"'Able to pay fifty shillings in a pound,' said I, not willing to encourage the outcry.
"'I'm delighted to hear it,' says generous little Solomon; 'but all I have to say is, that if it had been otherwise, or should it actually be otherwise, so far as a few hundred pounds go, you may draw upon a man--a sinner--a frail mortal and an unworthy--named Solomon M'Slime. This,' he went on, 'is not mere worldly friendship, Mr. M'Loughlin, that promises much until the necessity arrives, and then do all such promises flee as it were into the wilderness. No, my friend,' says the warm-hearted little saint, 'no my friend, these offers are founded not on my own strength, so to say, but upon those blessed precepts, Mr. M'Loughlin, which teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves--and to do unto others even as we wish they should do unto us.' He squeezed my hand, and whispered in my ear--'As far as three hundred pounds go, should you require it, rely on me; but harkee,' says he, 'and now,'--well, here's his health--'and now,' says he, 'and now,'--oh! I knew he was in earnest--'and now,' says he, 'one word with you--I trust--I hope, I may say, that I am a Christian man, who would not speak aught against my neighbor; but this, out of a principle of Christian kindness, I will say;--beware of Valentine M'Clutchy. It is known there!' said he, pointing his finger, and turning up his eyes to heaven--'it is known there from what motives I speak this. I am glad I saw thee--peace be with thee--farewell, and do not despise or overlook my services, or my poor sinful offers.'"
"Now," said the simple-minded but upright and unsuspicious man, "I do say that was no every-day offer. I would be glad to hear M'Clutchy make such an offer to any man--for which reason here's little Solomon's health once more, and long life to him!"
CHAPTER X.--A Dutiful Grandson and a Respectable Grandmother
--Military Dialogue --Disobedience of Orders--Solomon's Candor--A Confidential Communication--Solomon Dances the Swaggering jig--Honest Correspondence--Darby's Motion of Spiritual Things--Two Religions Better than One--Darby's Love of Truth.
We believe our readers may understand, that although we have ourselves taken the liberty of insinuating that little Solomon, as M'Loughlin called him, was not precisely--but we beg pardon, it is time enough to speak of that yet. All we have to say in the mean time is, that Solomon's character, up to the period we speak of, was not merely spotless, but a burning and a shining light in the eyes of all the saints and sinners of the religious world, not only in Castle Cumber, but in the metropolis itself. Solomon was an Elder of his congregation, in which Sabbath after Sabbath he took his usual prominent part as collector--raised the psalms--sang loudest--and whenever the minister alluded to the mercy that was extended to sinners, Solomon's groan of humility--of sympathy with the frail, and of despair for the impenitent; his groan, we say, under these varied intimations of Gospel truth, was more than a sermon in itself. It not only proclaimed to the whole congregation that he was a sinner, but that he felt for sinners--rejoiced in their repentance, which he often did in a nondescript scream, between a groan and a cackle of holy joy, that alarmed the congregation; but also wept for their hardness of heart, when he imagined that it was likely to terminate in final reprobation, with such a pathetic fervency, that on many such occasions some of those who sat beside him were obliged to whisper--"Brother M'Slime, you are too much overcome--too piously excited--do not allow yourself to exhibit such an excess of Christian sympathy, or there will be many instances among the weaker vessels of relapses and backslidings, from not understanding that it is more for others thou art feeling than for thyself."
Solomon then took his hands from before his face, wiped his eyes with his handkerchief on which they had been embedded, and with a serene and rather heavenly countenance looked up to the preacher, then closing his eyes as if in a state of ethereal enjoyment, he clasped his hands with a sweet smile, twirling his thumbs and bowing his head, as the speaker closed every paragraph of the discourse.
These observations account very plainly for the opinions touching Solomon which were expressed by M'Loughlin. Solomon was at this time an unadulterated saint--a professor--in fact one of the elect who had cast his anchor sure. But as the proverb gays, time will tell.
That night M'Loughlin and his family retired to bed for the first time overshadowed, as it were, by a gloomy presentiment of some change, which disturbed and depressed their hearts. They slept, however, in peace and tranquillity, free from those snake-like pangs which coil themselves around guilt, and deaden its tendencies to remorse, whilst they envenom its baser and blacker purposes.
