stockbridge taown a'ready, an they warn't but one wen I wuz a
boy, an thar wuz more settlers 'n they be naow.”

“Wal, I guess they'll git nuff to dew,” said Ezra Phelps. “I hearn as
haow they's seven hundred cases on the docket o' the Common Pleas, nex'
week, mos' on em fer debt.”

“I hearn as two hundred on em be from Stockbridge an the iron-works,”
 added Israel. “I declare for't Zadkiel 'll hev plenty o' kumpny daown
tew jail, by the time them suits be all tried.”

“By gosh, what be we a comin tew?” groaned Abner. “It doos seem zif we
all on us mout z'well move daown tew the jail to onc't, an hev done with
't. We're baown to come to 't fuss or las'.”

Presently Peleg Bidwell said, “My sister Keziah's son, by her fuss
husban's been daown tew Bosting, an I hearn say ez haow he says ez the
folks daown East mos'ly all hez furniter from Lunnon, and the women
wears them air Leghorn hats as cos ten shillin lawful, let alone
prunelly shoes an satin stockins, an he says as there ain't a ship goes
out o' Bosting harbor ez don' take more'n five thousan paound o' lawful
money outer the kentry. I callate,” pursued Peleg, “that's jess what's
tew the bottom o' the trouble. It's all long o' the rich folks a sendin
money out o' the kentry to git theirselves fine duds, an that's wy we
don' git more'n tuppence a paound fer our mutton, an nex' ter nothin fer
wheat, an don't have nothin to pay taxes with nor to settle with Squire
Edwards, daown ter the store. That's the leak in the bar'l, an times
won't git no better till that's plugged naow, I tell yew.”

“If't comes to pluggin leaks ye kin look nigher hum nor Bosting,”
 observed Abner. “I hearn ez Squire Woodbridge giv fifty pound lawful fer
that sorter tune box ez he'z get fer his gal, an they doos say ez them
cheers o' Squire Sedgwick's cos twenty pound lawful in the old kentry.”

“What dew they call that air tune box?” inquired Israel Goodrich. “I've
hearn tell but I kinder fergit. It's some Frenchified soundin name.”

“It's a pianner,” said Obadiah.

“I guess peeanner's nigher right,” observed Peleg critically. “My gal
hearn the Edwards gal call it peeanner.”

“They ain't nuther of ye in a mile o' right. 'Tain't pianner, an 'tain't
peeanner; it's pianny,” said Abner, who on account of having once served
a few weeks in connection with a detachment of the French auxiliaries,
was conceded to be an authority on foreign pronunciation.

“I hain't got no idee on't, nohow,” said Israel shaking his head. “I
hearn it a goin ez I wuz a comin by the store. Souns like ez if it wuz
a hailin ontew a lot o' milk pans. I never suspicioned ez I should live
tew hear sech a n'ise.”

“I guess Peleg's baout right,” said Abner. “Thar won't be no show fer
poor folks, 'nless they is a law agin' sendin money aouter the kentry.”

“I callate that would be a shuttin of the barn door arter the hoss is
stole,” said Ezra Phelps, as he arrested a mug of flip on its way to his
lips, to express his views. “There ain' no use o' beginnin to save arter
all's spent. I callate guvment's got ter print a big stack o' new bills
ef we're a goin to git holt o' no money.”

“Ef it's paper bills as ye're a talkin baout,” said Abner grimly, “I've
got quite a slew on em tew hum, mebbe a peck or tew. I got em fer pay
in the army. They're tew greasy tew kindle a fire with, an I dunno o'
nothin else ez they're good for. Ye're welcome to em, Ezry. My little
Bijah assed me fer some on em tew make a kite outer thuther day, an
I says tew him, says I, 'Bijah, I don' callate they'll do nohow fer a
kite, for I never hearn of a Continental bill a goin up, but ef yer want
a sinker fer yer fish line they're jess the thing.'”

There was a sardonic snicker at Ezra's expense, but he returned to the
charge quite undismayed.

“That ain't nuther here nor there,” he said, turning toward Abner and
emphasizing his words with the empty mug. “What I asses yew is, wan't
them bills good fer suthin wen they wuz fuss printed?”

“They wuz wuth suthin fer a wile,” assented Abner.

“Ezackly,” said the other, “that's the nater o' bills. Allers they is
good fer a wile and then they kinder begins to run daown, an they runs
daown till they ain't wuth nuthin,” and Ezra illustrated the process by
raising the mug as high as his head and bringing it slowly down to his
knees. “Paounds an shillins runs daown tew by gittin wored off till
they's light weight. Every kine o' money runs daown, on'y it's the nater
o' bills to run daown a leetle quicker nor other sorts. Naow I says,
an I ain't the ony one ez says it, that all guvment's got to dew is tew
keep a printin new bills ez fass ez the old ones gits run daown. Times
wuz good long in the war. A feller could git baout what he assed fer his
crops an he could git any wages he assed. Yer see guvment wuz a printin
money fass. Jess's quick ez a bill run daown they up and printed another
one, so they wuz allers plenty. Soon ez the war wuz over they stopped a
printin bills and immejetly the hard times come. Hain't that so?”

“I dunno but yew be right,” said Abner, thoughtfully, “I never thort
on't ezzackly that way,” and Isaiah Goodrich also expressed the opinion
that there was “somethin into what Ezry says.”

“What we wants,” pursued Ezra, “what we wants, is a kine o' bills
printed as shall lose vally by reglar rule, jess so much a month, no
more no less, cordin ez its fixed by law an printed on tew the bills
so'z everybody'll understan an no-body'll git cheated. I hearn that's
the idee as the Hampshire folks went fer in the convenshun daown tew
Hatfield this week. Ye see, ez I wuz a sayin, bills is baoun tew
come daown anyhow ony if they comes daown regler, cordin tew law,
everybody'll know what t'expect, and nobody won' lose nothin.”

“Praps the convenshun what's a sittin up tew Lenox'll rekummen them
bills,” hopefully suggested a farmer who had been taking in Ezra's
wisdom with open mouth.

“I don' s'pose that it'll make any odds how many bills are printed as
far's we're concerned,” said Hubbard, bitterly. “The lawyers'll make out
to git em all pretty soon. Ye might's well try to fat a hog with a tape
worm in him, as to make folks rich as long as there are any lawyers
round.”

“Yas, an jestices' fees, an sheriff fees is baout ez bad ez lawyer's,”
 said Israel Goodrich, whose countenance was beginning to glow from the
influence of his potations. “I tell you wesh'd be a dern sight better
off 'f'all the courts wuz stopped. Most on ye is young fellers, 'cept
you Elnathan Hamlin, thar. He'll tell ye, ez I tell ye, that this air
caounty never seen sech good times, spite on'ts bein war times, ez long
fur '74 to '80, arter we'd stopped the King's courts from sittin an
afore we'd voted for the new constitution o' the state, ez we wuz durn
fools fer doin of, ef I dew say it. In them six year thar warn't nary
court sot nowhere in the caounty, from Boston Corner tew ole Fort
Massachusetts, an o' course thar warn't no lawyers an no sheriffs ner
no depity sheriffs nuther, tew make every debt twice as big with ther
darnation fees. They warn't no sheriffs sales, nuther, a sellin of a
feller outer house'n hum an winter comin on, an thar warn't no suein an
no jailin of fellers fer debt. Folks wuz keerful who they trusted, ez
they'd orter be allers, for ther warn't no klectin o' debts nohow, an
ef that warn't allers jestice I reckin 'twas as nigh jestice as 'tis
to klect bills swelled more'n double by lawyers' and sheriffs' and
jestices' fees ez they doos naow. In them days ef any feller wuz put
upon by another he'd jess got tew complain tew the slectmen or the
committee, an they'd right him. I tell yew rich folks an poor folks
lived together kinder neighborly in them times an 'cordin tew scripter.
The rich folks warn't a grindin the face o' the poor, an the poor they
wuzn't a hatin an a envyin o' the rich, nigh untew blood, ez they is
naow, ef I dew say it. Yew rekullec them days, Elnathan, warn't it jess
ez I say?”

“Them wuz good times, Israel. Ye ain't sayin nothin more'n wuz trew,”
 said Elnathan in a feeble treble, from his seat on the settle.

“I tell you they wuz good,” reiterated Israel, as he looked around upon
the group with scintillating eyes, and proceeded to hand his mug over
the bar to be refilled.

“I hearn ez haow the convenshun up tew Lenox is a go in tew 'bolish the
lawyers an the courts,” said a stalwart fellow of bovine countenance,
named Laban Jones, one of the discharged iron-works men.

“The convenshun can't 'bolish nothin,” said Peleg Bidwell, gloomily. “It
can't do nothin but rekommen the Gineral Court way daown tew Bosting.
Bosting is too fer orf fer this caounty, nor Hampshire nuther, tew git
no considerashin. This eend o' the state ull never git its rights till
the guvment's moved outer Bosting tew Worcester where't uster be in war
times.”

“That's so,” said Ezra Phelps, “everybody knows as these tew counties be
taxed higher nor the other eend o' the state.”

“Hev yew paid up ye taxes fer las' year, Peleg?” inquired Abner.

“No, I hain't, nor fer year afore, nuther. Gosh, I can't. I could pay
in pertaters, but I can't pay in money. Ther ain't no money. Klector
Williams says as haow he'd hafter sell me out, an I s'pose he's goin
ter. It's kinder tough, but I don' see zi kin dew nothin. I callate to
be in the jail or poorhouse, afore spring.”

“I dunno o' nobody roun here, as haz paid ther taxes fer las year, yit,”
 said Israel. “I callate that more'n half the farms in the caounty 'll be
sole fer taxes afore spring.”

“I hearn as how Squire Woodbridge says taxes is ten times what they wuz
afore the war, an its sartain that they ain't one shillin intew folks'
pockets tew pay em with whar they wuz ten on em in them days. It seems
dern curis, bein as we fit agin the redcoats jest tew git rid o' taxes,”
 said Abner.

“Taxes is mosly fer payin interest ontew the money what govment borrowed
tew kerry on the war. Naow, I says, an I ain't the on'y one in the
caounty as says it, nuther, ez debts orter run daown same ez bills does,
reglar, so much a month, till they ain't nuthin leff,” said Ezra Phelps,
setting down his mug with an emphatic thud. “S'poosn I borrers money
of yew, Abner, an built a haouse, that haouse is boun tew run daown
in vally, I callate, 'long from year tew year. An it seems kinder
rees'nable that the debt sh'd run daown's fass as the haouse, so's wen
the haouse gits wored aout, the debt 'll be, tew. Them things ez govment
bought with the money it borrered, is wore aout, an it seems kinder
rees'nable that the debts should be run daown tew. A leetle orter a been
took orf the debt every year, instead o' payin interes ontew it.”

“I guess like's not ye hev the rights on't, Ezry. I wuzn't a thinkin
on't that air way, ezzactly. I wuz a thinkin that if govment paid one
kine o' debts 't orter pay t'other kine. I fetched my knapsack full o'
govment bills hum from the war. I callate them bills wuz all on em debts
what the govment owed tew me fur a fightin. Ef govment ain't a goin tew
pay me them bills, an 'tain't, 'it don' seem fair tew tax me so's it kin
pay debts it owes tew other folks. Leastways seems's though them bills
govment owes me orter be caounted agin the taxes instead o' bein good
fer nothin. It don't seem ez if 'twas right, nohaow.”

“Leastways,” said Peleg, “if the Gineral Court hain't a goin ter print
more bills 't orter pass a lor, seein thar ain't no money in the kentry,
so 'z a feller's prop'ty could be tuk by a fair valiation fer what he
owes, instead o' lettin the sheriff sell it fer nothin and sendin a
feller tew jail fer the balince. Wen I giv Squire Edwards that air
leetle morgidge on my farm, money wuz plenty, an I callated tew pay it
up easy; an naow thar ain't no money, an I can't git none, if I died
for't. It's jess zif I 'greed tew sell a load o' ice in January, an a
thaw come an thar wan't no ice leff. Property's wuth's much 'z ever I
callate, an't orter be good fer debts instead o' money, 'cordin to a far
valiation.”

“Mr. Goodrich, how did you go to work to stop the King's courts in '74?
Did you hang the justices?” inquired Paul Hubbard, arousing from a fit
of contemplation.

“Nary bit,” replied Isaiah, “there warn't no need o' hangin nobody.
'Twas a fine mornin in May, I rekullec jess zif 'twas yes'day, wen the
court was a goin tew open daown tew Barrington, an abaout a thousan men
on us jess went daown an filled up the court haouse, an woudn' let the
jedges in, an wen they see 'twan't no use, they jess give in quiet's
lambs, an we made em sign their names tew a paper agreein not tew hold
no more courts, an the job wuz done. Ye see the war wuzn't farly begun
an none o' the King's courts in th' uther caounties wuz stopped, but we
callated the court mout make trouble for some o' the Sons o' Liberty, in
the caounty if we let it set.”

“I callate 't ain't nothin very hard tew stop a court, 'cordin tew
that,” said Peleg Bidwell.

“No, 'tain't hard, not ef the people is gen'ally agin' the settin on
it,” said Isaiah.

“I s'pose ef a thousan men sh'd be daown tew Barrington nex' week
Tewsday, they could stop the jestice fr'm openin the Common Pleas, jess
same ez yew did,” said Peleg, thoughtfully.

“Sartain,” said Isaac, “sartain; leastways's long ez the militia warn't
aout, but gosh, they ain't no sense o' talkin baout sech things! These
hain't no sech times ez them wuz, an folks ain't what they wuz, nuther.
They seems kinder slimpsy; hain't got no grit.”

During this talk, Elnathan had risen and gone feebly out.

“Elnathan seems tew take it tew heart baout leavin the ole place. I
hearn ez how Solomon Gleason's goin ter sell him aout pooty soon,” Abner
remarked.

“I guess t'ain't so much that as 'tis the bad news he's heerd baout Reub
daown tew Barrington jail,” said Obadiah Weeks.

“What's abaout Reub?” asked Abner.

“He's a goin intew a decline daown to the jail.”

“I wanter know! Poor Reub!” said Abner, compassionately. “He fout side
o' me tew Stillwater, an Perez was t'other side. Perez done me a good
turn that day, ez I shan't furgit in a hurry. Gosh, he'd take it hard
ef he hearn ez haow Reub wuz in jail! I never seed tew fellers set more
store by another 'n he did by Reub.”

“Wonder ef Perez ain't never a comin hum. He hain't been back sence the
war. I hearn his folks had word a spell ago, ez he wuz a comin,” said
Peleg.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Abner, his rough features softening with a pensive
cast, “I rekullec jess zif 'twar yes'dy, that rainy mornin wen we
fellers set orf long with Squire Woodbridge fer Bennington. Thar wuz me,
'n Perez, an Reub, an Abe Konkapot, 'n lessee, yew went afore, didn't
ye, Peleg?”

“Yas, I went with Cap'n Stoddard,” replied that individual.

“Thar we wuz; all a stannin in line,” pursued Abner, gazing right
through the ceiling, as if he could see just the other side of it the
scene which he so vividly recalled, “an Parson West a prayin, an the
wimmin a whimperin, an we nigh ontew it; fer we wuz green, an the
mothers' milk warn't aouter us. But I bet we tho't we wuz big pertaters,
agoin to fight fer lib'ty. Wall, we licked the redcoats, and we got
lib'ty, I s'pose; lib'ty ter starve, that is ef we don' happin to git
sent tew jail fus,” and Abner's voice fell, and his chin dropped on his
breast, in a sudden reaction of dejection at the thought of the bitter
disappointment of all the hopes which that day had made their hearts so
strong, even in the hour of parting.

“I callate we wuz a dern sight better orf every way under the King, 'n
we be naow. The Tories wuz right, arter all, I guess. We'd better a
let well nuff l'one, an not to a jumped aouter the fryin-pan intew the
fire,” said Peleg, gloomily.

As he ended speaking, a medium sized man, with a pasty white, freckled
complexion, bristly red hair, a retreating forehead and small, sharp
eyes, came forward from the dark corner near the door. His thin lips
writhed in a mocking smile, as he stood confronting Peleg and Abner, and
looking first at one and then at the other:

“Ef I don' furgit,” he said at length, “that's 'baout the way I talked
wen the war wuz a goin on, an if I rekullec, ye, Peleg, an ye, Abner
Rathbun and Meshech Little, thar on the floor, tuk arter me with
yer guns and dorgs caze ye said I wuz a dum Tory. An ye hunted me on
Stockbridge mounting like a woodchuck, an ye'd a hed my skelp fer sartin
ef I hadn't been a durn sight smarter 'n ye ever wuz.”

“Jabez,” said Abner, “I hope ye don' hev no hard feelin's. Times be
changed. Let by gones be by gones.”

“Mos' folks ud say I hed some call to hev hard feelin's. Ye druv me ter
hide in caves, an holes, fer the best part o' tew year. I dass'n come
hum tew see my wife die, nor tew bury on her. Ye confiscated my house
and tuk my crops fer yer derned army. Mos' folks ud sartingly say ez
I hed call tew hev hard feelin's agin' ye. But gosh, I hain't, an wy
hain't I? Gaze ye hev been yer own wust enemies; ye've hurt yerselves
more ner ye hev me, though ye didn't go fer ter dew it. Pooty nigh
all on ye, as fit agen the King, is beggars naow, or next door tew it.
Everybudy hez a kick fer a soldier. Ye'll fine em mosly in the jails an
the poorhaouses. Look at you fellers as wuz a huntin me. Ther's Meshech
on the floor, a drunken, worthless cuss. Thar ye be, Abner, 'thout a
shillin in the world, nor a foot o' lan', yer dad's farm gone fer taxes.
An thar be ye, Peleg. Wal Peleg, they dew say, ez the neighbors sends ye
in things.”

Jabez looked from one to the other till he had sufficiently enjoyed
their discomfiture and then he continued:

“I ain't much better orf'n ye be, but I hain't got nothin ontew my
conscience. An wen I looks roun' an sees the oppresshin, and the poverty
of the people, and how they have none tew help, an the jails so full, an
the taxes, an the plague o' lawyers, an the voice o' cryin as is goin
up from the land, an all the consekences o' the war, I tell ye, it's
considabul satisfacshin to feel ez I kin wash my hans on't.” And, with
a glance of contemptuous triumph around the circle, Jabez turned on his
heel and went out. The silence was first broken by Ezra Phelps, who said
quietly:

“Wal, Jabez ain't fur from right. It's abaout so. Some says the King is
callatin to try to git the colonies back agin fore long. Ef he doos I
guess he'll make aout, fur I don't bleeve ez a kumpny o' men could be
raised in all Berkshire, tew go an fight the redcoats agin, if they wuz
to come to-morrer.” And a general murmur of assent confirmed his words.

“Wal,” said Abner, recovering speech, “live an larn. In them days wen
I went a gunnin arter Jabez, I uster to think ez thar wuzn't no sech
varmint ez a Tory, but I didn't know nothin bout lawyers, and sheriffs
them times. I callate ye could cut five Tories aout o' one lawyer an
make a dozen skunks aout o' what wuz leff over. I'm a goin hum.”

