Bart Ridgeley Part 29

He was then about thirty-five or thirty-six years of age; of a fine, athletic, compact and vigorous frame, straight, round, and of full average height, with an upward cast of the head and face that made him look taller than he was. He had a remarkably fine head and a striking face--a high, narrow, retreating forehead, a little compressed at the temples, aquiline nose, firm, goodish mouth, and prominent chin, with a deep dark eye, and strongly marked brow, not handsome, but a strong, firm, noticeable face, which, with his frank, manly, decided manner and carriage, would at once arrest the eye of a stranger, as it did that of Bart, who knew that he saw a remarkable man. The head was turned, so that the light fell upon the face, giving it strong light and shadow in the Rembrandt style; and Bart studied and contemplated it at great advantage.

He tried to reproduce the recent scene in the Ohio Senate, in which Wade performed so conspicuous a part. It was in the worst of the bad days of Northern subserviency to slavery, which now seem almost phantasmagorical; when, at the command of the Kentucky State Commissioners, the grovelling majority of the Ohio Legislature prostrated the State abjectly in the dust beneath its feet, it was demanded that no man of African blood should be permitted to remain in the State unless some responsible white man should become bail for his good conduct, and that he should never become a public charge.

The bill was about to be put on its final pa.s.sage in the Senate, by a majority made up of men so revoltingly servile, that even such infamy failed to preserve their names. "Tin Pan" had decreed that a vote should be taken before adjournment for the night, and the debate ran into the deep hours. Gregg Powers, a tall, dark-haired, black-eyed, black-browed young senator, from Akron, had just p.r.o.nounced a fervent, indignant, sarcastic and bitter phillipic against it, when, after midnight, Wade arose, with angry brow and flas.h.i.+ng eye. Argument and logic were out of place; appeals to honor could not be comprehended by men shameless by nature, abject by instinct, and infamous by habit, and who cared nothing for the fame of their common State. Wade, at white heat, turned on them a mingled torrent of sarcasm, scorn, contempt, irony, scoffing, and derision, hot, seething, hissing, blistering, and consuming. He then turned to the haughty and insolent Commissioners of slavery, who were present, that the abas.e.m.e.nt of the State might lack no mark or brand, and with an air haughtier and prouder than their own, defied them. He declared himself their mortal foe, and cast the gauntlet contemptuously into their faces. He told them they would meet him again in the coming bitter days, and with prodigious force, predicted the extirpation of slavery. n.o.body called him to order; n.o.body interrupted him; and when he closed his awful phillipic, n.o.body tried to reply. The vote was taken, and the bill pa.s.sed into a law. And as Bart called up the scene, and looked at the man taking his tea, and conversing carelessly, he thought that a life would be a cheap price for such an opportunity and effort.

Nature had been generous to Wade, and given him a fine, well-balanced, strong, clear intellect, of a manly, direct, and bold cast, as well of mind as temperament. He was not dest.i.tute of learning in his profession, but rather despised culture, and had a certain indolence of intellect, that arose in part from undervaluing books, and although later a great reader, he was never a learned man. His manners were rude though kind; he had wonderful personal popularity, and was the freest possible from cant, pretence, or any sort of demagogueism.

He was as incapable of a mean thought as of uttering the slightest approach to an untruth, or practising a possible insincerity. He was a favorite with the young lawyers and students, who imitated his rude manner and strong language; was a dangerous advocate, and had much influence with courts. In all these early years he was known as Frank Wade; "Ben" and "old Ben" came to him years after at Was.h.i.+ngton.

When he left the supper room Case found an opportunity to introduce Bart to him. Wade received him very cordially, and spoke with great kindness of his brother Henry, and remarked that Bart did not much resemble him.

"So I am generally told," said Bart; "and I fear that I am less like him in intellect than in person."

"You may possibly not lose by that. Most persons would think you better looking, and you may have as good a mind--that we will find out for ourselves."

Bart felt that this was kind. Wade then remarked that they would find time on Monday to overhaul his law. Later, Bart met Ranney, who, he thought, received him coolly.

The next day the young men went to church. Nothing in the way of heresy found foothold at Jefferson. It was wholly orthodox; although it was suspected that Wade and Ranney had notions of their own in religion; or rather the impression was that they had no religion of any kind. Not to have the one and true, was to have none according to the Jefferson platform.

