At the head of the table sat the sister of our host, arrayed in the lank bombazine skirt, tight sleeves, and muslin cravat, which constituted the old-lady uniform of the past generation, and which in rare instances yet survives in the country. Upon her right hand was placed the clergyman, Mr. Clifton, who came to dine every Monday,it being a convenient arrangement on account of the washing; and on her left was one Deacon Reyner, who kept the parish records, and was the local antiquary of the town.
One of the pleasantest diversions with which I am acquainted is a dinner among elderly people of character and originality, who are content to toss about the ball of conversation among themselves, and allow me to watch the game. And in this way was I entertained on my arrival at Foxden; for Miss Hurribattle was directly at her ease, and had plenty to say; while the brother and sister were content to offer the best of everything, and did not attempt to draw me out of my silence. I perceived they were thinking what a pity it was that Miss Hurribattle and myself had not the equality of age and temper that they had fancied for us; for I observed how they would follow the streaks of gray that straggled through the lady's locks, and then glance at the neatly turned moustache upon which in those days I prided myself, and realize that their agreeable plans might be destined to disappointment.
I remember the conversation first fell upon a certain general history of the Prowley family that its present masculine representative had in preparation.
"By the way," said Deacon Reyner, addressing the future historian on this head, "I have secured a correct copy of poor Prosody's epitaph, as you asked me the other day."
Miss Hurribattle, who looked as if she had some doubt whether poor Prosody was a man or an animal, returned a non-committal, "Indeed! I am very glad of it," but soon after added, "Was he a favorite dog?"
"A dog!" exclaimed the Colonel, whose family-history, dates and all, seemed to course his veins instead of blood, "he was my many times great uncle! I have surely told you how Noah Prowllie, who came to New England in 1642, and is supposed to have settled at Foxden some years later, married Desire, daughter of the Reverend Jabez Pluck. Being a rigid grammarian,a character sufficiently rare at that period,he named his three sons Orthography, Syntax, and Prosody,a proceeding that is understood to have offended the Reverend Jabez, who was naturally partial to the Scriptural nomenclature then in vogue. His scruples, I regret to say, were more than justified in the conduct of his grandchildren. Poor Orthography Prowllie was an idle fellow, who never got beyond making his mark upon paper, and consequently made none in the world; Syntax could never agree with anybody; while as for Prosody, poor fellow"
"It is enough to say that neither his verses nor his life would bear scanning!" said the Deacon, desiring to keep the conversation off unpleasant topics.
"But you certainly had a poet in your family?" said Miss Hurribattle, determined to repair her blunder by suggesting a potent cause of congratulation.
"Indeed we had, Madam!" said the Colonel, with creditable emotion; "though unfortunately none of his productions have come down to us. But we have the highest contemporary testimony to his excellence in a copy of verses prefixed to his posthumous discourse entitled 'The New Snare of a Maypole, or Satan's own Trap for a Slippery Church.' The lines were written by his colleague, the Reverend Exaltation Brymm, and are certainly much to the purpose: I generally keep a copy of them in my pocket-book."
"Oh, do read them, brother!" said Miss Prowley, with strong interest.
Thus adjured, the Colonel produced a piece of paper, put on his spectacles, and read to this effect:
"New Englande! weep: Thy tuncfull Prowllie's gone,
Who skillfully his Armour buckled on
Agaynst Phyllystine Scorn and Revelrie:
His Sword well-furbished was a Sight to see!
This littel Booke of his shall still be greene
While Sathan's Fangles lorden stand betweene:
Now Pet of Sinne boil up thy dolefull Skum!
Ye juggelling Quakers laugh: his Inkhorn's dumb.
He put XIII Pslames in verse for our Quire,
And with XXVII Pastorals witcht Apollo's Lyre."
"Do you recollect John Norton's funeral elegy on Ann Bradstreet, the Eve of our female minstrelsy?" interrogated Miss Hurribattle; "there are two lines in it which are still in my memory:
'Could Maro's muse but hear her lively strain,
He would condemn his works to fire again.'
What a launch upon the sea of fame! and how sad it is that an actual freight of verses should be preserved in the ship's hold!"
"Well, well, my kinsman was perhaps wise in trusting none of his psalms or pastorals to the press, especially as that greatest of poets, Pope, has since been in the world. But I truly regret that he left no portrait, nor even so much as an outline in black from which something might be made up by an imaginative artist. I have judges, majors, and attorneys, all properly labelled, in the other room, who would be much improved by a slight dash of the aesthetic element; however, I suppose it can't be helped now!"