This was the signal for a general break-up. Israel, who had fallen into
a boozy slumber on the settle, was roused and sent home between his
son and hired man, and presently the tavern was dark save for the
soon extinguished glimmer of a candle at the upstairs window of Widow
Bingham's apartment. Meshech was left to snore upon the barroom floor
and grope his way outdoors as best he might, when he should return to
his senses. For doors were not locked in Stockbridge in those days.




CHAPTER THIRD

THE TAVERN-JAIL AT BARRINGTON


Peleg's information, although of a hearsay character, was correct.
Perez Hamlin was coming home. The day following the conversation in the
barroom of Stockbridge tavern, which I have briefly sketched in the
last chapter, about an hour after noon, a horseman might have been seen
approaching the village of Great Barrington, on the road from Sheffield.
He wore the buff and blue uniform of a captain in the late Continental
army, and strapped to the saddle was a steel hilted sword which had
apparently experienced a good many hard knocks. The lack of any other
baggage to speak of, as well as the frayed and stained condition of his
uniform, indicated that however rich the rider might be in glory, he was
tolerably destitute of more palpable forms of wealth.

Poverty, in fact, had been the chief reason that had prevented Captain
Hamlin from returning home before. The close of the war had found him
serving under General Greene in South Carolina, and on the disbandment
of the troops he had been left without means of support. Since then
he had been slowly working his way homewards, stopping a few months
wherever employment or hospitality offered. What with the lack and
insecurity of mails, and his frequent movements, he had not heard from
home for two or three years, though he had written. But in those days,
when the constant exchange of bulletins of health and business between
friends, which burdens modern mail bags, was out of the question, the
fact perhaps developed a more robust quality of faith in the well-being
of the absent than is known in these timid and anxious days. Certain it
is that as the soldier rides along, the smiles that from time to time
chase each other across his bronzed face, indicate that gay and tender
anticipations of the meeting now only a few hours away, leave no room in
his mind for gloomy conjectures of possible disaster. It is nine years
since he parted with his father and mother; and his brother Reub he has
not seen since the morning in 1778, when Perez, accepting a commission,
had gone south with General Greene, and Reub had left for home with
Abner and Fennell, and a lot of others whose time had expired. He smiles
now as he thinks how he never really knew what it was to enjoy the
fighting until he got the lad off home, so that he had not to worry
about his being hit every time there was any shooting going on. Coming
into Great Barrington, he asked the first man he met where the tavern
was.

“That's it, over yonder,” said the man, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder at a nondescript building some way ahead.

“That looks more like a jail.”

“Wal, so 'tis. The jail's in the ell part o' the tavern. Cephe Bement
keeps 'em both.”

“It's a queer notion to put em under the same roof.”

“I dunno 'bout that, nuther. It's mostly by way o' the tavern that
fellers gits inter jail, I calc'late.”

Perez laughed, and riding up to the tavern end of the jail, dismounted,
and going into the barroom, ordered a plate of pork and beans. Feeling
in excellent humor he fell to conversing over his modest meal with the
landlord, a big, beefy man, who evidently liked to hear himself talk,
and in a gross sort of way, appeared to be rather good natured.

“I saw a good many red flags on farmhouses, as I was coming up from
Sheffield, this morning,” said Perez. “You haven't got the smallpox in
the county again, have you?”

“Them wuz sheriff's sales,” said the landlord, laughing uproariously, in
which he was joined by a seedy, red-nosed character, addressed as Zeke,
who appeared to be a hanger-on of the barroom in the function of echo to
the landlord's jokes.

“Ye'll git uster that air red flag ef ye stay long in these parts. Ye
ain't so fer from right arter all, though, fer I guess mos' folks'd
baout as leeve hev the smallpox in the house ez the sheriff.”

“Times are pretty hard hereabouts, are they?”

“Wal, yes, they be baout ez hard ez they kin be, but ye see it's wuss
in this ere caounty 'n 'tis 'n mos' places, cause ther warn't nary court
here fer six or eight year, till lately, an no debts wuz klected 'n so
they've kinder piled up. I callate they ain't but dern few fellers in
the caounty 'cept the parsons, 'n lawyers, 'n doctors ez ain't a bein
sued ted-day, 'specially the farmers. I tell you it makes business
lively fer the lawyers an sheriffs. They're the ones ez rides in
kerridges these days.”

“Is the jail pretty full now?”

“Chock full, hed to send a batch up ter Lenox las' week, an got em
packed bout's thick's they'll lay naow, like codfish in a bar'l. Haow
in time I'm a gonter make room fer the fellers the court'll send in nex'
week, I d'now, derned if I dew. They'd orter be three new jails in the
caounty this blamed minit.”

“Do you expect a good many more this week?”

“Gosh, yes. Why, man alive, the Common Pleas never had ez much business
ez this time. I callate they's nigh onter seven hundred cases tew try.”

“The devil! Has there been a riot or a rebellion in the county? What
have they all done?”

“Oh they hain't done nothin,” replied the landlord, “they ain't nothin
but debtors. Dern debtors, I don' like to hev the jailin of em. They
hain't got no blood intew em like Sabbath-breakers, an blasphemers,
an rapers has. They're weakly, pulin kinder chaps, what thar ain't
no satisfaction a lockin up an a knockin roun'. They're dreffle
deskerridgin kind o' fellers tew. Ye see we never git rid on em. They
never gits let aout like other fellers as is in jail. They hez tew stay
till they pays up, an naterally they can't pay up's long ez they stays.
Genally they goes aout feet foremost, when they goes aout at all, an
they ain't long lived.”

“Why don't they pay up before they get in?” queried Perez.

“Whar be ye from?” asked the landlord, staring at him.

“I'm from New York, last.”

“I thort ye could't be from roun' here, nowheres, to as' sech a
queschin. Why don' they pay their debts? Did ye hear that Zeke? Why,
jess caze they ain' no money in the kentry tew pay em with. It don' make
a mite o' odds haow much propty a feller's got. It don' fetch nothin tew
a sale. The credtor buys it in fer nothin, an the feller goes to jail
fer the balance. A man as has got a silver sixpence can amos buy a farm.
Some folks says they orter be a law makin propty a tender fer debts on a
far valiation. I dunno, I don' keer, I hain't no fault tew find with my
business, leastways the jail end on't.”

Finishing his dinner, Perez asked for his score, and drew a large wallet
from his pocket, and took out a roll of about five thousand dollars in
Continental bills.

“Hain't ye got no Massachusetts bills? They ain't wuth but one shillin
in six but that's suthin, and them Continental bills ain't wuth haouse
room. Gosh durn it. I swow, ef I'd a known ye hadn't nothin but them,
I wouldn't a guv ye a drop to drink nor eat nuther. Marthy say ony this
morning, 'Cephas,' says she, 'rum 's rum an rags is rags, an don' ye
give no more rum fer rags.'”

“Well,” said Perez, “I have nothing else. Government thought they were
good enough to pay the soldiers for their blood; they ought to pay
landlords for their rum.”

“I dunno nothin baout bein soldiers, an I dunno ez I or any other man's
beholden to ye for't, nuther. Ye got paid all twat wuth if ye didn't git
paid nuthin; fur's I kin reckon, we wuz a durn sight better orf under
Ole King George 's we be naow. Ain' that baout so, Zeke?”

“Well,” said Perez, “if you won't take these, I can't pay you at all.”

“Well” said Bement crossly, “thar's the beans an mug o' flip. Call it a
thousand dollars, an fork over, but by gosh, I don' git caught that way
again. It's downright robbery, that's wot it is. I say ain't ye got no
cleaner bills nor these?”

“Perhaps these are cleaner,” said Perez, handing him another lot. “What
odds does it make?”

“Wal, ye see, ef they be middlin clean, I kin keep kaounts on the backs
on em, and Marthy finds em handy wen she writes to her folks daown tew
Springfield. Tain't fuss class writin paper, but it's cheaper'n other
kinds, an that's suthin in these times.”

Having satisfied the landlord's requirements, as well as possible, Perez
walked to the door and stood looking out. The ell containing the jail,
coming under his eye, he turned and said, “You spoke of several hundred
debtors coming before the court next week. It don't look as if you could
get over fifty in here.”

“Oh ye can jam in a hundred. I've got nigh that naow, and thay's other
lockups in the caounty,” replied the landlord. “But ef they wuz a gonter
try to shet up all the debtors, they'd hev tew build a half a dozen new
jails. But bless ye, the mos' on em won't be shet up. Ther creditors 'll
git jedgments agin' em, an then they'll hev rings in their noses, an kin
dew wot they likes with em caze ef they don' stan raoun' they kin shove
em right intew jug ye see.”

“You don't mean to say there's much of that sort of slavery,” ejaculated
Perez.

“I'd now baout slavery ezzackly, but thar's plenty o' that sort o' thing
fer sartin. Credtors mosly'd ruther dew that way, caze they kin git
suthin aout a feller, an ef they sen em tew jail it's a dead loss. They
makes em work aout ther debt and reckons ther work tew baout wat they
pleases. They is some queer kinder talk baout wat kind er things they
makes em stan sometimes rather'n go ter jail. Wal, all I says is that
a feller ez hez got a good lookin gal hed better not git a owin much
in these ere times. I hain't said nothin, hev I, Zeke?” and that worthy
answered his wink with a salacious chuckle.

“Have you any debtors from Stockbridge?” asked Perez, suddenly.

“A hull slew on em,” replied Bement. “I've got one more'n I shall hev
much longer, tew.”

“Who be that?” asked Zeke.

“Wal, I callate George Fennell won't hole out much longer.”

“Fennell; George Fennell! George Fennell is not in this jail,” cried
Perez.

“Wal, naow,” said Bement, imperturbably, “perhaps ye know better'n I
dew.”

“But, landlord, he's my friend, my comrade, I'd like to see him,” and
the young man's countenance expressed the liveliest concern.

The landlord seemed to hesitate. Finally he turned his head and called,
“Marthy”, and a plump, kitten-like little woman appeared at a door,
opening into the end of the bar, whereupon, the landlord, as he jerked
his thumb over his shoulder to indicate their guest, remarked:

“He wants ter know if 'ee kin be let ter see George Fennell. Says he's
his fren, an uster know him to the war.”

Mrs. Bement looked at the officer and said, “Wal, my husbun don'
genally keer to hev folks a seein the pris'ners, coz it makes em kinder
discontented like.” She hesitated a little and then added, “But I
dunno's 'twill dew no harm Cephas, bein as Fennell won' las' much longer
anyhow.”

Thus authorized, Bement took a bundle of keys from a hook behind the
bar, and proceeded to unlock the padlock which fastened an iron bar
across a heavy plank door, in the middle of one of the sides of the
room. As he threw open the door, a gust of foul stenches belched forth
into the room, almost nauseating Perez. The smell of the prison was like
that of a pig sty. The door had opened into a narrow corridor, dimly lit
by a small square grated window at the further end, while along either
side were rows of strong plank doors opening outward, and secured by
heavy, oaken bars, slipped across them at the middle. The muggy dog-day
had been very oppressive, even out of doors; but here in the corridor,
it was intolerable. To breathe in the horrible concoction of smells, was
like drinking from a sewer; the lungs, even as they involuntarily took
it in, strove spasmodically to close their passages against it. It was
impossible for one unaccustomed to such an atmosphere, to breathe, save
by gasps. Bement stopped at one of the doors, and as he was raising the
bar across it, he said:

“Thar ain' on'y one feller 'sides Fennell in here. He's a Stockbridge
feller, too. The cell ain' so big's the others. Genally thar's three or
four together. I'll jess shet ye in, an come back for ye in a minit.”

He opened the door, and as the other stepped in, it was closed and
barred behind him. The cell was about seven feet square and as high. The
floor was a foot lower than the corridor, and correspondingly damper.
It must have been on or below the level of the ground, and the floor,
as well as the lower end of the planks which formed the walls, was
black with moisture. The cell was littered with straw and every kind
of indescribable filth, while the walls and ceiling were mildewed and
spotted with ghastly growths of mould, feeding on the moist and filthy
vapors, which were even more sickening than in the corridor.

Full six feet from the floor, too high to look out of, was a small
grated window, a foot square, through which a few feeble, dog-day
sunbeams, slanting downward, made a little yellow patch upon the lower
part of one of the sides of the cell. Sitting upon a pile of filthy
straw, leaning back against the wall, with his face directly in this
spot, one of the prisoners was half-sitting, half-lying, his eyes shut
as if asleep, and a smile of perfect happiness resting on his pale and
weazened face. Doubtless he was dreaming of the time, when, as a boy,
he played all day in the shining fields, or went blackberrying in the
ardent July sun. For him the river was gleaming again, turning its
million glittering facets to the sun, or, maybe, his eye was delighting
in the still sheen of ponds in Indian summer, as they reflected the red
glory of the overhanging maple or the bordering sumach thicket.

The other prisoner was kneeling on the floor before the wall, with a
piece of charcoal in his hand, mumbling to himself as he busily added
figures to a sum with which the surface above was already covered. As
the door of the cell closed, he looked around from his work. Like the
man's on the floor, his face had a ghastly pallor, against which the
dirt with which it is stained, shows with peculiarly obscene effect,
while the beards and hair of both had grown long and matted and were
filled with straw. So completely had their miserable condition disguised
them, that Perez would not have known in the dim light of the cell that
he had ever seen either before.

The man who had been kneeling on the floor, after his first look of dull
curiosity, began to stare fixedly at Perez, as if he were an apparition,
and then rose to his feet. As he did so, Perez saw that he could not be
Fennell, for the latter was tall, and this man was quite short. Yes,
the reclining man must be George, and now he noted as an unmistakable
confirmation, a scar on one of the emaciated hands lying on his breast.
“George,” he said, stepping to his side. As he did so he passed athwart
the bar of sunshine that was falling on the man's countenance. A peevish
expression crossed his face, and he opened his eyes, the burning,
glassy eyes of the consumptive. For a few seconds he looked fixedly,
wonderingly, and then said half dreamily, half inquiringly, as if he
were not quite certain whether it were a man or a vision, he murmured:

“Perez?”

“Yes, it is I, George,” said the soldier, his eyes filling with
compassionate tears. “How came you in this horrible place?”

But before Fennell could answer the other prisoner sprang to the side of
the speaker, clutching his arm in his claw-like fingers, and crying in
an anguished voice:

“Perez; brother Perez. Don't you know me?”

At the voice Perez started as if a bullet had reached his heart. Like
lightning he turned, his face, frozen with fear, that was scarcely yet
comprehended, his eyes like darts. From that white filthy face in its
wild beast's mat of hair, his brother's eyes were looking into his.

“Lord, God in Heaven!” It was a husky, struggling voice, scarcely more
than a whisper in which he uttered the words. For several seconds the
brothers stood gazing into each other's countenances, Reuben holding
Perez' arm and he half shrinking, not from his brother, though such was
the attitude, but from the horror of the discovery.

“How long” he began to ask, and then his voice broke. The emaciated
figure before him, the face bleached with the ghastly pallor which a
sunless prison gives, the deep sunken eyes looking like coals of fire,
eating their way into his brain, the tattered clothing, the long unkempt
hair and beard, prematurely whitening, and filled with filth, the
fingers grown claw-like and blue, with prison mould, the dull vacant
look and the thought that this was Reuben, his brother; these things all
filled him with such an unutterable, intolerable pity, that it seemed as
if he should lose his head and go wild for very anguish of heart.

“I 'spose I'm kinder thin and some changed, so ye didn't know me,” said
Reuben, with a feeble smile. “Ye see I've been here a year, and am going
into a decline. I sent word home to have father ask Deacon Nash if he
wouldn't let me go home to be nussed up by mother. I should get rugged
again if I could have a little o' mother's nussin. P'raps ye've come to
take me home, Perez?” And a faint gleam of hope came into his face.

“Reub, Reub, I didn't know you was here,” groaned Perez, as he put his
arm about his brother, and supported his feeble figure.

“How come ye here, then?” asked Reuben.

“I was going home. I haven't been home since the war. Didn't you know? I
heard o' George's being here, and came in to see him, but I didn't think
o' you're being here.”

“Where have ye been, Perez, all the time? I callated ye must be in jail,
somewheres, like all the rest of the soldiers.”

“I had no money to get home with. But how came you here, Reub? Who put
you here?”

“Twas Deacon Nash done it. I tried to start a farm arter the war, and
got in debt to Deacon for seed and stock, and there wasn't no crop, and
the hard times come. I couldn't pay, and the Deacon sued, and so I lost
the farm and had to come here.”

“Why didn't father help you? He ain't dead is he?”

Almost any misfortune now seemed possible to Perez.

“No, he ain't dead, but he ain't got nothin. I spose he's sold out by
this time. Sol Gleason had a mortgage on the place.”

“How much was your debt, Reub?”

“Nineteen pound, seven shilling and six-pence. 'Leastways, the debt was
nine pound, and the rest was lawyers', justices' and sheriffs' fees. I
callate they'll find them figgers cut into my heart, when I'm dead.”

And then he pointed to the sums in charcoal, covering the walls of the
cell.

“I callated the interest down to how much a minute. I allers liked
cipherin, ye know, Perez, and I have a great deal of time here. Ye see,
every day, the interest is a penny and twenty-six twenty-sevenths of a
farthin. The wall round me gits that much higher and thicker every day.”
 He stepped closer up to the wall, and pointed to a particular set of
figures.

“Here's my weight, ye see, ten stone and a fraction,” and then observing
Perez' pitiful glance at his emaciated form, he added, “I mean when I
come to jail. Dividin nineteen pound, seven and six, by that, it
makes me come to thrippence happenny a pound, 'cording to the laws o'
Massachusetts, countin bones and waste. Mutton ain't wuth but tuppence,
and there's lots o' fellers here for sech small debts, that they don't
come to mor'n a farthin a pound, and ye see I'm gittin dearer, Perez.
There's the interest one way, and I'm a gittin thinner the other way,”
 he added with a piteous smile.

“Perez,” interrupted Fennell, in a feeble, whimpering voice, as he
weakly endeavored to raise himself from the floor, “I wish you'd jess
give me a boost on your shoulders, so I kin see out the winder. Reub
uster to do it, but he ain't stout enough now. It's two months since
I've seen out. Say, Perez, won't ye?”

“It'll do him a sight o' good, Perez, if ye will. I never see a feller
set sech store by trees and mountings as George does. They're jess like
medicine to him, an he's fell off faster'n ever since I hain't been able
to boost him up.”

Perez knelt, too much moved for speech, and Reub helped to adjust upon
his shoulders the feeble frame of the sick man, into whose face had
come an expression of eager, excited expectation. As the soldier rose he
fairly tottered from the unexpected lightness of his burden. He stepped
beneath the high, grated window, and Fennell, resting his hands on the
lintel, while Reub steadied him from behind, peered out. He made no
sound, and finally Perez let him down to the floor.

“Could you see much?” asked Reub, but the other did not answer. His gaze
was afar off as if the prison walls were no barrier to his eyes, and a
smile of rapturous contemplation rested on his face. Then with a deep
breath he seemed to return to a perception of his surroundings, and in
tones of irrepressible exultation he murmured:

“I saw the mountains. They are so,” and with a waving, undulating
gesture of the hand that was wonderfully eloquent, he indicated the bold
sweep of the forest clad Taghcanic peaks. The door swung open, and the
jailer stood there.