Monday was an anxious day for Bart. He would now be put to a real test. He knew he had studied hard, but he remembered the air with which Henry and Ranney waived him off. Then he was so poor, and was so anxious to get through, and be admitted in September, that he was a little nervous when the lawyers found leisure in the afternoon to "overhaul his law," as Wade had expressed it.

Ranney had no idea of letting him off on definitions and general rules, and he plunged at once into special pleading, as presented by Chitty, in his chapter on Replications. No severer test could have been applied, and the young men thought it a little rough. Bart answered the questions with some care, and gave the reason of the rules clearly. Ranney then proposed a case of a certain special plea, and asked Bart how he would reply. Bart enumerated all the various replies that might be made, and the method of setting each forth.

Ranney then asked him to state an instance of new a.s.signment, in a replication; and when Bart had stated its purpose and given an instance, he said he thought that a good pleader would always so state his case in his declaration as to render a new a.s.signment unnecessary, perhaps impossible. He was then asked what defects in pleading would be cured by a general verdict? and gave the rules quite luminously.

Ranney then asked him what books he had read; and Bart named several.

"What others?" and he named as many more. "Is that all?" laughing.

"Oh!" said Bart, "I remember what you and Henry said about my reading, and really I have dipped into a good many besides."

"Well, Ranney," said Wade, "what can we do for this young man? I think he will pa.s.s now, better than one in a hundred."

"I think so too; still, I think we can help him, or help him to help himself." And he finally named a work on commercial law, a book on medical jurisprudence, and a review of Kent. At leisure moments, he would have him practise in drawing bills in Chancery, declarations, pleas, etc.

Bart certainly might be pleased with this result, and it evidently advanced him very much in the estimation of all who had listened to his examination, although he felt that the work imposed upon him was rather slender, and just what he should do with the spare time this labor would leave him he would not then determine.

He liked his new position with these ambitious young men, engaged in intellectual pursuits, with whom he was to a.s.sociate and live, and upon whom he felt that he had made a favorable impression. It did not occur to him that there might be society, save with these and his books; nor would it have occurred to him to enquire, or to seek entrance into it, if it existed; with a sort of intellectual hunger he rushed upon his books with a feeling that he had recently been dissipated, and misapplied his time and energies.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE LETTERS.

Tuesday evening's mail brought him two letters, post-marked Newbury.

The sight of them came with a sort of a heart-blow. They were not wholly expected, and he felt that there might still be a little struggle for him, although he was certain that this must be the last.

The well-known hand of Judge Markham addressed one of them. The writing of the other he did not recognize; only after he had lost its envelope, he remembered that it very much resembled the hand that wrote the Greer warning. He put the letters into an inside pocket, and tried to go on with his book; like a very young man he fancied that he was observed. So he took his hat and went to the room he occupied with Case. He pulled open the unknown, knew the hand, ran down and turned over to the second page, and found "Julia" at the bottom, and below, the words "with the profoundest grat.i.tude." It ran:

"NEWBURY, April 8, 1838.

"BARTON RIDGELEY:

"_Dear Sir_,--Is it characteristic of a brave and generous man to confer the greatest obligations upon another, and not permit that other the common privilege of expressing grat.i.tude? Were I a man, I would follow and weary you with a vain effort to utter the thanks I owe you. But I can only say a few cold words on paper at the risk of being misunderstood." ("Um-m, I don't see what danger she could apprehend on that score," said Bart quite sharply.) "When I had wandered beyond the help of my father and friends, into danger, and, I think, to certain death, you were inspired with the heart, skill and strength, to find and save me. Next to G.o.d, who led you, I owe my life to you. When this is said, I cannot say more. I know of no earthly good that you do not deserve; I can think of no gift of Heaven, that I do not ask of It for you.

"You will not be offended that I should most anxiously insist that some little benefit should in some way come to you, from my father; and you will certainly, when you first return to Newbury, give me an opportunity to say to you how much I owe you, and how heavy the obligation rests upon me. You promised me this and will fulfil it. My mother, who sees this note, wants you to realize her profound sense of your service to us, enhanced if possible by the n.o.ble and manly way in which you rendered it. She was always your discerning and discriminating friend."

"Discriminating,"--Bart did not like that, but no matter. That was all.

"A very pretty letter, my lady Julia," said Bart with a long breath.