"Not unless you substitute Saint Josselyn for an ancestor, as Mrs.
Hunesley did the other day," said Miss Prowley.
"Ha, ha! it might not be a bad plan to follow out the lady's suggestion: but do tell the story of her strange mistake."
"Why, you must know that the other day old Doctor Dastick brought his New-York niece to call upon us. She began to talk to my brother, and when at last topics of conversation failed, turned to look at the picture of Saint Josselyn, which could be seen through the open folding-doors."
"The gentleman whose sole garment consists of some sort of skin thrown over his shoulders: you must all have observed it as we came in to dinner," said our host, in parenthesis.
"Well, immediately below the Saint hangs a small painting of Uncle Joshua, in white stockings, cocked hat, and coat of maroon velvet, the poor gentleman's favorite dress.
"'Ah!' said Mrs. Hunesley, with her eyes fixed upon the Saint, 'quite a fine portrait!'
"'Why, yes,' said my brother, naturally supposing she meant the small picture below, 'a very fine portrait, and a capital likeness of my Uncle Joshua.'
"'Indeed!' said the lady, with a well-bred effort to conceal her surprise; 'he was taken in aafancy dress, I suppose.'
"'On the contrary, it was his ordinary costume,' insisted the Colonel. 'I can remember him walking up the broad-aisle at church, dressed just as you see him there.'
"'I should not have thought it would have been allowed! Did not the deacons turn him out?' exclaimed Mrs. Hunesley, in great astonishment.
"'Turn him out! Why, Madam, he was a deacon himself, and the most popular man in the parish.'
"'Well, I had no idea that such things had ever been permitted in this country! I should have supposed that the fear of such an example on the young would have induced people to keep him in confinement.'
"'Good heavens, Madam!' remonstrated the Colonel, roused to a desperate vindication of the family-honor, 'let me tell you that his excellent influence on the young was the crowning virtue of his character. He used to go about town with his pockets filled with nuts and gingerbread to reward them when they were good.'
"'It is enough,' replied the lady; 'our views of propriety are so totally different that we will not pursue the subject. I will only say thatreallyin that dress, I don't see where he could have had any pockets!'"
Deacon Reyner laughed heartily at these strictures upon the proprieties of his predecessor, and said,
"'Good heavens, Madam!' remonstrated the Colonel, roused to a desperate vindication of the family-honor, 'let me tell you that his excellent influence on the young was the crowning virtue of his character. He used to go about town with his pockets filled with nuts and gingerbread to reward them when they were good.'
"'It is enough,' replied the lady; 'our views of propriety are so totally different that we will not pursue the subject. I will only say thatreallyin that dress, I don't see where he could have had any pockets!'"
Deacon Reyner laughed heartily at these strictures upon the proprieties of his predecessor, and said,
"Of course, the last remark must have brought about an explanation."
"Why, yes," said Colonel Prowley; "but when we see how slight an accident resolved the mystery, we should receive with doubt much of the personal scandal which is tossing about the world."
The clergyman assented very cordially to this proposition, and added, that it was a reflection that those of his flock then present would do well to bear in mind that very evening at Doctor Dastick's bone-party.
I confess to being a little startled at the spectral name of this entertainment, and began to puzzle myself whether the Doctor gave a levee to rapping spirits, or moralized over the skulls in his collection, like Hamlet in the church-yard. Miss Hurribattle seemed wandering in the mazes of a similar perplexity, and finally said,
"What is a bone-party? Is it given out of compliment to the dead or the living?"
"Nay," said the Deacon, "I don't see how it could be much of a compliment to the dead."
"Except upon the principle, De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was hidden in her speech.
"The bone-parties of old Doctor Dastick," explained the Colonel, "are entertainments peculiar to Foxden; and as there is to be one this evening to which we are all invited, any anticipation of the diversion seems likely to diminish whatever of satisfaction may be in prospect. I will, however, remark, that some of the Doctor's guests are grievously oppressed by somnolence during his scholastic expositions; as a protection against which infirmity of the flesh, I do commend an after-dinner nap. It has been the fashion of the house since the days of my grandfather; and as he lived to a ripe old age, I do not think it could have been deleterious."