“Time's up,” he said sharply.

“What, you're not going now? You're not going to leave us yet?” cried
Reuben, piteously.

Perez choked down the wrath and bitterness that was turning his heart to
iron and said, humbly.

“Mr. Bement, I should like to stay a few minutes longer. This is my
brother. I did not know he was here.”

“Sorry for't,” said Bement, carelessly. “Don' see as I kin help it,
though. S'posed like nuff he was somebuddy's brother. Mout's well be
your'n ez anybuddy's. I dunno who ye be. All I knows is that ye've been
here fifteen minutes and now ye must leave. Don' keep me waitin, nuther.
Thay ain' nobuddy tendin bar.”

“Don't make him mad, Perez, or else he won't let ye come again,”
 whispered Reuben, who saw that his brother was on the point of some
violent outburst. Perez controlled himself, and took his brother's hands
in his coming close up to him and looking away over his shoulder so that
he might not see the pitiful workings of his features which would have
negatived his words of comfort.

“Cheer up, Reub,” he said huskily, “I'll get you out. I'll come for
you,” and still holding his grief-wrung face averted, that Reuben might
not see it, he went forth, and Bement shut the door and barred it.




CHAPTER FOURTH

THE PEOPLE ASK BREAD AND RECEIVE A STONE


As Captain Hamlin, leaving behind him Great Barrington and its
tavern-jail, was riding slowly on toward Stockbridge, oblivious in
the bitter tumult of his feelings, to the glorious scenery around him,
Stockbridge Green was the scene of a quite unusual assemblage. Squire
Sedgwick, the town's delegate, was expected back that afternoon from the
county convention, which had been sitting at Lenox, to devise remedies
for the popular distress, and the farmers from the outlying country had
generally come into the village to get the first tidings of the result
of its deliberations.

Seated on the piazza of the store, and standing around it, at a distance
from the assemblage of the common people, suitably typifying their
social superiority, was a group of the magnates of Stockbridge, in the
stately dress of gentlemen of the olden time, their three-cornered hats
resting upon powdered wigs, and long silk hose revealing the goodly
proportions of their calves. Upon the piazza sits a short, portly
gentleman, with bushy black eyebrows and a severe expression of
countenance. Although a short man he has a way of holding his neck
stiff, with the chin well out, and looking downward from beneath his
eyelids, upon those who address him, which, with his pursed up lips,
gives a decided impression of authority and unapproachableness. This is
Jahleel Woodbridge, Esquire.

Parson West is standing on the ground in front of him, his silver headed
cane tucked under one arm. His small person--he is not an inch over five
feet tall--is as neatly dressed as if just taken out of a band-box,
and his black, shining hose encase a leg and ankle which are the chaste
admiration of the ladies of the parish, and the source, it is whispered,
of no small complacency to the good man himself.

“What think you,” he is saying to Squire Woodbridge, “will have been the
action of the convention? Will it have emulated the demagogic tone of
that at Hatfield, do you opine?”

“Let us hope not, Reverend Sir,” responded the Squire, “but methinks
it was inexpedient to allow the convention to meet, although Squire
Sedgwick's mind was on that point at variance with mine. It is an easier
matter to prevent a popular assembly than to restrain its utterances,
when assembled.”

“I trust,” said the parson, looking around upon those standing near,
“that we have all made it a subject of prayer, that the convention might
be Providentially led to devise remedies for the inconveniences of the
time, for they are sore, and the popular discontent is great.”

“Nay, I fear 'tis past hoping for that the people will be contented with
anything the convention may have done, however well considered,” said
Dr. Partridge. “They have set their hearts on some such miracle as that
whereby Moses did refresh fainting Israel with water from the smitten
rock. The crowd over yonder will be satisfied with nothing short of that
from the convention,” and the doctor waved his hand toward the people
on the green, with a smile of tolerant contempt on his clean-cut,
sarcastic, but not unkindly face.

“I much err,” said Squire Woodbridge, “if the stocks and the
whipping-post be not the remedy their discontent calls for. I am
told that seditious and disorderly speech is common at the tavern of
evenings. This presumption of the people to talk concerning matters of
government, is an evil that has greatly increased since the war, and
calls for sharp castigation. These numskulls must be taught their place
or t'will shortly be no country for gentlemen to live in.”

“A letter that I had but a day or two ago from my brother at Hatfield,”
 said Dr. Partridge, “speaks of the people being much stirred up in
Hampshire, so that some even fear an attempt of the mob to obstruct
the court at Northampton, though my brother opined that their insolence
would not reach so far. One Daniel Shays, an army captain, is spoken of
as a leader.”

Timothy Edwards, Esquire, a tall sharp featured man, with a wrinkled
forehead, had come to the door of his store while the doctor was
talking. I should vainly try to describe this stately merchant of the
olden time, if the reader were to confound him, ever so little in his
mind's eye, with the bustling, smiling, obsequious, modern storekeeper.
Even a royal customer would scarcely have presumed so far as to ask this
imposing gentleman, in powdered wig, snuff-colored coat, waistcoat and
short clothes, white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, to cut
off a piece of cloth or wrap up a bundle for him. It may be taken for
granted that commercial enterprise, as illustrated in Squire Edwards'
store, was entirely subservient to the maintenance of the proprietor's
personal dignity. He now addressed Dr. Partridge:

“Said your brother anything of the report that the Tories and British
emissaries are stirring up the popular discontent, to the end that
reproach may be brought on the new government of the States, by
revealing its weakness as compared with the King's?”

“Nay, of that he spoke not.”

“For my part, I do fully believe it,” resumed Edwards, “and, moreover,
that this is but a branch of the British policy, looking toward the
speedy reconquering of these States. It is to this end, also, that they
are aiming to weaken us by drawing all the money out of the country,
whereby, meanwhile, the present scarcity is caused.”

“Methinks, good sir,” replied the doctor, “the great expense of the war,
and the public and private debts made thereby, with the consequential
taxes and suits at law, do fully explain the lamentable state of the
country, and the disquiet of the people, though it may be that the King
has also designs against us.”

“Nay,” said the parson, in tones of gentle reproof, “these all be carnal
reasons, whereby if we seek to explain the judgments of God, we do fail
of the spiritual profiting we might find therein. For no doubt these
present calamities are God's judgment upon this people for its sins,
seeing it is well known that the bloody and cruel war now over, hath
brought in upon us all manner of new and strange sins, even as if God
would have us advertised how easily that liberty which we have gained
may run into licentiousness. Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy have come in
upon us like a flood, and the new and heinous sin of card-playing hath
contaminated our borders, as hath been of late brought to light in the
cases of Jerubbabel Galpin and Zedekiah Armstrong, who were taken in the
act, and are even now in the stocks. And thereby am I reminded that I
had purposed to improve this occasion for the reproof and admonition of
them that stand by.”

And thereupon the parson saluted the gentlemen and sedately crossed the
green toward the stocks, around which was a noisy crowd of men and boys.
As the parson approached, however, a respectful silence fell upon them.
There was a general pulling off of hats and caps, and those in his path
stood obsequiously aside, while the little children, slinking behind the
grown folks, peeped around their legs at him. The two hobbledehoys
in the stocks, loutish farmer's boys, had been already undergoing the
punishment for about an hour. Their backs were bent so that their bodies
resembled the letter U laid on its side, and their arms were strained
as if they were pulling out of the sockets. All attempted bravado, all
affectation of stoical indifference, all sense even of embarrassment,
had evidently been merged in the demoralization of intense physical
discomfort, and the manner in which they lolled their heads, first on
one side and then on the other, was eloquent of abject and shameless
misery. Standing directly in front of these hapless youths, and using
them as his text, the parson began to admonish the people in this wise:

“It would seem the will of God to permit the adversary to try the people
of Stockbridge with divers new and strange temptations, not known to
our fathers, doubtless to the end, that their graces may shine forth
the more clearly, even as gold tried in the fire hath a more excellent
lustre, by reason of its discipline.

“I have examined myself with fasting, to see if any weakness or laxity
in my office, as shepherd of this flock, might be the occasion of this
license given to Satan. And it behooveth you, each in his own soul,
and in his own household, to make inquisition lest some sin of his or
theirs, bring this new temptation of card-playing, upon our people,
even as the wedge of fine gold which Achan took and hid in his tent, did
mightily discomfit the host of Israel with the plagues of the Lord. For
even as for the sin of Adam, we are all justly chargeable, so for the
sins of one another, doth the justice of God afflict us, so that we may
find our account in watching over our brethren, even as over ourselves.

“And you, whom Satan hath led away captive,” pursued the reverend
orator, addressing himself to the young men in the stocks, “be ye
thankful that ye have not been permitted to escape this temporal
recompense of your transgression, which, if proved, may save you from
the eternal flames of hell, Reflect, whether it be not better to endure
for a season, the contempt and the chastisement of men, rather than to
bear the torments and jeers of the devil and his angels forever.”

“Behold,” said the minister, holding up the pack of cards taken from the
prisoners, “with what instruments Satan doth tempt mankind, and consider
how perverse must be the inclination which can be tempted by devices
that do so plainly advertise their devilish origin. At times Satan doth
so shrewdly mask his wiles that if it were possible the very elect might
be deceived, but how evidently doth he here reveal his handiwork.”

He held up some of the court cards.

“Take note of these misshaped and deformed figures, heathenishly
attired, and with no middle parts or legs, but with two heads turned
diverse ways. These are not similitudes of man, who was made in the
image of his Maker, but doubtless of fiends, revealed by Satan to the
artificers who do his work in the fabrication of these instruments of
sin. Mark these figures of diamonds and hearts, and these others,
which I am told do signify spades and clubs. How plainly do they typify
ill-gotten riches and bleeding hearts, violence and the grave. Wretched
youths, which of ye tempted the other to this sin?”

“Je assed me to dew it,” whimpered Zedekiah.

“Kiah, he assed me fust,” averred Jerubbabel.

“No doubt ye are both right,” said the minister sternly. “When two
sin together, Satan is divided in twain, and the one half tempteth the
other. See to it that ye sin not again on this wise, lest a worse thing
come upon you.”

Scarcely had the parson turned away, when a shout from some boys who had
gone to the corner to watch for the coming of the Squire, announced his
approach, and presently he appeared at the corner, riding a fine gray
horse, and came on at an easy canter across the green. He was a tall,
broad-shouldered, finely-proportioned man of about forty, with a refined
face, frank and open, but rather haughty in expression, with piercing
black eyes; a man in whose every gesture lay conscious power and
obvious superiority. As he rode by the silent crowd, he acknowledged the
salutations of the people with a courteous wave of the hand, but drew
rein only when he reached the group of dignitaries about the store.
There he dismounted and shook hands with the parson, who has rejoined
the party, with Dr. Partridge, Squire Edwards and Squire Woodbridge.

“What news bring you from the convention? I trust you have been
Providentially guided. I have not failed to remember you in my prayers,”
 said the parson.

“For which I am deeply grateful, Reverend Sir,” replied Sedgwick. “And
truly I think your prayers have been effectual. The blessing of God has
been manifestly upon the convention. Berkshire has not been disgraced,
as have been the lower counties, by a seditious and incendiary body of
resolutions on the part of her delegates. There were not wanting plenty
of hot-heads, but they were overruled. I am convinced such might
also have been the issue in the other counties, had the gentlemen put
themselves forward as delegates, instead of leaving it all in a fit of
disgust to the people.”

“Was there any action taken in favor of the plan for the emission
of bills, which shall systematically depreciate!” inquired Squire
Woodbridge.

“Such a resolution was introduced by Thomas Gold of Pittsfield, a
pestilent fellow, but we threw it out.”

“What was the action on reduction of expenses of suits at law?” inquired
Dr. Partridge.

“Again nothing,” replied Sedgwick. “In a word, we refused to yield to
any of the demands of the malcontents, or to hamper the Legislature with
any specific recommendations. You know that we Berkshire people, thanks
to our delay in recognizing the State authority, have an evil repute
at Boston for a mobbish and ungovernable set. It seemed that this was
a good opportunity, when the conventions of all the other counties were
sending up seditious petitions, to make the moderation of our conduct
such a contrast that there might be an end of such talk in the future.”

Meanwhile, as it became apparent to the crowd on the green that they
were not likely to be vouchsafed any information unless they asked for
it, a brisk disputation, conducted in an undertone, so that it might
not reach the ears of the gentlemen, arose as to who should be the
spokesmen.

“I jess ez leeve go 's not,” said Jabez Flint, the Tory, “only they
wouldn' hev nothin tew say ter me ez wuz a Tory.”

“Ef I were ten year younger, I'd go in a minute,” said Israel Goodrich,
“but my jints is kinder stiff. Abner, thar, he'd orter go, by rights.”

“Why don' ye go, Abner? Ye ain't scairt o' speakin tew Squire, be ye!”
 said Peleg.

“I ain't scairt o' no man, and ye know it's well's ye wanter know.
I'd go in a jiffey, only bein a young man, I don' like tew put myself
forrard tew speak for them as is older.”

“Why don' ye go yerself, Peleg, if ye be so dretful brave!” inquired
Israel Goodrich.

“That's so, Peleg, why don' ye go?”

“I ain't no talker,” said Peleg. “Ther's Ezry, he'd orter go, he's sech
a good talker.”

But Ezra swallowed the bait without taking the hook. “Tain't talkin
ez is wanted, it's assin. Any on ye kin dew that's well's I,” he
discriminated.

The spirit of mutual deference was so strong that it is doubtful how
long the contest of modesty might have continued, had not Laban Jones
suddenly said:

“Ef none on ye dasn't ass what the convenshin has did, I'll ass myself.
I'm more scairt o' my hungry babbies an I be o' the face o' any man.”

Raising his stalwart figure to its full height, and squaring his
shoulders as if to draw courage from a consciousness of his thews and
sinews, Laban strode toward the store. But though he took the first
steps strongly and firmly, his pace grew feebler and more hesitating
as he neared the group of gentlemen, and his courage might have ebbed
entirely, had not the parson, glancing around and catching his eye,
given him a friendly nod. Laban thereupon came up to within a rod or two
of the group, and taking off his cap, said in a small voice:

“Please we'd like ter know what the convenshin has did?”

Sedgwick, who had his back to him, turned quickly, and seeing Laban,
said in a preëmptory tone:

“Ah! Laban, you may tell your friends that the convention very wisely
did nothing at all,” and as he said this he turned to finish something
that he was saying to Squire Woodbridge. Laban's jaw fell, and he
continued to stand stock still for several moments, his dull features
working as he tried to take in the idea. Finally, his consternation
absorbing his timidity he said feebly:

“Nothin? Did you say, Squire?”

Sedgwick wheeled about with a frown, which however, changed into an
expression of contemptuous pity as he saw the genuineness of the poor
fellow's discomfiture.

“Nothing, Laban,” he said, “except to resolve to support the courts,
enforce the laws, and punish all disorderly persons. Don't forget that
last, Laban, to punish all disorderly persons. Be sure to tell your
friends that. And tell them, too, Laban, that it would be well for them
to leave matters of government to their betters and attend to their
farms,” and as Laban turned mechanically and walked back Sedgwick added,
speaking to the gentlemen about him:

“I like not this assembling of the people to discuss political matters.
We must look to it, gentlemen, or we shall find that we have ridded
ourselves of a king only to fall into the hands of a democracy, which I
take it would be a bad exchange.”

“Sir,” said Edwards, “you must be in need of refreshment, after your
ride. Come in, sir, and come in gentlemen, all. We shall discuss the
Providential issue of the convention more commodiously within doors,
over a suitable provision of Jamaica.”

The suggestion seemed to be timely and acceptable, and one by one the
gentlemen, standing aside with ceremonious politeness to let one another
precede, entered the store, Parson West leading, for it was neither
according to the requirements of decorum, or his own private tastes,
that the minister should decline a convivial invitation of this
character.

“What d'ee say, Laban?”

“What did they dew?”

“Did they 'bolish the loryers?”

“Wat did they dew baout more bills, Laban, hey?”

“What did they dew baout the taxes?”

“Why don't ye speak, man?”

“What's the matter on ye?” were some of the volley of questions with
which the people hailed their chop-fallen deputy on his return, crowding
forward around him, plucking his sleeves and pushing him to get
his attention, for he regarded them with a dazed and sleep-walking
expression. Finally he found his voice, and said:

“Squire says ez haow they didn' dew nothin.”

There was a moment's dead silence, then the clamor burst out again.

“Not dew nothin?”

“What d'ye mean, Laban?”

“Nothin baout the taxes?”

“Nothin baout the loryers?”

“Nothin baout the sheriffs' fees?”

“Nothin baout jailin for debt?”

“Nothin baout takin prop'ty tew a valiation, Laban?”

“Nothin baout movin govment aout o' Bosting?”

“Nothin, I tells ye,” answered Laban, in the same tone of utter
discouragement. “Squire says ez haow the convenshin hain't done nothin
'cept tew resolve that ez courts sh'd go on an the laws sh'd be kerried
aout an disorderly folks sh'd be punished.”

The men looked from one to another of each other's faces, and each wore
the same blank look. Finally Israel Goodrich said, nodding his head with
an expression of utter dejection at each word:

“Wal, I swow, I be kinder disappinted.”

There was a space of silence.

“So be I,” said Peleg.

Presently Paul Hubbard's metallic voice was heard.

“We were fools not to have known it. Didn't we elect a General Court
last year a purpose to do something for us, and come to get down to
Bosting didn't the lawyers buy em up or fool em so they didn't do
a thing? The people won't git righted till they take hold and right
themselves, as they did in the war.”

“Is that all the Squire said, Laban, every word?” asked Israel, and as
he did so all eyes turned on Laban with a faint gleam of hope that there
might yet be some crumb of comfort. Laban scratched his head.

“He said suthin baout govment bein none o' our business an haow we'd a
better go hum an not be loafin roun'.”

“Ef govment hain't no business o' ourn I'd like tew know what in time we
fit the King fer,” said Peleg.

“That's so, wy didn' ye ass Squire that queschin?” said Meshech Little.

“By gosh,” exclaimed Abner Rathbun, with a sudden vehemence, “ef govment
ain't no business o' ourn they made a mistake when they teached us that
fightin was.”

“What dew ye mean?” asked Israel half timorously.

“Never mind wat I mean,” replied Abner, “on'y a wum 'll turn wen it's
trod on.”

“I don' bleeve but that Laban's mistook wat the Squire said. Ye ain't
none tew clever, ye know, yerself, Laban, and I callate that ye didn'
more'n half understan' wat Squire meant.”

It was Ezra Phelps who announced this cheering view, which instantly
found general favor, and poor Laban's limited mental powers were at once
the topic of comments more plain spoken than flattering. Paul Hubbard,
indeed, shook his head and smiled bitterly at this revulsion of
hopefulness, but even Laban himself seemed eager to find ground for
believing himself to have been, in this instance, an ass.

“Ye see the hull thing's in a nutshell,” said Abner. “Either Laban's a
fool, or else the hull caounty convenshin o' Berkshire is fools an wuss,
an I callate it's Laban.”