"Quite warm. I confess I don't care much for your grat.i.tude--but very pretty and condescending. And it is kind to advise me that whatever may have been your estimate of me, your sweet lady mother 'discerned'

differently. What you mean by discriminating is a very pretty little woman mystery, that I shall never know."

"And now for my Lord Judge:"

"NEWBURY, April 8, 1838.

"BARTON RIDGELEY, ESQ.:

"_My Dear Sir_,--I was disappointed at not finding you at Wilder's, where your n.o.ble exertions had placed my daughter. I was more disappointed on calling at your mother's the following morning, hoping to carry you to my house. If anything in my conduct in the past contributed to these disappointments, I regret it." ("Very manly, Judge Markham," remarked Bart. "Don't feel uneasy, I should have acted all the same.") "You saved to us, and to herself, our daughter, and can better understand our feelings for this great benefit than I can express them." ("All right Judge, I would not try it further, if I were you.") "Whoever confers such a benefaction, also confers the right upon the receiver, not only to express grat.i.tude by words, but by acts, which shall avail in some substantial way." ("Rather logical, Judge!") "I shall insist that you permit me to place at your disposal means to launch you in your profession in a way commensurate with your talents and deservings." ("Um-m-m.") "I trust you will soon return to Newbury, or permit me to see you in Jefferson, and when the past may" ("I don't care about wading the Chagrin, Judge, and helping your daughter out of the woods was no more than leading out any other man's daughter, and I don't want to hear more of either. Just let me alone.") "be atoned for. I need not say that my wife unites with me in grat.i.tude, and a hearty wish to be permitted to aid you; nor how anxious we are to learn the details of your finding our daughter, all of which is a profound mystery to us.

"Sincerely yours,

"EDWARD MARKHAM."

There was a postscript to the Judge's, instead of Julia's, and Bart looked at it two or three times with indifference, and walked up and down the room with a sore, angry feeling that he did not care to understand the source of, nor yet to control. "Very pretty letters!

very well said! Why did they care to say anything to me? When I came away they might have known--but then, who and what am I? Why the devil shouldn't they snub me one day and pat me on the head the next? And I ought to be glad to be kicked, and glad to be thanked for being kicked--only I'm not---though I don't know why! Well, this is the last of it; in my own good time--or somebody's time, good or bad--I will walk in upon my Lord Judge, my discriminating Lady the Mother, and the Lady Julia, and hear them say their pieces without danger of misapprehension." And his eye fell again on the Judge's postscript.

Reads:

"Before I called at your mother's on that morning, I set apart the chestnut 'Silver-tail,' well caparisoned, as your property. I thought it a fitting way in which one gentleman might indicate his appreciation of another. I knew you would appreciate him; I hoped he would be useful to you. He is your property, whether you will or no, and will be held subject to your order, and the fact that he is yours will not diminish the care he will receive. May I know your pleasure in reference to him?

"E.M."

This found the weak place, or one of the weak places, in Bart's nature. The harshness and bitterness of his feelings melted out of his heart, and left him to answer his letters in a spirit quite changed from that which had just possessed him.

To Julia he wrote:

"JEFFERSON, April 11, 1838.

"Miss JULIA MARKHAM:

"Yours has just reached me. I am so little used to expressions of kindness that yours seem to mock me like irony. You did not choose to become involved in discomfort and danger, nor were you left to elect who should aid you, and I can endure the reflection that you might prefer to thank some other.

"If your sense of obligation is unpleasant, there is one consideration that may diminish it. A man of spirit, whose folly had placed him in the position I occupied towards you, would have eagerly sought an opportunity to render you any service, and would have done his poor best in your behalf. When it was accomplished he would not have been covetous of thanks, and might hope that it would be taken as some recompense for the past, and only ask to forget and be forgotten. No matter; so little that is pleasant has happened to me, that you surely can permit me to enjoy the full luxury of having saved you without having that diminished by the receipt of anything, in any form, from anybody, by reason of it. It is in your power to explain one thing to your father; by which he will see that I must be left to my own exertions so far as he is concerned. I do believe that your gracious mother was my one friend, who looked kindly upon my many faults, and who will rejoice if I ever escape from them.

"When in Newbury hereafter I shall feel at liberty to call at your father's house.

"With the sincerest wishes for your welfare, I remain