Soon after this, Colonel Prowley pushed back his chair from the table as a signal for the dispersal of the party. And I betook myself to my chamber, a sober apartment, with very uneven floor and very small windows, through one of which I peered out upon the box before the house, and thought over the people whose acquaintance I had just made. Once only were these musings interrupted by snatches of a conversation between my host and hostess as they passed across the piazza.
"When this comes about, sister, as I still believe it must, you shall adorn a page of my diary with one of your illustrative drawings. A pair of doves would be appropriate, or perhaps a vine clinging round an oak."
"And which of our guests is to be represented by the oak?" asked Miss Prowley, in a tone which betrayed a woman's perception of matrimonial incongruities.
"Nay, sister, our young friend has a steadiness of character which would be ill-mated with some giddy girl from the nursery. So make your vine a little woody, and the union will be all the firmer."
As there was no chance of taking a nap after this, I presently descended to walk in the garden. And there I encountered Miss Hurribattle, who did not seem to be one of the convenient visitors who can be put to sleep after dinner. The conversation which I had the honor of renewing with the lady, though it did not at all advance the whimsical project of Colonel Prowley, increased my respect for the high instincts of Nature which prompted her concern in the elevation of woman. She showed me how a reform, presenting on its surface much that was meagre and partial, was sustained by those accomplished in the study of the question, no less from the rigorous necessities of logic than from the demonstrations of history and experiment.
And here, perchance, the reader observes that we make but slight progress towards a solution of the inquiry proposed some pages back. Yet let it be remembered that in real experience the novelist's art of foreshadowing the end from the beginning and aiming every petty incident at the final result is very seldom perceptible. "Il ne faut pas voyager pour voir, mais pour ne pas voir," says the proverb; and the journey of life is included in its application. We do our rarest deeds, we take our most important steps, by what seems accident. Instead of forming plans with remote designs, we find it our best policy to seize circumstances as they run past us,knowing, that, if we have strength and quickness enough, we may take from them all that is required.
CHAPTER III
Doctor Dastick's bone-party was certainly an entertainment of unique description. A kind old gentleman was its originator, who thought to turn the enthusiasm for lectures, which the Lyceum had developed in Foxden, into a private and pleasant channel. Possessed with this praiseworthy design, the Doctor, who had given up practice by reason of years and competence, remembered a certain cabinet containing fossils, crystals, fragments of Indian implements, small pieces of the skeletons of their proprietors, vertebrae of extinct animals, besides a great amount of miscellaneous rubbish that refused to come to terms and be classified. Thus it seemed good to the proprietor of this medical rag-bag to invite the citizens of Foxden to a series of explanatory lectures upon its varied contents. This would have done well enough, if the Doctor could only have persuaded himself to select his most interesting specimens, and read up upon them, so as to retail a little fluent information after the manner of the lyceum-philosophers. But, unfortunately, the professional pride of the lecturer induced him to speak without preparation or discrimination upon any osteological article which happened to come to hand: which fact, perhaps, accounted for the prevalent somnolence of the auditory, concerning which I had been forewarned.
It is barely possible that these midsummer-night diversions of Doctor Dastick were suggested by the fame of evenings which, during the previous winter, several city physicians (men of eminent scientific attainments) had devoted to the instruction of their friends. And rumor could scarcely have overestimated the privilege of listening to the discursive fireside talk of such accurate observers. Having vividly realized all that was to be known of their subjects of special investigation, these distinguished gentlemen would steam steadily athwart the light winds of conversation and bring their company to a pleasant haven. The Foxden ex-practitioner, however, lacking the metropolitan attrition which keeps the intellectual engine in effective polish, drifted vaguely in a sea of fragmentary information; occasionally, to be sure, bumping against some encyclopedic argosy, but, for the most part, making very leisurely progress, with much apparent waste in the machinery. A brief extract from my note-book may furnish an idea of these scientific discourses.
"Now, my friends," pursues the Doctor, "let us examine another curiosity,"here he would take down something that looked like a mottled paving-stone in a very crumbling condition,"let us examine it carefully through the glass,"here a pause, during which he performed the operation in question. "What is it? Is it a fossil turtle? No," with great deliberation,"I should say it was not a fossil turtle. Is it a mass of twigs taken from the stomach of a mastodon? No, on the whole, it can't be a mass of twigs taken from the stomach of a mastodon. Is it a specimen of the top of Mount Sinai? No, it is not a specimen of the top of Mount Sinai. What is it, then? Idon'tknow whatitis!"