Perhaps the back room of the store lacked for Sedgwick, a comparatively
recent resident of Stockbridge, those charms of familiarity it possessed
for the other gentlemen, for even as Abner was speaking, he came out
alone. As he saw the still waiting and undiminished crowd of people,
he frowned angrily, and mounting his horse, rode directly toward them.
Their sullen aspect, which might have caused another to avoid them, was
his very reason for seeking an encounter. As he approached, his piercing
eye rested a moment on the face of every man, and as it did so, each
eye, impelled by a powerfull magnetism, rose deferentially to his, and
every cap was pulled off.

“What is it, Ezra?” he demanded sharply, seeing that Ezra wanted to
address him.

“If you please, Squire,” said Ezra, cap in hand, “Laban's kinder stupid,
an we callate he muster got what ye said tuther eend to. Will ye kindly
tell us what the convenshin did?”

Stopping his horse, Sedgwick replied, in a loud, clear voice.

“The convention declared that the laws shall be enforced, and all
disorderly persons punished with the stocks and with lashes on the bare
back.”

“Is that all?” faltered Ezra.

“All!” exclaimed Sedgwick, as his eye rested a moment on every face
before him. “Let every one of you look out that he does not find it too
much.”

And now he suddenly broke off in a tone of sharp command, “Disperse and
go to your houses on the pains and penalties of Sabbath breaking. The
sun is down,” and he pointed to the last glimmer of the yellow orb as
it sank below the mountains. The people stood still just long enough to
verify the fact with a glance, that holy time had begun, and instantly
the green was covered with men and boys swiftly seeking shelter within
their doors from the eye of an angry Deity, while from the store hastily
emerged Squire Woodbridge, Dr. Partridge and the parson, and made their
several ways homeward as rapidly as dignity would permit.

Perhaps ten minutes later, Captain Perez Hamlin might have been seen
pricking his jaded horse across the deserted green. He looked around
curiously at the new buildings and recent changes in the appearance of
the village, and once or twice seemed a little at loss about his route.
But finally he turned into a lane leading northerly toward the hill,
just at the foot of which, beside the brook that skirted it, stood a
weather-beaten house of a story and a half. As he caught sight of this,
Perez spurred his horse to a gallop, and in a few moments the mother,
through her tears of joy, was studying out in the stern face of the man,
the lineaments of the boy whose soldier's belt she had buckled round him
nine years before.




CHAPTER FIFTH

THAT MEANS REBELLION!


Elnathan was the only one of the family who went to church the following
day. Mrs. Hamlin was too infirm to climb the hill to the meeting-house,
and Perez' mood was more inclined to blood-spilling than to God's
worship. All day he walked the house, his fists clenched, muttering
curses through his set teeth, and looking not unlike a lion, ferociously
pacing his cage. For his mother was tearfully relating to him the share
of the general misery that had fallen to their lot, as a family, in the
past nine years, how Elnathan had not been able to carry on his farm,
without the aid of the boys, and had run behind, till now, Solomon
Gleason the schoolmaster, had got hold of the mortgage, and was going to
turn them into the street, that very week. But all this with the mother,
as with the brother, was as nothing, compared with Reuben's imprisonment
and sickness unto death.

It was Mrs. Hamlin, who did most of the talking, and much of what she
said fell unheeded on Perez' ears, as he walked unceasingly to and fro
across the kitchen. For his mind was occupied with all the intensity of
application, of which it was capable, with the single point,--how he was
to get Reuben out of jail. Even the emergency, which would so soon be
raised, by the selling out of the homestead, and the turning of the
family into the street, was subordinated, in his mind, to this prime
question. The picture of his brother, shaggy-haired and foul, wallowing
in the filth of that prison sty, and breathing its fetid air, which his
memory kept constantly before him, would have driven him distracted,
if for a moment he had allowed himself to doubt that he should somehow
liberate him, and soon. He had told his mother nothing of the horrible
condition in which he had found him. Under no circumstances must she
know of that, not even if worst came to worst, and so even while he
shuddered at the vision before his mind's eye, he essayed to speak
cheerfully about Reuben's surroundings, and his condition of health.
When she told him that Deacon Nash had refused to let him come home to
be nursed back to health, Perez had to comfort her by pretending that he
was not so very badly off where he was, and would doubtless recover.

“Nay, Perez,” she said, “my eyes are dim, come close to me, that I may
read your eyes. You were ever tender to your old mother, and I fear me,
you hide somewhat lest I should disquiet myself. Come here my son.” The
brave man's eyes, that had never quailed before the belching artillery,
had now ado indeed. Such sickness at heart behind them, such keen
mother's instinct trying them before.

“Oh, Perez! My boy is dying! I see it.”

“He is not, I tell you he is not,” he cried hoarsely, breaking away from
her. “He is well. He looks strong. Do you think I would lie to you? I
tell you he is well and getting better.”

But after that she would not be comforted. The afternoon wore on.
Elnathan came from meeting, and at last, through the open windows of the
house, came the cry, in children's voices.

“Sun's down! Sun's down!”

From the upper windows, its disc was yet visible, above the crest of the
western mountains, and on the hilltops, it was still high Sabbath; but
in the streets below, holy time was at an end. The doors, behind which,
in Sabbatical decorum, the children had been pent up all day long, swung
open with a simultaneous bang, and the boys with a whoop and halloo,
tumbled over each other into the street, while the girls tripped gaily
after. Innumerable games of tag, and “I spy,” were organized in a trice,
and for the hour or two between that and bed time, the small fry of the
village devoted themselves, without a moment's intermission, to getting
the Sabbath stiffening out of their legs and tongues.

Nor was the reawakening of the community by any means confined to the
boys and girls. For soon the streets began to be alive with groups of
men and women, all in their Sunday best, going to make social calls. In
the majority of Stockbridge households, the best clothes, unless there
chanced to be a funeral, were not put on oftener than once a week, when
the recurrence of the Sabbath made their assumption a religious duty,
and on this account it naturally became the custom to make the evening
of that day the occasion of formal social intercourse. As soon, too,
as the gathering twilight afforded some shield to their secret designs,
sundry young men with liberally greased hair, their arms stiff in the
sleeves of the unusual and Sunday coat, their feet, accustomed to the
immediate contact of the soil, encased in well larded shoes, might
have been seen gliding under the shadows of friendly fences, and along
bypaths, with that furtive and hangdog air which, in all ages, has
characterized the chicken-thief and the lover.

In front of the door of Squire Sedgwick's house is drawn up his
travelling carriage, with two fine horses. On the box is Sol, the
coachman, one of the Squire's negro freedmen, whose allegiance to the
Sedgwick family was not in the least shaken by the abolition of slavery
in the state by the adoption of the bill of rights six years before.

“I dunno noffin bout no Bill Wright,” was Sol's final dismissal of the
subject.

“Drive to Squire Woodbridge's house, Sol,” said Sedgwick, as he stepped
into the carriage.

Woodbridge was at the gate of his house, apparently about starting
on his usual evening visit to the store, when the carriage drove up.
Sedgwick alighted, and taking the other a little aside, said:

“It is necessary for me to start tonight for Boston, where I have some
important cases. I regret it, because I would rather be at home
just now. The spirit among the people is unruly, and while I do not
anticipate serious trouble, I think it is a time when gentlemen should
make their influence felt in their communities. I have no doubt,
however, that the interests of Stockbridge and of the government are
entirely safe in your hands as selectman and magistrate.”

“I hope, sir, that I am equal to the duties of my position,” replied
Woodbridge, stiffly.

“Allow me again to assure you that I have not the smallest doubt of it,”
 said Sedgwick, affably, “but I thought it well to notify you of my own
necessary departure, and to put you on your guard. The bearing of the
people on the green last evening, of which I saw more than you did,
was unmistakably sullen, and their disappointment at the refusal of the
convention to lend itself to their seditious and impracticable desires,
is very bitter.”

“Undoubtedly the result of the convention has been to increase the
popular agitation. I had the honor to represent to you before it was
held that such would be its effect, at which time, I believe you held a
different view. Nevertheless, I opine that you exaggerate the degree of
the popular agitation. It would be natural, that being a comparatively
recent resident, you should be less apt to judge the temper of the
Stockbridge people, than we who are longer here.”

A half humorous, half impatient expression on Sedgwick's face, was the
only indication he gave that he had recognized the other's huffy and
bristling manner.

“Your opinion, Sir,” he replied, with undiminished affability, “tends to
relieve my apprehensions. I trust the event will justify it.

“And how does Miss Desire, this evening?” he added, saluting with doffed
hat and a courtly bow, a young lady who had just come up, with the
apparent intention of going in at the Woodbridge gate.

“I do but indifferent well, Sir. As well as a damsel may do in a world
where gentlemen keep not their promises,” she answered, with a curtsey,
so saucily deep, that the crisp crimson silk of her skirt rustled on the
ground.

“Nay, but tell me the caitiff's name, and let me be myself your knight,
fair mistress, to redress your wrongs.”

“Nay, 'tis yourself, Sir. Did you not promise you would come and hear me
play my piano, when it came from Boston, and I have it a week already?”

“And I did not know it. Yes, now I bethink myself, Mrs. Sedgwick spoke
thereof, but this convention has left me not a moment. But damsels are
not political; no doubt you have heard nothing of the convention.”

“Oh, yes; 'tis that all the poor want to be rich, and to hang all the
lawyers. I've heard. 'Tis a fine scheme.”

“No doubt the piano is most excellent in sound.”

“It goes middling well, but already I weary me of my bargain.”

“Are you then in trade, Miss Desire?”

“A little. Papa said if I would not tease him to let me go to New York
this winter, he would have me a piano. I know not what came over me that
I consented. I shall go into a decline ere spring. The ugly dress and
the cowlike faces of the people, make me sick at heart, and give me bad
dreams, and the horses neigh in better English than the farmers
talk. Alack, 'tis a dreary place for a damsel! But, no doubt, I have
interrupted some weighty discussion. I bid you good even, Sir,” and,
once more curtsying, the girl went up the path to the house, much to her
uncle Jahleel's relief, who had no taste for badinage, and wanted to get
on to the store, whither, presently he was on his way, while Sedgwick's
carriage rolled off toward Boston.

About a mile out of Stockbridge, the carriage passed two men standing by
the roadside, earnestly talking. These men were Perez Hamlin and Abner
Rathbun.

“You remember the Ice-hole,” said Perez, referring to an extraordinary
cleft or chasm, of great depth, and extremely difficult and perilous of
access, situated near the top of Little Mountain, a short distance from
Stockbridge.

“Yes,” said Abner, “I rekullec it, well. I guess you an I, Perez, air
abaout the on'y fellers in taown, ez hev been clean through it.”

“My plan is this,” said Perez. “Kidnap Deacon Nash, carry him up to the
Ice-hole, and keep him there till he makes out a release for Reub, then
just carry down the paper to jail, get Reub out, and across the York
State line, and send back word to Stockbridge where to find the deacon.”

“But what'll we dew, ourselves?”

“Of course we shall have to stay in York. Why shouldn't we? There's no
chance for a poor man here. The chances are that we should both be in
jail for debt before spring.”

“But what be I a goin to dew with my little Bijah? He's all I've got,
but I can't leave him.”

“My father and mother will take care of him, and bring him with em to
York State, for I'm goin to get them right over there as soon as they're
sold out. There's a chance for poor folks west; there's no chance here.”

“Perez, thar's my fist. By gosh I'm with ye.”

“Abner, it's a risky business, and you haven't got the call I've got,
being as Reub isn't your brother. I'm asking a good deal of you Abner.”

“Don' ye say nothin more baout it,” said Abner, violently shaking the
hand he still held, while he reassuringly clapped Perez on the back.
“Dew ye rekullec that time tew Stillwater, when ye pulled them tew
Britishers orfer me? Fer common doin's I don' callate ez two fellers is
more'n my fair share in a scrimmage, but ye see my arm wuz busted, an if
ye hadn't come along jess wen ye did, I callate the buryin squad would a
cussed some on caount of my size, that evenin.

“But gosh all hemlock, Perez, I dunno wat makes me speak o' that naow.
It wouldn' make no odds ef I'd never sot eyes onter ye afore. I'd help
eny feller, 'bout sech a job es this ere, jess fer the fun on't. Risky!
Yes it's risky; that's the fun. I hain't hed my blood fairly flowin
afore, sence the war. It doos me more good nor a box o' pills.
Jerewsalem, how riled deacon'll be!”

The two young men walked slowly back to the village, earnestly
discussing the details of their daring enterprise, and turning up the
lane, leading to the Hamlin house, paused, still conversing, at the
gate. As they stood there, the house door opened, and a young girl came
out, and approached them, while Mrs. Hamlin, standing in the door, said:

“Perez, this is Prudence Fennell, George Fennell's girl. She heard you
had seen her father, and came to ask you about him.”

The girl came near to Perez, and looked up at him with a questioning
face, in which anxiety was struggling with timidity. She was a rosy
cheeked lass, of about sixteen, well grown for her age, and dressed in
coarse woolen homespun, while beneath her short skirt, appeared a pair
of heavy shoes, which evidently bore very little relation to the
shape of the feet within them. Her eyes were gray and frank, and the
childishness, which the rest of her face was outgrowing, still lingered
in the pout of her lips.

“Is my father much sick, sir?”

“He is very sick,” said Perez.

The pitifulness of his tone, no doubt, more than his words, betrayed
the truth to her fearful heart, for all the color ran down out of
her cheeks, and he seemed to see nothing of her face, save two great
terrified eyes, which piteously beseeched a merciful reply, even while
they demanded the uttermost truth.

“Is he going to die?”

Perez felt a strong tugging at his heart strings, in which, for the
moment, he forgot his own personal trouble.

“I don't know, my child,” he replied, very gently.

“Oh, he's going to die. I know he's going to die,” she cried, still
looking through her welling eyes a moment, to see if he would not
contradict her intuition, and then, as he looked on the ground, making
no reply, she turned away, and walked slowly down the lane sobbing as
she went.

“Abner, we must manage somehow to get George out too.”

“Poor little gal, so we must Perez. We'll kidnap Schoolmaster Gleason
'long with deacon. But it's a pootty big job, Perez, two o' them and
on'y two o' us.”

“I'm afraid we're trying more than we can do, Abner. If we try too much,
we shall fail entirely. I don't know. I don't know. There's the whole
jail full, and one ought to come out as well as another. All have got
friends that feel as bad as we do.” He reflected a moment. “By the Lord,
we'll try it, Abner. Poor little girl. It's a desperate game, anyway,
and we might as well play for high stakes.”

Abner went down the lane to the green, and Perez went into the house,
and sat down in the dark to ponder the new difficulties with which
the idea of also liberating Fennell complicated their first plan. Bold
soldier as he was, practiced in the school of Marion and Sumter, in the
surprises and strategems of partisan warfare, he was forced to admit
that if their project had been hazardous before, this new feature made
it almost foolhardy. In great perplexity he had finally determined to
go to bed, hoping that the refreshment of morning would bring a clearer
head and more sanguine mood, when there was a knock on the door. It was
Abner looking very much excited.

“Come out! Come out! Crypus! Come out, I've got news.”

“What is it?” said Perez eagerly, stepping forth into the darkness.

“That wuz a pootty leetle plan o' yourn, Perez.”

“Yes, yes.”

Abner, he knew had not come to tell him that, for his voice trembled
with suppressed excitement, and the grip of his hand on his shoulder was
convulsive.

“P'raps we could a kerried it aout, an p'raps we should a kerflummuxed.
Ye've got grit an I've got size,” pursued Abner. “Twuz wuth tryin on.
I'm kinder sorry we ain't a gonter try it.”

“What the devil do you mean, Abner? not going to try it?”

“No, Perez, we ain't goin tew try it, leastways, not the same plan we
callated, an we ain't a goin tew try it alone,” and he leaned over and
hissed in Perez' ear:

“The hull caounty o' Berkshire 's a gonter help us.”

Perez looked at him with horror. He was not drunk; he must be going
crazy.

“What do you mean, Abner?” he said soothingly.

“Ye think I don' know wat I be a talkin baout, don' ye, Perez? Wal,
jess hole on a minit. A feller hez jess got in, a ridin 'xpress from
Northampton, to fetch word that the people in Hampshire has riz, and
stopped the courts. Fifteen hundred men, with Captain Dan Shays tew
ther head, stopped em. Leastways, they sent word to the jedges that
they kinder wisht they wouldn't hole no more courts till the laws wuz
changed, and the jedges, they concluded that the 'dvice o' so many
fellers with guns, wuz wuth suthin, so they 'journed.”

“That means rebellion, Abner.”

“In course it doos. An it means the Lord ain't quite dead yit. That's
wat it means.”

“But what's that got to do with Reub and George?”

“Dew with em, why, man alive, don' ye unnerstan? Don' ye callate
Berkshire folks haz got ez much grit ez the Hampshire fellers, an don'
ye callate we haz ez much call to hev a grudge agin courts? Ye orter
been daown tew the tavern tew see haow the fellers cut up wen the news
come. T'was like a match dropping intew a powder bar'l. Tuesday's court
day tew Barrington, an ef thar ain't more'n a thousand men on han with
clubs an guns, tew stop that air court, wy, call me a skunk. An wen
that air court's stopped, that air jail's a comin open, or it's a comin
daown, one o' the tew naow.”




CHAPTER SIXTH

PEREZ DEFINES HIS POSITION


We who live in these days, when press and telegraph may be said to
have almost rendered the tongue a superfluous member, quite fail to
appreciate the rapidity with which intelligence was formerly transmitted
from mouth to mouth. Virgil's description of hundred tongued Rumor
appeared by no means so poetical an exaggeration to our ancestors as it
does to us. Although the express, bearing the news of the Northampton
uprising did not reach Stockbridge tavern a minute before half-past
seven in the evening, there were very few families in the village or the
outlying farmhouses, which had not heard it ere bedtime, an hour and a
half later. And by the middle of the following forenoon there was in
all Southern Berkshire, only here and there a family, off on a lonely
hillside, or in a hidden valley, in which it was not the subject of
debate.

In Stockbridge, that morning, what few industries still supported a
languishing existence in spite of the hard times, were wholly suspended.
The farmer left his rowen to lie in the field and take the chances of
the weather, the miller gave his mill-stream a holiday, the carpenter
left the house half-shingled with rain threatening, and the painter his
brush in the pot, to collect on the street corners with their neighbors
and discuss the portentous aspect of affairs. And even where there was
little or no discussion, to stand silently in groups was something. Thus
merely to be in company was, to these excited men, a necessity and
a satisfaction, for so does the electricity of a common excitement
magnetize human beings, that they have an attraction for one another,
and are drawn together by a force not felt at other times. There were
not less than three hundred men, a quarter of the entire population
of the town, on and about Stockbridge Green at ten o'clock that Monday
morning, twice as many as had assembled to hear the news from the
convention the Saturday preceding.

