Charlemont; Or, The Pride of the Village Part 21

CHAPTER XVII.

PHILOSOPHY OP FIGHTING.

"You're not a fighter, Bill Hinkley, and that's about the worst fault that I can find against you."

Such was the beginning of a dialogue between the cousins some three days after the affair which was narrated in our last chapter. The two young men were at the house of the speaker, or rather at his mother's house; where, a favorite and only son, he had almost supreme dominion. He was putting his violin in tune, and the sentences were spoken at intervals with the discordant sc.r.a.ps of sound which were necessarily elicited by this unavoidable musical operation. These sounds might be said to form a running accompaniment for the dialogue, and, considering the sombre mood of the person addressed, they were, perhaps, far more congenial than any more euphonious strains would have been.

"Not a fighter!" said the other; "why, what do you mean?"

"Why, just what I say--you are not a fighter. You love reading, and fiddling, and fis.h.i.+ng sometimes, and sometimes dancing, and hunting, and swimming; but I'm pretty certain you don't love fighting. You needn't contradict, Bill--I've been thinking the matter over; and I'm sure of it. I recollect every battle or sc.r.a.pe you ever were in, from the time we went to old Chandler's, and I tell you, you're not a fighter--you don't love fighting!"

This was concluded with a tremendous sc.r.a.pe over the strings, which seemed to say as well as sc.r.a.pe could speak--"There can be no mistake on the subject--I've said it."

"If I knew exactly what you were driving at," said the other, "perhaps I might answer you. I never pretended to be a fighter; and as for loving it, as I love eating, drinking, books, fiddling, and dancing, why that needs no answer. Of course I do not, and I don't know who does."

"There it is. I told you. I knew it. You'd sooner do almost anything than fight."

"If you mean that I would submit to insult," said the more peaceable cousin, with some displeasure in his tones and countenance, "sooner than resent it, you are very much mistaken. It wouldn't be advisable even for you to try the experiment."

"Poh, poh, Bill, you know for that matter that it wouldn't take much trying. I'd lick you as easily now as I did when we were boys together."

"We are boys no longer," said the other gravely.

"I'm as much a boy as ever, so far as the licking capacity calls for boyhood. I've pretty much the same spirit now that I had then, and ten times the same strength and activity. But don't look so blue. I'm not going to try my strength and spirit and activity on you. And don't suppose, Bill Hinkley, that I mean to say you're anything of a coward, or that you'd submit to any open insult; but still I do say, you're not only not fond of fighting, but you're just not as much inclined that way as you should be."

"Indeed! what more would you have? Do you not say that I would not submit to insult?--that I show the proper degree of courage in such cases?"

"Not the PROPER degree. That's the very question. You're not quick enough. You wait for the first blow. You don't step out to meet the enemy. You look for him to come to you."

"Surely! I look upon fighting as brutal--to be waited for, not sought--to be resorted to only in compliance with necessity--to be avoided to the last!"

"No such thing--all a mistake. Fighting and the desire to get on the shoulders of our neighbors is a natural pa.s.sion. We see that every day.

The biggest boy licks the one just below him, he whips the next, and so down, and there's not one that don't lick somebody and don't stand licked himself--for the master licks the biggest. The desire to fight and flog is natural, and this being the case, it stands to reason that we must lick our neighbor or he'll be sure to lick us."

"Pshaw! you speak like a boy yet. This is schoolhouse philosophy."

"And very good philosophy too. I'm thinking the schoolhouse and the play-ground is pretty much a sort of world to itself. It's no bad show of what the world without is; and one of its first lessons and that which I think the truest, is the necessity of having a trial of strength with every new-comer; until we learn where he's to stand in the ranks, number one or number nothing. You see there just the same pa.s.sions, though, perhaps, on a small scale, that we afterward find to act upon the big world of manhood. There, we fight for gingerbread, for marbles, top and ball; not unfrequently because we venture to look at our neighbor's sweetheart; and sometimes, quite as often, for the love of the thing and to know where the spirit and the sinew are. Well, isn't that just what the big world does after us? As men, we fight for bigger playthings, for pounds, where before we fought for pence--for gold where before we fought for coppers--for command of a country instead of a schoolyard; for our wives instead of sweethearts, and through sheer deviltry and the love of the thing, when there's nothing else to fight about, just the same as we did in boyhood."

"But even were you to prove, and I to admit, that it is so, just as you say, that would not prove the practice to be a jot more proper, or a jot less brutal."

