Home as Found Part 4

"We are of the standing order, certainly," returned Aristabulus, glancing towards the ladies to discover how they took his wit, "and Mr. John Effingham is as near right as a man need be, in a matter of faith. In the way of houses, Mr. Effingham, I believe it is the general opinion you might have done better with your own, than to have repaired it. Had the materials been disposed of, they would have sold well, and by running a street through the property, a pretty sum might have been realized."

"In which case I should have been without a home, Mr. Bragg."

"It would have been no great matter to get another on cheaper land.

The old residence would have made a good factory, or an inn."

"Sir, I _am_ a cat, and like the places I have long frequented."

Aristabulus, though not easily daunted, was awed by Mr. Effingham's manner, and Eve saw that her father's fine face had flushed. This interruption, therefore, suddenly changed the discourse, which has been recreated at some length, as likely to give the reader a better insight into a character that will fill some s.p.a.ce in our narrative, than a more laboured description.

"I trust your owners, Captain Truck," said John Effingham, by way of turning the conversation into another channel, "are fully satisfied with the manner in which you saved their property from the hands of the Arabs?"

"Men, when money is concerned, are more disposed to remember how it was lost than how it was recovered, religion and trade being the two poles, on such a point," returned the old seaman, with a serious face. "On the whole, my dear sir, I have reason to be satisfied, however; and so long as you, my pa.s.sengers and my friends, are not inclined to blame me, I shall feel as if I had done at least a part of my duty."

Eve rose from table, went to a side-board and returned, when she gracefully placed before the master of the Montauk a rich and beautifully chased punch-bowl, in silver. Almost at the same moment, Pierre offered a salver that contained a capital watch, a pair of small silver tongs to hold a coal, and a deck trumpet, in solid silver.

"These are so many faint testimonials of our feelings," said Eve--"and you will do us the favour to retain them, as evidences of the esteem created by skill, kindness, and courage."

"My dear young lady!" cried the old tar, touched to the soul by the feeling with which Eve acquitted herself of this little duty, "my dear young lady--well, G.o.d bless you--G.o.d bless you all--you too, Mr.

John Effingham, for that matter--and Sir George--that I should ever have taken that runaway for a gentleman and a baronet--though I suppose there are some silly baronets, as well as silly lords--retain them?"--glancing furiously at Mr. Aristabulus Bragg, "may the Lord forget me, in the heaviest hurricane, if I ever forget whence these things came, and why they were given."

Here the worthy captain was obliged to swallow some wine, by way of relieving his emotions, and Aristabulus, profiting by the opportunity, coolly took the bowl, which, to use a word of his own, he _hefted_ in his hand, with a view to form some tolerably accurate notion of its intrinsic value. Captain Truck's eye caught the action, and he reclaimed his property quite as unceremoniously as it had been taken away, nothing but the presence of the ladies preventing an outbreaking that would have amounted to a declaration of war.

"With your permission, sir," said the captain, drily, after he had recovered the bowl, not only without the other's consent, but, in some degree, against his will; "this bowl is as precious in my eyes as if it were made of my father's bones."

"You may indeed think so," returned the land-agent, "for its cost could not be less than a hundred dollars."

"Cost, sir!--But, my dear young lady, let us talk of the real value.

For what part of these things am I indebted to you?"

"The bowl is my offering," Eve answered, smilingly, though a tear glistened in her eye, as she witnessed the strong unsophisticated feeling of the old tar. "I thought it might serve sometimes to bring me to your recollection, when it was well filled in honour of 'sweethearts and wives.'"

"It shall--it shall, by the Lord; and Mr. Saunders needs look to it, if he do not keep this work as bright as a cruising frigate's bottom.

To whom do I owe the coal-tongs?"

"Those are from Mr. John Effingham, who insists that he will come nearer to your heart than any of us, though the gift be of so little cost."

"He does not know me, my dear young lady--n.o.body ever got as near my heart as you; no, not even my own dear pious old mother. But I thank Mr. John Effingham from my inmost spirit, and shall seldom smoke without thinking of him. The watch I know is Mr. Effingham's, and I ascribe the trumpet to Sir George."