The great want of the people, for the most part, tongue-tied farmers,
seemed to be to hear talk, to have something said, and wherever a few
brisk words gave promise of a lively dialogue, the speakers were at once
surrounded by a dense throng of listeners. The thirsting eagerness
with which they turned their open mouths toward each one as he began to
speak, in the hope that he would express to themselves some one of the
ideas formlessly astir in their own stolid minds, was pathetic
testimony to the depth to which the iron of poverty, debt, judicial and
governmental oppression had entered their souls. They had thought little
and vaguely, but they had felt much and keenly, and it was evident
the man who could voice their feelings, however partially, however
perversely, and for his own ends, would be master of their actions.

Abner was not present, having gone at an early hour over to Lenox
furnaces, where he was acquainted, to carry the news from Northampton,
if it should not have arrived there, and notify the workmen that there
would be goings-on at Barrington, Tuesday, and they were expected to be
on hand. Paul Hubbard, also, had not come down from West Stockbridge,
although the news had reached that place last night. But from the
disposition of the man, there could be no question that he was busily
at work moulding his particular myrmidons, the iron-workers, into good
insurrectionary material. There was no doubt that he would have them
down to Barrington on time, whoever else was there.

In the dearth of any further details of the Northampton uprising,
the talk among the crowd on Stockbridge Green turned largely upon
reminiscences and anecdotes of the disturbances at the same place,
and at Hatfield four or five years previous. Ezra Phelps, who had
been concerned in them, having subsequently removed from Hatfield to
Stockbridge, enjoyed by virtue of that fact an oracular eminence, and
as he stood under the shadow of the buttonwood tree before the tavern,
relating his experiences, the people hung upon his lips.

“Parson Ely,” he explained, “Parson Sam'l Ely wuz kinder tew the head on
us. He wuz a nice sorter man, I tell yew. He wuz the on'y parson I ever
seen ez hed any flesh in his heart for poor folks, 'nless it be some o'
them ere Methody an Baptis preachers ez hez come in sence the war, an
I callate they ain' reglar parsons nuther. Leastways, thuther parsons,
they turned Parson Ely aout o' the min'stry daown to Somers whar he wuz,
fer a tellin the poor folks they didn' git their rights. Times wuz hard
four or five year ago, though they warn't so all-fired hard ez they be
naow. Taxes wuz high 'nuff, an money wuz dretful skurce, an thar wuz
lots o' lawin an suein o' poor folks. But gosh, ef we'd a known haow
much wuss all them things wuz a going tew git, we sh'd a said we wuz
well orf. But ye see we warn't so uster bein starved an cheated an
jailed an knocked roun' then's we be sence, an so we wuz kinder desprit,
an a slew on us come daown from Hatfield tew Northampton an stopped the
court, wen t'wuz gonter set in the spring o' '82. I callate we went tew
work baout the same ez Dan Shays an them fellers did las' week. Wal,
arter we'd did the job an gone hum agin, Sheriff Porter up an nabbed the
parson, an chucked him inter jail. He was long with us ye see, though
he warn't no more tew blame nor any of us. Wal, ye see, we callated
t'wouldn't be ezzackly fa'r tew let parson git intew trouble fer
befriendin on us, an so baout 300 on us went daown tew Northampton agin,
and broke open the jail an tuk parson aout. The sheriff didn' hev nothin
tew say wen we wuz thar, but ez soon ez we'd gone hum, he up an took
three o' the parson's frens as lived to Northampton an chucked em inter
jail fer tew hold ez sorter hostiges. He callated he'd hev a ring in the
parson's nose that ere way, so's he wouldn' dass dew nothin. Thar warn't
no law nor no reason in sech doins, but 'twuz plantin time, leastways
gittin on tew it, and he callated the farmers wouldn' leave ther farms,
not fer nothin. But he mistook. Ye see we wuz fightin mad. Baout 500 on
us tuk our guns an made tracks fer Northampton. Sheriff he'd got more'n
a thousan milishy tew defend the jail, but the milishy didn' wanter
fight, an we did, an that made a sight o' odds, fer wen we stopped night
tew the taown an sent word that ef he didn' let them fellers aout o'
jail we'd come an take em aout, he let em aout dum quick.”

“Wat did they do nex?” inquired Obadiah Weeks, as Ezra paused with the
appearance of having made an end of his narration.

“That wuz the eend on't,” said Ezra. “By that time govment seen the
people wuz in arnest, an quit foolin. Ginral Court passed a law pardnin
all on us fer wat we'd done. They allers pardons fellers, ye see, wen
ther's tew many on em tew lick, govment doos, an pooty soon arter they
passed that ere tender law fer tew help poor folks ez hed debts so's
prop'ty could be offered tew a far valiation instid o' cash.”

“That air law wuz repealed sence,” said Peleg. “Ef we hed it naow, mebbe
we could git 'long spite o' ther being no money a cirkilatin.”

“In course it wuz repealed,” said Israel. “They on'y passed it caze they
wuz scairt o' the people. The loryers an rich folks got it repealed soon
ez ever they dasted. Gosh, govment don' keer nothin fer wat poor folks
wants, 'nless they gits up riots. That's the on'y way they kin git laws
changed, 's fur 's I see. Ain't that 'bout so Peleg?”

“Ye ain't fur outer the way, Isr'el. We hain't got no money, an they
don' keer wat we says, but when we takes hole, an doos sumthin they
wakes up a leetle. We can't make em hear us, but by jocks, we kin make
em feel us,” and Peleg pointed the sentiment with that cornerwise nod of
the head, which is the rustic gesture of emphasis. “I callate ye've hit
the nail on the head, Peleg,” said a grizzled farmer. “We poor folks hez
to git our rights by our hands, same ez we gits our livin.”

But at this moment, a sudden hush fell upon the group, and from the
general direction of the eyes, it was evidently the approach of Perez
Hamlin, as he crossed the green toward the tavern, which was the
cause thereof. Although Perez had arrived in town only at dusk on the
preceding Saturday, and excepting his Sunday evening stroll with Abner,
had kept within doors, the tongue of rumor had not only notified pretty
much the entire community of his arrival, but had adorned that bare fact
with a profuse embroidery of conjecture, as to his recent experiences,
present estate, and intentions for the future.

An absence of nine years had, however, made him personally a stranger to
most of the people. The young men had been mere lads when he went away,
while of the elders, many were dead, or removed. As he approached the
group around Ezra, he recognized but few of the faces, all of which were
turned upon him with a common expression of curious scrutiny. There was
Meshech Little. Him he shook hands with, and also with Peleg, and Israel
Goodrich. Ezra had come to the village since his day.

“Surely this is Abe Konkapot,” he said, extending his hand to a fine
looking Indian. “Why Abe, I heard the Stockbridges had moved out to York
State.”

“You hear true,” responded the smiling Indian. “Heap go. Some stay. No
want to go.”

“Widder Nimham's gal Lu, could tell ye 'bout why Abe don' want ter go, I
guess,” observed Obadiah Weeks, who directed the remark, however, not
so much to Perez as to some of the half-grown young men, from whom it
elicited a responsive snicker at Abe's expense.

Indeed, after the exchange of the first greetings, it became apparent
that Perez' presence was a damper on the conversation. The simple fact
was, the people did not recognize him as one of them. It was not that
his dress, although a uniform, was better or costlier than theirs. The
blue stockings were threadbare, and had been often mended, and the coat,
of the same hue, was pitiably white in the seams, while the original
buff of the waistcoat and knee breeches had faded to a whitey brown.
But the erect soldierly carriage of the wearer, and that neatness and
trimness in details, which military experience renders habitual, made
this frayed and time-stained uniform seem almost elegant, as compared
with the clothes that hung slouchily upon the men around him. Their
faces were rough, and unshaven, their hair unkempt, their feet bare,
or covered with dusty shoes, and they had generally left their coats
at home. Perez was clean shaven, his shoes, although they barely held
together, were neatly brushed, and the steel buckles polished, while his
hair was gathered back over his ears, and tied with a black ribbon in a
queue behind, in the manner of gentlemen. But Israel Goodrich and Ezra
also wore their hair in this manner, while shoes and clean shaved faces
were occasional indulgences with every bumpkin who stood around. It was
not then alone any details of dress, but a certain distinction in
air and bearing about Perez, which had struck them. The discipline
of military responsibility, and the officer's constant necessity of
maintaining an aspect of authority and dignity, before his men, had left
refining marks upon his face, which distinguished it as a different
sort from the countenances about him with their expressions of pathetic
stolidity, or boorish shrewdness. In a word, although they knew old
Elnathan Hamlin to be one of themselves, they instinctively felt that
this son of his had become a gentleman.

At any time this consciousness would have produced constraint, and
checked spontaneous conversation, but now, just at the moment when the
demarcation of classes was taking the character of open hostility, it
produced a sentiment of repulsion and enmity. His place was on the other
side; not with the people, but with the gentlemen, the lawyers, the
parsons, and the judges. Why did he come spying among them?

Perez, without guessing the reason of it, began to be conscious of
the unsympathetic atmosphere, and was about moving away, when Israel
Goodrich remarked, with the air of wishing to avoid an appearance of
churlishness.

“Lessee, Perez, ye've been gone nigh onter nine year. Ye muss find some
changes in the taown.”

Israel, as a man of more considerable social importance than the most
of those who stood around, and being moreover, old enough to be Perez'
father, had been less affected by the impulse of class jealousy than the
others.

“I've been home only one day, Mr. Goodrich,” said Perez quietly, “but
I've noticed some changes already. When I went away, every man in town
had a farm of his own. As far as I've seen since I've been back, a few
rich men have got pretty near all the farms now, and the men who used to
own em, are glad of a chance to work on em as hired hands.”

Such a sentiment, expressed by one of themselves, would have called
forth a shower of confirmatory ejaculations, but the people stared at
Perez in mere astonishment, the dead silence of surprise, at hearing
such a strong statement of their grievances, from one whose appearance
and manner seemed to identify him with the anti-popular, or gentleman's
side. So far as this feeling of bewilderment took any more definite
form, it evidently inclined to suspicion, rather than confidence. Was he
mocking them? Was he trying to entrap them? Even Israel looked sharply
at him, and his next remark, after quite a silence, was on another
subject.

“I s'pose ye know ez haow they've set the niggers free.”

“Yes,” replied Perez, “I heard of that when I was away, but I didn't
know the reason why they'd set em free, till I got home.”

“What dew ye callate 's the reason?”

“I see they've made slaves of the poor folks, and don't need the niggers
any more,” replied Perez, as quietly as if he were making the most
casual remark.

But still the people stared at him and looked questioningly at each
other, so bereft of magnetic force is language, though it express our
inmost convictions, when we do not believe that the heart of the speaker
beats in sympathy with what he says.

“I don' quite git yer idee. Haow dew ye make out that air 'bout poor
folks bein slaves?” said Ezra Phelps dryly.

It was evident that any man who thought he was going to get at the real
feelings of these rustics without first gaining their confidence, little
understood the shrewd caution of the race.

“I make it out this way,” replied Perez. “I find pretty much every rich
man has a gang of debtors working for him, working out their debts. If
they are idle, if they dispute with him, if they don't let him do what
he pleases with them and their families, he sends them to jail with
a word, and there they stay till he wants to let them out. No man can
interfere between him and them. He does with em whatsoever he will. And
that's why I call them slaves.”

Now, Meshech Little was slightly intoxicated. By that mysterious
faculty, whereby the confirmed drunkard, although absolutely
impecunious, nevertheless manages to keep soaked, while other thirsty
men can get nothing, he had obtained rum. And Meshech it was who,
proceeding in that spirit of frankness engendered by the bottle, now
brought about the solution of a misunderstanding, that was becoming
painful.

“Wha' ye say, Perez, z'all right, but wha'n time be _yew_ a sayin on it
fer? Ye be dressed so fine, an a cap'n b'sides, that we callated ye'd
take yer tod tew the store, long with the silk stockins, 'stid o'
consortin with common folks like we be.”

There was a general sensation. Every mouth was opened, and every neck
craned forward to catch the reply.

“Did you think so, Meshech? Well, you see you are mistaken. There's not
a man among you has less cause to love the silk stockings, as you call
them, than I have, and you Meshech ought to know it. Nine years ago,
my brother Reub and I marched with the minute men. Parson and Squire
Woodbridge, and Squire Edwards and all of em, came round us and said,
'We'll take care of your father and mother. We'll never forget what you
are doing to-day.' Yesterday I came home to find my father and mother
waiting to be sold out by the sheriff, and go to the poor house; and
Reub, I found my brother Reub, rotting to death in Barrington jail.”

“By gosh, I forgot baout Reub, I declar I did,” exclaimed Meshech,
contritely.

“Give us yer hand,” said Israel, “I forgot same ez Meshech, an I
misdoubted ye. This be Ezra Phelps, ez owns the new mill.”

“Shake agin,” said Peleg, extending his hand.

There was exhilaration as well as cordiality in the faces of the men,
who now crowded around Perez, an exhilaration which had its source in
the fact, that one whose appearance and bearing identified him with the
gentlemen, was on their side. It filled them with more encouragement,
than would have done the accession of a score of their own rank and
sort. Brawn and muscle they could themselves supply, but for leadership,
social, political and religious, they had always been accustomed to look
to the gentlemen of the community, and from this lifelong and inherited
habit, came the new sense of confidence and moral sanction, which they
felt in having upon their side in the present crisis, one in whom they
had instinctively recognized the traits of the superior caste.

“Hev ye hearn the news from Northampton, Perez?” asked Israel.

“Yes, and if you men are as much in earnest as I am, there'll be news
from Barrington to-morrow,” replied Perez, glancing around.

“Ef thar ain't, there'll be a lot on us disappinted, fer we be all a
callatin tew go thar tew see,” said Israel, significantly.

“We'll git yer brother aouter jail, fer ye, Perez, an ef thar's any
fightin with the m'lishy, ye kin show us haow, I guess.”

Meshech, as before intimated, was partially drunk, and spoke out of the
fullness of his heart. But except for this one outburst, a stranger,
especially one who did not know the New England disposition, and its
preference for innuendo to any other mode of speech, in referring to the
most important and exciting topics, would have failed entirely to get
the idea that these farmers and laborers contemplated an act of armed
rebellion on the morrow. He would, indeed, have heard frequent allusions
to the probability there would be great goings on at Barrington, next
morning, and intimations more or less explicit, on the part of nearly
every man present, that he expected to be on hand to see what was done.
But there was no intimation that they, themselves, expected to be the
doers. Many, indeed, perhaps most, had very likely no distinct idea, of
personally doing anything, nor was it at all necessary that they should
have in order to ensure the expected outbreak, when the time should
come. Given an excited crowd, all expecting something to be done which
they desire to have done, and all the necessary elements of mob action
are present.




CHAPTER SEVENTH

THE FIRST ENCOUNTER


The next morning by six o'clock, a large number of persons had gathered
on the green at Stockbridge, in consequence of an understanding
that those intending to witness the goings on at Barrington, should
rendezvous at the tavern, and go down together, whereby their own hearts
would be made stronger, and their enemies the more impressed. A good
many had, indeed, gone on ahead, singly, or in parties. Meshech Little,
who lived on the Barrington road, said that he hadn't had a wink
of sleep since four o'clock, for the noise of passing teams and
pedestrians. Those who owned horses and carts, including such men as
Israel Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, had preferred that mode of locomotion,
but there were, nevertheless, as many as one hundred men and boys in the
muster on the green. Perhaps a quarter of them had muskets, the others
carried stout cudgels.

All sorts of rumors were flying about. One story was that the militia
had been ordered out with a dozen rounds of cartridges, to defend the
court and jail. Some even had heard that a cannon had been placed in
front of the court house, and trained on the Stockbridge road. On the
other hand, it was asserted that the court would not try to sit at all.
As now one, and now another, of these contradictory reports prevailed,
ebullitions of courage and symptoms of panic alternated among the
people. It was easy to see that they contemplated the undertaking, on
which they were embarking, not without a good deal of nervousness. Abner
was going from group to group, trying to keep up their spirits.

“Hello,” he exclaimed, coming across Jabez Flint. “Look a here, boys.
Derned ef Jabez ain't a comin long with the res' on us. Wal, Jabez, I
swow, I never callated ez I sh'd be a fightin long side o' ye. Misry
makes strange bedfellers, though.”

“It's you ez hez changed sides, not me,” responded the Tory. “I wuz
allers agin the state, an naow ye've come over tew my side.”

Abner scratched his head.

“I swan, it doos look so. Anyhow, I be glad tew see ye tidday. I see
ye've got yer gun, Jabez. Ye muss be keerful. Loryers is so derndly like
foxes, that ye mout hit one on em by mistake.”

There was a slight snicker at this, but the atmosphere was decidedly too
heavy for jokes. However boldly they might discourse at the tavern of an
evening, over their mugs of flip, about taking up arms and hanging the
lawyers, it was not without manifold misgivings, that these law-abiding
farmers found themselves on the point of being actually arrayed against
the public authorities in armed rebellion. The absence of Israel
Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, who were looked up to as the most substantial
in estate and general respectability of those who inclined to the
popular side, was moreover unfortunate, although it was supposed that
they would be present at Barrington.

Meshech, indeed, in spite of the earliness of the hour, was full of
pot-valor, and flourished his gun in a manner more perilous to those
about him than to the state authorities, but his courage reeked so
strongly of its source, that the display was rather discouraging than
otherwise to the sober men around. Paul Hubbard, who had come down from
the ironworks with thirty men or more, presently drew Abner aside and
said:

“See here. It won't do to wait round any longer. We must start. They're
losing all their grit standing here and thinking it over.”

But the confabulation was interrupted by a cry of panic from Obadiah
Weeks:

“Golly, here come the slectmen!”

“Hell!” exclaimed Hubbard, whirling on his heel, and taking in the
situation with a glance, while Abner's face was expressive of equal
consternation.

The local authorities had been so quiet the day before, that no
interference on their part had been thought of.

But here in a body came the five selectmen, cane in hand, headed by
Jahleel Woodbridge, wearing his most awful frown, and looking like the
embodied majesty of law. The actions and attitudes of the crowd were
like those of scholars interrupted by the entrance of the master in
the midst of a scene of uproar. Those nearest the corners of the tavern
promptly slunk behind it. Obadiah slipped around to the further side of
the buttonwood tree before the tavern. There was a general movement in
the body of the crowd, caused by the effort of each individual to slip
quietly behind somebody else, while from the edges, men began to sneak
homewards across the green, at a rate, which, had the warning been a
little longer, would have left no assemblage at all by the time the
selectmen arrived on the spot. Those who could not find shelter behind
their fellows, and could not escape save by a dead run, pulled their
hats over their eyes and looked on the ground, slyly dropping their
cudgels, meanwhile, in the grass. There was not a gun to be seen.