"Begging your pardon, Bill, it proves it to be right and proper, and accordingly, if brutal, a becoming brutality. If this is the natural disposition of boys and men, don't you see that this schoolboy licking and fighting is a necessary part of one's moral education? It learns one to use his strength, his limbs and sinews, as he may be compelled to use them, in self-defence, in every future day of his life. You know very well what follows a boy at school who doesn't show himself ready to bung up his neighbor's eye the moment he sees it at a cross-twinkle. He gets his own bunged up. Well, it's just the same thing when he gets to be a man. If you have a dispute with your enemy, I don't say that you shouldn't reason with him, but I do say that your reasoning will have very little effect upon him unless he sees that you are able and willing to write it in black and blue upon his sheepskin. And what better way could you find to show him THAT, unless by giving him word and blow, the blow first, as being the most impressive argument?"

"You must have been dreaming of these subjects last night." said the grave cousin--"you seem to have them unusually well cut and dried."

"I haven't been dreaming about it, Bill, but I confess I've been thinking about it very seriously all night, and considering all the arguments that I thought you would make use of against it. I haven't quite done with my discussion, which I took up entirely for your benefit."

"Indeed! you are quite philanthropic before breakfast; but let us hear you?"

"You talk of the brutality of fighting--now in what does that brutality consist? Is it not in breaking noses, kicking s.h.i.+ns, bunging up eyes, and making one's neighbor feel uncomfortable in thigh, and back, and arms, and face, and skin, and indeed, everywhere, where a big fist or a cowhide shoe may plant a buffet or a bruise?"

"Quite a definition, Ned."

"I'm glad you think so: for if it's brutal in the boy to do so to his schoolmate, is it less so for the schoolmaster to do the same thing to the boy that's under his charge? He bruises my skin, makes my thighs, and arms, and back, and legs, and face, and hands, ache, and if my definition be a correct one, he is quite as brutal as the boys who do the same thing to one another."

"He does it because the boys deserve it, and in order to make them obedient and active."

"And when did a boy not deserve a flogging when he gets licked by his companion?" demanded the other triumphantly--"and don't the licking make him obedient, and don't the kicking make him active? By gemini, I've seen more activity from one chap's legs under the quick application of another's feet, than I think anything else could produce, unless it were feet made expressly for such a purpose and worked by a steam-engine.

That might make them move something faster, but I reckon there would be no need in such a case of any such improvement."

"What are you driving at, Ned Hinkley? This is by far the longest argument, I think, that you've ever undertaken. You must be moved by some very serious considerations."

"I am, and you'll see what I'm driving at after a little while. I'm not fond of arguing, you know, but I look upon the fighting principle as a matter to be known and believed in, and I wish to make clear to you my reasons for believing in it myself. You don't suppose I'd put down the fiddle for a talk at any time if the subject was not a serious one?"

"Give way--you have the line."

"About the brutality of fighting then, there's another thing to be said. Fighting produces good feeling--that is to say supposing one party fairly to have licked another."

"Indeed--that's new."

"And true too, Bill Hinkley. It cures the sulks. It lets off steam.

It's like a thunderstorm that comes once in a while, and drives away the clouds, and clears the skies until all's blue again."

"Black and blue."

"No! what was black becomes blue. Chaps that have been growling at each other for weeks and months lose their bad blood--"

"From the nostrils!"

"Yes, from the nostrils. It's a sort of natural channel, and runs freely from that quarter. The one crows and the other runs and there's an end of the sc.r.a.pe and the sulks. The weaker chap, feeling his weakness, ceases to be impudent; the stronger, having his power acknowledged, becomes the protector of the weak. Each party falls into his place, and so far from the licking producing bad feeling it produces good feeling and good humor; and I conclude that one half of the trouble in the world, the squabbles between man and man, woman and woman, boy and boy--nay, between rival nations--is simply because your false and foolish notions of brutality and philanthropy keep them from coming to the scratch as soon as they should. They hang off, growling and grumbling, and blackguarding, and blaspheming, when, if they would only take hold, and come to an earnest grapple, the odds would soon show themselves--broken heads and noses would follow--the bad blood would run, and as soon as each party found his level, the one being finally on his back, peace would ensue, and there would be good humor for ever after, or at least until the blood thickened again. I think there's reason in my notion. I was thinking it over half the night. I've thought of it oftentimes before. I've never yet seen the argument that's strong enough to tumble it."

"Your views are certainly novel, Ned, if not sound. You will excuse me if I do not undertake to dispute them this morning. I give in, therefore, and you may congratulate yourself upon having gained a triumph if not a convert?"

"Stop, stop, William Hinkley: you don't suppose I've done all this talking only to make a convert or to gain a triumph?"

"Why, that's your object in fighting, why not in arguing?"

"Well, that's the object of most persons when they dispute, I know; but it is not mine. I wish to make a practical application of my doctrine."

"Indeed! who do you mean to fight now?"

"It's not for me to fight, it's for you."