M'Slime himself at this crisis was beginning privately to feel some of the very natural consequences of his own oft acknowledged frailty. Phil, who had just left Constitution Cottage a few minutes before Darby's arrival, had not seen him that morning. The day before he had called upon his grandfather, who told him out of the pallor window to "go to h---; you may call tomorrow, you cowardly whelp, if you wish to see me--but in the meantime," he added as before, "go where I desired you."
Phil, who possessed a great deal of his father's selfishness and also of his low cunning, but none at all of his ability, turned back indignantly and rode home again. He had not passed more than about a hundred yards from the avenue out into the highway, when he met Sharpe, one of the heroes of the cabin.
We shall not detail their conversation, which, of course, embraced many of the circumstances connected with their duties, excepting a few interjectional imprecations which Phil in an occasional parenthesis dutifully bestowed upon his grandfather.
"So, Sharpe, the fool Rimon made such a devil of a fight (the infernal old scoundrel)--and took the gun."
"Why, Captain Phil, if he hasn't the strength of ten men, I'll never manoeuvre on parade while I live--he's a bloody rascal."
"(A double distilled old scoundrel, and I wish the devil had him,)--he's a bad bird, Sharpe, fool and all as he is, there's no doubt of that.
What did the priest do?"
"Why, your honor, I can't say that he took much part in it, barrin' once that he went between us and the woman."
"He had no right to do that--(the blaspheming old vagabond,)--none at all, Sharpe, and he ought to be prosecuted."
"He ought, Captain, and will, I hope."
"But then, Shaj-pe, if we swing Harman it will be enough, for Harman--(he'll fiz for it, and that soon I hope)--is another bad bird."
"Oh, devil a worse, Captain, but even if he escapes us now, we'll manage him yet."
They now came to a turn in the road, and found themselves at a bridge, a little beyond which two roads met. On approaching, they observed an old woman sitting on a large stone that lay a little beyond the arch. She was meagrely and poorly dressed, had no cap on, her gray locks were only bound by a red ribbon that encircled her head, but did not confine her hair, which floated in large masses about her shoulders, a circumstance that added to the startling vehemence of character that appeared in her face, and gave to her whole person an expression which could not be overlooked. When they had come up to where she sat, and were about to pass without further notice, she started up, and with steps surprisingly rapid, and full of energy, seized upon. Phil's bridle.
"Well!" she exclaimed, "I saw you going, and I see you coming, but you cannot tell me that he is dead. No, the death damp of his blaspheming carcase is not yet on the air, because if it was," and she turned her nose against the wind, like a hound, "I would snuff it. No, no; he is not gone, but he will soon go, and what a catalogue of crimes will follow after him! The man's conscience is a gaol where every thought and wish of his guilty life and godless heart is a felon; and the blackest calendar that ever was spread before God was his. Oh! I wonder do the chains in his conscience rattle? they do, but his ears are deaf, and he doesn't hear them; but he will, and feel them too, yet."
Phil, who had got alarmed at the extraordinary energy of her manner, as well as of her language, said, "what do you want, and who are you speaking of?"
"Who am I speaking of? who should I be speaking of but of old Deaker, the blasphemer?--and who am I speaking to but the son of the ungodly villain who threatened to horsewhip the mother that bore him. Do you know me now?"
"Let go my bridle," exclaimed Phil, "let go my bridle, you old faggot, or upon my honor and soul I'll give you a cut of my whip."
"No," she replied, no whit daunted, "no, I'm near my eightieth year. I'm old, and wrinkled, and gray--my memory forgets everything now but my own crimes, and the crimes of those that are still worse than myself--old I am, and wicked, and unrepenting--but I shall yet live to pour the curses that rise out of an ill-spent life into his dying oar, until his very soul will feel the scorches of perdition before its everlasting tortures come upon it in hell. I am old," she proceeded, "but I will yet live to see the son that cursed his mother, and threatened to raise his sacrilegious hand against her that bore him, laid down like a tree, rooted up and lopped--lying like a rotten log, without sap, without strength, and only fit to be cut up and cast into the fire. I am old,"
she replied, "but I shall live to see out the guilty race of you all."