With his head thrown back in the stiffest possible manner, his lips
pursed out, and throwing glances like lashes right and left, Woodbridge,
followed by the other selectmen, passed through the midst of the people,
until he reached the stone step before the tavern door. He stepped up
on this, and ere he opened his lips, swept the shame-faced assemblage
before him with a withering glance. What with those who had pulled their
hats over their eyes, and those who had turned their backs to him in
anxiety to avoid identification, there was not an eye that met his.
Abner himself, brave as a lion with his own class, was no braver than
any one of them when it came to encountering one of the superior caste,
to which he, and his ancestors before him, had looked up as their rulers
and leaders by prescription. And so it must be written of even Abner,
that he had somehow managed to get the trunk of the buttonwood tree,
which sheltered Obadiah, between a part at least of his own enormous
bulk, and Squire Woodbridge's eye. Paul Hubbard's bitter hatred of
gentlemen, so far stood him in stead of courage, that it would not let
him hide himself. He stood in plain view, but with his face half averted
from Woodbridge, while his lip curled in bitter scorn of his own craven
spirit. For it must be remembered that I am writing not of the American
farmer and laborer of this democratic age, but of men who were separated
but by a generation or two from the peasant serfs of England, and who
under the stern and repressive rule of the untitled aristocracy of
the colonies, had enjoyed little opportunity for outgrowing inherited
instincts of servility.

And now it was that Perez Hamlin, who had been all this while within the
tavern, his attention attracted by the sudden silence which had fallen
on the people without, stepped to the door, appearing on the threshold
just above Squire Woodbridge's head and a little to one side of him. At
a glance he saw the way things were going. Already half demoralized by
the mere presence and glance of the magnates, a dozen threatening
words from the opening lips of Woodbridge would suffice to send these
incipient rebels, like whipped curs, to their homes. He thought of Reub,
and for a moment his heart was filled with grief and terror. Then he had
an inspiration.

In the crowd was one known as Little Pete, a German drummer of
Reidesel's Hessian corps, captured with Burgoyne's army. Brought to
Stockbridge and quartered there as a prisoner he had continued to live
in the town since the war. Abner had somewhere procured an old drum for
Pete, and with this hung about his neck, the sticks in his hands, he
now stood not ten feet away from the tavern door. He spoke but little
English, and, being a foreigner, had none of that awe for the selectmen,
alike in their personal and official characters, which unnerved the
village folk. Left isolated by the falling back of the people around
him, Pete was now staring at these dignitaries in stolid indifference.
They did not wear uniforms, and Pete had never learned to respect or
fear anything not in uniform.

Having first brought the people before him, to the fitting preliminary
stage of demoralization, by the power of his eye, Woodbridge said in
stern, authoritative tones, the more effective for being low pitched,

“You may well”----

That was as far, however, as he got. With the first sound of his voice,
Perez stepped down beside him. Drawing his sword, which he had put on
that morning, he waved it with a commanding gesture, and looking at
little Pete, said with a quick, imperious accent:

“Drum!”

If a man in an officer's uniform, with a shining piece of steel in his
hand, should order Pete to jump into the mouth of a cannon, he would no
more think of hesitating, than the cannon itself of refusing to go off
when the linstock was pulled. Without the change of a muscle in his
heavy face, he raised the drumsticks and brought them down on the
sheepskin.

And instantly the roll of the drum deafened the ears of the people,
utterly drowning the imperious tones of the selectman, and growing
louder and swifter from moment to moment, as the long unused wrists of
the drummer recalled their former cunning.

Woodbridge spoke yet a few words without being able to hear himself.
Then, his smooth, fleshy face purple with rage, he wheeled and glared at
Hamlin. It did not need the drum to silence him now. He was so overcome
with amazement and passion that he could not have articulated a word.
But if he thought to face down the man by his side, he was mistaken. At
least a head taller than Woodbridge, Perez turned and looked down into
the congested eyes of the other with cool, careless, defiance.

And how about the people who looked on? The confident, decisive tone of
Hamlin's order to the drummer, the bold gesture that enforced it, the
fearless contempt for the village great man, which it implied, the
unflinching look with which he met his wrathful gaze, and accompanying
all these, the electrifying roll of the drum with its martial
suggestions, had acted like magic on the crowd. Those who had slunk
away came running back. Muskets rose to shoulders, sticks were again
brandished, and the eyes of the people, a moment ago averted and
downcast, rose defiantly. On every face there was a broad grin of
delight. Even Paul Hubbard's cynical lips were wreathed with a smile of
the keenest satisfaction, and he threw upon Perez one of the few glances
of genuine admiration which men of his sardonic type ever have to spare
for anybody.

For a few moments Woodbridge hesitated, uncertain what to do. To remain
standing there, was impossible, with this crowd of his former vassals on
the broad grin at his discomfiture. To retire was to confess defeat.
The question was settled, however, when one of his official associates,
unable longer to endure the din of the drum, desperately clapped both
hands over his ears. At this the crowd began to guffaw uproariously, and
seeing that it was high time to see about saving what little dignity he
still retained, Woodbridge led the way into the tavern, whither he was
incontinently followed by his compeers.

Instantly, at a gesture from Perez, the drum ceased, and his voice
sounded strangely clear in the sudden and throbbing silence, as he
directed little Pete to head the column, and gave the order to march.
With a cheer, and a tread that shook the ground, the men set out. Perez
remained standing before the tavern, till the last man had passed, by
way of guarding against any new move by the selectmen, and then mounting
his horse, rode along the column.

They were about half a mile out of Stockbridge, when Abner, accompanied
by Paul Hubbard, approached Perez, and remarked:

“The fellers all on em says, ez haow ye'll hev tew be cap'n o' this ere
kumpny. Thar's no use o' shilly-shallyin the business, we've got tew hev
somebody ez kin speak up tew the silk stockins. Hain't that so, Paul?”

Hubbard nodded, but did not speak. It was gall and wormwood to his
jealous and ambitious spirit, to concede the leadership to another, but
his good sense forced him to recognize the necessity of so doing in the
present case.

“Abner,” replied Perez, “you know I only want to get Reub out. That's
why I interfered when the plan looked like falling through. I don't want
to be captain, man, I'd no notion of that.”

“Nuther had I,” said Abner, “till ye tackled the Squire, an then I see
quick ez a flash that ye'd got ter be, an so'd all the other fellers. We
sh'd a kerflummuxed sure's taxes, ef ye hadn't done jess what ye did. An
naow, ye've got tew be cap'n, whether or no.”

“Well,” said Perez, “If I can do anything for you, I will. We're all
in the same boat, I suppose. But if I'm captain, you two must be
lieutenants.”

“Yes, we're a gonter be,” replied Abner. “Ye kin depend on us in a
scrimmage, but ye muss sass the silk stockins.”

Meanwhile the men, as they marched along the road in some semblance of
military order, were eagerly discussing the recent passage between the
dreaded Squire and their new champion. Their feeling about Perez seemed
to be a certain odd mingling of respect, with an exultant sense of
proprietorship in him as a representative of their own class, a
farmer's son who had made himself as fine a gentleman as any of the silk
stockings, and could face down the Squire himself.

“Did ye see haow Squire looked at Perez wen Pete begun tew drum?”
 observed Peleg. “I reckoned he wuz a gonter lay hans ontew him.”

“Ef he had, by jimmeny, I b'leeve Cap'n would a hit him a crack ez would
a knocked him inter the middle o' nex week,” said Meshech.

“Oh, gosh, I ony wisht he hed,” cried Obadiah, quite carried away at
the wild thought of the mighty Squire rolling on the grass with a bloody
nose.

“I allers hearn ez them Hamlin boys hed good blood intew em,” observed
a farmer. “Mrs. Hamlin's a Hawley, one o' them air River Gods, ez they
calls em daown Hampshire way. Her folks wuz riled wen she tuk up with
Elnathan, I hearn.”




CHAPTER EIGHTH

GREAT GOINGS ON AT BARRINGTON


As the company from Stockbridge surmounted the crest of a hill, about
half way to Barrington, they saw a girl in a blue tunic, a brown rush
hat, and a short gown, of the usual butternut dye, trudging on in the
same direction, some distance ahead. As she looked back, in evident
amazement at the column of men marching after her, Perez thought that
he recognized the face, and on coming up with her, she proved to be, in
fact, no other than Prudence Fennell, the little lass who had called at
the house Sunday evening to inquire about her father down at the jail,
and whose piteous grief at the report Perez was obliged to give, had
determined Abner and him to attempt the rescue of George, as well as
Reub, at whatever additional risk.

Far enough were they then from dreaming that two days later would find
them leading a battalion of armed men, by broad daylight along the high
road, to free the captives by open force. As readily would they then
have counted on an earthquake to open the prison doors, as on this
sudden uprising of the people in their strength.

As the men came up, Prudence stopped to let them pass by, her fresh,
pretty face expressive of considerable dismay. As she shrunk closely
up to the rail fence that lined the highway, she looked with timid
recognition up at Perez, as if to claim his protection.

“Where are you going?” he asked kindly, stopping his horse.

“I'm going to see father,” she said with a tremulous lip.

“Poor little lassie, were you going to walk all the way?”

“It is nothing,” she said, “I could not wait, you know. He might die,”
 and her bosom heaved with a sob that would fain break forth.

Perez threw himself from his horse.

“We are all going to the jail,” he said. “You shall come with us, and
ride upon my horse. Men, she shall lead us.”

The men, whose discipline was not as yet very rigid, had halted and
crowded around to listen to the dialogue, and received this proposition
with a cheer. Prudence would far rather had them go on, and leave her to
make her own way, but she was quite too much scared to resist as Perez
lifted her upon his saddle. He shortened one of the stirrups, to support
her foot, and then the column took up its march under the new captain,
Perez walking by her side and leading the horse.

Had he arranged this stroke beforehand, he could not have hit on a more
effective device for toning up the morals of the men. Those in whose
minds the old misgivings as to their course had succeeded the sudden
inspiration of Little Pete's drum, now felt that the child riding ahead
lent a new and sacred sanction to their cause. They all knew her story,
and to their eyes she seemed, at this moment, an embodiment of the
spirit of suffering and outraged humanity, which had nerved them for
this day's work. A more fitting emblem, a more inspiring standard, could
not have been borne before them. But it must not be supposed that even
this prevented, now and then, a conscience-stricken individual from
stopping to drink at some brook crossing the road, until the column had
passed the next bend in the road, and then slinking home cross-lots,
taking an early opportunity after arriving to pass the store, so as to
be seen and noted as not among the rioters. But whatever was lost in
this way, if the defection of such material can be called a loss, was
more than made up by the recruits which swelled the ranks from the
farmhouses along the road. And so, by the time they entered Muddy Brook,
a settlement just outside of Great Barrington, through which the road
from Stockbridge then passed, they numbered full one hundred and fifty.

Muddy Brook was chiefly inhabited by a poor and rather low class of
people, who, either from actual misery or mere riotous inclination,
might naturally be expected to join in any movement against constituted
authority. But instead of gaining any accession of forces here, the
Stockbridge party found the place almost deserted. Even the small boys,
and the dogs were gone, and apparently a large part of the able-bodied
women as well.

“What be all the folks?” called out Abner to a woman who stood with a
baby in arms at an open door.

“Over tew Barrington seein the fun. Thar be great dewins,” she replied.

This news imparted valor to the most faint-hearted, for it was now
apparent that this was not a movement in which Stockbridge was alone
engaged, not a mere local revolt, but a general, popular uprising, whose
extent would be its justification. And yet, prepared as they thus were,
to find a goodly number of sympathizers already on the ground, it was
with mingled exultation and astonishment that, on topping the high hill
which separates Muddy Brook from Great Barrington, and gaining a view of
the latter place, they beheld the streets packed, and the green in front
of the court house fairly black with people.

There was a general outburst of surprise and satisfaction.

“By gosh, it looks like gineral trainin, or'n ordination.”

“Looks kinder 'z if a good many fellers b'sides us hed business with the
jestices this mornin.”

“I'd no idee courts wuz so pop'lar.”

“They ain't stocks nuff in Berkshire fer all the fellers as is out
tidday, that's one sure thing, by gol.”

“No, by Jock, nor Saddleback mounting ain't big nuff pillory to hold
em, nuther,” were some of the ejaculations which at once expressed the
delight and astonishment of the men, and at the same time betrayed the
nature of their previous misgivings, as to the possible consequences of
this day's doings. Estimates of the number of the crowd in Barrington,
which were freely offered, ranged all the way from two thousand to ten
thousand, but Perez, practiced in such calculations, placed the number
at about eight or nine hundred men, half as many women and boys. What
gave him the liveliest satisfaction was the absence of any military
force, not indeed that he would have hesitated to fight if he could not
have otherwise forced access to the jail, but he had contemplated the
possibility of such a bloody collision between the people and militia,
with much concern.

“There'll be no fighting to-day, boys,” he said, turning to the men,
“you'd better let off your muskets, so there may be no accidents. Fire
in the air,” and thus with a ringing salvo, that echoed and reechoed
among the hills and was answered with acclamations from the multitude
in the village, the Stockbridge battalion, with the girl riding at its
head, entered Great Barrington, and breaking ranks, mingled with the
crowd.

“Bully, we be jess in time to see the fun,” cried Obadiah delightedly,
as the courthouse bell rang out, thereby announcing that the justices
had left their lodgings to proceed to the courthouse and open court.

“I declar for't,” exclaimed Jabez, “I wonder ef they be gonter try tew
hole court 'n spite o' all that crowd. Thar they be sure's rates.”

And, indeed, as he spoke, the door of the residence of Justice Dwight
opened, and High Sheriff Israel Dickinson, followed by Justice Dwight
and the three other justices of the quorum, issued therefrom, and took
up their march directly toward the courthouse, seemingly oblivious of
the surging mass of a thousand men, which barred their way.

The sheriff advanced with a goose step, carrying his wand of office, and
the justices strode in Indian file behind him. They were dressed in fine
black suits, with black silk hose, silver buckles on their shoes, fine
white ruffled shirts, and ponderous cocked hats upon their heavily
powdered wigs. Their chests were well thrown out, their chins were
held in air, their lips were judicially pursed, and their eyes were
contemplatively fixed on vacancy, as if they had never for a moment
admitted the possibility that any impediment might be offered to their
progress. It must be admitted that their bearing worthily represented
the prestige of ancient authority and moral majesty of law. Nor did
the mob fail to render the tribute of an involuntary admiration to this
imposing and apparently invincible advance. It had evidently been taken
for granted that the mere assemblying and riotous attitude of so great
a multitude, bristling with muskets and bludgeons, would suffice to
prevent the justices from making any attempt to hold court. It was
with a certain awe, and a silence interrupted only by murmurs of
astonishment, that the people now awaited their approach. Perhaps had
the throng been less dense, it might have justified the serene and
haughty confidence of the justices, by opening a path for them. But
however disposed the first ranks might have been to give way, they could
not by reason of the pressure from behind, and on every side.

Still the sheriff continued to advance, with as much apparent confidence
of opening a way as if his wand were the veritable rod wherewith Moses
parted the Red Sea, until he almost trod on the toes of the shrinking
first rank. But there he was fain to pause. Moral force cannot penetrate
a purely physical obstacle.

And when the sheriff stopped, the justices marching behind him also
stopped. Not indeed that their honors so far forgot their dignity as to
appear to take direct cognizance of the vulgar and irregular impediment
before them. It was the sheriff's business to clear the way for them.
And although Justice Dwight's face was purple with indignation, he, as
well as his associates, continued to look away into vacancy, suffering
not their eyes to catch any of the glances of the people before them.

“Make way! Make way for the honorable justices of the Court of Common
Pleas of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!” cried the sheriff, in loud,
imperative tones.

A dead silence of several moments followed, in which the rattling of a
farmer's cart, far down the street, as it brought in a belated load of
insurgents from Sheffield, was distinctly audible. Then somebody in the
back part of the crowd, impressed with a certain ludicrousness in
the situation, tittered. Somebody else tittered, then a number, and
presently a hoarse haw haw of derision, growing momentarily louder, and
soon after mingled with yells, hoots and catcalls, burst forth from a
thousand throats. The prestige of the honorable justices of the Court of
Common Pleas, was gone.

A moment still they hesitated. Then the sheriff turned and said
something to them in a low voice, and they forthwith faced about and
deliberately marched back toward their lodgings. In this retrograde
movement the sheriff acted as rear guard, and he had not gone above a
dozen steps, before a rotten egg burst on one shoulder of his fine new
coat, and as he wheeled around an apple took him in the stomach, and at
the same moment the cocked hat of Justice Goodrich of Pittsfield,
was knocked off with a stone. His honor did not apparently think it
expedient to stop just then to pick it up, and Obadiah Weeks, leaping
forward, made it a prey, and instantly elevated it on a pole, amid
roars of derisive laughter. The retreat of the justices had indeed so
emboldened the more ruffianly and irresponsible element of the crowd,
many of whom were drunk, that it was just as well for the bodily safety
of their honors that the distance to their lodgings was no greater. As
it was, stones were flying fast, and the mob was close on the heels of
the sheriff when the house was gained, and as he attempted to shut the
door after him, there was a rush of men, bent on entering with him. He
knocked down the first, but would have been instantly overpowered
and trampled on, had not Perez Hamlin, followed by Abner, Peleg, Abe
Konkapot and half a dozen other Stockbridge men, shouldered their way
through the crowd, and come to his relief. Where then had Perez been,
meantime?




CHAPTER NINTH

JUDGE DWIGHT'S SIGNATURE


As soon as the Stockbridge battalion had arrived on the green at Great
Barrington, and broken ranks, Perez had directed Abner to pass the word
to all who had friends in the jail, and presently a party of forty or
fifty men was following him, as he led the way toward that building,
accompanied by Prudence, who had not dismounted. The rest of them could
attend to the stopping of the court. His concern was with the rescue of
his brother. But he had not traversed over half the distance when the
cry arose:

“They're stoning the judges!”

Thus recalled to his responsibilities as leader of at least a part of
the mob, he had turned, and followed by a dozen men, had hurried back to
the rescue, arriving in the nick of time. Standing in the open door of
the house to which the justices had retired, the rescued sheriff just
behind him in the hall, he called out:

“Stand back! Stand back! What more do you want, men? The court is
stopped.”

But the people murmured. The Great Barrington men did not know Perez,
and were not ready to accept his dictation.

“We've stopped court to-day, sartin,” said one, “but wot's to hender
they're holden of it to-morrer, or ez soon's we be gone, an hevin every
one on us in jail?”

“What do you want, then?” asked Perez.

“We want some sartainty baout it.”

“They've got tew 'gree not ter hold no more courts till the laws be
changed,” were replies that seemed to voice the sentiments of the crowd.

“Leave it to me, and I'll get you what you want,” said Perez, and he
went down the corridor to the kitchen at the back of the house, where
the sheriff had told him he would find the justices. Although the room
had been apparently chosen because it was the farthest removed from
the public, the mob had already found out their retreat, and a nose
was flattened against each pane of the windows. Tall men peered in over
short men's shoulders, and cudgels were displayed in a way not at all
reassuring to the inmates.

Their honors by no means wore the unruffled and remotely superior aspect
of a few minutes before. It must be frankly confessed, as regards the
honorable Justices Goodrich of Pittsfield, Barker of Cheshire, and
Whiting of Great Barrington, that they looked decidedly scared, as in
fact, they had some right to be. It might have been supposed, indeed,
that the valor of the entire quorum had gone into its fourth member,
Justice Elijah Dwight, who, at the moment Perez entered the room,
was being withheld by the combined strength of his agonized wife and
daughter from sallying forth with a rusty Queen's arm to defend his
mansion. His wig was disarranged with the struggle, and the powder
shaken from it streaked a countenance, scholarly enough in repose no
doubt, but just now purple with the three-fold wrath of one outraged in
the combined characters of householder, host, and magistrate.