The bows of the several gentlemen a.s.sured the captain he was right, and he shook each of them cordially by the hand, protesting, in the fulness of his heart, that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to be able to go through the same perilous scenes as those from which they had so lately escaped, in their good company again.

While this was going on, Aristabulus, notwithstanding the rebuke he had received, contrived to get each article, in succession, into his hands, and by dint of poising it on a finger, or by examining it, to form some approximative notion of its inherent value. The watch he actually opened, taking as good a survey of its works as the circ.u.mstances of the case would very well allow.

"I respect these things, sir, more than you respect your father's grave," said Captain Truck sternly, as he rescued the last article from what he thought the impious grasp of Aristabulus again, "and cat or no cat, they sink or swim with me for the remainder of the cruise.

If there is any virtue in a will, which I am sorry to say I hear there is not any longer, they shall share my last bed with me, be it ash.o.r.e or be it afloat. My dear young lady, fancy all the rest, but depend on it, punch will be sweeter than ever taken from this bowl, and 'sweethearts and wives' will never be so honoured again."

"We are going to a ball this evening, at the house of one with whom I am sufficiently intimate to take the liberty of introducing a stranger, and I wish, gentlemen," said Mr. Effingham, bowing to Aristabulus and the captain, by way of changing the conversation, "you would do me the favour to be of our party."

Mr. Bragg acquiesced very cheerfully, and quite as a matter of course; while Captain Truck, after protesting his unfitness for such scenes, was finally prevailed on by John Effingham, to comply with the request also. The ladies remained at table but a few minutes longer, when they retired, Mr. Effingham having dropped into the old custom of sitting at the bottle, until summoned to the drawing-room, a usage that continues to exist in America, for a reason no better than the fact that it continues to exist in England;--it being almost certain that it will cease in New-York, the season after it is known to have ceased in London.

Chapter III.

"Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful!"

SHAKSPEARE.

As Captain Truck asked permission to initiate the new coal-tongs by lighting a cigar, Sir George Templemore contrived to ask Pierre, in an aside, if the ladies would allow him to join them. The desired consent having been obtained, the baronet quietly stole from table, and was soon beyond the odours of the dining-room.

"You miss the censer and the frankincense," said Eve, laughing, as Sir George entered the drawing-room; "but you will remember we have no church establishment, and dare not take such liberties with the ceremonials of the altar."

"That is a short-lived custom with us, I fancy, though far from an unpleasant one. But you do me injustice in supposing I am merely running away from the fumes of the dinner."

"No, no; we understand perfectly well that you have something to do with the fumes of flattery, and we will at once fancy all has been said that the occasion requires. Is not our honest old captain a jewel in his way?"

"Upon my word, since you allow me to speak of your father's guests, I do not think it possible to have brought together two men who are so completely the opposites of each other, as Captain Truck and this Mr Aristabulus Bragg. The latter is quite the most extraordinary person in his way, it was ever my good fortune to meet with."

"You call him a _person_, while Pierre calls him a _personnage;_ I fancy he considers it very much as a matter of accident, whether he is to pa.s.s his days in the one character or in the other. Cousin Jack a.s.sures me, that, while this man accepts almost any duty that he chooses to a.s.sign him, he would not deem it at all a violation of the _convenances_ to aim at the throne in the White House."

"Certainly with no hopes of ever attaining it!"

"One cannot answer for that. The man must undergo many essential changes, and much radical improvement, before such a climax to his fortunes can ever occur; but the instant you do away with the claims of hereditary power, the door is opened to a new chapter of accidents. Alexander of Russia styled himself _un heureux accident_; and should it ever be our fortune to receive Mr. Bragg as President, we shall only have to term him _un malheureux accident_. I believe that will contain all the difference."

"Your republicanism is indomitable, Miss Effingham, and I shall abandon the attempt to convert you to safer principles, more especially as I find you supported by both the Mr. Effinghams, who, while they condemn so much at home, seem singularly attached to their own system at the bottom."