"Go to the devil, you croaking old vagabond," exclaimed Phil, raising his whip, and letting it fall upon her almost naked shoulders, with a force as unmanly, as it was cruel, and impious, and shocking.
She uttered a scream of anguish, and writhed several times, until her eyes became filled with tears. "My cup is not full yet," she exclaimed, sobbing, "neither is yours, but it soon will be, you knew me well when you gave that blow; but go now, and see how you'll prosper after it."
Sharpe, even Sharpe, felt shocked at the cowardly spirit which could inflict such an outrage upon old age, under any circumstances; but much less under those which even he understood so well.
"Captain," said he, "if it was only for the credit of the Castle Cumber cavalry, I'm sorry that you gave that blow; those men on the other side of the road there were looking at you, and you may take my word it will spread."
"How dare you speak to me in that style?" asked Phil in a rage, and availing himself of his authority over him, "what is it your business, Sharpe? Sharpe, you're a scoundrel, for speaking to me in this style--damn my honor and blood, but you are. What do you know about that old vagabond?"
"Captain," said Sharpe, who was a sturdy fellow in his way, "I'm no scoundrel; and I do know that you have just horsewhipped your notorious ould grandmother."
"Fall back," said Phil, "and consider yourself arrested."
"Arrest and be hanged," replied Sharpe, "I don't care a fig about you--I was in Deaker's corps this many a year, and if you attempt to come the officer over me, let me tell you you're mistaken. We're not on duty now, my buck, and you have no more authority over me than you have over the devil--me a scoundrel! my good fellow, I know who is the scoundrel."
"My good fellow! Damn my honor and blood, do you apply that to me?"
"No, I don't," said Sharpe, "for you're a cursed bad fellow, and no gentleman--didn't Harman pull your nose in Castle Cumber, and you wanted the courage then that you had for your ould grandmother--me, a scoundrel!"
"I'll tell you what, Sharpe; is this respect, sir, to your commanding officer? Sharpe I'll mark you out for this."
"Don't you know," replied Sharpe, "that two of us c&n play at that game; you had better keep yourself quiet, if you're wise--a man that's in the habit of getting his nose pulled should be very inoffensive."
"Very well," said gallant Phil, "I'll say no more, but--" He then put spurs to handsome Harry, and rode off, full of vengeance against Sharpe, and of indignation at the contumelious reception he experienced at the hands of his grandfather.
Val's letter to M'Slime was, as our readers know, anything but an index to the state of regard in which he held that worthy gentleman. As we said, however, that ground was beginning to break a little under his feet, in spite of all his unction and Christian charity, we shall, while Darby is on his way to deliver his letter, take that opportunity of detailing a conversation between honest Solomon and Poll Doolin, upon one or two topics connected with our tale.
"Sam," said Solomon to his clerk, "you were not present with us at prayer this morning! You know we do not join in family worship until you come; and it is but our duty to take an interest in your spiritual welfare. In the meantime, I should regret, for your own sake, that anything in the shape of a falling away from your opportunities should appear in you. I speak now as your friend, Sam, not as your master--nay, rather as your brother, Sam--as a man who is not without his own lapses and infirmities, but who still trusts--though not by his own strength--that he may be looked upon, in some faint degree, as an example of what a man, wrestling with the cares and trials of life, ought at, least, to strive to be. To Him be the praise!"
"I certainly overslept myself this morning, sir--that is the truth."
"Yes, Sam; sloth is one of the disguises under which the enemy often assails and overcomes us. But to business, Sam. There is an old woman in Castle Cumber, whose name I scarcely remember. She goes dressed in faded black, and has a son, to whom, for wise purposes of course, it pleased Him to deny a full measure of ordinary sense?"
"Poll Doolin, sir, the old child-cadger, and her foolish son, Raymond of the hats."
"Don't say foolish, Sam; don't say foolish--we know not well what the true difference between wisdom and folly is, nor how much wisdom is manifested in the peculiar state of this person. We know not, indeed, whether what we blindly, perhaps, term folly, may not be a gift to be thankful for. You know the Word says, that the wisdom of man is foolishness before God. Our duty therefore is, to be thankful and humble."
"Well, sir; but about Poll Doolin, the child-cadger?"
"Child-cadger! that is a term I don't understand, Sam."