“Your honors,” said Perez, “the people will not be satisfied without
your written promise to hold no more courts till their grievances are
redressed. I will do what I can to protect you, but my power is slight.”

“Who is this fellow who speaks for the rabble?” demanded Dwight.

“My name is Hamlin.”

“You are a disgrace to the uniform you wear. Do you know you have
incurred the penalties of high treason?” exclaimed the justice.

“This is not the first time I have incurred those penalties in behalf
of my oppressed countrymen, as that same uniform shows,” retorted the
other. “But it is not now a question of the penalties I have incurred,
but how are you to escape the wrath of the people,” he continued
sharply.

“I shall live to see you hung, drawn and quartered for treason, you
rascal,” roared Dwight.

“Nay, sir. Do but think this man holds your life in his hands. Entreat
him civilly,” expostulated Madam Dwight.

“He means not so, sir,” she added, turning to Perez.

“The fellers wanter know why in time that ere 'greement ain't signed. We
can't keep em back much longer,” Abner cried, rushing to the door of the
kitchen a moment, and hurrying back to his post.

“Where are writing materials?” asked Justice Goodrich, nervously, as a
stone broke through one of the window panes and fell on the table.

“I will bring them,” said the young lady, Dwight's daughter.

“Do make haste, Miss,” urged Justice Barker. “The mob is even now
forcing an entrance.”

“I forbid you to bring them. Remain here,” thundered Dwight.

The girl paused, irresolute, pale and terrified.

“Go, Eliza,” said her mother. “Disobey your father and save his life.”

She went, and in a moment returned with the articles. Perez wrote two
lines, and read them.

“'We promise not to act under our commissions until the grievances of
which the people complain are redressed.' Now sign that, and quickly, or
it will be too late.”

“Do you order us to sign?” said Barker, apparently willing to find in
this appearance of duress an excuse for yielding.

“Not at all,” replied Perez. “If you think you can make better terms
with the people for yourselves, you are welcome to try. I should judge
from the racket that they're on the point of coming in.”

There was a hoarse howl from without, and Justices Goodrich, Barker and
Whiting simultaneously grabbed for the pen. Their names were affixed in
a trice.

“Will your honor sign?” said Perez to Dwight, who stood before the
fireplace, silently regarding the proceedings. His first ebullition of
rage had passed, and he appeared entirely calm.

“My associates may do as they please,” he replied with dignity, “but
it shall never be said that Elijah Dwight surrendered to a mob the
commission which he received from his excellency, the governor, and
their honors, the councillors of the Commonwealth.”

“I admire your courage, sir, but I cannot answer for the consequences of
your refusal,” said Perez.

“For my sake sign, sir,” urged Madam Dwight.

“Oh, sign, papa. They will kill you,” cried Eliza.

“Methinks, it is but proper prudence, to seem to yield for the time
being,” said Goodrich.

“'Tis no more than the justices at Northampton have done,” added Barker.

“I need not remind your honor that a pledge given under duress, is not
binding,” said Whiting.

But Dwight waved them away, saying merely, “I know my duty.”

Suddenly Eliza Dwight stepped to the table and wrote something at the
bottom of the agreement, and giving the paper to Perez said something to
him in a low voice. But her father's keen eye had noted the act, and he
said angrily:

“Child, have you dared to write my name?”

“Nay, father, I have not,” replied the girl.

Even as she spoke there were confused cries, heavy falls, and a rush
in the hall, and instantly the room was filled with men, their faces
flushed with excitement and drink. The guard had been overpowered.

“Whar's that paper?”

“Hain't they signed?”

“We'll make ye sign, dum quick.”

“We're a gonter tie ye up an give it to ye on the bare back.”

“We'll give ye a dose o' yer own med'cin.”

“I don' wanter hurt ye, sis, but ye muss git aout o' the way,” said a
burly fellow to Eliza, who, with her mother, had thrown herself between
the mob and Justice Dwight, his undaunted aspect appearing to excite the
special animosity of the rabble. The other three justices were huddled
in the furthest corner.

“It's all right, men, it's all right. No need of any more words. Here's
the paper,” said Perez, authoritatively. A man caught it from his hand
and gave it to another, saying,

“Here, Pete, ye kin read. Wot does it say?” Pete took the document in
both hands, grasping it with unnecessary firmness, as if he depended
in some degree on physical force to overcome the difficulties of
decipherment, and proceeded slowly and with tremendous frowns to spell
it out.


“We-promise-not-to-ak--under--our-c--o--m,--commishins
until-the--g--r--i--e--grievunces,”--

“Wot be them?” demanded one of the crowd.

“That means taxes, 'n loryers, 'n debts, 'n all that. I've hearn the
word afore,” exclaimed another. “G'long Pete.”

“Grievunces,” proceeded the reader, “of-wich-the-people-complain.”

“That's so.”

“That's dern good. In course we complains.”

“Is that writ so, Pete?”

“G'long, Pete, that ere's good.”

“Complains,” began the reader again.

“Go back tew the beginnin Pete, I los' the hang on't.”

“Yes, go back a leetle, Pete. It be mos'z long ez a sermon.”

“Shell I begin tew the beginnin?”

“Yes, begin tew the beginnin agin, so's we'll all on us git the hang.”


“We--promise--not-tew-ak--under--our-commishins,
until--the--g--r--grievunces--of--wich--the--people--complain,
are--r--e--d--r--redressed.”

“Wot's redressed?”

“That's same ez 'bolished.”

“Here be the names,” pursued Pete.

“Charles Goodrich.”

“He's the feller ez loss his hat.”

“William Whiting.”

“James Barker.”

“Elijah Dwight.”

“It's false,” exclaimed Dwight, “my name's not there!”

But few, if any, heard or heeded his words, for at the moment Pete
pronounced the last name, Perez shouted:

“Now, men, we've done this job, let's go to the jail and let out the
debtors, come on,” and suiting action to word he rushed out, and was
followed pell-mell by the yelling crowd, all their truculent enthusiasm
instantly diverted into this new channel.

The four justices, and the wife and daughter of Dwight, alone remained
in the room. Even the people who had been staring in, with their noses
flattened against the window panes, had rushed away to the new point of
interest. Dwight stood steadfastly looking at his daughter, with a stern
and Rhadamanthine gaze, in which, nevertheless, grief and reproachful
surprise, not less than indignation, were expressed. The girl shrinking
behind her mother, seemed more in terror than when the mob had burst
into the room.

“And so my daughter has disobeyed her father, has told him a lie, and
has disgraced him,” said the justice, slowly and calmly, but in tones
that bore a crushing weight of reproof. “Add, sir, at least, that she
has also saved his life,” interposed one of the other justices.

“Oh, don't talk to me so, papa,” cried the girl sobbing. “I didn't write
your name, papa, I truly didn't.”

“Do not add to your sin, by denials, my daughter. Did the fellow not
read my name?” Dwight regarded her as he said this, as if he were
somewhat disgusted at such persistent falsehood, and the others looked a
little as if their sympathy with the girl had received a slight shock.

“But, papa, won't you believe me,” sobbed the girl, clinging to her
mother as not daring to approach him to whom she appealed. “I only wrote
my own name.”

“Your name, Eliza, but he read mine.”

“Yes, but the pen was bad, you see, and my name looks so like yours,
when it's writ carelessly, and the 'a' is a little quirked, and I
wrote it carelessly, papa. Please forgive me. I didn't want to have you
killed, and I quirked the 'a' a little.”

The Rhadamanthine frown on Dwight's face yielded to a very composite
expression, a look in which chagrin, tenderness, and a barely
perceptible trace of amusement mingled. The girl instantly had her arms
around his neck, and was crying violently on his shoulder, though she
knew she was forgiven. He put his hand a moment gently on her head, and
then unloosed her arms, saying, dryly,

“That will do, dear, go to your mother now. I shall see that you have
better instruction in writing.”

That was the only rebuke he ever gave her.




CHAPTER TENTH

GREAT GOINGS ON AT BARRINGTON CONTINUED


When Perez and the men who with him were in the act of advancing on the
jail, were so suddenly recalled by the cry that the people were stoning
the judges, Prudence had been left quite alone, sitting on Perez' horse
in the middle of the street. She had no clear idea what all this crowd
and commotion in the village was about, nor even what the Stockbridge
men had come down for in such martial array. She only knew that Mrs.
Hamlin's son, the captain with the sword, had said he would bring her
to her father, and now that he had run off taking all the other men with
him, she knew not what to do or which way to turn. To her, thus perched
up on the big horse, confused and scared by the tumult, approached
a tall, sallow, gaunt old woman, in a huge green sunbonnet, and a
butternut gown of coarsest homespun. Her features were strongly marked,
but their expression was not unkindly, though just now troubled and
anxious.

“I guess I've seen yew tew meetin,” she said to Prudence. “Ain't you
Fennell's gal?”

“Yes,” replied the girl, “I come daown to see father.” Prudence,
although she had profited by having lived at service in the Woodbridge
family, where she heard good English spoken, had frequent lapses into
the popular dialect.

“I'm Mis Poor. Zadkiel Poor's my husban'. He's in jail over thar long
with yer dad. He's kinder ailin, an I fetched daown some roots 'n yarbs
as uster dew him a sight o' good, w'en he was ter hum. I thort mebbe I
mout git to see him. Him as keeps jail lets folks in sometimes, I hearn
tell.”

“Do you know where the jail is?” asked the girl.

“It's that ere haouse over thar. It's in with the tavern.”

“Let's go and ask the jailer if he'll let us in,” suggested Prudence.

“I wuz gonter wait an' git Isr'el Goodrich tew go long an kinder speak
fer me, ef I could,” said Mrs. Poor. “He's considabul thought on by
folks roun' here, and he's a neighbor o' ourn, an real kind, Isr'el
Goodrich is. But I don' see him nowhar roun', an mebbe we mout's well go
right along, an not wait no longer.”

And so the two women went on toward the jail, and Prudence dismounted
before the door of the tavern end, and tied the horse.

“I callate they muss keep the folks in that ere ell part, with the row
o' leetle winders,” said Mrs. Poor. She spoke in a hushed voice, as
one speaks near a tomb. The girl was quite pale, and she stared with
a scared fascination at the wall behind which her father was shut up.
Timidly the women entered the open door. Both Bement and his wife were
in the barroom.

“What dew ye want?” demanded the latter, sharply.

Mrs. Poor curtsied very low, and smiled a vague, abject smile of
propitiation.

“If ye please, marm, I'm Mis Poor. He's in this ere jail fer debt. He's
kinder pulin like, Zadkiel is, an I jess fetched daown some yarbs fer
him. He's been uster takin on em, an they doos him good, specially the
sassafras. An I thort mebbe, marm, I mout git tew see him, bein ez he
ain't a well man, an never wuz sence I married him, twenty-five year
agone come nex' Thanksgivin.”

“And I want to see father, if you please, marm. My father's George
Fennell. Is he very sick marm?” added Prudence eagerly, seeing that Mrs.
Poor was forgetting her.

“I don' keer who ye be, an ye needn' waste no time o' tellin me,”
 replied Mrs. Bement, her pretty blue eyes as hard as steel. “Ye couldn't
go intew that jail not ef ye wuz Gin'ral Washington. I ain't goin ter
hev no women folks a bawlin an a blubberin roun' this ere jail's long's
_my_ husban' keeps it, an that's flat.

“I won't cry a bit, if you'll only let me see father,” pleaded Prudence,
two great tears gathering in her eyes, even as she spoke, and testifying
to the value of her promise. “And--and I'll scrub the floor for you,
too. It needs it, and I'm a good scrubber, Mrs. Woodbridge says I am.”

“I'd take it kind of ye, I would,” said Mrs. Poor, “ef ye'd let me in
jess fer a minit. He'd set store by seein of me, an I could give him the
yarbs. He ain't a well man, an never wuz, Zadkiel ain't. Ye needn't let
the gal in. It don' matter 's much about her, an gals is cryin things.
I'll scrub yer floor better'n she ever kin, an come to look it doos
kinder need it,” and she turned her agonized eyes a moment upon the
floor in affected critical inspection.

“Cephas, see that crowd comin. What do they mean? Put them women out.
G'long there, git out, quick! Shut the door, Cephas. Put up the bar.
What ever's comin to us?”

Well might Mrs. Bement say so, for the sight that had caught her eyes
as she stood confronting the women and the open door, was no less an one
than a mass of nearly a thousand men and boys, bristling with clubs and
guns, rushing directly toward the jail.

Scarcely had the women been thrust out, and the white-faced Bement
dropped the bar into its sockets across the middle of the door, than
there was a rushing, tramping sound before the house, like the noise
of many waters, and a great hubbub of hoarse voices. Then came a heavy
blow, as if with the hilt of a sword against the door, and a loud voiced
called,

“Open, and be quick about it!”

“Don't do it, Cephas, the house is stout, and mebbe help'll come,” said
Mrs. Bement, although she trembled.

But Cephas, though generally like clay in the hands of his wife, was
at this instant dominated by a terror greater than his fear of her. He
lifted the bar from the sockets, and was instantly sent staggering back
against the wall as the door burst open. The room was instantly filled
to its utmost capacity with men, who dropped the butts of their muskets
on the floor with a jar that made the bottles in the bar clink in
concert.

Bement who had managed to get behind the bar, stood there with a face
like ashes, his flabby cheeks relaxed with terror so they hung like
dewlaps. He evidently expected nothing better than to be butchered
without mercy on the spot.

“Good morning, Mr. Bement,” said Perez, as coolly as if he had just
dropped in for a glass of flip.

“Good morning sir,” faintly articulated the landlord.

“You remember me, perhaps. I took dinner here, and visited by brother in
the jail last Saturday. I should like to see him again. Will you be kind
enough to hand me the keys, there behind you?” Bement stared as if dazed
at Perez, looked around at the crowd of men, and then looked back at
Perez again, and still stood gaping.

“Did ye hear the cap'n?” shouted Abner in a voice of thunder. Bement
gave a start of terror, and involuntarily turned to take the bunch of
keys down from the nail. But by the time he had turned, the keys were no
longer there.

It had been easy to see from the first, that Mrs. Bement was made of
quite different stuff from her husband. As she stood by his side behind
the bar, although she was tremulous with excitement, the look with which
she had faced the crowd was rather vixenish than frightened. There was
a vicious sparkle in her eyes, and the color of her cheeks was
concentrated in two small spots, one under each cheek bone. Just as her
husband, succumbing to the inevitable, was turning to take the keys from
their nail and deliver them over, she quietly reached behind him, and
snatched them. Then, with a deft motion opening the top of her gown
a little, she dropped them into her bosom, and looked at Perez with a
defiant expression, as much as to say, “Now I should like to see you get
them.”

There was no doubt about the little shrew being thoroughly game, and yet
her act was less striking as evidence of her bravery, than as testifying
her confidence in the chivalry of the rough men before her. And, indeed,
it was comical to see the dumbfoundered and chop-fallen expression on
their flushed and excited faces, as they took in the meaning of this
piece of strategy. They had taken up arms against their government, and
but a few moments before had been restrained with difficulty from laying
violent hands upon the august judges of the land, but not the boldest of
them thought it possible to touch this woman. There were men here whom
neither lines of bayonets nor walls of stone would have turned back,
but not one of them was bold enough to lay a forcible hand upon the veil
that covered a woman's breast. They were Americans.

There was a dead silence. The men gaped at each other, and Perez himself
looked a little foolish for a moment. Then he turned to Abner and said
in a grimly quiet way:

“Knock Bement down. Then four of you swing him by his arms and legs and
break the jail door through with his head.”

“Ye wouldn' murder me, cap'n,” gasped the hapless man. In a trice Abner
had hauled him out from behind the bar, and tripped him up on the floor.
Then three other men, together with Abner, seized him by the hands and
feet, and half dragged, half carried him across the room to the door in
the middle of one of the sides which opened into the jail corridor.

“Swing the cuss three times, so's ter git kinder a goin, an then we'll
see w'ether his head or the door's the thickest,” said Abner.

“Giv' em the keys, Marthy. They're a killin me,” screeched Bement.

The woman had set her teeth. Her face was a little whiter, the red spots
under her cheek bones were a little smaller and a little redder than
before. That was all the sign she gave. Putting her hand convulsively
over the spot on her bosom where the desired articles were secreted, she
replied in a shrill voice:

“I shell keep the keys, Cephas. It's my dewty. Pray, Cephas, that I may
hev strength given me ter dew my dewty.”

“Ye won't see me killed 'fore yer eyes, will ye, give em the keys I tell
ye,” shrieked Bement, as they began to swing him, and Abner said:

“One.”

The woman looked a bit more like going into hysterics, but not a whit
more like yielding.

“Mebbe t'wont kill ye, an they can't bust the door, nohow. Mebbe they'll
git tuckered 'fore long. If wust comes to wust, it's a comfort ter know
ez ye're a perfesser in good stannin.”

Bement had doubtless had previous experience of a certain tenacity
of purpose on the part of his spouse, for ceasing to address further
adjurations to her, he began to appeal for mercy to the men.

“Two,” said Abner, as they swung him again.

Now, Mrs. Poor and Prudence, having been thrust out of the barroom just
before the mob thundered up against the barred door, had been borne back
into the room again by the rush when the door was opened, and it was
Mrs. Poor who now made a diversion.

“Look a here, Abner Rathbun,” she said. “W'at in time's the use of
murd'rin the man? He hain't done nothin. It's the woman, as has got the
keys. She wouldn' let me inter see Zadkiel, an I'm jess a itchin tew git
my hands ontew her, an that's the trewth, ef I be a perfesser. You let
the man alone. I'll git them keys, or my name ain't Resignation Ann
Poor.”

There was a general murmur of approval, and without waiting for orders
from Perez, Abner and his helpers let Bement drop, and he scrambled to
his feet.

Mrs. Bement began to pant. She knew well enough that she had nothing
to fear from all the men in Massachusetts, but one of her own sex was a
more formidable enemy. And, indeed, a much more robust person than the
jailer's little wife, might have been excused for not relishing a tussle
with the tall, rawboned old woman, with hands brown, muscular, and
labor hardened as a man's, who now laid her big green sunbonnet on the
counter, and stepping to the open end of the bar, advanced toward her.
Mrs. Poor held her hands before her about breast high, at half arm's
length, elbows depressed, palms turned outward, the fingers curved like
a cat's claws. There was an expression of grim satisfaction on her hard
features.

Mrs. Bement stood awaiting her, breathing hard, evidently scared, but
equally evidently, furious.

“Give em the keys, Marthy. She'll kill ye,” called out Bement, from the
back of the room.

But she paid no attention to this. Her fingers began to curve back like
claws, and her hands assumed the same feline attitude as Mrs. Poor's.
It was easy to see that the pluck of the little woman extorted a certain
admiration from the very men who had fathers, sons and brothers in the
cells beyond. She was not a bit more than half as big as her antagonist,
but she looked game to the backbone, and the forthcoming result was not
altogether to be predicted. You could have heard a pin drop in the room,
as the men leaned over the counter with faces expressive of intensest
excitement, while those behind stood on tiptoe to see. For the moment
everything else was forgotten in the interest of the impending combat.
Mrs. Bement seemed drawing back for a spring. Then suddenly, quick
as lightning, she put her hand in her bosom, drew out the keys, and
throwing them down on the counter, burst into hysterical sobs.