"They condemn, Sir George Templemore, because they know that perfection is hopeless, and because they feel it to be unsafe and unwise to eulogize defects, and they are attached, because near views of other countries have convinced them that, comparatively at last, bad as we are, we are still better than most of our neighbours."

"I can a.s.sure you," said Grace, "that many of the opinions of Mr John Effingham, in particular, are not at all the opinions that are most in vogue here; he rather censures what we like, and likes what we censure. Even my dear uncle is thought to be a little heterodox on such subjects."

"I can readily believe it," returned Eve, steadily. "These gentlemen, having become familiar with better things, in the way of the tastes, and of the purely agreeable, cannot discredit their own knowledge so much as to extol that which their own experience tells them is faulty, or condemn that which their own experience tells them is relatively good. Now, Grace, if you will reflect a moment, you will perceive that people necessarily like the best of their own tastes, until they come to a knowledge of better; and that they as necessarily quarrel with the unpleasant facts that surround them; although these facts, as consequences of a political system, may be much less painful than those of other systems of which they have no knowledge. In the one case, they like their own best, simply because it is their own best; and they dislike their own worst, because it is their own worst. We cherish a taste, in the nature of things, without entering into any comparisons, for when the means of comparison offer, and we find improvements, it ceases to be a taste at all; while to complain of any positive grievance, is the nature of man, I fear!"

"I think a republic odious!"

"_Le republique est une horreur!_"

Grace thought a republic odious, without knowing any thing of any other state of society, and because it contained odious things; and Mademoiselle Viefville called a republic _une horreur_, because heads fell and anarchy prevailed in her own country, during its early struggles for liberty. Though Eve seldom spoke more sensibly, and never more temperately, than while delivering the foregoing opinions, Sir George Templemore doubted whether she had all that exquisite _finesse_ and delicacy of features, that he had so much admired; and when Grace burst out in the sudden and senseless exclamation we have recorded, he turned towards her sweet and animated countenance, which, for the moment, he fancied the loveliest of the two.

Eve Effingham had yet to learn that she had just entered into the most intolerant society, meaning purely as society, and in connexion with what are usually called liberal sentiments, in Christendom. We do not mean by this, that it would be less safe to utter a generous opinion in favour of human rights in America than in any other country, for the laws and the inst.i.tutions become active in this respect, but simply, that the resistance of the more refined to the encroachments of the unrefined, has brought about a state of feeling--a feeling that is seldom just and never philosophical--which has created a silent, but almost unanimous bias against the effects of the inst.i.tutions, in what is called the world. In Europe, one rarely utters a sentiment of this nature, under circ.u.mstances in which it is safe to do so at all, without finding a very general sympathy in the auditors; but in the circle into which Eve had now fallen, it was almost considered a violation of the proprieties. We do not wish to be understood as saying more than we mean, however, for we have no manner of doubt that a large portion of the dissentients even, are so idly, and without reflection; or for the very natural reasons already given by our heroine; but we do wish to be understood as meaning that such is the outward appearance which American society presents to every stranger, and to every native of the country too, on his return from a residence among other people.

Of its taste, wisdom and safety we shall not now speak, but content ourselves with merely saying that the effect of Grace's exclamation on Eve was unpleasant, and that, unlike the baronet, she thought her cousin was never less handsome than while her pretty face was covered with the pettish frown it had a.s.sumed for the occasion.

Sir George Templemore had tact enough to perceive there had been a slight jar in the feelings of these two young women, and he adroitly changed the conversation. With Eve he had entire confidence on the score of provincialisms, and, without exactly antic.i.p.ating the part Grace would be likely to take in such a discussion, he introduced the subject of general society in New-York.

"I am desirous to know," he said, "if you have your sets, as we have them in London and Paris. Whether you have your _Faubourg St.

Germain_ and your _Chaussee d'Antin;_ your Piccadilly, Grosvenor and Russel Squares."

"I must refer you to Miss Van Cortlandt for an answer to that question," said Eve.