In another moment the jail door was thrown open, and the men were
rushing down the corridor.




CHAPTER ELEVENTH

END OF THE GOINGS ON AT BARRINGTON


Then, presently, the jail was full of cries of horror and indignation.
For each cell door as it was unbarred and thrown open revealed the
same piteous scene, the deliverers starting back, or standing quite
transfixed before the ghastly and withered figures which rose up before
them from dank pallets of putrid straw. The faces of these dismal
apparitions expressed the terror and apprehension which the tumult
and uproar about the jail had created in minds no longer capable of
entertaining hope.

Ignorant who were the occupants of particular cells it was of course
a matter of chance whether those who opened any one of them, were the
friends of the unfortunates who were its inmates. But for a melancholy
reason this was a matter of indifference. So ghastly a travesty on their
former hale and robust selves, had sickness and sunless confinement
made almost all the prisoners, that not even brothers recognized their
brothers, and the corridor echoed with poignant voices, calling to the
poor creatures:

“What's your name?” “Is this Abijah Galpin?” “Are you my brother Jake?”
 “Are you Sol Morris?” “Father, is it you?”

As they entered the jail with the rush of men, Perez had taken
Prudence's hand, and remembering the location of Reuben's cell, stopped
before it, lifted the bar, threw open the door and they went in. George
Fennell was lying on the straw upon the floor. He had raised himself on
one elbow, and was looking apprehensively to see what the opening of
the door would reveal as the cause of this interruption to the usually
sepulchral stillness of the jail. Reuben was standing in the middle of
the floor, eagerly gazing in the same direction. Perez sprang to his
brother's side, his face beautiful with the joy of the deliverer. If
he had been a Frenchman, or an Italian, anything but an Anglo Saxon,
he would have kissed him, with one of those noblest kisses of all,
wherewith once in a lifetime, or so, men may greet each other. But he
only supported him with one arm about the waist, and stroked his wasted
cheek with his hand, and said:

“I've come for you Reub, old boy, you're free.”

Prudence had first peered anxiously into the face of Reuben, and next
glanced at the man lying on the straw. Then she plucked Perez by the
sleeve, and said in an anguished voice:

“Father ain't here. Where is he?” and turned to run out.

“That's your father,” replied Perez, pointing to the sick man.

The girl sprang to his side, and kneeling down, searched with straining
eyes in the bleached and bony face, fringed with matted hair and long
unkempt gray beard, for some trace of the full and ruddy countenance
which she remembered. She would still have hesitated, but her father
said:

“Prudy, my little girl, is it you?”

Her eyes might not recognize the lineaments of the face, but her heart
recalled the intonation of tenderness, though the voice was weak and
changed. Throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her full red lips
in sobbing kisses upon his corpse-like face, she cried:

“Father! Oh Father!”

Presently the throng began to pour out of the jail, bringing with them
those they had released. The news that the jail was being broken
open, and the prisoners set free, had spread like wildfire through the
thronged village, and nearly two thousand people were now assembled in
front of and about the jail, including besides the people from out
of town, nearly every man, woman and child in Great Barrington,
not actually bedridden, excepting of course, the families of the
magistrates, lawyers, court officers, and the wealthier citizens, who
sympathized with them. These were trembling behind their closed doors,
hoping, but by no means assured, that this sudden popular whirlwind,
might exhaust itself, before involving them in destruction. And indeed
the cries of pity, and the hoarse deep groans of indignation with
which the throng before the jail received the prisoners as they were
successively brought forth, were well calculated to inspire with
apprehension, those who knew that they were held responsible by the
public judgment for the deeds of darkness now being brought to light. It
was now perhaps the old mother and young wife of a prisoner, holding up
between them the son and husband, and guiding his tottering steps,
that set the people crying and groaning. Now it was perhaps a couple
of sturdy sons, unused tears running down their tanned cheeks, as they
brought forth a white-haired father, blinking with bleared eyes at the
forgotten sun, and gazing with dazed terror at the crowd of excited
people. Now it was Perez Hamlin, leading out Reuben, holding him up with
his arm, and crying like a baby in spite of all that he could do. Nor
need he have been ashamed, for there were few men who were not in like
plight. Then came Abner, and Abe Konkapot, stepping carefully, as they
carried in their arms George Fennell, Prudence walking by his side, and
holding fast his hand.

Nor must I forget to speak of Mrs. Poor. The big, raw-boned woman's
hard-favored countenance was lit up with motherly solicitude, as she
lifted, rather than assisted, Zadkiel, down the steps of the tavern.

“Wy don' ye take him up in yer arms?” remarked Obadiah Weeks,
facetiously, but it was truly more touching than amusing, to see the
protecting tenderness of the woman, for the puny little fellow whom an
odd freak of Providence had given her for a husband, instead of a son.

Although Mrs. Poor movingly declared that “He warn't the shadder of
hisself,” the fact was, that having been but a short time in jail,
Zadkiel showed few marks of confinement, far enough was he, from
comparing in this respect, with the others, many of whom had been shut
up for years. They looked, with the dead whiteness of their faces
and hands, rather like grewsome cellar plants, torn from their native
darkness, only to wither in the upper light and air, than like human
organisms just restored to their normal climate. As they moved among the
tanned and ruddy-faced people, their abnormal complexion made them look
like representatives of the strange race of Albinos.

But saddest perhaps of all the sights were the debtors who found no
acquaintances or relatives to welcome them as they came forth again
helpless as at their first birth, into the world of bustle and sun
and breeze. It was piteous to see them wandering about with feeble and
sinewless steps, and vacant eyes, staring timidly at the noisy people,
and shrinking dismayed from the throngs of sympathizing questioners
which gathered round them. There were some whose names not even the
oldest citizens could recall so long had they been shut up from the
sight of men.

Jails in those days were deemed as good places as any for insane
persons, and in fact were the only places available, so that, besides
those whom long confinement had brought almost to the point of
imbecility, there were several entirely insane and idiotic individuals
among the prisoners. One of them went around in a high state of
excitement declaring that it was the resurrection morning. Nor was the
delusion altogether to be marvelled at considering the suddenness with
which its victim had exchanged the cell, which for twenty years had been
his home, for the bright vast firmament of heaven, with its floods of
dazzling light and its blue and bottomless dome.

Another debtor, a man from Sheffield, as a prisoner of war during the
revolution, had experienced the barbarities practiced by the British
provost Cunningham at New York. Having barely returned home to his
native village when he was thrust into jail as a debtor, he had not
unnaturally run the two experiences together in his mind. It was his
hallucination that he had been all the while a prisoner of the British
at New York, and that the victorious Continental army had just arrived
to deliver him and his comrades. In Perez he recognized General
Washington.

“Ye was a long time comin, Ginral, but it's all right now,” he said. “I
knowd ye'd come at las', an I tole the boys not to git diskerridged. The
redcoats has used us bad though, an I hope ye'll hang em, Gin'ral.”

At the time of which I write, rape was practically an unknown crime in
Berkshire, and theft extremely uncommon. But among the debtors there
were a few criminals. These, released with the rest, were promptly
recognized and seized by the people. The general voice was first for
putting them back in the cells, but Abner declared that it would be
doing them a kindness to knock them on the head rather than to send them
back to such pigsties, and this view of the matter finding favor, the
fellows were turned loose with a kick apiece and a warning to make
themselves scarce.

In the first outburst of indignation over the horrible condition of the
prison and the prisoners, there was a yell for Bement, and had the men,
in their first rage, laid hands on him, it certainly would have gone
hard with him. But he was not to be found, and it was not till some time
after, that in ransacking the tavern, some one found him in the garret,
hidden under a tow mattress stuffed with dried leaves, on which the
hired man slept nights. He was hauled downstairs by the heels pretty
roughly, and shoved and buffeted about somewhat, but the people having
now passed into a comparatively exhilarated and good-tempered frame of
mind, he underwent no further punishment, that is in his person. But
that was saved only at the expense of his pocket, for the men insisted
on his going behind the bar and treating the crowd, a process which
was kept up until there was not a drop of liquor in his barrels, and
scarcely a sober man in the village. Mrs. Bement, meanwhile, had been
caught and held by some of the women, while one of the prisoners, a
bestial looking idiot, drivelling and gibbering, and reeking with filth,
was made to kiss her. No other penalty could have been devised at once
so crushing to the victim, and so fully commending itself to the popular
sense of justice.

There were about ten or fifteen of the released debtors whose homes were
in or about Stockbridge, and as they could not walk any considerable
distance, it was necessary to provide for their transport. Israel
Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, as well as other Stockbridge men, had driven
down in their carts, and these vehicles being filled with straw, the
Stockbridge prisoners were placed in them. Israel Goodrich insisted that
Reuben Hamlin and George Fennell, with Prudence, should go in his cart,
and into it were also lifted three or four of the friendless prisoners,
who had nowhere to go, and whose helpless condition had stirred old
Israel's benevolent heart to its depths.

“The poor critters shell stay with me, ef I hev tew send my chil'n tew
the neighbours ter make room fer em,” he declared, blowing his nose with
a blast that made his horses jump.

With six or seven carts leading the way, and some seventy or eighty men
following on foot, the Stockbridge party began the march home about two
o'clock. Full half the men who had marched down in the morning, chose to
remain over in Barrington till later, and a good many were too drunk on
Bement's free rum to walk. Most of Paul Hubbard's ironworkers being in
that condition, he stayed to look after them, and Peleg Bidwell had also
stayed, to see that none of the Stockbridge stragglers got into trouble,
and bring them back when he could. Abner walked at the head of the men.
Perez rode by Israel Goodrich's cart. They went on slowly, and it was
five o'clock when they came in plain view of Stockbridge. The same
exclamation was on every lip. It seemed a year instead of a few hours
only since they had left in the morning.

“It's been a good day's work, Cap'n Hamlin, the best I ever hed a hand
in,” said Israel. “I callate it was the Lord's own work, ef we dew git
hanged for't.”

As the procession passed Israel's house, he helped out his sad guests,
and sent on his cart with its other inmates. All the way back from
Barrington, the Stockbridge company had been meeting a string of men
and boys, in carts and afoot, who, having heard reports of what had been
done, were hastening to see for themselves. Many of these turned back
with the returning procession, others keeping on. This exodus of the
masculine element, begun in the morning, and continued all day, had left
in Stockbridge little save women and girls and small children, always
excepting, of course, the families of the wealthier and governing
classes, who had no part nor lot in the matter. Accordingly, when the
party reached the green, there was only an assemblage of women and
children to receive them. These crowded around the carts containing the
released prisoners, with exclamations of pity and amazement, and as the
vehicles took different directions at the parting of the streets, each
one was followed by a score or two, who witnessed with tearful sympathy
each reunion of husband and wife, of brother and sister, of mother and
son. Several persons offered to take George Fennell, who had no home
to go to, into their houses, but Perez said that he should, for the
present, at least, lodge with him.

As Israel Goodrich's cart, containing Reuben and Fennell and Prudence,
and followed by quite a concourse, turned up the lane to Elnathan
Hamlin's house and stopped before the door, Elnathan and Mrs. Hamlin
came out looking terrified. Perez, fearing some disappointment, had not
told them plainly that he should bring Reuben home, and the report
of the jail-breaking, although it had reached Stockbridge, had not
penetrated to their rather isolated dwelling. So that it was with
chilling apprehensions, rather than hope, that they saw the cart, driven
slowly, as if it carried the dead, stop before their door, and the crowd
of people following it.

“Mother, I've brought Reub home,” said Perez, and a gaunt, wild-looking
man was helped out of the cart, and tottered into Mrs. Hamlin's arms.

There was nothing but the faint, familiar smile, and the unaltered eyes,
to tell her that this was the stalwart son whom the sheriff led away a
year ago. Had she learned that he was dead, it would have shocked her
less than to receive him alive and thus. Elnathan and she led him into
the house between them. Ready hands lifted Fennell out of the cart and
bore him in, Prudence following. And then Perez went in and shut the
door, and the cart drove off, the people following.

Although the shock which Mrs. Hamlin had received was almost
overwhelming, she had known, after the first moment, how to conceal it,
and no sooner had the invalids been brought within doors and comfortably
placed, than she began without a moment's delay, to bestir herself to
prepare them food and drink, and make provision for their comfort. Tears
of anguish filled her eyes whenever she turned aside, but they were
wiped away, and her face was smiling and cheery when she looked at
Reuben. But being with Perez a moment in a place apart, she broke down
and cried bitterly.

“You have brought him home to die,” she said.

But he reassured her.

“I have seen sick men,” he said, “and I don't think Reub will die. He'll
pull through, now he has your care. I'm afraid poor George is too far
gone, but Reub will come out all right. Never fear mother.”

“Far be it from me to limit the Holy One of Israel by my want of faith,”
 said Mrs. Hamlin. “If it be the Lord's will that Reuben live, he will
live, and if it be not His will, yet still will I praise His name for
His great goodness in that I am permitted to take care of him, and
do for him to the last. Who can say but the Most High will show still
greater mercy to his servant, and save my son alive?”

As soon as the sick men were a little revived from the exhaustion of
their journey, tubs of water were provided in the shed, and they washed
themselves all over, Elnathan and Perez assisting in the repulsive task.
Then, their filthy prison garments being thrown away, they were dressed
in old clothing of Elnathan's, and their hair and matted beards were
shorn off with scissors. Perez built a fire in the huge open fireplace
to ward off the slight chill of evening, and the sick men were
comfortably arranged before it upon the great settle. The elderly woman
and the deft handed maiden, moved softly about, setting the tea table,
and ministering to the needs of the invalids, arranging now a covering,
now moving a stool, or maybe merely resting their cool and tender palms
upon the fevered foreheads. Fennell had fallen peacefully asleep, but
Reuben's face wore a smile, and in his eyes, as they languidly followed
his mother's motions, to and fro, there was a look of unutterable
content.

“I declar for 't,” piped old Elnathan, as he sat in the chimney corner
warming his fingers over the ruddy blaze, “I declar for 't, mother, the
boy looks like another man a' ready. They ain't nothin like hum fer sick
folks.”

“I shan't want no doctor's stuff,” said Reuben, feebly. “Seein mother
round 's med'cin nuff fer me, I guess.”

And Perez, as he stood leaning against the chimney, and looking on the
scene, lit by the flickering firelight, said to himself, that never
surely, in all his fighting had he ever drawn his sword to such good and
holy purpose as that day.

Soon after nightfall the latchstring was pulled in a timid sort of way,
and Obadiah Weeks stood on the threshold, waiting sheepishly till Mrs.
Hamlin bade him enter. He came forward, toward the chimney, taking off
his hat and smoothing his hair with his hand.

“It looks kinder good tew see a fire,” he remarked, presently
supplementing this by the observation that it was “kinder hot, though,”
 and grinning vaguely around at every one in the room, with the exception
of Prudence. He did not look at her, though he looked all around her. He
put his hands in his pockets and took them out, rubbed one boot against
the other, and examined a wart on one of his thumbs, as if he now
observed it for the first time, and was quite absorbed in the discovery.

Then with a suddenness that somewhat startled Perez, who had been
observing him with some curiosity, he wheeled round so as to face
Prudence, and simultaneously sought in his pocket for something. Not
finding it at first, his face got very red. Finally, however, he drew
forth a little bundle and gave it to the girl, mumbling something about
“Sassafras, thort mebbe 'twould be good fer yer dad,” and bolted out of
the room.

Nobody said anything after Obadiah's abrupt retirement, but when a few
moments later, Prudence looked shyly around, with cheeks a little
rosier than usual, she saw Perez regarding her with a slight smile of
amusement. A minute after she got up and went over to Mrs. Hamlin, and
laid the sassafras in her lap, saying:

“Don't you want this, Mrs. Hamlin? I'm sure I don't know what it's good
for,” and went back to her seat and sat down again, with a slight toss
of the head.

Presently a medley of discordant sounds began to float up from the
village on the gentle southerly breeze. There was a weird, unearthly
groaning, as of a monster in pain, mingled with the beating of tin-pans.
Perez finally went to see what it was. At the end of the lane he met
Peleg Bidwell, and Peleg explained the matter.

“Ye see the boys hev all got back from Barrington, and they're pretty
gosh darned drunk, most on em, an so nothin would do but they must go
an rig up a hoss-fiddle an hunt up some pans, an go an serenade the silk
stockins. They wuz a givin it tew Squire Woodbridge, wen I come by.
I guess he won't git much sleep ter night,” and with this information
Perez went home again.




CHAPTER TWELFTH

A FAIR SUPPLIANT


Dr. Partridge lived at this time on the hill north of the village, and
not very far from the parsonage, which made it convenient for him to
report promptly to Parson West, when any of his patients had
reached that point where spiritual must be substituted for medical
ministrations. It was about ten o'clock by the silver dialed clock in
the living room of the doctor's house, when Prudence Fennell knocked at
the open kitchen door.

“What do you want, child?” said Mrs. Partridge, who was in the kitchen
trying to instruct a negro girl how to use her broom of twigs so as to
distribute the silver sand upon the floor in the complex wavy figures,
which were the pride of the housewife of that day.

“Please, marm, father's sick, and Mis Hamlin thinks he ought to have the
doctor.”

“Your father and Mrs. Hamlin? Who is your father, pray?”

“I'm Prudence Fennell, marm, and father's George Fennell. He's one of
them that were fetched from Barrington jail yesterday, and he's sick.
He's at Mis Hamlin's, please marm.”

“Surely, by that he must be one of the debtors. The sheriff is more like
to come for them than the doctor. They will be back in jail in a few
days, no doubt,” said Mrs. Partridge, sharply.

“No one will be so cruel. Father is so sick. If you could see him, you
would not say so. They shall not take him to jail again. If Mr. Seymour
comes after him, I'll tear his eyes out. I'll kill him.”

“What a little tiger it is!” said Mrs. Partridge, regarding with
astonishment the child's blazing eyes and panting bosom, while peering
over her mistress's shoulders, the negro girl was turning up the whites
of her eyes at the display. “There, there, child, I meant nothing. If
he is sick, maybe they will leave him. I know naught of such things. But
this Perez Hamlin will be hung of a surety, and the rest be put in the
stocks and well whipt.”

“He will not be hung. No one will dare to touch him,” cried Prudence,
becoming excited again. “He is the best man in the world. He fetched my
father out of jail.”

“Nay, but if you are so spunky to say 'no' to your betters, 'tis time
you went. I know not what we are in the way to, when a chit of a maid
shall set me right,” said Mrs. Partridge, bristling up, and turning
disdainfully away.

But her indignation, at once forgotten in terror lest the doctor might
not come to her father, Prudence came after her and caught her sleeve,
and said with tones of entreaty, supported by eyes full of tears:

“Please, marm, don't mind what I said. Box my ears, marm, but please let
doctor come. Father coughs so bad.”

“I will tell him, and he will do as he sees fit,” said Mrs. Partridge,
stiffly, “and now run home, and do not put me out with your sauce
ag

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